Sunday, 27 October 2013

Earning from home is too hard to believe

I was looking at my newsfeed on Facebook and came across multiple sponsored facebook business pages. How often do we see such sponsored pages on FB these days? Obviously you need to shell out some money to become a sponsored logo on someone’s Facebook feed whom you don’t even know. Unless the concept is great, marketing something heedlessly is not going to be a value for money type of proposition. If you are a business then you don’t want people to like you out of fluke because apparently they just saw the link and clicked ‘Like’. You want them to like you because you really appealed them. I have seen people marketing their blogs on facebook by putting up a sponsored ad. It doesn’t cost much. Probably $5 or $10 a day and you could be part of someone else’s newsfeed. If they see the worth in having your newsfeed then they might like you and you could start building the rapport. It’s not the real yesteryears genuineness that was attached to ‘word of mouth’ publicity. ‘Word of mouth’ used to be ‘product first and propaganda later on’. Today it’s propaganda first and product later on. Nothing right or wrong in the philosophy but it’s plainly the difference of the flows for generating audience that has worked so far in the 21st century. The day is not far when your book store owner will market his new books through facebook that are specifically targeted for you. Recently you might have visited a grocery stores to buy some grocery and a few days later you receive a sponsored ad from the same store for some discounted food items. It seems bizarre but this is a 100% sure candidate for facebook marketing. In fact I think there is nothing left that can’t be marketed through facebook other than honesty in today’s times. Now coming to this whole episode of who wants me to like them on Facebook and how can I evaluate these paid sponsored links. One of the sponsored links attached some of my curiousity and I decided to check it out. It was about making money from home, something that a lot of people aspire to do but are never able to accomplish in spite of spending considerable time on the web. Realistically speaking who doesn’t want to make money by working from home for 8 hours a day. Incidentally 2 of my friends had liked the business page and I curiously asked them if they had any good experience making money from home with this website. They told me that they had no experience but felt that the site could provide them with some major inroads in doing something that they had dreamt about. After hearing their views I felt that the 1000 plus people who liked that link would have done it for the same incentive. It’s funny why people ‘like’ something on FB without actually having any experience whatsoever. It’s a different topic altogether and needs to be researched separately. However coming back to the original thread, how sensational is it for someone having a fulltime job in a preferred industry to work from home and have a secondary stream of income? It’s not always possible. I can vouch on that as you don’t get as much time to do it. I prefer to do blogging as an aspiration more than anything else. I feel dedicating that one or 2 hours on a daily basis will really help me put out my thoughts well and influence someone somewhere. Yes, some friends have taunted me saying that it seems to be my childhood problem that I am trying to get rid off but then that’s just humorously laid out by them and I don’t really take them seriously. I try and stick to my goals of writing. It’s slow but certain and I feel good once I key in those few words that exemplify my mark on the web. Although I am vocal person but unless you are a media savvy one you can’t influence many people as much. Nothing is better than writing it out because you get the liberty to express yourself and reach out to a wider world. I have never done anything with the sole purpose of earning from the web. Although I must admit that I have earned quite some in my writing ventures on different websites but that’s primarily to unleash my love towards writing. I have never tried things like working from home to earn money. Almost all times it looks too hyped to be true. 99% of the times such work from home advertisements are sheer marketing scams and nothing else. I remember one of my friends who used to do it around 3-4 years ago. Initially he got paid and was gung-ho about the entire thing. A few months later I talked to him and he said they had fooled him and not paid him in last 3 months. He said it involved a lot of fuss and tension and he needed to fight a lot to get his dues cleared off. He gave it up for a fulltime job and has been happy ever since that day. I decided to check out on the consumerlivingwell.com website as it was so well marketed on FB. The sponsored advertisement looked tempting to resist. I decided to check out the site. It looked reasonably genuine on the first biew. The layout looked simple and there was nothing jazzy about the site to suggest that it was a scam. Generally most websites that deal with money making schemes from home are flashy with a lot of advertisements and pop-ups. Obviously it was my first look after all. I must say that these days even if a particular company doesn’t exist people can create such genuine looking websites with such ease that any person can get fooled. My experience in IT helps me tackle these problems with relative ease. You first need to check google with the company name followed by words like ‘scam’ and ‘fake’.You can easily make out if the company is good or not. You can find so many reviews about anything today that to a smart surfer it’s not that tough to make out what is fake and what is not. Now apparently the site begins with the headline: “EXPOSED: Mumbai Mom Makes over Rs. 400,000 Month And You Won't Believe How She Does It! “. The title says ‘Consumer Finance reports’ with a disclaimer saying that it doesn’t belong to any newspaper publication. Vow!! Now this is a sureshot marketing gimmick to look authentic. Isn’t it? The font and presentation seems to have been adapted from some reputed newspaper. When I saw the page first, even I thought that it was some authentic newspaper site. I scrolled below to find a lot of people saying good things about the website. It tells the story of some house wife who lost her job last year and today she is able to earn around 400,000 INR per month through this site. Now that is something which will really pop up your eyes. It looks like a highly improbable claim. This is where the site starts demonstrating fakeness. How is it possible that someone who entered into this work from home arena just last year is able to make such a humongous amount in less than a year. The claim looks too tall to be believed. Now here is the thing. If someone is telling you that by working from home you can earn twice or thrice what a VP in a Bank would earn with a fulltime job and status then there has to be something wrong or dangerously fishy in the job profile. On the right hand side of the web page there is a photo of a smiling family and it obviously looks like a marketing gimmick. I faintly remember that I had seen this photo in a Bank advertisement a few years ago. Although there is no way of confirming it now but believe me I do have a fairly good memory and vision. A lot of people (almost all Indian names) seem to have entered their comments. Not a single comment is negative which makes me believe that the feedback is cooked. At the bottom of the page it says ‘Comments have been closed due to spam.’ I don’t feel that there would have been any comment entry mechanism on this page. Now here is proof of the fakeness. I saw the site on 24th May and at that time the last comment was dated 23rd May from Omkar. Today when I see it , the same comment is dated 26th May. If the comment section is closed for last 4 days how is it possible that someone entered a comment yesterday even if I were to assume that the guy enters the same text. ‘Guys don’t treat us as fools. We are watching you!!’ The site lists out the steps to be followed for making money from home and it comes with a warning saying ‘Registration Deadline is Tuesday 28th May 2012’. Please note the typo ‘2012’. 28th May could not have been a Tuesday in 2012. Anyways, it really means 2013, just that the guys managing the site are still living in 2012 or find it tiringly difficult to fix this typo. Yesterday when I saw the site it said registration deadline was 27th May. There is no probability here, they have definitely set it to be Current date +1 so that they can capture the easy scapegoats and make them feel like they need to take immediate actions before the deadline. ‘You need to be watchful and see such traps coming your way.’ If you click on the link to register on the site it asks you for details like phone number, home address and all sorts of personal details. It says that currently they are offering 50% off. Yes, there is a discount of 50% on god knows what. Probably it’s registration fees for some work that you will do from home. The site says that it comes to around 3500 odd INR after the discount. If you click on ‘close’, the site displays a prompt and the amount reduces to around 2200 INR. It’s clearly a way of trapping you into buying something that is unwarranted. I don’t believe that the site would have real people enrolled. 95% profiles ought to be fake. The rest are probably scapegoats who in a haste of making fast money entered the trap and now have nowhere to go. People on the site are claiming that they earn 7000 INR per day. It’s simply not possible even if you were to sell any affiliate products with a chunk of networking links. I am yet to hear from a genuine person who has worked from home and earned that much of bounty. My verdict is that the site is 100% fake and is only misleading people. Even if 10 or 20 people can be trapped then it’s great for them because the investment cost is hardly anything. Even facebook can’t rule out the sponsored link because apparently someone pays for it. So there is no way of knowing that the site is fake. But as a consumer we need to keep our eyes open and not trust anything that looks amazing. Here is my outlook on this entire thing called ‘Work from home and earn money’. Work from home can have various ways of doing it through genuine means. 1st is when you work on research articles and do some market research, provide data, fill up surveys and questionnaires on specific products and brands that you are aware of. Such online projects will help you earn a maximum of 10,000 INR per month and nothing more. If you are selling affiliate products on prominent genuine sites and are a person who markets stuff on Facebook and twitter then on a few lucky days you can earn a good chunk but then the probability of this happening throughout is quite low. Just imagine how you feel about someone who keeps spamming friends on facebook and twitter on different types of products. 99% of the times you will want to defriend that person. That’s a common mentality and unless you have people in your list who could be easily tamed it’s not possible. Personally I feel it’s a shameful act to market in such a manner and really shows a bad class. Even if you do market then it should be based on other’s choice and their needs. For instance, by marketing a Cell phone product on your wall page you are really beginning to look like a spammer. The ideal thing to do is to register with a cell phone community or a business page and market the product there. That way you would have targeted people who are subscribed to the community because they want to know more about it. You would be targeting consumers based on their choice and not yours. As per me, that’s much more sensible and effective marketing style. Obviously that’s my perception and will depend from person to person. Blogging and publishing articles for prominent websites is other genuine way to make money by working from home. I would categorize the rest of things in the spam and scam category and certainly a waste of time, money and your talent. Easy lucrative money making from home is not possible else their won’t have been any outdoor jobs left by now. Believe me, earning from home is possible if it’s your business and not anyone else’s. http://consumerlivingwell.com/inbo/

The mathematical Wizard Shakuntala Devi

Legendary Mathematical genius Shakuntala devi is no more. Known for her exceptional mathematical abilities Shakuntala Devi died on 21st April 2013 in a hospital in Bengalaru at the age of 83. She was admitted to the hospital following respiratory problems. She developed some heart and kidney complications and died at around 8.15 am in the morning. Shakuntala Devi was a human robot and literally overpowered computer. She found a place in the Guiness Book of world records for her extraordinary ability to solve complex mathematical problems on a fly. You could ask her just about anything and she could get you the answer within seconds. She had an extraordinary ability to find the day of any past of future year by just doing some brain calculations. In 1977 she competed with a computer to find the cuberoot of a random 9-digit number and won easily. She again beat the computer when she found the cuberoot of a 201 digit random number in just around 50 seconds. She used her strong mathematical brain to solve the problem mentally. In spite of being programmed with multiple instructions it took the computer more time than shakuntala Devi. Shakuntala Devi was born in an orthodox brahim family. Her father used to work in circus as a trapeze and tightrope performer. At the age of 3, Shakuntala devi assisted her father to perform card tricks. Her mindblowing number crunching abilities helped her to contribute immensely in some number tricks presented by her father during road shows. Later Shakuntala devi gave a number of presentations in the University of Mysore and Annamalai university. In 1980, at the age of 51 Shakuntala devi again beat the computer when she computed the multiplication of two 13-digit number in just 28 seconds. Shakuntala Devi wrote a number of books like ‘Puzzles to puzzle you’, ‘Book of numbers’, ‘More puzzles to puzzle you’, ‘Figuring: The Joy of numbers’, ‘In the wonderland of numbers’, ‘Super Memory: It can be yours’, ‘ Mathability: Awaken the Mathn genius in your child’ and ‘Astrology for you’. Many companies have used Shakuntala Devi puzzles during their interviewing process. Infosys is one of the companies that I have been in and it has used a lot of puzzles from the books of Shakuntala Devi. You get people like Shakuntala devi only once in many lifetimes. Respect to this mathematical maestro!!!

Saturday, 8 December 2012

How to reduce Traffic congestion in cities?

Traffic is major problem when it comes to big cities in India. Here we are facing a terrible situation where people can afford to buy cars and other vehicles but the infrastructure is such that we are unable to bear them on the roads. The problem starts right at the base level. The quality of road construction is really not of the standard to take the huge burden of these vehicles. To add to this the width of most of the roads is so small that vehicles are crammed for space.

Apart from the major highways which follow the western standard of the lane system there is really no structure elsewhere. When I travelled on the Mumbai-Pune Expressway the experience was amazing. Here the roads are wide enough very much like the freeways in US. Four lanes on each side make the driving experience extremely pleasing. However, if you travel via the national highway then you are bound to be disappointed. At some places you get a feeling that the road should have been tagged as one-way. Such routes result in immense traffic congestion and the time taken to move from one place to another literally kills you.

Commuting within the city is the biggest pain. People lack parking sense and parallel parking is not something that most people do flawlessly. This is not US or Europe where we hardly find anyone walking down the streets. Due to high population density the 2 feet wide footpaths give hardly any room for moving people. This results in people walking on the roads leading to bizarre views where cars need to honk to move the people. Traffic kills the incentive to travel by your own vehicle. Not only does it increase the cost of travel by eating up gas but also makes the travel extremely tiresome. I prefer trains when it comes to travelling in Mumbai.

We really need to find some solution to this problem. Road widening is one of the ways of reducing traffic. But that might not be always practical. I feel we must impose the lane system even on smaller roads. Currently Autos and bikes are the real bottlenecks for controlling traffic. You can find an auto rickshaw squeezing past in weird angles to get ahead of the traffic without any lane restriction. Severe penalties must be imposed for any lane violation. This will make it compulsory for each vehicle to respect the process.

People parking their vehicles on the corner of the road should be fined. There must be strict parking rules and guidelines otherwise there is hardly any chance that people will follow the process religiously. The administrators need to take some stern steps to enhance the quality of infrastructure.

How do you think we can reduce the traffic congestion problem in the cities?

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How to cordially avoid Shopping?

I am not a shopping person but my wife is a real shopaholic. I find it extremely difficult to control her when she is on a shopping spree. I am perfectly fine when we shop for our necessities but when it goes beyond that then it becomes a lot scary. Your entire financial budget goes for a ride. If you say that you really can’t buy something then it can prove as mega emotional blunder and leave a big frown on the face of your wife. Your entire evening can be disrupted and if things go really bad then the anguish can continue for more than 2-3 days.

How do you prevent your wife from shopping without taking a personal blow?

Here are some of the steps that I follow:

Just avoid going to the malls. These are the places where you can be guaranteed that you would be robbed indefinitely. I generally tend to make an excuse that I am having a bad stomach or I am not feeling well. If I say that I want to watch a cricket or a football match then it might prove disastrous. So make an excuse that looks genuine. The preparation for this can start a night before that. Shopping generally happens over the weekends. So Friday and Saturday nights are very critical. This is also the time when most of the EPL and Champions league games are scheduled. So you can just lie down on the bed, enjoy the games and at the same time make sure that you have the setup the stage for the next day.

This tactic might not work always. How many weeks will you do this? You need variety. Take her to a movie next week. You will spend at least 3-4 hours and that might be just enough to distract her. Movies are cheap options and you can manage that in your budget.
The following week you can take her out to an affordable restaurant. Lunch or dinner for two is not such a costly proposition. The other alternative you have is to visit a relative’s place. Wives end up spending a lot of time chit-chatting. This way you can smartly keep them away from their shopping mission. You can also tell her that we really need to clean up the house over the weekends. This can be a great option as well.

Let me know the other options that you can think about. I would love to implement the same.

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RJs have transformed Indian Radio

20 years ago radio was not the way it is now. I still remember the way music was being played. There used to be an announcer who used to broadcast in a very dull non-intuitive manner. The style used to be simple with hardly had any flavour. Probably in those days we had not yet unleashed the true potential of radio. I remember there used to be 2 main radio frequencies Vividh Bharati and Bombay B. These Audio stations were not solely for music. You could hear some stories, parodies, news and music. These were the evolutionary years and the music anchoring was not that great.

During those days it was hardly expected that these anchors would do anything more than just plain and modest style of communicating things.
When Harish Bhimani started anchoring he used a unique style that grabbed the attention of the listeners. This was probably the first time that something different was added to the art of radio anchoring. A few years later FM came into existence and the concept of Radio jockey was adopted for the first time on Indian radio.

RJ Jeeturaj really revolutionized FM radio in Mumbai. I assume sometime is 1991 the first FM radio station was launched. This radio station was obviously an uprising in history of radio. Every Sunday there used to be a 2 hour program on the top 25 Bollywood songs and the way it was anchored was something unconventional on Indian radio. The signal quality and the music output were phenomenal. You could hardly compare it with any of the AM frequency radio stations. The RJs anchored in such a way that the FM stations immediately gained a lot of popularity.

The radio jockeys need to have significant skills and talent compared to normal anchors. It is not anyone’s cup of tea to just speak for hours and hours and ensure that they provide quality and spice to their listeners. The flamboyance of speech and the amazing vocabulary of classy RJs are bound to influence most people. Whenever I drive I love to hear different RJs. RJ Sangeeta, RJ Meera and RJ Anmol are my hot favourites apart the obvious RJ Jeeturaaj.You get to hear the views on the latest topics and different types of news and reviews that makes your experience particularly enticing.

Today, RJ’s have literally transformed the radio.


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How to prevent bankruptcy?

How do you ensure that you have the required funds that are sufficient to take care of your debts and other liabilities? It’s something that you would really need to think about. Most of us are not really equipped to deal with our obligations. But isn’t that the most mandatory part of our lives that requires dealing with thorough perfection? Obviously yes!! If you protect yourself from your debts then you will surely avoid bankruptcy.

What are the different types of obligations you have that can make you bankrupt? Just imagine of a situation that you have bought a new house in a plush locality. Obviously, with the high realty prices you can’t pay all that money by yourself. You need to take a loan. Your EMIs are significant and let’s say that you need to pay $1000 EMI per month. Now if you are currently having a job that pays you $6000 per month then probably you are well-equipped to take care of your EMIs. What happens if something wrong happens to you? I am putting the most pessimistic scenario because this is where you will really need to manage the risk.

Have you made sure that you have covered this risk? What you need to do is to buy an insurance cover for your loan amount. You might need to pay a few dollars extra. But that is worth paying as it will protect your spouse and kid from an adverse uncertainty. Same thing applies if you have bought a car and are paying EMIs for it. Make sure that you have covered all your major risks. To prevent bankruptcy you don’t need to insure yourself for petty risks but term insurance is a must. Always make sure to cover your primary liabilities comprehensively in the order of their severity.

At any point of time don’t have more than 1 loan. I am always against credit card. But you can have 1 credit card which you always pay well ahead of time. This way you will significantly reduce the risk of bankruptcy.

Do you have sufficient money in your bank and have you nominated your dependents?

You might have huge money lying in your bank account. If you have not nominated anyone then no one will be able to use the money in your bank account in your absence. Make sure that you nominate your dependents so that they don’t face a herculean task getting the money from your account when they actually need it.

What are the other things that you can do to prevent bankruptcy?


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Choose for yourself the right real estate agent

If you are choosing real estate as a trading or investment option then you need to find the best possible bargain for yourself. If you have to do it all by yourself then you will need to burn the candle at both the ends. You just can’t afford to go that way if you are working somewhere. You would need to hire a quality real estate agent. The choice of real estate agents depends on your need. For instance, if you need to do an investment then you need someone who thinks more than 1 or 2 years. You will really need someone who can evaluate the real potential of your flat 5 or 10 or 20 years down the line. If you are looking plainly from trading perspective then you need a real estate agent who can give you a futuristic insight on the flat valuation from 3 to 24 months. His past predictions and sale record will help you get a better picture.

Choosing the right real estate agent is very important. These agents don’t do things for free. They get their commission from every transaction. While trading you are not looking at breaking even but you really want a good amount of profit after considering the commission. You need to choose a real estate agent you knows the locality in complete detail. He must have some good tie-ups with the builder and actual sellers to help you get the best possible deal. Typically, while trading you need a ready possession house. Your real estate agent must have great contacts. This will help you find a buyer when you plan to sell your home.

Investment is a different ball-game altogether. Investment in under-construction flats is more predominant. The primary reason is that the rates are quite low and you would be able to get a real value deal. But you just can’t trust a builder to build a house for you within a certain period of time. You must know his track record and the actual details of the plot where your flat is going to reside. The real estate agent should help you find a builder with extremely good reputation and who has all his papers and clearances in place. Preferably an agent that belongs to the particular area is the best suited for such deals.

Make sure your agent doesn’t charge you exorbitant commissions. Also, there should be ideally no charge for shortlisting prospective deals. Choose a real estate agent who really minimizes your expenses.


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How to choose your topics to write upon?

Most of us have found it very difficult to choose the correct topics to write articles. At times it becomes difficult to think what you need to write on. Everyone has certain interests and we tend to write topics based on those. The initial stream of thoughts for selecting topics is quite easy and just flows in naturally. However, after a certain point you reach a level of saturation. Beyond this it is very difficult to think about topics.

There are millions and millions of topics that might interest people. But how do you choose the right topic and the write an article that reflects your own exclusive style. This is a puzzle that I haven’t been able to decipher yet. But here are some of the pointers that help me choose my topics.

You will always excel in the areas that you have a craving for. Something that appeals you will appeal others if you have purity of thoughts and structure to put it in right place. My strategy is to depict almost all topics from my core interests. Let’s say you are a sports enthusiast. Writing something related to sports won’t be difficult. You need to find out the most common topics in the sports field. Some of them might immediately click to you. What you need to is to explore it in a bit more detail.

I am a believer in writing for myself first rather than search engines. I am not a professional writer so this strategy works best for me. Probably, if your goal is to attract masses then you need to go out of your areas of interests and explore something that historically appeals more number of people.

Saturation is dangerous. You need to find what interests other people as well. Just do a research on the web. From my findings so far, anything related to health and medicine catches more attention. Read quality stuff, derive some inspiration and phrase it in your own words. I love the natural way of doing things. Something that comes in with a lot of brain tweaking is hard to digest. So, just be natural to captivate your audience.

You really can’t afford to do it all on your own. You need to get inspired by talented writers. Check out the work of great writers. You will get motivated by their style and language. It need not be over the net. You can read books from the library as well. Reading is very important to increase the quality of your writing.

Create your own unique style and put your pen on a mission. But please don't overdo it.

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How to decorate your desk during Diwali?

Diwali is the festival of lights. These are really happy and vibrant days in our lives. You just need to make them as attractive as ever. Making your Diwali days very special and ecstatic can be done by creating an atmosphere that unleashes pious feelings. Your office is very important part of your lives. This is the place where you spend at least 30% of your time. How can you decorate your office desk? Here are some ideas that will help you.

You simply can’t miss out on Candles and lanterns in your Diwali decoration. Celebrating Diwali without these items would be not so witty. Depending on the size of your desk, get some glittering candles of different shapes. I generally prefer hand-made candles because they have various styles that ooze a lot of charm. Get a series of interconnected lamps. You can decorate the borders of your desk using these. You can also have some electric lamps that are readily. Choose nice lively colours that go with the colour of your desk.

You can either go for a single hand-made lantern or a sequence of small lanterns. The colour of the lantern will depend on your theme. Let’s say you have the ‘Go Green’ theme then you can get a string of small green lanterns. You can get some nicely embellished leaves that can be decorated on top of your desk. Diwali is the occasion when goddess Laxmi steps into your workplace and brings you immense wealth and pleasure. You can get a small idol of Goddess Laxmi and some stickers of her footsteps. Paste the stickers at some distance from the idol to get a divine feel.

You just can’t miss out on the colourful rangoli. If you don’t have the skills to create a rangoli on your own then get some stencils and use various colors to provide a great visual impact. Diwali without crackers is unimaginable. Nowadays you can get some fake crackers. These crackers operate on electricity. You can provide some rippling effects to whoever stops by your desk. I always like to decorate my desk using some paper art. You can create some good art work like the strangled boards with a lively message to captivate attention of others.

You can do a lot many things to your desk to make it look colourful during Diwali.


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Choose the right Drivers lounge for your Driver

It was a very exhaustive day at office. My work got over at 9pm and I was dead tired. The next day I had to catch an early morning flight at 5.30 am. My car driver picked me up at 9.10 pm from office and we were on our way back home. My home is 20 miles from my office. It generally takes me around an hour to reach home. I reached home at 10.15 pm. My Driver Anil stays 30 miles from my place and the Airport is nearly 25 miles away. I had not booked any cab and was relying on my driver to pick me up by at least 3 am so that I can reach the airport on time.

But where would my driver stay till that time? If my driver has to go back to his home and return then he would hardly get any time to sleep. I didn’t have enough space in my house to accommodate him. I really needed him to stay at such a place that is maximum 10 minutes away from my home. That’s when I realised the importance of a driver’s lounge. I knew of a place close to my location and immediately booked a room for my driver. He could stay there for a few hours and return at least by 3.30 am in the morning. This would not only give him some time to take rest but he could also relax in a very cosy atmosphere.

Driver’s lounge is great place for drivers. These places are typically for spending nights. If you have urgency and would need your driver early morning then you can book his stay in a driver’s lounge close to your place. Most of the times these place are available on a per hour basis. These places offer good facilities for rest including a good quality bed, hot water bath and shower. They are very affordable since they are charged on an hourly rate. Your driver would enjoy the place and would be really agile when he is back.

Make sure that you give due respect to your driver by giving him the required comfort. Choose him the right driver’s lounge near your place.

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How to do effective SEO - Part 3

Search Engine optimization has become the most imperative factor in marketing your website. You can have any type of business on the internet, unless you adapt it to SEO you would be struggling. SEO is not really a rocket science. Search engines have different algorithms and rules that help them place sites at different positions in their search results. Let’s take a practical life scenario to understand the concept. A doctor who is highly skilful in his art will get noticed by almost all people. The point here is that doctor becomes famous because his unique way of treating problems gets maximum acceptance from people. The same rule applies to SEO. If you have great exclusive content that is not a copied piece of work then obviously you will be ranked higher by search engines.

The ranking of your website is undoubtedly influenced by the quality of your subject matter. But is quality enough? Not really. What if you have a poorly designed website with fonts all over the place and unrecognizable images? Your content can’t cure your other problems. Search engines will literally put your website out of recognition. Many books of knowledge over the web say that keyword and tagging is also very important. Yes it is important because that’s the way for the search engines to recognise your core subject. But just assume that you stuffed in the same keywords 1000 times just for the heck of it assuming that your pagerank would improve. Will it really improve? Obviously not!! The search algorithms will disregard keyword stuffing after a certain point and might even completely skip your website from reckoning for hyper stuffing.

Images and videos certainly help to improve your website’s rank. But bad quality stuff will be certainly be ignored. What is the use of an image or a video if it takes ages to load? Search engines understand user psychology and get such websites out of their search results. If there are hundreds of pages where your website is backlinked then you might think that you have created a lot of web presence for your site. But hold on. Search engines are based on the latest technologies and you can’t just fool them. If your backlinks are not relevant to the context of the topic then the future of your website will be seriously impaired.

Make sure you take these things in account for successful optimization of your website.

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How to do effective SEO - Part 2

Every one of us relies on tried and tested methods when it comes to optimizing our website for SEO. They say experience matters the most. Now SEO is something that has been around for a few years. However, the way it functions and the rules which trigger SEO have changed over a course of time. I remember earlier SEO was not the way it is now. In those days, you could somehow fool the search engines to be in the top slot of the search results by doing a lot of keyword stuffing. My way of doing SEO has also evolved over the course of time.

Here are some of the pointers that I would put in my SEO cookbook.

If I am blogging or writing articles on a private blogging site then I know that I need to do a lot of work. First I need to understand the Alexa ranking of such a blogging site. You can easily find that on the web. The next thing you need to do is to find out how search engines rank different blogs from this website. To find that out, do a search on certain common keywords. For instance, if you find a comprehensive blog on the importance of Radiotherapy then go to search engines and enter the commonly used keywords for Radiotherapy. Check where your blogging website is listed. If it is not on the first page then you will really need to pour in some hard work on your blogs to bring them to the top.

How can you bring your blog to the top?

Let’s say your blog is on your tourism experience in Finland. Now first try to find out using common keywords which are the currently top ranked blogs or websites related to Finland tourism. Go and checkout their content. Verify the commonly used keywords and their density on these blogs. When you write your own blog make sure that you use your findings very well and construct it in your own language. Don’t make any spelling or grammar errors. Social networking is the key. You must publish your blog on your wall and try to market it in such a way that it develops strong fan-following. The more likes and comments would automatically improve your blog rankings. The other thing that you must do is to post a comment on some websites related to your blog topic and also mention your blog’s URL. Don’t do it any forum. Always use the correct channels for marketing your blog else you would be literally spamming. This way you can bring your blog to the top.

I will discuss about other things that I use in SEO in my next columns.

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How to choose your family doctor?

Doctors are probably our best friends because they get us cured from the most deadly diseases and health problems. But who are the best doctors? Obviously doctors gain a lot from experience. If you were to go to a doctor who is just out of a medical college and is practising in his first year then obviously the chances of he being exceptional are very rare. I am yet to fine such a rare quality doctor. The most of them I know have grown by experience and the number of patient cases they have handled.

But what are the things that you would really admire from a doctor? I think personally I admire doctors who can diagnose problems with relative easy. They must have an eye for detail and must be able to diagnose the root cause of issues just by checking your pulse and looking into your eyes. That’s wishful thinking isn’t it? Doctors are not really gods. They require a lot of tests and examinations to make sure that they get to the crux of the problem. From my personal experience, I remember only 2 quality doctors that could handle my case with sheer ease and with least possible diagnosis. I used to be assured that if I visit these doctors I would be off to work the very next day. That’s the primary quality that I look when I choose a family doctor.

The timings of the doctor must be suitable to you. I am of the firm opinion that doctors who are patient pullers are not essentially the best. For my son, I always used to visit a child specialist and majority of the times he used to prescribe the same set of medicines. These medicines used to be available only in the chemist shop opposite to his clinic. Every visit required me to pay $10. Now, I was not against that but the attitude thrown by the doctor was really unneeded. Once he asked me how many strips of tablets my son had consumed. I told him that it was as per the prescription he had provided earlier. Now the doctor got agitated and told me if I don’t know the number of strips then I should not be at his place. I was disgusted by his attitude. He really didn’t have any humility and the way he made remarks was quite disgusting. I immediately found a new doctor for my son. Humbleness and soft spoken mannerisms are 2 important qualities of a good family doctor.

So, how would you like your family doctor to be?

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How to do effective SEO - Part 1

In my last column I went through some important points for doing SEO for your websites. I want to shed more light based on my personal experience. Now writing something for SEO should not be really your primary concern. Main objective is to write on a topic that would interest people. Your topic should be very lively and interactive. They must appeal your target consumers.

Let’s take a very simple practical scenario. You have a website where you are selling different types of sports goods to people. Such websites are not really uncommon. Many businesses do it far more effectively over the internet and are able to develop some valuable customer relationships. What are the main features of such websites? The primary component is definitely the type of different goods that they have and the way they describe their products. Ideally you should have all the things that other strong businesses in your domain possess.

In fact, you should have more than just that. What you need is a unique selling point for your business. You might have the same products but you might have great online 24 X 7 customer service. You might have tie-ups for cash on delivery or you might even have something like 30 day return back with minimal fuss. Now, that’s something that you should really sell through your website. Marketing on the USP gives you more prominence for SEO because now you are one of its own types. More people search on deals and here you take the cake because of the way you sell your website.

I know plenty of websites on the web that are not particularly great in their domain. But the way they market by projecting their USP makes them high traffic creators. People like to see something interesting. All websites sell their products but if your website is going to give them an added advantage of a free home delivery or a pay cash on-delivery then users would like it because they might just want to get rid of the hassles of using a credit card.

This is one of the aspects for effective SEO. We will go through some other facets in my next columns.

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How to Start a new business on your own?

At times, I hate to do job because of the simple reason that the areas that I can cover in my job are so limited. Most of us will agree that managing a business having 25 people is tougher than managing a project having 50 people. I mean it’s a different game altogether. You just can’t compare the two. I always wondered that if I can manage 25 people in a job then can I kick start a small business consisting of 5 people. I will tell you both require completely different competencies and mind-set.

Since I am into software industry, I was thinking to get into a software business as it blended into my competencies. Now there are 2 ways of going to the public in a software business. The first one is by providing your services and the second one is by creating a software product specific to a niche. For projecting yourself as a software service provider you need to have significant skillsets and must be tuned with the latest technology. There is a lot of competition around and you are required to be a lot more competent and economical. Creating a software product is a tough way around. You really need to understand a particular business domain and then build a product that helps the business to make tasks significantly easier. The product has to be generic to the business domain.

Now how do you really start a business?

You need to understand the business dynamics and start from the base level. First find out whether you want to enter into the services or the product sector. Second, you need to understand the basic raw materials required by the sector. Technology, machinery, tools, resources and infrastructure are the most crucial parts of any business. You need to create a great business plan. This will help you to understand your base and surplus expenses for procuring the essentials. You will need to identify your risks and constraints and define a well strategized risk plan. Robust plan will help you secure a loan from a suitable financial provider. You will need to prove your concept and business idea and show its value proposition to get a loan approval. After the formalities are complete, you really need to ramp up the basic resources. You will have to take care of your operations quite effectively to succeed in any business endeavour. Hiring quality staff is a must.

These basic steps would help you to start a new business on your own.

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How to run a business successfully?

I remember during my childhood days there were two stores exactly in front our house. Both of them used to sell different types of household products. Both were of the same size and had the nearly same number of workers employed. In all probability, you could assume that both businesses would make the same amount of revenue and profit margins. You could hardly make out any difference between the 2 stores. But you could always find more customers in the first store than the other. Even my mother used to buy at the same store. I always pondered what could be wrong with the second shop?

Whenever I went to the second shop I got a feeling that the shop owner was a bit lethargic in doing things. It just felt as if he was doing a favour on his customers. His support-staff was so slack that it took them a lot of time to provide the required stuff even if there was no other customer around. You always got a feeling that the living entities in the shop were uninterested in running the business. The shop owner’s father was a great businessman but he himself lacked any PRO skills. There was literally no brightness in his shop. He used to open the shop late and close it early. There was no schedule whatsoever. On the other hand, the first shop owner was very meticulous about timings. He was extremely quick, jolly and receptive. You could ask him just about anything and he used to be back within seconds with a smile on his face. His support-staff was extremely agile and they knew exactly how to satisfy their customer. The shop owner used to offer multiple schemes on different products and made it very interesting for teenagers who flocked around him to purchase different sports goods. His amicable nature had helped him to develop sound PRO skills.

Within a few years the second shop shut down due to losses. One day all of a sudden I saw the second shop open and looking extremely lively with a lot of crowd around. I inquired with my dad and he said that the 1st shop owner had purchased the 2nd shop and had started its operations from that day. In a couple of days the entire look of the shop and had changed and people started flocking around that shop as well.

It doesn’t depend on who you are. It all depends on how you sell to make a business successful.

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Azhar- The Best Wristy Batsman ever

Mohammed Azharuddin ushered a new era in the history of Indian cricket. There have been a lot of controversies surrounding Azhar but the fact remains that he was one of the best Indian Cricket captains and the best wristy cricketer ever. I am not going to go over his numbers as you would find a lot of sites showing them. Azhar captained India from 1990-96 and then during 98-99. His artistic flamboyance with the wrists was phenomenal. He used to flick the ball with such a delicate touch and finesse that the opposition was left bewildered. His glances down the leg side were exceptional. Today, we find great players but none of them can be as Wristy as Azhar. Crickets world has never produced such wrists till date. There was no one before him and there has been no one after him.

Before Azhar we had greats like Sunil Gavaskar and Vishwanath but there was something exclusive about Azhar. He used to find the gaps anywhere in the field with amazing ease. Leg side was his favourite area and I still remember his 6 consecutive boundaries against Lance Klusener. He is probably the only person on earth to hit 3 consecutive centuries in his first 3 test matches.

I remember the Bensen and hedges series in 1985-86. He was a tremendous force with his bat as well as ball. When he used to come to bat the opposition captain had to deliberately change his tactics. I had never seen that type of aura of an Indian cricketer before Azhar. After Sunil Gavaskar and Kapil Dev he was probably one of the greats of Indian cricket. I don’t remember Azhar giving his wicket cheaply during his early days. In my mind, he was the best captain that India produced between 1970 and 2000. He used to know his players very well. I remember the 1992 Bensen and hedges series match against West Indies. We had scored a poor 125 and were able to tie against a solid West Indies side.

We really don’t know the truth behind match fixing. But Azhar was and will remain a great cricketer.

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The Outstanding RFM Marketing Strategy

The RFM model is a very innovative and standard idea that is adopted by most businesses that really need to grow. RFM stands for Recency, Frequency and Monetary. You need to have most accurate data to determine your market strategy. Ideally 1-2 years data is considered as optimum for deriving your approach. Let’s assume that you need to define the RFM model for your business.

You have the transaction data for the last 2 years. Now recency defines when was the last time that a purchase was made by a customer from your store. You can classify the customers based on their most recent purchases. This would mean the latest customer comes at the top of your recency list. The 2nd parameter is the Frequency of transactions. Who all have purchased most number of times from your store? Your 2 years data will give you the most accurate list of people who buy most often from your stores. The 3rd parameter is the monetary value of the transactions done by each customer at your store. So, if someone has spent more money than the rest then he comes automatically to the top of your ‘monetary’ list.

RFM requires you to assign a weight to each of these parameters and then calculate your most profitable, medium profitable and least profitable customers. Based on the group of each customer you will need to set a marketing strategy for them. For instance, let’s say one of your customers has done a very recent transaction of ‘Toshiba laptop’ from your stores. He might need to have a DVD player, or a laptop mouse or even a multi-media speaker. If you send such a customer an email consisting of your deals on speakers or DVD players then it is highly likely that the customer will come back to your store. So the marketing strategy for such a customer would be to send a mail on his next probably likings.

You will really need to define your marketing strategy based on the RFM score and relative to a consumer. If you use RFM effectively then most likely you will be able to drive better revenue and profit margins.

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Classic Christmas Gifts for Kids

Christmas is nearing and you would really need some good innovative gifts for your children. Now that’s probably one of the times when you really need to loosen your pockets. Christmas is a festival of joy and you really won’t want your kids to be unhappy. So what are the different gifts that you can bestow your kids? Obviously there are a lot of things but you would really like to gift something that is quite trendy yet educational. It must bring a smile on the face of your kid. The choice of the gift depends on the age-group that your kid belongs to. I am assuming that your kid is in the age-group of 5-10 years.

Here are some of my own choices from personal experience.

Boys are generally fond of cars. Gift them some classy cars that they can assemble all by themselves. I found it many malls and thought it was really worth it because your kids get to learn a lot. There are various brands that offer different ways to build cars on your own. This is very much like building blocks but you can model your own car and even regulate the speed levels. So your boys can create a truck, a luxury car or even a police van just by using the instructions in the manual. They will really love the thought that they can build and run something on their own.
If you have a girl then gift her a lovely kitchen set with multiple dolls dressed as cooks. This is again quite a trendy game and different from those old-fashioned kitchen sets. She can model the kitchen on her own. There are many such toy sets that have pioneering things where your girl can actually build a kitchen of her style and choice. She is bound to love it for sure.

If your kids are in the upper age bracket then you can gift them some mini scooters or razor ground force drifters. Most of them would love to have some mini football games, basketball hoops or various types of sports gadgets. Nintendo games like ‘I Spy castle’ and ‘Cars’ would also impress them for sure. You might also gift your kids some musical instruments like piano, Xylophone or even an Ipod shuffle to cultivate good hobbies.

5-10 years is very important period in the development of your kids. So make sure you get the right gift for your kid.

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Evergreen gifts for Diwali

The festival of lights needs to be adorned by some sparkling gifts. I have always cherished Deepawali because it gives you an opportunity to make up broken relationships. It’s a festival of love and if you want to patch up with your old friend or your ex then it is just about the right time of the year. It’s such a joyous festival that people always have a happy bias. I am not advocating this theory of making up broken relationships on diwali. But yes, I find that the chances of a reunion are at a sky high during diwali. The lighting atmosphere brings about pious feelings that somehow create an atmosphere that changes minds. It is that time of the year when people enjoy their time in a spiritual atmosphere.

So what are the gifts to help you revive your broken relationships?

There are so many things that are available in market but my preference is to have something made from your own hand. A mid-size diwali greeting card with your own touch will surely capture hearts. Decorate you card with some beautiful paintings and some artistic colour. If you are a good painter then you can add your own paintings. Write a touching message on your card so that it helps in rejuvenating the broken relationship.

Sometimes cards work much better than words. I prefer some good music to go with the card. Music should be something that blends with your relation. The idea is to gift a soothing music audio. You can also add your own customised audio message towards the end. Sweets add charm to this festival. Get some sweets that would melt in your mouth. My preference is to have some ravishing laddoos especially for diwali.

You can really provide some gorgeous diwali gifts to reunite with your old friend or ex. Select your gifts by heart and pour in your love for best results.

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