Sunish Issac’s thoughts on the Web

Thinkings of a tinker who thinks he’s a thinker

Archive for November 10th, 2007

Paypal lets you accept money through Indian Banks

Nov 10

Posted by Sunish in Business, Personal | 4 Comments

Not news anymore and I have not yet received any payments through paypal yet ,but I have a donation link at http://jal.sunish.net/donate.

I decided to go through the paypal process to accept money through my ICICI bank account in Calicut. After going through the profile option and Add bank of paypal website, it was asking for IFSC code.  A quick search revealed no result, but I accidentally stumbled upon

http://www.joycebabu.com/blog/paypal-supports-direct-withdrawal-to-bank-account.html where he has listed the the RBI link at http://www.idrbt.ac.in/index_fromsm.html?ifsc_directory.html?infinet

Finished through the process and got this threat

“Please make sure that the information you provided is complete and correct. Otherwise, the amount will be returned to your PayPal account (deducting any bank charges) and a return fee of 250.00 INR will be charged.”

and

It can take 5-7 business days to complete this transfer, depending on your bank’s holiday schedule and payment policies.”

Still not bad, for receiving money from the following banks SBI,Bank Of India, Canara Bank (No net banking in most places), Union bank, HDFC, ICICI, Axis, Standard Chartered, HSBC and ING Vysya.

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So Why Should I have a personal domain name ?

Nov 10

Posted by Sunish in Personal, Technology, Tips, Website | 4 Comments

Of course for businesses you have no choice, you got to get one for the n number of reasons that you might get on a Google search. Long time back my good old friend Shankar Subrahmanian asked me What do you do with a domain name ? 

So here are the pros and cons of having a domain name in your name.

Advantages

  • You feel as if you are one the web, on the net, having a web presence or identity or what ever.
  • Have a stylish email id root@root.com or me@me.com or whatever@whatever.whatever . Yes most domain names will let you have unlimited email ids and you can have a catch all email id so that you can get all spam.
  • You can find the web site who spammed you. On the  registration form on various websites, give the email id as websitename@yourdomainname and use the catchall option to get the registration info.  Later you can know when you get an unknown newsletter, or spam from which web site it actually originated or which web site sold your email address.
  • You don’t loose your identity till you stop renewing your domain.
  • You can register and get free samples of products from sites like http://microchip.com where they do not accept emails from hotmail,yahoo or gmail or any free email providers.
  • Create as many accounts that you want for invite by email id sites. You can have multiple Gizmo accounts or anything that offers a service or product for free.
  • Provide great content and your site becomes a brand, a sellable commodity something like a business entity.

Disadvantages

  • Spam
  • Spam
  • and more spam with catch all
  • Its like you lost your anonymity, anybody can contact you. You have a  forced identity. Well you asked for it …
  • You got to pay renewal fee every year :-(
  • You got to have hosting and have to pay for it :-(

I want to add more, but here’s a start. do comment and add more advantages or disadvantages.

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Driving madness and stupidities in India

Nov 10

Posted by Sunish in Personal, Tips, Travel | 3 Comments

Yesterday morning I had gone to Mahe by car and I thought I’ll make a note of the usual stupidities or lack of road sense by my fellow drivers. The confusing signals given by some drivers might be helpful for foreigners driving in India.

Here are the most common counter intuitive confusions and tips in surviving road traffic in India.

  • Putting the indicator to the right, to indicate to the vehicle following that you can over take.
    The worst part is if you wait for the vehicle in front to turn right, it will never happen, and if you decide to overtake and if the drive really meant to turn right, you are in for a crash.
  • Hazard warning indicator to go straight
    I don’t know who started it, but I have seen this happening since the hazard warning indicators started to appear in Ambassador cars. If you try to teach someone he’ll never learn goes the old saying. Try convincing a driver about what it is and he’ll reply, you have right and left indicators and how can you indicate that you want to go straight in an A/C car.
  • Beware of bus drivers, they might stop anywhere 
    Buses are like friends, they come in various sizes and shapes. Some may just barge in, some may force you down the road, overtake you and then stop abruptly in front of you at the next stop.And where is the stop you might ask, its the place where the driver feels like stopping, it tends to be the middle of the road, ensuring that you can’t overtake.
  • Humps and bumps
    Can appear anywhere, sometimes with a sign board and sometimes without. Those incredible roads do test to alertness while driving.
  • Road cuttings
    These are found in most places, as the roads are re tarred the thickness increases and the sides end up having cuttings. Sometimes the difference can be so much that it can overturn your vehicle if you make a sudden turn.
  • Potholes, drainage, fountains
    Potholes appear every year in most Indian roads. Kerala roads are well known for their deep holes that can damage your spine and drive you nuts. yes you might find fountains in the middle of the road when water pipes are broken. Be careful of the drainage, the slabs might fall off most of the time if you drive over it.
  • People, Cows, elephants and Tipper Lorries
    Watch out for all these, night or day. In some places you’ll find people who’ll actually bend in such a way that the vehicle can pass without touching their butt, and without moving their feet. Honking makes no difference, they’ll just not move until the vehicle has passed.

That’s it for now, add your comments so that I can I add that to list of things to watchout while driving in India.

Mishaps happen in bulk

Nov 10

Posted by Sunish in Business, Personal | No Comments

For the past many days there were problems both in the Mill and theatre. In the mill, the already old expellers, yes both of them stopped working. Both of them are aged work horses. Luckily the one that was not being used could be repaired to the extend of getting the job done.   

In the theatre too, something went wrong. The two QSC ISA 750 conked. Apparently, smoke came through the front vents. The interesting part is that just around an hour back both of them were working fine. These amplifiers powered the centre,left,right and sub woofer channels of the DTS system. The surround sound amplifier, processor and DTS player has no problems. All of the devices were powered through the servo. The voltage levels seemed to be fine and it was powered through the generator. God knows why ssuch things happen. I opened the amps and found that two capacitors were damaged, huge 16000uF caps, funny part was both the amps had the same cap blown. One of the amps did not even power on but the other has no problems with the power. Gave the amps for repair, expected to get in another 2 days. By tomorrow it becomes a week since the amplifiers conked.

I don’t know to what mysterious reasons I can attribute the mishaps, but its a fact that I have been a bit disinterested. There was also an employee compensation issue that made me feel quite bad. I hope things would change for the better.