Disclaimer: This article is a mail forward and I’m in no way responsible for any damages or claims. If you want I can help is catching the person who has forwarded me the mail, sorry bala ;)…

Good morning, Ladies and Gentlemen….

This is your captain PATEL welcoming both seated & standing passengers on board of Air Deccan.

We apologize 4 d 4-day delay in taking off; it was due to bad weather and partly due to the search for a missing tyre.

This is flight 717 to Mumbai. Landing there is not guaranteed, but we will end up somewhere in India. And, if luck is in our favor, we may even be landing on your village!

Air Deccan has an excellent safety-record. In fact, our safety standards are so high, that even terrorists are afraid to fly with us! It is with pleasure; I announce that, starting this year, over 30% of our Passengers have reached their destination.

If our engines are too noisy for u, on passenger request, we can arrange to turn them off. To make your free fall to earth pleasant and memorable, we serve Complimentary Daru and Vada Pav. For our not-so-religious passengers, we are the only airline who can help you find out if there really is a God!

We regret to inform you, that today’s in-flight movie will not be shown as we forgot to record it from the television.

However, for our movie buffs, we will be flying right next to Kingfisher Airline, where their movie will be visible from the right side of the cabin window.

There is no smoking allowed in this airplane. Any smoke you see in the Cabin is only the early warning system on the engines telling us to slow down!

In order to catch important landmarks, we try to fly as close as possible. 4 d best view, if however, we go a little too close, do let us know. Our enthusiastic co-pilot sometimes flies right through the landmark!

Kindly be seated, keep your seat in an upright position 4 take-off & fasten your seat-belt. 4 those of you who can’t find a seat-belt, kindly fasten your own belt 2 d arm of your seat. And, for those who can’t find a seat, do not hesitate to get in touch with a stewardess who will explain how to fasten yourself to your suitcase.

What is Affiliate marketing?

Affiliate program is nothing but you hearten other webmasters to sign up and advertise your services and products on their sites, in exchange you pay them based on their performance. An affiliate program is an excellent way to gain additional sales. There are options for all budgets, but you generally get what you pay for.

There are various way that affiliates are paid:

1.Per Impression: The affiliate is paid a set amount for every time that your ad is shown. The downside is that affiliates have no incentive to send you traffic, or to put your ad in a attention-grabbing location.

2.Per Click: You pay a set amount for each unique person that clicks on your ad. This is similar to a PPC engine. The downside is that you must pay even if the traffic is of a low quality.

3.Per Lead: You pay your affiliates based on the number of unique people that click on your ad, and then proceed to complete a particular action (for example, a “lead” might be when someone downloads a trial, or signs up for a mailing list). This is very similar to Per Sale, but is more common on sites promoting free services.

4.Per Sale: The affiliates are remunerated either a percentage or a set amount for each sale generated by a user that originated from the affiliate’s site(for example I came across a template selling site named templatemuseum.com which offers a high rate of Per sale commission). Affiliates generally prefer receiving commissions on a Per Impression or Per Click basis, but site owners have a preference of the inevitability of Per Lead and Per Sale. There are three ways to start an affiliate program: Your own script, install a script, or use a third-party service. Your Own script If your website’s order system has been custom-made, then one option may be to ask your programmer to add an affiliate program to the system. The programmer would add some code to the payment script, and then develop a simple interface for affiliates to see how they’re doing, and for you to check on your affiliates. This is an cost-effective choice for sites based on custom scripting, but site owners may be somnolent to trust your reporting (after all, it would be in your best interest to fudge the numbers). Established sites can get away with this, but new websites may have difficulty here. Also, if you roll your own then it will be entirely up to you to promote it. Installing a Script If you don’t have a custom-made order script, or if the required modifications would be too pricey, then a similar alternative would be to install a ready-made script. The CGI Resource Index has a list of such scripts. Free scripts are out there, but are generally difficult to find if you’re interested in the script’s quality (which is important for an affiliate program). Expect to pay $20 to $60 for a good affiliate script.

Like rolling your own, this presents the problem of finding affiliates. Also, affiliates may be just as apprehensive of using a script controlled by you as they would be of a custom-built affiliate system. Using a Third-Party Service The final alternative, and the one chosen by the largest number of sites, is to use a third-party service. Here, you let another company control your affiliate program. They will take care of managing it, and to some extent finding affiliates, but at a price. For example templatemuseum.com can be viewed as a destination place for retrieval of information regarding the best affiliate program in the market today.

It was Friday evening around 7 o clock. Finished all my work and just booked my tickets to Chennai and the departure was around 8.30 PM. So thought I can spend some time by adding friends in my Social Networking site, scrap them, write on the wall and what not. Also updating photos and twitting in twitter. Suddenly got a thought to Google my name “Anand Nataraj”.

I was browsing thru the results on 3 pages or so I got to see this result http://anandnataraj.faithweb.com. It immediately took me 9 years back, that site was hardly updated for last 9 years. But still it has the remains of my last work. That site was designed by me. I spent sleepless nights to design and upload that site and collect information/content it has now. Those days internet usage was expensive and was dial-up ones. So, had to overcome lots of challenges like slow speed, frequent disconnects, nagging from parents to stop browsing.

In spite of all those challenges was able to launch the site and infact I remember making Rs.2000 as affiliate commission from some website :); funny days :). Some of the recipies I typed from books and uploaded it, I even got a email from a lady in US for putting those recipies.

Also when I look into those photos it took me back to those college days which were the most memorable days I’ve had in my days. They have become history but the moments still stay alive and as fresh as ever. Can image how I look then and now. I’ve put two photos to compare :).

One wearing White Coke Sweater is me. This is 9 years back

This is my current picture. Huge difference??

Those were the days where there was no money in the pocket, but had lots of happiness. I can never thing of a day where I was stressed. I failed in all the papers when I was in 2nd year, still I played cricket and went home as if nothing happened. Buying one plate of bhel puri and sharing it with 10 folks.

Oops I can talk loads about those days. But time to have dinner and catch bus and cherish those days when I travel. In the bus I got a Plug point to charge, USB lamp & Internet data card. Happy to blog while travelling in the bus.

We are glad to announce the launch of Cogzidel Templates – a bank for ready-made templates, themes and skins at unbelievable low costs.

Undoubtedly, it can be adopted;
– for famous open source scripts like Oscommerce, Joomla, WordPress, Drupal etc and
– for social networks like Twitter, Orkut, Myspace etc.

We offer our products at lesser prices, in order to convert every viewer as our customer, and at the same time, to make our products affordable for the interested mass.

We thank Major Karthik, the person behind this concept and Senthil Guru & Balasubramanian who help to accomplish the concept a reality.

Products are qualitative and prices are very reasonable, so what are you waiting for ? It’s time to download,,,,, go on and enjoy !

A man is taking a walk in Central park in New York.

Suddenly he sees a little girl being attacked by a pit bull dog.

He runs over and starts fighting with the dog. He succeeds in killing the dog and saving the girl’s life.

A policeman who was watching the scene! walks over and says: “You are a hero, tomorrow you can read it in all the newspapers: “Brave New Yorker saves the life of little girl”.

The man says: “But I am not a New Yorker!”

Oh then it will say in newspapers in the morning: “Brave American saves life of little girl” the policeman answers.

“But I am not an American!” – says the man.

“Oh, what are you then?”

The man says: “I am a Pakistani!”

The next day the newspapers say: “A Terrorist Kills Innocent American Dog!”.

This is called the peak of boredom, this is a conversation between my friend AJITH(Who represents by name YOU) with his friend ABBAS(represented by Jeremy).

Jeremy: Welcome To SingleHop.com. My name is Jeremy how can I help you?
Jeremy: Hello
you: Hi.
Jeremy: How can I assist you?
you: Is this a bot or a real person please?
Jeremy: lol, this is a real person.
you: Who are the 2 candidates contesting e l e c t i o n today in U s ?
Jeremy: Obama, and McCain
you: ok.. A million apologies for that Jeremy… We just get bogged down by the tonnes of automated bots that claim to be live sales rep.
you: pl accept my apologies
you: We are looking forward to setting up an e comm store.. Are we contacting the right company?
Jeremy: Yes we have many e-commece sites setup on our network and would be glad to have you on board.
you: Could you please give clear instructions on which company we have to approach and whom we need to contact to setup an e commerce website?
Jeremy: Do you need the server for the site, or do you need the actuall website design?
you: both..
Jeremy: Well we can set you up with a server for your site, but cannot assist with the design.
you: we need someone who can take up the entire contract… we need to know the best price as we are running short of budget and are not willing to spend a penny more than 45k
you: We approached 2 companies who quoted over 100k..
Jeremy: All I can do is quote you for the server it would take to run it.
Jeremy: I cannot quote you on the scripting or site design.
Jeremy: What kind of site are you going to be running
you: an e commerce site… selling lingerie…
Jeremy: ok
you: We have stocked inventory that we plan to liquidate..
Jeremy: What kind of operating system?
Jeremy: Windows or Linux?
you: Sorry? I have windows Wista running on my mac
you: is that wat you wanted to know?
Jeremy: For the server, what OS would you need on it?
you: Sorry? u mean SOS? We need a website to be designed developed.. and e commerce portal.. selling apparel..
you: Im not too familiar with this computer jargon.. im a fashion designer..
Jeremy: I am sorry, you will probably need to speak with a programmer and then see what kind of language they will write it in. Then we can set you up with the server to host your site on.
you: If i have to choose between those two options, then i would go for windows…
you: Site will be hosted in US and EU. Hence, English language to start with. Later we plan to expand to France.. and will then design a french site as well..
you: Can you please connect me to the server now? We would like to talk to them..
Jeremy: I am sorry we do not do programming here. You would want to talk to a programmer first. We are a dedicated server company. Once you have your site designed and written you would then come to us to host your website.
you: Dedicated? You really do not seem to address our queries. I would not call your company dedicate.. Im sorry. if you could provide some contact to get the whole project done, then thanks in advance. If not, we shall call it quits!
you: Are you there?
Jeremy: Yes, I am trying to explain that we do not do programming or site design.
Jeremy: We only provide dedicated servers.
you: ok.. how many servers please?
you: we plan to host thousands of products.
Jeremy: You most likely would only need 1 with a large hard drive, and then a backup hard drive in case the first one fails.l
Jeremy: Let me get you a quote.
Jeremy: Do you have an e-mail address I can send a quote to you.
you: sure…
you: grrrr@googlemail.com
Jeremy: Ok I will, send a quote within the next 15 minutes.
you: thank you.
you: have a nice day madam..
Jeremy: Your welcome.

Once upon a time a tortoise and a hare had an argument about who was faster. They decided to settle the argument with a race. They agreed on a route and started off the race. The hare shot ahead and ran briskly for some time. Then seeing that he was far ahead of the tortoise, he thought he’d sit under a tree for some time and relax before continuing the race. He sat under the tree and soon fell asleep. The tortoise plodding on overtook him and soon finished the race, emerging as the undisputed champ. The hare woke up and realized that he’d lost the race.

The moral- “Slow and steady wins the race. This is the version of the story that we’ve all grown up with.”

THE STORY DOESN’T END HERE, there are few more interesting things…..it continues as follows….. .

The hare was disappointed at losing the race and he did some soul-searching. He realized that he’d lost the race only because he had been overconfident, careless and lax. If he had not taken things for granted, there’s no way the tortoise could have beaten him. So he challenged the tortoise to another race. The tortoise agreed. This time, the hare went all out and ran without stopping from start to finish. He won by several miles.

The moral – ” Fast and consistent will always beat the slow and steady. It’s good to be slow and steady; but it’s better to be fast and reliable.”

THE STORY DOESN’T END HERE

The tortoise did some thinking this time, and realized that there’s no way it can beat the hare in a race the way it was currently formatted. It thought for a while, and then challenged the hare to another race, but on a slightly different route. The hare agreed. They started off. In keeping with his self-made commitment to be consistently fast, the hare took off and ran at top speed until he came to a broad river. The finishing line was a couple of kilometres on the other side of the river. The hare sat there wondering what to do. In the meantime the tortoise trundled along, got into the river, swam to the opposite bank, continued walking and finished the race.

The moral – ” First identify your core competency and then change the playing field to suit your core competency.”

THE STORY STILL HASN’T ENDED.

The hare and the tortoise, by this time, had become pretty good friends and they did some thinking together. Both realized that the last race could have been run much better. So they decided to do the last race again, but to run as a team this time. They started off, and this time the hare carried the tortoise till the riverbank. There, the tortoise took over and swam across with the hare on his back. On the opposite bank, the hare again carried the tortoise and they reached the finishing line together. They both felt a greater sense of satisfaction than they’d felt earlier.

The moral – “It’s good to be individually brilliant and to have strong core competencies; but unless you’re able to work in a team and harness each other’s core competencies, you’ll always perform below par because there will always be situations at which you’ll do poorly and someone else does well.

Teamwork is mainly about situational leadership, letting the person with the relevant core competency for a situation take leadership.

Note that neither the hare nor the tortoise gave up after failures. The hare decided to work harder and put in more effort after his failure. The tortoise changed his strategy because he was already working as hard as he could.”

In life, when faced with failure, sometimes it is appropriate to work harder and put in more effort. Sometimes it is appropriate to change strategy and try something different. And sometimes it is appropriate to do both. The hare and the tortoise also learnt another vital lesson. When we stop competing against a rival and instead start competing against the situation, we perform far better.

To sum up, the story of the hare and tortoise has much to say:
Chief among them are that fast and consistent will always beat slow and steady;
work to your competencies;
pooling resources and working as a team will always beat individual performers;
never give up when faced with failure;
& finally, compete against the situation – not against a rival.

A well-known speaker started off his seminar by holding up a Rupee 500 note.

In the room of 200, he asked, ‘Who would like this Rupee 500 note?’
Hands started going up.

He said, ‘I am going to give this note to one of you but first let me do this.’ He proceeded to crumple the note up.
He then asked, ‘Who still wants it?’
Still the hands were up in the air.

‘Well,’ he replied, ‘What if I do this?’ And he dropped it on the ground and started to grind it into the floor with his shoe. He picked it up, now all crumpled and dirty.
‘Now who still wants it?’
Still the hands went into the air.

‘My friends, you have all learned a very valuable lesson.
No matter what I did to the money, you still wanted it because it did not decrease in value. It was still worth Rupee 500/-.

Many times in our lives, we are dropped, crumpled, and ground into the dirt by the decisions we make and the circumstances that come our way. We feel as though we are worthless.

But no matter what has happened or what will happen, you will never lose your value. You are special. Don’t ever forget it! Never let yesterday’s disappointments overshadow tomorrow’s dreams.
‘VALUE HAS A VALUE ONLY IF ITS VALUE IS VALUED’

This is a true story which happened in the States. A man came out of
his home to admire his new truck. To his puzzlement, his three-year-old son was happily hammering dents into the shiny paint of the truck.

The man ran to his son, knocked him away, hammered the little boy’s hands into pulp as punishment. When the father calmed down, he rushed his son to the hospital.

Although the doctor tried desperately to save the crushed bones, he
finally had to amputate the fingers from both the boy’s hands. When the boy woke up from the surgery & saw his bandaged stubs, he innocently said, ” Daddy,I’m sorry about your truck.” Then he asked, “but when are my fingers going to grow back?” The father went home & committed suicide.

Think about this story the next time someone steps on your feet or u
wish to take revenge. Think first before u lose your patience with
someone u love. Trucks can be repaired.. Broken bones & hurt feelings often can’t. Too often we fail to recognise the difference between the person and the performance. We forget that forgiveness is greater than revenge.

People make mistakes. We are allowed to make mistakes. But the actions we take while in a rage will haunt us forever.