Click here to read it.

Here’s a link with funny snaps. Enjoy!

…after 4 years:

 Free 2 Mbps broadband by 2009

NEW DELHI: The government proposes to offer free, high-speed broadband connectivity to all Indians by 2009, through state-owned telecom service providers BSNL and MTNL.

While consumers will cheer it, the move holds the potential to kill the telecom business as we know it. You may have heard of free municipal broadband—many cities in the US have drenched themselves in wireless broadband connectivity, freely accessible to residents. The idea is to boost economic activity in general. The central government plans to achieve free broadband connectivity at a speed of 2 MB per second across the country, with a similar goal.

Read rest of the story here.

• TrendHunter
• Bonuses Boost Performance 10 Times More Than Merit Raises

….and then you begin to wonder!

Photo courtesy: http://www.woostercollective.com/2007/02/muhammed_muheisen.html

List is here: http://www.icrpc.org/icrpc.org.beware.htm

Myself, or someone I know, have all had bad experiences with (and they are all in the above list):

1. ICICI
2. Tata Indicom
3. Digicomp, Bangalore (sadly the only service center for many computer companies like MSI, Asus…) These guys really suck  My recent transactions with them have all been very smooth. So I give them a thumbs up
4. Viewsonic Service, Bangalore.
5. MSI India (I’ve had zillion problems with their motherboard and have had it serviced thrice. I finally contacted their Area Sales Manager Mr Vishwanath who told me to email him with his problems. I did so and that guy never even bothered to reply to my mail. Now my motherboard is dead again. What do I do with such unresponsive people?).

While I am at it, let me tell you the people with whom I, or someone I know, have had good transactions with:

1. Canon Care India (read story here)
2. Hutch (never had a problem with them here in Bangalore)
3. HDFC Bank (been dealing with them for 3 years now. I am also a heavy credit card user. Never had a problem).
4. Spicejet (flown four times with them and all pleasant trips). Recently I flew Indigo and I liked their service too. They were actually selling foodstuff inflight at M.R.P!!
5. LowePro. I know they are not an Indian company, but when I had problems with the Orion AW camera backpack, I wrote to the Product Specialist in the States and he contacted their Indian liaison office and got me a replacement. Now that is what I called customer service!
6. Amazon (again not an Indian company but I’ve had very good dealings with them).
7. Redington India - the guys who service Motorola phones. Many may not agree with me on this, but I have never had problems with them
8. Samsung service
9. Acer service, Bangalore

Came to my inbox via Satty:

Our Expectations A turtle family went on a picnic. The turtles, being naturally slow about things, took seven years to prepare for their outings. Finally the Turtle family left home looking for a suitable place. During the second year of their journey they found it. For about six months they cleaned up the area, unpacked the picnic basket, and completed the arrangements. Then they discovered they had forgotten the salt. A picnic without salt would be a disaster, they all agreed. After a lengthy discussion, the youngest turtle was chosen to retrieve the salt from home. Although he was the fastest of the slow moving turtles, the little turtle whined, cried, and wobbled in his shell. He agreed to go on one condition: that no one would eat until he returned. The family consented and the little turtle left. Three years passed and the little turtle had not returned. Five years, Six years… Then in the seventh year of his absence, the oldest turtle could no longer contain his hunger. He announced that he was going to eat and began to unwrap a sandwich. At that point the little turtle suddenly popped out from behind a tree shouting, "SEE I knew you wouldn't wait. Now I am not going to go get the salt."

Lesson Learned: Some of us waste our time waiting for people to live up to our expectations. We are so concerned about what others are doing that we don't do anything ourselves.

I think it has come at the right time. I needed this. 

You should checkout http://www.anythingbutipod.com/

Actually, the post of this title should read web hosting search blues. I have been considering moving to a different web host, mainly because of the need for more web space. There are a zillion sites offering reviews of web hosting products, and some of these reviews are indeed helpful. Here is what I have gathered after painstakingly going thro many reviews and web hosting offers:

• There are only few consistently good web hosting companies out there. Bluehost, 1&1, Siteground are some of them.
• Almost all these companies have their products similarly priced. If you see something too good to be true, then it means you have not read the fine print. One such very annoying fine print is the pricing structure. At the face of it, you may read that for $5 you are getting an amazing deal of 5GB webspace and the works. But when you read the fine print (some of which is hard to find), you’ll realize that it is $5 only if you pay upfront for 12 months. For monthly payment, the same deal would cost you $8 which is no different from what most other sites offer!
• Some sites have ’setup fees’, ‘backup fees’, ‘domain name fees’ etc. If you need to back up your site, you might have to shell out upto $24!!
• Not all sites have a standard control panel. Cpanel is on my current web host, and it is really awesome. But very few of the good hosting companies use Cpanel. With Cpanel, you generally get something called Fantastico. This neat little tool automatically installs several software via scripts. So you need not get your hands dirty installing Wordpress, Gallery and the like.

I am disappointed not to find anything below $7, and in the >1GB range. C’mon, I am never gonna use 5 GB, so why don’t you offer me something like 1GB and charge me less? If I pay $7, I may not be making the best of the 5Gb until maybe 2 years (by which time I may have a HUGE image gallery), so what’s the point in me paying for so much webspace upfront?

Nevertheless, the search is on, and I hope to stumble upon something good soon. Meanwhile, I totally love my current host and couldn’t recommend them enough for their low price products.

No, I am not a big fan of football. But my dad is. And so when he asked me to get a printout of the World Cup 2006 fixtures, I did a google and was disappointed not to find any site giving printer friendly timetables. Then I stumbled upon two interesting sites:

• BCentral (whatever that is) offers the MS Outlook Calendar compatible fixtures here.
• Excely.com offers a really cool (and smart) MS Excel file of the World Cup calendar here. You can even find out the timings in your country by choosing from a drop-down list!

Ok folks, have fun!