Recently, I was in a similar position while placing an order on mGinger. The site is not new as I know that the company started as a company that would pay for reading ads sent to your mobile. But,even then it was not known as a shopping site until recently.

As soon as I saw that deal on mGinger, I also came to see free advices warning me against placing an order with them. But since the deal was good and I couldn’t find that product on any other e-commerce site, I just went ahead and placed my order.

To my suprise, the order was processed and shipped by the very next day. I received the order in the next 2 days and I am impressed with the experience of shopping on that site.

But, I don’t know how good is their customer support platform through phone or email just because I didn’t need to contact them. But it’s better to call them before placing an order just to get a feel of how they respond.

The craving for Google’s numero uno tablet increased many-fold because of it’s much affordable price point. A 8 Gb version is available for $ 199 and the 16GB version costs a little more at $249. The price is one of the main reason which made it stand immediately beside Kindle Fire in customer’s mind.

Comparisons apart, this post lets you know about a giveaway from Android Advices. Amit bhawani, the founder of AA is giving away 5 Google Nexus 7 tablets in this international contest. The fact that the contest is international gives little disappointment to Indian contest participators but when you need good exposure, you need to go global and Amit clearly knew it.

Anyways, to enter the contest visit this page(http://androidadvices.com/asus-nexus-tablet-giveaway/) and when the contest script loads up, you need to complete simple things like “Liking” their pages on Facebook, commenting, posting, tweeting about their contest etc.,. You can accumulate as many entries as you can and the more  , the better are your chances of winning  a Nexus 7.

Now coming to the small brother of latest iPhone, the 3GS version was announced in June 2009 as a successor to it’s 3G version.The ‘S’ in 3GS meant ‘speed’ but it isn’t that fast compared to the average Android smartphone available in the market now. But Apple products have an out-of-the-world class and feel. It has a 256 MB RAM and a 600 MHz Cortex-A8 processor clocks inside. It features a modest 3.15 MP camera which clicks good pictures and a non-removable battery. It is available in 8/16/32 Gb versions but it’s not clear which version would be on sale in the Aircel offer. Most probably, it would be an 8GB version.

The details of pricing and other pre-paid offer can be had from http://www.aircel.com/AircelWar/appmanager/aircel/delhi?_nfpb=true&name=3GS&_pageLabel=P22400229511306046919306

Astral Poly's Indian connection to Buffett

ditives and other specialty chemicals, in September 2011 for his firm Berkshire Hathaway.
After the the company came in the control of Buffett, it went on an acquisition spree to consolidate it’s top position. It is during this time that Lubrizol thought to enter India. According to this stock exchange announcement, Astral was in initial discussions with Lubrizol to form a joint venture(JV) and thereafter, build a Chlorinated Poly Vinyl Chloride(CPVC) plant at Dahej, Gujarat . This clraification to the Bombay Stock Exchange came in September 22nd hardly 6 days after Berkshire Hathaway owned Lubrizol. This is July 2012 and as of now, there is no clarification whether the plans would materialize or not. But the stock is continuously moving northwards hoping for the good.

Astral is already the only licensee of Lubrizol in India for manufacturing and marketing CPVC products. Going through some research reports, I came to know the following:

• Astral gets it’s raw material from Lubrizol itself.
• Astral is itself on an expansion spree planning to increase it’s production to meet the growing demand.
• Astral Poly is already a leader in the CPVC market with 60% market share.

With so many positives surrounding the company, it is no surprise that stock is performing well in subdued market conditions. FIIs are constantly increasing their holdings in the company hoping that the ‘Oracle of Omaha’ presence can lift the stock higher making it a ‘value buy’. My personal opinion is  positive on the company and I think Lubrizol may popup a surprise by buying the company itself if not a JV.

If you receive any information regarding the partnership between these two companies, you may comment here to pass it on to others.

Note: This is not at all a stock recommendation but only takes you through an Indian Company- Warren Buffett connection.

Homeshop18, one of the e-commerce giants, is slowly but surely establishing itself as a good e-shopping site. The prices of products, books in particular, are amazingly low. And add this additional discount, you would be getting your favorite books very cheap-cheaper than any other e-commerce site.This offer would be a great one for students whose text books usually quote at higher hundreds.

All you need to do is enter the code ‘GCDF321NF4UA’ in the “Gift Coupon Number” box and complete the transaction either by paying upfront and opting for Cash-on-delivery. Trust me, their COD process is very fair and they even take COD for remote locations(I live in one).

With such low prices on books, which no other site is able to offer, I wonder how Homeshop18 manages to generate profits. Anyways, customers are always happy.

Google,which uses many advanced techniques to track users just to know their ad-preferences might have failed on this. Me being a loyal user of Gmail for 4 years now, wouldn’t need an ad to beg me to join Gmail. This ads are to be sensibly aimed at non-Gmail users. A correction would pop-in anytime soon.

The company which is working to bring down the piracy of the movie ’3′ has issued warnings to individuals who have uploaded the movie on various filesharing sites like mediafire, rapidshare. People who post the download links on various forums May also get trouble.

The movie has been long awaited since the popular video song of ‘Why this Kolaveri Di’ went viral on the web. The song was sung by the actor ‘Dhanush’ himself. The long wait may also have been the reason for the increased piracy of the film. But thanks to the efforts of Copyright Labs, pirates will have a tough time.

The movie has been released in major Indian languagess like hindi, tamil, telugu and bengali.

One sentence verdict : Not for the Youth !.

We would definitely not recommend this phone to you. Go for a Dell XCD35 or Micromax A70 instead. You can also spend more bucks and go for LG Optimus One P500 phone, which is our best pick in Below 10,000 Android phones.

This phone is available for pre-order on Letsbuy website for a price of 7499 and you can use discount coupons like “ICICILB” , “AMEXLB” or “HSBCLB1″ to get additional discounts.

Here are some features of Aakash tablet:

Screen: 7 inch resistive touch screen with display resolution of 480*800 pixels. The screen is also the costliest component of the tablet.

OS: Android v2.2 (Froyo)

Memory: Internal flash memory of 2GB with 256 MB of RAM.

Card slot: MicroSD slot ,expandable  upto 32GB. A 2 Gb memory card is included.

Connectivity: WiFi

Processor : a 366 MHz processor clocks inside

Battery : 2100 mAh which can power the device for 3 hours with normal use

Weight: 350 gms

Price: $35 (government) and $60(retail)

The specs look very impressive given the ultra-low cost. The biggest con for ” Aakash ” is that it is not registered on the Android market and connectivity is limited to WiFi only. This would mean that you can’t download any apps from the Android app store directly. Some work-around can be done to get some apps running, though. There is no webcam as expected.

The device can play full HD videos @ 1080 pixels and as any Android device, can stream YouTube videos with little pain. This makes it a plus point for students who can access vast number of NPTEL videos already uploaded to the video sharing website.

Starting November, the cheapest tablet would be available for retail order for about Rs 3000.  This retail version adds support to access internet through 3G networks also.I am pretty excited about the tablet that I would be checking to pre-order it on e-commerce sites like Flipkart and Letsbuy. Adding more , the tablet also offers 1 year warranty.

For now, the cheap tablet attempt has been a success and I doubt anyone would be looking for an iPad or a Galaxy Tab without getting this first.

So, here are some coupon codes that are working in October 2011:

1. ” icicilb” : You get a 10% discount on the listed price of the items upto a maximum  of 1200. You will have to pay the amount either through your ICICI netbanking or ICICI debit/credit cards after using the coupon code. Sadly, you can’t opt for Cash on Delivery when using discount codes.

This offer would be in place only till 15th October.Try to take advantage of this before it ends.

2. “AMEXLB” : Get a 10% discount using this coupon and the upside is capped at Rs 1o00.

3. “ILUVLETSBUYHM”, “ILUVLETSBUYRT”, ” ILUVLETSBUYEM”, “ILUVLETSBUYFB”: Apply this in the coupon code section to get a flat 5% off across a range of products. This coupons may stop working after the end of the current festive season.