The Changing Trend

After a long time, I'm blogging directly from my mobile. Travelling in a bus now. A commericial aired on the radio attracted my attention. It was about a .com company that sells garments online.
"How many times have I seen a .com advertisement, of late?", I asked myself.
If you closely notice on televsion, you will realize how many  new online ventures have rooted in the country. These days,  there are many businesses that operate only through online, without any single retail outlet. Rewind to 2006 (just five years) and there was only a handful of companies which used the Internet as a channel to sale  their stuff.
Most of the existing business expanded themself by adding online option as an additional sales channel. With Banking being the primary one among all such, the spread of this trend across domains is suprisingly even. Travel Ticket Booking, Online Shopping are two other fields that quickly come to my mind.
I bought a book (the biography of Steve Jobs) for 550 Rs from Flipkart.com where as walking into a Landmark/Oxford store would charge me the cover price of 799. Few months back, I ordered the famous board game - "Scotland Yard" in futurebazzar.com for just 499 whereas yesterday when I noticied it's selling price to be 799 in a Mahindra Retail store. Not only do I save a significant amount of money here but also I get it delivered right at my doorstep.
Even the basic needs like groceries are now available online. Futurebazaar.com (as the name indicates) first came up with this revolutionizing concept of delivering groceries at door steps. It will be interesting to see how deep an impact this is going to make in the next five years. Give a thought about the things that you cannot order online right now. You might very well find it available in the year 2016.

It will be interesting to see if I will continue blogging till that time, and also remember writing this post!

Microsoft Outlook Cache

How many times have you opened that file attachment directly from Microsoft Outlook, worked on it for hours only to find later that you don't even know where it got saved? It happens to busy people who work on office documents like PowerPoint, Word and Excel very frequently.

When you double-click and directly open an attachement from Outlook, it temporarily saves it a directory under Temproary Internet Files. To view all such files, go to the following location:

%userprofile%\Local Settings\Temporary Internet Files\Content.Outlook

You may copy paste the above link, open RUN dialog (Windows + R), paste it and press Enter.You will be dumbfounded to see all those attached files you every opened directly through outlook.

This is a recovery option and the actual way should be saving it in a local folder and then start working on it. This works well for Windows XP users. I have not checked it for Vista/Windows 7.

The Plastic Revolution

"It will charge you an additional 5 Rs, is that fine?", the billing counter executive at the Scullers showroom politely asked me. It's a question I received quite a number of times over the past 2 months.This marks a change in another trend: Usage of plastic-made bags in India.

I have witnessed angry customer faces whenever we charged them for carry bags in my Dad's grocery shop. This happened when I was in Class X, which is around 10 years back. No one would bother if we add a rupee or two in a commodity but show up a crooked face when we charge 50 paise for it.

The idea of taking along a bag for shopping never seemed like a nice one to many. Movements from many organizations on Environment care, Green revolution have created a deep impact. From now on, when you walk into any retail store or super market, either branded or unbranded showroom, you are likely to be charged for the bags you are going to carry.

I would definitely welcome this move. Plastics are one of the major factors when it comes to ruining the environment. If we already know what is it that we are going to buy, then it makes sense to carry an appropriate bag. I have noticed many who drive to super market in their car, shop everything with a trolley, and finally move everything in the trolley to their car. No bags used!

There have been many statements of intent from the government on this subject but it was not considered with any bit of seriousness. Bangladesh was the first country to ban plastic bags in 2002. Denmark and Ireland have both experimented with taxing plastic bags. Dublin said the tax, imposed in 2002, had reduced usage by more than 95%. But here in India, the govt. keeps issuing statements, right from 1999 but I don’t see it happening anywhere. The Ministry of Environment and Forests (it’s here) introduced a new rule such as charging the customer who opt for carry bags. The intent behind charging the customer is to encourage them bring bags next time. Let’s hope everyone approaches it with a positive frame of mind, and aspire for a cleaner planet.

Prevailance of E-Mail Hacking

Tags: E-Mail hacking yahoo steve jobs laptop promotional offer scam 

Did you ever check whether that email account you opened long time ago is still active? We all have this habit creating multiple e-mail accounts and forgetting them as days progress. Only one of the account is used primarily and the other unused ids are often ignored.

If you are one such person, it is highly likely that someone is selling laptops with your email account somewhere in South Korea or Southern California. Yes, I just experienced such an incident when I logged into my Yahoo! account today morning. An old friend of mine pinged me with a "Hi..." and I responded with delight in my native language. I found his communication style odd because the first thing you would say to someone you haven't spoke to for a longer while, is "How are you?" or "Eppidi irukka vikkee?".

He shared some link and said it will get me free laptops, and that too from Apple! How on earth would a company like Apple would do something like that. I did not believe. 999/1000 promotional offers you see on the Internet are just FAKE. Don't believe them. You should only trust that which comes directly from the official website of that company. Had this link he gave redirected me to some page of Apple.com, I would have believed.

Follow the below conversation and you would know what is happening with your old unused email accounts.

A new way of Internet scam athrough e-Mail hacking

After I asked him for his address, he never responded!

The Attraction Theory

This post is about an inspiring real life story that ended in success due to a rewarding character of sincerity and honesty. It also gives a glimpse about an Attraction theory of this Universe. It's about a friend of mine who lives here in Bangalore, and loves being here. One of the Indian cities he didn't like at all is Chennai and that's where he was about to get transferred.

He was not assigned to any project here, and was waiting for one to start with. Because it took too long, it was decided that he be moved to Chennai where there are opportunities. He is requested to prepare for the interview after which he would start working from there. He had the opportunity of not preparing well and failing the interview so that he can stay back happily, but he decided otherwise. 

Deep inside him, he always wanted to be here but he prepared sincerely for the interview to justify the belief his manager had on him. One week went by, and the interview is a day away. He is all set to face it, clear it, and move to Chennai even if he is not interested. In a professional life, we have to make many compromises. I, for one, work in Bangalore but I always wanted to be in Chennai. To his surprise, it later turned out that the expected position is already filled and he need not take the interview!

That's some surprise and a welcome one for him. He did not expect it at all. By failing the interview, he will lose reputation amongst his senior managers but this being a cancellation from the client's end, that is also saved. An unwanted trip is avoided successfully. Adding ice to the cake is his new assignment to a project that started today in Bangalore. Cannot ask for anything more! It may be a mere coincidence but I noticed two things in his experience which is worth writing about:

1. If you earnestly seek something, the Universe will eventually give it. (An attraction theory I once read in a book called The Secret)
2. With sincerity and honestly, success is sure to come.