Here are three sites that will either entertain you or inform you about hardrware used to entertain you. Enjoy!
Movie Rental Services
The two most popular movie rental services in India today are Seventymm.com and CatchFlix.com. After logging into your paid account, you can request for Indian (several languages available) and English movies to be delivered to your doorstep. Seventymm offers both DVD and VCD.
At Seventymm.com, you pay a refundable deposit of Rs 999 and choose between various monthly schemes.
After selecting your movies, you choose the delivery time. In case you were wondering, there are no delivery/pickup charges. You keep movies for as long as you like, and services are available in Bangalore, Chennai, Delhi, Hyderabad, Chandigarh and Mumbai. The site has also begun renting games for the Xbox 360, with a large selection of games, but they’re at least a year old.
You can also add “friends” and interact with them—just like at a regular social networking site. Then there is a forum where users can rave or rant about a movie, discuss the service, or just interact as you would when socially networking.
PRAD
PRAD is the place to go to if you are deciding on a TV or monitor. The site lists almost all the TV and monitor manufacturers there are. The English version is at http://prad.de/en/index.html.
The site hosts reviews and a buyer’s guide; it lists models under their respective manufacturers. The most interesting feature is “Compare Monitors/TV.” Like it says, you can compare TV or monitors across manufacturers and screen sizes—very handy indeed; if you’re in the market for a screen, just make a list of contenders and compare them!
We looked for a few TV models available in India, and sure enough, they were listed along with specifications; however, the price (when mentioned) was not always accurate. The site does not list product brands; for example, the Sony Bravia 32-inch Plasma TV is listed as Sony KDL32S3000.
You also have a forum where users regularly post reviews and news about new TVs and monitors. A feature called “Find models” lists all the models of TV or monitor that conform to your specifications—like screen size, colour depth, input video signal, and HDCP, among others.
Music Streaming Services
Most of us know that you can listen to songs on the Web via your browser, from audio streaming sites. If Indian songs is your thing, you’ve quite possibly already heard of Raaga.com. There are others as well—MusicIndiaOnline.com and SmasHits.com.
Raaga.com plays ads at the beginning of each track, and streams using Real Player. The size of the collection is fairly large, offering something for everyone. The audio quality on Raaga seems better than its competitors, and you get a Lyrics link right in the player.
Obviously you can purchase and download music at the site. You can also create a custom playlist with songs from different albums, and then download them at Rs 12 a song.
If you don’t have something in mind to listen to, go to the “top” sections on Raaga.com—that’s what everyone seems to be listening to, along with the New Releases section.
If you like contemporary Indian music—and if you’re sitting at your computer and don’t know what to do—stop wondering!