Just about anything

Black Friday Buying Guide 2010 - Shared Google Doc Spreadsheet

noreply@blogger.com (Expert) — Mon, 22 Nov 2010 13:18:06 PST

This is a spreadsheet shared on google docs to help with Black Friday shopping, I hope you will find it useful. It is a spreadsheet that lists all the major Black Friday store ads in a format that can be sorted by store, product, price, etc.

I have Shared it to Public at Google Docs so just bookmark the link below to get the latest updates since this is still being updated with more ad information as they become available.

Google Docs is amazing. The same doc can be accessed in various ways

View as Spreadsheet: Black Friday Buying Guide 2010 - SpreadSheet
View as HTML: Black Friday Buying Guide 2010 - HTML
RSS feed link: Black Friday Buying Guide 2010 - RSS

In case you want to print, PDF Version is available at: Black Friday Buying Guide 2010 - PDF

For linux users, who have open office use this link for OpenDocument Spreadsheet Format: Black Friday Buying Guide 2010 - OpenDocument

Happy Thanks Giving and Black Friday!

Finally got my first Gomez Peer Payment at Paypal

noreply@blogger.com (Expert) — Wed, 17 Feb 2010 17:29:31 PST

Patience is a virtue, and right now nobody other than me can realize it more. I have been waiting for this from several weeks and am so glad to see that Gomez Inc. does make payments to their peers.

This reminds me of a great quote from Alexandre Dumas - "All human wisdom is summed up in two words - wait and hope"

See the snapshot of email I just got from PayPal regarding a payment of $7 sent by Gomez Inc.

Just $7?

I know its not a big amount but Its for my computer idle time for few weeks which is well utilized by Gomez Inc using its Peer Program. The Gomez Peer program keep using your idle computer time while you are not using your computer but its running.

What is Gomez Peer Program
This is a Java based program which can be installed on your Windows based system. This runs in background and uses your computer idle time for its processing.

How to apply for Gomez Peer Account?

You can follow my referral link to get quick approval.

For more details about applying/approval process of a Gomez Account please check this post : Earn Money for Idle Computer time

A Comparison - Should I switch to Vonage leaving Regular Phone Service?

noreply@blogger.com (Expert) — Mon, 21 Dec 2009 18:33:23 PST

Vonage has hit hard on its competetors by introducing Vonage World Plan. Especially, amongst the Indians looking to make unlimited long distance calls to India.

The widespread use of broadband and the low prices for VoIP calls, mostly cheaper than conventional phone service, have attracted huge customer base for VOIP phones in recent past. There are still many people in USA who are using other phone providers and international calling cards.

For the people with a existing phone service (landline) the question is "Should I switch to Vonage leaving regular Phone Service?". In this post I am trying to do a comparison between VoIP & Regular phone service and bring several points to consider over one or the other.

When you are thinking about keeping a home phone these are two option which you may need to consider.

1. The Regular Home phone (e.g. ATNT,Comcast)

Pros:

- Voice quality is good.

- Availability is 99.9%, which makes it most reliable for 911 calling in case of emergency.

Cons:

- Not cheap anymore, when compared to the VOIP phones.

- International calling is too costly therefore you may need to go for an additional calling card service. (e.g. Airtel,Rebtel,Union telecard)

- Not as easily portable as VoIP phones.

2. The VOIP phones (eg. Vonage)

Pros:

- Are much cheaper for local and international calling with unlimited calling options. (e.g. Vonage World Plan comes at $24.99 a month and lets you make unlimited calls inside USA and many other countries including India.).

- VoIP is portable. Its just matter of reconnecting your VoIP adapter to internet in your new home. Some people have tried doing it outside USA as well and it works.

- VoIP services offer useful features you just can't get with a regular phone. (e.g. adding a secondary virtual number, manage your account online, receive voicemail messages via e-mail)

- Most of the providers have unlimited minutes plan.

Cons:

- Will not be available if your internet is down. This may be a big downside when you think about calling 911 in case of an emergency and phone is down due to some problem in internet.
If you have a cell phone then you may consider using it always instead of this phone.

- Voice quality may be poor as compared to regular phone service. though, this may not be always distinguishable you may suffer during high internet usage.

- Audio delays are higher then regular phone service.

- The type of broadband service used with VoIP affects your service. DSL is proven to be the most VoIP reliable method. Cable modem scored highest in call quality.

Conclusion
Its clear from above comparison that there are certain trade offs in choosing one or other service. Now that we have this comparison it makes it much easier to decide. Here are few suggestions based on the above comparisons.

If you already have a Regular phone service and want to add an extra line then you must take Vonage World plan as this is going to be much cheaper and flexible as compared to regular phone service.

If you want most reliable service to be always able to make 911 calls then go ahead with Regular phone service.

If you want to make cheaper international calls then you should consider Vonage World Plan first.

If you stay in a rented apartment and keep moving to different addresses in a few months/years then you should consider Vonage due to its extreme flexibility.
IF you are using calling cards for making international calls and your expenses are going above $25/month then you should consider Vonage as it will fix your expenses to $24.99 with unlimited international calling plan.

Recommendation for existing customers
Existing Customers who are paying $24.99/mo or more should definitely try Vonage World Plan. If you previously had unlimited USA calling plan then it will be smarter to move to World Plan at the same rate. Checkout my other post about how to switch to "Vonage World Plan"

Please share your experience and comment if this review helped you.

If you are thinking of buy Vonage plan, I recommend using my referral link(Vonage World Plan) this way we both can enjoy 2 months of free service.

10 Best Black Friday Deals/Ads You must not miss

noreply@blogger.com (Expert) — Fri, 27 Nov 2009 17:34:31 PST

Apple iPod touch 8 GB (3rd Generation) NEWEST MODEL
Garmin nüvi 205 3.5-Inch Portable GPS Navigator (Piano Black) for $89.99 at Amazon
Garmin nüvi 260W 4.3-Inch Widescreen Portable GPS Navigator
Garmin nüvi 285W/285WT 4.3-Inch Widescreen Bluetooth Portable GPS Navigator with Traffic
Digital Spectrum MF-1041 10.4-Inch Digital Picture Frame
Kodak EasyShare M1093 IS 10 MP Digital Camera with 3x Optical Zoom and 3-Inch LCD with HDTV Dock Bundle for $149.95 Free Shipping
Lamaze Jacques the Peacock
Nautica Voyage by Nautica for Men Select 3.4 oz for only $21.86
Davidoff Cool Water Eau de Toilette Natural Spray for Men
AmazonBasics USB 2.0 A-Male to A-Female Extension Cable (3.3 Feet / 1.0 Meter) [Amazon Frustration-Free Packaging]

Something is technically wrong on Twitter

noreply@blogger.com (Expert) — Fri, 13 Nov 2009 10:21:42 PST

Many users on twitter are seeing this message on Twitter. There seems to be many issues since twitter rolled out the "Retweet" feature. Twitter facing high number of errors.

Something is technically wrong.

Thanks for noticing—we're going to fix it up and have things back to normal soon.

Here is the message on twitter status blog

Working on high number of errors 1 day ago

We’ve been contending with an elevated number of errors since late last night. We’ve ruled out a number of causes of this problem but are still working to reduce the number of errors on the site.

Update (12:35p): We’re continuing to make changes and are seeing errors return to more acceptable levels.

As a action toward reducing the number of errors, twitter team has decided to disable the Retweet feature temporarily.

Retweet feature temporarily disabled 1 day ago

We’re working on a few problems related to the ongoing rollout. These should be resolved quickly and it will be back on for those who had the Retweet feature previously. And we’ll then continue the incremental rollout of this feature to everyone.

Twitter should not be rolling out any new features unless they are able to fix the reliability issues with this application. Millions of users are online using the Twitter and such issues are going to benefit other Competitors like Jaiku from Google. Jaiku provides twitter like functionality in much organized way.

One tweet I Surely don't like - Twitter is over Capacity

noreply@blogger.com (Expert) — Mon, 02 Nov 2009 16:34:12 PST

Have you seen your twitter page show like this? "Twitter is over capacity. Too many tweets! Please wait a moment and try again." Are you getting annoyed by this message? Don’t worry, you are not alone. This is certainly one of the hottest discussion in web.

Lately, Twitter has been down more than the sea level. You may have seen this more often if you have tried changing your profile picture or background picture on twitter.

What does it mean in technical terms?
How Twitter can resolve this problem?
Why Twitter is overloaded?

What does it mean in technical terms?

You are getting this message because you are being redirected to Twitter’s 503 page (Service Unavailable page).
An HTTP status code 503(Service Unavailable) indicates that twitter Web server is currently unable to handle the request because of a temporary overload or maintenance of the server.

Why Twitter is overloaded?

Many people are trying to understand "Why Twitter is having so many issues":

Here are few possible reasons we can think of

1. Scalability of underlying framework they have used (Ruby on Rails).
Too many automated users are spamming and fewer are Genuine users. Does Twitter need to put more storng limits for automated users?
Twitter has become the Short Messaging Service of the Internet. Due to its 140 characters per post, and millions of users are using it these days. This could possibly be the biggest reason.

How Twitter can resolve this problem?

Twitter needs to explore all possible options to scale up their application this could be some options like

1. Scale up and get more hardware?
2. Reduce the limit of automated tweets.
3. Act fast & hard on spammers.

I have seen this page once or twice every week on twitter & I am sure many other people are seeing this more and more. Twitter needs to find out a way to scale up their application otherwise people are going to hate it and its going to be dead in coming few months or so.

Big B Amitabh Bachchan to Host in Big Boss Season 3

noreply@blogger.com (Expert) — Thu, 10 Sep 2009 15:47:03 PDT

Last year ‘Bigg Boss’ was the most popular reality shows on Indian television. Colors TV is coming back with Big Boss 3 where Big B - Amitabh Bachchan will be seen. Amitabh replaces Shilpa Shetty who was hosting Big Boss Season 2.

Colors TV channel CEO Rajesh Kamat Says -

'After the tremendous success of ‘Bigg Boss’ last year, we want to take it to even higher levels this year – in ratings, in novelty and in appeal. With Mr. Bachchan on board, we strongly believe that ‘Bigg Boss’ this year has all the ingredients to surpass its last year’s popularity,’

Amitabh Bachchan, who has created waves in the Television industry as host of superhit game show ‘Kaun Banega Crorepati’,
is making a comeback to the small screen after a four years.

Big B's role in ‘Bigg Boss’ has been defined as that of a ‘Pop Philosopher’, which is a unique concept that will be one of the differentiators of this season.

In this role, Amitabh will bridge the gap between ‘Bigg Boss’ participants and viewers through contextualising events,
simplifying emotions as well as analysing developments that happen within the ‘Bigg Boss’ house.

"Now, the discussion will move to a dinner-table introspection level. Why were the contestants doing what they were doing... what were their motivations or thinking behind it, etc."

We needed a prophetic voice that would be heard and taken seriously. Quite frankly, if Mr Bachchan hadn't agreed, we'd have scrapped the concept of the 'pop philosopher' on the show." Says Rajesh Kamat to the press.

Vonage World Plan Review - How is Voice Quality to India calls?

noreply@blogger.com (Expert) — Mon, 02 Nov 2009 18:00:57 PST

Vonage has recently added India to the list of countries for unlimited international calls from USA. We have opted for this connection on August 20th 2009.

This is the first cut review of this plan within very short period of time (only few days) so consider this as an initial review and do not have any strong opinion about it.

This review is a comparison based on my experience with Vonage World Plan and other calling cards I tried till date.(e.g reliance india call, airtell call home, rebtel, union telecard and true roots)

Pros:

Getting the Connectivity

Voice Latency

Voice Clarity

Cons:

Voice Breaking

False Rings

Impact during heavy internet usage

Long duration calls

Recommendation for new users
My personal recommendation is to definitely try it, as Vonage provides you free service for initial 2 months and its worth giving a try. You can follow my referral link to try it.

Recommendation for existing customers
Existing Customers who are paying $24.99/mo or more should definitely try this plan. If you previously had unlimited USA calling plan then it will be smarter to move to World Plan at the same rate.

Update 1:
I have been using Vonage world plan for over a few months now and still didn't face much issues then above mentioned. There are few times when we had connectivity problem during Diwali & some other festivals. Otherwise connection quality is pretty much the same as it was during time of subscribing.

Please share your experience and comment if this review helped you.

Now Make Unlimited Calls to India - Vonage World Plan - $24.99/month

noreply@blogger.com (Expert) — Tue, 25 Aug 2009 22:16:37 PDT

Vonage has finally added India to its countries list of unlimited calling. This promotion makes Vonage as the cheapest option available for calling India right now.

Unlimited local and long distance in the U.S. and Puerto Rico

FREE unlimited calling to more than 60 other countries**, including India, Mexico and Canada

Below is the details of the World plan

Below is the list of countries you can call if you have Vonage World plan.

If you are an existing Vonage customer then you can easily switch your current plan to "Vonage World Plan". If you current plan is $24.99 or more then there will be no extra charges for switching.

Here are the steps for switching your current billing plan.

Select Billing tab.

Click on the link "Change Your Calling Plan" (Its at the right side in "Billing Features" )

Select option "Vonage World Plan - $24.99/month" and click "Select Plan & Continue" button.

A Confirmation page will be show with the order details. Confirm your order.

Done! Your Current Plan should show up as "Vonage World Plan - $24.99/month" and its should be effective immediately.

7 Reasons why overstock.com should be called OutOfStock.com

noreply@blogger.com (Expert) — Mon, 03 Aug 2009 12:41:44 PDT

Today morning, I was shopping at overstock.com and found a series of things which made me call this site a OutOfStock.com.

I am sure many of you also must have come across such out of stock on overstock. :)

'Sach Ka Samna' stolen idea from 'Moment of Truth' - Good, Bad & Ugly part

noreply@blogger.com (Expert) — Tue, 25 Aug 2009 22:07:57 PDT

The recent Indian television Show "Sach Ka Samna", which has grabbed attention of Indian media and people is based on America's old popular show 'Moment of Truth' in which Contestants answer a series of 21 increasingly personal and embarrassing questions to receive cash prizes.

In America this show is hosted by Mark Walberg and is telecasted by the Fox network. The show first premiered in America on January 23, 2008.

Indian Channel Star Plus has copied the exact same show and its called "Sach Ka Samna" (means "facing the truth" in Hindi) in which Contestants answer a series of 21 questions mostly embarrassing as they are personal in nature.
Those who pass the polygraph test become eligible to win up to Rs one crore in prize money. Rajeev Khandelwal will be seen as the host of the show.

The Good

Its astonishing to see people staggerring, crying and shiverring just to answer a few questions. The positive side of this show is emphasis on truth, which is most important part of any humon beings life. If presented well, this can be a good learning for Indian youth.

I would be really surprised to see an Indian politician sitting on this show and answering some serious questions.

The Bad

Where is originality?
As always, Why cant Indian channels try to be original in creating there own shows instead of stealing a American hit idea?
The ironi of this show is that its about truth of contestants but the channel doesnt like to be truthful & honest to their audience.

Hoopla by Media
There is a big hoopla made about it in the media, and some people think this is against Indian culture and some questions are obscene. Well, in India there are many people who worry about "Not so Important" problems.
Instead of looking into issues that are more important, and serious than spending time on a stupid daily soap.

So as always Indian Judiciary needs to waste their time on this now, which is going to give this show enough attention in media and audience. The matter was up for hearing on July 29.

"NEW DELHI: The Delhi High Court on Wednesday dismissed two petitions seeking a stay on the controversial TV show 'Sach Ka Samna', saying that moral policing is not its function."

The Contestants, who are participating are well aware of what will be asked to them, and its their personal life so why Other people wasting their time on it?

The Ugly

Questions about Sexual life
Any personal question would be more serious for India audience if its about Contestants Sexual life.
I have seen a few episodes of this show and noticed that the host are trying to ask more of such questions in the end, which can make or spoil any contestants life.

The Secret of polygraph machine
- The channel claims that "The Polygraph Machine" tells them if the answer is correct or not. And as per the format of show, they ask 50 questions in advance and decide to ask 21 out of them. That means they can always decide whether they want this person to win or not.
- I wouldn't agree that Polygraph machine is scientifically 100% accurate, so whats the basis of truth here? In a few episodes people have answered seemingly not difficult questions and the Polygraph declared them "False".
So there is not gaurantee that you being truthful may have you win 1 crore. The channel keeps the secret of winning the game with it.

Play Car Champ Online

noreply@blogger.com (Expert) — Tue, 30 Jun 2009 17:49:23 PDT

This game is really addicting!

You just need to move the Black car to the exit door.

- Click on the back of a car to move it forward.
- Click on the front of the car to move it backward.

Looks like your browser does not support iframes. Please click here

Play Hangman Online

noreply@blogger.com (Expert) — Mon, 02 Nov 2009 16:28:52 PST

Play Hangman a game of guessing the word in limited amount of chances given to you.
Every time you make a mistake one body part of the man will be hanged. You are allowed to make only 7 mistakes for guessing one word on the screen.

The game also measures the time you have taken to guess the word. So go ahead play this game and enjoy.

Don't forget to leave a comment if you like this game.

Looks like your browser does not support iframes. Please click here

Play Tetris Online

noreply@blogger.com (Expert) — Mon, 02 Nov 2009 16:30:22 PST

Looks like your browser does not support iframes. Please click here

Play Sudoku Online

noreply@blogger.com (Expert) — Tue, 30 Jun 2009 17:00:57 PDT

I always loved playing sudoku in the newspapers, here is a simple online version for you to play for free. You don't have to wait for next day to solve a new sudoku puzzle now :)

Looks like your browser does not support iframes. Please click here

Instructions for Sudoku Game:

The game is the classic sudoku game with 9*9 squares. The objective is to fill in all the squares such that, there are distinct numbers from 1 to 9 along each row, each collumn and also in each 3*3 box.

First select the difficulty and then click on generate puzzle to generate a new puzzle of the chosen difficulty.

Once you have solved a puzzle, to evaluvate the puzzle, click submit.

If you are tired solving the puzzle then you may want the computer to solve the puzzle for you, click solve.

At any point of time, if you want to clear up the boxes marked by you and the computer, click Restart.

In case you don't know much about sudoku read on...

Sudoku is a logic-based number-placement puzzle. The objective is to fill a 9×9 grid so that each column, each row, and each of the nine 3×3 boxes (also called blocks or regions) contains the digits from 1 to 9 only one time each. The puzzle setter provides a partially completed grid.
Completed puzzles are usually a type of Latin square with an additional constraint on the contents of individual regions. Leonhard Euler is sometimes incorrectly cited as the source of the puzzle, based on his related work with Latin squares.

The modern puzzle was invented by an American architect, Howard Garns, in 1979 and published by Dell Magazines under the name "Numbers in Place."

It was popularized in 1986 by the Japanese puzzle company Nikoli, under the name Sudoku, meaning single number.

It became an international hit in 2005.

Can I Earn Money for Idle Computer Processing Time?

noreply@blogger.com (Expert) — Wed, 17 Feb 2010 17:38:09 PST

I was trying to search over web if I could earn something by lending my computer at idle time.

Here is the rationale behind this, as most of you would know that modern computers are good at doing multi-tasking and many processes can be run on a simple laptop of a desktop. If you do not have computer science background than you may be surprised to know that you are still keeping your computer idle for most of the time.
If you are browsing on the internet you laptop processing takes few milliseconds and after that it sits idle. This is the reason why even after running many parallel programs you computer keeps responding on time.

If you computer is sitting idle for a longer time then you may utilize its processing using a PEER program and it can have you earn some money in idle time.
The earning may vary based on the amount of time your system is available and few other factors but its worth giving a try. Here I am trying to use Gomez as the provider for using my machine. All you need to do is a register for free with Gomez then download & install their PEER client on your machine.

If you have more then one machine then you can use all of them (if you want) and your earnings can be higher.

Here is the extract from Gomez website FAQs. Read more details about it here

How does the Gomez PEER work? What does it do with my spare capacity?

Each PEER in Gomez's network serves as a "beacon," running in the background of your PC, contributing its spare resources (such as otherwise wasted processing power, RAM, and bandwidth) to test the performance of Web sites.

What kind of computer do I need to run the Gomez PEER?

You must have an Internet connection, a 500 Mhz Pentium III or better, Windows XP, NT, 2000 or 2003 Operating System, 128 MB RAM, and 40 MB of free hard disk space. You must also have the ability to visit secured or SSL encrypted pages.

Is the Gomez PEER secure? Does it provide access to my personal files or data?

The Gomez PEER was designed with security in mind. The PEER defines a "sandbox" on your machine that sets advanced security policies to prevent unauthorized access. Also, the information passed between your machine and our server is encrypted using SSL.
The PEER does not allow access to your personal files or data. It only processes the work that is sent to it by Gomez's servers. For this reason, the PEER will not allow your computer to "catch" viruses. The information sent to the Gomez PEER is in message form (not in file form, like an e-mail attachment). Your files and privacy are not compromised by the Gomez PEER.

Can I run the Gomez PEER on more than one machine?

absolutely! You can run the Gomez PEER on multiple machines to increase your chances of earning money! Account status (Active) and System Activity determine your eligibility to earn money. Therefore, if you have multiple computers connected to the Internet, you will increase your chances of being activated and earning money. Keep in mind that you can only run one copy of the Gomez PEER on each machine and you want to make sure that you are linking all of the computers to the same Username, (account). Also, make sure that each machine has a unique "machine name" assigned during the installation process.

You can register for free to create an account with Gomez by using my referal link below

For those who are techies, the Gomez PEER client is a Java based program and has a decent user interface. The concept looks promising as they talk about testing the performance of several web sites using the power of millions of Gomez registered users.

I have recently started using it, anyone already using this please share your experiences. Also don't forget to share if there are any other options available similar to Gomez?

How to get fast approval for your account?
Well, there is no shortcut to this but you can definitely speed up the approval of account if you keep the criteria of approval in mind.

1. Machine configuration - If your machine configuration is not good then it may take longer time to get your account approved.

2. Number of machines - If you run Gomez peer on multiple machines then it is going to improve the online time and processing time for your account which is going to have your account get active faster as compared to running it on single machine.

3. Network Speed - The speed of your network will also matter therefore if you are using a wireless router then may be its a good idea to plug in the cable when your system is sitting idle. This will give Gomez a better bandwidth and your processing time would improve.

4. Get Referred - Getting referred by someone who is already approved by Gomez may also have your account approval faster.

5. Reboot your system - I have observed that sometimes the Gomez Peer program hangs and its not able to reach the server. This happens if your system is continuously running for long time. Therefore reboot your system once in a while and make sure Gomez Peer is up and running.

6. Add Gomez to your Windows Startup script - This is an option during installation of Gomez Peer but in case you have not chosen to do it you can Go to Options --> Preferences menu and select the checkbox "Launch PEER window at startup".

Updated on Feb 17th 2010: Important Tip

Even if your account is not approved you will still be eligible for referral payments. So don't lose heart if its taking too long for your account to get approved. Even if your account is in Pending status you will receive payment for all referred members by you.

Calling India? You may still be paying a lot

noreply@blogger.com (Expert) — Wed, 06 May 2009 17:17:32 PDT

There are too many offers in market when I search for calling India from US. If you are sticking to one provider then there is a possibility that you may be paying more then others. Here are few calling options, which I have personally tried and used for significant amount of time. Don't forget to share your experience with me if you are using some other providers.

Recent offer from Airtel (Airtel Call Home) ($10/month) attracted many people and now airtel has increase the offer price to $ 14.99/month and its charges of 1 cent/minute apply only when you call a mobile number in India. To landline its 2 cent/minute.

I don't feel this offer is so attractive for everyone as you have a validity of 30 days for your recharge so it will depend on your usage pattern. Several years back Airtel had lots of billing issues and many people have quit using it after that.

Rebtel (Rebtel Home) charges 2.9 cents/minute and its also a reliable provider. I have seen their billing is proper and I like the direct numbers they provide you to make calls unlike other providers where you need to call the toll free and then dial your number. Rebtel's website looks better then its competetors

Reliance indiacall (Reliance India Call Home) has also come up with recent offer of 1cent/minute, but with a recharging validity of 7 days. Which makes it dependant on usage pattern.

Union Tele card (Union Telecard Home) is another cheaper option with decent billing and reliability. Their recent charges were 2.8 cents/minute, which is competetive to all other providers.

Getting cash-back discount on eBay purchases

noreply@blogger.com (Expert) — Mon, 04 May 2009 15:32:51 PDT

I have been shopping on eBay from few years and always found some great deals on most of the products. In fact, if you go to eBay from Microsoft live.com site then you can get some great discount or Cash-back on your purchase. Make sure of doing following things -

1. Register on live.com (register for Cash-back account too). Its free!!
2. Search the product on live.com and follow the link from their site to eBay.
3. If you product is eligible for cashback then it will show a $$ image on the right side on eBay.
4. Make the payment using Paypal. (You can create a PayPal account for free. Its owned by eBay and safe for online transaction.)
5. You should receive your Cash-back within few weeks.

Read more details on eBay Cash-back

Never turn on A/C immediately when you enter the car

noreply@blogger.com (Expert) — Fri, 01 May 2009 11:06:22 PDT

You should not turn on A/C immediately as soon as you enter the car.

According to a research done, the car dashboard, sofa, air freshener emits Benzene, a Cancer causing toxin (carcinogen - take note of the heated plastic Smell in your car).

In addition to causing cancer, it poisons your bones, causes anemia,and reduces white blood cells. Prolonged exposure will cause
Leukemia,increasing the risk of cancer. May also cause miscarriage. Acceptable Benzene level indoors is 50 mg per sq. ft.. A car parked
indoors with the windows closed will contain 400-800 mg of Benzene. If parked outdoors under the sun at a temperature above 60 degrees F, the
Benzene level goes up to 2000-4000 mg, 40 times the acceptable level & the people inside the car will inevitably inhale an excess amount of the toxins.

Here is what your should do

1. Open the door and wait for some time then open the windows after you enter your car - It is recommended that you open the windows and door to give time for
the interior to air out before you enter. Benzene is a toxin that affects your kidney and liver, and is very
difficult for your body to expel this toxic stuff.

2. Turn ON the air-conditioning after windows are open for a few minutes.

Play Tic Tac Toe Online

noreply@blogger.com (Expert) — Mon, 02 Nov 2009 16:33:11 PST

Tic-tac-toe, also spelled tick tack toe, and alternatively called noughts and crosses, hugs and kisses, and many other names, is a pencil-and-paper game for two players, O and X, who take turns marking the spaces in a 3×3 grid, usually X going first. The player who succeeds in placing three respective marks in a horizontal, vertical or diagonal row wins the game.

Play here the online game of Tic-Tac-Toe with a computer

Looks like your browser does not support iframes. Please click here

Important Swine Flu Tip - Don't kiss the Pig

noreply@blogger.com (Expert) — Thu, 30 Apr 2009 09:41:19 PDT

DON'T DO THIS !!!!!

Jokes apart, swine flu has sparked widespread fear — so much so that Egypt has ordered the slaughter of the country's 300,000 pigs, even though no cases have been reported there — How easy to pin on the eponymous animal from which it emerged, but the fact is, the current pandemic is getting more then what people have thought. If pigs are to blame, so too are birds and humans.

As Wolrd Health Association communicated in their recent message, don't panic but be careful. If you are affected with this then stay at home until you get cured. Most of the incidents in US are mild so it may not be a major concern right now for USA.

Developing countries may need to keep themselves alert as this may cause more Maxico like incidents if ignored.

Read more on Swine Flu

Champions League Quarter Finals - Arsenal 1-2 Chelsea

noreply@blogger.com (Expert) — Sat, 18 Apr 2009 17:16:12 PDT

Champions League Quarter Finals - Arsenal 1-2 Chelsea

Wayne Bridge's last goal stunned Arsenal and pushed Chelsea into the Champions League semi-finals.

45 mins - Jose Antonio Reyes fired Arsenal into the lead from close range in first-half
51 mins - Lampard pounced after Claude Makelele'स long-range strike was spilled by Lehmann
	87 mins - Bridge popped up two minutes later with a classy left-foot finish after a perfect one-two with Gudjohnsen to stun Arsenal.

The squads

Arsenal: Lehmann, Lauren, Campbell, Toure, Cole, Ljungberg, Edu, Vieira, Pires, Henry (Bergkamp 81), Reyes।

Subs Not Used: Stack, Keown, Wiltord, Silva, Clichy, Kanu.

Booked: Lauren.

Chelsea: Ambrosio, Melchiot, Terry, Gallas, Bridge, Parker (Gronkjaer 46), Lampard, Makelele, Duff (Cole 82), Gudjohnsen, Hasselbaink (Crespo 82).
Subs Not Used: Sullivan, Mutu, Geremi, Huth.

Booked: Gallas, Hasselbaink, Cole.

Attendance: 35,486.

Referee: Markus Merk (Germany).

For those who don't follow soccer, here is some information.

The UEFA Champions League (usually referred to as simply the Champions League or less frequently as the European Cup) is an annual football cup competition organised by UEFA since 1955 for the top football clubs in Europe. It is the most prestigious club trophy in European football.

Dead rat in dal - Be Careful

noreply@blogger.com (Expert) — Mon, 16 Mar 2009 10:57:36 PDT

Just read this email today, please be very careful about what you buy from Indian stores ! This incident happened in New Jersey.

When I opened a new 8lbs packet of Toor Dal recently bought from a Indian Store. I took a cup of it to cook and decided to pour the rest in a canister when I noticed the black object inside, closer look revealed a whole dead baby mouse. Still in shock that how fortunate I was to have noticed it before I cooked the one cup for my children tonight, I rushed to the Indian Store to make aware of the batch number and the distributor of the SWAD brand Dal. First response was to go and take another free one,it took few minutes before we explained that it be reported seriously. We take it for granted packaged goods are checked, but a proper quality check would have caught this thing before you see it in a bag. Just remember to feel through the packet before you take home something, I know I will from today.

Here are few picture of incident.

If you don't know what is Dal, read here http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dal

Meditation can help in Crime Rate reduction

noreply@blogger.com (Expert) — Thu, 03 Sep 2009 16:28:49 PDT

I was not surprised knowing that meditation helps to reduce the crime rates. I found an official study done in Washington DC many years back, which can found here - http://www.istpp.org/crime_prevention/

Based on this study, the steady state gain (long-term effect) associated with a permanent group of 4,000 participants in the Transcendental Meditation and TM-Sidhi programs was calculated as a 48% reduction in HRA crimes in the District of Columbia.

This was also mentioned in the movie "What the Bleep - Down the rabbit hole" where they mentioned that the Washington D.C police department made fun of the projected crime rate saying that D.C will never have that type of crime reduction unless there was two feet snow in that time (June-July 93). But then they were very surprised when they saw the actual results!

It is bit unfortunate that Governments don't fund the meditation programs even after proofs like these.

India Beat Australia in Test series

noreply@blogger.com (Expert) — Tue, 11 Nov 2008 20:46:28 PST

Finally, it is time to sit back, relax and savor the victory. Waking up till 3:30/4 AM for a couple of nights at a stretch to watch a test match as intriguing as the Nagpur one .. it does not happen too often.

I, for one, feel that poetic justice has been met. I still remember Ponting's face when he adjudged Ganguly catch as being "taken fair" in the Sydney test. Truly, some justice was served when India took the one-day series. But, then this Test series win is the icing on the cake.

I have followed Ind-Aus series since the time Bedi could not beat a Kerry-Packer depleted Simpson's team in Australia, and came back losing the series 2-3 (a hard fought one). In recent times, the Calcutta match, Dravid/Laxman innings, was a beauty that ended Australia steamroller. And, now this one.

Dhoni, the man with the Midas touch, has well and truly arrived. The journey only gets tougher from here on, with the fabulous 4 on the go (sooner or later). I know folks would say that it is easy to win at home, and the real test would be to beat Aus in Australia. We almost got to that too, and will get that done too.

But for now, savor these moments.

Just about anything

Black Friday Buying Guide 2010 - Shared Google Doc Spreadsheet

Finally got my first Gomez Peer Payment at Paypal

A Comparison - Should I switch to Vonage leaving Regular Phone Service?

10 Best Black Friday Deals/Ads You must not miss

Apple iPod touch 8 GB (3rd Generation) NEWEST MODEL

Garmin nüvi 205 3.5-Inch Portable GPS Navigator (Piano Black) for $89.99 at Amazon

Garmin nüvi 260W 4.3-Inch Widescreen Portable GPS Navigator

Garmin nüvi 285W/285WT 4.3-Inch Widescreen Bluetooth Portable GPS Navigator with Traffic

Digital Spectrum MF-1041 10.4-Inch Digital Picture Frame

Kodak EasyShare M1093 IS 10 MP Digital Camera with 3x Optical Zoom and 3-Inch LCD with HDTV Dock Bundle for $149.95 Free Shipping

Lamaze Jacques the Peacock

Nautica Voyage by Nautica for Men Select 3.4 oz for only $21.86

Davidoff Cool Water Eau de Toilette Natural Spray for Men

AmazonBasics USB 2.0 A-Male to A-Female Extension Cable (3.3 Feet / 1.0 Meter) [Amazon Frustration-Free Packaging]

Something is technically wrong on Twitter

One tweet I Surely don't like - Twitter is over Capacity

Big B Amitabh Bachchan to Host in Big Boss Season 3

Vonage World Plan Review - How is Voice Quality to India calls?

Pros:

Cons:

Now Make Unlimited Calls to India - Vonage World Plan - $24.99/month

7 Reasons why overstock.com should be called OutOfStock.com

'Sach Ka Samna' stolen idea from 'Moment of Truth' - Good, Bad & Ugly part

The Good

The Bad

The Ugly

Play Car Champ Online

Play Hangman Online

Play Tetris Online

Play Sudoku Online

Can I Earn Money for Idle Computer Processing Time?

Calling India? You may still be paying a lot

Getting cash-back discount on eBay purchases

Never turn on A/C immediately when you enter the car

Play Tic Tac Toe Online

Important Swine Flu Tip - Don't kiss the Pig

Champions League Quarter Finals - Arsenal 1-2 Chelsea

Dead rat in dal - Be Careful

Meditation can help in Crime Rate reduction

India Beat Australia in Test series