Rajeev Lochan Sharma Blog - Just Like That

How to block the click jacking spam on Twitter

2011-03-19T13:09:00.000-07:00

Early this week I wrote about How to block the click jacking spam on Facebook. But Facebook is not the only social media platform which is targeted for such spam, other platforms too bear the heat. Sample this.....

This tweet was posted from my ID and believe me after this people started asking tips on increasing the weight (Thinking of writing a post on this too). So it is important to block such spam on these platforms too. On twitter it is really easy. Just logon to your twitter account and click on your twitter handle on top right corner. Look for settings link and click it.

On the Settings page under Connections tab you can find all the applications to which you’ve allowed the following applications to access your account. Here revoke access to all the application which look shady or which you do not require to keep your twitter cores going.

Once again remember to report the spam to twitter because it is our responsibility to help keeping the twitter sphere free from spam. On twitter you can do so by posting a tweet mentioning the application and other relevant spam details and marking it to @spam.

How to block the click jacking spam on Facebook

2011-03-16T05:19:00.000-07:00

If you use Facebook the posts like the one above are seen once in a while on your newsfeed. And you wonder how the hell it is appearing from your ID when you haven't posted it. Well that’s the click jacking technique from the spammers. This can happen by you accidentally opening malicious website or clicking on a link posted from a friend's profile from one of these applications. In my case it was an application called "mobile web". So what should you do if you have been the victim of such techniques? In two words revoke access. What I am going to show here is how you can revoke the access for such applications. But first of all change your password. Infact that you should keep changing frequently.

On the top blue bar the last dropdown is Account. Open it and you will find link for Privacy Settings.

Click it to open the Privacy Settings page. At the bottom of this page is the link for adjusting settings about Apps, games and websites.

On "Apps, games and websites" page, find the section called "Apps you use" and click on Edit settings button.

The list of Apps you have authorized to interact with your Facebook account opens in front of you.

Remove all the apps those you are not sure why you had added them or which are not absolutely necessary for your Facebook strategy/purpose. This will revoke the access to all the unwanted application and improve your security against the malicious posts from your profile. But you should also report the spam from your Facebook Profile. Here is the link for the Facebook for to report a malicious link or website. To know how to block Click Jacking spam on Twitter Click here.

What is there for you in the new Facebook Comment Box plugin enhancements

2011-03-03T20:57:00.000-08:00

On Wednesday Face book launched the enhancements to its comments box plugin on various website through facebook connect. As stated of facebooks forum this update contains 3 essential enhancements. These enhancements are i) More Social Relevance ii) Improved Moderation Tools and iii) Better Distribution

This means that if now you visit a website with Faceboook comments plugin in it, you will see comments from various Facebook users and if you are loged into you Facebook account you will see the comments from your friends and friends of a friend first and all other comments would be pushed down.

If you decide to post your comments on it you can not only use Facebook for login, you can also login with other login providers. Also you can choose whether or not you want that comment to appear on your newsfeed. The interface against every comment is improved too.

Another functionality is about comment moderation. Admins of the page can control the visibility of the comment to be public or friends only. The Abusive words can be banned for the commenter while she/he post the comment. In addition to this the moderation can be done by the visitor to the website. Any visitor reading a comment can mark it as either “Spammy” or “Abusive”.

Delhi Police needs Uninterrupted Power Supply to be "Aapke Saath Aap Ke Liye Sadiav"

2011-02-06T20:34:00.000-08:00

This story is about how Delhi Police helped me in my exercise. No they didn’t offer me a trainer to accompany me to Gym neither they sponsored my exercising equipments, they didn’t even moved from their chairs to help me out. Read on if you really want to know how.

So it happened because I lost my driving license. Yes I did. How stupid of me. After having searched it in all the possible places (which include my home, Office cabinet, files where I store papers) I decided it’s time to report the missing license and then apply for a copy from the Authority. It’s hard to live without car. God knows when we will have good public transport system. Anyways I started towards nearest police station, on foot (Yes walking is the only exercise I indulge in). The police station is 1.5 KM from my place. I reached the police station and then the conversation started.

Me: Mera license Kho gaya hai. Uski report likhwani hai (I have lost my license and want to get a report written).

On Duty Officer (ODO): Bhai ji light nahin hai report kaise likhi jayegi? (Brother there is no light how will writing report be possible?) and then he walk few steps.

Me: Koi Aur option hai? (Is there any other option?)

ODO: Tum Bata do. (You tell me)

Me: Agar mein paper par likh kar de doon aur aap us par stamp laga do? (If I write it on paper and you put a stamp on it?)

ODO: Authority wale phir wapas bhej deinge. Hum to yeh chahte hai ki tumahare 6 chakkar na lagein. (Authority guys will send you back. We just wish to save you from 6 trips).

Now I don’t doubt his intentions (or maybe I do). But that doesn’t save me any more trips. It’s actually these trips which help me fulfilling my exercising needs. Now you know how Delhi Ploice is helping me in exercise? By the way did anyone hear about this latest gadget called UPS (Uninterrupted Power Supply)? So if Delhi police can afford 1600 Rs. UPS for every computer maybe that saves citizens from some hassle because not many people take walking as their daily exercise regime, like me. May god send them few UPS.

How to go back to Old Twitter

2010-11-18T21:59:00.000-08:00

"Anybody knows how I can revert to old twitter?" was a tweet from one of the friends. Frankly I find New twitter very good and helpful as I get a lot of details right along the tweet. SO I was wondering why she wants to Go back to old twitter and that exactly what I asked her. "Its slow" Came the answer. So I thought of investigating if more people want to revert to old twitter? and if yes why? Well sure enough there are more people and the reason is same "Its bit slow". So for those who tried New twitter but find old interface better here is how you can revert to you familiar interface. A simple 3 step process.

1. Locate your name at the top right corner of your Twitter home page. Guess that should not be difficult. Who misses his or her name?
2. Click it so you see the more options open.
3. Choose “Leave Preview”.

You are done. Wow it was simple. Worrying if you will ever be able to use New Twitter. Don't. Its always there whenever you wish to. For more on Twitter just follow the TAG.

US equipments don't work in India

2010-10-29T03:30:00.000-07:00

I guess its been an something which every one has experienced, somebody gifted you a gadget but you have not been able to use it because of electrical incompatibility. Few months back I received a gift from US, a Hair Dryer (works on 110V 60Hz Type 2 socket along) but since that day Its in my cupboard. To use it I need 2 things a socket adapter and voltage converter to connect with our Indian power supply (India works in European Voltage standard that is 220V/50 Hz where as US works on 110-120V/60 Hz). It looks so silly that if you buy an appliance in India you might not be able to use it in US or vice versa.

Now I can bear if I can’t use my gift, because of the different voltage ranges and AC frequencies used through out the world. But the worst thing is that there are further divisions into various sockets types. Do you know American Standard use Socket type A and B where as others, with European standard use Socket type C to M. When countries have adopted only 2 standards for voltage and frequency, then literally why they use a whole bunch of standards for Electrical Sockets. Frustrated I decided to write about this menace and searched internet.

Not in every country, but at least 13 different types of electrical sockets are used internationally. America and Japan use 2 flat vertical input Type A (w/o grounding pole) and Type B(with grounding pole) sockets. Europe, The Middle East and much of Africa use Type C socket able to handle a no of different voltage and this feature makes it Standard Socket in Europe, popularly known as Europlug. Type D used almost in India and Nepal. And these series further going upto Type M are used by different countries like Australia, New Zealand, UK, Malaysia, Singapore, Hong kong etc.

Electricity around the world provides comprehensive details on Electrical sockets. Once you go through the lookup table in above link you will definitely come to know the reason why we are now stuck with no less than 13 different styles of plugs and wall outlets, is because many countries preferred to develop a plug of their own which doesn’t make a proper sense, instead of adopting any standard for all. If you venture out in the market to find an extension chord for your latest gadget you come across ones with various different type of sockets. Though Type D is a standard socket type other socket types are aplenty in the market. One of the reasons could be the rising imports from countries like China, Singapore and Hong Kong where type L and Type G sockets are the norms. So now I have a hairdryer which has Type A (or sometimes Type C) plugs but a Socket with Type G. Result is loose hanging sockets and ultimately the sparking. Now do I need to mention that this not only destroys your Hairdryer but can also cause a fire. Hey does anyone have data on how many fire have Electrical sparking as the cause? My wish, if only the socket types are standardized or at least some guidelines are issued for the exporters regarding what types of Sockets should be imported. The other solution could be levy a higher import duties on certain type of sockets which do not comply to Indian Standards of Electrical sockets.

22 Twitter tools you should always have

2010-07-17T13:19:00.000-07:00

A lot of time people ask me what twitter tools to use for this or that. SO I thought I create a list for this purpose only. Here I have compiled the list of twitter tools which I have found worth using. This list contains the tools for doing specific tasks on twitter. If you are looking for the complete twitter clients I have mentioned 3 here. For more you can read my earlier post How to choose the right Twitter client for you

Know the tweeps

TwitDir is a Twitter Directory. Search for Twitter users by Name, username, location and even text in their description.

Mr. Tweet recommends you the users to follow by comparing social graphs. It helps you choose the right people those you can follow by going through their bio, the number of people they follow and how many followers they have along with statistics and information like How frequently They tweet/Retweet, % of Conversation they have, Links they share e.t.c.

Who Follows Whom

Whofollowswhom is a small little application to find what it says “Who Follows Whom” Pick up to 5 tweeters to see who they follow and are followed by in common.

UnTweeps lets you go on diet, unfollow the tweeps who have not tweeted since X number of days. You can choose number of days. Define The White-list for people who don't tweet very often, but you still want to follow them. Upto 3 times a month it’s a free service. If you long for more than 3 times a month, purchase an UnTweeps Pro account.

FriendOrFollow is a Twitter followers management application that shows the user who they are following that is not following them back and vice versa. Simply as the site homepage says Who's not following you back on Twitter? Who are you not following back? Who are your mutual friends? Find out!

Refollow helps you discover, manage, and protect your Twitter social circle. A real value add in your tools. You can find Who is Following/Not Following you, Whom You are Following/not Following, Previously Followed, Never Followed along with many other filters including the keywords included/excluded in Bio, Tweet, Website and much more.

My Tweeple: People follow you and unfollow you on Twitter. If you want to see the latest changes from Twitter, My Tweeple is a great way to manage all your Twitter people in one place. A mut have tool.

What is the buzz around?

Twitscoop allows you to search what's buzzing on twitter in real-time. It is good place to keep you on top of twitter sphere and that is the USP of this web tool.

Monitter is a web-based tool that allows you to monitor Tweets in your vecinity for mentions of any words or phrases they choose.

Convo Monitor is a dashboard view that allows you to track your brand on Twitter. You also can track Twitter conversations about any topic, word, phrase, idea, or person.

Adding Video/Backgrounds

Twiddeo is a powerful but simple service that lets you updates twitter with Video. Upload from the web, your cameraphone and record from your webcam.

TwitBacks is a place where you can create your own Twitter background with your branding - Free. The site has background collection which gives you a wide selection under various categories.
Find your Influence

Tweerank helps you find how influential you are in your tweeter sphere. It measures your "engagement score" out of 100, considering various parameters such as No. of followers/Friends, RT you receive, @ replies and more.

Twitaholic, a web based utility tracks most popular users from twitter based on their followers. You can check the top Tweeps globally or in your geographic region. You can also check where you stand globally and in your geographic area. It is a good place if you want to start following few influential people or simply if you want to boast about your influence in twitter sphere.

Retweetrank tells you how interesting & useful content are you producing? Retweets are great indication of influence and the audience’s interest in your tweets. Retweetrank is a webtool to find just that based on the number of retweets you get. With the rank, latest retweets of the user are shown along with RSS feed.

Scheduling tweets

FutureTweets, as its name suggests is a free service that lets you schedule your Twitter messages. Send it at a specific time in the future or send a reoccuring Tweet daily, weekly, monthly or yearly! You'll never forget the birthdays of your beloved Twitter friends again!

Complete Twitter Client

Twitiq (earlier TwitHive) is one of the first twitter clients I had used. On the first look at it looks somewhat like Twitter web but the Top bar makes it little more valuable. You can create and Check channels, get analytics of your tweets. Other enhancement it offers over twitter web is Automatic Expansion of Shortened URLs, Inline Image and Video Previews, Channels Syndication. These things make you a power user.

HootSuite (earlier BrightKit) is one twitter client that has really impressed me. It is available for web as well for download on your phone. If you want almost everything for twitter including analytics, Tweet scheduling, CRM, Team management HootSuite is your best bet. It will not offer few things though saved tweets to reply FAQ, is one of them.

CoTweet is a cleanly designed twitter CRM tool which lets you assign tweets to specific member of your team whom you want to deal with the specific tweet. You can add notes on Twitter users that your team can see.

Miscellaneous

GroupTweet is a service that works behind the scenes with Twitter to allow users to form groups and communicate within those groups. It enhances the direct message feature to work for multiple users with one single DM. Create your group and share the information only with your group. Do not forget to protect your tweets.

Twittonary provides explanations of various Twitter related words. You can search the entire Twitter Dictionary or by single word using the alphabet it start with.

AddTweets is a service that allows you to add your latest tweets to your blog or website. Just join AddTweets and you will get a small piece of JavaScript code. Add this code to your site/Blog and your tweets will start appearing on your site/blog. Its free the only thing you need to know is that you will be on their mailing list (Hey there is nothing called free lunch).

Why you should not connect with a Person’s Official Email ID

2010-06-28T02:39:00.000-07:00

An email is meant to communicate and to keep in touch with someone. But connecting with someone via his/her official mail id calls for something to be kept in mind that he/she is working for a company and provided an email id on company domain that prohibits them from using the email id for personal use. Although our action may or may not be reprehensive but they do represent a bad professional image of us. Thank HR for not reprimanding you on this.

Moreover a person’s official id may not connect you to him/her forever. As soon as he changes his company/Organization he works for, you may loose communication with him.

What’s more sometimes you forward mails to all your friends without noticing that it is his/her official id. I remember when a friend complained that how another friend of his sends him forward mails, some of them containing naughty things (you know how it happens), on his official ID and how it has put him in embracing situations on few occasions. Besides this consider for example, a day you are sitting doing your official work and a forward mail comes telling you to send it to 10 people you love. It is just so irritating that you are interrupted in the middle of the workflow with an email that has nothing to do with work.

Although you may see no harm in getting your official ID into contact list of the of the other person but unfortunately many people disclose their own email id and password to social networking sites and that site uses the APIs to get all email addresses from the contact list which they use to send invitations like be a part of the organizational campaign, to all the ids (unfortunately your official id was added in their contact list). By this way, your official id can go to the spammers.

So be professionally aware and moderately govern your actions before you communicate with someone’s Official ID.

Mixero: A promissing twitter Client that needsto mature fast

2010-06-24T01:21:00.000-07:00

Its when my colleague Meenu (@bmeenu) suggested I tried Mixero. It is a desktop client for Twitter and I tried every feature it has. It sure looks a promising application. The application with no doubt presents itself very nicely. It has two version : The Desktop version and iPhone Version (I havent tried iPhone version though).

The mixero says reduce signal to noise ratio using the Active List, Context and Filters. It really does reduce the noise ratio, the Active List enables you to aggregates information on a number of elements (like new User, List/Group, Channel) which are of your interest. Your ActiveList shows only the elements included in the it, so no important information is missed. Context is a saved ActiveList with a name given by you. You can switch between various contexts in Mixero. Filtering in mixero is not only the positive filtering, it has negative filter too. Positive filter provides you the tweets/content that you want to see while negative filter removes the tweets/content that you do not want presence of. Filter also does the work of blocking. Another thing that I liked in it is its style, the appearance it really is cool.

I know it must be sounding interesting to you but while using Mixero I wondered how to use a lot of stuff. Yes the features are there but when it comes to using them as a naive user, you will struggle a lot. There is help but its not easily trackable. Once tracked where the help is, you will be unsatisfied with the help. Lets take an example of context. It took me 2 days to get what it is. The site provides context help, where they are just talking about what context is, there's no explanation of how to use it.

The mixero looked attractive to me coz of its multiple Twitter & Facebook (FB) account management. Which appeared as a yet to refine feature. Mixero with Twitter is good but with FB it struggles in connecting. And if you have enabled your auto login mode then just keep waiting for the application to start, it just stucks. Another point to note is after logging in FB a display issue that arises. You get a dialog box notifying you about the sharing of Home & wall updates but, its accept/deny button is not visible on the dialogue box. Actually the accept button is present below the window of dialogue box which can be discovered if you use the tab button of your keyboard.

Once I have logged in (with both FB & twitter account) I see now is the mixero cool screen. The left panel has all my tweets organized as per @ replies, my timeline, DMs etc. The right panel has my lists/groups, chats, twitter trends etc. between the two panels I can see my twitter and FB mini profile. Its quite messed up with the display of DM, @ replies, Update icon & counters. A major issue with mixero is updation of tweets. At one moment your tweet is visible on time line and at very next momemt it vanishes. Another tiny issue is closing the application. You can close it only through the Task bar's tray icon.

As I said I tried all the things mixero got, my context R&D made me realise that @mixeroteam (the mixero twitter account) is really a lazy one to reply. Over all I would say Its an application which shows some promiss but I would still stick to Hootsuite till the time its matures enough. It is still my favorite of all twitter clients I have tried till date.

How to choose the right Twitter client for you

2010-04-29T03:48:00.001-07:00

Ok you joined today's in thing, the micro blogging site called Twitter and started posting your daily tidbits. So far so good. But then comes a time when your friends and follower base increase. Your needs for Twitter start changing and you wish, if only I could use twitter according to you specific needs. Twitter website today (despite adding a lot of functionalities) leaves a lot to be desired. The solution to this is (or rather solutions are) Twitter clients or twitter apps. There are different twitter clients for these specific requirements.

Twitter desktop clients

The choice of the twitter clients those suite your requirements depend on many factors. If you are indulging in twitter for your pleasure and using it only from your home (or office) PC, the suggestion for you would be to download a desktop client. TweetDeck and Seesmic Desktop

are two top of the table twitter desktop clients.

TweetDeck lets you use Multiple accounts of Twitter, Facebook, MySpace, LinkedIn etc. Option to customise it for columns, groups(to separate your personal and professional contacts) and saved searches, uploading photos (and videos), URL shortner (through bit.ly) and timeline filter by name or the text, make it easy to handle your updates.

I used Seesmic Desktop (and its other product twhirl) sometime back. You can view Home, Replies(Mentions), Direct Messages(DMs) and Sent columns for multiple twitter accounts. Columns can be created for saved searches and lists. It also has built-in support for Twitpic and a webcam function. Digsby is also a client which combine the Mail, IM and Social media interfaces together.

Twitter Web Apps
For the people who wish to tweet from multiple locations Web based Twitter clients are the best. Seesmic Web is one Twitter web client that comes to my mind. Seesmic Web is real-time Twitter web application which offers a clean interface and can be used in "list view" (looks like your webmail's inbox) or the "column view". You have separate columns for Sent, Favorite, Mentions, DM, Retweets (Mine/ by me/ by Others), Search, Lists and even the trending topics. But one thing that is missing is the media sharing (Pictures/ Videos etc) option. You can also try PeopleBrowsr and TwitHive as to web client options.

Twitter Mobile Apps
But if you are tech geek and wish to update your twitter account on the move you would have to look for the Mobile twitter clients. These small sit on your phone and make it easier to update your status from virtually anywhere. MobiScape is a good Twitter mobile application . With MobiScape besides checking your Timeline you can find Mentions, DMs (To you or By you) & Search (Keywords & Users). ReTweets/Replies are easier to make. Options to check particular user's info (Following, Followers, Tweets), current trends are some handy features.

With increasing penetration of iPhone and BlackBerry it gets imperative to talk about the clients for these platforms. Echofon is one iPhone Twitter client(it has Mac and Firefox versions too) that provide the option to easily view user’s profile, timeline, favorites, followers etc. Multiple Twitter accounts in Echofon is good. you can switch between accounts easily. The Background notification for mentions and messages help you using other apps while. Tweets having photos, videos, location, conversations etc. are tagged with smart little icons. If you use Mac desktop your unread tweets stay in sync in both desktop and iPhone. Mobile Twitter is another iphone client that I have used extensively and which can be downloaded from Apple Store. It offers a clean interface and separate the timelines and the messages (mentions & DMs).

UberTwitter is one good BlackBerry Twitter application. According to TwitStat, UberTwitter is used by 1.63 percent of Twitter users. You can attach your location, photos, vedios and UberTwitter add links leading to your photos (or location) using its own URL shortener. Tweet shrinking and twitter lists among others are some handy tools.

Twitter Collaboration Apps

For users tweeting for the official/client projects there is a requirement for applications which can be utilized by the team. HootSuite and CoTweet are two web based Twitter colaboration applications which can come handy.

Through HootSuite one can manage multiple social networks, multiple users over various social network accounts. It also provide the People button at the bottom which allows you to check who's following you and who you're following, see their Klout score and manage your Lists. The option of RSS/Atom feeds to publish to social networks, tweet scheduler, link stats visualizations, clickable hashtags, custom link parameters and recently added choice of URL shortner (Ow.ly / Ht.ly). Make it ideal tweet collaboration tool.

Cotweet is another collaboration tool for the twitter. It besides all the features of other collaboration tools, can be seen as workflow system built for CRM. It lets you manage up to five Twitter accounts through a single login. It works on assigned updates. You can assign an @ reply to a person responcible in your company for specific types of tweets. Once assigned tweets to go off your screen to "archive".

There are many more clients but I have covered the ones I have worked with. Hope this post is of good use to you all. Please feel free to add your comments and suggestions.

Criticism with responsibility

2010-03-29T02:34:00.001-07:00

First of all I want to confess that only a master craftsman can create the piece that's just the way it was required. I am saying this because some time back I wrote a post A hard to please customer equals A Moron. It was about the people who are self proclaimed critics (at many instances even I behave like this). Now these critics are always looking on the dark side of the things. They feel something is wrong because it is not the way they felt it should be. While writing this I found myself at the loss of words. This word loss produced a post which I myself found a bit harsh (I really hate to write harsh things). Now yesterday while I was watching Ratatouille a Brad Bird directed English Animation. And then I realized that what is a truly superb writing written by a true craftsman. Here is one dialogue from the movie which talks about the issue of Critics and their responsibilities. Its actually the way I thought I'll write the post and it goes like this

"In many ways the work of us as a critic is very easy. We risk very little. Yet enjoy a position over those who offer up their work and their selves to our judgment. We thrive on negative criticism, which is fun to write and to read. But the bitter truth we critics must face is that in a grand scheme of things the average piece of junk is probably more meaningful than our criticism designating it so."

How beautifully written and conveyed the message in just the way it should be.

Twitter provides the trending topics closer your home

2010-01-28T10:26:00.001-08:00

Yesterday night after returning from office I switched on my computer and logged on to my twitter account. A new message blob was waiting for me there which was pointing towards the trending topics list, only this time it read "Trending: Worldwide". There was an option to go local also. Twitter added the new Local Trends feature to the site.

As Twitter blog says "Last week we began to slowly roll out a new feature called Local Trends to expose what people are talking about on the state and city level, and today we've fully launched". The feature is designed to keep Twitter users up to date with the hottest topics being tweeted.

Excited I clicked to opt for my city (of course Delhi) But Right now, there aren't many options. One can choose from only 15 cities and 6 countries. The official blog says "We’ll be improving this feature over time to provide more locations". But exact rollout is not known.

This move will definitely provide roughly 15 million active tweeters, a closer look into the hot topics people in their vicinity. Also you will be able to discover even more relevant topics that might matter to you.

Why is the foot-over-bridge in Daryaganj being demolished?

2009-12-28T09:45:00.000-08:00

This Friday I was reading the news the MCD is going to demolish the foot-over-bridge on Netaji Subhash Marg in Daryaganj or the "Lohe Ka Pul" as we all know it. MCD Plans a subway to replace this bridge. Agency claimed that the bridge has become a regular place for anti-social elements. Everything is okay but I see it from two different viewpoints.

First from a legacy point of view. It has been there since last 45 years. It’s not only an old structure but a land mark too. Dismantling it because it is being frequented by the local goon does not make any sense to me. Are we trying to say that if we create subway it will be a deterrent for these goons? On the contrary it would be more dangerous as from the road one can’t know what’s going on in a subway. I would not like if my pocket is picked while passing from a subway. If this case happens on a foot over bridge at least the public takes notice of this and can help catching the guy who picked a pocket.

Now from the spend perspective. Correct me if I am wrong in saying that a 35 coroe Rupees budget is sanctioned for it. Now my point is does it cost more to repair an iron foot-over-bridge or Construction of subways costs more. Does MCD consider these things before taking the decision to spend the tax money of the tax payers?

A hard to please customer equals A Moron

2009-12-26T00:47:00.000-08:00

It was beautiful just beautiful. Tata delivered what it promised a car in a price which nobody even thought that too with whatever accessories are required. yes I am talking about 1 Lakh car Tata Nano. Still the comment that my friend made was "It just look like a Bajaj Auto". Well does someone know how much an auto cost? its more than the price you are dreaming to own a car. "Well I am a customer who is hard to please" is the answer. Its interesting how do you interpret this. I guess it means I am a moron who only knows asking asking and asking without even thinking how much am I paying for it or whether anyone else coming to even this close to what I am getting. Customer is the king but when will all these kings learn to how much is too much. Another one which is very interesting "I had to go through the pain of using shaving cream only because Gillet do not supply enough Shaving foams in my area". Oh wow non availability of Gels I can understand but pain of using Shaving cream! My My My what to do with High minds. Hindi is cheap but English is class, Bollywood never deserves anything more than 3 while Hollywood never goes below 4 stars. These remind me of people who are rich in nuisance value. But now Amir told me the secret to still be happy. Just make your heart believe "All Is Well".

Beggars: Sad part of life

2009-12-20T22:37:00.000-08:00

I am sad today. I was driving to my office today when I crossed Ashram chowk and turned on Mathura road towards Badarpur. On the next red light there was this small girl dancing on th e tunes of Dholak. She must be four or may be five. An age where one feels on top of the world if someone offers her a candy. This also reminds me of a day sometime back. Again I was returning from hospital when I saw this small girl playing with her infant brother (it could be sister). This kid in a carton is a very grim sight. Delhi government claims to remove the beggars from Delhi roads before common wealth games. But how is it going to tackle this task? What would happen to these beggars? Are they being just removed from roads or there is some plan to rehabilitate them? How would you ensure that they don't come back after sometime?

Track success of the twitter campaign

2009-09-18T05:50:00.000-07:00

I was in discussion with one of my colleagues when this question of how to track success of the twitter campaign cropped up. This made me compile my ideas about tracking the tweeter campaign. This also serves the purpose of base to decide how much of your time for social media should be devoted towards this micro blogging ( or nano expression as Praveen calls it) site.

Tracking requirements for twitter really and actually depends on your objective to use twitter. Your objective could be creating a buzz, generating traffic to your website or blog. In fact the objective behind twitter usage would keep changing during the life cycle of your campaign if the same is extended over 2 month. So when your campaign is starting your objective is to gain as many followers as possible. This means that over a period of first month the tracking requirements are limited to how many followers you are gaining day over day. When we talk about the number of follower not only the people joining your network are important but people leaving it are equally important. If you map the people joining / leaving your network against the particular tweets send out during that duration you can get a fair good idea about their interest to achieve their goal. You can realign your tweets to target right people.

Once you have achieved the critical mass of the follower your goal could be either creating buzz about your service / company or generating more traffic for your website. Retweets and hash tags are two good tools which can be used for these. Thus it becomes absolutely mandatory to map how many people are contributing towards your hash (#) tags or how many are retweeting your tweets. You also have to bear in mind that to allow people to retweet your posts you would have to limit your post length so that it can accommodate RT @ name. Believe me if people have to take pain in compressing your ports, its going to reduce the RTs to a significantly low number. A map of numbers of a significantly low number. A map of numbers of # or RTs against your tweet content is a good tool to correct and realign your tweets with your goals.

Twitter is a good tool for any social networking campaign but it can easily be a reason for wasting your valuable time for sweet nothing. If we track our campaigns through these maps we can reduce the time devoted to such campaign to less than an hour a day and that is what we cant to achieve

Dont spread panic spread Information to prevent Swine Flu

2009-08-12T03:16:00.000-07:00

"Reeda Sheikh is Dead; Fahmida Panwala is Dead; Sanjay Tukaram Kokre is Dead and Patel an NRI is Dead; A Young Boy too is Dead also Dr Babasaheb Mane is Dead".

I was watching this news channel when a well known face of news industry said above words in a very Dramatic tone. The health minister's byte was shown where he said that developing the indigenous H1N1 vaccine for deadly swine flu will take approx. 6-7 months but Govt. will do the required to make it available if some other company develops it earlier. After this our dear newsman asked us, the public if "We will have to rely only on being quarantined and wearing Mask to protect ourselves against the epidemic?". So Mr. Newsman is there any vaccine for flu already available? Ho yes... your channel did share the good news the very next morning .... "America has started testing the swine flu vaccine on humans and results will be out within next 3-4 months after which the medicine can be made available for the victims". Now that is a good news indued because if the tests are positive India can import the vaccine which can cure this epidemic.

What I want to ask is "Are we using swine flu to raise our TRP?" "Are we even thinking if our words are fueling the panic?". Should we not be little more sensitive towards the issues and matters like swine flu and not spread the words which can create panic especially when we are a medium which is seen by Lakhs of people(what's the peak viewership you claim Mr. Newsman?). Lets spread the information which can save few lives. Here I am sharing few details which I have collected from some of my aware and responsible friends, office colleagues and Govt. publications. I'll validate and edit (if required) some of the information collected from friends and colleague from the Medical authorities. Mean while following is the information

Swine Flu Helpline Number (Delhi) -- 011 - 23921401
Give Influenzium 30, Homeopathy, 4 tablets once a day for few (3-4) days for protection against swine flu.
Swine flu Symptoms are those of common flu like Fever, Cough, Headache, Weakness and fatigue, Aching muscles and joints, Sore throat, Runny nose. Click here to read.
When you see flu symptoms do consult your physician before visiting Swine Flu Testing Centers. This will shorten the que for people who need immediate attention.
Prevention and Precautions for Swine Flu.

Underground parking hits green roadblock

2009-08-03T01:58:00.001-07:00

Sunday , Aug 02, 2009
Source: http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com

Delhiites who have been opposed to the idea of creating space for vehicles under parks can finally breathe easy. Environment Pollution Control Authority (EPCA) has told Municipal Corporation of Delhi (MCD) that it cannot create such parking sites without taking residents of the area into confidence.

This move has been proposed after taking into account the diminishing green cover in the city. Shalimar Bagh residents had filed a complaint with EPCA regarding the parking lot being created by MCD under a park in their colony. The parking project has been dropped now.

Sunita Narain, member EPCA, said: "We do not want to disturb the green cover of Delhi and have asked MCD to consider making vehicle space under parks as the last resort. We have asked them to ensure such areas are developed into flat areas after parking space is made. The MCD commissioner has been asked to ensure that in future, permission of residents of the area is sought before constructing a parking site.''

Said an MCD official: "If we have to keep seeking permission from residents, we won't be able to create parking at all. We are following the Master Plan 2021, which provides for allowing parking under green covers.'' MCD has plans to create 24 parking sites under the green cover, with work on at six such sites.

Shalimar Bagh residents had earlier filed a PIL against the civic agency which had planned to build a parking lot underneath Shiv Vatika a park between the AM and AN Blocks in Shalimar Bagh.

Abhilasha Mathur, a resident of the area, who took up this cause, said: "The park has 250 trees and MCD had said it would cut down 100 to construct the parking. We had taken up the matter with MCD but got no response. They didn't even consult us before taking up the project. We then decided to approach EPCA and are happy with the decision. This park is used by 3,000 locals.''

According to the list of authorized parking lots finalized on Saturday, there are around 140-150 surface parking sites under MCD areas and 53 in NDMC areas. Said Narain: "We will put up the list of authorized parking lots online and will initiate action against the unauthorized lots soon. Money collected from parking fines and charges by various agencies should be used as city development fund for improving roads and the public transport system. We're now looking at revising parking rates charged by MCD.''

Meanwhile, Delhi Traffic Police has sought revision of the Motor Vehicle Act 1988 in an attempt to curb road related violations by hiking fines for different offences. As part of the proposal, the traffic police has suggested that the fine for unauthorized parking be increased to Rs 1,500 from the current Rs 100. While the proposal has been submitted to the Union surface transport ministry and was to be discussed after the elections it is yet to come up for discussion.

Save depleteing ground water table

2009-07-27T10:46:00.000-07:00

Today when Kapil dropped me in the evening, it was raining. My home being one and a half kilometer from his place, I knew that whatever I do can not save me from getting drenched. So leaving the idea of taking the shelter aside, I started walking. It was pouring down heavily. I got drenched even to my inner most layers, before the seconds hand of my watch could complete one round around the dial. But I enjoyed the rain thoroughly. Though it’s not been too long since I got caught in the rains, last time, but it was the time when I was not worried about saving my Laptop. The cold drops of rain on my face felt so good.

Walking with the long strides, on my way back, I was passing through the streets. The streets were flooded with the overflowing drains leaving only small islands, for people like me to walk on. The water was flowing down from the small drains made on the roofs of the houses near by. Suddenly I felt "Aren't we wasting the lot of rain water by allowing it to go down the drains and not harvesting it". The water drained down only from my roof should be sufficient enough to irrigate a small field for may be two days. Had everybody harvested this rain water and used it water the plants and garden, it would have saved a lot of underground water in already depleted ground water table. I am not mentioning the electricity required that water out. I resolved to get rain water harvesting system installed at my house and do my bit believing that it would inspire the others also. Somebody please share the address of the places in Delhi from where I can get the rainwater harvesting system.

Gmail Labels get drag and drop

2009-07-02T03:17:00.000-07:00

Today when I logged in my google mail account a change alert greeted me. Google mail has kept improving its interface in 5 years since its inception, to add functionality or improve the user experience. This time it has introduced the Lable drag option. This feature lets you assign the lable to any and many messages in your mail box by simply dragging the lable onto the messages.

A very cool usability feature. When you are on your inbox or on a message screen you can drag a lable to assign that lable to the message(s) in question. From your inbox you can also drag message or multiple messages(press "Shift" Key while selecting, to select multiple messages) to assign a specific lable to these messages. But on assigning the lables this way (dragging message to the lable) will move your message from the inbox to the folder specific to your lable.

This functionality eases the task of assigning lables to your communications especially if you have a longish Labels list. Google also has thought the functionality well from usability perspective and moved the Lables above the chats widget. This means just drag and drop no Scrolling up and down for finding the lables (or communications) while dragging. Another thing that They have maintained is the Lables drop down. So when I am at the end of a loooooong mail, I can assign the lable to this mail the conventional way (from the drop down). Google sure knows the nerves of its users.

My Blog added on Twitter

2009-06-02T05:21:00.000-07:00

Starting Tuesday, June 2, 2009, the posts from my blog are available at Twitter also. Follow me at @lochanrajeev

Google Announced Search Options Panel Launch

2009-05-19T05:09:00.000-07:00

Last week I was browsing the groups I have joined on Linked in when I found a post regarding the launch of Google Search Options Panel. Being lil too stuck up with the one of the projects, I saved that link for future reference. Today I found sometime and so opened this link to find out what this Google Announced Search Options Panel is. The page opened with some compact data and a video of Marissa Mayer Vice President, Search Products & User Experience, explaining the functionality launched. It is a neat set of drill down tools introduced in the Google search. After seeing the video I thought to try the feature myself. I searched for "IPTV Service" clicked on show options. There I clicked on related search and with in 4 drill downs (and which were quite fast) I was actually in front of a search result page of my company's web site. Pretty Good!!! I am impressed.

So what is Google Search Options Panel? It is a collection of tools that let you slice and dice your results and generate different views of the results. Read more about it on Google's Official blog. The Search option panel gives you multiple options to drill down. These options are divided neatly by groups like Type of results (Videos, Forums, Reviews) , Recency (Recent results, Past 24 hours, Past week, Past year), Display option (Images from the page, More text) and drill down options (Related searches, Wonder wheel, Timeline).

While Videos will show all the videos (hosted on say You tube) matching the keywords (or key phrase) searched by you, you can also sea the results from the forums or the reviews only, posted on different forum or reviews sites respectively. But all this stuff depends on the site owner properly marking up pages. Web publishers will have to adopt microformats or RDFa standards to mark up their HTML for Google to show reviews under reviews and forums under forums.

When you choose Related Search option, the related search keywords are displayed on top of the results of the search you have made. When you choose Wonder Wheel, a graphic (a Dial with multiple hands) with related linked search appear alongside your search results. Clicking these the related search links opens another such Dial linked with the existing one. Also the search results change according to the new search suggestion chosen. I'm not sure how useful this will be though. Timeline can be used to search results based on the time duration. It drills the results to a specific year and then to a specific month. This is a great option for the research purpose.

These features though promise good user experience but consumers can't readily use some. For instance, if a user to see results found in a discussion forum, or videos or reviews only the quality distinction will start appearing once the web masters start marking the pages accordingly. We will have to wait and watch how many web masters do it. When I search for "parking laws india" the related searches give me better options than wonder wheel. Now I am not sure which option will give me better results. May be little more experimenting will lead to better understanding. But it still is to be seen whether these tools will improve the quality of the information and reduce the time.

Future of the country is in whose hands?

2009-05-17T02:01:00.000-07:00

You want to succeed in life (read that improve your English), then start reading the newspaper daily. That’s what we teach our kids more than often. But a cartoon in Delhi edition of Hindustaan Times (15th May 2009) caught my sight. What do our newspapers teach our children? The above image is just an example of the standards our news papers are following these days. Who has written this graffiti? Does this guy have mental level that is any different from a spoilt collage goer these days or he is taking his lessons in public toilets. It definitely seems like he is graduate in the Toilet Literature. I would like to receive the suggestions about what can we do about this scenario.

Delhi Police's helpline numbers

2009-05-01T04:09:00.001-07:00

Delhi Police's helpline numbers

anti-obscene helpline	1096
anti-recovery agent helpline	1097
senior citizens helpline	1291
Eyes and Ears scheme	1090
Women's Helpline	1091
Traffic	1095
Child	1098

BJP Ad Campaign Sucks

2009-04-23T23:50:00.000-07:00

I refrain from writing about the political matters. Politics is not my cup of tea (or the coffee either). This time also I'll not write about the politics but the execution of a political Ad campaign. In your opinion what has been the cause of failure for BJP in last two elections. Let me guess the same result even in these elections too. If you ask me the biggest reason for their loss have been the Ad campaigns released before each elections. I'll never go for a party which believe in negative campaigning. The only positive thing that the Ad talks about is "मजबूत नेता | निर्णायक सरकार " (strong Leader, decisive government). On the other hand congress has always talked about their achievements.

I am not sure who has given them this campaign idea. You can not create a great impression by counting what someone else has not done, irrespective of the statements being true or false. What public wants to listen is what you have done for them. And please do not tell us that a leader of opposition is in no position to do anything. Is there someone listening. Come on guys think and think hard. Come up with whatever achievements you have made in all those years. Those will definitely fetch you few votes. And next time you win the election working on my advice do comeback and put a comment back on this post.

Annoyance Mails

2007-03-19T23:20:00.000-07:00

It was 1996 when I was introduced to this magical facility where I could send my heart to the people whom I wanted to tell all these details, that too within flash of a second. Yes I am talking about Email that we are so habitual of using today. I used to access my yahoo mail through the dial up connection on my bosses machine. I did not used to receive much of the emails back then though. Only a few Ad mailers from yahoo partner sites. Later came other web mails and I used many of them including MSN(Hotmail), Rediff, AOL, Gmail, Indiatimes and my official Email through the email clients provided by the offices where I worked. It was a medium where we could communicate easy and fast. Hundreds and thousands of mails from friends, family, colleagues and clients. But this progress in technology also brought few annoyances. The virus, the trojans and the hackers. Of all these the biggest annoyance that I would rate is the Spam and unmindful forwarded emails.

Today a normal IT guy would spend first half to one hour of his day in scanning through tons of mails which he receive daily. Of these mails many are the forwarded mails. So now let us discuss whether we should forward that funniest joke mail or may be a very beautiful image message. I actually like sharing a great mail with people close to me and do forward a mail or two to my friends and family. But Hey stop. Think for a while. Am I adding another useless mail to already a long list of mails in my friend's mailbox? As an It guy I would like to see my business mails first thing in the morning (We all have the deadlines and targets to meet). I might like to read these entertainment mails (as I would like to call them) later in the day or maybe when I am done for the day. But that too not for very long, may be a mail or two in a week. So how do I ensure that I receive only the relevant mails or the minimum of these unmindful forwards? Isn't it simple? Send the only the mails which you think is really the veryyyyyyyyyy goooooood. But the rational should be applied to both few mails and only to a few people.

Here I would also talk about the mails which we all come across every now and then. "Send this mail to XX people and your wish will come true". Has anyone of you ever been able to get the wish granted by sending such mails. If the answer is yes please post me here I would be a good opportunely which many like me are missing. Please do me a favor and make me aware of your wish that was granted. I assure you, I will not be jealous instead I'll be a happy for you. I would rate those "Free goodies offer" mails in the same category. Remember no company is gong to give out that latest product out of its factory just to get you forwarding the mails. There is nothing called "FREE Lunch" you know.

All said about these mails which generate unnecessary traffic on the mail servers. Now there is one more kind of mail which do the damage not only in terms of clogged mailboxes but also have a very bad aspect to it. These mails are generally the hate mails against an authority, a company or may be a community. The other day I received a mail claiming how some Indian news channels kept talking about the celebrity going to pray in a temple while an India army officer laid his life in battle against a deadly terrorist and managed to bring this bad guy down. Only BBC covered this news. I seriously bow in this officers respect but am not sure whether these big news channels are really so careless as not to cover this for the sake of a celebrity news. May be the guy who initiated this mail has genuinely come across such a gross negligence of not one but all new channels. But did the people who forwarded this mail actually confirm the authenticity of this mail. May be this was just an intended joke. But by forwarding this mail you are bringing nothing but the distrust towards the society (television today is no doubt the part of our society). One similar mail talked about airport authorities manhandling the visitors just to dupe them of their valuables and cash. This is reticules. Do we know what kind of bad name we bring to our country buy forwarding these mails without checking the authenticity of these mails? These kind of mails are strict No No. At least till reconfirming the authenticity.
Rest I leave it to you fine people to think and adopt the way which you think is most appropriate. This is my try to put forward what I think is a bad practice and should be checked. Bye for now and keep me posted. Let us bring good practices to our society.