Once Upon A Time In India

Best Acupressure Points for Tension Headaches

2010-11-21T13:19:00.000+05:30

In considering the presenting symptoms of the many people I have treated over the past ten years, I can say with certainty that headaches are among the most frequently reported health complaints. And the vast majority of headaches that I have diagnosed and treated have been tension-type headaches.

Tension-type headaches involve dull or pressure-like pain in and around your temples, forehead, scalp, or the back of your neck. Often times, the pain associated with a tension-type headache will feel like it is being created by a band of pressure that is tightening around your head.

Although emotional stress, anxiety, and depression are among the most common causes of chronic, intermittent tension-type headaches, tension headaches can also be caused by pure physical stressors, such as poor posture, sleeping with your neck in an awkward position, or any type of physical injury that has caused muscles in and around your head and neck to become tight.

Unlike migraine and cluster headaches, tension-type headaches tend to respond quickly to a few physical measures. What follows are the key recommendations that I typically share with patients who are looking to overcome chronic tension-type headaches via simple physical measures:

Spend a minimum of 20 minutes each day in a session of meditation, deep relaxation, or prayer. Doing so can help to alleviate emotional stressors that may be contributing to your tension-type headaches. For meditation and relaxation sessions, I have found EarthRain to be an enormously effective tool.
Be mindful of positions that your neck and head are forced to take on for extended periods throughout the day. Strive to position your neck and head in such a way that you do not feel tension in your eyes, neck, or shoulders. Reading and writing with your neck bent down and to one side are killer culprits - do what you can to minimize this posture.
Upon receiving approval from your primary health care provider, consider applying manual pressure to the following acupuncture points:
1. Gall Bladder 20 (GB-20): Located behind your head, in the first major depression that you can feel below the base of your skull, about two finger widths away from the midline of your neck.
  For those with knowledge of human anatomy: This point is at the junction of the occipital and nuchal regions, in a depression that lies between the origins of the sternocleidomastoid and trapezius muscles. It is approximately at the level of the lower margin of the external occipital protuberance.
  Application of pressure to GB-20 is meant to affect:
  - Semispinalis capitis muscle
  - Splenius capitis muscle
  - Rectus capitis posterior muscle
  - Obliquus capitis superior muscle
  - Greater occipital nerve
  - Less occipital nerve
  - Suboccipital nerve (C1)
  - Motor fibers from dorsal rami of upper cervical nerves
  - Branches of the occipital artery and tributaries of the companion vein
2. Belly of Your Temporalis Muscle*: Located in the center of your temple region. Palpate this region with your first and middle fingers pressed closely together until you find a tender, muscular zone. If you have trouble locating this point, place your fingers against your temples and then clench down on your molars a few times - you should feel the main muscle belly of your temporalis muscles bulge in and out.
  For those with knowledge of human anatomy, pressure on the belly of the temporalis muscle is meant to affect:
  - Deep temporal nerves that branch off from the third division (mandibular) of the trigeminal nerve
  - Cutaneous branches of the greater occipital nerve
  - Deep temporal artery and companion vein
3. Large Intestine 4 (LI-4): Located in the soft, fleshy web that sits between your thumb and forefinger.
  For those with knowledge of human anatomy, this point is meant to affect:
  - A muscular branch of the median nerve
  - The deep branch of the ulnar nerve
  - Proper palmer digital nerves from the first common palmar digital nerve
  - The superficial branch of the radial nerve
  - Tributary branches of the cephalic vein, the radial artery, and the first dorsal metacarpal artery and companion veins
For optimal results, use your fingers and/or thumbs to massage these points on both sides of your body for a few minutes at a time, up to several times a day. When you correctly locate these points, you should feel some tenderness when you apply pressure to them. Apply enough pressure/massage to create a mild, dull, and possibly achy sensation.
If you are not sure about the location of GB-20 and LI-4, I highly recommend that you take a look at the following book, the best of its kind:
Acupressure's Potent Points: a Guide to Self-Care for Common Ailments
I recommend this as a must-have reference book for every person who is interested in natural health remedies, as it provides excellent illustrations of all of the major acupressure points that I use to treat a wide variety of health challenges. I will continue to refer to various points that are illustrated in this book as I write more articles on how to use acupressure to address different health challenges.

Please note: you should never receive acupressure or acupuncture treatments while pregnant. Certain points, such as SP-6 can cause uterine contractions. Also, acupressure should never be applied to legs that have varicose veins. Applying pressure or massage to varicose veins can potentially lead to a pulmonary embolism. You should always consult with your primary health care provider before you begin applying acupressure to yourself or others.

If you find that consistent application of the suggestions provided in this article do not lead to significant improvement with your headaches, you should consult with your primary health care provider to rule out other less common causes of pain and discomfort in your head and neck regions.

* The belly of your temporalis muscle does not contain a classically defined acupuncture meridian point. It is a point that I have found through personal clinical experience to be an effective treatment site for tension-type headaches.

via: http://chetday.com/acupressureheadache.htm

The Amazing Cucumber

2010-04-19T11:30:00.000+05:30

via: http://www.wellness.chanun.com/healthy-eating/the-amazing-cucumber

This information was in The New York Times several weeks ago as part of their “Spotlight on the Home” series that highlighted creative and fanciful ways to solve common problems.

1. Cucumbers contain most of the vitamins you need every day, just one cucumber contains Vitamin B1, Vitamin B2, Vitamin B3, Vitamin B5, Vitamin B6, Folic Acid, Vitamin C, Calcium, Iron, Magnesium, Phosphorus, Potassium and Zinc.

2. Feeling tired in the afternoon, put down the caffeinated soda and pick up a cucumber. Cucumbers are a good source of B Vitamins and Carbohydrates that can provide that quick pick-me-up that can last for hours.

3. Tired of your bathroom mirror fogging up after a shower? Try rubbing a cucumber slice along the mirror, it will eliminate the fog and provide a soothing, spa-like fragrance..

4. Are grubs and slugs ruining your planting beds? Place a few slices in a small pie tin and your garden will be free of pests all season long. The chemicals in the cucumber react with the aluminum to give off a scent undetectable to humans but drive garden pests crazy and make them flee the area.

5. Looking for a fast and easy way to remove cellulite before going out or to the pool? Try rubbing a slice or two of cucumbers along your problem area for a few minutes, the phytochemicals in the cucumber cause the collagen in your skin to tighten, firming up the outer layer and reducing
the visibility of cellulite. Works great on wrinkles too!!!

6. Want to avoid a hangover or terrible headache? Eat a few cucumber slices before going to bed and wake up refreshed and headache free. Cucumbers contain enough sugar, B vitamins and electrolytes to replenish essential nutrients the body lost, keeping everything in equilibrium, avoiding both a hangover and headache!!

7. Looking to fight off that afternoon or evening snacking binge? Cucumbers have been used for centuries and often used by European trappers, traders and explores for quick meals to thwart off starvation.

8. Have an important meeting or job interview and you realize that you don’t have enough time to polish your shoes? Rub a freshly cut cucumber over the shoe, its chemicals will provide a quick and durable shine that not only looks great but also repels water.

9. Out of WD 40 and need to fix a squeaky hinge? Take a cucumber slice and rub it along the problematic hinge, and voila, the squeak is gone!

10. Stressed out and don’t have time for massage, facial or visit to the spa? Cut up an entire cucumber and place it in a boiling pot of water, the chemicals and nutrients from the cucumber with react with the boiling water and be released in the steam, creating a soothing, relaxing aroma that has been shown the reduce stress in new mothers and college students during
final exams.

11. Just finish a business lunch and realize you don’t have gum or mints? Take a slice of cucumber and press it to the roof of your mouth with your tongue for 30 seconds to eliminate bad breath, the phytochemcials will kill the bacteria in your mouth responsible for causing bad breath.

12. Looking for a ‘green’ way to clean your faucets, sinks or stainless steel? Take a slice of cucumber and rub it on the surface you want to clean, not only will it remove years of tarnish and bring back the shine, but is won’t leave streaks and won’t harm you fingers or fingernails while
you clean.

13. Using a pen and made a mistake? Take the outside of the cucumber and slowly use it to erase the pen writing, also works great on crayons and markers that the kids have used to decorate the walls!!

15 Fascinating Planets Outside Our Solar System

2010-03-23T11:24:00.001+05:30

via: http://listverse.com/2010/01/25/15-fascinating-planets-outside-our-solar-system/

Exoplanets or “extrasolar planets” are planets found outside our solar system. They are designated by affixing a lowercase letter, starting from “b” towards “z” depending on order of discovery, to their parent star’s Flamsteed designation or catalogue numbers.

When PSR1257 + 12 B and PSR1257 + 12 C (they used uppercase letters for these very first ones because they did not yet use the current nomenclature), and later 51 Pegasi b, the first confirmed exoplanets were discovered in the early 1990’s, they were hailed as the most significant breakthroughs in the field of Astronomy since the Copernican Revolution and caused an uproar in the scientific community, and revived hopes of finding Earth-like planets and perhaps life outside the Solar System. Before those discoveries extrasolar planets were deemed nonexistent by most reputable astronomers and mere mention of their existence was treated as science fiction such that no self-respecting scientist took them seriously until relatively recently. Since then Exoplanetology, the study of exoplanets has evolved rapidly into a new branch of Astronomy, uncovering more than 400 such planets (30 of which in the month of October 2009 alone), but most of them were disappointingly similar to the first ones: hot bloated gas giants revolving very close to their star with orbital periods measured in days – sometimes termed “roasters,” and brown dwarves – failed stars which can be easily mistaken for the most massive planets.

The most plausible explanation for this is that the commonly used indirect methods of exoplanet detection are biased towards large, massive objects with short orbital periods which make them the easiest to identify. Every once in a while though, with the help of advanced technology and new innovative means of improving our detective capabilities and a bit of luck we get a few surprises:

Oldest Planet

PSR B1620-26 b (discovered: May 30, 1993, confirmed: July 10, 2003)

PSR B1620-26 b, nicknamed “Methuselah” for biblical reasons, is the oldest exoplanet found to date at 13 billion years old, possibly the oldest ever considering the Universe itself is only a little older at 13.7 billion years old! It was found deep inside the core of what is called a “globular cluster” of stars, which are composed of the very first stars that were formed right after the Big Bang. And based on our knowledge of planet formation planets are born soon after their parent star, so if the exoplanet’s star is really old, then the planet itself must be really old as well. It was confirmed to be a planet only in 2003 which is good news for planet-hunters because if planets can be readily formed as quickly as stars just after the Big Bang then they must be as common too.

Closest to Solar System

Epsilon Eridani (Epsilon Eridani b discovered August 7, 2000)

It’s actually a system of planets, not unlike how we like to call our own solar system. The name “Epsilon Eridani” stands for the parent star, or their “sun,” and it has two probable planets orbiting it: one confirmed (Epsilon Eridani b) another yet unconfirmed (Epsilon Eridani c), making it the closest planetary system at just over 10 light years from the solar system. It even has not one but two asteroid belts, an inner one between Epsilon Eridani b and the star and an outer one between b and c, and also a dust ring beyond c’s orbit believed to be produced by extrasolar comets bumping into each other.

Most Suns

91 Aquarii b (November 16, 2003)

When we think of planets we are used to the idea of planets around the sun in a single star system but in fact a surprising number (about one in two) of the stars we see in the night sky are really multiple star systems; that is, a group of two or more stars orbiting around their common center of mass (they appear as single points of light because of sheer distance). In the 91 Aquarii system there are five stars, and in November 2003 it was discovered that a gas giant planet was orbiting the primary star, 91 Aquarii A, and thus the planet is alternatively named 91 Aquarii Ab to distinguish it from the other stars in the system and to make room for possible undiscovered planets around those other stars. This gas giant is special because our methods of detecting exoplanets around stars require a great deal of precision which could unfortunately be thrown off by even one other nearby star, making it one of the few planets discovered in multiple star systems.

Most Exoplanets in One System

55 Cancri (55 Cancri b discovered April 12, 2006)

This is quite similar to the previous one in that it is a binary star system, a two-star multiple star system just like Tatooine (which by the way has become a new scientific term describing planets in multiple star systems after the hypothetical HD 188753 Ab, which could have been the first of the “Tatooine planets” was hypothesized back in 2005 but was later disproved) from Star Wars, but this time it has five medium-size “Neptune-mass” planets orbiting around the larger star 55 Cancri A, in order of distance from parent star: 55 Cancri e, b, c, f, and d (or 55 Cancri Ae, Ab, Ac, Af, and Ad to distinguish them from the other star, 55 Cancri B). This is the most number of confirmed planets orbiting one star other than the sun and hence raises the possibility of finding more planets around stars with or without known planetary systems by showing that our solar system of many planets is not unique.

Exoplanet’s Atmospheric Composition Known

HD 209458 b (November 5, 1999)

Another “special” gas giant in the sense that its orbital plane aligns perfectly with our line of sight i.e. it regularly passes through the face of its parent star as seen from Earth. This “transiting” of the planet allows us to more accurately calculate its size by analyzing the amount of its parent star’s light that is blocked off as it passes and more importantly determine the composition of its atmosphere through Spectroscopy, the study of interactions between radiation and matter (in this case, the interaction between gases and vapors in the planet’s atmosphere and its sun’s starlight). Using this method they have detected the presence of sodium vapor and more recently (October 2009) some water vapor, carbon dioxide, and methane in the planet’s atmosphere. It is also only the second planet revealed to possess organic compounds, with HD 189733 b being the first one on October 5, 2005.

Gas Giant in “Habitable Zone”

Gliese 876 b (June 23, 1998)

The habitable zone is the imaginary spherical shell surrounding a star where conditions are optimal for liquid water to exist on an Earth-sized planet orbiting within that shell. This gas giant is special because it orbits inside its sun’s habitable zone. “But so what,” you say, “how is it ‘habitable,’ we can’t live on gas giants, you know!” While it is true that we humans are as of now incapable of living on or in a gas giant, take a quick look at the gas giants in our solar system: they all have some relatively big, icy moons, and it is not impossible (albeit not certain) that Gliese 876 b could have some habitable moons (think Pandora and Polyphemus from the movie Avatar). Even if not, there is no reason not to believe that life could originate in or on gas giants, as evidenced by a paper from respected astronomers discussing the possibility of life in Jupiter’s thick atmosphere.

Survivor

V391 Pegasi b (March 2007)

This gas giant was found orbiting a white dwarf star (a type of dead star) which means that at some time in the past during the star’s red giant phase (a red giant is a large dying star preceding the white dwarf stage) the planet must have been skimming its sun’s surface or possibly even orbited inside the dying star! This bodes well for the planets in our own solar system including Earth, because our sun is believed to begin its red giant phase five billion years into the future, engulfing the orbits of the inner planets and possibly reaching the present-day orbit of Mars. But even if the Earth does survive inside the red giant sun the surface will be totally sterilized by the high temperatures in the red giant sun.

First “Super-Earth”

µ Arae c (August 25, 2004)

Up to now we have been talking of a few noteworthy gas giants in a universe of hot bloated gas giants, but this planet, the first “super-Earth,” or large rocky exoplanet discovered, brought researchers much closer to finding Earth-like planets outside the solar system. A “super-Earth” is defined as an exoplanet with a mass between that of the Earth and the giant planets in the solar system. They are generally considered to be rocky because for an object the size of the earth its weak gravitational force tends to attract more of the densest most massive materials (e.g. rocks and metals) but little of the lightest materials like gases, which could then be easily blown off by astronomical phenomena like radiation from its sun, atmospheric escape, or large asteroid impacts. As this rocky protoplanet grows to approach Jupiter-mass, however, its strengthening gravitational attraction allows it not only to pull more objects to its surface but also hold on to the lighter gases, setting off a vicious spiral which eventually leads to it becoming another gas giant. It demonstrated how advancements in technology achieved through cooperation in the intensive development and constant innovation of new techniques can pay off and lead to bigger things (or rather smaller things, as our refined techniques have detected exoplanets with smaller masses since then).

Just paying the bills...

Possible “Hot Neptune”

Gliese 436 b (August 31, 2004)

It was discovered soon after the first super-earth, with their masses and diameters roughly equivalent. Initial calculations, however, suggested a density greater than those of gas giants but not quite as dense as rocky super-Earths, and led scientists to believe it was made primarily of the next most abundant compound in the universe: water (which in turn is composed of some of the most abundant elements in the universe: Hydrogen and Oxygen). But given the planet’s high surface gravity due to its high mass and small radius, and the fact that it orbits close to its star, any water comprising the planet is thought to be exotic forms of “hot ice” or water compressed into a hot, solid state by enormous pressures, like how carbon atoms are compressed into diamonds by pressures beneath the Earth’s surface.

Lava-coated Super-Earth

COROT-7b (February 3, 2009)

This recent addition to the fast growing list of extrasolar planets thrilled scientists when they determined its diameter to be only about 1.7 times that of Earth with a density and inferred composition similar to that of Earth. It was among the smallest exoplanets at the time of its discovery and the most Earth-like, if not for a literal sea of molten rock and metal covering its entire surface due to its orbit’s extreme proximity to its sun! It is also one of the few super-Earths with an atmosphere, but only a really thin and tenuous one with trace amounts of water vapor and various metals in gaseous form because of extreme conditions on its surface.

First Planets to be Photographed

Fomalhaut b and HR 8799 b, c, d (November 13, 2008)

Direct exoplanet observation has been compared to watching a gnat flying across the face of a searchlight on a foggy day from miles away (source: National Geographic). Fomalhaut b and HR 8799 b, c, d are the first exoplanets directly imaged in optical wavelengths (that is, in colloquial terms, photographed) using huge Earth-based telescopes at W.M. Keck and Gemini Observatories in Hawaii along with the Hubble Space Telescope. Truly an impressive feat, yes, but not quite as impressive as the next one.

Farthest planet from parent to be imaged

GJ 758 b (November 2009)

It’s roughly the same distance from its star as Neptune is from the sun, so it only receives and reflects a tiny fraction of its sun’s light, like Neptune. But if you thought observing Neptune from the Earth is hard enough, try photographing an object as dim as Neptune, only from 50 light years (about 500 trillion kilometres or 300 trillion miles) away in another star system! That’s exactly what the Hubble space telescope did in November 2009. What’s really interesting about this and the previous item is that these telescopes are scheduled to be replaced by a new generation of more powerful telescopes, some of them dedicated solely to planet-hunting (notably the Terrestrial Planet Finder or TPF to be launched in 2015 with a stated mission of – you guessed it – finding terrestrial planets). So if the old general purpose and soon-to-be-obsolete Hubble telescope can accomplish that, who knows what more we could find with the newer, specialized telescopes!

Planetary collision

HD 172555 (August 2009)

Infrared detectors on Nasa’s Spitzer Space Telescope detected large amounts of vaporised rock, along with fragments of hardened lava, known as tektites, which are usually formed by meteorite impacts. The existence of such a large amount of these kinds of material that would be enough to obscure a star’s light points to a huge impact – a planetary collision – in order to produce that much debris.

Its discovery shows that catastrophic planet-scale collisions are not very uncommon in the universe, and supports the widely accepted theory that the Earth’s moon was created by a similar event in the distant past. Furthermore, computer simulations have predicted the remote possibility of future collisions in our solar system 3 billion years into the future, far from the 2 years that pseudo-scientist nuts want you to believe.

Super-Earth Closest to Solar System

GJ 1214 b (December 16, 2009)

This one is very much like COROT-7b but it is closer to Earth at 42 light years and hence can be more comprehensively studied. Like COROT-7b its surface is much hotter than Earth’s, but much milder than that of COROT-7b which could allow for a thicker and denser atmosphere, if one exists.

Most Earth-like Exoplanet Yet

Gliese 581 d (April 24, 2007)

At 7 to 14 times the mass of Earth this planet is considered to be a super-Earth but remarkable in that its orbit is inside the habitable zone, and has a solid surface allowing for any water present on its surface to form liquid oceans and even landmasses characteristic of Earth’s surface, although with a much higher surface gravity. So striking is its resemblance to Earth that it has inspired some people to send greetings intended for possible intelligent life forms that could have developed similarly to us.

Bonus

Exoplanet Naming Society

Can you imagine talking about exoplanets at a party and going about how awesome PSR1257 + 12 B, PSR1257 + 12 C, PSR B1620-26 b, HD 209458 b, µ Arae c, COROT-7b, GJ 758 b, GJ 1214 b, and HD 172555 are? That’s what’s led to the creation of the Exoplanet Naming Society a little over a year ago, which aims to replace the current designations of exoplanets with mythological names for easy reference, like the planets in our solar system. Now you can participate in this exciting new age of discovery by assigning obscure unpronounceable names to distant balls of rock and gas for future grade school children to memorize.

11 Things You Didn't Know You Could Watch on Webcam

2010-03-13T12:36:00.001+05:30

11 Things You Didn't Know You Could Watch on Webcam

It's a fact that everyone loves the PuppyCam, except for those few people with an abnormal hatred of puppies. (And, frankly, we don't speak to those people.)

But PuppyCam isn't the only cam out there to take precious time away from your job and loved ones. Oh no, there's plenty more weird stuff to stare at, from leprechauns to the inside of some dude's fridge.

1. Grass
Remember how fascinated you used to be when you'd step outside in the springtime and be surrounded by grass all growing and whatnot? And you'd just stand there and stare for hours on end?

That thrill has been recaptured over at Watching Grass Grow where you can, you know, watch grass grow. Keep reading for bizarre and mundane webcam subjects.

2. Leprechauns
Because the Irish have been fed up with fairy folk for ages, they've set up a security net to catch the little buggers and their pots of gold.

If you feel inclined to help out, check out the leprechaun cam and drop the owners a message should you catch sight of something. Just watch out if it turns out to be a leprechaun like in the movie, because odds are he'll make a really bad joke, then kill you.
3. Statue of Liberty
Sure, it's one of the biggest landmarks in all of the U.S. and a great tourist attraction. But if you can't make it to NYC and still want to make sure that giant, green French Lady is standing where we left her, you can check in on cam.

As a bonus, if she's ever not there, there's probably a wicked reward if you let someone know.
4. Roaches
Speaking of cuddly, the University of South Carolina is more than happy to give you a glimpse into the fascinatingly awful world of hissing cockroaches.

When you log in, you may be convinced it's simply a still image but rest assured, if you constantly refresh, you see those creepy little buggers darting all over the place.
5. Peeling Paint
For the more discerning viewers who find the excitement of roaches and leprechauns too intense, there's the peeling-paint cam.

Is it as exhilarating as watching the grass grow? Why not open two windows and compare?
6. Wedding chapel
Romance isn't dead, and neither are poor decision-making skills, as proven by this webcam pointed directly at a wedding chapel in Las Vegas.

Now you can share a special moment with strangers who probably need video evidence to remember the wedding even happened.
7. Some dude's house
If you're more into the voyeur aspect of webcams but don't want to commit to paying $2.50 a minute for something sexy and exciting, then this might be what you're looking for.

It's some dude's house. In the kitchen, in the dining room, in the living room, out back, whatever works for you.
8. Tattoo cam
For those who like "Miami Ink" but are put off by the hot women and glitzy atmosphere, Joe's Body Art will give you the same basic experience, only with a stationary camera and presumably none of the ridiculous drama.
9. Snowmen
Do snowmen do anything mysterious when no one is watching? This camera answers that question for you, and if you can't be bothered to look then we'll answer for you.

No. They mostly just sit there, being inanimate and all.
10. Bubbles
Mixing the thrill of a backyard with the thrill of bubbles is the bubble cam. Press the button and watch bubbles fly in front of the camera.

Admittedly, if you were just doing this live with no camera, you'd either be a 6-year-old or severely disturbed, but toss technology into the mix and suddenly it's fascinating.
11. Fridge cam
In the same vein as the paint peeling and grass growing is the fridge cam. It shows you what's in the fridge somewhere in Japan.

A photo archive also indicates this is pretty much just a still image but whatever, is it any worse than roaches? Tags: puppycam - webcam

Income tax slabs revised

2010-02-26T12:34:00.000+05:30

No tax for income upto 1.6 lakh.

For income between 1.6 lakh - 5 lakh tax liability 10%. (old slab was Rs 1.6 to 3 lakh)

For income between 5 lakh - 8 lakh 20%. old slab was Rs 3-5 lakh)

For income above 8 lakh 30% (old slab was Rs 5 lakh +)

Additional investment of 20K in infra bonds over and above Rs 1 lakh in 80C.

Competition redefined!

2010-02-15T18:48:00.000+05:30

Who sells the largest number of cameras in India?

Your guess is likely to be Sony, Canon or Nikon. Answer is none of the
above. The winner is Nokia whose main line of business in India is not
cameras but cell phones.

Reason being cameras bundled with cellphones are outselling stand alone
cameras. Now, what prevents the cellphone from replacing the camera
outright? Nothing at all. One can only hope the Sonys and Canons are
taking note.

Try this. Who is the biggest in music business in India? You think it is
HMV Sa-Re-Ga-Ma? Sorry. The answer is Airtel. By selling caller tunes
(that play for 30 seconds) Airtel makes more than what music companies
make by selling music albums (that run for hours).

Incidentally Airtel is not in music business. It is the mobile service
provider with the largest subscriber base in India. That sort of
competitor is difficult to detect, even more difficult to beat (by the
time you have identified him he has already gone past you). But if you
imagine that Nokia and Bharti (Airtel's parent) are breathing easy you
can't be farther from truth.

Nokia confessed that they all but missed the smartphone bus. They admit
that Apple's Iphone and Google's Android can make life difficult in
future. But you never thought Google was a mobile company, did you? If
these illustrations mean anything, there is a bigger game unfolding. It is
not so much about mobile or music or camera or emails?

The "Mahabharat" (the great Indian epic battle) is about "what is
tomorrow's personal digital device"? Will it be a souped up mobile or a
palmtop with a telephone? All these are little wars that add up to that
big battle. Hiding behind all these wars is a gem of a question - "who is
my competitor?"

Once in a while, to intrigue my students I toss a question at them. It
says "What Apple did to Sony, Sony did to Kodak, explain?" The smart ones
get the answer almost immediately. Sony defined its market as audio (music
from the walkman). They never expected an IT company like Apple to
encroach into their audio domain. Come to think of it, is it really
surprising? Apple as a computer maker has both audio and video
capabilities. So what made Sony think he won't compete on pure audio?
"Elementary Watson". So also Kodak defined its business as film cameras,
Sony defines its businesses as "digital."

In digital camera the two markets perfectly meshed. Kodak was torn between
going digital and sacrificing money on camera film or staying with films
and getting left behind in digital technology. Left undecided it lost in
both. It had to. It did not ask the question "who is my competitor for
tomorrow?" The same was true for IBM whose mainframe revenue prevented it
from seeing the PC. The same was true of Bill Gates who declared "internet
is a fad!" and then turned around to bundle the browser with windows to
bury Netscape. The point is not who is today's competitor. Today's
competitor is obvious. Tomorrow's is not.

In 2008, who was the toughest competitor to British Airways in India?
Singapore airlines? Better still, Indian airlines? Maybe, but there are
better answers. There are competitors that can hurt all these airlines and
others not mentioned. The answer is videoconferencing and telepresence
services of HP and Cisco. Travel dropped due to recession. Senior IT
executives in India and abroad were compelled by their head quarters to
use videoconferencing to shrink travel budget. So much so, that the mad
scramble for American visas from Indian techies was nowhere in sight in
2008. (India has a quota of something like 65,000 visas to the U.S. They
were going a-begging. Blame it on recession!). So far so good. But to
think that the airlines will be back in business post recession is
something I would not bet on. In short term yes. In long term a resounding
no. Remember, if there is one place where Newton's law of gravity is
applicable besides physics it is in electronic hardware. Between 1977 and
1991 the prices of the now dead VCR (parent of Blue-Ray disc player)
crashed to one-third of its original level in India. PC's price dropped
from hundreds of thousands of rupees to tens of thousands. If this trend
repeats then telepresence prices will also crash. Imagine the fate of
airlines then. As it is not many are making money. Then it will surely be
RIP!

India has two passions. Films and cricket. The two markets were distinctly
different. So were the icons. The cricket gods were Sachin and Sehwag. The
filmi gods were the Khans (Aamir Khan, Shah Rukh Khan and the other Khans
who followed suit). That was, when cricket was fundamentally test cricket
or at best 50 over cricket. Then came IPL and the two markets collapsed
into one. IPL brought cricket down to 20 overs. Suddenly an IPL match was
reduced to the length of a 3 hour movie. Cricket became film's competitor.
On the eve of IPL matches movie halls ran empty. Desperate multiplex
owners requisitioned the rights for screening IPL matches at movie halls
to hang on to the audience. If IPL were to become the mainstay of cricket,
as it is likely to be, films have to sequence their releases so as not
clash with IPL matches. As far as the audience is concerned both are what
in India are called 3 hour "tamasha" (entertainment). Cricket season might
push films out of the market.

Look at the products that vanished from India in the last 20 years. When
did you last see a black and white movie? When did you last use a fountain
pen? When did you last type on a typewriter? The answer for all the above
is "I don't remember!" For some time there was a mild substitute for the
typewriter called electronic typewriter that had limited memory. Then came
the computer and mowed them all. Today most technologically challenged
guys like me use the computer as an upgraded typewriter. Typewriters per
se are nowhere to be seen.

One last illustration. 20 years back what were Indians using to wake them
up in the morning? The answer is "alarm clock." The alarm clock was a
monster made of mechanical springs. It had to be physically keyed every
day to keep it running. It made so much noise by way of alarm, that it
woke you up and the rest of the colony. Then came quartz clocks which were
sleeker. They were much more gentle though still quaintly called "alarms."
What do we use today for waking up in the morning? Cellphone! An entire
industry of clocks disappeared without warning thanks to cell phones. Big
watch companies like Titan were the losers. You never know in which bush
your competitor is hiding!

On a lighter vein, who are the competitors for authors? Joke spewing
machines? (Steve Wozniak, the co-founder of Apple, himself a Pole, tagged
a Polish joke telling machine to a telephone much to the mirth of Silicon
Valley). Or will the competition be story telling robots? Future is scary!
The boss of an IT company once said something interesting about the animal
called competition. He said "Have breakfast ...or.... be breakfast"! That
sums it up rather neatly.

-Dr. Y. L. R. Moorthi is a professor at the Indian Institute of Management
Bangalore. He is an M.Tech from Indian Institute of Technology, Madras and
a post graduate in management from IIM, Bangalore

10 common issues you can fix with a registry hack

2010-01-29T14:12:00.001+05:30

1: Disable AutoPlay

I always find it a bit annoying to insert a TechNet CD and have Windows open Internet Explorer and display a bunch of information I don’t care about. I would rather just be able to navigate through the disc’s file system and go directly to what I need. Fortunately, it’s easy to create a registry setting that disables AutoPlay:

Navigate through the Registry Editor to HKLM\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Policies\Explorer.
Create a DWORD named NoDriveTypeAutoRun.
Set the value to 000000FF.

2: Increase the maximum number of simultaneous downloads

As a technical writer, I’m constantly downloading files. Sometimes I need to download a lot of files, and Windows’ limit on the number of files that can be downloaded simultaneously gets in the way. If you’re in the same boat, you can tweak the registry so that Windows will let you download 10 files at a time:

Navigate through the Registry Editor to HKCU\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Internet Settings.
Create a new DWORD named MaxConnectionsPerServer and assign it a value of 0000000a.
Create a new DWORD named MaxConnectionsPer1_0Server and assign it a value of 0000000a.

3: Change the name of the registered user

When you install Windows, you’re prompted to enter a username and a company name. But since it’s fairly common for companies to merge, you may want to change the name of the company Windows is registered to by using this hack:

Navigate through the Registry Editor to HKLM\Software\Microsoft\Windows NT\CurrentVersion.
Change the values that are assigned to the RegisteredOwner and RegisteredOrganization keys to reflect the new ownership information.

4: Prevent the Recycle Bin from being deleted

If you’ve ever right-clicked on the Windows Recycle Bin, you know there’s a Delete option, which can be used to get rid of it. If you want to prevent the Recycle Bin from accidental deletion, follow these steps:

Navigate through the Registry Editor to HKCR\CLSID\{645FF040-5081-101B-9F08-00AA002F954E}.
Create a new registry key called Shell.
Create a new registry key named Delete and put it beneath the Shell key. The path should look like this: HKCR\CLSID\{645FF040-5081-101B-9F08-00AA002F954E}\Shell\Delete.
Modify the Default key and assign it a value of Recycle Bin.

5: Eliminate cached logons

Windows is designed to allow users to log on using cached logins if no domain controller is available to authenticate the request. If you want to make sure that a login request is always authenticated by a domain controller, you could change the number of cached logons that are allowed from 10 to 0 (or you could increase the number of cached logins allowed to 50). To do so, follow these steps:

Navigate through the Registry Editor to: HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Software\Microsoft\Windows NT\CurrentVersion\winlogon.
Create a new REG_SZ setting named CachedLogonsCount.
Assign this new setting a value that reflects how many concurrent cached logins you want to allow.

6: Encrypt and decrypt from a shortcut menu

Normally, when you want to encrypt or decrypt a file in XP Pro or Vista, you just right-click on the file or folder and choose the Properties command from the shortcut menu. When the properties sheet appears, click the Advanced button on the General tab and then use either the Encrypt or the Decrypt option.

If all that seems like a lot of work, you can add those options to the shortcut menu you see when you right-click on a file:

Navigate through the Registry Editor to HKCU\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer\Advanced.
Create a new DWORD called EncryptionContextMenu and assign it a value of 1.

7: Delay Windows Activation

Typically, when an organization deploys Vista, it will create a master image, run SYSPREP, and deploy the image. The problem is that it might be a while between the time that SYSPREP is run and when Vista is actually deployed.

Microsoft will allow you to extend the activation period by 30 days, but you can do that only three times. You can, however, use a registry hack to get around this limitation:

Navigate through the registry to HKLM\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows NT\CurrentVersion\SL.
Change the value associated with the SkipRearm key to 1.
Open a Command Prompt window and enter the following command: slmgr -rearm.

8: Relocate your offline files

When you use Vista’s Offline Files feature, the offline file cache is automatically placed on your C: drive. But my laptop has two hard drives in it, and I wanted to configure Vista to place my offline files onto my secondary hard drive. I accomplished the task by following these steps:

Open the Control Panel and click on the Network And Internet link, followed by the Offline Files link. Windows will display the Offline Files properties sheet.
Disable offline files if they are currently enabled.
Click OK and reboot the machine.
When the computer reboots, open the Registry Editor and navigate to HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\System\CurrentControlSet\Services\CSC.
Create a new string value named Parameters.
Assign this value to the Parameters key:

\??\e:\csc

where e: is the drive letter you want to use.

Exit the Registry Editor and reboot the computer.
When the machine reboots, enable offline files.
Reboot the computer one last time. Now, you can start making folders available offline.

9: Disable User Account Control

One of the things about Vista that seems to irritate a lot of people is the User Account Control feature. In essence, an administrator is treated as a standard user. Administrators who attempt to perform an administrative action receive a prompt asking whether they initiated the action. I think that this prompt is a valuable safeguard against malware, but since a lot of people don’t like it, here’s how to use the registry editor to suppress the prompt:

Navigate through the registry editor to HKLM\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Policies\System.
Change the value of the ConcentPromptBehaviorAdmin key to 00000000.

10: Don’t display the last user who logged in

Windows Vista is designed so that when you press Ctrl+Alt+Delete to log in, it will display the name of the user who logged in most recently. This can be a bit of a problem if multiple users share a common PC. They may forget to check to see who was logged in previously and key in their own password in association with another user’s login name. If they try this enough times, they could lock the other user out. You can get around this problem by using a simple registry tweak to tell Windows not to display the name of the user who was logged in previously:

Navigate through the Registry Editor to HKLM\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Policies\System.
Set the DontDisplayLastName key to a value of 1.

'You've got to find what you love,' Jobs says

2010-01-11T06:40:00.000+05:30

via: http://news-service.stanford.edu/news/2005/june15/jobs-061505.html

This is the text of the Commencement address by Steve Jobs, CEO of Apple Computer and of Pixar Animation Studios, delivered on June 12, 2005.

I am honored to be with you today at your commencement from one of the finest universities in the world. I never graduated from college. Truth be told, this is the closest I've ever gotten to a college graduation. Today I want to tell you three stories from my life. That's it. No big deal. Just three stories.

The first story is about connecting the dots.

I dropped out of Reed College after the first 6 months, but then stayed around as a drop-in for another 18 months or so before I really quit. So why did I drop out?

It started before I was born. My biological mother was a young, unwed college graduate student, and she decided to put me up for adoption. She felt very strongly that I should be adopted by college graduates, so everything was all set for me to be adopted at birth by a lawyer and his wife. Except that when I popped out they decided at the last minute that they really wanted a girl. So my parents, who were on a waiting list, got a call in the middle of the night asking: "We have an unexpected baby boy; do you want him?" They said: "Of course." My biological mother later found out that my mother had never graduated from college and that my father had never graduated from high school. She refused to sign the final adoption papers. She only relented a few months later when my parents promised that I would someday go to college.

And 17 years later I did go to college. But I naively chose a college that was almost as expensive as Stanford, and all of my working-class parents' savings were being spent on my college tuition. After six months, I couldn't see the value in it. I had no idea what I wanted to do with my life and no idea how college was going to help me figure it out. And here I was spending all of the money my parents had saved their entire life. So I decided to drop out and trust that it would all work out OK. It was pretty scary at the time, but looking back it was one of the best decisions I ever made. The minute I dropped out I could stop taking the required classes that didn't interest me, and begin dropping in on the ones that looked interesting.

It wasn't all romantic. I didn't have a dorm room, so I slept on the floor in friends' rooms, I returned coke bottles for the 5¢ deposits to buy food with, and I would walk the 7 miles across town every Sunday night to get one good meal a week at the Hare Krishna temple. I loved it. And much of what I stumbled into by following my curiosity and intuition turned out to be priceless later on. Let me give you one example:

Reed College at that time offered perhaps the best calligraphy instruction in the country. Throughout the campus every poster, every label on every drawer, was beautifully hand calligraphed. Because I had dropped out and didn't have to take the normal classes, I decided to take a calligraphy class to learn how to do this. I learned about serif and san serif typefaces, about varying the amount of space between different letter combinations, about what makes great typography great. It was beautiful, historical, artistically subtle in a way that science can't capture, and I found it fascinating.

None of this had even a hope of any practical application in my life. But ten years later, when we were designing the first Macintosh computer, it all came back to me. And we designed it all into the Mac. It was the first computer with beautiful typography. If I had never dropped in on that single course in college, the Mac would have never had multiple typefaces or proportionally spaced fonts. And since Windows just copied the Mac, its likely that no personal computer would have them. If I had never dropped out, I would have never dropped in on this calligraphy class, and personal computers might not have the wonderful typography that they do. Of course it was impossible to connect the dots looking forward when I was in college. But it was very, very clear looking backwards ten years later.

Again, you can't connect the dots looking forward; you can only connect them looking backwards. So you have to trust that the dots will somehow connect in your future. You have to trust in something — your gut, destiny, life, karma, whatever. This approach has never let me down, and it has made all the difference in my life.

My second story is about love and loss.

I was lucky — I found what I loved to do early in life. Woz and I started Apple in my parents garage when I was 20. We worked hard, and in 10 years Apple had grown from just the two of us in a garage into a $2 billion company with over 4000 employees. We had just released our finest creation — the Macintosh — a year earlier, and I had just turned 30. And then I got fired. How can you get fired from a company you started? Well, as Apple grew we hired someone who I thought was very talented to run the company with me, and for the first year or so things went well. But then our visions of the future began to diverge and eventually we had a falling out. When we did, our Board of Directors sided with him. So at 30 I was out. And very publicly out. What had been the focus of my entire adult life was gone, and it was devastating.

I really didn't know what to do for a few months. I felt that I had let the previous generation of entrepreneurs down - that I had dropped the baton as it was being passed to me. I met with David Packard and Bob Noyce and tried to apologize for screwing up so badly. I was a very public failure, and I even thought about running away from the valley. But something slowly began to dawn on me — I still loved what I did. The turn of events at Apple had not changed that one bit. I had been rejected, but I was still in love. And so I decided to start over.

I didn't see it then, but it turned out that getting fired from Apple was the best thing that could have ever happened to me. The heaviness of being successful was replaced by the lightness of being a beginner again, less sure about everything. It freed me to enter one of the most creative periods of my life.

During the next five years, I started a company named NeXT, another company named Pixar, and fell in love with an amazing woman who would become my wife. Pixar went on to create the worlds first computer animated feature film, Toy Story, and is now the most successful animation studio in the world. In a remarkable turn of events, Apple bought NeXT, I returned to Apple, and the technology we developed at NeXT is at the heart of Apple's current renaissance. And Laurene and I have a wonderful family together.

I'm pretty sure none of this would have happened if I hadn't been fired from Apple. It was awful tasting medicine, but I guess the patient needed it. Sometimes life hits you in the head with a brick. Don't lose faith. I'm convinced that the only thing that kept me going was that I loved what I did. You've got to find what you love. And that is as true for your work as it is for your lovers. Your work is going to fill a large part of your life, and the only way to be truly satisfied is to do what you believe is great work. And the only way to do great work is to love what you do. If you haven't found it yet, keep looking. Don't settle. As with all matters of the heart, you'll know when you find it. And, like any great relationship, it just gets better and better as the years roll on. So keep looking until you find it. Don't settle.

My third story is about death.

When I was 17, I read a quote that went something like: "If you live each day as if it was your last, someday you'll most certainly be right." It made an impression on me, and since then, for the past 33 years, I have looked in the mirror every morning and asked myself: "If today were the last day of my life, would I want to do what I am about to do today?" And whenever the answer has been "No" for too many days in a row, I know I need to change something.

Remembering that I'll be dead soon is the most important tool I've ever encountered to help me make the big choices in life. Because almost everything — all external expectations, all pride, all fear of embarrassment or failure - these things just fall away in the face of death, leaving only what is truly important. Remembering that you are going to die is the best way I know to avoid the trap of thinking you have something to lose. You are already naked. There is no reason not to follow your heart.

About a year ago I was diagnosed with cancer. I had a scan at 7:30 in the morning, and it clearly showed a tumor on my pancreas. I didn't even know what a pancreas was. The doctors told me this was almost certainly a type of cancer that is incurable, and that I should expect to live no longer than three to six months. My doctor advised me to go home and get my affairs in order, which is doctor's code for prepare to die. It means to try to tell your kids everything you thought you'd have the next 10 years to tell them in just a few months. It means to make sure everything is buttoned up so that it will be as easy as possible for your family. It means to say your goodbyes.

I lived with that diagnosis all day. Later that evening I had a biopsy, where they stuck an endoscope down my throat, through my stomach and into my intestines, put a needle into my pancreas and got a few cells from the tumor. I was sedated, but my wife, who was there, told me that when they viewed the cells under a microscope the doctors started crying because it turned out to be a very rare form of pancreatic cancer that is curable with surgery. I had the surgery and I'm fine now.

This was the closest I've been to facing death, and I hope its the closest I get for a few more decades. Having lived through it, I can now say this to you with a bit more certainty than when death was a useful but purely intellectual concept:

No one wants to die. Even people who want to go to heaven don't want to die to get there. And yet death is the destination we all share. No one has ever escaped it. And that is as it should be, because Death is very likely the single best invention of Life. It is Life's change agent. It clears out the old to make way for the new. Right now the new is you, but someday not too long from now, you will gradually become the old and be cleared away. Sorry to be so dramatic, but it is quite true.

Your time is limited, so don't waste it living someone else's life. Don't be trapped by dogma — which is living with the results of other people's thinking. Don't let the noise of others' opinions drown out your own inner voice. And most important, have the courage to follow your heart and intuition. They somehow already know what you truly want to become. Everything else is secondary.

When I was young, there was an amazing publication called The Whole Earth Catalog, which was one of the bibles of my generation. It was created by a fellow named Stewart Brand not far from here in Menlo Park, and he brought it to life with his poetic touch. This was in the late 1960's, before personal computers and desktop publishing, so it was all made with typewriters, scissors, and polaroid cameras. It was sort of like Google in paperback form, 35 years before Google came along: it was idealistic, and overflowing with neat tools and great notions.

Stewart and his team put out several issues of The Whole Earth Catalog, and then when it had run its course, they put out a final issue. It was the mid-1970s, and I was your age. On the back cover of their final issue was a photograph of an early morning country road, the kind you might find yourself hitchhiking on if you were so adventurous. Beneath it were the words: "Stay Hungry. Stay Foolish." It was their farewell message as they signed off. Stay Hungry. Stay Foolish. And I have always wished that for myself. And now, as you graduate to begin anew, I wish that for you.

Stay Hungry. Stay Foolish.

Thank you all very much.

The Twelve Days of Christmas (12 Days of Christmas) : Lyrics

2009-12-15T14:07:00.000+05:30

On the first day of Christmas,
my true love sent to me
A partridge in a pear tree.

On the second day of Christmas,
my true love sent to me
Two turtle doves,
And a partridge in a pear tree.

On the third day of Christmas,
my true love sent to me
Three French hens,
Two turtle doves,
And a partridge in a pear tree.

On the fourth day of Christmas,
my true love sent to me
Four calling birds,
Three French hens,
Two turtle doves,
And a partridge in a pear tree.

On the fifth day of Christmas,
my true love sent to me
Five golden rings,
Four calling birds,
Three French hens,
Two turtle doves,
And a partridge in a pear tree.

On the sixth day of Christmas,
my true love sent to me
Six geese a-laying,
Five golden rings,
Four calling birds,
Three French hens,
Two turtle doves,
And a partridge in a pear tree.

On the seventh day of Christmas,
my true love sent to me
Seven swans a-swimming,
Six geese a-laying,
Five golden rings,
Four calling birds,
Three French hens,
Two turtle doves,
And a partridge in a pear tree.

On the eighth day of Christmas,
my true love sent to me
Eight maids a-milking,
Seven swans a-swimming,
Six geese a-laying,
Five golden rings,
Four calling birds,
Three French hens,
Two turtle doves,
And a partridge in a pear tree.

On the ninth day of Christmas,
my true love sent to me
Nine ladies dancing,
Eight maids a-milking,
Seven swans a-swimming,
Six geese a-laying,
Five golden rings,
Four calling birds,
Three French hens,
Two turtle doves,
And a partridge in a pear tree.

On the tenth day of Christmas,
my true love sent to me
Ten lords a-leaping,
Nine ladies dancing,
Eight maids a-milking,
Seven swans a-swimming,
Six geese a-laying,
Five golden rings,
Four calling birds,
Three French hens,
Two turtle doves,
And a partridge in a pear tree.

On the eleventh day of Christmas,
my true love sent to me
Eleven pipers piping,
Ten lords a-leaping,
Nine ladies dancing,
Eight maids a-milking,
Seven swans a-swimming,
Six geese a-laying,
Five golden rings,
Four calling birds,
Three French hens,
Two turtle doves,
And a partridge in a pear tree.

On the twelfth day of Christmas,
my true love sent to me
Twelve drummers drumming,
Eleven pipers piping,
Ten lords a-leaping,
Nine ladies dancing,
Eight maids a-milking,
Seven swans a-swimming,
Six geese a-laying,
Five golden rings,
Four calling birds,
Three French hens,
Two turtle doves,
And a partridge in a pear tree!

Get Your BSNL Broadband Usage Details Via SMS, Windows Client App and SMS-On-Demand

2009-12-07T10:34:00.000+05:30

Now you can get BSNL Broadband weekly usage statistics on your mobile phone through SMS. All you have to do is to register your mobile number and email id at the website http://bbusage.bsnl.in along with your phone number and broadband username.

You should not prefix zero before STD Code as your telephone number having the broadband connection.

You can also get usage on-demand on your mobile phone. Send SMS to +919447051550 with the keyword BBUSAGE. The service will be available after your mobile phone registration has been accepted.

To de-register from usage updates via SMS, send email to autosms@bsnl.in from your registered mail ID.

You can as well download a Windows application client for getting the BSNL broadband usage updates on your computer. Download BSNL Broadband Usage Client, and simply run it (no installation required) providing your username as username@bsnl.in. There is no validation.

Both BBusage service and the bbusage.exe windows client work with all BSNL broadband plans including home plans (Home 125, Home 199, Home 250, Home 299, Home 350, Home 500, Home 500 C, Home 500 C+, Home 1000, Home 1800, Home 3300), Combo plans (Combo 599, Combo 749, Speed Combo 1111, 8 Mbps Combo 2799, 16 Mbps Combo 4999and 24 Mbps Combo 8999), Rural plans (Rural 99, Rural 150) and Business plans (Business 700, Business Combo 1000, Business 1200, Business 2000, Business 3000, Business 4000, Business 5000, Business 9000, Business 15000).

10 common issues you can fix with a registry hack

2009-12-04T16:25:00.000+05:30

1: Disable AutoPlay

Navigate through the Registry Editor to HKLM\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Policies\Explorer.
Create a DWORD named NoDriveTypeAutoRun.
Set the value to 000000FF.

more here http://blogs.techrepublic.com.com/10things/?p=855&tag=content;leftCol

The Illusion of Free Choice

2009-11-26T15:57:00.000+05:30

Regards
Dennis Joseph

Information and useful links to avail various Citizen Services

2009-11-06T11:30:00.001+05:30

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Premier Rio: First Drive

2009-10-29T11:47:00.001+05:30

via

If there was a space vacant in the Indian automotive sphere, here is a vehicle that will fit it like a glove. Adil Jal Darukhanawala grabs a first drive of the new mini-SUV from Premier Automobiles on its comeback trail

Yes that's right, Rio is the name of the new mini-SUV which many car makers plain dumb ignored and it is here that an old venerable name from the motor manufacturing business hopes to reinvent itself. Let's avoid the riddles and cut straight to the chase which in this case is of Premier Limited announcing its advent back as a speciality car maker in India.

Better known eons ago for its Premier Padminis and Fiat Unos plus the eminently forgettable Peugeot 304 which pulled the company down (or was it the other way around! - the jury is out on this count), Premier under the stewardship of Maitreya Doshi, grandson of Walchand Hirachand, has embarked on a whole new way to get back into a segment of industry which his family helped pioneer in this country.

First the method behind the madness and here it seems that Maitreya Doshi after the highly publicized spat with long time partner Fiat used all his business acumen to monetize his real estate holdings in Mumbai and then re-invest this into his firm's machine tool division at Chinchwad in Pune. This purely engineering-driven arm of the company began to specialize in cutting edge applications for heavy industry and has made not just a name for itself in its sphere of operation but has also managed to make the firm financially very sound. Apart from being shielded from the economical turmoil, the new business orientation also taught Premier to make do with less and this mantra has been put into place for a very lean automobile manufacturing unit at Chinchwad.

And the product with which Maitreya Doshi aims to get his firm rolling on our roads is unique as well. The basis of this vehicle, which will be sold under the Rio model name, is the Daihatsu Terios mini-SUV of late 1990s vintage. Built to the Japanese kei-jidosha class regulations which specify not just a maximum length but also the maximum width of a car to conform to very low tax rates, the new Premier Rio is a snug cozy compact small vehicle which with its very configuration has placed itself as the proverbial cat among the small car pigeons in the market!

Rights to the Daihatsu Terios were sold to Chinese car maker Zotye Auto which marketed it as the Zotye Nomad and now Premier has done a deal whereby the entire car sans the drivetrain would be brought into India as a CKD unit. Premier has resurrected its old Peugeot TUD5 diesel engine, tweaked it and even changed cylinder dimensions to make it into an engine of its own making and this along with a 5-speed manual gearbox is what powers the Rio.

The Rio drives very well, is sprightly without being over the top, and can more than hold its own with all of the A-segment hatches as well as the entry level B-segmenters. While its looks may scream SUV, its makeup and delivery is more like the smaller hatches but with rear wheel drive and an upright dominating perch which is distinctive of large SUVs. In fact, as I have mentioned before as well, this was a niche there for the taking and everyone saw right through it. Of course if Premier doesn't price the vehicle perfectly it might just score a self goal but then this was a car waiting to happen and Premier saw the opportunity.

The Rio is decently sized and can accommodate four adults perfectly with a small child just about managing to squeeze itself on the rear bench. The seats are firm and well crafted while the trim, upholstery and dashboard are par for the course for a car obviously built to a price. The plastics are not bad either but due to the kei-jidosha regs the original Terios was designed to, the cockpit is much too snug for comfort, the driver?s right arm being pinned by the door pad which is literally breathing down on it. Even the pedals are quite close but with some adjustment and familiarity you can have the vehicle working for you quite easily.

The performance is not shatteringly quick but is brisk provided you keep this diesel in its optimum torque band by being in the right gear as you motor through our hellish traffic situations. The ride is surprisingly good but you have to be gentle with your steering inputs for taking corners at speed is a mighty adventurous process given that the vehicle does roll somewhat thanks to its shortish wheelbase coupled to its narrow track. And yes the tyres must be mentioned. The ones on our preview vehicle were Chinese (Kenda Klever was emblazoned on the sidewalls) and Premier can do a world of good for the overall dynamics of the Rio just by the simple expedient of changing them to either MRFs or Apollos or Goodyears.

Overall the Rio is barking mad but in an absolutely positive sense. It might be familiar to enthusiasts but to the masses it is a breath of fresh air. And yes the most important ingredient of all which a generation of Indian motorists hasn't experienced is rear wheel drive in its truest essence. So if the ride is exhilarating and brings a flush on many faces, I wholly recommend you blame it on Premier?s Rio! In showrooms within the next month they say.

List of all Mafia Wars Vault Collection Items

2009-10-23T11:16:00.000+05:30

The Vault collections give a bonus to one of the five skills on your profile: attack, defense, health, energy, and stamina. Each collection contains seven different items of a similar category. All seven of these items must be collected to get the bonus. After you have all seven items, click “Vault Collection” on the “Collections & Vault” page under Inventory. The Collections can be found in ANY job under the specific Job Tier and can also be gifted to you from

Diamond Flush Collection (Street Thug Job Tier)

Eight of Diamonds

Nine of Diamonds

Ten of Diamonds

Jack of Diamonds

Queen of Diamonds

King of Diamonds

Ace of Diamonds

Vault Bonus:

+1 energy

Heart Flush Collection (Associate Job Tier)

Eight of Hearts

Nine of Hearts

Ten of Hearts

Jack of Hearts

Queen of Hearts

King of Hearts

Ace of Hearts

Vault Bonus:

+5 health

Sculptures Collection(Soldier Job Tier)

Rat Sculpture

Sheep Sculpture

Rooster Sculpture

Monkey Sculpture

Tiger Sculpture

Snake Sculpture

Dragon Sculpture

Vault Bonus:

+3 defense

Poker Chips Collection (Soldier Job Tier)

White Poker Chip

Brown Poker Chip

Red Poker Chip

Blue Poker Chip

Green Poker Chip

Purple Poker Chip

Gold Poker Chip

Vault Bonus:

+2 attack

Club Flush Collection (Soldier Job Tier)

Eight of Clubs

Nine of Clubs

Ten of Clubs

Jack of Clubs

Queen of Clubs

King of Clubs

Ace of Clubs

Vault Bonus:

+3 attack

Boxing Collection (Soldier Job Tier)

Hand Tape

Gloves

Headgear

Boxing Trunks

Speed Bag

Heavy Bag

Boxing Ring

Vault Bonus:

+3 attack

Cigars Collection (Enforcer Job Tier)

Ebony Cigar

Sky Cigar

Rose Cigar

Ivory Cigar

Turquoise Cigar

Gold Cigar

Royal Cigar

Vault Bonus:

+2 energy

Spade Flush Collection (Enforcer Job Tier)

Eight of Spades

Nine of Spades

Ten of Spades

Jack of Spades

Queen of Spades

King of Spades

Ace of Spades

Vault Bonus:

+2 stamina

Billiard Balls Collection (Enforcer Job Tier)

One Ball

Two Ball

Three Ball

Four Ball

Five Ball

Cue Ball

Eight Ball

Vault Bonus:

+1 stamina

Rings Collection (Hitman Job Tier)

Topaz Ring

Opal Ring

Amethyst Ring

Emerald Ring

Sapphire Ring

Ruby Ring

Diamond Ring

Vault Bonus:

+5 defense

Ties Collection (Hitman Job Tier)

Solid Tie

Striped Tie

Checked Tie

Geometric Tie

Dot Tie

Paisley Tie

Knitted Tie

Vault Bonus:

+6 defense

Paintings Collection (Capo Job Tier)

Warhol Painting

Cezanne Painting

Matisse Painting

Van Gogh Painting

Dali Painting

Monet Painting

Rembrandt Painting

Vault Bonus:

+6 energy

Cufflinks Collection (Capo Job Tier)

Silver Cufflinks

Gold Cufflinks

Amber Cufflinks

Jasper Cufflinks

Agate Cufflinks

Onyx Cufflinks

Pearl Cufflinks

Vault Bonus:

+10 health

Barber Shop Collection (Capo Job Tier)

Barber Pole

Razor

Brush

Seat

Towel

Scissors

Cream

Vault Bonus:

+4 energy

Great Race Horses Collection (Consigliere Job Tier)

Mill Reef

Sea Bird

Arkle

Golden Miller

St Simon

Ormonde

Eclipse

Vault Bonus:

+7 energy

Rail Wars - New Game

2009-10-23T11:14:00.000+05:30

Rails of War

Guide your War Train into battle and destroy the enemy.

Play this free game now!!

Facebook Mafia Wars – How to Level Quick & Impress Your Friends

2009-10-22T16:30:00.001+05:30

Facebook Mafia Wars – How to Level Quick & Impress Your Friends

This post was originally from February 2009, before many of the new features like job mastery, achievements, and Cuba. Therefore you may find details on some of these items missing. I will update as I have the time.

I’m currently a level 92 335 (as of 6/25/09) Fearless in Facebook Mafia Wars. I remember starting out and scouring the internet for some good hints (not cheats), and being extremely disappointed at the lack of good help out there. Most of the articles focused on cheats (if you’re going to cheat, why bother playing???) or were written by a level 20-something. I found a couple of good tidbits, which I have applied, but find it my responsibility to fill a gap that’s out there. So here are some tips and advice on leveling quickly in Facebook Mafia Wars.

Note that there are MANY different ways to play this game. I prefer to play to level quickly and consistently, therefore this is what this guide focuses on.

Disclaimer: This guide is written by an engineer. Proceed with alert mind.

Link Spockholm Mafia Tools

Beginning the game

When I started this game, I had no idea what I was getting into. Or what an addiction Mafia Wars would become. You’re first given the choice of a name and character type. Don’t worry too much about your name. You could choose one to intimidate, or pick “Don something” like most others. Don’t bother trying to get “Godfather” – it’s taken. And if you do happen to choose wrong, you have the opportunity to change it later using reward points (visit the Godfather). For character type, the right one to set yourself up to level quickly is “Maniac.” Maniacs have energy that regenerates quicker, vs. Mogul which regenerates money quicker, and Fearless which regenerates health quicker. With the key to leveling quickly (and with less time/effort expense) being energy to do jobs, Maniac becomes the clear winner.

You are given some reward (Godfather) points starting out. Don’t spend these right away. As tempting as it is to spend them, get a good nest egg and reward yourself later. To level the quickest, only spend Godfather points each time you reach 10, and use them on an energy refill (after you are at zero energy and won’t waste the refill points, of course).

Building the base of your empire

Income. In the beginning your biggest concern should be making cash to build your empire. Start by doing some jobs. At first concentrate on jobs that earn you money so that you can save up to buy some property. You’ll get some experience and will climb a few levels also, but the key here is to build a strong base so that you can level quickly and efficiently later on. Also do some robbing (in the “Fight” tab). But if you are not winning money from them do not continue to rob them. You’ll likely find this to be more effective than doing jobs (only at first) in making some quick dough. Once your nest egg is built, however, there will be no need to rob anyone as your hourly income from property that you will purchase will be more than sufficient to keep you going.

Properties. Once you buy a property (1 or 10) the cost of the next one(s) goes up. So to take advantage of the low cost of initial properties, only buy in quantities of 10. Be patient and save up; it will be worth the time. The only exception is Mafia Mike’s, which you can only buy in quantity of one since your ability to purchase it is dependent on Mafia size. Buy Mafia Mike’s as soon as you have 1)enough money to buy 10 abandoned lots and a Mafia Mike’s and 2)enough mafia to be eligible to buy them.

To get into the real nitty-gritty of buying properties, concentrate on saving up first for properties that give the shortest return on investment (ROI). To figure this out, add the cost of 10 lots required for your property to the cost of 10 properties and divide this total by the income this property will provide (don’t forget to multiply income by 10, as you will buy 10 of the property). The number you get is the number of hours it will take you to make back the total amount of money you invested in the lots & properties. You want this number to be as low as possible. I actually put together an Excel spreadsheet to prioritize which properties I needed to buy in which order, and I updated it each time property costs went up. I suggest you do the same. It’ll give you a moving queue of what to buy when you have the money to do so. (Note: Once I owned about 20 of everything, I found that the ROI was so long that I didn’t even want to bother. As long as you are making in the $15-20 million/hr. range, you are likely good to cover any ongoing upkeep charges you will ever have.) Update 5/16/09: Given the “Achievements” feature added earlier this month, you may want to continue buying property until you are in the $100 million + range. $20 million/hr will be sufficient to do whatever you want to do in this game (outfit your mafia, etc.), but it will take you FOREVER to hit the “bank $1 trillion and $10 trillion” achievements. See my other post Facebook Mafia Wars – Do the Math! for more on those achievements.

Mafia. Starting out, DO NOT build a big mafia. To be effective in fighting you must be able to outfit all of your mafia with the best in weapon, protection, and vehicle. If your mafia is too big at first you will not be able to afford the inventory or upkeep associated with keeping them all outfitted. Instead, get yourself 6 mafia family quickly (for a total family of 7), as you can make them your top mafia and, if they put you in their top mafia then they can then supply you with energy packs (energy boosts they can send you every 24 hrs so that you can do more jobs). Your top mafia should be people who play often, and ideally that put you in their top mafia. And remember to buy all of the Mafia Mike’s properties that you can given your family size of 7. WARNING – be careful about buying your mafia family of 7 all of the biggest and best weapons, protection, and vehicles right away, as you may run yourself into debt. Note carefully the upkeep ($/hr) associated with each inventory purchase you make, and make sure you have plenty to cover that cost and still make a decent hourly income.

Profile points. Profile points are the points you get when you level up or master jobs. I would suggest dumping all of these into energy at first and ongoing. Here’s why:

Profile points put into energy come directly back to you in experience points, in anywhere from a 1:1 to 2:1 ratio (experience per energy expenditure), depending on the job.
Profile points put into stamina come back to you in an average of about 2:1 (experience per stamina expenditure), which is better than what you get for energy expenditure, but it costs TWO profile points to raise stamina by 1 (so the experience to profile ratio is only 1:1 ongoing if you put points towards stamina, vs. a continued 1:1 to 2:1 ongoing if you put points towards experience). In addition, to win fights you’ll need to throw profile points not just into stamina, but also into attack and defense. (Confusing, I know, but continue to reason this out and it’ll make sense.)
So to continue to get the most experience out of each profile point, concentrate on using them to do more jobs (energy) vs. becoming better at fighting (stamina, attack, and defense).
Don’t bother to ever put profile points into health. Health only prolongs how long you can fight without visiting the doctor, but ongoing you’ll be making so much money that you’ll be able to afford the doctor as much as you’d like without issue.

Daily gameplay strategy. Don’t ever let energy and/or stamina max out (ideally). If you do this you are never letting a point go to waste. But realistically you won’t be able to do this perfectly. So, each time you check into Mafia Wars, make sure you spend every energy and stamina point you have. The only exception is for energy. If you know that you’ll be able to check in again before your energy maxes out, and that if by saving points you’ll be able to do a better job (more experience for the energy point) or a job you still need to master, then by all means save some energy points. (My energy is now above 800, and never maxes out overnight, so I can usually even save a few at the end of the night to do better jobs in the morning.)

An advanced strategy for when you are close to leveling up is to use up most, but not all of your energy, saving enough to do a job you need to master (or just another good experience:energy job). Then, inch your way up to the next level by robbing, but stop when you are within 6 experience points of leveling up. Lastly, use up the last bit of energy you have to jump to the next level, and you will already have a jump on gathering points for your next level.

Energy pack usage. When you use an energy pack, it refills all of your energy PLUS another 25%. Therefore, to get the most out of every energy pack and never let an energy pack go to waste, only use energy packs when you are at Energy=zero, and ideally right after you level up and use up your energy that was refilled from the level-up. The only time I don’t wait to level up before using an energy pack is when I know that I can use up the entire energy pack without leveling up in the middle of that energy (and let energy points go to waste).

The hitlist. I’ve seen many folks claim that the hitlist can bring in some quick dough, but I never had any luck with it. You only need to be the last shot that brings one of these big guys down to pull in the bounty cash, but usually when there’s one on the list worth going after (say over $100,000 or so) you are one of many trying to bring him down and the odds aren’t with you. But, if you do decide to give it a go, my advice is to set a lower limit on the bounty dollar amount and only go after the ones where you can make that much or more, and only start attacking them after they’ve been on the list for at least a little bit (so that others have a chance to beat them down a bit – remember, you just need to deliver the last hit that brings them down in order to collect the bounty cash).

Now you’re rolling…

Once you get to the point in the game where you are making $15-20 million/hr you can really start leveling up in the game quickly.

How often to play. From what I’ve seen, you’re doing well if you can level up twice in one day (assuming you have not mastered all NY jobs and are not getting the 2 energy pts per regen period – once you get those you should be able to level up at least 3x per day and sometimes 4x). I typically need to check into the game just once/day and receive 1 energy pack/day to make this happen. I follow the strategies outlined above in “Daily gameplay strategy“ and “Energy pack usage” in my daily play.

Defending yourself. Even if you are not one to instigate fights or rob anyone in Mafia Wars, you will be attacked and robbed. But, there are many ways to defend yourself without putting profile points into defense. Here are some of those ways:

Always make sure your entire family is outfitted with the best weapon, protection, and vehicle. This will ensure you the best chance of winning a fight once someone picks it. The game will automatically choose from your inventory the best items first and will pick one weapon, protective item, and vehicle for each member to use in a fight. Don’t worry about selling items that aren’t good enough unless the clutter really gets to you or the upkeep charges are too steep. Note that many of the special items offered on the “Home” page are much better than the items in the “Inventory” page. Buy these when you can (when you have enough mafia), as they are a great deal, but don’t build your mafia family just to buy them.
Build a big mafia, if you can afford to outfit them all. Most players going out to pick fights or rob others are going to pick on the little guys. Big mafias are intimidating; if you have a big mafia, chances are you’ll get picked on less.
Don’t put people on the hitlist or sucker punch them just because they attacked you, robbed you, snuffed you, or put you on the hitlist. Be the bigger person. Everyone needs to attack or rob others to make the most of their stamina points, so let them rob or attack you and be done. You’ve likely robbed or attacked them before anyways. Better yet, send them a friend request and add them to your mafia =)

Property upkeep. I’m not a big fan of this feature added February 2009, but just don’t forget to keep dumping money into your property so that they continue to generate the income that you need. You can even choose to “protect” your property by dumping a little extra into them. (It’s ok though, I needed something to spend my $10 billion + on…)

Mastering jobs. I do like this new feature added February 2009. It adds another way to get profile points (to dump into energy) and adds some variety to the jobs you do (I had only been doing the Hitman job “Exterminate a Rival Family” because it had an awesome payout of 70 experience for just 40 energy.) I’m only assuming that mastering these jobs and thus getting more experience points helps level quicker in the long run, but unbelievably enough I haven’t done the math.

The big finish

Well mafiosos, I hope this helped you out. If you have anything to add or debunk, feel free to add comments below. I will continue to update this post as I learn more or debunk myself. See you on the streets.

Ciao.

Facebook Mafia Wars – Do the Math!

2009-10-22T16:29:00.000+05:30

Facebook Mafia Wars – Do the Math!

Lol…have you tried doing the math to see how long it will take you at your going income to bank the $10 trillion needed for the Nest Egg achievement? I did!

I currently make about $100 million/hr. A nice income, right? Ok, so let’s see how long it will take me, at that rate, to make $10 trillion.

$10,000,000,000,000 / $100,000,000/hr = 100,000 hrs

100,000 hrs / 24 hrs/day = 4167 days = 11.4 years!!!!

I have to imagine that I’ll be sick of this game before 11.4 yrs passes, so obviously I need to “up” my hourly income…. How ’bout if I make $1 billion/hr? Then how long will it take me to bank $10 trillion?

$10,000,000,000,000 / $1,000,000,000/hr = 10,000 hrs

10,000 hrs / 24 hrs/day = 417 days = a bit over 1 yr….still…ugh…

Looks like I’m off to buy more property!

Are you planning to go for this achievement? How – the slow way, or are you making moves to make it happen quicker? Leave a comment and let us know!

Tata Indigo Manza: First Drive

2009-10-16T18:42:00.003+05:30

via: http://www.zigwheels.com/Reviews/Tata-Indigo-Manza-First-Drive/Manza_20091014-1-6

Sleekly styled, very well built and turned out with a poise and presence which is right up there, the new multi-faceted Indigo Manza is sure to stir up the hornet's nest which is the present day C-segment says Adil Jal Darukhanawala after an exclusive first drive

If ever one needs reminding as to how effectively Tata Motors has progressed as a car maker, one only needs to sense, see and experience its newest products. From the time the Indica Vista appeared on our roads, the going seems to have changed completely. The ground-breaking Nano seemed to indicate a whole new paradigm shift for the automotive world but Tata Motors didn't seem eager to step off the throttle pedal. And while a few yet seem to look at the Indian firm somewhat disparagingly, it is this determined drive which is so very indicative of an automobile firm eager to stand up and be counted in its peer group.

The latest Indigo Manza sedan is yet more proof of the above. And lest someone suggest that it is but an Indica Vista with a boot, it would be doing India's largest indigenous car maker and its latest product a huge disservice. The Indigo Manza is an all new sedan which like its Indo-Italian stablemate - the Fiat Linea, oozes grace and elegance and doesn't look at all as if the boot has been grafted on in a tacky manner.

If anything, the Indigo Manza (Manza supposedly means a little steer or a beautiful girl, chose what you want to believe), comes across as probably one of the best looking cars in a segment full of high profile machines strong on style and turnout. The Fiat Linea we have already mentioned but in the C-segment the Manza has also to battle the likes of the Honda City, the Ford Fiesta, the Hyundai Verna, the Chevy Aveo and the Suzuki Swift D?Zire and in the battle for making the best first impression, the Tata product does have its nose ahead.

Design and Style

It isn't hard to realize this when you take in the Manza's profile, the crisp clean lines running front to rear and with proportions of bonnet and boot strikingly elegant, the Indigo Manza is more of a handsome Indian hunk as compared to the chic Latino flair embodied by the Fiat Linea. Both these cars are built on the very same assembly line at Fiat India's modern Ranjangaon facility (the duo share many aggregates and also reside in the same segment), so it isn't hard to see what rubs off on each other. The Indigo Manza's front end has a more pronounced assertion about it with a slightly more detailed grille (than on the Indica Vista) coupled to triple-barreled head lights on either side. The large air intake on the wrap around bumper is separated from the top part by a nifty chrome strip which works brilliantly with the same sort of separator strips on the sides and on the rear bumper as well.

The crisp character streak just below the Manza's belt line seems to hold every thing in lithe tenuous action and the sculpting around the A and C-pillars indicates a fresh characterful approach to the overall package. There is nothing tacky about the rear end of the car and the overall design is harmonious rather than contrived as in the case of many others who have grown into full blown saloons from the large hatchback originals. The Manza's 2520mm wheelbase and its large 15-inch tyres help its stance and turnout. Credit Tata Motors' European Technical Centre then, for the Manza's clean yet pleasing design, making it seem ample yet agile rather than huge and unwieldy, both when stationary and also on the move.

Interiors

However, open the doors and step into the interiors and you can sense that this car continues to pack in the "more car per car" Tata DNA. The cabin space of the Indigo Manza is abundantly huge and spacious while also being well thought out and crafted. The front seats (height adjustable for the driver with added lumbar support) are superbly sculpted and though I would have liked to see a bit more side support, the seats seem to hold a person well without tiring him out even after hours behind the wheel. Move on over to the rear seats and you have optimum rear seat comfort for a car in its class with abundant head, elbow and leg room. The ergonomics are perfect and the ease of ingress and egress at the rear will win many plaudits. The seat back angle and the H-points are areas where a great deal of thought has gone in to provide great occupant comfort.

The Manza's interior is simplistically done in a duo-tone shade of plastics and fabric, and for sure has the best cabin treatment of any Tata Motors' product but the door latches are low rent in their turnout, the one jarring detail in a tastefully configured interior. The one major improvement over the Indica Vista, and a logical one at that is the instrument binnacle now being relocated at the straight ahead position in direct view of the driver's vision and not housed in the top central console on the dashboard. The chunky four-spoke steering wheel has large horn pad and features audio controls on the top horizontal spokes. Switchgear is pretty contemporary and fantastic to feel and activate. More so the air con controls which are now electronic switches for the servo motors to actuate the flaps and not cable controlled as in earlier Tata cars. A 2-DIN music system is standard fitment even on the base Manza Aqua and overall the car comes well equipped to begin with while the top end versions (Aura, Aura (ABS) and Aura+) definitely a rung above every other car in the segment with their list of standard features.

Engine and powertrain

While the turnout and the cabin treatment and ambiance might move many subconsciously, the get up and go department hasn't been found wanting. Tata Motors is known for its diesel acumen and it is no different here as well. The Indigo Manza gets the next power-up treatment for the famed 1.3-litre 16-valve DOHC four-cylinder Quadrajet motor which is now rated at 90 PS of power at 4000rpm and with 200Nm of torque at its disposal in the rev band from 1750 to 3000rpm. The variable geometry turbocharger has a tendency to spool up pretty quickly and help propel this 1200kg sedan to very respectable speeds from rest in a clean unflustered manner. In fact the responsiveness of the Manza's motor is distinctly superior to what the similarly-engined Fiat Linea is capable of. A zero to 100km/h time of 17.58 seconds is respectable as is the 163km/h top speed for this car which employs a 5-speed manual gearbox but what is truly impressive is to factor in the overall performance with fuel efficiency in view. A 13.5kmpl overall fuel efficiency in our first test indicates that the new Indigo Manza could be one hell of a performer to watch out in the C-segment.

This isn't to infer that Tata Motors has given up on petrol engines. Far from it, because the Indigo Manza now comes with a 90PS Safire engine having a swept volume of 1.4-litres. This unit hasn't just got a hike in cubic capacity but comes with a couple of new technical features which include a continuous variable cam phaser which works with the new intelligent port resizing feature to help improve driveability and boost the resultant fuel efficiency. The petrol engine is peppy and responsive on its own and the five cogs are well suited to make the best of this revvy motor which develops 116Nm of torque.

Ride quality and handling

Power, torque, driveability and fuel efficiency are nothing if they are not matched by good dynamic ability and here as well the Indigo Manza makes the smiles stay plastered on the driver's face. It is no rabble rouser or a sports car but is a rapid all round family car with good ride quality backed up with easy neutral manners and good road holding and precise well weighted steering. Of course when on full song, the 200Nm of torque being fed through the two front wheels shod with 185/60 R15 tubeless radials is a tad too much and while the car yet handles brilliantly - credit this to optimum wheelbase to track ratio and also the weight distribution, I am sure that the car on 195/55 R15 tyres would have been even better while going on to 205s would have been the best. The Indigo Manza has phenomenal body control and even though its does tend to roll when hurled into corners at speed, the occupants do stay unruffled for the most part.

The steering is brilliant but we would have liked it to be a tad quicker. However as a plush upmarket saloon, the steering is eminently liveable but what is truly awesome is the poise of the car under braking. The Manza always gripped and came to a halt in a straight line whenever the anchors were thrown at speed and this is a mighty confidence-inspiring aspect of the overall drive experience. For the first time on a Tata Motors product for the domestic market, we find air bags and ABS as standard fitment on the Manza, two very welcome details which would be appreciated by many.

So how does the Manza stack up after our indepth exploratory drive? Pretty impressive is what comes quickly to mind and that she sure is. This is the best sedan ever made by Tata Motors and the fit and finish is most unlike cars from this firm. However I must add a rider to this and that in this regard there is scope for even more improvement. Pricing will play a major role in the appeal of the Manza but given the price point where the Fiat Linea resides, it can clearly be understood where the Manza would be positioned. Seems the Fiestas, Vernas, D'zires and the rest have a worthy rival to contend with.

Mafia Wars Jobs, Payouts and Rewards

2009-10-15T15:25:00.001+05:30

via: http://vgstrategies.about.com/od/facebookgames/a/Mafia-Wars-Best-Jobs-XP-Payout.htm

Mafia Wars Cheats - Mafia Wars Jobs, Payouts and Rewards

This list is designed to help you level up quickly in Mafia Wars on Facebook or MySpace. Note that the calculations here are taken from the Facebook version of Mafia Wars, which may differ slightly from the MySpace one.

Mafia Wars Jobs and Experience Payouts

Jobs in Mafia Wars are broken up into sections called Job Tiers. Lower level job tiers are designed for lower level characters, although you may find yourself going back to look for special loot or collectible items.

Use this list as reference on what job will get you the most bang for your buck! The list below is also broken up into these tiers. You'll see the general job tier listed, followed by the individual jobs within that tier, and finally the experience ratio. How the experience ratio work. The simple answer, the higher the number, the best experience per energy.

So, if a job is listed as a ratio of 1.5x, it means that for every one energy point it costs to do the job, you get back 1.5 experience points. In addition, to make things super simple I've highlighted the nest job in each tier. Please keep in mind that this list does not account for any prerequisites that are needed for a job, which would in reality make the job cost more energy, and therefore lower the payout ratio.

Street Thug Jobs - Levels 1-4

Mugging - 1x
Corner Store Hold-up - 1x
Warehouse Robbery - 1x
Auto Theft - 1.33x (best experience)
Beat Up Rival Gangster - 1x
Rob a Pimp - 1x
Collect on a Loan - 1x

Associate Jobs - Levels 5-8

Collect Protection Money - 1x
Rough Up Dealers - 1x
Take Out a Rogue Cop - 1x
Perform a Hit - 1x
Bank Heist - 1.67x (best experience)
Jewelry Store Job - 1.62x
Hijack a Semi - 1.29x

Soldier Jobs - Levels 9-12

Destroy Enemy Mob Hideout - 1x
Kill a Protected Snitch - 1x
Bust a Made Man Out of Prison - 1x
Museum Break-in - 1.44 (best experience)
Fight a Haitian Gang - 1.2x
Clip the Irish Mob's Local Enforcer - 1.22x
Steal a Tanker Truck - 1.29x

Enforcer Jobs - Levels 13-17

Federal Reserve Raid - 1.41x
Smuggle Across the Border - 1.33x
Liquor Smuggling - 1.37x
Run Illegal Poker Game - 2.06x (best experience)
Wiretap the Cops - 1.74x
Rob an Electronics Store - 1.29x
Burn Down a Tenement - 1.44x
Distill Some Liquor - 1.44x
Manufacture Tokens - 1.44x
Get Cheating Deck - 1.44x
Overtake Phone Central - 1.44x

Hitman Jobs - Levels 18-24

Repel the Yakuza - 1.73x (best experience)
Disrupt Rival Smuggling Ring - 1.62x
Invade Tong-controlled Neighborhood - 1.41x
Sell Guns to the Russian Mob - 1.68x
Protect your City against a Rival Family - 1.71x
Assassinate a Political Figure - 1.71x
Exterminate a Rival Family - 1.64x
Obtain Compromising Photos - 1.32x
Frame a Rival Capo - 1.48x

Capo Jobs - Levels 25-34

Steal an Air Freight Delivery - 1.31x
Run a Biker Gang Out of Town - 1.35x
Flip a Snitch - 1.41x
Steal Bank Records - 1.41x
Loot the Police Impound Lot - 1.17x
Recruit a Rival Crew Member - 1.52x
Dodge an FBI Tail - 1.56x
Whack a Rival Crew Leader - 1.6x (best experience)

Consigliere Jobs - Levels 35-59

Influence a Harbor Official - 1.51x
Move Stolen Merchandise - 1.66x
Snuff a Rat - 1.63x
Help a Fugitive Flee the Country - 1.67x
Dispose of a Body - 1.73x (best experience)
Ransom a Businessman's Kids - 1.37x
Fix the Big Game - 1.4x
Steal an Arms Shipment - 1.73x

Underboss Jobs - Levels 60-99

Extort a Corrupt Judge - 1.81x
Embezzle Funds Through a Phony Company - 1.64x
Break Into the Armory - 1.4x
Rip Off the Armenian Mob - 1.6x
Muscle in on a Triad Operation - 1.8x
Ambush a Rival at a Sit Down - 1.68x
Order a Hit on a Public Official - 1.87x (best experience)
Take Over an Identity Theft Ring - 1.72x

Boss Jobs - Levels 100+

Settle a Beef... Permanently - 1.86x (best experience)
Buy Off a Federal Agent - 1.71x
Make a Deal with the Mexican Cartel - 1.75x
Blackmail the District Attorney - 1.73x
Shake Down a City Council Member - 1.7x
Make Arrangements for a Visiting Don - 1.75x
Take Control of a Casino - 1.84x
Travel to the Old Country - 1.83x

El Soldado Jobs (Cuba) - Levels 35-59

Rob Your Cab Driver - 1.6x (best experience)
Secure A Safehouse - 1.59x
Intimidate The Locals - 1.57x
Silence a Noisy Neighbor - 1.59x
Smuggle In Some Supplies - 1.57x
Set Up A Numbers Racket - 1.58x
Establish Contact With The FRG - 1.56x
Take Out The Local Police Chief - 1.57x
"Persuade" A Local To Talk - 1.59x
Assault A Snitch's Hideout - 1.58x

El Capitan Jobs (Cuba) - Levels 60-84

Transport A Shipment of US Arms - 1.63x
Meet With The FRG Leadership - 1.68x
Hold Up a Tour Bus - 1.7x
Ambush a Military Patrol - 1.65x
Capture an Army Outpost - 1.66x
Sneak A Friend Of The Family Into The Country - 1.71x (best experience)
Ransack A Local Plantation - 1.64x
Burn Down a Hacienda - 1.65x

El Jefe Jobs (Cuba) - Levels 85-109

Offer "Protection" To A Nightclub - 1.74x
Rob The Banco Nacional Branch - 1.72x
Shake Down a Hotel Owner - 1.69x
Bring The Local Teamsters Under Your Control - 1.76x
Help The FRG Steal A Truckload Of Weapons - 1.7x
Hijack a Booze Shipment - 1.78x (best experience)
Pillage a Shipyard - 1.7x
Take Over the Docks - 1.72x

El Patron Jobs (Cuba) - Levels 110-129

Muscle In On A Local Casino - 1.78x
Establish A Loansharking Business - 1.77x
Eliminate A Rival Family's Agent - 1.76x
Pass On Some Intel to The FRG - 1.78x
Execute A Regional Arms Dealer - 1.78x
Sink a Competing Smuggler's Ship - 1.74x
Gun Down an Enemy Crew at the Airport - 1.8x (best experience)
Assassinate An Opposing Consigliere - 1.75x

El Padrino Jobs (Cuba) - Levels 130+

Raid the Arms Depot - 1.77x
Supply The FRG With Some Extra Muscle - 1.8x (tied for best experience)
Capture The Airport - 1.8x (tied for best experience)
Knock Off A Visiting Head Of State - 1.77x
Set Up A High Volume Smuggling Operation - 1.8x (tied for best experience)
Blow Up A Rail Line - 1.8x (tied for best experience)
Attack The Army Command Post - 1.79x
Storm the Presidential Palace - 1.78x

If new jobs are added this list will be updated. In addition, should you spot any errors please contact me and I will make any necessary adjustments so the information is always accurate and up to date.

More on Mafia Wars

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Eleven Years of Google: A Look Back

2009-10-05T12:24:00.001+05:30

via: http://www.pcworld.com/printable/article/id,172698/printable.html

Google has come a long way in its eleven-year history, from its humble beginning as a Stanford University research project in 1998, to the global, multi-billion dollar online presence Google enjoys today.

Earlier this week, the company celebrated its 11th birthday and choose to mark the occasion with an all new Google Doodle, a fun take on their colorful identity. The unique logo illustrated Google's eleven years in operation by adding an extra L to the company's name to form a number eleven.

Google's actual founding date is subject to debate. There are those who think that Google should bring out the cake on the September 4, the day in 1998 that Google filed its incorporation papers and officially became Google, Inc. Still others think that Google should recognize September 15, 1997 as its founding date, as that is when Google registered the google.com domain. But despite the debate, Google has celebrated its anniversary on September 27 for the past few years now, making the date somewhat official.

Any birthday offers the perfect opportunity to reflect on the past, so just what has Google been up to in the last eleven years?

Early Days: 1998

With 1997 behind them, founders Larry Page and Sergey Brin dropped the original BackRub moniker in favor of Google, a play on the mathematical term "googol ". With the Google.com domain registered and a healthy $100,000 investment from Sun co-founder Andy Bechtolsheim, the two Stanford students rented out a $1,700 a month garage space in California's Menlo Park.

With a makeshift office in place, Google made it official and filed for incorporation as "Google Technology Inc" on September 4, 1998. As the rest of year played out, Google began to receive positive support in the press, and the company also hired their first employee, Craig Silverstein.

Money And Moving: 1999

Thanks to its growing workforce, the fledgling company moved twice in 1999. Google outgrew its modest garage and relocated briefly to a more suitable location in Palo Alto. In June, the company released its very first press release, detailing how the firm had secured $25 million of funding.

During the second half of the year, as the company reached forty employees, Google moved once again to offices in Mountain View, with an in-house chef included. T

his year also saw Google drop the exclamation mark from their logo and settling with its now world-famous branding.

Growth & Expansion: 2000

2000 was a year of growth, as along with the search engine reaching a milestone of one billion pages indexed, the website also expanded to support over fifteen languages including Chinese, French, German, Japanese and more.

How things change. This year (2000) also saw Yahoo! reveal that they will be using Google as their default search provider. At the time this was a big deal, as Yahoo! was once one of the darlings of search, which Google had originally set their eyes on to compete with; mission accomplished? Of course today paints a very different picture as now both Yahoo! and Microsoft are collectively attempting to compete with the search giant that Google has become.

Before the year was out Google also found time to launch the immensely successful AdWords program, and their Toolbar browser plug-in. With the year drawing to a close it was pretty clear that the search engine was on a meteoric rise, as Google was now handling nearly 100 million search queries a day.

Going Global: 2001

With the search engine now available in over twenty-five languages, it only seemed right that the company would expand on a global level with the opening of its first international office in Tokyo.

2001 also saw Google hire ex-Novell chief executive Eric Schmidt, who started at Google as the Chairman of the Board, before quickly moving on to become the CEO.

With the Google search index approaching three billion webpages, it seemed the perfect time to tackle a new type of search: Images. Google launched its Image Search service in July, and initially had an index of over 250 million images.

Getting Geeky: 2002

2002 saw Google launch a range of new products, including the shopping tool Froogle, the experimental Google Labs, and the popular Google News service, a product of the company's so-called "twenty percent time". Geeky Google also decided to offer a Klingon translation of the site for all those Star Trek fans out there, bringing the total number of supports languages to over seventy. Spiderman, Warcraft 3 and pop star Shakira were amongst the most common search terms of the year.

The Written Word: 2003

2003 was one verbose year for the search-engine giant. It began in February when Google acquired Pyra Labs, creators of the Blogger service, which allowed the masses to publish their thoughts online with ease. Soon after the acquisition, Google's company name was announced as a recognized verb, to "google it" had become synonymous with search, however Google strived to steer clear of dictonaries and protect their strong brand.

In December the controversial Google Print was launched: Now known as Google Book Search, the service allows users to view excerpts from thousands of books in digital form. Classic books and their film adaptations, such as Lord Of The Rings and Harry Potter, were some of the most searched for terms on Google in 2003.

Email, Google Style: 2004

Without a doubt 2004 biggest Google news was the introduction of Gmail.

The beta launched on April Fools Day, but Google made sure that Gmails was no joke, offering a then-unheard-of 1GB of storage along with a speedy user experience and the beauty of Google's search technology built right in to your inbox. The service launched as a strictly invite-only affair, which resulted in an online gold rush of those hoping to land an invitation. After five years, Gmail finally disposed of its beta status early in June of 2009.

2004 also saw Google move to its Mountain View, California "Googleplex" headquarters, where the company still resides today. In addition, Google opened a research and development center in Tokyo and a European headquarters in Dublin, Ireland. With over three thousand employees, a range or products under its belt and over eight billion items in its search index Google's growth continued to amaze.

Mapping The World: 2005

In 2005, Google's ongoing effort to organize the world's information continued as

they released Google Maps. Since then, Google has continually improved the mapping service, adding new features such as satellite views and directions, as well as increasing the number of new searchable locations. Google Earth, a 3D satellite photography-based mapping application, soon followed, further complimenting Google's range of location services.

2005 also saw the release of the iGoogle customizable home page, Google Reader RSS feed manager and Google Analytics. Optimized mobile versions of Gmail, Blogger, and Search were also released.

Oh, and could you imagine naming your newborn baby "Google"? It happened.

A Message From Chad & Steve: 2006

Ending months of speculation, in late 2006 Google finally revealed that they had bought online video site YouTube in a massive $1.65 billion stock transaction.

The Growth Continues: 2007

The year started with Google expanding into new territories once again, with Google Maps making its way to Australia and the Google Docs suite of tools being made available in several additional languages. Gmail was also made available to all, no longer requiring an invitation.

he biggest innovation from Google in 2007 was the addition of street level photography to Google Maps. Dubbed Street View, the service lets you view and explore a number of US locations at street level. Naturally, Street View's introduction caused some controversy as it raised quite a few privacy concerns.

Popular search terms in 2007 included the iPhone, Facebook and Second Life. Since Google acquired YouTube in 2006, the popular video site has grown into an outright juggernaut: Even the Queen of England has her own YouTube channel.

Going Full Circle: 2008

Last year Google celebrated their tenth year in operation, and showed no signs of slowing down. The company released its first iPhone application, expanded Street View's coverage to include a number of additional countries, revealed a new version of its Picasa photo management app, and launched Knol, a Wikipedia-type service.

In its biggest move of the year, Google announced that it would enter the browser wars with its own take on the humble web browser. The open source Google Chrome appeared in September of last year, and featured a minimalist interface and home page with shortcuts to frequently visited pages--features that have made their way into other browsers since then.

Later in the year, Google's foray into software continued as the first ever cell phone to use Android, Google's open-source mobile OS, hit the scene.

Google At Present: 2009

2009 has been a busy year so far for Google, and it isn't over yet. So far Google has added offline access to Gmail, introduced its Latitude location service, taken you to Mars with a new version of Google Earth, and re-launched the GrandCentral phone service as Google Voice, to name but a few things.

Google also unveiled its Wave service in May of this year. Wave combines a range of communication and social networking activities into a single web application and is expected to be available to the masses later this year.

The biggest news from Google this year came when the firm announced that it plans to release an operating system. Google Chrome OS is expected to land next year, and will initially be aimed at low end devices such as netbooks. Several hints at what the OS could look like have leaked online, but Google have yet to comment on any supposed screenshots.

A rumoured screenshot of Google's Chrome operating system.

What Does The Future Hold?

With eleven years behind them, Google is still innovating and tweaking. What we can expect next from the search giant is anyone's guess, but in the immediate future we can look forward to taking Chrome OS for a spin, trying out new versions of Android, and watching countless videos on YouTube.

2008 Darwin Awards

2009-09-22T17:54:00.000+05:30

The Awards honor people who ensure the long-term survival of the human race by removing themselves from the gene pool in a sublimely idiotic fashion, as described in the Darwin Awards books.

So this years winners are:

Eighth Place
In Detroit , a 41-year-old man got stuck and drowned in two feet of water after squeezing head first through an 18-inch-wide sewer grate to retrieve his car keys.

Seventh Place
A 49-year-old San Francisco stockbroker, who 'totally zoned when he ran,' accidentally, jogged off a 100-foot high cliff on his daily run.

Read full entry

Sixth Place
While at the beach, Daniel Jones, 21, dug an 8 foot hole for protection from the wind and had been sitting in a beach chair at the bottom! When it collapsed, burying him beneath 5 feet of sand. People on the beach used their hands and shovels trying to get him out but could not reach him. It took rescue workers using heavy equipment almost an hour to free him. Jones was pronounced dead at a hospital.

Fifth Place
Santiago Alvarado, 24, was killed as he fell through the ceiling of a bicycle shop he was burglarizing. Death was caused when the long flashlight he had placed in his mouth to keep his hands free rammed into the base of his skull as he hit the floor.

Fourth Place
Sylvester Briddell, Jr., 26, was killed as he won a bet with friends who said he would not put a revolver loaded with four bullets into his mouth and pull the trigger.

Third Place
After stepping around a marked police patrol car parked at the front door, a man walked into H&J Leather & Firearms intent on robbing the store. The shop was full of customers and a uniformed officer was standing at the counter. Upon seeing the officer, the would-be robber announced a hold-up! and fired a few wild shots from a target pistol. The officer and a clerk promptly returned fire, and several customers also drew their guns and fired. The robber was pronounced dead at the scene by Paramedics. Crime scene investigators located 47 expended cartridge cases in the shop. The subsequent autopsy revealed 23 gunshot wounds. Ballistics identified rou nds from 7 different weapons. No one else was hurt.

Honorable mention
Paul Stiller, 47, and his wife Bonnie were bored just driving around at 2 A.M. so they lit a quarter stick of dynamite to toss out the window to see what would happen. Apparently they failed to notice the window was closed.

Runner up
Kerry Bingham had been drinking with several friends when one of them said they knew a person who had bungee-jumped from a local bridge in the middle of traffic. The conversation grew more heated and at least 10 men trooped along the walkway of the bridge at 4:30 AM. Upon arrival at the midpoint of the bridge they discovered that no one had brought a bungee rope. Bingham, who had continued drinking, volunteered and pointed out that a coil of lineman's cable, lay near by. They secured one end around Bingham's leg and then tied the other to the bridge. His fall lasted 40 feet before the cable tightened and tore his foot off at the ankle. He miraculously survived his fall into the icy water and was rescued by two nearby fishermen. Bingham's foot was never located.

AND THE WINNER IS...
Zookeeper Friedrich Riesfeldt ( Paderborn, Germany) fed his constipated elephant 22 doses of animal laxative and more than a bushel of berries, figs and prunes before the plugged-up pachyderm finally got relief.
Investigators say ill-fated Friedrich, 46, was attempting to give the ailing elephant an olive oil enema when the relieved beast unloaded.
The sheer force of the elephant's unexpected defecation knocked Mr. Riesfeldt to the ground where he struck his head on a rock as the elephant continued to evacuate 200 pounds of dung on top of him.

via

Commonwealth Legal Information Institute

2009-09-11T15:24:00.000+05:30

Online resource for research on Indian Law/ Legal framework.

Free access to Commonwealth and Common Law

http://www.commonlii.org/

http://www.commonlii.org/in/legis/num_act/

10 U.S. Jobs for the Recession

2009-09-07T11:57:00.002+05:30

via: http://www.time.com/time/specials/packages/completelist/0,29569,1901876,00.html

Drunk People Yoga Positions

2009-09-03T14:22:00.000+05:30

How to Discount (If You Insist)

2009-08-31T12:25:00.001+05:30

Discounting can wreck brand value and profits. Follow this discount strategy to avoid those pitfalls

via: http://www.businessweek.com/smallbiz/content/aug2009/sb20090814_425078.htm?campaign_id=rss_smlbz

Discounting stinks.

As a marketer whose job is to create preference and profitability for my clients, I don't like discounting. In fact, I hate it. I call it the D-word. It's distracting. It's demeaning. It's destructive and depressing. And yet I see companies do it all the time.

These days discounting is more prevalent than ever. Now into the second year of our economic tsunami, we are getting used to headlines bemoaning declining sales and shrinking profits across virtually every sector of the economy. The current issue of the Harvard Business Review even coined the term Post-Recession Consumer, whose "new thriftiness and desire for simplicity" will change business for a generation. Just this month Yahoo! (YHOO) introduced a new Web site called Yahoo Deals, offering coupons, information about limited-time promotions, and even a cheap gas finder. The company reports that searches for the term "printable coupons" are up 50% this year because, as Greg Hintz, head of Yahoo Shopping, puts it in a recent Brandweek piece, "Frugality is the new 'cool.' "

Many companies are getting caught up in the frenzy and slashing prices. Even marketers who should know better—those who have made big bets on discounting in the past and lost—have not been immune. Both McDonald's (MCD) and Burger King (BK) recently fought public skirmishes with their franchisees over the price point of their low-end burgers. Their corporate offices want to drive traffic, but franchisees complain that it does them no good to sell any product at a loss. And Macy's (M), the nation's dominant department store chain, lowered its price on a popular line of men's slacks in an effort to generate sales. While the decision resulted in "tremendous sell-through" according to CEO Terry Lundgren, it also required "low price points and no margins," an article in The Wall Street Journal quoted him as saying.

Discounting destroys brand equity, hamstrings investment in innovation, and zaps profitability for companies and their stakeholders. Which raises an interesting question: Can discounting ever be an acceptable strategy for a business?

Rules for discounting wisely

If there's one thing I've learned in more than two decades as a consultant, it's never say never. There may be times and places where a discount can make sense to achieve a limited, well-defined objective. That said, discounting should be rarely used and carefully managed. Let me suggest three rules of thumb that should be kept in mind if (when) you begin flirting with the discount beast.

First: Discount briefly. Discounting is like a drug. Employed for a limited time to treat a specific condition, discounting can have its place. But like a drug, it's addictive. Companies that get hooked on it do little more than drive their value proposition down, sometimes past the point of no return.

This is one reason why department stores have been in decline over the past two decades, launching Red Tag sales as soon as their Red Apple sales are over. They discounted so often that they trained customers not to shop if there wasn't a sale going on. (My firm even produced a campaign for a retail client that spoofed how department stores would look for just about any reason to discount, such as the "Life's Not Fair" and "President Polk Day" sales.)

Second: Discount credibly. Handled carefully, discounting can be used to achieve specific business objectives without compromising your brand's overall value perception. The key is to make the rationale behind the discount credible (and obvious) to consumers, so they don't perceive it as an act of desperation.

For instance, Apple's (AAPL) student discount on laptops doesn't damage the brand because it's based on a rational corporate reason (get young computer users hooked on its products) and a credible consumer need (students are poor). The company also offers 10% off a new iPod when customers recycle their old one, which not only encourages upgrading but makes Apple look like a responsible corporate citizen. Both of these tactics enable Apple to maintain (perhaps even increase) brand equity while making its products more accessible.

Third: Discount creatively. Smart companies understand that price is just one element of the value equation, and find ways to "discount without discounting" by focusing on other elements of the marketing mix. Luxury leather goods maker Coach (COH) did just that by adjusting its merchandise inventory so that half of its handbags are regularly priced between $200 and $300 (compared to its historical average price of $325). While this will have a negative impact on the long-term equity of the Coach brand name, it's less damaging than hanging a "30% off" tag from the handle of every purse.

Or consider video game retailer GameStop (GME), which is pushing the sales of more used games (that have a naturally lower price point) while times are tough. That will keep customers in the habit of coming to its stores to find what they want. GameStop understands that when the economy comes back, so will the sales of new games. Rather than hurting its future pricing power by discounting new merchandise, the company has found another way to satisfy its customers in the short term.

And then there's Quizno's, which has taken some licks from franchisees for discounting in the past. Facing not only a down economy but a powerful competitor making a compelling offer (Subway's Five for $5), Quizno's developed new sandwiches that it can profitably sell for four bucks or less. According to CEO Rick Schaden in an e-mail interview with me, the "Toasty Bullet" and "Toasty Torpedo" were designed "to appeal to consumers' wallets and tastes while still protecting franchise owners' margins" under a program called the Flex Plan. A major component of the Flex Plan is to provide, "a constant pipeline of new product innovation," including, if necessary, additional lower-priced menu items.

The bottom line: In your customers' eyes, your product is either worth regular price or it's not. In tough times like these that may be a more difficult case to make, but if you're not winning the value equation in their eyes you should focus on finding a way to meet their needs without reflexively taking a percentage off the top. If you do choose to incorporate discounting into your strategy, it must appear sensible and smart, not irrational or a result of panic.

People understand that prices are a market mechanism. If you start playing the discount card too much, you're sending a signal that you don't believe your product or service is worth it. And if you don't believe it, who will?

Best Sites For Figuring Out Small Biz Social Media

2009-08-31T12:14:00.000+05:30

Best Sites For Figuring Out Small Biz Social Media

There are probably a million websites on the web that tout solutions for marketing and promoting your business online. When you are getting started it can be very difficult to know who the true professionals are and it can take months to figure out where the high quality information is located.

Below are five great sites I recently found on Small Biz Survival that will help you figure out the small biz social media that often leaves us frustrated.

These sites offer an understandable point of view and explanation on all types of small biz social media that you could ever need information on.

Humor: How to Be a Computer Expert

2009-08-31T09:48:00.000+05:30

via: http://www.business-opportunities.biz/2009/08/24/humor-how-to-be-a-computer-expert/

Selfish Smokers - Funny and stupid customers

2009-08-25T13:36:00.001+05:30

via: http://notalwaysright.com/category/top

Me: “Can I help you, sir?”

Customer: “A packet of 20 Marlboro Lights, please.”

(I hand him the cigarettes.)

Customer: “Wait, I don’t want these ones.

Me: “Why? They’re Marlboro Lights. Did you change your mind?”

Customer: “No, I don’t want ones with this health warning about cigarettes causing impotency.”

Me: “Ok. Do you want ’smoking harms those around you,’ or ’smoking causes testicular cancer?’”

Customer: “Give me the ‘harms others’ ones.”

"If Websites Were People"

2009-08-25T12:20:00.000+05:30

"If Websites Were People"

Badly Placed Internet Ads

2009-08-25T11:43:00.000+05:30

Sometimes the Internet messes up. Here are some ads that don’t really fit with the article next to it.

via: http://www.business-opportunities.biz/2009/08/21/httpimgur-comghnwg-jpgbadly-placed-internet-ads/

Funny Google Suggest Results

2009-08-18T18:18:00.000+05:30

via: http://www.business-opportunities.biz/2009/08/14/funny-google-suggest-results/

When you start a search at Google, the software tries to help by offering real-time suggestions to complete your search query as you type.

One of the factors in the algorithm that determines the results is the overall popularity of searches by other users.

1. When will…

2. Why is my g…

3. Can I have a…

4. Why do…

Photos by Google.

The Boss Who Laid Himself Off

2009-08-18T17:25:00.000+05:30

via: http://blogs.harvardbusiness.org/hbr/hbreditors/2009/07/the_boss_who_laid_himself_off.html

My brother-in-law "Bob" (not his real name, because I promised not to identify him) has always been a tough top manager who brooks no fools. For more than 30 years, he's worked for a successful, family-owned electronics distribution company, rising from the sales ranks to become president and general manager. Bob had fired dozens upon dozens of people over the years, and he had no compunction when it came to pulling the trigger. Recently, Bob's company was getting ready to pull the trigger, unfortunately, again.

But this time, Bob laid himself off — not because he wanted to or was quite ready to retire, but because he wanted to save the positions of two younger managers whose names were on the layoff rolls.

Over the years, I've heard Bob complain about "coddled and demanding" Gen X and Gen Y workers. But he'd trained and mentored these younger managers and had grown fond of them. He told me, "I was looking at two good, loyal, hardworking people with young families who are about to be cut through no fault of their own. One of them had a wife who was eight months pregnant with her first child. The other one had two kids and an unemployed husband. They would be facing a horrific job market."

By contrast, Bob had saved a decent, if not handsome, retirement nest-egg; as a very conservative investor (he only bought into municipal bonds and risk-averse mutual funds), he hadn't lost all that much in the Wall Street meltdown. After 30 years at one firm, the idea of change was daunting, but also inviting. He tapped his network, landed a part-time consulting job that was perfect for him, and told the owner his plan. Take the younger employees' names off the layoff list. Put mine on it.

Many older workers can't afford to retire, and the recession is keeping them in their jobs. But others don't want to retire simply because they enjoy working and wouldn't know what to do with themselves if they didn't go to the office every day. Unfortunately, their reluctance to move on is having a devastating effect on younger workers who either can't break into the job market, or who, lacking seniority, end up on the "last in, first out" layoff list.

That seems to make Bob something of a hero for what he did. The question is, are there more Bobs out there? Does his move signal a bigger change, or is he a rare, heartwarming exception to the rule?

Should more older workers think about passing the baton, if they can afford to?