Category: Information

Now I’m The Wine Society of India Member


Today I enrolled for a membership with The Wine Society of India and they were very fast in getting me enrolled… I got a call within 5 minutes of Faxing the application form…

 

Wine making, tasting and itz culture attracted me for almost a decade and being in Chennai I was deprived of learning the nuances of wine making and managing a Vineyard… Four years back I also took lot of steps to prepare a Business Plan for Wine Making unfortunately I didn’t have much contacts and I had to scrap the project for lack of exposure in the field…… Now I got an opportunity to explore and make my dreams a reality…

 

Now being their member I get following benefits;

 

  • 6 wines every 3 months; handpicked by an independent Board of Wine Advisors, chaired by Steven Spurrier, the world-famous wine authority.
  • Difficult-to-find wines, right at your doorstep
  •  Affordable prices (lower than retail)
  • Permanent Founding Member status for first 1000 wine-buying members
  • Prestigious membership card with vintage chart
  • 7-part Home Study Wine Education Course sent in quarterly installments along with your wine shipments
  • FREE two-year subscription to Sommelier India, India’s premier wine magazine (value INR 700), delivered to you with every shipment
  • Access to WSI ‘lifestyle’ classroom wine courses (Novice and Intermediate)
  • Invitations to WSI Wine Tasting events together with VIP’s from the wine world
  • Arrangement for a one-year Liquor License for those who do not possess one – FREE! (NOTE: Maharashtra Only)
  • Special helpline to answer any questions about wine and wine-related matters
  • Global Vineyard Visit Programme including VIP introductions to wineries and winemakers around the world
  • Exclusive restaurant privileges (in development)
  • Discounted pricing on world’s best wine magazines:
    • 25% discount off annual subscription to Decanter
  • Discounted pricing to The Wine & Spirits Education Trust range of wine courses
  • Discounted pricing at Oxford Bookstores
    • 10% discount on a range of WSI recommended wine titles
    • 5% discount on all other titles in the store
  • Discount at Classic Wine Shops in Bangalore – 5% on all purchases
  • Discounts on wines available at BIN END Sales held at prestige restaurants, where you can taste before you buy
  • Preferred pricing on carefully chosen wine accessories:
    • 20% discount on Haier home wine storage chillers to preserve your wine
    • 10% discount on Riedel crystal wine glasses and decanters
    • 10% discount on Screwpull wine-opening products
  • Access to investment-grade wines and en primeur offerings
  • Preference in the event of an IPO of The Wine Society of India
  • Also as a Citibank Platinum Cardholder, I’ll receive a FREE bottle of Bouvet-Ladubay Brut.

 

So what is the cost of membership is what will be in your mind? Simple every quarter they ship 6 bottles of wine which costs Rs. 6,500/- + Rs. 650/- (Transportation Charges) and we must commit to buy atleast 2 shipments in a year…

 

If you want to enroll you can download the form from The Wine Society of India site and you can email it or fax it or Snail mail it… If you give my name as reference I’ll get 2 wine bottles as reference gift and I’m ready to share one with you :)…

 

So this is what I’m getting in my first shipment? That will be my next blog post… For now I’m getting wines from 6 different countries and for more details keep your fingers crossed….

House for rent


First floor of our house in Gottegere, Bhannerghatta Road, Bangalore is available for rent… Please let me know if you are interested or help me in passing the message… If you want to take a look into house you contact my father, he will arrange someone to show the house…

 

House address will be provided on demand and these are our terms and my father’s mobile number…

 

Rent : Rs.7000/- PM

Advance : Negotiable

Contact no.:+91.9962598186

 

This is the front view of our house;

An experience in a clinic!!!


Today I took one of my friends to a doctor and lot of crazy things happened in the clinic;

 

  • It seems he is a doctor practicing Russian medicine… But he has put MBBS so I assume he must have finished his course from Russia…
  • Doctor was not in station and doctor heard the complaint thru. Phone and he asked his asst. who claims to be a Doctor and looks like a compounder to give some medicines…
  • Compounder Doctor’s assistant looked like a Tug and over a point fun changed to fear…
  • All the medicines were given as capsules and they were packed in envelop… I think medicines were prepared by the doctor himself…
  • To be on the safer side we asked for a receipt for the payment and the compounder Doctor’s assistant gave us the receipt and he signed in for the doctor…
  • Here is scanned copy of the receipt which advertises the political affiliations of the doctor… Also there were multiple websites and email addresses

dr

 

Over all I advised my friend not to take those tablets and I really don’t know the authenticity of such doctors… Very much wired and these doctors reference are given by Just Dial…

YOUNG CREATIVE ENTREPRENEUR AWARDS


Young Creative Entrepreneur (YCE) Awards programme aims to develop a powerful professional network between creative entrepreneurs in India and the UK to inspire and facilitate the sharing of best practices in building skills and access to resources, professional development, markets, mentoring and resources thereby increasing opportunities for business between India and the UK.

A key objective is to sensitise the UK creative sector to the opportunities that come from working with creative entrepreneurs in emerging economies. A second objective is to better understand the dynamics of being an entrepreneur in the creative economy. Throughout the programme we seek opportunities to achieve both this sensitisation and understanding.

The International Young Creative Entrepreneur (IYCE) programme aims to celebrate the achievements and develop the potential of young creative entrepreneurs across the British Council’s international networks. India promotes enterprise awards in Music, Design, Fashion, Interactive, Screen, Publishing, Visual Arts, Communications and Performing Arts throughout the year.

Operating in parallel to the International programme, the UK Young Creative Entrepreneurs (UKYCE) awards was launched last year which seeks to create wider understanding within the UK of the potential of emerging economies as centres for trade, collaboration, cooperation and cultural exchange, and to provide leading young creative entrepreneurs with the opportunity to visit and interpret these opportunities for themselves.

The award programme, both international and UK, is unique in its focus on young creative entrepreneurs; recognising their centrality to the development of a competitive and sustainable creative economy. It is our intention to link the networks created through the international and UK awards, to amplify these opportunities. Quite simply, we believe that creative talent can be found anywhere and the next big idea can emerge from any country.

For more details you can email yce.india@in.britishcouncil.org

For more information about the UK YCE awards please visit http://www.creativeconomy.org.uk

Mark Zuckerberg Turns Investigator


One by one, Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg has driven away his cofounders and close confidants. The latest to go: chief financial officer Gideon Yu.

Now Zuckerberg is tracking who has leaked the email memo sent to CFO and you can see his instigative tactics in the email… Please read the email carefully…

Catch the differences? One says “will report,” the other says “will be reporting.” One uses treasurer Cipora Herman’s last name, the other omits it. One says “we are fortunate,” while the other uses the contracted form “we’re.” And one says Peter Currie will be “an advisor,” while the other says only “advisor.”

 
That’s not the only oddity about the email. “Several versions I got of this memo had different punctuation in various places,” Swisher notes in an update.

COMPANY CONFIDENTIAL–DO NOT FORWARD

Hey Everyone–

Today ends the first quarter of 2009, so I wanted to send out an update on our growth and financial progress, as well as a couple of changes we are making.

Our user growth has been extraordinary over the past year and has continued to be strong throughout Q1. We are getting very close to reaching our 200 millionth active user. This is pretty remarkable considering we just reached 100 million actives a little more than seven months ago. We have become the top site for sharing information on the web, and this gives us a good strategic position to help people share even more.

I am also pleased that our financial progress has been very strong as well. While we came into this year wondering how the recession might affect us, our financial performance in the first quarter surpassed our expectations. As other businesses around us are slowing down and cutting back, we continue to grow around the world. Our advertising products are becoming more attractive for advertisers and we have seen strong growth in both our domestic and international direct sales and online sales channels.

Even in the current economic environment, we are confident that this success will continue. Based on our first quarter results, we now believe we are on track to see our revenue grow by at least 70% this year. We just completed our fifth straight quarter of EBITDA profitability. And most importantly, we expect to achieve free cash flow profitability next year. That’s an important measure of financial success and sustainability because it means we’d be able to fund all of our operations and server purchases from the cash we generate while increasing our cash reserves in the bank. Hitting these numbers will require continued hard work, discipline and execution by everyone here at Facebook, but we are on the path to achieve these goals.

As we ramp up to take on these challenges, I want to let you know that Gideon Yu will be leaving the company. Gideon has played an important role in helping us achieve our financial success, building a strong finance team and establishing the core financial operations of our company. I will always be grateful to Gideon for his contributions to Facebook and what we are trying to accomplish. As those of you who know him know, Gideon’s family is his highest priority and it’s certainly not the usual cliché to say that he plans to take some time off to be with his wife and son. Gideon and I have often discussed that the next stage of his career will likely be as an investor, and I fully support him in this regard.

We have retained Spencer Stuart to search for a new CFO and we will be looking for someone with public company experience who can help take us to the next stage in our growth.

In the interim, the finance team will report to Cipora Herman in her capacity as Treasurer and Ted Ullyot as mteam lead. In addition, [Facebook is] fortunate that Peter Currie, the former CFO for Netscape, has agreed to serve as the advisor to Facebook until a new CFO comes on board.

As always, please feel free to reach out to me or to others on mteam if you have any questions about our finance plans or organization. I’ll discuss this more at the Q&A on Friday and I will be happy to take questions then too.

Congratulations to everyone on a great start to the year and on all the momentum you have all helped build for the rest of 2009.

Mark

Mobile communications without a regular network


The TerraNet technology enables mobile communications without a regular mobile network. As soon as two or more wireless units equipped with TerraNet technology are within reach of each other, they automatically form their own network and can start communicating.

Units within such a network can communicate with each other directly up to a certain distance depending on frequency and the environment. If the distance is larger, the communication is relayed through one or more of up to seven intermediate units. Consequently, the network will gradually cover larger and larger areas as more units are connected to it.

A TerraNet network requires no central system, base stations or telecom provider. Everything is handled by the units themselves and the network is formed automatically.

The network can be connected to the rest of the world through a computer network or some other established network structure. To connect a TerraNet network to a computer, you just install a gateway and make sure that one of the units in the TerraNet network is within reach of the computer. To connect it to a traditional telephony network structure, standard methods of interconnection are applicable.

There are a great number of possible applications for the TerraNet technology. We are constantly on the outlook for possible partners with interesting ideas about how to use our technology. If you have a good idea in mind, please feel free to contact us for further discussions.

The Rural Telephony Application Area
Based on our technology we are currently developing a wireless phone system for areas where traditional telephone networks are not available.  There are a number of possible fields of application for this system:

  •  
    • People living in remote, rural areas can get access to telecommunications.
    • Telecom providers can dramatically extend the reach of their networks without large investments in telecom infrastructure.
    • In disaster areas where the traditional communications networks are down, a TerraNet-based telephone system can be set up in a few hours.

Since any TerraNet rural telephony system can be connected to an access point, e.g. an internet-connected computer, the rest of the world can be reached as well..

For Details Visit:
TerraNet AB
IDEON Science Park
223 70 Lund
Sweden
Office +46 46 286 34 90
http://www.terranet.se

Google Ventures Launched


Much expected Google Ventures is out at last… Google coming from rags and knowing the pains of a startup they must have done this before… But it is better late than never… These are some insights about the venture…

  •  
    • Launched on 31st March 2009
    • Managed by Bill Maris & Rich Miner (Can check their BIO’s)
    • Will invest in any kind of startups
    • Investment ranges from Seed funding to tens of millions of dollar
    • Should be contacted only thru email ventures@google.com

 

As usual the site is very simple with just four pages and up to the point… Their FAQ is also very little covering most of the questions…

 

In their FAQ they claim that that they are an independent company and they never push to use Google products or force for an acquisition…

 

Let us see how the company transforms startups in days to come…

 

At this point we wish Google Ventures Best Luck…

Reliance ADAG offers Instant Office Space…


The current economic slowdown, growing lay offs, high infrastructure costs, bureaucratic delays, and uncertain markets have compiled many businesses / Entrepreneurs / SME’s / Startups to hold back their capital expenses and adopt a ‘wait and watch’ policy, test before invest and looking for more and more flexible solutions where there are no long term commitments.

Taking the advantage of the prevailing network and footprint (105 Cities) Reliance World Stores have tailored a very economical, flexible and attractive business proposal of providing instant offices (Ready-to-use offices). These offices come fully furnished, air-conditioned and with high configuration PC’s and unlimited usage of Broad Band internet Connection all of these combined into a package.

The advantages of Hiring Reliance World instant offices are:

1). Ready Availability across 240 locations Pan India.

2). No Brokerage and No Deposits.

3). No hassles of Carpet Area and Built up area, Payment by use of spaces.

4). Locating offices in prominent places of main business districts as all our facilities are situated in those areas.

5). Flexible Rental Options without Lock In periods.

6). Technical and Secretarial Services on Demand.

Other details are available in the brochure enclosed, for more details feel free to contact the following:

1). Srinivas : +91.93201 08347

2). Pooja Gupta : +91.93222 83054

3). Suhas : +91.9324113411

It is now official


Yes. It is official that the person whom we doubted is the real hacker… Also hacking was done using some holes in Scriptlance… Ok now let me explain the post events that happened after our previous blog post…

We go an email from the hacker and bala invited him for a chat in Yahoo!… The hacker acknowledged and they started negotiating terms… Parallely we were also working with Scriptlance guys… Yesterday bala proved me a point that every time we can’t mean business… Bala convinced the hacker claiming his act has cost him his job and some how got hold of the account… The hacker seems to be of good heart :), by now I think bala and hacker must have become good pals…

In the mean time Scriptlance was prompt in suspending the account and they started the act after we our self recovered the account from the hacker… But now we have to release the account from suspension… Scriptlance had some IVR system to confirm the phone number, they asked for last three transactions and the bank account used to withdraw the funds from Scriptlance… Also they asked an ID proof… At last we got our account released from suspension…

What worried me was Scriptlance didn’t give us any reason & assurance that this will never occur again… Also they deleted our post in their forum where we posted that our account was hacked and asked if there were any other person who has lost his/her account, which means Scriptlance forum is not transparent…

What ever the case many be we got the account back and the funds in the account is also safe… Today I’m having a meeting with bala to see how we can cope with marketing without Scriptlance…

Our Scriptlance.com account hacked


Today morning my colleague Mr.Balakrishnan came to me asking if I changed the password of ourScriptlance account… I said I didn’t do anything with the account and immediately bala went to his system trying to reset the password… Only then we came to know our account was hacked…

There is no way our account could have been hacked because no one other I and bala knows the password and our systems are also not shared with other networks in office… Also we never share passwords using IM’s… So, we confirmed it must be some miscreant inside Scriptlance…

In the whole episode two things happened

  1. Irony with Scriptlance support desk…
  2. An email from the hacker…

First let me share you the screenshots of things, experience with Scriptlance & hackers email…

morning_mail

Myself and bala were using the account till 11.30 PM yesterday night and the site must have got hacked in another 15 – 30 min… We calculated this using time on the mail received… We took this screenshot by 3.45 PM today and 16 hours before must be around 11.30 PM – 12 AM yesterday or the day beginning… This screenshot has been sent by Scriptlance confirming the change in account details, without this alert we wouldn’t have found about this hack quickly… Now the irony part you can see the text in this screenshot “If you did not request this change please contact support” below IP address in this screenshot… On clicking that link we were taken to the screenshot which comes next…

guest_form

I filled all the fields in despair which again resulted in despair :(… Please look at next screenshot to see what happened

guest_form_error

Our account is hacked but Scriptlance’s system didn’t take up the complaint stating we are not guest and it promptly says we have an account by name “COGZIDEL”… Reason is because of cookie, but when things go wrong everything goes wrong…

Now comes the best part… Couple of minutes back bala got an email from the hacker asking for a ransom to release the account… Here is the screenshot of the mail received by bala…

hacker

This drove our interest to dig deep inside and bala was very proactive in finding who did this and we zeroed in on a person… But we must have released this report only after the investigation is fully complete and once we are sure about the hacker… But I’m sharing the details of the person whom we think is the man behind this attack :(… Look at the email id specified in the email screenshot received form the hacker it has come from “viroxic@gmail.com”… We searched in Scriptlance for “viroxic” and found that there is a user with that handle… Then we traced the IP address which was sent in the mail (check first screenshot), the IP was traced to Morocco… Also we googled “viroxic”, we got two more profile’s with the name “viroxic” from other sites… Look at those profiles

https://www.eufreelance.com/users/26190.html
https://www.scriptlance.com/cgi-bin/freelancers/buyers.cgi?view=viroxic
https://www.getafreelancer.com/users/868495.html

In his profile it states he is from Morocco… So, we think we have almost zeroed in on the hacker…

But still we didn’t get any response from the webmaster/customer support department of Scriptlance… Still we are keeping our fingers crossed and we must see if we are the only ones who are affected or there are couple of other who are affected… We have posted a post in Scriptlance Forum and waiting for more reactions… Our first priority is to get the account back and then understand how this hacking was done… Then we have to take a strategic call if we must continue with Scriptlance or not…

Please share with us if you have any such experience so that others can learn from our experience… Also I promise to share the entire case once we are out of this…