Rich-Text Gmail Signature

So, what’s the reason behind Gmail not allowing you to have a rich-text email signature? I can’t use any HTML in my signature and if you use it anyway’s, it will just display as plain text. Reason anyone?

Tags: Gmail, Signature

Web Site Analyzer – Analyze Your Web Site

Web Page Analyzer is a great little online tool to test your web site’s/page’s download speed.

You can either key-in your web site’s URL or a specific web page to get an idea of its performance. Once you hit the “Submit Query” button it analyzes the site/page and gives you the results in greater details. The results include,

• Object Size – Gives you the size of the HTML file, images, CSS and scripts embedded in the page.
• Download Times – Gives you an approximate download time across 6 different connection speeds, 14.4K, 28.8K, 33.6K, 56K, ISDN 128K and T1 1.44 Mbps.
• Page Objects – Gives you the size of each individual objects like html, images, scripts etc that are embedded in the page.
• Analysis and Recommendations – Gives you an analysis and recommendations on,
• Total number of HTML files on the page.
• Total number of objects on the page.
• Total number of images on the page.
• Total number of CSS files on the page.
• Total number of external scripts on the page.
• Total size of the page.
• Total size of HTML on the page.
• Total size of images on the page.
• Total size of external scripts on the page.
• Total size of external CSS files on the page.
• Total size of any multimedia objects on the page.

It’s a great tool to optimize and analyze the performance of your web page/site. After all, if your web site/page doesn’t download fast enough you might loose the reach.

Try the tool here and follow the recommendations to optimize your web site’s/page’s performance.

Tags: Web Site, Web Page, Performance, Optimization, Tool

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How To Install And Setup WordPress? – Video Tutorial

Here is a very good video tutorial on how to install the WordPress blogging software on to your hosting provider and to get it up and running. An awesome tutorial. Even though the clarity of the video is not that great, it’s just a great hands-on tutorial.

Thank you, Rachel Cunliffe.

View the videocast here.

Tags: WordPress, Video Tutorial, Install WordPress

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Coupon For Medical Exams

Few days back I went on to see a dentist. After quite a wait (huh!!!) my turn came up and the receptionist (or however you wanna’ call it) told me that I had to take a set of 16 X-Rays. What?

Add to that, my insurance doesn’t cover this x-ray procedure since it was done just a year back. They cover only once in 3 years. Tell me that!

So, I told him (yeah, HIM) that I just had these x-rays done a year back and can you use that instead, sort of. He nodded and said NO. The doctor wants x-rays to be done at this facility. What??? (again!!!).

I don’t wanna’ pay for this completely from my pocket and so I was like…”can I come another time?” and “shall we reschedule this appointment?”…blah…blah…blah. Then came that moment when he said “don’t worry about the cost of x-rays, you can use this coupon”. What??? Coupon? On a medical facility? Really?

I was little shocked. This is the first time I came across a coupon to be used in a medical facility. I should have asked for one before. My bad, I paid for all those procedures. Poor me!!! I immediately said “why not?”.

Then on my way back I was thinking,

• How will this work?
• Who is going to pay for this service? I guess…and I’m pretty sure that it would be my insurance (some how).
• If that’s the case…will I be asked to pay my co-insurance?
• If my insurance doesn’t take it…what’s the point of doing this from the doctor’s perspective?

I haven’t found any answers to these questions. Have you heard about these before? What do ya think?

Tags: Coupon, Medical Exam, Medical Insurance

10 Things You Shouldn’t Buy New

Whenever I shop for certain items I used to ask myself ”is it worth buying new?”. Of course there are items that would be worth buying new (in most cases when warranty matters). But there are instances where you would be better off buying items that are not new.

Here is a list of items that you don’t have to buy new.

1. Books (my favorite buy)
2. DVD’s and CD’s
3. Kids’ Toys
4. Jewelry
5. Sports Equipment
6. Timeshares
7. Cars
8. Software and Console Games
9. Office Furniture
10. Hand Tools

Read the full article here.

Tags: Buy New, Lifestyle

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Web 2.0 – Design Trend

A wonderful read on the Web 2.0 design trend. Here is a sneak peak on the commonalities.

• Simple layout
• Centered orientation
• 3D effects, used sparingly
• Soft, neutral background colors
• Strong color, used sparingly
• Cute icons, used sparingly
• Plenty of whitespace
• Nice big text

Read the full article here.

Tags: Web 2.0, Design, Trend

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XSD: Data Types

Have you ever been in a situation where you are a bit confused on what XSD data type to use, int or integer? Well, here is the difference.

Both are almost the same. They both represent signed integers. The difference is that “int” is derived from “long” data type and “integer” is derived from the “decimal” data type.

What’s more interesting? “Long” is derived from “integer” data type. “Decimal” is the type that’s not derived from.

For a complete list of XSD’s basic data types, take a look at here.

Tags: XSD, Data Types

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Subversion – Version Control At It’s Best

We’ve just moved our source version control from Microsoft Visual SourceSafe to this open-source version controller “Subversion”. To simply put it, “its just way ahead of Visual SourceSafe” and “version control at it’s best“.

• It’s very rich in functionality.
• It just blends with the file system for a better user experience.
• It’s light-weight.
• It has the 2-phase commit logic.
• A decent Difference editor (even though it could be a lot better).
• With Ankh, it just blends in with Visual Studio IDE.
• It has the branching capability which is really good if you have teams working on different enhancements that you are not sure when to commit or need the flexibility to selectively include those changes. You can commit (merge) your branch changes later on to the main trunk. Really helpful.
• Atomic commit. You are guaranteed that either everything in the set will get committed or nothing.
• Last, but not least, pretty cool icons. (Silly!!!…I know)

There are 2 cool things I particularly like in Subversion that’s very much missing in VSS.

1. The first thing I like the most is, the very cool Windows Explorer plug-in, that just plugs into the folder structure and visually indicates what’s been changed, what’s been added etc. And you can commit your changes from Windows Explorer itself. You don’t necessarily have to use the Subversion UI to commit your changes. Isn’t that pretty?
2. The second thing I like the most is the concept of  2-phase commit. You can work completely disconnected and when you get a connection you can commit your changes. Until then all your changes will be kept local and what’s more cool about this is that you don’t have to go make your files “read-only” to make changes anymore as you do for VSS. This is a productivity plus’o.

It’s a pretty cool product that the team started loving it and I’m kinda’ stuck with Subversion (for good). If I get the authority I would prefer Subversion than Visual SourceSafe.

Way to go Microsoft.

And, good job, the Subversion team!!!

You can get Subversion from here.

Tags: Version Control, Visual SourceSafe, Subversion

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Automatic Restart After Windows Update

Imagine you got this dialog when you are away from your computer for a while!!!

Imagine you have all sorts of applications running on your machine and for some of them you didn’t save the data!!!

Imagine you come back to your computer after 5 minutes and you see the system restarted without your acknowledgement!!!

What do ya think?

Tags: Windows Update , Restart

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SAP’s In-Memory Technology – An Oracle Killer

eWeek (print) has an interesting article about SAP’s in-memory technology that could be an “Oracle killer”. Everyone knows that the performance cost on any traditional database lies on its I/O operations. With SAP’s in-memory technology, the data will be stored and indexed in memory rathen than on disks, reducing the cost of I/O operations, which obviously will result in better performance.

Reliability? I don’t know. They say that it’s pretty reliable as it’s been test run on pretty large enterprises like Coca-Cola, BP which has pretty large data warehousing needs.

Here are some of the quotes from the article.

SAP may have stumbled onto an Oracle killer: in-memory technology that could, in theory, quash the need for a relational database in some cases.

SAP has sussed out a way to organize its business intelligence data in columns versus tables, storing and indexing the data in memory and then running it all on blade servers. The result is faster queries than would be possible by tapping data stored in a data warehouse or relational database.

SAP is working on in-memory data management capabilities that could go beyond BI to other areas of the application stack, replacing the need for a relational database in new software installations.

SAP puts its technology on IBM and Hewlett-Packard server to speed up, by order of magnitude, querying capabilities. It put the boxes out in the field at some big companies with pretty large data warehousing needs: Coca-Cola, Whirlpool, British Petroleum and Novartis. The results were astonishing: a 90 percent increase in reporting performance, with queries cut from 50 seconds down to 3 seconds in the case of Coca-Cola.

SAP’s use of in-memory technology brings up an interesting question: if the technology could potentially disrupt Oracle’s database business, wouldn’t it also disrupt IBM and Microsoft as well?

In-memory database technology keeps data in memory rather than stored on disk. The technology is now used primarily in financial and telecommunications applications, where speed is critical, but people in the industry suggest it could be relevant in SOA, RFID, manufacturing and e-commerce as well.

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Technorati : Database, In-Memory, Oracle, SAP

10 Steps To Lock Down Your Laptop

Some may seem obvious, but following these rules will keep your laptop and the data it carries out of other people’s hands.

• Use visual deterrents such as cable locks.
• Avoid leaving unsecured laptops unattended, even in the home or office.
• Keep laptops inconspicuous by using simple carrying cases.
• Use complex alphanumeric passwords and change them regularly.
• Use anti-virus, encryption, anti-spyware and firewall software.
• Back up valuable data on a scheduled basis.
• Understand the dangers of pirated software and file sharing.
• Stay informed of emerging threat schemes.
• Use asset tracking and recovery software.
• Employ advanced data protection tools.

Tags: Secure, Laptop

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Digging on Digg.com – My Experience

Okay…so…I submitted my 2 stories to Digg few days back and was following the pattern of how people are digging the stories. I noticed that the story was dugg by few people as soon I’ve submitted them. Happy. And everything looked fine. Then as few hours passed by there wasn’t as many diggs on to my story, even though I could see more people hitting my blog. Digging just slowed down. Weird, I thought. Then I started looking into the details of how a story make it to the front (Popular) page.

Here is how (as per Digg),

Once a story is submitted by a user it is instantly posted in the
Upcoming stories section. This is a temporary holding place where
stories wait to be promoted to the homepage. To help promote stories to
the homepage, simply visit the Upcoming stories section and digg
stories you think are cool. Once a story has received enough diggs, it
is instantly promoted. Should the story not receive enough diggs,
surpass 24 hours, or is reported, it eventually falls out of the
Upcoming stories section. Digg works because a large group of people
actively digg (promote) good stories and report (remove bad stories).
Since digg’s content is user-driven, it is up to YOU to contribute.

Fine. So, to get to the front page a story should receive an unknown number of diggs. The problem lies on the way the “Upcoming” stories are presented to the diggers. It’s either in a cloud view or the traditional list view. Both has problems. As soon as few other stories got submitted you could easily see your story leave out of the first page of “Upcoming” stories on the list view and in the case of cloud view it just gets mixed with all the latest ones. It’s kind of hard to locate the story there after. If it’s hard to locate the story then I cannot expect the story to get as many diggs as it deserves. Because of this issue I’ve seen there were stories that reach the front page without the real qualification.

I’m not saying anything wrong here about Digg. Digg is a great thing that could happen on the web and it’s a great tool to get quite a mix of news. I like it like anything and used to hit the site quite often in a day. But I felt little disappointed when it comes to my turn of submitting the stories. That’s when I realized this issue. It could work for me one day, if I’m lucky that there aren’t that many stories submitted when I submit my story. Otherwise I know it’s kind of hard for a story to sail thru given the methodology involved.

I may be wrong, but I just wanted to state that out louder so that I could be corrected or it could be heard by the responsible parties.

Let me know what do ya think.

Tags: Digg, Digg.com

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How long to keep your financial records?

I just came across this article in Bankrate.com and I felt it’s worth sharing. Here is what it suggests,

Tax Records: 7 Years

• Tax Returns – The IRS has three years from your filing date to audit your return if it suspects good faith errors.
• Canceled checks/receipts – The three-year deadline also applies if you discover a mistake in your return and decide to file an amended return to claim a refund.
• Records for tax deductions taken – The IRS has six years to challenge your return if it thinks you underreported your gross income by 25 percent or more.
• Note: There is no time limit if you failed to file your return or filed a fraudulent return.

IRA Contributions: Permanently

• If you made a nondeductible contribution to an IRA, keep the records indefinitely to prove that you already paid tax on this money when the time comes to withdraw.

Retirement/Savings Plan Statements: From one year to permanently

• Keep the quarterly statements from your 401(k) or other plans until you receive the annual summary; if everything matches up, then shred the quarterlies.
• Keep the annual summaries until you retire or close the account.

Bank Records: From one year to permanently

• Go through your checks each year and keep those related to your taxes, business expenses, home improvements and mortgage payments.
• Shred those that have no long-term importance.

Brokerage Statements: Until you sell the securities

• You need the purchase/sales slips from your brokerage or mutual fund to prove whether you have capital gains or losses at tax time.

Bills: From one year to permanently

• Go through your bills once a year.
• In most cases, when the canceled check from a paid bill has been returned, you can shred the bill.
• However, bills for big purchases — such as jewelry, rugs, appliances, antiques, cars, collectibles, furniture, computers, etc. — should be kept in an insurance file for proof of their value in the event of loss or damage.

Credit Card Receipts and Statements: From 45 days to 7 years

• Keep your original receipts until you get your monthly statement; shred the receipts if the two match up.
• Keep the statements for seven years if tax-related expenses are documented.

Paycheck Stubs: One Year

• When you receive your annual W-2 form from your employer, make sure the information on your stubs matches.
• If it does, shred the stubs.
• If it doesn’t, demand a corrected form, known as a W-2c.

House/Condominium Records: From 6 years to permanently

• Keep all records documenting the purchase price and the cost of all permanent improvements — such as remodeling, additions and installations.
• Keep records of expenses incurred in selling and buying the property, such as legal fees and your real estate agent’s commission, for six years after you sell your home.
• Holding on to these records is important because any improvements you make on your house, as well as expenses in selling it, are added to the original purchase price or cost basis. This adds up to a greater profit (also known as capital gains) when you sell your house. Therefore, you lower your capital gains tax.

Tags: Finance, Financial Records, Get Organized

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Silver Audi A8

So, what do you think? Just an Audi painted in silver color, right? Guess what? You were absolutely wrong.

This is an Audi A8, made for the Sheikh of Dubai. And this time you must have got it!!! It’s made out of pure silver. That’s right…SILVER.

PS: On a little lighter note…if the oil prices keep raising at this rate, we’ll soon see a Gold Audi!!!

Tags: Audi, Silver, Dubai, Oil

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How To: Bring Google Calendar on your Windows XP Desktop

I hate (I’m sure you do as well) that many windows floating around on my screen. But there are times when you cannot avoid.

One certain application window I always keep was the Google Calendar window. But then I hate cluttering my Windows bar with that many windows. I just came across this invaluable (at least to me) tip to bring Google Calendar on to my desktop so it will always be readily available to me in a click of a key (actually 2, Windows + D). .

Here is how you do it,

• Right-click on your desktop and select the "Properties" option on the menu.
• Click the "Desktop" tab.
• Click the "Customize Desktop" button that’s down below that dialog.
• Click the "Web" tab.
• Click the "New" button.
• For "Location:" key-in http://www.google.com/calendar/render
• Click the "Properties" button for this URL.
• Click the "Schedule" tab.
• Add at least one time each day to do the sync. Remeber: You can always refresh by yourself whenever needed but do pick a time to sync.
• Click OK to make each window go away.

When you do this, Windows might complain about unable to sync to the page etc. Just say "Ok" to that and close all the windows by clicking "Ok".

Expand the window on your desktop as much as you want or in my case what I did was I clicked on the little menu (a down arrow when you hover over the top of that desktop window) to select the "Split Desktop with Icons" option. By this way I have access to my desktop icons as well Google Calendar on the side. Great!!!

Now you should be able to see the Google login page on your desktop. Just key-in your login credentials and make sure to check the "Remember me on this computer" option and hit the login button. It might open up another window (the default web browser that you’ve set on your computer) with Google Calendar rendered.

Hey…Don’t panic. Don’t call 911   Just close the window. And right click on your (still) the log-in page on your desktop and hit "Refresh". Woila…there the Google Calendar, this time, on your desktop.

Hope you find it useful.

Tags: How To, Useful, Tip, Google, Calendar, Desktop, Technology

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Socializer 1.0 – A Social Link Generator

Hello Blog World -

Often I found it a bit hard to generate the social links for my blog posts and everytime, prior to Socializer, I had to copy/paste from a notepad and replace the parameters and you must have sensed it by now, that’s a pain.

I just got some free time over the weekend that I just wanted to take my head out of my regular work and wanted to get this one done.

So, what is Socializer?

“Socializer” – in a nut shell – is a .NET application (or utility) that will help you generate the famous social links to be posted on to your blog with a click of a button.

How does it work?

Simple. You key in the inputs and with a click of a button you will get the output. As the inputs are self-explanatory, you key-in the URL of your post and give it a title. Hit the “Generate” button and whoila…all the links to the famous social sites are generated for you. You can the copy/paste the link to your hyperlink or to the image.

What social sites are supported in Version 1.0?

Currently I’ve got only the time to include these 7 social sites.

• Del.icio.us
• Reddit
• Digg
• Furl
• Newswine
• Blinklist
• Co.mments

But as soon as I get some time I will definitely add more sites to the list and will try to make it customizable.

How do I download?

Just click on this link.

Follow the instructions to download the ZIP file. As a safe practice always scan any downloads for any viruses before opening it up. Once you are done with the virus scan (it’s clean by the time I upload) you can then unzip the files to a folder of your choice.

There are 2 files. One is the “Socializer.exe” executable. The other is the “Socializer.exe.config” which as its name indicates is a configuration file. Please try not to mess with the configuration file. The exe is directly executable (there is not installation package) and so you can create shortcuts to the exe whereever you feel comfortable.

Licenses?

It’s just my pass time application and there is no issue with licensing as long you use it for your personal use.

And there it is. You’ve got a little application to make the social link generation a piece of cake.

P.S: If you find it useful then please bookmark my blog (or subscribe to my feed) and please pay a visit often. You might find another utility any time. It’s cooking!!!

Download

Tags: Social, Link, Generator, Utility, .NET

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HP’s Photosmart Printer Drivers

Lately my laptop was just crawling and for a long time I wanted to clean up. I realized that I was running short of space on my 2 partitions and the Defragmentation utility couldn’t defragment my partition proper as it needs at least 15% of free disk space (and I didn’t have one).

So I sat down in the morning to free some space. I was trying my best to get rid of all the tools and stuffs that I don’t use day-to-day.  But couldn’t get enough space for the utility to run. Then by accident I came across a folder named “HP”. All these days I never thought of getting rid of that folder thinking that it’s something from HP that wouldn’t make my laptop work otherwise (my bad, I should have checked that out in detail before).

Interestingly, it was all HP Photosmart printer drivers. What’s more interesting was that the drivers were in all sorts of languages that I don’t even know (even in my dreams!!!).

Ironically, I use a DELL printer (sorry HP, couldn’t beat DELL on this one). I don’t know what makes HP bundle their own printer drivers in their laptop without any customer awareness. I was about to sacrifice some of my day-to-day usage softwares to get the free space. But luckily I came across this monster and with a click of a button I got rid of this and I was able to reclaim beyond 15% of my hard disk space.

So, by the way, you would think how much space was that monster occupying? Right?…A whopping 180MB!!!

I then got my defragmentor to work and got the performance back. Instead of enforcing those drivers by default and in that effect occupying more space on the hard drives. may be HP should distribute those drivers seperate as it’s possible that people might not be using the Photosmart printers (never at all, at times).

Tags: HP, Photosmart, Printer, Driver

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Port Numbers for Various Programs and Protocols

Need a list of port numbers for various programs and protocols? Look no further.

Here is the complete list.

Tags: Port Number, Port, Programs, Protocols

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The Story Behind These Company Names

A very nice article about how the Fortune companies coined their names.

Some of the interesting ones are,

Hotmail - Founder Jack Smith got the idea of accessing e-mail via the web from a computer anywhere in the world. When Sabeer Bhatia came up with the business plan for the mail service, he tried all kinds of names ending in ‘mail’ and finally settled for hotmail as it included the letters “html” – the programming language used to write web pages. It was initially referred to as HoTMaiL with selective upper casing.

Microsoft – Coined by Bill Gates to represent the company that was devoted to MICROcomputer SOFTware. Originally christened Micro-Soft, the ‘-‘ was removed later on.

You can read the full list here.

Tags: Company Names, Company, Tech Company

Don Box – What is he cooking lately?

If you are a Microsoft techie then I’m sure you must have heard about him, Don Box. An incredible techie from Microsoft who used to keep the smile while he delves into the details on his interviews. He is an inspiration for me.

A while back it used to be that the Windows Foundations (Presentation, Communication etc.) were on the headlines and Don Box used to be the guy to spread the word and so he was everywhere on Channel9, MSDN TV, The .NET Show etc. But lately I couldn’t hear from him anymore. Even thought I could see that he is posting in his blog every now and then but he wasn’t in the news lately. What happened to him? Is he working on something that’s mind-boggling that he wanted to keep it with him until it matures? No ideas? Anyone?

Tags: Don Box, .NET, Channel9, Microsoft

The MegaPixel Myth – A Nice Article About MegaPixel Cameras

You should check this out. A very nice artcile about the myths surrounding the mega pixels on a mega pixel digital camera. I, for some reason, felt that the higher the mega pixel the better the camera would be because you are paying a higher price for it and so the quality of the camera would very well be higher.

That’s why I own a Sony 5 Mega Pixel digital camera. The reality is that I mostly found myself using the camera in the 3.1 Mega Pixel mode. Why? Because it takes less space to save (of course, time as well) a picture and that really matters in case when you run out of space in your memory card at a critical moment. Also less time to take a shot means less battery usage, which means more battery life on a single charge. Further more, the image viewer in my PC resizes the 5 Mega Pixel image to fit into my 19 inch LCD. That means a little ugly image on a normal viewing mode. Because of these and more I found myself locked into the 3 Mega Pixel mode.

This article unveils some of the myths. Take a look at here.

Tags: Digital Camera, Camera, MegaPixel, Pixel, Myth

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Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation – A Humble Suggestion

Salute the cause this foundation has been founded upon. By doing this Bill is high in the heart of many people and history will be the witness. Such a huge impression to people trying to make miniature donations.

One thing I was thinking over some time was that in order to eradicate some of these diseases from the developing world is to first educate and improve the quality of life of people living there. There is an incredible difference in knowledge and awareness of health between people living in the developed world and those in the developing world.

If the foundation can spend the effort to educate the people of what the diseases are and how to prevent them and how severe it can be and things like that…it would greatly help reduce these diseases. In those developing world many people are illiterates and they don’t have any idea of how the body functions and what has to be done when something goes wrong. They still practice their local medical practice which were taught to them generation after generation. In some case it works. I have to admit. But in most cases it just doesn’t work and people pay the price at last.

Also they don’t have the means to seek out the right medication. Of course, wealth is a major hinder block. Many of them find it hard to spend the day-to-day life in their budget and they don’t have the wealth to go see a doctor and do routine medical check-ups. If we improve the quality of their life by promoting entrepreneurship and creating jobs and providing them with adequate basic education they themselves will become aware of the health issues and would be fighting it hard to take care of it.

And, of course, the foundation can help fund the doctors to go visit the remote areas and help educate the public as well as treat them for their illness or camping in those remote locations to offer free full physical exams and things like that would greatly help educate and take care of many of these diseases before it becomes life threatning. Funding the doctors to go do these kind of jobs, I’m sure, would bring-in many aspiring and willing doctors to come forward to help this cause.

I’m sure the foundation and Bill knows about these a lot detail. But I just wanted to say it loud so that people can benefit from this foundation’s noble work.

Thank you Bill and Melinda and whomever works on this great cause.

Tags: Philanthropy, Bill Gates, Foundation

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Electronic Shopping – Retail vs Wholesale

Few months back I was shopping for a multimedia home theater movie projector. After quite a bit of research I was left with these 2 choices, an Optoma MovieTime DV10 (left) and an Epson MovieMate 25 (right).

  

Both of these projectors from the research perspective looked great to me even though MovieTime had an edge over MovieMate in terms of popularity and user reviews.

I wanted to try MovieTime first and I found a good, comparable pricing at local Circuit City store and visited the store to give it a try. To my disappointment the Circuit City store didn’t have a demo piece working. Since I wanted to try this first before commiting for quite a bit of money I was little skeptical. The same was the case with our local Best But store.

Then I’ve decided to try MovieMate which was available at our local BJ’s Wholesale Club at a great price and to a surprise, a working demo piece. It was pretty impressive and along with the 92" screen and a sub-woofer (I have a better home theater, but) it was a great deal. I went ahead and bought that home and within a matter of 15 minutes or so I was able to project an image onto m basement wall. With the lights on it wasn’t that great but when I turned the lights off it was an impressive projector. I thought I’ve got the one I was looking for, for a while.

But then it striked my mind. One day when we were watching a movie I literally saw a burning sort of spark within the projector and it shut it off by itself. I thought it might be because of excessive heat or something. Then I realized that BJ’s don’t have an extended warranty or service plan and I started thinking if this is the case being just having the projector for few days. I immediately felt insecure and decided right at the moment to return it. Went to the store and returned it and everything went thru fine.

Then I was left with one and only option, MovieTime. I went to the local Circuit City store and decided to give it a try. I somehow managed to convince the sales guy to take it back if I don’t like it since there wasn’t a demo piece. He agreed and I went ahead with the purchase since CircuitCity was able to give me an extended service plan. Brought it home and was even quicker to get started on this one. It was sleek and before I projected the image on to my wall everything looked great with this purchase. Once I had the image onto the wall it wasn’t that catchy as MovieMate.

But then I started comparing apples-to-apples and I had to keep this MovieTime even though I wasn’t that impressed. Why? I felt secure with the Circuit City Extended Service plan, which BJ’s doesn’t have, which gives you some piece of mind. That’s important as small issues with these projectors costs a great deal of money. Just the replacement bulb itself costs well above $300. So I’ve decided to keep this MovieTime and BJ’s lost a sale, even though I personally liked MovieMate from BJ’s than the MovieTime from Circuit City.

Moral of the story: I’ve called up BJ’s and Costco and other whole sale clubs. They don’t offer these extended service plans and quite honestly they might be loosing quite a bit of business (particularly big ticket electronics) because of that. On the other hand, the retailers such as Circuit City and Best Buy offer an extended service plan (even though it might not be that plain vanilla to make use of it) which gives us at least some piece of mind, in case if something goes wrong and in that process might be winning those businesses. If those wholesale clubs realize this problem and provide some sort of an extended service plan I think they would win in terms of pricing. And they probably know that customers would be willing to pay for that extended service plan if they provide one. At least I wouldn’t mind. Think about $150 for the service plan compared to $300 for the bulb (the sales guy said the bulb is also covered, I have to see how Circuit City honors that). That’s makes it a winner to get the service plan. Do they (the wholesale giants) listen and provide this service to their customers?

I would recommend Projector Central for anyone planning to buy any home theater movie projectors.. This site has reviews and good comments about the projectors which would aide you while shopping for a projector within a budget. Check it out..

Tags: Projector, MovieTime, MovieMate

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