The world map of December shows the relentless march of Facebook , close to reaching 600 million “residents.” At the moment appears to be the social network of choice for 115 countries on 132 analyzed .

Since June, the most important achievements were made in the old Europe and particularly in Poland and Hungary, two nations in which the competitor, respectively Iwiw and nasza-klasa, seemed unbeatable because of their connotation localist network effect achieved.

The only social network is to resist European Hyves in the Netherlands, although there are signs of difficulty (statistical, since Alex already be a loser, and social, has been sold to a major publisher and users have not taken well).

The other victories of the creature are found in Mongolia against Zuckerberg and Hi5 in India and Paraguay to the detriment of the social network of Google, Orkut, which now only remains strong in Brazil.

In recent months there has been a change to the preferences of Japanese who go to increasingly use social networking to the mobile device. Mixi while remaining the most widely used by web gives way to Gree Mobage Town and if we consider the use of mobile and total users.

The situation remains fluid in Armenia and Georgia (here Alexa report overtaking Facebook not confirmed by Google Trends for Websites).

Top 3 Social Networking Sites (December 2010)

A look over the shoulders of Facebook, you can see the growth of Twitter, which in some countries is the second Social Network (UK, Australia, Canada) and other check in the third position (Germany and Italy).  Although LinkedIn is starting to notice its presence in Australia, Canada, UK.

Below is a poster that summarizes the evolution of social networks in the world since June 2009.

This post is originally posted at VincosBlog in Italian. I used Google Translation service to translate from Italian to English. If you can able to find any error and help me to correct it, will be great.

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I am dividing all Android phones available in India to two categories, based on their price. The lower segment phones cost between Rs 10,500 and Rs 15,000, where the higher segment phones cost between Rs 22,000 and Rs 28,000.

Between Rs 10,500 and Rs 15,000:

Sony Ericsson X8

Price: Rs 13,950
Plus: Well built, decent performer
Minus: Mediocre display
A decent phone with a decent feature set, the XPERIA X8 has a very mediocre display and Android also faces issues with lag, owing to slower hardware. Overall performance is good.
LG GT540

Price: Rs 10,749
Plus: Impressive video playback
Minus: No flash support for web
The LG Optimus GT540 incorporates a neat and well organised menu interface. It is a decent performer with an impressive video playback quality. It makes a good buy at Rs 10,749.

Sony Ericsson XPERIA X10 Mini Pro

Price: Rs 14,999
Plus: Stylish compact form factor
Minus: Mediocre display
Has a small but well laid out keypad. It’s compact and well rounded device. At Rs 15,849 it’s a very nice device and for its price it even overshadows the XPERIA X10 in terms of appeal. It has a decent battery life.

HTC Wildfire

Price: Rs 13,999
Plus: Affordable
Minus: Poor display
HTC Wildfile can be looked upon as a mini Desire in terms of aesthetics. Display stands out like a sore thumb. And interface is not as nice. Due to the poor display I would not recommend this phone as there are better alternatives.

Samsung I5800 (Galaxy 3)

Price: Rs 11,795
Plus: Economically priced Android 2.1
Minus: No camera flash
Impressive features like remote file sharing and media playback etc. At Rs 11,795 it’s a great buy if you can overlook its low battery life and ordinary loudspeaker quality. It has no camera flash unit though.

Among the above phones Samsung I5800 (Galaxy 3) and Sony Ericsson XPERIA X10 Mini Pro are two good options. You even consider to buy LG GT540.

Between Rs 22,000 and Rs 28,000

Sony Ericsson XPERIA X10

Price: Rs 22,000 (I shocked when I saw the price is Rs 21,850 at eBay.in. I can’t imagine the price can get much down in a little time. It was Rs 27,000 few days back)
Plus: Great Display Size
Minus: Poor onscreen keypad
It lacks many features that may be present in other smart pones at similar price range like Flash support, multi touch, etc. The camera quality is quite good though and so is the Timescape UI.

Motorola Milestone

Price: Rs 22,399
Plus: Great Display
Minus: QWERTY keypad not beveled
Motorola Milestone is a really good phone at its reduced price of Rs 22,399. The slider hardware keypad along with a 4-inch touchscreen lends to a decent browsing experience.

Samsung Galaxy S

Price: Rs 27,999
Plus: Great display and hardware
Minus: No camera flash
Samsung Galaxy S is probably one of the most powerful and fastest Android phones that are available in India. Display is bright even from the sharpest angles, thanks to the Super AMOLED screen. Camera is poor though.

HTC Desire

Price: Rs 23,499
Plus: Stunning display and hardware
Minus: Poor battery life, tacky battery cover
HTC Desire is one of the best Android phones around. Superb display, touch interface, great hardware and some of its key points. Battery life could have been better. Sense UI adds to the over all user experience.

HTC Desire HD is out now and it costs Rs. 27499 which adds better features to HTC Desire. That can be a good choice.

In this category almost all phones are good, with some minus points. But you can choose what’s for you as per your personal preference.

Dell launched 3 Android powered smart phones: Dell XCD28 (Rs. 9,490), Dell XCD35 (Rs 15,299) and Dell Streak (Rs 29500). They are well featured products. You can consider those too.

Dell XCD28

Dell XCD35

Dell Streak

Also, if you need the cheapest (but considerable) Android phone, there is Micromax Andro A60, which costs Rs 5,500.

I have ordered Samsung Galaxy 3 yesterday. I will share my experience with it after I use it.

There are few other phones, but I don’t have any knowledge about them. So, I have not discussed them here.

Now the question is Where to buy online in India? Some of the models are cheapest in one website and some in other. There are some good website to buy these phones, compare the prices before you make any purchase. Those websites are eBay.in, Flipkart, Tradus.in and Future Bazaar.

Update

After getting suggestion from Abhishek, I checked LG Optimus One P500. This is a feature rich phone and comes under an affordable price. It has two such features, which I like most. It comes with Android 2.2 Froyo. Other phones near this price range, comes with Android 2.1 and the updates are not rolled out yet. So you will face problem, when you will try to install more apps. As Android 2.2 allows you to installed apps to your microSD card, you can install many applications without worry. So, LG Optimus One P500 solves this problem. Another advanced feature is that, this phone can work as a WiFi hotspot. It costs around Rs 12,000. It’s available at Flipkart.com, at the cheapest online price of Rs 11,999.

–
This post was originally posted at Where to buy online in India (wheretobuyonline.in) as an answer to the question “What’s the best android phone available in India and where to buy one online?

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RmKV is a very old and popular store for silk sarees in Chennai. There are few other good silk saree stores in Chennai like Nalli, Kumaran Silks, The Chennai Silks, Pothys etc. They all have very good collection on silk sarees and other sarees.

When come to shopping online on that stores, RmKV, Nalli, The Chennai Silks and Pothys have online stores, whereas online store of Kumaran Silks is under construction since years. RmKV and The Chennai Silks also have chudiar and dress materials for women, apparels for men and kids, whereas Nalli online store has only collection of sarees. Pothys online store have Churidar materials, Kutty Sarees (Sarees for kids) and Dhoties, apart from different verity of sarees. RmKV do not have only silk sarees there, they have Traditional Silks, Embroidered Silks, 9-yard Silks, Theme Silks, Embroidered Fancy, Printed Silks, Mysore Silks, Arangaetram Collection, Natural Silks, Casual Sarees, Tasar, Georgette, Raw Silk, Cot-Silk etc. Similarly The Chennai Silks have different collections other than silk sarees. Whereas Nalli online store have Bridal collection, New collections, Casual collections and Nalli Next collections. Pothys store have these variety of sarees: Samudrika Pattu, Parampara Pattu, Vastrakala Pattu, Leganga Sarees, Simmer Sarees, Embroidery Sarees, Kancheepuram Silks, Bridal Collections, Partywear Sarees, Printed Silks, Handloom Silks, Crepe Silks, Designer Sarees, Casual Wear, Micro Silk, London Georgette, Exclusive Collections.

I have a good shopping experience at RmKV. They have a large collection online than their competitors. They have delivered my order in just 66 hours (3 days).

In this post, I have only discussed about few online saree stores from Chennai. They are well known for their silk sarees, however they have good collection of other sarees. I will update about other sellers, when I will find them. If you know about any online saree stores, then let me know. Also, if you have any practical experience with any online saree stores, then let me know.

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1. Do you dare to shop online?
2. Where to buy online in India?
3. Android Phones Available in India

Few months ago, I posted on my online shopping experiences. That became the second most popular post on my blog and in few days it’ll become the most popular one. I got inspired with the popularity of this post, my wasted time on online shops and few other factors, I am planning to write few more posts since few days. But due to lack of time, I am unable to publish them. Please be in touch, I am coming with few good posts on my online shopping experiences.

I was thinking on creating a community driven Q&A website, where people can share their online shopping experiences. They can ask question, like where they can find some specific products, or whether an online shop is good to have deal with etc. And other members can reply to those questions, as per their experience. I thought, that will be a good place to turn my wasted time (Most of the time shopping online saves your time and money. But sometime you waste more time, becoming a maniac) on online shops to some useful stuff.

Once I searched a quick but good way to build such a website. After few hours of research, I stopped the process and focused on other works. But the idea was playing in my mind. Then on last Wednesday, I did some more research on this. I checked WordPress themes which can turn a WordPress blog to a Q&A website, Qhub.com, Shapado and OSQA. Later I decided to create this website on Sapado. On Thursday, I bought the domain name, created a simple and quick logo, and did all required settings. And as a result Where to buy online in India? is running.

I thank the guys who developed and running Shapado. I also thank all my friends who have asked questions there and who are going to ask few questions to provide a kick start to the website. I request you to visit the website and ask out your queries on online shopping in India. I also request you to share your online experience by answering to the questions there. I am planning to reward top contributors the website, buy sending them some gifts. So ask, answer, vote and do whatever you can to get points and badges. If you become one of the top contributors, you may receive the rewards.

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1. Online Saree Destinations in India
2. Do you dare to shop online?
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Let me start with the term Carelessness. Being a perfectionist at my job, I hate people who are careless in their job. If you think to build any website, then you will think how will be the logo or the header. So I will about the header banner of the OJEE e-Counseling application. It’s written as “e – Counselling” on the banner. See the snapshot below.

However we can forgive this mistake. This type of spelling mistake is called as FCM (Frequently Committed Mistakes) and can be ignored while evaluating.

Before few days I came to know about that this time OJEE is introducing e-Counseling. I felt happy. I know that every year many people who come from far places from Bhubaneswar complain about the distance they travel for attending the OJEE counseling. So I was happy to see the development. As booking tickets online made my life easier, I dreamed that OJEE e-Counseling will help the counseling process much easier for thousands of students and their parents. One day one of our family friend came to me and told me to fill the college choices for his son. He had done the registration in some Internet Cafe before coming to me. He suddenly blamed the e-Counseling process. But I started advocating in the for of e-Counseling. Then I entered into the application and became a eye witness how OJEE e-Counseling sucks life of people related to it.

My task was to select choices as per the preference of colleges and branches. At my left hand side of the screen, there are 380 choices – different colleges and branches. However the list is sorted alphabetically, there was an option to filter all choices (colleges) by district. There was no option to filter choices by branch. Who would be using filter by district? You don’t choose institutes as per the district where they are located. Even few people don’t know which college is located in which district. I bet even few people don’t know how many districts are there in Orissa. And you will find few people who can tell the name of all 30 districts. So the sucking rule is “Give the feature which no one will use, but don’t give the feature which every one need”.

But there is one option to sort all choices by branch. The option is located in such a place that it is near by invisible. I entered to that page many times, but just noticed it while writing this post. If you notice it then it can help you a little bit. Sort by branch code is not really helpful. Take an example: if your branch is mechanical, then those choices will be far down in the list. If you use the add button next to any choice from those with mechanical branch, then the page submits and reloads with the other branch options at top. You need to scroll again and search for the college you want to add. However you can check all the colleges and then click on “Add Multiple” button. But the option to filter the choices by branch would have awesome.

So I added all the choices to the left hand side of the screen after a long struggle. Now I have to sort it as per my preference of colleges. There are more than eighty choices which I needed to sort it by putting 1, 2, 3 so on. This was the toughest job, even tougher that coding a complex part of any web application. And if you missed a number while assigning a preference number to it, then while saving it, it will not allow you to save due to validation process. And to find where you made the mistake may make you cry. It happened to me and I quickly applied a formula to find out where I made the mistake, like I do to search for a bug. And it helped me and I able to find the missed number. I got lucky, otherwise God knows how much time I had to spend to find the little mistake.

On the second day, I wanted to bring the number 42 to number 1. One might guess that it’s an easy job and can be done by few clicks. But my friend it was never that easy. The validation process made it much difficult. Normally we have validation process to make life easier, for both the application and the user. But here the validation process sucks. It makes your life much harder. So to bring number 42 to 1, I had to remove all numbers from number 1 to 42. Then I have to assign number one to the old number 42. Then type other numbers (2 to 41) to other choices. This requirement was simple, so I did not cried. But imagine if you have to make many alteration to the sequence of choices, then you are dead.

If they could have added drag and drop to sort feature, then it must have much easier to sort all choices as per our preference. And adding such feature is very easy, using jQuery or any other popular Ajax framework. Who knows, people at NIC know jQuery and AJAX or not? WordPress does not have option to order the pages using drag and drop. Instead there is an option to put a number to order the page. You assign any number and it’ll allow you to sort accordingly and without any problem. I also remember, when I was working on my first PHP project, we have done something similar to sort all videos of anyone’s channel. We are allowing any number to place there.

I have talked much about few stuffs on a single page. There are many pages which I have not used. And if I will start writing about those, then it’ll end with writing a book. But let me tell you the most sucking part of this application. The session expires too quickly that when you are busy with selecting choices to add multiple choices or assigning a number to order them according to your preference, the session expires. And after all those hard work, when you submit the page, you will find all your hard work goes in vein. You have to do those hard work again, but you are unsure whether it’ll work that time or again the session will expire. As I am a web application developer and understand how the session works, so I opened another page of the website and kept it reloading in few intervals. Which kept my session alive, while I was working hard on another page. Guess if a normal person will face this issue, what will happen? I wonder how people at NIC tested this.

Now let me talk about how this e-counseling is bad for thousands of students and their parents? There is not much access to Internet in rural parts of India. How a normal person (aam admi – mango people) from a rural area will take this opportunity of e-counseling? I don’t know whether Govt. of Orissa or NIC made any arrangement for this. The person who asked me to do all these stuff told me that almost everyone is facing issue with this e-counseling. He also mentioned the OJEE officials also facing problem to use another part of this application. If this is how a NIC web application works, then I will undoubtedly say NIC Sucks.

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I always say “I proud to be an Indian”, “I love my India” etc. I don’t find enough reason to justify what I say. My question to those people, who ask why should they proud to be an Indian or why should they love India: “Do you find reasons to love your mother?”. So no need to find any reasons to justify your love to your nation. In this post I will focus on some points which an (or every) Indian should. If people will follow these rules, then a day will come, those people who think they should not be an Indian will feel ashamed.

No Indian should spit on road, on corners of public or private offices, or any public or others private places. The only place they should spit is a trash bin or special spit boxes or on a wash basin. If you are spiting on a wash basin, then please run the water to clean it. What’s the main reason of an Indian’s spit so much and anywhere they want. Because they eat paan and gutkha (a tobacco product). Eating paan without tobacco is not bad. This is a part of our culture. So we can’t ask people to stop eating paan. Instead we (means our govt.) should make arrangements, so that people can spit at the right place. I don’t eat paan. But when I have a cough, I always look for a suitable place to spit it. I don’t spit it on everywhere. And I understand difficulty of finding a suitable place to spit. By the way, why there is no law against spitting on public places, like smoking in the public spaces?

No Indian should litter on everywhere. In India, most of the place look like a litter graveyard. Road to train, everywhere people litter without thinking for a second. Some people don’t use litter box where available, just put their waste anywhere. And sometimes I find difficulty to find a litter box to dispose my waste. Why there is not enough litter boxes everywhere? By the way, why there is no law against litter on public places?

There are many such small but serious activities not to be done by any Indian. If I will write one by one, then the post will be much longer and no one will read this. But why people do what they should not do. Nothing will change by this post. Most of the people who do those activities will never read this post. So, what should we do? We should educate them. This is something which will change India. How many people educate their children not to spit or litter on public places. Instead those people do all the wrong activities in front of their children. If you ask why are you doing this wrong stuff, the answer may come like these: “What’s your problem?”, “What’s wrong with this?”, “Everyone is doing this, will you stop them?” etc. Still we have to stop them and educate them. Nothing will change by criticizing them or writing an article which will create a buzz to get fame.

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1. Mosquitoes, Integral Part of Indian Life

I came to know about one wired fact from an online magazine that, “Mosquitoes have killed more humans than all the wars in history”. And my friend Debasish tells many times “u gotta be kidding me! its already 2010 & i still have to suffer mosquito bites”. I don’t know about other countries, whether there mosquitoes are an integral parts of human life or not. But in India, it’s an integral parts of Indian life. You may not believe, but people here are cultivating mosquitoes, by their bad habits though. And if you go to a general shop, you will see many products related to mosquitoes. Mosquito repellent coils, mats, liquid refills, sprays, body cremes etc. There are many brands and for every brand there is a good market too. Did you notice, all these are repelling mosquitoes. Why these companies can’t come with a product which kills mosquitoes. Well, you must be thinking how fool I am. How these companies will kill themselves. Killing mosquitoes means, making a hole in their pocket. So they create such products, which will repel mosquitoes outside. Those mosquitoes will go to their home, will have a wild party (like IPL Nights), have sex with their partners and increase their population. And the next day, they will come to join you. You will again need those mosquito repellent products. So an evergreen marketing plan.

So who will stop them to run this long term suffering plan? Why can’t Govt. of India can’t ban these companies to produce mosquito repellent products. Why can’t Govt. of India spend few money on research to end life cycle of mosquitoes? Oh!!! Now I realize (after one mosquito bite) that the local municipal corporations is not doing anything to save us from these zombies. How can I expect the top level Indian Govt. to take any serious action on this? If we spend a little fraction of money we had spent on buying mosquito repellent products on research to end life cycle of mosquitoes, then we can easily get that done.

I feel that every life in this world has a meaning. They do some good stuff to balance life in the world. But mosquitoes are only useless life in this world. They are not doing any useful stuff.

Few months before, I saw few peoples, who are not in power in local politics, were protesting against mosquito problem in my city Cuttack. But nothing happened significantly. Let me explain why nothing happened. Suppose, Mango eating party is in power and Butter licking party is in opposition. So, now Butter licking party made some hungama with the powerful presence of mosquitoes. And one day come, when Butter licking party will be in power and Mango eating party will be in opposition. If there will be no mosquito then what these people will do?

Several mosquitoes have already bitten me, while I am writing this. And I will not surprise, if I hear someone commits suicide due to terror of mosquitoes. But I have a hope that I will die after mosquitoes become history like dinosaurs.

Image credit: Fickr – tanakawho – Mosquito

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Hockey – the national game of India. But how many Indians know it? Ask a random Indian, “What is our national game?”. If you hear “Cricket” from them, don’t feel amazed (However I never asked anyone). It’s something like when you ask “What is our national flower?” and people answering “Rose” (I had asked few people and got that answer. Once one friend was praising Indian National Congress for being secular and choosing Hand as their electoral sign as Hand and criticizing BJP for choosing Lotus as their electoral sign and supporting Hindutva (Hinduness). It did not came to my mind at that time, but I think she does not know Lotus is our national flower.). Similarly, I have seen people answering, that Vande Matarm is our National Anthem (Vande Matarm is our national song and Jana Gana Mana is our national anthem). Hockey was chosen as our national game, because at that time in India, people were loving this game and was one of the most popular games, similar to football. Cricket was not that much popular in India. But now the wind has changed. Now cricket is the most popular game of India. And if someone forgot anything about hockey or does not like hockey, then we should not blame them.

But the promotion by Hero Honda really worked well. When I knew ICC World Cup will be played in 2011 in Asia since 3 years, I came to know about FIH Word Cup via this ad campaign. I watched when India was playing its first match of the tournament with Pakistan. India played really well. I really enjoyed it and millions of other Indians too. Indian players were playing with great confidence, which was visible from their body languages. This was because millions of Indians supported them. That was a free trial of the product (Indin Hockey) for a new customer (Indian supporter) and the result was quite good. So the supporter will love to watch the next match. And I will sure watch the next match tomorrow. All the best for my team India.

Hockey, when I was a kid

When I was a kid, I saw people playing cricket and football. And we kids play games like hide and seek, thief and police, our own version of basket ball (where we have 7 pieces of small tiles piled up, called as basket, one guy hits those with a ball and opposing team players need to place them correctly. The basket breaker team will throw the ball to hit basket keeper team player, and if the ball hits, then you can’t touch the baskets.. blah blah…) and some other country games. When I grow up by some years, we friends tried to play some real game, and we have two options, cricket or football. We could play anything and anywhere. Normally we played on the side spaces of a main field where people play cricket or football, or some open spaces inside colony or some open spaces near the non busy street. We needed some stuff to play. To play football, arrange some waste papers, poly bags and some threads, if available. Prepare a ball big enough to hit that by our foot. We studied in school that our former prime minister Lal Bahadur Shastri was playing hockey with these type of ball and some normal stick to use as hockey stick. But I don’t think we have taken the idea from the book. We knew this art before. And for cricket we have used any stick or wood board which can be substituted as bat or own footwear as bat, buy a rubber or plastic ball, or prepare a paper ball(sometimes I played with ripen brinjals too). For wicket draw it on wall with small piece of brick or break some small trees to get stick for the wickets. Similarly, we tried to play hockey with a plastic ball and sticks just twice. Well, actually I want to say that we got enough opportunity to play cricket. Then some football, but no hockey. This is happening with hockey. However it’s our national game, but no one is getting much opportunity of play hockey at the entry level. Our Govt is not promoting this at school level. They should supply enough kit to every school. If they are unable to do it, then think over to change our national game to cricket.

When did I watch Hockey?

Titan Cup 1997 – I was in class seven. I started to watch cricket at that time. I was watching football matches live near my home in annual tournament since I was in class 2 to class 8. But I watched a hockey match quite late. It’s 31st July, 2002, when Indian Women’s Hockey team was playing to South Africa in Commonwealth Games, Manchester quarter final. South Africans were playing good and were leading with three goals. Just before the time finishes, Indians played really well and scored three goals to force extra time. And a golden goal by Jyoti Sunita Kullu and India won that match to enter semifinal. The match was trilling and you can compare the thrill with any thrilling cricket match. I watched the semifinal and the final with England. India played well in those matches too. The final was exciting too. And a personal note: “Many English players were beautiful too .”. After that I have watched one match in a IPL type tournament, where Orissa Steelers was playing with some other team. I never got chance to watch it since 2010 world cup.

Why cricket is popular and there is a lot of money?

The game of cricket is designed in such a way that it takes lot of time to complete, this means it wastes lot of time. As the game is slower than football or hockey. So you have enough time to understand the game. There is enough time to view replays, if you are watching it on TV. But hockey and football are for 70 minutes and 90 minutes respectively. The game is fast and exiting. So you may not understand the game when you watch it for the first time. But watch it for few more times, you will understand it and love it. I have learned basics of tennis by watching a match for 30 minutes. You try and you will understand and love.

Similarly, there is lot of money in cricket. Take an example of TV relays. In between every over, you can show one or two ads. When player gets out, you will have a commercial break. And if it is drinks, then few more ads in that commercial break. If one player got injured, then some ads. Also you will find some ads on screen when the play is going on, as siders (I don’t know what to tell them). So, there is enough time to show ads and earn money. But in hockey, before start of match, 3 or 4 ads. At the time of half time, 3 or 4 ads. Before second half starts 2 or 3 ads. And no ad after the match. No ad after the goal. No ad when there is an injury for foul or accident. Don’t ask me how to increase ad spots in a hockey match relay. If you do, I will say, do differed live and put some ads at exiting points. Or if you want to telecast live, then ask the players to take test for a minute after few minutes and then resume the game form that point. I know, these will never work, otherwise the game will lose the excitement.

Also, largest cricket stadium of India can hold 82,000 spectators in it, where largest hockey stadium of India can hold 25,000 people.

So there is more money is cricket, so the game is improving, gaining popularity. Companies are more interested to sponsor an event in cricket, so why they should waste their money here in hockey? So, Govt. of India has to do everything to promote hockey.

I need a good suitable photo to use in this post, but unable to find a good suitable one. Please send me a good suitable photo. I also pray for Indian hockey team and at last I will say Dhak Dhak Goal

Image credit: Fickr – dev null – heart-on-a-stick

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I was tensed due to this problem in PayPal, but my behavior was cool and I was keep saying myself “All iz well”. People say “don’t use PayPal to as a saving account”. And it’s true that you will not get interest by saving money their. Today I found that the money I withdrawn from my PayPal account to my bank account reversed. Still I was cool, and I did not notice that I received less money than the actual amount. But when I see that I said something like “Fucking Paypal” (Update: they added that money, which was missing now to my account, peace). This happened because PayPal takes around 2.5% of the money as their currency conversion fees. They don’t show you that as fees, but their conversion rate is less than the actual conversion rates (conversion rates, exchange rates, forex – all same). Which is the conversion rate after deducting their fees from the original conversion rates. You can see I have written the eye opener on the header. This is because this activities by PayPal has opened my eyes (and mind too). I knew that PayPal rate is always less than the current conversion rate, but never thought why. And today I found this answer.

With this frustration level, I stopped working on my job and started looking for alternatives to PayPal. I found some good alternatives (this is an eye opener), which I will explain below. But after spending some quality hours on that, I emailed PayPal stating my frustration. I was not expecting any reply, but I got a very good reply. They assured that the money I lost during their reversal process will be added to my account in 24 – 72 hours. Earlier they informed in their blog that withdrawal facility to bank accounts will works in few days. And they also informed (in mail) that while we can’t withdraw money to our bank accounts, we can withdraw money to any Visa credit card or by check. So this is something good to hear from them.

PayPal Alternatives

Xoom
Xoom service is available from months and they claim that they are cheapest way to send money to India. And we all agree to this, but it’s cheaper than the withdrawal from PayPal to your bank account. Using Xoom, you can transfer money to three options:

1. Cash Pickup from a Punjab National Bank
2. Bank Deposit, supports any bank
3. Home Delivery, using Blue Dart

Let me show you how you can save money with Xoom. This will very by very little amount as per the current conversion rates. For example, you want to withdraw $500 from your PayPal to your bank account. You will get INR 22,512.75. (PayPal exchange rate:1 USD = 45.0255 INR, at the time I am writing this). If you will use Xoom, you need to pay $19.99 as fee. Let’s reduce that from your $500. Now you can transfer $480 from your PayPal account to your bank account using Xoom. Here you will get INR 22,041.69 (Exchange Rate USD 1.00 = INR 45.9202 at time time I am writing this). This gives you more less money than PayPal normal withdrawal. But if you increase the amount to withdraw, then using Xoom will be profitable. But this time currency conversion rate of PayPal is too good and exchange rate of Xoom is too bad then PayPal wins the race upto maximum limit. In the morning when I was roughly estimating advantages by guessing normal exchange rate, then I Xoom was the winner. Since then I see a drop in the exchange rate of Xoom. And I see a good exchange rate at PayPal which is unbelievable.

I will tell you other eye opening advantages of Xoom later on this post. Also I will update you once I see Xoom wining the race. But before you transfer your money, you can compare both. It’ll be easy, if you know how much (max) money you want to withdraw.

Image credit: Fickr – stuartpilbrow – 089/365 Money…What Money

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1. Rocking Tees in India
2. Where to buy online in India?

After seeing Threadless and those tshirts anyone will love to have one or all (any number between one and all is also welcome).  So did I. I wanted to buy one form them. Then I started converting dollars to Indian Rupees to know how much a tee will cost. Normally all Threadless tees cost $18 and those are on sales cost $12 (Now, when I am writing this, there is a holiday sale, when all tees cost $10). If you leave in India, then the normal shipping costs $9 (This will deliver your tee in 1-3 weeks, if you need it in 5-10 business days, then it will cost you $13). So in total, $18 for tee and $9 for shipping comes to $27. And in INR, it’s around Rs 1300. Tell me what can you buy in Rs 1300 in India? One or two branded shirt or jeans or trousers or two or three tshirts (depending upon the brand and the sale, if any). Tell me what will you buy in Rs 1300 in the comment form below. Then I dropped the idea of buying a Threadless tee.

I stopped buying a Theadless tee, but I wanted to know how can I get these in a reasonable price in India. At that time I knew two or three of the services which was printing photos on tshirts. After some browsing I came to know some other services, with some tshirts available for sale, take your customized print order, have bulk order option etc. But not a single service did touch my heart yet. Not only the tshirt, they also print your designs on teddy, key chain, mouse pad etc. Still they don’t have the attraction which will make me to spend some money on them.

Then the business idea came to my mind. In India, you will definitely get more customers as compared to US. Yes, we have so much population, and due to this huge population we are loosing many things, then why should not we get some profit from it? If you will have a beautiful website with awesome designs and a reasonable price then you will definitely need to reprint to keep your stock to fulfill the demand of the public. To keep price low and the quality of the tshirt high, you need to be placed near to a place where you can get tshirts (raw material, you say) at a cheaper price and the shipping for raw material will be low. For example Tirupur in Tamil Nadu. You need to provide payment options for your customers. Providing a cheap cash advance or a simple credit card option is critical. You need to also invest some good amount of money on the designs. Remember, Threadless spends $1.5 millions per year on the designs. And of course, promotion and good customer support is a must.

I am unable to grab this business due to my location on the globe. That’s why I shared my idea here. You can grab the idea and build a great business, if you execute the idea well. I do believe that all Idea are stupid unless they are executed well. And a well executed simple idea will be considered as a great idea. So if you are executing my idea and need more help, please email me: feedback [at] debiprasad.net. I have many other tips on this idea, which will bring you success. I also can help you building a good website, something like Threadless, for your business.

I was thinking to write more, but to write about seven hundred words took me around 2 hours. One dayI will write about available tshirt online shops in India. I have some other business idea, which I am unable to execute. I will share those under this category:  Entrepreneur. If you want to share any one your idea, you are welcome. Also, let me know what do you think on this. Wish you a great new year, 2010.

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1. Where to buy online in India?