Cleartrip Launches Cleartrip For Business – This is Diversification

Cleartrip.com has launched a new website their corporate travel customers in Cleartripforbusiness.com which is sort of a travel planner cum booking engine which is targetted to help corporates cut costs.
It allows corporates to book their domestic and International air tickets, hotels and Rail tickets and gives discounts of 5% on hotel bookings and 10% on all airline bookings. It also offers corporates to have deposit accounts which are updated/ deducted when a booking on the account is made.

The best feature of the product is the ability for corporates to monitor their employees travel schedule via an online calendar complete with times and dates. It also supports the iCalendar standard which is supported by Apple, Google, Microsoft, Yahoo and many others. Currently the site is in private beta and only limited to a few corporates

Cleartrip bullish on revenue’s from this product
“We are expecting a 25% of business from the CleartripforBusiness product. We have 20 corporate houses already using the product and we will be focusing on SMEs amongst Tier I &II markets who will find this tool most beneficial’’, said Stuart Crighton, Cleartrip’s Founder and CEO.

Diversification and value beyond booking a need of the hour?

As everyone knows these are tough times in travel. And this product comes as a much needed diversification for cleartrip. Business travel and travel management of employees is one of the most non automated things in even some large enterprises. Infact they have their travel agents and much of this happens via phone calls in most SMB’s and even in some big companies.

This product to me is a move into the corporate travel management space. Almost like a software as a service offering for travel booking and management in corporates. Obviously this isn’t a paid product and revenue model is still on bookings of travel but maybe just maybe if the product features are scaled up and there is enough traction for the product from the corporate end then this could end up being a software as a service model for Cleartrip and if they haven’t yet thought about it then Im think they should.

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Bharti AXA Tax Advantage Fund

Bharti AXA Mutual Fund has launched the initial offer period of Bharti AXA Tax Advantage fund on 12 December 2008 till 12 January 2009. It is an open-ended equity linked saving scheme. The face value of the new issue is Rs 10 per unit.

The scheme seeks to generate long-term capital growth from a diversified portfolio of predominantly equity and equity-related securities across all market capitalizations. The scheme is in the nature of diversified multi cap fund.

The scheme will offer two plans viz. eco and regular plan with growth & dividend options. Dividend option will further offer dividend payout and reinvestment facility.

Eco plan is available for purchase transactions of up to Rs 2 lakh only. Where the value of any purchase transaction is greater than Rs 2 lakh, then such investments can be placed only in regular plan. Both plans will have common portfolio.

The scheme seeks to collect a minimum corpus of Rs 1 crore during NFO period. The scheme will invest 80%-100% in equity and equity related securities with high-risk profile. It will invest up to 20% in debt and money market securities. Investment in derivatives instruments may be made only if permitted under ELSS rules and SEBI regulations. Investments in derivatives instruments may be up to 50% of the net assets of the scheme. The scheme will not make investments in securitised debt. It may also engage in stock lending.

The scheme will levy entry load of 2.25% for investments less than Rs 2 crore in regular plan and nil for the purchase amount equal to or above Rs 2 crore. Under eco plan the scheme levy entry load of 2.25%. Investments through Systematic Investment Plan/ Systematic Transfer Plan (SIP/STP) will also attract 2.25% an entry load.

The scheme will not charge any exit load. As per the ELSS Rules, unit holders will not be able to redeem units under the scheme for a period of 3 years from the date of allotment of respective units. After the period of 3 years, units could be redeemed. Individuals and Hindu Undivided Family (HUFs) would be entitled to claim deduction under section 80C in respect of subscription to the units of the scheme. The aggregate amount deductible under section 80C in respect of subscription to the units of an equity linked savings scheme and other prescribed investments is restricted to Rs 1 lakh.

The performance of the scheme is being benchmarked to the performance of S&P CNX Nifty Index. Prateek Agrawal will be the fund manager for the scheme.

Posted by Indian-commodity

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6th Pay Commission – likely pay scales for BSNL Executives

http://www.mediafire.com/?y2qqjqnxdu9

Click on above linkand u will get unofficial wise guess of likely to be approved scales for executives of BSNL

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Search Engine for finding files on Rapidshare

Rapidshare is one of the world’s largest file-hosting sites with millions of files stored on its servers. According to Alexa, Rapidshare.com is currently the 12th most visited website in the world. Currently it has 220 Gigabit/s of Internet connectivity and 4.5 Petabytes of storage thus it has got billions of files available for download. You cannot search rapidshare for files we can only download a file whose link we know. But there are many rapidshare search engines through which we can search files on rapidshare. One method which I use for searching anything on rapidshare, just I type rapidshare + search item name on google. In most of the cases I get the right file on rapidshare through this method. However I am giving the list of rapidshare search engines, you can use these search engines for searching any file on rapidshare.

• http://www.quicksearch.info/
• http://rapidsearch.infobind.com/
• http://www.rapidsearch.ca/
• http://www.hellorapid.com/search.php
• http://www.filecrop.com/en/
• http://www.buscopio.net/eng/index.php?cat=784
• http://www.searchshared.com/
• http://www.rapidoogle.com/beta/
• http://www.mayoko.com/
• http://www.c3k.net/
• http://megadownload.net/
• http://www.rapidshare1.com/
• http://filesbot.com/
• http://www.filestube.com/
• http://www.rapidosearch.com/
• http://www.hellafiles.com/
• http://www.sharingengines.com/
• http://www.rsdown.org/
• http://www.oneclickfiles.com/
• http://rapidshare-search-engine.com/
• http://www.funfail.com/
• http://ddlsearch.free.fr/
• http://www.rapidexplorer.net/
• http://rapidlibary.com/

I will update this list whenever I find any new RapidShare search engine.

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New LIC Policy - Jeevan Aastha

Here is a detailed analysis of the policy for benefit for all of u as well as for ur friends. This is meant for making an informed decision.

This new plan of LIC (Jeevan Aastha) although provide guranteed. returns but plz. note the NET Yield is variable for different age person due to difference in premium paid for the same amount of cover.

Some info for this policy is given below.
Minimum Sum assured = 150000 & can be purchsed in multiples of 30000
Max. Sum assured = No limit
Prem. type = single prem. only
Type of policy = Traditional endowment policy with guranteed. return
Minimum entry age = 13 years (nearest birth day)
Max. entry age = 60 years (nearest birth day)
Policy term = 5 years or 10 years
In First policy year the SA = 6 times of Single prem. paid (appx.)
From 2nd year onwards SA = 2 times of single prem. paid (appx.)
Maturity SA = 1/6th of original SA
GTD. addition per year = 100 Rs. for per 000 maturity SA for 10Y plan & 90 Rs. for 5 year plan
Loan & surrender value = after completion of 1st policy year

Sample benefit illustration for a 35year normal healthy male stamdard life.
Age of life assured = 35 years
SA = 300000
Maturity SA = 1/6 of Initial SA = 50000
Single prem. = 48975
Term of policy = 10 years
In case of death during 1st policy year claim amount = Initial SA + GTD addition = 300000 + 5000 (@ 100 Rs. per 000 maturity SA for 50,000 maturity SA)
In case of death during 2nd to 10th year claim amount = 100000 (reduced SA) + GTD. addition of 5000 Rs. per year
Maturity amount after 10 years = 50000 (maturity SA) + 50000 (gtd. addition) + 10000 (lyality addition if any, not gtd.) = 110000 Rs.
From investment point of view (it `ll be the main sales pitch to be adopted by LIC agents al over india), the CAGR for above person = 8.43% with Loyality addition & 7.5% with out Loyality addition of 10000 Rs. which is non gtd.

My Take on jeevan Aastha plan -
It`s a carefully designed Fixed Maturity Plan (FMP). Yes u read it right, it`s indeed a FMP as the term as well as returns are known to you before taking the policy & are almost gtd. in nature (just leaving loyality addition as a non gtd. one).
Being an insurance plan offeed by the largest Insurance co. of india, it`s also Tax efficient too. In the first year the SA is almost 6 times of single prem. hence 20% prem. to SA rule is taken care off at the time of investment. being investment oriented policy, from 2nd year the SA is reduced immediately to have lesser expenses for mortality charges.
The biggest catch lies in the GTD. bonus calculation.
PLZ. NOTE THE GTD. ADDITION `LL BE CALCULATED ON THE MATURITY SA ONLY WHICH IS 1/6TH OF INITIAL SA.
As the maturity amount is fixed for the policy term, the Net yield (CAGR) `ll be higher for persons in the age bracket of 13-35 years & `ll be very low for the persons in 45-60 age bracket. Anywhere from 6% to 7%. This is due to higher mortality charges for this age bracket.
My Judgement - This Policy is not suitable for any age class. for Y`ger people (20-35 age), the 10 year term can provide better returns from market linked instruments like Eq. & Debt. MFs. For older age people the return is not that much attractive. In fact for the persons who r in their 50s, the 10.5% bank FDs & PPF & Bhavishya Nirmaan Bonds (BNB) of Nabard r better option. as By that time the Ins. needs r over & even if one purchase it for ther partial ins. benefit, the real ins. is very poor.
- PLZ. DON`T TAKE THIS POLICY. -

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Six Steps to Writing an Offer that Inspires Customers to Act

Until fairly recently, writing marketing copy was a strange and mysterious undertaking to me.
It's funny because when I was doing advertising research, I often worked closely with copywriters. I would interview customers to learn how they responded to different messages and report back to the creative team. Sometimes the copywriter or art director would have questions they wanted me to ask my focus groups. So I got to know the writers and their work pretty well.

Yet, when they went back to their desk to actually create the message, I had no idea how they came up with the words that moved customers to action.
Customer-Focused Story to the Rescue!
Turns out like any professional, copywriters have systems. One such system that has made my writing life infinitely easier is the Customer Focused Story: A six step process that helps you develop a message that inspires action on the part of your readers.
[ Note: I am grateful to marketer/copywriter extraordinaire, Mark Silver, who developed the Customer Focused Story process and taught me how to use it. Learn more about Mark at www.heartofbusiness.com ] The power behind the Customer Focus Story is this: before people are ready to take action, it is absolutely critical that they feel safe to do so. By "safe" I mean your copy addresses two, usually unarticulated questions:
(1.) Do they feel that the business making the offer understands the problem they're struggling with?
(2.) Can the business help THEM?
If your copy helps them answer "yes" to those two questions, chances are very good your customers will take the next step.

Applying the Customer Focus Story: A Real Example
My client, Judy Rotunda of Pilates for Life, specializes in helping women who want to get fít but whose physical limitations make it difficult to use standard options such as fitness centers, aerobics classes, etc. Judy offers private and semi-private classes that enable clients to safely progress at their own pace. In this way clients get stronger and fitter without risking further injury.
Here is how we developed the Customer Focused Story for Pilates for Life:

STEP 1. Name the Who and the Problem with which They're Struggling.
The first thing you want to tell readers is "this is who I help and what I help them with." The point is to elicit a strong "Yes, that's me," in your ideal prospect so they will want to keep reading.

In the case of Pilates for Life, the who and what are:
"Women who are suffering from chronic back pain. Oftentimes, the pain is so bad it makes it hard for them to do things most of us take for granted."

STEP 2. Specify the Solutions They've Tried which Didn't Work
I know when I first began using the Customer Focused Story, I resisted this step. Why wouldn't I immediately launch into my wonderful solution?
Here's why. Two little words: "Yeah, but." No doubt you've experienced this when you've talked to prospects. You tell them about your product or service and they respond to every claim you make with "Yeah, we tried that but it didn't work." This is normal. They don't want to buy something they already know doesn't work.
The best way to deal with "yeah buts" is to simply acknowledge the solutions they've probably already tried--the ones that didn't work.
For example:
"They've tried the usual fitness options: low impact aerobics, yoga, and weight training but often those options just make things worse ."

STEP 3. Explain Why Those Solutions Don't Work
When you not only acknowledge what your prospects probably tried but go on to say in effect, "Hey, what you did was perfectly understandable. That's what most people would have tried. I tried those things and my customers have tried those things." You're demonstrating empathy.
You are also letting them know they don't have to feel embarrassed or ashamed for trying and failing. That they are not the only ones who have struggled to find a solution to their problem.
Pilates for Life example:
"The problem with most mainstream exercise programs is the instructor's lack of experience working with back injuries and chronic pain. An instructor who is unfamiliar with these conditions may push for progress too quickly. Or they may assume persons with chronic back pain can do each movement in the same way as everyone else. Often times, this can strain the back muscles even more, cause more injury, and make the pain even more severe."

STEP 4. Talk About What They Need to Do to Solve the Problem
Your reader is probably thinking, "Okay, I understand why what I tried didn't work. So what DOES?" Here's where you get to address their question.
Pilates for Life example:
"A successful fitness program for persons with chronic back pain requires three things:
(1.) a fitness trainer familiar with the physiology of back injuries;
(2.) private or semi-private classes so the instructor can make sure the participant is doing the movements properly; and
(3.) a significantly slower pace to allow the muscles to adjust to new movements."

STEP 5. Tell Them Why You're Qualified to Deliver the Solution That Works
Finally, you get to talk about your solution! Specifically, you are going to write about how you are qualified to deliver a solution that works (which you just wrote about in Step 4).
Qualifications you want to refer to can include your personal experience, formal training and education, success stories about how you've helped your customers, and testimonials.
Pilates for Life example:
"For over twenty years, Pilates for Life owner, Judy Rotunda, suffered from chronic pain due to a childhood back injury. She looked everywhere to find an exercise program that would improve her strength and flexibility and, she hoped, provide some relief from the constant pain. When a fríend suggested she try Pilates, she was skeptical but after just two sessions, she was a fan. In fact, she was so convinced that Pilates was the answer for persons suffering from back injuries and chronic pain that she decided to become a certified Pilates instructor. Today Judy owns her own fitness service, Pilates for Life, which offers private, closely supervised exercise sessions for persons for whom standard exercise programs just don't work."

STEP 6. Tell the reader Exactly What the Next Step Is and How to Take It
At this point, a reader who is an ideal customer for you, is probably feeling hopeful and excited about learning more about what you do. So you are going to tell them exactly what the next steps are.
Pilates for Life example:
The ideal customer for Pilates for Life is a woman who is in chronic pain due to a back injury. Because they are in so much pain so much of the time, they are highly motivated to find solutions. There are two actions they could take:
"(1.) Go to the Pilates for Life Web site and complete a short assessment to help them determine whether Pilates is right for them.
(2.) Call Judy to talk about how Pilates might help them."

Putting It All Together
Once you complete Steps 1 through 6, you have all the pieces of your marketing message. The very last thing to do is to write it using "you" instead of "the customer" so it speaks to your customer in a personal way.
You may also want to do some light editing to make sure the separate elements flow well as a single written piece.
Bottom Line
I see so many small business owners struggle with creating a strong, to the point marketing message that inspires customers to take action. The Customer Focused story, in my experience, is a common sense, straight forward solution to this problem.

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DBS Chola Tax Advantage Fund – An ELSS NFO

The past few weeks have seen a slew of ELSS funds being launched by various fund houses. And with the fiscal year approaching its last quarter, this doesn't come as a surprise. This is the time when most people are thinking about their taxes and hence, ELSS funds stand out as one of the finest tax-saving instruments.

Well, the latest fund house to launch an ELSS fund is DBS Chola Mutual Fund. the AMC has launched a ten-year close-ended tax saving scheme - DBS Chola Tax Advantage Fund Series 1.

A diversified fund, the scheme will invest primarily in equity and equity related securities. However, as per its mandate, the fund may also invest in debt and money market instruments, limited to an exposure of maximum 20 per cent.

Fund Manager:
Mr. Anant Deep Katare will be the fund manager of this scheme. He has over 11 years of experience in the financial market. Currently, he manages six different schemes of DBS Chola Mutual Fund, out of which only DBS Chola MIP holds an impressive track record and a 5-star rating. He also manages a tax saving scheme, DBS Chola Tax Saver Fund with assets worth Rs. 19.11 crores. The scheme's performance hasn't been impressive and currently has a 1-star rating.

AMC Performance:
DBS Chola Mutual Fund has been around for over a decade but is struggling hard to make its presence felt in the competitive mutual fund industry. The AMC's Assets Under Management (AUM) stood at a meagre Rs. 1121.5 crores in November 2008.

Suitability & Recommendation:
The AMC has failed to charm investors. However, its recent recruitment of Sanjay Sinha (Ex- SBI MF) who will be the Chief Executive Officer and Mohit Sachdev (Ex - UTI) who will be the Chief Marketing Officer brings some hope for improvement in the AMC's performance. But this will take some time as well. Thus, under the current circumstances, attracting investors for this new offer will be a difficult task ahead.

Basic Details:
NFO Opens: December 19, 2008
NFO Closes: March 19, 2009
Options: Cumulative and Dividend (Payout)
Minimum Application Amount: Rs 500
Load Structure:
Entry Load: 2.25 per cent, for investment below Rs 2 crore
Nil, for investment above Rs 2 crore
Exit Load: Nil
Benchmark: BSE 200
Fund Manager: Mr. Anant Deep Katare
Lock In period: 3 years

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Gold ETF funds available and Performance since Launch

Here is the List of Gold ETF that is available in India and you can see the performance of each Fund since the launch , Over here every single ETF represent 1 Gram of Gold except Quantum Gold Fund which is 1/2 a Gram of gold , and we can go on arguing why the rate for every Gold ETF is not the same as they represent 1 gram of gold its just because of varying operating expenses and cash component and other inner expenses involved in trading the ETF .

Fund                         NAV (Date)                       Returns(%)

Kotak Gold ETF           1,291.11 (22-Dec)             31.43

UTI Gold ETF              1,317.25 (23-Dec)             21.24

Reliance Gold ETF       1,259.16 (22-Dec)             20.68

Gold Benchmark ETF    1,314.26 (23-Dec)            20.57

Quantum Gold             656.37 (23-Dec)                 6.71

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FIRST EVER INFRASTRUCTURE DEDICATED ELSS-TATA INFRASTRUCTURE TAX SAVINGS FUND.

FIRST EVER INFRASTRUCTURE DEDICATED ELSS

The launch of ELSS viz. TATA INFRASTRUCTURE TAX SAVINGS FUND.

NFO - TATA INFRSTRUCTURE TAX SAVINGS FUND

Basic Features:

Ø Ten years close ended fund with compulsory lock in of first three years.

Ø The start date of the NFO is 17/12/08 end date 16/03/2009.

Ø Entry Load: For each investment amount of less than Rs. 2 Crore: 2.25%, For each investment amount of greater than or equal to Rs. 2 Crore: NIL, Exit Load: NIL

Ø Minimum subscription Rs.500/- and in multiples of Rs.500/- thereafter

Ø Fund Managers: M. Venugopal & Mahendra Jajoo

USPs:

Ø First ever Infrastructure oriented ELSS

Ø Attractive Market valuations for investment

Ø Infrastructure focus of the Government

Ø Being Close ended FM can remain fully invested

Income Tax benefits under Section 80-C

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Morgan Stanley Growth Fund Open Ended Scheme Record Date

Morgan Stanley Growth Fund which was decided to go as Open ended scheme has announced the Record date and also have given dates upto which we can exit from it if you want before going into open ended scheme.
Morgan Stanley Investment Management Private Ltd has now announced that “Board of Directors (’BoD’) of Morgan Stanley Investment Management Private Ltd (’AMC’) and Board of Trustees (’BoT’) have fixed December 15, 2008 as (Record Date) to take into account the complete list of unit holders of MSGF. Please note that option exercise letter would be dispatched providing such unit holders an opportunity to exercise options i.e. [i] to continue to remain invested in MSGF; [ii] to redeem their units [partly or fully]; or [iii] switch their units [partly or fully] in Morgan Stanley A.C.E Fund of MSMF during exit option period commencing from December 18, 2008 and expiring on January 16, 2009. After the expiry of the exit option period, MSGF would become an open-ended fund.

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How to buy a digital camera

The biggest obstacle to shooting fabulous photos is that, when the opportunity arises, we don't have a camera with us. Compared with conventional camera kits, that needn't be a problem with the latest breed of digital compact cameras, which can slip into a pocket or handbag for ever-ready duty.

How many megapixels do I really need?

Some up-market compact cameras now feature sensors with 12 megapixel resolution, rivalling D-SLR cameras.

However, it's worth bearing in mind that you can get perfectly good poster-sized prints even from a 5 megapixel camera and, even though higher resolutions can enable creative cropping, this puts demands on lens quality that small compact camera lenses seldom really live up to.

In short, 7 megapixels should be ample for a compact camera.

How much better is optical zoom than digital zoom?

Digital zoom is very much the poor relation of optical zoom lens, as it relies on software that 'guesses' what's between the pixels that the camera can actually see, often leading to jagged edges and fuzziness in fine detail.

Most compact digital cameras feature a 3x zoom lens, which offers a reasonably wide-angle setting at one end and a short telephoto at the other.

Some of the larger compact cameras offer a more generous optical zoom, such as the particularly good Canon PowerShot S5 IS, which combines a 12x zoom lens with an image stabilisation system.

Should I go for a 'creative compact'?

The most straightforward digital cameras offer fully automatic 'point and shoot' settings, which take care of exposure, focusing, white balance and almost every other aspect of taking a shot for you.

However, while the latest cameras have an uncanny knack of getting things right almost all of the time, a 'creative compact' that enables you to adjust shutter speed, aperture and so on, puts you in control.

So you can get specialist effects and add mood to your photos, instead of just taking snapshots.

What other specifications are most important?

The majority of compact cameras now come without separate viewfinders, so a clear and bright LCD is essential for composing shots.

With this in mind, a 2.5 to 3.0-inch LCD is preferable over smaller sizes.

A good sensitivity range, typically from 50 to 800 ISO, also gives you the best chance of getting the shots you want without resorting to built-in flash.

Bear in mind that image noise can be a problem at higher ISO speeds, so a larger 1/1.8-inch sensor can usually out-perform a relatively small 1/2.5-inch CCD.

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DBS Chola MF launches Tax Advantage Fund- Series 1

DBS Chola Mutual Fund on Friday launched DBS Chola Tax Advantage Fund – Series 1.

The fund is a 10 - year close ended equity linked saving scheme, subject to a lock in for a period of three years from date of
allotment.

The fund which opened December 19, will close on March 19.

The objective of the scheme is to seek to generate long-term capital
growth from a diversified portfolio of predominantly equity and equity-related securities and also enabling investors to get income tax rebate as per the prevailing Tax Laws and subject to applicable
conditions.

The fund, benchmarked against BSE 200 Index would invest
between 80- 100% in Indian equities and equity related securities and
0% to 20% in money market instruments / debt securities instruments.

Sanjay Sinha, chief executive officer, DBS Cholamandalam Asset
Management said, "this fund will follow 'value investing strategy'.
Current market conditions favour this strategy as it limits the
downside potential of these stocks. In addition to the tax benefit, a
3 year lock-in allows investors to realise a better potential for
their investment."

The minimum amount for application during the new fund offering period will be Rs. 500 and in multiples of Rs. 500 thereafter. There is an entry load of 2.25% for investment less than Rs. 2 crore. No entry
load will be charged for investment beyond Rs 2 crore.

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Money back endowment and ULIP linked child insurance

Child insurance plans are suitable options for parents who are looking for child-related investments. Child insurance is popular with parents for the following reasons:

It is a dependable route for parents to plan their children’s future. Money back endowment plans for instance, tell the parent roughly how much he/she can expect and at what age of the child the money will be due.

Child insurance offers a lot of flexibility. There is something in it for all parents regardless of their risk appetites. Unit-linked child insurance plans (ULIP) have several options with varying equity components. Parents can select the one that suits their needs the most.

Money back child insurance plans

Money back child insurance plans are ideal for parents planning for life stage events like child’s education, marriage or seed capital for a business opportunity. A money back insurance plan allows them to combine their planning for all these events in a single avenue.

Money back child insurance plans are essentially variants of endowment plans, which give you a lump-sum payment at maturity. While endowment plans also serve the purpose of helping parents save for the child’s future, they aren’t as flexible as money back plans.

ULIP

If parents are pleased with money back child insurance plans, then ULIP should make them happier. As far as flexibility goes, it does not get any more flexible than a ULIP. ULIP differ from conventional insurance in the way they invest your premiums. Unlike endowment plans that invest primarily in government securities and corporate bonds, ULIP can also invest in equities. Below are some of the key features in a ULIP.

As an investor, you can decide how much your ULIP must invest in equities and debt. For this ULIP

offer a range of options with varying equity and debt components. As an investor you can choose the option based on your risk appetite.

However, unlike conventional endowment plans, ULIP child insurance plans do not guarantee a return, although your sum assured is guaranteed provided you have paid the minimum premiums. Even conventional child insurance plans no longer assure a return. This is because ULIP invest in equity and debt markets and offer market-linked returns. Your returns will fluctuate in line with the ULIP performance.

The flexibility of ULIP child insurance plans is evident in two features. One, they allow individuals to switch across options. For instance, as a parent you can afford to have more equity at an early stage of your investment plan for your child’s education. As your plan nears the end of its tenure, you can shift your monies to a debt option. Most insurers allow for a predetermined number of free switches across ULIP options every year.

The second feature that makes ULIP child insurance plans flexible is that they allow for a larger number of withdrawals. There were four disbursements with a bonus disbursement at the end of the tenure. In a ULIP you can make many more withdrawals over the tenure of the plan; in fact some ULIP permit multiple withdrawals every year. Also, ULIP child insurance expenses are usually lower than those of conventional endowment plans. Over the long-term, this reflects in the returns of the ULIP.

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3 Simple Tips to Make Your Website User-Friendly

The one assumption you need to make to follow along with me in this article is "People Buy People." It can be a hard concept for many people to understand and agree with. However, millions of spent dollars have proven this premise to me, so I consider it more of a law than a theory.
If you understand the rule that people buy people, then your website MUST have a pleasant atmosphere that allows the visitor to connect with you, your company and your products.

By now, you've heard me talk about our Celebrity Branding philosophies, and the fact that you need your picture on your website goes without saying. But, there are some smaller, often overlooked, areas that shouldn't be forgotten.
Here are three simple tip to make your website user-friendly:
1. Navigation
The navigation on your site is probably its most important element. If visitors find your site confusing or cannot successfully navigate through it, they will leave. Make your navigation bar as simple as possible. One of the worst mistakes is using an expanding navigation bar that makes the visitor scroll over it in order for the menu to reveal their options. Most often, this type of navigation bar has too many choices; your visitor doesn't know where to go, so they get flustered and leave.
Navigation on your site is an art, and you should direct your visitors through a logical path to where YOU want them to go (not to where they think they want to go). One way to do this is through call to action buttons or CTAs. We use these buttons on all of our sites; a visitor will go to a main page, and then we can direct them to the parts of that site that we want them to be aware of. We use this method instead of an expanding menu, because we find that it is more logical for visitors. With this method, you can direct visitors to where you want them to go, allowing you to control the buying process.
Quick Tip: most "expanding menus" are created in Macromedia Flash. Search engines cannot read Flash, and therefore they will not pick up these links on your website. If the search engines do not pick up the links on the navigation bar and these links are nowhere else on your site, they cannot accurately crawl or index your site. This is search engine suicide, because without even knowing it, you are stopping search engines from understanding what your site has to offer and from driving traffic to you

A good rule of thumb is that a visitor should be able to get to every page on your site with two clicks from your home page. Now, this is not realistic for very complex sites. If your website is complex, you can have a sitemap to help visitors navigate. Some sort of search function may also be a good idea for your site.
2. Page Load Speed
It's hard to believe that some people are still stuck using dial up. Even if you have entered the world of high-speed Internet, no matter what you do, some websites will load slowly. (If you're frustrated using high-speed Internet, imagine the frustration of those on good 'ol dial up!)
Page load speed is VERY important. I know that when I am surfing the Internet and I stumble upon a site that loads slowly, I get annoyed, frustrated, and don't browse the site for very long. If your website is loading slowly, you are probably losing out on valuable customers, no matter what business you are in.
In today's web world, we are seeing more and more images, audio files and videos. These things are useful, but you have to be careful that they do not affect the inner workings of your site (in this case, the time it takes for a web page to load). You want to be careful about the size of the images on your website. Both large-sized images and using too many images can cause your website to take too long to load, resulting in visitors leaving. Another tip is to convert videos into a jpeg (image) that only loads and plays the video when a visitor clicks on it. Yes, you may be adding more images to your website, but these are usually small image files; in the hierarchy of the web, a video will slow down your website much more than a small image.
Another factor that can influence the load time of your website is the amount of excess code you have on your site (that is a topic for another day - but ask your webmaster, and they will know what I am talking about).
3. Information
The number one thing that visitors look for is information. They are coming to your site to be educated about your products and/or services and, most of all, how THEY can benefit. With this in mind, it is critical for the information on your website to be accurate, complete and up-to-date. Visitors will leave your site in a split second if the information you are providing is old news.
What's that best way to provide up-to-date information on your website? The best way we suggest is through blogs and articles. By having a section on your website for blogs and articles, you can provide new, relevant and educational information to your visitors. Adding them is not only simple, but it is fast too!
So there are my three simple tips for the month on how to make your website user-friendly. Although this covered just the beginning of what your website should contain, don't worry, I won't leave you stranded-- I'll reveal even more tips in next month's article!

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Zee News Goes Mobile - Ties Up With One97

Its seems to be a trend for news channels to go digital in more ways than one through tie ups. So if Timesnow chose the online medium with a tie up with Nautanki Zee news has chosen to go mobile with a tie up with One97. Through this association mobile users across India can access News directly on their handsets.

This is essentially an sms and voice alert service with technology powered by One97 and content powered by Zee News. Though not launched as yet the release states that there are plans to launch services like Video News Streaming and Citizen Journalism in near future. Probably after 3G becomes a reality in India.

Currently the available news alerts are on genres like general news, sports, business and astrology to all the subscribers. In the future the updates on the breaking news and major happenings captured by Zee News would also be included.

The New media companies going mobile seems to be a continuing trend as recently Web18 went mobile via July systems which also meant that IBN7 and CNN IBN had mobile versions. Then there was also matrubhumi a regional newspaper that went mobile via mobme. Timenow had gone mobile sometime back with reliance communications as partner not sure if that alliance is still active though. NDTV another new channel had also partnered with July systems to launch NDTV active. Besides for these traditional news media companies Mytoday launched nayanaya.mobi which is a news aggregator which makes the websites of these news website mobile friendly as well.

On the whole it seems everyone is gearing up for the mobile revolution in India which is expected sooner given the 300 million plus mobile subscribers and the 8-10 million addition each month.

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Life Insurance of India has new Aastha “Jeevan Aastha”

Life Insurance of India (LIC) has introduced a new single premium plan called “Jeevan Aastha” today. This plan is open only for 45 days. I would suggest this plan for those who prefer Bank Deposit (FD). Jeevan Aastha is as good as Bank deposit plus Insurance. You need to pay only ONE time premium.
Jeevan Aastha ( Plan No. 195)

Features and details:

1. Availability: 08-12-2008 to 21-01-2009
2. One time payment plan
3. Guaranteed Returns + Loyalty Additions.
4. High Risk Cover
5. convenient Terms (5 Yrs and 10 Yrs)
6. Tax Rebate and Tax Free maturity

Maturity Benefits: Maturity Sum Assured along with Guaranteed Addition and Loyalty Addition, if any, Shall be payable. ( Maturity Sum Assured shall be 1/6th of Basic Sum Assured)

Death Benefit:
During the first policy year: Basic Sum Assured with Guaranteed Addition
After 1st policy year excluding last policy year: 1/3rd of Basic Sum Assured with Guaranteed Addition
During last policy year: 1/3rd of the S.A. Guaranteed Addition and Loyalty Addition, if any.

Guaranteed Addition:
Rs. 100 per thousand of Maturity Sum Assured per year for a policy of 10 years term.
Rs. 90 per thousand of Maturity Sum Assured per year for a policy of 5 years term.

Eligibility Conditions and Restrictions:
a:) Minimum Entry Age: 13 Years completed
b:) Maximum Entry Age: 60 Years ( Nearest birthday)
c:) Minimum Basic Sum Assured: Rs. 1,50,000/-
d:) Maximum Basic Sum Assured: No Limit
j:) Large Sum Assured Rebate: Available
e:) Policy Term: 5 or 10 years
f:) Mode of premium payment: Single Premium
g:) Loans: Available after 1 year
h:) Back dating interest: Allowed @ rate of 10% (for dating back in excess of one month)

Again, this policy is good for 45 days only. Make your decision fast. For more details visit your nearest LIC branch or call your LIC advisor.

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BSNL Broadband Dataone Connection sharing

BSNL Data One service has a limitation of using only one computer per home connection. So I thought why they did this stuff even though many other broadband services allows you to connect as many PCs as you wish. Thus decided to find a way myself, and finally did it my own way.

Here is how you can share your “single user” BSNL broadband connection to as many PCs you have. Also this work around is for educational purpose. I take no responsibility for the resulting stuff. Do at your own risk!

First of all log in to SmartAX MT880 admin panel by typing admin/admin user/pass combination. You can access the admin panel by typing 192.168.1.1.

Then on left menu:

In DHCP settings, enable DHCP.

Set the ending IP address according to number of PCs you want to connect. For example if you have 100 PCs, set starting from 192.168.1.2 to 192.168.1.102. ( In this figure, I have randomly set 33 just for phun! )

For doing server client configuration.

Next thing you have do is changing TCP/IP settings. Go to control panel -> network settings. right click your nic and change tcp/IP properties.

First remove the Ip settings done by bsnl guys to as in this figure. ( note the greyed out section, which is set in advanced button ;))

Then in advanced section add default gateway as 192.168.1.1

Now share this connection from network setting of this nic. by checking “allow other users in my network…blah..”

This makes your other lan card to be set with default 192.168.0.1 as IP, which is the default when doing connection sharing.

You are done with network server now.

Now you have to configure every client machine. Just go to network setting and in TCP/IP settings of each nic, set the following stuff.
Update #1
Just discovered some people are using a new DNS server for fast response. Here is the IP.

218.248.255.145
Add this IP as preffered DNS server.

Update #2
Use OpenDNS as your DNS servers. I found this better than any other DNS servers available.

Do this to as many client machines you have.
DHCP will take care of rest. Each of client machines will be gettin an IP in range of 192.168.0.x.

If this doesn’t work for you, then add your server’s Nic’s IP as default gateway in advanced section. Normally for connection sharing it will be “192.168.0.1

Connection Sharing Using Switch

In this case everything is very easy. You only need to plug-in your modem connection to switch. Then set all PCs to obtain Ips automatically. You are done!

You have successfully managed to do the work around

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How to buy a Windows laptop

Laptops are getting ever cheaper and are crammed with technology to tempt you. But how much should you spend? And which features should (and shouldn't) you be looking for?

1. Deciding what you want

There are two ways to look at buying a laptop. You can either go by price point or you can choose on features.

Choosing by price isn't as surprising as it sounds – there are some fantastic deals to be had both online and in the high street.

What type of laptop do you want?

A decent enough laptop can be had for under £500. You can get a good sized screen which may not be super high quality, and a reasonable battery life from budget machines these days.

They're fine for surfing the web and running office apps.

Around the £600-£700 mark you'll get an awful lot more for your money. Look for a fast processor, a decent sized hard drive and a high resolution screen with good colour contrast.

Ultraportables are just that. These lightweight laptops that are ideal for on-the-go use.

They may not be super powerful – although there are a lot of dual core ultraportables these days – but they should offer good battery life and weigh in at under 2Kg.

A new class, dubbed 'Ultra Mobile PC' or UMPC, currently consists of the Asus Eee PC and the HP Mini Note, with new competition on the horizon.

These are very cheap laptops that are incredible small, but even less powerful than the traditional ultraportable. They may not, for example, even have a CD drive.

Desktop replacements are the most expensive. These are best-in-show laptops that have the most powerful processors and graphics options.

They are not designed to be moved out of the home, but are ideal for situations where you may not have the room for a desktop machine. Some desktop replacements are specifically designed with gaming in mind.

Both major chip makers have released dual core laptop processors that are more power-efficient than ever. AMD has released the Turion X2, Intel and the Core 2 Duo.

Generally speaking, Intel machines are more power-efficient and quieter, but AMD machines are better value for money.

These are the two processors that you should be looking out for in everything but the very low end of the market. Here, the Intel Celeron M and AMD Mobile Sempron processors fill the gap.

These are perfectly capable chips, but are not suitable for things such as photo or video editing.

Does it have integrated or dedicated graphics?

Integrated graphics are part of the motherboard chipset.

These standard graphics offerings tend to be good enough for most purposes, but for applications such as gaming and video editing you need to turn to dedicated graphics from a company such as NVIDIA or AMD.

Most Centrino notebooks come with integrated graphics, so you'll have to investigate the level of graphics that a laptop has.

NVIDIA has the Go 7 and 8 series, ATI the Mobility Radeon HD2xxx series. Lower end chips are still available, but if you want dedicated graphics, these are your best options.

What kind of screen do you want?

Ultraportable laptops usually have a 12.1-inch screen. Standard laptops will have 14.1-inch screens often, but there is a definite move towards 15.4-inch widescreen laptops, the idea being that not only do you get more screen real estate, but they're better for watching DVDs.

Larger desktop replacements are likely to have 17-inch or even 19-inch displays.

Some desktop replacements also come with a coating, which can be called something like 'ultra-clear' or 'super-bright' or 'X-Glass'.

This increases the colour contrast and quality, at the expense of making the screen very reflective.

Are all the basics there?

You need 1GB of memory for low to medium end use, but if you're thinking about video editing or gaming, get 2GB or more. Don't go for anything offering 256MB unless you know you can upgrade it.

Wireless access (Wi-Fi) is now considered an essential. Ensure your laptop has it.
Some ultraportables also don't come with DVD drives in the chassis; they're external. Is it included in the price?

Ensure that your chosen model has all the ports you need – many laptops have dispensed with FireWire. Do you need it? Consider a USB hub for more ports.

If you'll also be using the laptop for work at home or in the office, perhaps you should consider a docking station for connection to a standard keyboard, mouse and printer. It's mostly just business-orientated laptops that are compatible with docking stations, so check this when buying.

Very few laptops now have floppy drives. If you need one, buy an external USB drive such as the Iomega Floppy USB-Powered Drive.

2. Seeing what's available

You should now at least know what kind of laptop you're aiming for as well as your basic requirements. Read on for more recommendations about how to choose, but here are the best laptops that TechRadar currently recommends:

Ultraportable:
Asus Eee PC 900
MacBook Air

Gaming:
Alienware Area-51

Budget:
Acer Aspire 7720

3. Our advice

If you're after a budget laptop, price is how to choose. Set yourself a limit and stick to it.

There are now so many manufacturers competing for the £400-£500 space that deals change on a weekly basis, both online and in the high street.

After something a little more powerful? Choose on specification, but do have a price point in mind. Unless you're after an ultraportable, £700 and over will get you a very capable laptop, although you'll have to pay more for dedicated graphics.

Battery life is also something to bear in mind, so take note of the figures and check our reviews.

Many laptops also offer extended life batteries for longer usage periods. Remember what we've told you about basics – 1GB of memory is an absolute minimum.

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Redemption time for Morgan Stanley growth fund

Morgan Stanley Mutual Fund’s flagship equity scheme — the close-ended Growth Fund launched in January 1994 — is set to become open-ended from January 15, 2009.

A senior official of the fund house said the scheme would come up for redemption from next week. In line with the Sebi guidelines, existing investors will be given an option to redeem the fund at the current net asset value (NAV) without any exit load. They can remain invested or switch fully, or partially, to the only other scheme managed by the fund house, ACE.
At compounded annual growth rate of 10.6% since inception, unitholders of Growth Fund are likely to be, mildly put, disappointed. The stock does not figure in the top 10 list of best-performing funds which were launched around the same time as the Growth Fund.
It would be all the more frustrating for unitholders, considering that most of the best-performing schemes were open-ended schemes, which are prone to sharp swings in their net asset values due to sudden inflows and outflows of funds. In theory, a close-ended fund is expected to fare much better because of its stable pool of corpus.
Currently, the fund commands a net asset value of Rs 29.3, after touching an all-time high of Rs 74.1 in January 2008, when the market was at a record high. Thus, had the fund opened for redemptions then, the investors would have gained much more than what they are bound to get now.

“At best, Growth Fund can be termed as an average fund in its long history of 15 years...it will be a huge
disappointment for all initial investors,” said Value Research CEO Dhirendra Kumar. A grey market for a close-ended mutual fund scheme may sound ridiculous.

But that was the situation when Morgan Stanley launched the Growth Fund. Call it investor ignorance or pure mania, but it is unlikely that a mutual fund scheme in India will ever capture the imagination of retail investors the way IGF did at that time. Newspapers prominently displayed pictures of unending queues of investors patiently waiting to buy the form for the scheme, for many of whom it had almost become a “prestige issue”.
Unfortunately, an overwhelming number of investors had mistaken IGF for an initial public offering, whose units would list at a premium to the par value at which it had been offered. The fund quickly became an icon of disappointment when the NAV fell below par on day one.
What may have worked against Morgan Stanley was the rule at that time, which required it to invest all its funds within six months. It eventually ended up buying a lot of illiquid mid-cap and small-cap stocks.

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Tips on Configuring ADSL Modems for Broadband

Modern DSL modems by default allows you to establish a DSL link through them to provide internet connectivity. The actual connection is handled by software running on your computer. The downside is that the client side software consumes your precious CPU cycles. Also the internet connectivity of your internal network is now dependent on a particular computer being up all the time. The good news is that most (A)DSL modems can be configured to do much more to make your life easier and solve all the above problems. Modern DSL modems are like a mini-computer. They can act as a router, a gateway with NAT support, Firewall, DHCP server and also as a DSL modem. Once you connect a properly configured ADSL modem to your hub or switch, all your computers will be automatically and transparently connected to the internet with firewall protection.

It is preferable that you configure the DSL modems to establish the connection and also configure it to act as a router and gateway with NAT support. Most modern DSL modems will supports it. The DSL modems also can be configured to as a firewall. This provides a good first level protection of your internal network. You may need to configure the WAN / external ports it responds to; ideally none unless you have specific requirements to connect from outside.

Note: If you need to connect to your machines from the internet, you can configure your modem to forward the relevant port to a machine on your internal network.

Both the ADSL modems I use (from BSNL & Tata Indicom) can be configured as above. Here is how you can configure DataOne Broadband to act as firewall, gateway with NAT support and to automatically connect to internet.
Note: Here is the alternative setup for BSNL Dataone Broadband for Linux.
Tata Indicom was configured by default to act as router.

Configuring as above allows you to seamlessly use your modem on both Windows and Linux machines. You can additionally configure it to enable the built-in DHCP server which will then automatically serve IP addresses for your internal network. Consult your modems manual and your DSL connection provider for details.

With the above configuration in place, you have to just connect the modem to your hub / switch. Set all of your machines to use DHCP and set the internal modem IP (most likely 192.168.1.1; read the fine manual) as your gateway & DHCP server and you are good to go. Your machines will now be transparently connected to the internet. The modem does all the dirty work of converting your internal IP address to external IP address and route the packets appropriately in both directions.

Tip: You must change the default password for your modem. By default the modems may allow connection from the internet.

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Maruti Suzuki India announced Rate Cut

Maruti Suzuki India announced the market that it has cut prices of its vehicles between Rs 6,593 and Rs 23,187 across all models.The company like other auto manufacturers is sharing the cut with the customers.

• ‘M800′ will be cheaper by Rs 6,593 to Rs 7,516.
• ‘Alto’ will be cheaper by Rs 8,028-Rs 9,814.
• ‘Zen Estilo’ will be cheaper by Rs 11,849 to Rs 12,747.
• ‘WagonR’ will be cheaper by Rs 11,167-Rs 12,793.
• ‘DZiRE’ will be cheaper by Rs 14,699 to Rs 21,784 .
• ‘SX4′ will be cheaper by Rs 19,752 to Rs 23,187 .
• ‘Gypsy’ will be cheaper by Rs 16,326 to Rs 16,989.
• ‘Versa’ will be cheaper by Rs 11,605 to Rs 15,193 .

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Hyundai Car Announces Rate Cut

First to start the rate cuts was Maruti followed by Hyundai now , This is in response to governments cenvat rate cut.Which Auto manufacturers are sharing the saving to the customers.Hyundai today slashed the prices of all its models by up to Rs 44,792.

• ‘Santro’ would be cheaper by Rs 8,834 to Rs 12,492.
• ‘i10′, would be cheaper up to Rs 18,381.
• ‘Getz’ would be cheaper by Rs 13,413-Rs 19,422 .
• ‘Verna’ would be cheaper by Rs Rs 19,625 and Rs 26,174.
• Accent would be cheaper by Rs 15,540.
• ‘Sonata’ would be cheaper by Rs 38,006 to Rs 44,792.

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How To: Wireless Networking With BSNL DataOne Broadband On Windows & Linux

I am going to describe a simple no-brainer way to share your BSNL Dataone Broadband internet connection over wireless network. The same principles can be used with other broadband connections too. Here is what you need:
1. A normal non-wireless modem from BSNL which comes with the connection. You can also substitute it with an equivalent ADSL modem from market. Do not purchase the wireless modem from BSNL.
2. A wireless router. I successfully used Linksys WRT54G & Airlink+ routers.

First you need to connect the ethernet cable from the Broadband modem to your router. Connect it to any of the 4 available ports except the uplink port.

Connect the ethernet cable from your computer (it needs to have a ethernet card) to another port of the wireless router. Alternatively you can connect to the router over wireless. Change the IP address of your computer to 192.168.1.x and the subnet mask to 255.255.255.0. Do not specify any DNS or gateway address.

Now you can either configure your ADSL modem to automatically connect to the internet when switched on or you can use your computer to connect to the internet.

Please follow the steps to configure your ADSL modem to automatically connect to the internet in the linked article. This also automatically reconnects when the connection goes down and comes up again. In this setup all your computers will have direct access to the internet. So you should install a firewall on each computer. This is the simplest setup. The downside is that it is not as responsive to frequent connects and disconnects as you would like. It takes some time after the connection is restored to connect again.

The other alternative is to use your computer to initiate the connection. Windows users should install the accompanying software to connect to the internet. It will correctly detect the connection over a LAN or wireless connection in the above mentioned setup.

Linux users please follow the guide to connect to internet from Linux with BSNL DataOne Broadband.

In this setup you have to either setup a proxy server on the machine initiating the connection to the internet or setup a firewall cum gateway like Firestarter (Linux). I use this setup and I use Firestarter. This allows unrestricted but protected access to the internet. All the traffic is routed from the same machine so it is easy to setup firewall rules for traffic monitoring and protection.

After you are done I suggest that you read on few tips to improve your BSNL DataOne broadband speed.

Caution: I still hold to the opinion that BSNL DataOne is the world's crappiest broadband service primarily because of frequent unavailability and pratically non-existent customer support.

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Tips for optimizing your website for Google Search

Search Engine Optimization or SEO, is a method of website promotion focused on helping your website rank favorably on Internet search engines under targeted keywords and phrases that are most important to your business and your customers.
SEO is a way of making sure potential customers can find your web site. Research shows that Internet users aren’t likely to go past the first three pages - or top 30 results - of a search when searching for information on a product or service. Qualified optimization companies can work with your website content to ensure your site is visible in the top 30 results.

When your site is ready:

• Have other relevant sites link to yours.
• Submit it to Google at http://www.google.com/addurl.html
• Submit a Sitemap to Google Webmaster tools. It uses your sitemap to learn about the structure of your site and to increase the coverage of your webpages.
• Make sure all the sites that should know about your pages are aware your site is online.
• Submit your site to relevant directories such as the Open Directory Project and Yahoo!, as well as to other industry-specific expert sites.

Design and content guidelines

• Make a site with a clear hierarchy and text links. Every page should be reachable from at least one static text link.
• Offer a site map to your users with links that point to the important parts of your site. If the site map is larger than 100 or so links, you may want to break the site map into separate pages.
• Create a useful, information-rich site, and write pages that clearly and accurately describe your content.
• Think about the words users would type to find your pages, and make sure that your site actually includes those words within it.
• Try to use text instead of images to display important names, content, or links. The Google crawler doesn’t recognize text contained in images.
• Make sure that your TITLE and ALT tags are descriptive and accurate.
• Check for broken links and correct HTML.
• If you decide to use dynamic pages (i.e., the URL contains a “?” character), be aware that not every search engine spider crawls dynamic pages as well as static pages. It helps to keep the parameters short and the number of them few.
• Keep the links on a given page to a reasonable number (fewer than 100).

Technical guidelines

• Use a text browser such as Lynx to examine your site, because most search engine spiders see your site much as Lynx would. If fancy features such as JavaScript, cookies, session IDs, frames, DHTML, or Flash keep you from seeing all of your site in a text browser, then search engine spiders may have trouble crawling your site.
• Allow search bots to crawl your sites without session IDs or arguments that track their path through the site. These techniques are useful for tracking individual user behavior, but the access pattern of bots is entirely different. Using these techniques may result in incomplete indexing of your site, as bots may not be able to eliminate URLs that look different but actually point to the same page.
• Make sure your web server supports the If-Modified-Since HTTP header. This feature allows your web server to tell Google whether your content has changed since we last crawled your site. Supporting this feature saves you bandwidth and overhead.
• Make use of the robots.txt file on your web server. This file tells crawlers which directories can or cannot be crawled. Make sure it’s current for your site so that you don’t accidentally block the Googlebot crawler. Visit http://www.robotstxt.org/wc/faq.html to learn how to instruct robots when they visit your site. You can test your robots.txt file to make sure you’re using it correctly with the robots.txt analysis tool available in Google webmaster tools.
• If your company buys a content management system, make sure that the system can export your content so that search engine spiders can crawl your site.
• Use robots.txt to prevent crawling of search results pages or other auto-generated pages that don’t add much value for users coming from search engines.

Quality guidelines - basic principles

• Make pages for users, not for search engines. Don’t deceive your users or present different content to search engines than you display to users, which is commonly referred to as “cloaking.”
• Avoid tricks intended to improve search engine rankings. A good rule of thumb is whether you’d feel comfortable explaining what you’ve done to a website that competes with you. Another useful test is to ask, “Does this help my users? Would I do this if search engines didn’t exist?”
• Don’t participate in link schemes designed to increase your site’s ranking or PageRank. In particular, avoid links to web spammers or “bad neighborhoods” on the web, as your own ranking may be affected adversely by those links.

Quality guidelines - specific guidelines

• Avoid hidden text or hidden links.
• Don’t employ cloaking or sneaky redirects.
• Don’t send automated queries to Google.
• Don’t load pages with irrelevant words.
• Don’t create multiple pages, subdomains, or domains with substantially duplicate content.
• Don’t create pages that install viruses, trojans etc.
• Avoid “doorway” pages created just for search engines, or other “cookie cutter” approaches such as affiliate programs with little or no original content.
• If your site participates in an affiliate program, make sure that your site adds value. Provide unique and relevant content that gives users a reason to visit your site first.

Source :: Google Webmaster tools.

Once again I would like to stress on these points of SEO ………

• Hosting your site/blog on a reliable hosting company.(If you are using free services like blogger or wordpress.com then sooner or latter you will need those services which they don’t provide, so rather than wasting your time in those free services, spend few bucks on hosting & domain)
• Use css instead of color, size and font tags
• Change the link buttons or js links in to text links.
• Include your keywords in the alt tags of images.
• Use the H1 tag for page headings (you can alter the way h1 displays text with CSS)
• Get rid of the js in the code and put it in an external file.
• At the bottom of each page use menus as text links.
• Make sure your page code is not bigger than 100 K.
• Submit your site to ODP(make sure to select the right category), Yahoo Dir, and other free directories like gimpsy.com and goguides.org etc.
• Try to get as much as relevant links you can. For this write unique & interesting contents & use social bookmarking sites like digg.com, stumbleupon.com, netscape.com & del.icio.us.

There are many other tips and techniques to acquire higher position in google and other search engines for certain keywords relevant to the business of the website. I will soon update this list ……. have a happy SEO

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Important tips to significantly speed up your internet access through BSNL Dataone

In this article I will discuss 3 important tips to significantly speed up your internet access through BSNL Dataone broadband connection.

Tip 1: One of the major problems with BSNL Dataone Broadband connection is the DNS servers they provide by default. Most of the time they are very slow and sometimes they fail to respond. I noticed that I am starting to spend a significant amount of time in DNS resolution with Dataone connection, often it is larger than the time it takes to actually get the reponse. Here is a simple solution to significantly speed up your DNS resolution.

Open up the network connection profile and edit TCP/IP settings. In the DNS server address fields, specify the following DNS server addresses: 208.67.222.222 and 208.67.220.220
Disconnect the connection and then connect again. You are done.

This specifies third party DNS servers which are significantly faster than BSNL Dataone's DNS servers.

Note: The service is provided by OpenDNS.

Tip 2: Firefox users can use FlashBlock extension to prevent downloading of Flash content by default, thereby significantly speeding up browsing experience. You can click on the placeholder icon to display the original Flash content any time. This is more of a passive tip in that reduces data usage to improve your overall experience.

Tip 3: You can try to increase your broadband bandwidth tweaking the TCP/IP parameters. The process is simplified by using TCPOptimizer, a free tool. It helped me, your mileage may vary.

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Should You Stop Blogging?

Some Think So.

Wired has posted an already-controversial article about how blogs are "so 2004", and how services like Twitter, Facebook, and Flickr even are here to replace them. Writer Paul Boutin says:
Thinking about launching your own blog? Here's some friendly advice: Don't. And if you've already got one, pull the plug.
Writing a weblog today isn't the bright idea it was four years ago. The blogosphere, once a freshwater oasis of folksy self-expression and clever thought, has been flooded by a tsunami of paid bilge. Cut-rate journalists and underground marketing campaigns now drown out the authentic voices of amateur wordsmiths. It's almost impossible to get noticed, except by hecklers. And why bother? The time it takes to craft sharp, witty blog prose is better spent expressing yourself on Flickr, Facebook, or Twitter.

Update: Now that this article has had some time to circulate around and collect more discussion and more thought, I have to come right out and say, the notion that blogs are obsolete is a ridiculous one. There have certainly been some valuable points made about the problems with blogs, but just because there is room for improvement, does not mean that they're dead or dying.
I would even go so far as to say that they're just getting started. Yes, there is plenty of worthless content out there. I would personally say the same thing about television, but do I think television is dead as a medium? No (Granted, I do think there is some big change coming for TV courtesy of the online video revolution, but that's another discussion entirely).
One reason why blogs are in no danger of extinction, is that their content is entirely "on demand" - meaning if you don't like a blog, you don't have to read it, and you can move on to another one that you do like. You can subscribe to the ones you enjoy and get all the content you want, and if you don't like the content from one of those at any point, you can simply unsubscribe and stop reading it. If you have any complaints about a blog, then you have the choice to go elsewhere. Why is that a problem? Why would that signal the extinction? Because "elsewhere" could be Twitter or Facebook? I don't think so.

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Quillpad - Good Online typing tool for Indian Languages

Of the 22 regional languages of India, some of us can read and speak Hindi or Tamil fluently but when it comes to typing Hindi, tamil or other indian langusges on the computer, we just can’t do it even when those languages are our mother tongue and official languages of the country.

Have a bunch of excuses like we have never found any typing tutor software or was just too lazy typing Indian languages on a Qwerty style English keyboard.

So here comes Quillpad to our rescue and million other folks like us who feel more comfortable typing in English but still want to communicate in their own languages.

Quillpad is essentially an online typing tool [not a keyboard tutor] that lets you type Hindi, Telugu, Tamil, Kannada and Malayalam using simple English. Just think in your language but type in English.

There’s no need to download any software, language fonts or even buying an Indic keyboard.

Think of the text in your local language like you would pronounce it but type the same text in English and Quillpad will do the corresponding transliteration in the Indian language of your choice. Just brilliant.

If you are looking for additional languages, you may try the Microsoft Phonetic Input Tool which is still in beta but supports 13 Indian languages namely Hindi, Punjabi, Bengali, Gujarati, Tamil, Telugu, Kannada, Malayalam, Marathi, Sanskrit, Assamese, Oriya and Konkani using standard QWERTY keyboard.

Users can type text in English the way it sounds in native Language. The input text automatically appears in the native Language. It has an additional reverse Transliteration feature that converts the transliterated text back into English text to see what the typed message sounds like before sending it.

Microsoft Phonetic Input Tool works on Windows XP and VISTA platforms. Now you can also think of starting a blog in your regional language without having to download that onscreen keyboard or remembering a new set of key combinations for typing those complicated glyphs. Visit Quillpad.in for more details

Source: labnol.blogspot.com

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Best Of Mutual Funds

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The whole world is firing, SBI is hiring!

State Bank of India is one of the few companies, which is hiring. News like this is hard to come by. I just want to rejoice this moment for a while and put things into perspective. Airliners, manufacturing, IT, BPO and financial services has announced some kind of retrenchment. Even Reliance was trimming its workforce.
Banks worldwide are falling like 9 pins. US alone saw 22 banks collapse in the last 8 months. With this background, SBI’s hiring plans came as a breather. We might not be competing for those jobs but, it is good to know that our economy can create jobs when everyone else has failed. May be they were not created now but the timing is just perfect.

SBI will be hiring 4280 employees for its associate banks - Bikaner, Jaipur, Hyderabad, Mysore, Indore, Patiala and Travanore. OP Bhat, earlier announced that SBI will be recruiting as many as 25000 this fiscal. With 4 more months to go, the hiring season has just begun. I can only imagine the kind of competition these posts will have.

Digressing a bit from this - SBI is judged as the Best bank of the year 2008 by ‘The Banker Magazine’. The whole world came full circle from nationalization to privatization and back to nationalization. We all know that capitalism is the best way to create wealth faster. Recent rise of India and China is an example for that. But, would the same rule apply for banks?

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12 games you must play this Christmas

For most of the world, it's the festive season. For the games industry, it's silly season; all the big releases that have been hyped throughout the year released in one huge, bewildering rush. Only millionaires and madmen can afford all of this Winter's most notable titles, especially as they're splintered across competing platforms.

On the plus side, it means there's almost enough gaming fuel to last until next Chrimbo – it really has been a spectacular time for games. So, to help narrow down what you're going to stick on your prezzie list, here's our guide to 12 of the best games available right now.

1. World of Warcraft: Wrath of the Lich King
Formats – PC, Mac
This second expansion for the omnipresent online roleplaying game isn't just new monsters to kill and hats to wear – it also re-establishes WoW as an explorer's paradise. Full of inventive quests and spectacular sights, this is WoW as it always should have been.

2. Gears of War 2
Formats – Xbox 360
This big-shouldered shooter almost eclipses traditional Xbox golden boy Halo these days, and will inevitably be the best-selling console game of the season. It's macho men vs macho aliens in an epic war, both singleplayer and online. If nothing else, buy it so you can join in with the endless conversations about it.

3. Left 4 Dead
Formats – PC, Xbox 360
The ultimate zombie apocalypse game. It's four players against an undead horde, with teamwork and communication absolutely vital for survival. Especially in the optional eight player game – where other folk control the murderous zombies… Fresh, funny, brutal and hugely cinematic.

4. World of Goo
Formats – Wii, PC, Mac
This two-man indie might just be the game of the year. It's a gorgeous, hilarious psychics puzzler in which you build elaborate constructions out of stretchy , living Goo balls. Except that's not the half of it. Each level does something entirely new with the concept: this is a game that'll surprise and charm you anew every ten minutes.

5. Far Cry 2
Formats – PC, Xbox 360, Playstation 3
This shooter is almost entirely unrelated to the original Far Cry, but no matter: it's set in a huge, open-world slice of Africa, with you as a roaming gun for hire. It's a bit of a divisive game, not quite meeting its own ambition, but the size and freedom of the thing more than makes up for its shortcomings.

6. Fallout 3
Formats – PC, Xbox 360, Playstation 3
Another free-roaming epic, though this one's a roleplaying game set in post-nuclear Washington DC. With a 50s-meets-steampunk style all of its own and an unbelievable amount of quests, characters and sights to dig up at your leisure, it's the perfect Chrimbo timesink.

7. Little Big Planet
Formats – PlayStation 3
The most important game on PlayStation 3 thus far – Sony's troubled console finally earns its keep. The base platforming game is so-so, but that's only an entrée – the meat of LBP is a powerful but joyously simple game-building tool. Folk have already recreated the likes of Tetris and Mario with it., but that's likely just the tip of the iceberg.

8. Fable 2
Formats – Xbox 360
A sort of opposite to Fallout 3 – this laid-back RPG dials back the violence and griminess in favour of very British comedy and establishing your place in the world. Whether that's by settling down with (or divorcing) the girl/boy of your dreams, earning a fortune from property development or farting in people's faces.

9. King's Bounty: The Legend
Formats – PC
This Russian-made strategy-roleplaying game is a mad as a pig in a hat. Really, properly mad. As you'll discover when you're caught in a love triangle with a zombie and a frog, performing amateur dentistry on dragons and leading an army comprising bears, vampires, giant snakes, fairies and pirates.

10. Guitar Hero World Tour
Formats – Xbox 360, Playstation 3, Wii
The rock-centric rhythm action series escapes its traditional guitar confines for a full band setup – drums and vocals now join the strumming. It's Guitar Hero's response to Rock Band, essentially. An alternative to this is Rock Band 2, which has arguably a better track-lising but is 360 only.

11. Lego Batman
Platforms – Xbox 360, Playstation 3, Wii, PC
Despite the presence of ol'Bats, this is about as far from The Dark Knight as you can get. It's puzzle-platforming for kids and adults like, duffing up plastic supervillains while constructing escape routes and traps from nearby Legos. At its best in two-player, both of you working together to beat the levels.

12. Command & Conquer: Red Alert 3
Platforms – PC, Xbox 360
Base-building, tank-smashing real-time strategy with its tongue firmly in its cheek. Set in an alternate timeline where World War II never happened, and instead the Allieds wage war against a Tesla-powered Soviet Empire and a robot-powered Japanese legion. Fortunately it's as inventive as it is silly – its crazed alterna-tech units are a joy to play with.

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Top 10 Frustrations for eBay Sellers

An Extensive Look at the Peeves

At the beginning of the year, eBay announced some changes it was bringing in with its new CEO John Donahoe. The changes spoke of things like "Detailed Seller Ratings (DSR)" and "discounts for sellers." To some, the changes didn't sound like anything to be concerned about, but some saw through the plan and noticed other phrases in there, like "removal of bad feedback for buyers" and saw the potential for smaller businesses to be shut out. This is a notion we are seeing proven accurate months later.
BusinessWeek took a look at some real-world examples of businesses being affected by eBay's policy changes and the frustrations that have plagued sellers. WebProNews has covered such frustrations in the past as well (that also includes payment policy changes and a boycott of the site by sellers). After scouring the Internet, reading various articles and comments, and even contacting some sellers first-hand, I have put together the following list of the top ten things that sellers are frustrated with about eBay:
1. Management
2. Feedback Policy
3. Small Businesses Get Shut Out
4. Lack of Communication
5. Payment Policies
6. Fees/Lack of Profitability
7. Unwarranted Account Suspensions
8. The Buyers Themselves
9. Glitches
10. Lack of Innovation
It's hard to truly give an accurate ranking of these problems in terms of significance, and technically there is a fair amount of overlap with issues under each category. It suffices o say that they are each significant. Sellers have spoken, and these are the issues they have with eBay.
1. Management
I'm going to place management above all because, ultimately, it is where the rest of the frustrations stem from. Many of the negative comments I have read (and about 98% of those have been negative) have pointed the finger squarely at eBay CEO John Donahoe who took office shortly before these changes came about. Some noted a significant decrease in stock since he stepped in as well. In fact, a BusinessWeek reader even pointed to a petition that has been created, calling for Donahoe's termination.
2. Feedback Policy
This is really the one that is getting most eBay sellers fired up. Buyers can leave feedback on sellers, but sellers can't leave feedback on buyers. Out of the sellers that I personally contacted (that got back to me), all but one of them agreed that eBay's feedback policy, which changed in May, is their biggest frustration.
One seller responded, "Allowing buyers to give neg feedback w/o recourse. Without leverage i.e. return Negative feedback. This keeps ignorant buyers from learning how [to] work out differences - 'expressing how they feel'. Mistakes are made. Some 'new' buyers just give Neg FB w/o contacting [the] seller about exchange[s], returns or refunds." I have also seen people cite buyers' lack of understanding about shipping costs leading to negative feedback.
Another respondent said: "The most frustrating thing about selling on ebay is the complete disregard of SELLER's RIGHTS." He then directed me to this site, which is dedicated to creating awareness about eBay's policy changes, and illustrates the DSR system (pictured below). "The FEEDBACK SYSTEM Penalizes Sellers who do not have at least a 4.6 Rating in ALL 4 areas," that seller noted. "I have been selling on ebay since 2002 and have NEVER had so much trouble with them!!!" I have an excellent record & I still get LOWERED SEARCH STANDING & HIGHER FEES!! THE SYSTEM IS NOT FAIR FOR SELLERS AT ALL ANYMORE!!!"

3. Small Businesses Get Shut Out
BusinessWeek's article was about this very topic. It looked at a few small businesses that lost their ability to sell on eBay, in large part due to the feedback issue, but that is not the only thing affecting the little guys.
Another part of this is eBay's deal with Buy.com, which some people indicate is prioritizing merchandise from that site over their own. Combine that with the charges that small businesses must incur for selling through eBay, and profitability slides. There seems to be a common theme resonating among sellers, saying that eBay has basically sold out. They've gone too corporate and are no longer appealing to the little guys.

4. Lack of Communication
Another common gripe is that the company will not communicate with sellers to their liking. If sellers have problems, they get the runaround. They get impersonal automated responses via email, or low-level employees if they make a phone call. They can't get through to management. They can't appeal their suspensions (which are often considered unjustified).
Another communication flaw some have cited is that once their account is suspended, they can't even communicate with customers who may have already placed orders. This is not good for the buyer or the seller.

5. Payment Policy
Last month, eBay announced that they would no longer allow sellers to accept checks or money orders as payment. Well, sellers were not happy about this either. Most felt like that decision should be up to each individual seller. Many have chalked this up to the company simply wanting people to use eBay-owned PayPal.
Taking away options for payment can alienate some customers, and sellers know that and found the new policy unfair. eBay said they would accept PayPal, credit or debit card payments to the seller, ProPay, or "payment upon pickup" as possible payment methods. They claimed to update this policy to provide users with a more "secure checkout experience."
6. Fees/Lack of Profitability
As I said, there is a lot of overlap in these and this ties into the small businesses getting shut out problem. But many users are having a hard time justifying paying the fees they must pay to use eBay as their selling platform. Fees cut into the profits they could otherwise be making by selling directly from their own store, or from another platform that doesn't charge as much.
7. Unwarranted Account Suspensions
Apart from those who are seeing their accounts suspended based on their DSR, I have seen many claims that their accounts are deemed "security concerns" and suspended as a result, without any justification for this assessment. One person claimed their account was suspended for this reason when they had not even bought or sold anything through the site yet. They went to try to sell something, but their account was already suspended.
8. The Buyers Themselves

There seems to have been an increase in tension between buyers and sellers on eBay since their policy changes took effect. Buyers have been accused of lying to get away with cheating sellers by not paying for items while eBay does little to combat the problem. Others just don't think they can reach the right audience with eBay. They consider eBay buyers to be the type that are looking for bargains, and for those looking to sell quality products at prices that aren't necessarily discounted, will have a harder time selling those products.
9. Glitches
Some complain about technical glitches at eBay. A BusinessWeek reader mentioned a variety of them including store glitches, PayPal glitches, search glitches, DSR glitches, etc. Any company is bound to experience some hiccups from time to time, but those hiccups are going to be frustrating to users, and there's not much that can be done about that other than trying to catch such glitches before customers do.
10. Lack of Innovation
Finally, some just don't feel like eBay is doing much innovation anymore. There seems to be a general consensus that in eBay's earlier years, the company was somewhat revolutionary and appealing to anybody who wanted to get rid of some "old junk." As time has progressed, many sellers have become less impressed. eBay has made some acquisitions over the years like Skype and StumbleUpon, but these have had little if any impact on eBay the site.
In the End...
Not all eBay sellers are sitting idly by while they vent their frustrations. There have been a number of sites started dedicated to catering to those who feel cheated by eBay. Sites like Shopify, Wigix, SeeAuctions, EveryPlaceISell, and I'm sure many more. Sellers know that they have other options. Many have turned to Amazon for example, or have opened up their own eCommerce sites to sell directly.
But not everybody is anti-eBay, so let's make that clear. The one person I contacted who didn't cite feedback as their top frustration, actually said, "You know honestly there really isn't that much frustration that goes on with selling on my end. About the only part is mailing out items and them getting 'lost' in the mail. That is about it." eBay could hardly be to blame for that. This person's business didn't even appear to be particularly large.
I'm fairly certain that this person isn't alone in her opinion of eBay either. Even though many people are upset with eBay's practices, some still find it a useful place to do business and will likely carry that mentality with them into the holiday season as consumers look for good deals on gifts for their loved ones.
However, it is quite clear that the company has alienated a broad range of users. I can't imagine that all of eBay's management finds this acceptable. Will there be changes made? What will eBay do to win back customers? Or will they just continue to target new ones? What does the future hold for eBay?

This article is published here by the courtesy of webpronews.com

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