Blogs In New India : Make your opinion count

Blogs In New India : Make your opinion count: Indian vehicle registration number - source finder

2009-12-17T19:20:00.000+05:30

Blogs In New India : Make your opinion count: Indian vehicle registration number - source finder

Indian vehicle registration number - source finder

2009-12-16T17:32:00.001+05:30

Helpful information about Indian vehicle registration number - source finder. This is a nice tool, allowing you to search any Indian vehicle's source i.e. where that particular vehicle was registered. One needs to provide the first 4 digits of the Indian vehicle & the result shows the source state & any additional information (e.g. district).

in reference to:

"Vehicle Source RTO finder"
- innINDIA: Vehicle Source RTO finder- Indian Web & Application Development Team (view on Google Sidewiki)

Alexa Ranking: What is it? Does Alexa matter?

2007-05-15T14:50:00.000+05:30

If you are a regular netizen and have been associated with the Internet for some time now, perhaps I do not need to reintroduce Alexa to you. Alexa has been there, is still there (in fact with a new look now) & hopefully would remain there for a long time now. Apart from being a search engine (which is powered by Google), it does offer a unique service called "Alexa Traffic Rank". Well, I agree it is not exactly unique, keeping in mind Google offers something in the same line, known as Google PR (or Page Rank), but it is indeed special on its own terms.

Those who are in Indian Media or Indian Publishing industry should be familiar with the terms TRP (or Television Rating Points) and TAM (Television Audience Measurement) or INTAM. These are similar classes of rating mechanism (well of course, for Indian Televison), where different authorities come up with their own benchmarks and technologies of providing ranking.

How does Alexa define the traffic ranking?

Firstly, we need to understand that Alexa's ranking is driven by the fact that it calculates browsing pattern of the segment of Internet population who uses Alexa Toolbar. In other words, the browsing habits of a small portion of the Internet population are monitored through Alexa's client-side installed browser toolbar and then multiplied by the estimated total Internet user population to determine total traffic to a particular website. Want to see a live example? Check the top 100 website from India (as on May 15, 2007).

The story sounds quite reasonable so far. We should be happy now and start some research on how to get a good position on Alexa. Isn't it? But does the above logic really stand strong? Or does it have any pitfall?

Let us go through a scenario:

Assume, out of the Internet population across the Globe (& beyond - if any) 100,000 people are using the Alexa Toolbar. Now, on an average ONLY 1 of them go to your website. Under this situation, as per Alexa's logic, your site will have a pretty pathetic ranking. However, what this rank won't portray is the fact that perhaps every day, you actually have 1000 visitors on your website (and as said before, only 1 out of this 1000 actually has Alexa Toolbar installed). So, from your perspective you will understand that Alexa has a poor Toolbar penetration amongst the Internet population (as only 1 out of 1000 visitors to your site actually has Alexa installed). Whereas, from Alexa's perspective, your site is pathetic, as out of its toolbar user-base of 100,000, only 1 went to your site. :) Now do we get the facts straight?

Does Alexa ranking matter?

In order to understand the importance of Alexa ranking, we need to put ourselves in the shoes of the Internet Advertising fraternity. Assume, you want to place ads on good websites, which has appropriate content and attracts descent traffic. The question here is, how do you validate a site as "good"? How do you know the traffic pattern? How do you get information about its reach to Internet users? The raw server stats can well get manipulated (as the server is not in your control). Right? This is when Advertisers are generally left with no other option but to rely on a 3rd part tool (like Alexa) to measure the effectiveness of potential advertising sites. The logic from the publishers point of view is simple, they are using the same tool to measure all sites. So, be the tool be good or bad, it would affect all sites and the winner will get the deal. Though quite reasonably some will dispute the validity of Alexa Rankin, major advertising networks such as AdBrite and Text Link Ads use Alexa ratings regularly to price advertising on publisher websites. Even in India, the not-so-matured Online Marketing would go by the Alexa ratings before taking a call on setting the price cap on advertisement pricing. I must also add that in India the online advertising industry is still in is infancy and is largely driven by Agencies like Mediaturf et al.
So, end of the day it does mean that you should care about your Alexa rating, and check it regularly! It could well become a deciding factor for your next probable advertiser. :)

Air Travel is Safe: Is it?

2007-05-07T13:18:00.001+05:30

Though statistically flying is nowadays an extremely safe form of transportation, accidents do occur. The relative rarity of such incidents coupled with the often dramatic outcome, is definitely one reason why such incidents still make breaking news across the globe. Even though the odds of actually getting caught in a plane crash are nowadays distinctly low (the odds of dying on a commercial airline flight are as low as 9 million to 1!) compared to other means of transportation, the probability of not surviving such a disaster are notably higher. And it's an open secret that a lot can go wrong at 33,000 feet above the ground, and if you’re unlucky enough to be aboard when something does, the decisions you make could mean the difference between life and death. If we look at the air disaster events of last year (i.e. 2006), it does force you to think twice while deciding about air travel.

Air Disaster Events of 2006:

Date	Airline/Location	Location	Aircraft Type/Registration	Fatalities
01.19.2006	Slovak Air Force	Hejce, Hungary	Antonov AN-24B	42:43:00
			5605
03.31.2006	TEAM Transportes Aéreos	Saquarema, Brazil	Let 410UVP-E20	19:19
			PT-FSE
04.16.2006	Transporte Aéreo Militar - TAM	Guayaramerín, Bolivia	Fokker F-27 Friendship 400M	1:31
			FAB-91
04.27.2006	LAC - SkyCongo	Amisi, Congo	Convair CV-580F	8:08
			ZS-SKH
05.03.2006	Armavia	Sochi, Russia	Airbus A320-211	113:113
			EK-32009
07.09.2006	Sibir Airlines	Irkutsk, Russia	Airbus A310-324	127:201
			F-OGYP
08.22.2006	Pulkovo Aviation Enterprise	Donetsk, Ukraine	Tupolev TU-154M	171:171
			RA-85185
08.27.2006	Comair	Lexington, Kentucky, USA	Bombardier Canadair CRJ-100ER	49:50:00
			N431CA
09.01.2006	Iran Air Tour	Mashad, Iran	Tupolev TU-154M	29:147
			EP-MCF
09.29.2006	Gol Transportes Aéreos	São Félix do Xingu, Brazil	Boeing 737-8EH	155:155
			PR-GTD
10.10.2006	Atlantic Airways	Stord, Norway	British Aerospace BAe-146-200A	3:16
			OY-CRG
10.29.2006	Aviation Development Corporation	Abuja, Nigeria	Boeing 737-2B7	96:105+1
			5N-BFK
11.17.2006	Trigana Air Service	Puncak Jaya, Indonesia	de Havilland DHC-6Twin Otter 300	12:12
			PK-YPY
Registration Number: The unique registration number of the aircraft involved in the accident. Registrations are prefaced with a country code such as 'N' for the United States, 'G-' for Great Britain, or 'SU-' for Egypt.
Courtsey: Airdisaster.com

Kenya Airways 737-800 Crashed

The Nairobi-bound Boeing 737-800 that departed from Douala airport early Saturday, an hour late because of rain, with 105 passengers and nine crew members on board had issued a distress call shortly after take-off. But then lost contact with the radio tower between 11 and 13 minutes afterwards, officials said. The wreckage was found about 12 miles southeast of Douala, along its flight path. Ironically, Kenya Airways is considered one of the safest airlines in Africa. The Douala-Nairobi flight runs several times a week, and is commonly used as an intermediary flight to Europe and the Middle East.

What Causes Air Accidents?
Approximately 80 percent of all aviation accidents occur shortly before, after, or during takeoff or landing, and are typically the result of human error and/or unregarded technical problems within an aircraft; mid-flight disasters are rare but not entirely unheard of. Among other things, the latter have been caused by bombs as in the 1988 Lockerbie incident, mid-air collisions such as in the 2002 Überlingen crash, structural failure as in the 1954 Comet disasters and 1988 Aloha Airlines incident, or in cases of (purportedly) mistaken identity where civilian aircraft were shot down by military (compare Korean Air Flight 007).

An accident survey of 2,147 aircraft accidents from 1950 through 2004 determined the causes to be as follows:

45%: Pilot error

33%: Undetermined or missing in the record

13%: Mechanical failure

7%: Weather

5%: Sabotage (bombs, hijackings, shoot-downs)

4%: Other human error (air traffic controller error, improper loading of aircraft, improper maintenance, fuel contamination, language miscommunication etc.)

1%: Other cause

*The survey excluded military, private, and charter aircraft.

A study by Boeing determined the primary cause of Airline hull loss accidents (worldwide commercial jet fleet), from 1996 through 2005, to be:

55%: Flight Crew error

17%: Airplane

13%: Weather

7%: Misc./Other

5%: ATC

3%: Maintenance

Top 10 Airline Safety Tips (by Airsafe.com)
Let us also look at how we could work towards minimizing the air travel risks.

Fly on Nonstop Routings

Most accidents occur during the takeoff, climb, descent, and landing phase of flight so flying nonstop would reduce exposure to these most accident prone phases of flight.

Choose Larger Aircraft

Currently, aircraft with more than 30 passenger seats were all designed and certified under the strictest regulations. Also, in the unlikely event of a serious accident, larger aircraft provide a better opportunity for passenger survival.

Pay Attention to the Preflight Briefing

Although the information seems repetitious, the locations of the closest emergency exits may be different depending on the aircraft that you fly on and seat you are in.

Keep the Overhead Storage Bin Free of Heavy Articles

Overhead storage bins may not be able to hold very heavy objects during turbulence, so if you or another passenger have trouble lifting an article into the bin, have it stored elsewhere.

Keep Your Seat Belt Fastened While You are Seated

Keeping the belt on when you are seated provides that extra protection you might need if the plane hits unexpected turbulence.

Listen to the Flight Attendants

The primary reason flight attendants are on an aircraft is for safety, so if one of them asks you to do something like fasten your seat belts, do it first and ask questions later.

Don't Bring Any Hazardous Material

There are rather long lists of hazardous materials that are not allowed, but common sense should tell you that you shouldn't bring gasoline, corrosives, poisonous gases, and other such items on the aircraft unless they were allowed by the airline and shipped in a proper container.

Let the Flight Attendant Pour Your Hot Drinks

Flight attendants are trained to handle hot drinks like coffee or tea in a crowded aisle on a moving aircraft, so allow them to pour the drink and hand it too you.

Don't Drink Too Much

The atmosphere in an airliner cabin is pressurized to about the same altitude as Denver, so any alcohol you consume will affect you more strongly than at sea level. Moderation is a good policy at any altitude.

Keep Your Wits About You

In the unlikely event that you are involved in an emergency situation such as a precautionary emergency evacuation, follow the directions of the flight attendants and flight crew and exit the aircraft as quickly as possible.

Related Articles:

Interesting article on Surviving Plane Crash at Wikihow.com
Want more information on Airline Crashes? Check Planecrashinfo.com
Boeing Survey Indicates Most Air Travelers Feel Safe
Are the skies safe enough?
Fatal Boeing 737 Events
Aviation Safety Network (get the latest news/updates on Air Incidents)

Ecommerce in India (Part I): The Basics

2007-04-28T23:03:00.000+05:30

What is Ecommerce: If we go by dictionary, it would mean "Electronic Commerce" i.e. the conducting of business communication and transactions over networks and through computers. In particular, ecommerce is the buying and selling of goods and services, and the transfer of funds, through digital channels (modes of communication).

E-Business (Electronic Business/ Online Business) Models
There are two basic types of ebusiness models available. These can well be termed as 'Distribution' and 'Retail' (as opposed to B2B and B2C) in order to reflect the manner in which traditional business is conducted in these two sectors.

The retail model
Let us compare this to our day-to-day shopping activity. In the Retail model, customers, to all intents and purposes, remain anonymous. Any guest is permitted to add items to their basket and, when they have finished shopping, can proceed to the checkout where payment may be requested.This model is intended to reflect the way in which traditional retail shopping is carried out and therefore be easy for customers to use; but its very nature makes it unsuited to conducting business worldwide on the Web. That is because the destination of the goods cannot be ascertained until the customer reaches the checkout-point and, therefore, the value of the customer's basket (including turnover tax) cannot be accurately calculated until then.The retail model also raises two important security implications for businesses using it. Firstly, where the ecommerce system provides real-time stock control, anonymous guests can easily disrupt online shopping by selecting large quantities of high demand products that they have no intention of purchasing. Such disruption can lead bona-fide customers to conclude that insufficient stock is available for their own immediate needs and encourage them to shop elsewhere. Secondly, just as traditional retail businesses suffer their unfair share of credit card fraud, so to do online businesses using the retail model. In both cases, fraud is prevalent because no attempt is made to ascertain the true identity of the customer. When the value of goods is modest, some firms see this as an acceptable risk; but it is a risk that will rise continually for as long as the same Retail model is employed. Generally speaking, the Retail model is only useful when product prices remain constant for all destinations or when sales levels depend primarily upon impulse buying.

The Distribution Model (B2B)
Traditionally, distributors do not sell direct to the public. Instead their customer base consists mainly of firms operating in the value added and retail sectors with whom they enjoy a close working relationship. In this ecommerce model there are no 'anonymous' customers. In order to be able to conduct online shopping the guest must first have a valid account and identify themselves to the system. The Distribution model does not suffer any of the disadvantages or security implications of the Retail model; but, because new customers are required to apply for an account before any goods may be chosen, it can discourage impulse buying from fleeting Internet guests. On the plus side, this model provides the ability to perform detailed client tracking and compile appropriate statistics to ensure that the service provided is meeting all customer needs.

Now, let us take a close look at the most crucial part of this process i.e. online payment/transaction.

Online Payment Process (some facts)
Online payment facilities can be added to both types of ecommerce solution (generally client side & server side solutions) and business model; but there is also a considerable amount of marketing hype from the Merchant Account and Online Banking sectors. One should bear in mind that, if it is easy for you to obtain payment electronically, it is often just as easy for your customers to cancel their transactions on a whim. In the trade, such cancellations are known as 'charge backs' and they are now becoming fairly common. If a customer pays traditionally by cheque you will normally know if their payment has cleared within three working days; but, depending upon the credit card company, customers may have up to 30 days in which to cancel an online credit card payment - and you may not get to know of the chargeback or "charge back" until considerably later. Often the cost of recovering the goods supplied (and often tracing the customer) can significantly outweigh the cost of delivery and the products lost.

What to expect as End User while making an online payment?
Well, if you are making an online payment using your credit card, you should be careful about the followings (at minimum):

Ensure that the site has a clearly defined support system in place (& the telephone numbers/emails work & are truly reachable)
Try to get clarity on possible refund norms
Go through the help sections to understand what to expect after successful payment (e.g. mostly a successful transaction would return you a success message along with a transaction reference number, which could be used for any future communication)
The payment page should ideally be under SSL (e.g. instead of normal http://www.innindia.com/, it would become https://www.innindia.com/).
Payment page should ideally ask you for CVV number (& that too as password filed i.e. as you key in your CVV, it shouldn't appear as clear text).
Finally, do ensure that you are on a steady Internet connection (coz quite frequently it has been noticed that as you key in all your transaction information like Credit Card number, Name, Address, Card Type, CVV, Expiry Date etc. & pressed submit...if at this point you lose your connectivity, unnecessarily there might be a confusion as to whether the payment went through before your details were logged by merchant or was it that the payment was through, but you missed the success screen).

Now, the question is how does this really work?
Let us take a broad look on the steps that actually happen as you or me (say, consumer) make an online transaction:

Consumer places an order with the merchant (e.g. http://www.innindia.com/ or http://www.ebay.in/ or http://www.irctc.co.in/) through the secured web page (i.e. a SSL page, where consumer fills in the Credit Card related information)
Typically the merchant (e.g. http://www.innindia.com/ or http://www.ebay.in/ or http://www.irctc.co.in/) would have integrated a payment mechanism by taking service from an Online Payment Processing Authority who basically act as a "Payment Gateway" (e.g. http://www.innindia.com/ uses PayPal; http://www.irctc.co.in/ uses ICICI; http://www.ebay.in/ uses PaisaPay amongst many other gateways). So, when consumer makes a payment, this Payment Gateway would pick this request (submitted by consumer), then it would typically encrypt (for security purpose) and forward the Authorization Request to the Consumer's Credit Card Issuer (e.g. say consumer used a SBI Credit Card on IRCTC website, then the ICICI Payment Gateway used by IRCTC would communicate the transaction request to SBI) to verify the consumer's credit card account and funds availability.
Then the Authorization/Approval (or Decline) Response is returned via the Payment Gateway back to the merchant website. This entire authorization process happens in or around 3 seconds or less.
Upon approval, merchant would show a success screen to consumer & would allocate the product/service to the consumer.
On the other hand, the Payment Gateway would send the settlement request to the Merchant Account Provider.
The Merchant Account Provider deposits transaction funds into the Merchant's (i.e. the website where consumer made the purchase) Checking Account.

"Claim your blog": How/What/Why?

2007-03-30T17:54:00.000+05:30

If you are a serious blogger or if you have interest in blogging (& over the last few days were breaking your head on this) or perhaps were searching franatically over the net & stumbled up on this phrase "claim your blog"...voila! You have come to the right place for its clarification. See, in simple layman terms, what this means is:
Each time you do a post on your blog (let us call it the parent blog) that is external to the site which has claimed your blog, that post will automatically appear (in full or partial based on what you set) as a post (let us call this post as a child blog) on the other blog site as well. Cool ain't it? So, each time you add posts to the parent blogs, those get reflected in the child as well (unless of course the child blog driving site decided otherwise).
You might be thinking that it sounds ok, what what is so great about it? Well, you are absolutely right in thinking so! Let us look at that aspect as well.

Why would you want to do this?

Generally the blog claiming site would put (e.g. at the top of each post) a link to the originating blog post. Hmnnn....additional links pointing to your site/blogs. Neat! :)
You get more readership of your blog content.
All these basically leads to more traffic to your external blog.

Does this sound interesting now?
If you are truely interested about blogging & want to reach out to the millions of net audience, you do need to use the services offered by companies like Technorati. People find your blogs easily when they search by technorati tags. Technorati will rank your blog based on the number of links from other websites.The higher your rank the easier your blog is to find when people search for things.

Some other sites, where you may claim your blogs are:
Mintiblog.com
Feedster.com
Blogexplosion.com

Air Travel in India

2007-03-23T00:36:00.000+05:30

With India's economic and business growth, the percentage of traveling population is burgeoning. More and more Indians are traveling for both business and pleasure and everyone needs to save both time and money. As a result over the last few years, there has been a revolution in Indian Air Travel Business. In fact, Air travel in India has followed a metamorphosis over the last decade and this is largely attributed to the Open Sky policy introduced by the Indian Government. This policy basically allowed the private players to enter the arena of Indian Air space. As an immediate effect, Air Travel in India has indeed become cheaper (compared to how it used to be even 3-4 years back) and has become more affordable to the mass. And the number of people traveling by air has gone up drastically. However, it is apt to mention that the lucrative Air Fares offered by the so called Budget Airlines like Air Deccan, Spice Jet, GoAir, Indigo are gradually losing its shine & is failing to convince the Indian Middle Class towards air travel. One of the major issue has definitely been the price of Aviation Fuel, which in India have gone up quite fast over the last year or so. And Jet fuel prices being the major factor determining air fares (accounting for almost 25% of the cost of air travel), any hike in aviation turbine fuel prices immediately impacted airline operations. Of late the Government of India also introduced an Airport Traffic Congestion Charge...which also got transmitted to the end customers, resulting in another level of air fare hike.
Apart from regular fare hikes, Indian Air Travel is also suffering from poor infrastructure across the country and even important Airports like HAL (Bangalore) fails to produce quality & effecient service to the air travelers. Adding to the suffering are the facts that Indian Ecommerce is still in its infancy & that leads to severe problem to Air Traveler who prefers buying tickets Online.

The major Airlines Operators in India:

Air Deccan: [http://www.flyairdeccan.net]
Established in 2003 by Captain G R Gopinath, it has stabilized itself as one of the most used Air Career for the Indian Middle Class. Unfortunately, very recently Air Deccan introduced a New Air Ticket Booking system, which ended up being a nightmare not only to the end users (where the system might show declined payment & won't issue a ticket...whereas in reality your card might end up getting charged), but also created a major problem to the Air Deccan administration.

Jet Airways: [http://www.jetairways.com/]
Jet Airways, which commenced operations on May 5, 1993, has within a short span of 13 years established its position as a market leader. The airline has had the distinction of being repeatedly adjudged India’s ‘Best Domestic Airline’ and has won several national and international awards.
Airline Code: 9W.
IATA Membership: Active Member and a member of the IATA Clearing House. Also a participant of the IATA Multilateral Agreement for Passengers and Cargo Traffic.

Fleet Combination (as of April 2007):

Boeing 737-700
ATR 72-500
Boeing 737-800
Airbus 340-300E
Boeing 737-900
Boeing 737-400
Boeing 737-800
Airbus 330-200
Boeing 737-800
Boeing 737-700
Boeing 737-800

Spicejet [http://www.spicejet.com/]
SpiceJet's new generation fleet of aircraft is backed by cutting edge technology and infrastructure to ensure the highest standards in operating efficiency. With maintenance support by KLM and state of the art technology from world leaders like Star Navigation, Russell Adams and Tech Log there will be no compromise on safety, reliability or on-time travel. The company has tied up with Navitaire the world’s renowned low-cost support for reservations and revenue management. E-booking and e-ticketing facilities are available online along with tele-booking.

Fleet:
SpiceJet has opted for new generation Boeing 737-800s. These are typically 189 seater aircraft with CFM56-7B24 engines, having a range of 3,060 nautical miles (5425 km).

View a list of Airports in India.

"indiaplaza Price Challenge" FAKE Saga Continues

2007-03-18T12:42:00.000+05:30

"indiaplaza Price Challenge" FAKE Saga Continues

I actually forgot about the "Indaplaza (FAKE) Price Challenge" issue...the FAKE story, claiming to be the cheapest on Mobile & book segment. :) Interestingly...I received a mail from Team Indiaplaza on Friday, March 9, 2007 with the following content:

Dear Arijit Sarbagna

Thank you for taking the Indiaplaza.in price challenge. We have processed your claim and found the claim to be valid. We are also happy to inform you that we have now reduced the price on the product. The Gift Certificate worth double the difference is also attached at the end of this mail. We would like to thank you for taking the effort to point out the difference and helping us maintain Indiaplaza as the most competitive destination for mobiles and books. We hope you have pleasurable experience shopping on http://www.indiaplaza.in/.

Coupon_number: <...coupon code was here...>
Value : 1000
Expiry_date: April 6th, 2007

Warm Regards
Team Indiaplaza

Initially I was bit surprised to see such a faithful gesture from IndiaPlaza...which so far behaved very poorly. I immediately decided on making some purchase from Indiaplaza by utilizing the coupon. Here I should let you know that I had previously decided that never in my life would I purchase from Indiaplaza/Fabmall based on the kind of communication I had received from Indiaplaza (e.g. Mr. Puneet Jain - Assistant Manager Merchandising, Indiaplaza...who asked for tax invoice & India specific manufacturer’s warranty, when I had already provided product number & source URLs against the Price Challenge). Anyways, getting back to my purchasing experience...for a split second I did think that perhaps Indiaplaza is changing its image. Good! That was encouraging (for a change). I started the purchasing process & after 40-50 minutes of wasted efforts...I realized...every time I am trying to utilize the gift coupon (sent by Indiaplaza)...I end up getting an error stating "Please redeem this GC only on the store it was meant to be redeemed". Immediately I wrote to Indiaplaza demanding a clarification on this. But after I sent the mail...I felt...what is the use? The consistent "no customer focus" attitude shown by Indiaplaza only suggests that I wouldn't get any response...& in reality...till date I actually haven't received any response. Uh! At least Indiaplaza is consistent in one field...harassing its customers. So, please be aware of buying from Indiaplaza or using its gift coupons...as you never know whether those coupons would actually work or not & if they don't...God be with you, as one shouldn't expect "customer support" from this company.

Lastly, let me publish the pictures which I had sent to Mr. Puneet Jain to show the my claim of higher price charged by India Plaza was actually true (& I also advised Puneet in the following words "I am least bothered about the coupons...please save a few bucks for your company. I won't be interested to buy or be in touch with a company...which can't stand to its words." ).

Price of a Mobile Handset at IndiaTimes (on the date I sent this mail to Indiaplaza.in):

Price of same Mobile Handset at Indiaplaza (on the same date)

Travel in India

2007-03-03T16:32:00.000+05:30

Planning to Travel to India? Got some extra cash and want to fullfil the long cherished dream of being in the excotic Indian locations like the beaches at Goa or the trekking at Ladakh or perhaps the adventure at Corbett National Park? Well, before you step out to catch the plane...do spend a few hours to make your tour plan. A proper tour/trip plan could eventually end up saving you a smart amount & would add value to your trip & experience. So, the obvious question would be to know how & where to find all the necessary information on Travelling to India. Look no further, check innINDIA who is offering you the basic set of information that every visitor travelling in india should be aware of. Also, check the resources/services offered by www.innindia.com, which are worth taking a look at.
So, wishing you a pleasant holidaying at India...have fun.

Geo Location : IP to Country Information

2007-03-01T19:23:00.001+05:30

In order to get the country (or even city) specific information from the IP address, one needs to get hold of a IP database. As you are probably aware, every ISP has a set of IP pool, which they are allocated to distribute to their end users (e.g. you & me). Now, once you get this DB (some are free...but has limited information, whereas some are paid, very comprehensive & provider takes care of regular updates). Once this DB is with you, rest is just plugging in a script to query this DB & get all the relevany information.

How exactly it works?

IP address is usually expressed as four decimal numbers, each representing eight bits (separated by periods). This is also known as the dot address and more technically as "dotted quad notation". The DB that is available, generally maps a decimal notation of any IP address to corresponding Country/City info.

Working model on Geo Location: http://www.innindia.com/services/?type=5

Regards

innINDIA Development Team

http://www.innindia.com/

Currency Convertor from innINDIA

2007-02-25T10:56:00.000+05:30

innINDIA has added a new service to its portfolio - "International Currency Convertor". This is currently open to public & is accessible at: www.innindia.com/services. While describing the usefulness of this services, Amitava Roy - Chief Marketing Officer (CMO) of innINDIA explained that innINDIA is gradually opening up its entire suite of Web Based Application & Services which would eventually become a complete "e-utility service" for any web user. It is worth noting that innINDIA makes extensive use of Google's Coop Technology for running its Vertical Search portal http://health.innindia.com - Medical Search Engine. The email service of innINDIA is also powered by Google. It had initially launched with "Indian PIN Code Search".

"Price Challenge" at IndiaPlaza - its FAKE

2007-02-20T08:23:00.000+05:30

This Price Challenge at IndiaPlaza is just an eye wash. They never accept any valid enties. They don't even care to respect customer's intention towards helping them by pointing out the flaws in pricing etc. Take for example:
The day I got a mailer...I spent just about 15 minutes to find at least 2 mobile sets...which were available at a cheaper price at Indiatimes.com. I informed Fabmall/Indiaplaza about the price difference (a diff of about INR 500/-). But in a few days I received a mail that they didn't find that Fabmall price was hiigher...& asked me to produce tax invoices. How rediculous. So I threw that mail on their face...& sent them the screenshot of the products ...which was priced higher at Indiaplaza. They should be ashamed of themselves & take down such fake "Price Challenge".