New blog in beautifulminds

Ever since I migrated to http://beautifulminds.in, I'vent looked to this side. wordpress is a platform that offers maximum flexibility, and that is why i left this blog here un attending, but after leaving a post on fresh new look of beautiful minds.

Barcode was invented!

Google celebrating the invention of barcode :)







Last day I received a mail explaining how to interpret these things.. I think i miss it somewhere!

A travel blog

Indian operations of the UAE Exchange have came out with a blog in their travel website. The address of that indian travel blog is blog.uaeexchangetravel.com


They have many promos and offers running in their sites! Try to grab the low cost rates for traveling in India.

Career Advantage : Grooming your career

Gillette, the world leaders in grooming business, have done a survey recently. This survey was among the HR professionals around the globe. Around 500 HR professionals took part in the survey, which was commissioned by Gillette and was conduced by Harris Interactive.
So what is that hot about it? around 84 % HR professionals responded that well groomed employees climb the corporate ladder faster than the one who doesn't care much about their looks!
90 % believe that the first impression is on the looks than that of a firm handshake. Mark Jeffries and GQ style correspondent, Brett Fahlgren were engaged by Gillette. Jeffries says that you must be prepared well in advance, even in gym, because you never know when you are going to meet your potential employer.
If you are a job seeker or a professional looking out for a better opportunity and if you need to get some career advice from Jeffries or Fahlgren you can visit Gillette Career Advantage.
I am pretty sure that this site will help you rise in your career with some of the tools available for the purpose, like the career quiz, hire guide . Gillette, the major player in grooming accessories for men have many flagship products like shaving gel, razor, shaving foam etc.
If you need more info on the survey, need expert advice ...etc. you can always visit the Gillette Resource Center. Who doesn't want to look smart?

www.vishnum.tel, a new domain, a new contact

I've added a new web address.
www.vishnum.tel.
Advantage of tel domain is that it can act as your virtual card!,doesn't need a browser to view(try it in your gprs enabled mobile device!), doesn't need any external hosting account!, ain't that beautiful?

Tiger and Elephant - a video

Just found this video of a tiger pouncing up on an elephant!
Posted coz found this interesting

HBO Store - Shop for More!

HBO Store Needs no introduction! gift him/her with a choice, ranging from comedy to drama, action to romance.

Offers a free shipping for stuffs greater than 60USD and 15% off on your next purchase if you are signing up for a news letter!

SQAGuy

Series on Basics on software testing is over. Now need to input more things that are beneficial in SQAGuy. The stat plugin is down in that.. need to restore that as well.. Busy week ahead!

Who was that anonymous caller?

Imagine a situation in which you are receiving calls at odd hours or when you are in odd situation. You are not able to respond to the same in the right way, because you don't know whether that is a total stranger or some one whom you know, trying to prank you. These annoying calls cannot be stopped as you wont be able to restrict all those numbers . The only solution before you is to uncover the identity of the person.

After a long search in the Internet for "reverse phone look up" and "annoying call tracers", I found a site called Caller Wiki. The site helps us to trace the numbers, by uncovering the faces behind them. I think the same s very useful. There is another advantage in this.. you can post about the annoying number. Like, what why when ...etc. Other users testimonials can also be read in this.. So you can make Caller Complaints or even Report Callers based on the info available from here.. so what are you waiting for? go ahead and search.

ISTQB or ...

Planning to go for ISTQB or other certifications like CTM.. haven't yet decided though!.

Perfumes...

Kerala, the place I live in is famous for the greenary, coconuts, spices and humidity. The humidity level is high in Kerala, that you sweat profusely. A perfume or a scent is a must.
I was looking around for a new perfume store to get hold of a hugo boss, and i found a lot online. I went ahead and explore the local perfume market as well. (I dint get much choice and variety there.
From CK to HB, the range we can select from online store is enormous. but the feel you get from the local store is higher than the online version coz you can try and buy in some stores. The musculine smell of HB is cool and i love wearing the same.. My wife also recommend the same.

LeapFish, Just Type It : Searching is Seriously fun

Technology is growing day by day, be it in the segmant of home, (read it as "smart" home), The automotive industry, the food sector, The consumables or in internet.
Internet is now ruling many industries. The phrases like information on fingertips, global village etc are now obsolete. The search and information from the internet is so advanced that it is even available for us even in our mobile phone.
The data like who comes from where to buy what product is critical for any business. Similar information helps us to strengthen our weak points so that, we can deliver more service.
For example, LeapFish™, the California based multi-dimensional search engine that paints the vividness of the web in a single search interface, have announced a couple or more of widgets, that can aid in search.
They are
1. Cyber home
2. The compete Ranking and
3. Yelp listing.

With billions of properties at their disposal, LeapFish.com helps us to retreive the home for rent, mortgage, for sale etc, when you key in a city, state and a real estate keyword.
Site profiles, referal statistics, search analytics, ranks, listing and more can be retreived if you are searching a domain name. The yelp, helps to retreive the local listing from around 24 cities, when you search with city, state and a local service name.
These new widgets helps them to capture more variety from the web. and helps them to integrate, real estate values, Local business listing and reviews, and web traffic analytics in its new search platform.

And I searched for San Fransisco Indian restuarants there in LeapFish: http://leapfish.com/search/results.aspx?search=san+francisco+indian+restaurants

See, the information is not in finger tips, its all in simple search tips. "Just Type It"

7210 Nokia SuperNova

I bought a phone.. Nokia Supernova Series.. the 7210. Except for the battery (am not much concerned on that aspect!) everything else works fine.. A decent phone that you can rely on!

Web Security And GFI WebMonitor 2009

Security is a major concern these days.Everyday we are hearing about networks being hacked,sites being hijacked, viruses being spread.Keeping a database of effected sites is not an easy task.Automated solutions like web filtering and web monitoring solutions are an absolute necessity for all those who are using internet today.Another issue is with the uncontrolled usage of internet and download of unmonitered data during office hours.Now a days,the practice of accessing unsolicated sites are common among childrenIn the absence of their parents,they become unable to control these kind of activities of their children and the same may lead to the physical and mental abuse of children. A safer browsing experience can be obtained by installing products like GFI WebMonitor 2009 .

Some of the features of GFI WebMonitor 2009 are ability to control thr browsing hours, updated webgrade database having more than 165 million URLs,that are black listed ,wide spread coverage of domains. According to Phil Bousfield , the GFI's VP of Product engineering, This product is a major boost to the administrators effort to block a number of sites from getting accessed. Another addon that is in GFI 2009 are the inclusion of two new reports. Top Policy breaker report to identify the people with most number of variances in the established company norms and also the bandwidth allocation report. There are provision for real time monitoring and general policy exceptions. Blocking of MSN messaging feature allows us to make sure that the company time is not spend on chatting.

If interested, you can download free trial version of the same from the GFI's website.

Recharge your BSNL mobile Online. - Direct debit/ credit cards

I was searching for a solution to recharge my mobile with Online SBI. An ya i found one. BSNL have tied up with billdesk for the same and is available in the bsnl portal for e recharge. There are options like recharge, topup and flexi charge your mobile. Go ahead and register yourselves and do the recharge. I've paid thru SBI, and many other bank's name are available. once you submit the designated amount, it got in to my account within minutes, though the sms came after 15 mins time.


Pss.. its juz 55 for the e voucher, which the vendor charges 56(paper voucher).

Cyber Security: Hack it and find it!

IT Security is a mojor concern now a days. Compromise in security means compromise in all aspects. The companies around must be more aware of the risks arise from the IT field. The saviour of the day would be an ethical hacker, who can help with the IT Security and Testing of the apps either they developed or they use. The instructor led online classes by EC-Council is some what distinct in this field. They started with iclass, a program on Ethical Hacking, trying to find out the possible security loop holes with the help of a hacker, and moved on to penetration testing, computer forensics, Disaster Recovery, Secure Programming and other security fundamental programs. being an ethical hacker have several advantage, He/she will have adequate oppurtunities and payrise even in a recession struck economy. IT security is not a game of kids, he / she will have a major role to play in this field as well. The dedicated training and training modality of EC-Council is unique. From oracle to Cisco, the companies in which the EC-Councils students are listed in the website and the list compells us to join a course. CEH exam like 312-50, helps us to be a qualified ethical hacker, and I think the best way is to enroll in an EC-Council Authorized Training Center, and get certified.

Just Thoughts!

need to take another certification in Software testing/ Software Quality assurance... Mean while am not able to update the posts in sqaguy.info Will try to update is as frequent as i can.. I think i can stop the basics of Software QA now.. will have to start with the templates now.. started writing the test template.. donno when i can finish the same.. any way.. will try...

Some other changes are in the queue.. like the adaptation of a new theme and stuffs like that!

Golf Supplies

Sports always fascinated me. Browsing through the web to find answers for those technical queries and to get knowledge, I used to get stuck with sports news and sports stuffs. One of those sports that I love is the golf(remember the film Happy Gilmore?). The big names in Golf are Tiger woods, Arnold Palmer, Jack nicklaus. The game involves Big money and its one of the most revenue generating sport for an individual.

Websites in which I used to get stuck are Golf academy and another called golf course. They are sites in German language which offers golf stuffs. That too Golfshop with branded items. Frankly I knew little German, but thanks to the translation tools available on line, I used to browse through them and get the required info.

Some useful stuffs like Nike travel Cover/ Travel bag, which provides maximum protection and functionality, with club protection system are hot items you can look for.

One of the interesting stuffs i recommended to one of my German friends were the vacation (Golf vacation ) they offered. I couldn't be in touch with her after that, so am not sure whether she utilized the same.

The package was an offer to the beginner as well as professional, with a 3 hole practice and a relaxed environment away from the tiredness of work!

Another segment was the Golf shop, in which many golf product were shown. The shop portrays golf equipments from a golf Clubs to Golf bags, golf Trolleys, Golf shoes, Golfbekleidung (Clothings), gloves, golf balls, to other golf items.

A nice and tidy search (with the Google custom search) helps us to find the right item in this site.

The site features the items by leading brands like Callaway, Cobra, Mizuno, Taylor Made, Titleist, Precept by Bridgestone ...etc. The site also featured about Golfreisen, the Golf Travel - mature and resort golf trips in Andalusia. Visit the site for more.. Time to check the latest sports News...

Web Hosting Choice: Choose your Webhost

Planning to start a website? Do you know what is going to help you move further? Its the container or the web hosting space for your pages. Have you started to collect the information about the web hosts available around you?

Before starting, here are some quick tips.

First of all, Plan your budget, yes, decide upon how much you are willing to spend on a monthly basis.

Second decide upon the technology you are using,

Third, get the list of web hosting companies.

Fourth, get an opinion on these web hosts.

Oops.. the list is never ending. and finding a good web host is really difficult as the data collected may be less than what is needed to be called accurate.

I went through the internet to find a good web host. At first I decided that I'll run my website in PHP, that too in wordpress. That means I need the database connectivity (MySQL). And it was just a blog that I write in my free time, I don't intent to pay much.

From a huge list of web hosts, its really difficult to find out the right host for me, which satisfies all my requirements. After searching the individual web hosting companies, I went ahead to check the web host ratings in the sites available. One of those sites capture my attention as it listed the web host of my choice in the front page itself :)

It was a site called web hosting choice. From fastest growing host to the most economical, it have listed almost all kinda web hosting companies.

Bug? Error? Manoramaonline

I was browsing through the manorama site and then I forgot my password.. I tried to locate the forgot password link and after a couple or more tries, by looking in to the common area where the forget link should be, I went ahead and clicked on contact link. I was in emart. After typing in the query, I clicked on send and oops.. I was presented with an error.

OS: Win XP
Agent: Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Windows NT 5.1; en-US; rv:1.9.0.8) Gecko/2009032609 Firefox/3.0.8.

WAY 2 SMS - down time?

I was trying to send a couple of SMS to my friends and BSNL server was a lil busy. So i went to way2sms a free sms provider in India and ghosh! the site was down.. donnno what happened.. it was redirecting to wwwb (instead of www)

Alexa Ranking change annoncement page : Issue

Alexa announcement page throw some error.. have you experienced the same?

New look - Alexa - Changes

I like the new look of alexa.. how about you?

The same is giving us previous dates details as well.

for more visit the alexa website

Pss.. ranking in alexa is getting difficult for beautiful minds.. may be cause its not a niche blog now.. I haven't even decided whether to keep this or to get rid of this when the time expires...

Url Shortening - make your marketing campaign easier.

When ever you do a marketing campaign or a use an affiliate link, people tends to use the link with ur affiliate id taken off. So what is the use of the same? There are some work around for things like this. For example, pointing to a page in ur site itself, which will redirect to your affiliate url, not all pages support it, (obviously PHP does). Another way is to mask your url or shorten long urls . This is relatively easy as there are a number of third party sites playing in that area and many of the services are free. One player among them is urlzoom, which helps to quickly transform your url in to a shorter one. One of the biggest headache of tracking the clicks can also be solved by using this. For this you have to register as a user in urlzoom, get your trackable tiny urls and implement the same in your site. Urlzoom will give you the data on the number of clicks received in url you have.

The statistics that urlzoom retrieves includes the date and time and refering site information, which help you to plan the marketing activity. Yes, More concentration on pages where you receive more clicks!.

Its' Hot, I mean the climate

India is burning now.. the heat of public elections and the summer make the country boil in this heat. Iused to sit in an airconditioned room and the heat is ok. But when i leave my office to catch my train, then I know what a 100 degrees is like. My friend staying in Arisona said that the climate their is just perfect. It's only about 80 degrees. A climate which i would like to enjoy this vacation. She said it is easy to find some neat and cozy Arizona homes there .We can even use the help of internet for the same. Be it the Bullhead City or the Winslow, we can enjoy the nice climate. My friend's cousins are getting relocated to Arizona by this april and they said they are trying to find the right relocation specialists who would help them with moving home.

devan !

Devadathan strikes again

here is the video of my son Devadathan.. this time he is trying to give tata to his mom...

Guest bloggers needed in SQAGuy.info

A new website is launched called SQAGuy.info. The site need some guest bloggers, who can write in project management and software Quality assurance. The information can be found out in the sqa Guy's site. The compensation will be the linking back to profile/ blog page (Pss.. no monetary compensation).






Any one interested in writing about how to bug a programmer and how not to? :)

leave a comment here with a method to contact. Else use the SQA Guys contact form

Devadathan - The drummer

Devan, was trying a hand in drums.. and here is the video...

Bangalore/ Chennai/ Delhi Expat Guides.

Bangalore, The Silicon Valley of India always lures those people who have finished their technical education. now the recent recession shaked the city a bit with the recent salary cuts, job cuts and many other cuts.

Recently I came accross something informational and that was Survival guide of an expat in Bangalore.. Yeah, the survival in bangalore is not that easy. This article seen in the web costs you around 16.99$. But woth a try.

Free Domain Names for bloggers - .us and .info.

I received a mail last day. It was an Offer. An offer to earn a free domain name.. and I found that nam dot com have started something called rapid blog, which works on the word press platform and the same is avalable for $3.99 per month if paid monthly and $1.99 per month if paid yearly.
More info can be obtained in the rapid blog section.
I think that is worth the bucks as there involves no hazzles of installation and customisations.




But I truly belive the flexibility to change will be a little restricted in these sort of accounts. More over, with these packages, they provide you domain names for free. and comes in .us and .info varients.
Choose your name and start rocking...

Gmail / googlemail error 502

I got that error message again by around 4.00 PM(IndianST) this day. The gmail error 502 Not able to sign in as well as get in to the mail.








I was able to sign in to google services but not n to the mail service.. here is a screen shot of the same.. did any one else got the same thing?

Thought for the Day

Do not worry much about the recession.. For every recession there will be a progression.. Concentrate on what you do and cruise ahead so that you will achieve the ultimate goal.

Ps. Recession have started affecting India as well.. but the gold price here is rising to record heights.. is somebody hearing that?

image: free pictures from acobox

This day I was just going through some of the articles in web relating to the Page rank domains ...etc. An article in webmarketingnow wasinteresting, as it was dealing with "High Pagerank Domain Fraud". The article deals with the issues in buying a domain and how you can detect them (pss... the easy way is info:http://sitename.com). Yeah though not mentioned the author must have been talking about the 302 redirects and google bombing and also the paid links..
Do have a look in to that article here






Phew..! Even buying a domain name is not secure now a days!

A friend - Lost for ever

We were 23 people studying MCA @ GRD Coimbatore and now our beloved Suji(Sujith) is no more.. met with an accident in Bangalore, on his way back home from work. Rest In Peace my dear.

Those days with you will be there in our heart.. those trips to Ooty, small quarrels we made, the project we have done in Kochi, those combine study sessions, those short phone calls you made to ask whether I forgot you ...

Update(Jan12): The relatives of Sujith were ready for donation of his organs and a news came in malayala manorama print as well as online editions
the same is accessible in manaroama online . (MAlayalam)


The same is in Print edition as well. Print edition is scanned. Click on the scanned image to Zoom the same. Another Article appeared in Times of India, Bangalore Edition and you can read the same in here.

Coir Industry, Alappuzha and Kochi - A round up.

The oil Managers of various petroleum companies Except HPCL are on a strike, and this is the second day. The petrol in almost all the outlets are over and they have start showing the "NO STOCK".
Who are the most affected... I think in Alappuzha it must be the coir sector. Along with the petrol issue, coir sector in Alappuzha are affected with The current Lorry strike, The small scale coir manufacturers strike, The KSEB (Kerala State Electricity Board) Norms of allocating only 80% of what is spend last year, and the recent recession (cancellation of orders from out side India).








It was CPIM District Rally last day in Alappuzha.. Biggies like Mr. Budhadev Bhattacharya, Ms. Brinda Karat etc. were in Lime light for the day. And this day, it's going to be the turn of Ernakulam. Kochi is already dipped in red. Most probably the traffic of Kochi will come to a stand still.

New home, new dreams...

We have moved.. yeah, me my wife and our little kid devan have moved to another home.. new hopes, new responsibilities and new things in life.. hope.. this will be a great experience for us...





Most of the things are now moved in .. what is left are some things that are not that important for us to start our life.

Earth quake in Kochi?

Experienced a small quake in kochi, Kerala , India? or was that my feeling? In between 11.15 AM and 11.28 AM on this day (2nd Jan 2008) i felt it more than a couple of times..









Donno,.. will wait and see the news..