Today, I was browsing through and stumbled across a website called Kiva.org

Kiva.org allows individuals to make $25 loans to low-income entrepreneurs in the developing world (microfinance). By doing so, individuals like you provide affordable working capital for the poor (money to buy a sewing machine, livestock, etc.), empowering them to earn their way out of poverty. 

It's a new, direct and sustainable way to fight global poverty, and the way I see it, I get a higher return on $25 helping someone build a future than the interest my checking account pays. 

Anyways, if you have a minute, please check out the site: http://kiva.org.  If you need more "reputable" validation than my recommendation , know that they have received great press in publications ranging from The Wall Street Journal to NPR to BusinessWeek.

I have signed up with them and am already doing my bit. Why dont you also contribute and help create a self sustaining society? It is much better than giving a donation which only work for once. By helping someone create a business, we are helping them to help themselves or life. This is the same reason, I believe that money should be spent towards education, which helps in creating educated members in the society who can earn.

Here is my Kiva.org page: http://www.kiva.org/lender/abhishekrungta

And here you can start helping someone NOW!

Hi,

I recently stumbled upon Voki (www.voki.com) which seems like a nice widget. It comes from Sitepal (www.sitepal.com). Actually I have used Sitepal in past. Unfortunately it didnt work great for me (nothing wrong with their product, but it was just a bit irritating for our customers). However I can see good potential for a concept like Voki which is more of a "fun" concept and can be extended to social networking.

I created a voki character of mine to try it out. I could made this stuff within five minutes flat. So, it is simple to use as well

I recently visited Hostorix.com. This is a new hosting company from an Internet marketing veteran – Armand Morin.

I was impressed how Armand has identified a pain that most webmasters feel – Downtime! Aren't we all worried about our website going down? I fail to understand how large hosting companies like Lunarpages, 1&1, Hostgator, GoDaddy etc. overlooked this aspect!

Hostorix hosts website in a Clustered Raid1 Hosting Environment. This kind of a setup distributes the traffic load across multiple servers to improve overall performance. Additionally, all data (web, email and database) are mirrored in real-time and in the event of a server failure our failover application will route all website traffic to the available server keeping your website online until the problem is resolved.

I found that they have all the standard features and the hosting is based on Linux O/S and powered by WHM/Cpanel (which is one of the most popular control panel software I see on the web). So all the standard features (including Fantistico) are there. And like most reseller accounts, they also allow unlimited account creation.

They are priced above normal reseller hosting accounts at around $27/mo. But I think this is worth it, since quality comes for a price and this is not a big price to pay for fail-safe hosting, since it will be easier for you to sell no-downtime hosting to your customers and recover the investment.

So, overall, I would consider this as a great offer. You can sign up for this here.

Please share your experience and feedback about this product here.

iPhone is the hottest desirable gizmo at this point of time. As per AppleInsider (http://www.appleinsider.com/article.php?id=2415), Apple is going to make 47% – 49% margin on each iPhone sold.

So, if you are not in a big hurry, waiting for a few months might save you some bucks. With so much of margins available, Apple will definitely try to push iPhone hard to gain some marketshare of the fiercely competitive mobile phone market. They will do this sonner as they are already a late entrant and it has to cover a lot of ground to be considered as a serious competition for established mobile phone companies like Nokia, Motorola and Sony Erricson.

Being a second mover will also give you inputs from the early adopters, making your purchase risk free. Good things come to people who wait (well a little cheaper).

Art knows no barrier. I came across this fantastic gallery from Saxton Freymann.

Gallery URL – http://www.rit.edu/~ksh8863/saxtonfreymann.html

Saxton Freymann creates this human-like figures out of fruits and vegetables. He creates emotions from the natural wrinkles of the fruits. It is worth a look.

I am staying at the executive housing of ISB – Hyderabad today. It is managed by Sarovar Park Plaza (http://www.sarovarparkplaza.com/). The room is great and the service is impeccable.

But what caught my fancy is a small plaque on the work desk (photograph included).

It reads – “FORGOT SOMETHING? If you have forgotten any essential toiletry item, please contact Housekeeping. We will be pleased to deliver with our compliments. Shaving cream, disposable razor, comb, toothbrush or toothpaste”

I feel that this kind of approach has two fold benefits –

It increases the perceived value of the service. You are consciously requesting the toiletry and you feel obliged towards the hotel when you get them. In case these items are present by default, you take it for granted. The hotel is also getting an extra opportunity to serve you and deliver 'experience', which does matter a lot when you compare service providers.

It makes you feel that the hotel cares about you! – even if you do not want to use the toiletry. So they are creating a positive image in minds of its customers without spending a dime or invesiting any effort. It cannot get better than this.

The bottomline is – Communication (of value) and customer contact (to deliver positive experience) creates lasting, high value relationship.

Recently, I finished reading "The Fourth Estate" by Jeffrey Archer.

It was a nice read – a bit long though. At some places it becomes boring.

The overall storyline is interesting. What is more interesting is its simmilarity to real life media tycoons Rupert Murdoch and Maxwell. There are too many simmilarities to ignore and it looks like the real story has been spiced up and censored wherever required to give it a look of a fiction novel.

Murdoch like Townsend, was born to aristocrat family in Australia and they moved on to United Kingdom and then to USA to conquer the media empire. On the other hand Armstrong like Maxwell followed the trail from war torn Germany to the British army and both ended up in United Kingdom and then in USA to fight the penultimate battle with his arch rival. The incidence of misappropriation of pension funds brings the fiction and real life drama a step closer. However the climax is the way the novel describes the death of Armstrong which is very simmilar to that of Maxwell.

I found it more interesting as I read this book after I saw biography coverage about Maxwell on History Channel (most probably).

Worth a read!

Abhishek

My relationship with the Provident Fund Office dates back to 2004, when I went ahead to get my company and employees registered under the Employee Provident Fund Scheme in order to get them the much desired social security.

But what I saw there, shattered my faith in the department. Rampant corruption, mismanaged departments, pathetic work culture and carelessly kept documents formed the common view. I decided that I must post some pictures of this department at some point of time. On a recent visit, I took some pictures using my mobile camera for you to enjoy –

Do you really think they can help someone with pension and/or timely resolution of issues this way?  

In this age of information overload, it is nice to see some "read it – implement it" kind of quick start guides at http://www.faststartkits.com/

These guides are easy-to-read and are only 2-3 pages long. Most of them do not need you to have any background knowledge of the subject it covers as they are targeted towards newbie.

I personally used the Press Release Fast Start Kit and was able to come up with a professional press release within few hours on our "dedicated hiring model".

And yes, they are all free to download without any registration.

Keep it up – Arun!

 

I am a big fan of Gmail because of its speed and simplicity. However Gmail makes life hell lot of difficult in some cases -

1. The Threading Bug
While threading, Gmail creates threads based on the "Subject" of the email. It should be "Subject" & "Sender/Reciepient". It is very cumbersome to sort out and read mails in reference when you are dealing with two or more people with the same subject.

It all gets jumbled up.

2.  Keyboard shortcuts
Some of the keyboard shortcuts are so "short" that they get pressed accidentally. This results in a terrible anxiety.

3. Stupid web clips
It is very common to see stupid web clips like "Spam potato salad". They do not make any sense and causes unwanted distraction.

I look forward to see these corrected very soon

Abhishek