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Get Funding For Your Startup In Bangalore

SLP Bangalore (www.startupleadership.com) is offering 3 startups the opportunity to participate in the SLP Venture Capital Competition (VCC)- an intense yet fun experience where you present your startup pitch to entrepreneurs and senior Venture Capitalists and get valuable feedback.

VCC engages three different groups — entrepreneurs (you), SLP Fellows, and Venture Capitalists. During the first half of the day, the 3 startup teams will present their pitches to team of SLP Fellows. In the second half, startups and SLP Fellows will present these investment terms to investment committees (constituted of real VCs).

SLP would value the involvement of your startup in their competition. You will get exposed to local VCs, get a chance to practice pitching to real VCs, and hopefully pick up new ideas, due diligence questions and feedback for your own fundraising process. Note that you have to be willing to spend a day with them on the 10th of March, 2012.

Please note that they are looking for early stage startups that are already doing business (not “ideation” stage), and have some kind of market validation behind them. To take part in this excellent opportunity please fill the form here. Based on the information provided as asked in the form, only 3 startups would be selected for the VC competition.

Preparation: Investor quality pitch (template will be provided)

Date: 10th March 2012

Time: 9:00 AM to 4:00 PM

Location: Near M G Road (more details later)

Contact Persons:

Soumya Das (soumyad@gmail.com)

Amit Sharma (amitdce@gmail.com)

Shivoo Koteshwar (shivoo.koteshwar@gmail.com)

If you are not from Bangalore, but have an idea which you believe in, then head here to get some funding / feedback.

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Blue Dart’s CSR Award 2012 Goes To Polaris

Are you a Corporate making overwhelming profits utilizing the resources – both tangible and non-tangible, then the best way for you to pay back to the society is by participating in CSR.

Blue Dart, though they are having their share of problems, has a program in place to identify and reward those Corporate who are doing outstanding job in CSR.

Congratulations to Polaris Financial Technology for winning 2012’s Blue Darts CSR award.

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Domain’s Demystified

For most people, choosing the perfect domain name for their site/blog is incredibly difficult. A good domain name can mean the difference between a thriving site, and a dead one which inevitably translates to: revenue and no revenue.

So how do you choose a good domain name? How do you increase traffic and ensure that your site is higher ranked on search engines? Well read below for a few tips and explanations on the various features of domains.

Different types of domains – .com, .ca, .org, .net, etc.
If getting traffic to your site is a top priority for you then using a .com domain name is essential. The increased price is due to the fact that many people realize that when someone does a google search the .com domain names are generally higher up in the Google search listing as apposed to others. .org and .net however are two other domain types that fare well on Google.

Where to buy cheap domain names
There are numerous places that allow you to purchase and register your domain name, but finding the best one, at the lowest price, can be somewhat of a hassle. The trick with buying a .com domain is to look for specials that the leading sellers are having.

One of the more reliable sites is www.GoDaddy.com. They have sales throughout the year and can offer .com domain’s for as low as $1.99. Some other great places to purchase domains are www.active-domain.com and www.domain.com.

My favorite place to pick domains is www.namecheap.com . Unlike GoDaddy, you’ll not be bombarded with confusing and deceptive adverts, and is very easy to navigate once you are logged in to your account.

Tips on picking an effective domain name
First step to picking a successful domain name for your site/blog is to look at other successful sites. You will notice that most of those domains are short, simple, and something memorable. Long domain names have a huge disadvantage so you want to keep yours as short as you can but not too short.

Another issue you may run into is hyphens. There are some pros and cons when it comes to hyphens in a domain name and you need to carefully evaluate your site needs and see which will be more beneficial to you.
Pros – Your non hyphenated name may have been taken so adding a hyphen means you’ll get the name you want. Also, this makes it easier for Google and other search engines to utilize key words in your domain so it ranks higher.
Cons – How are people supposed to spread your website through word of mouth? Having a hyphen in your domain name will make it really difficult for people to not only remember, but advise for others. If people forget the hyphen they will end up at your competition’s site.

Premium Domains
On sale the cheap .com domains will only be a few bucks, but usually you can find them for under ten dollars at any time. However, when you are looking at domains you will see that some domains are premium. These mean that it is a high traffic domain and will get your site ranked higher up on Google just by the domain name itself. These quality domains can lead to thousands of dollars in revenue but can also cost a pretty penny as well. Here are a few ‘premium’ domain names so that you can get a glimpse at some of the money used to procure a decent domain.
Aboon.com
$8,650
AdoptALion.com
$250
accentonlanguage.com
$46,200
addisonparkapar….com
$770
adventurescanada.com
$2,900
aiontrquest.com
$580

 

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Will Change In Blue Dart Directorate Improve Their Performance ?

Blue Dart recently announced about some changes they got in their top management. I think this was a much needed change.

Offlate, Blue Dart‘s service has been pathetic. Hardly anyone’s speaking good about their service. If they think they’ll get away with this, they have NO IDEA how bad word of mouth publicity will hit their business, especially when it’s happening online and almost every other Indian has access to internet facilities.

Any business depends heavily on customers (except for those Business to Businesses), and such businesses should go an extra mile to take care of and serve their customers needs. Blue Dart has done a shabby job in this area. The number of people complaining and who are unsatisfied with Blue Darts service and customer service are increasing every day, which is not good for their business at all.

Hopefully the new management will look into this issue and address it at the earliest.

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UPSC – CSE (IAS / IPS) Registration And Venue Information


Candidates appearing for Civil Services Examination (Preliminary) 2011, are complaining about not having received their admission ticket. If you have not received your admission ticket / hall ticket, please do not panic. There’s still time to receive it. They will be dispatched in batches and it’ll reach you shortly.

In case you do not receive your admission ticket, then you can check your ‘Venue Information at the following link:

http://www.upsc.gov.in/exams/exams.htm#Venue Information

Currently (30-May-2011), the venue links are not yet active. I’ll update again once the links are active.

Those who want to check their ‘Registration Information’, can do so at the following link:

http://www.upsc.gov.in/exams/exams.htm#Registration Information

Candidates have to input their form number to check if their application has been submitted and accepted.

**Note**: The Civil Services (Prel.) Examination 2011 form Registration Query works only for Offline Applications.

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Problems With Downgrading From Current Version Of Internet Explorer To Older Version

Many times at short intervals, I’ve noticed people asking on forums, how they can downgrade from higher version of Internet Explorer (IE9 or IE8) to previous versions of Internet Explorer like (IE7 or IE6).

There are couple of ways to do it:

1> Steps to downgrade from IE 9 to IE 8: Link 1

2> Steps to downgrade from IE 7 to IE 6: Link 1 and Link 2

3> Steps to downgrade from IE 8 to IE 6: Link 1 and Link 2

People may want to switch back to older version of the browser for various reasons: likness for certain features or ease of use or may be for any other specific reason (if you are a web developer you may want to test websites on different versions of Internet Explorer).

But however, what users do not understand is the security threats that lie in ambush, in a sneaky and secretive manner that might attack your system through loop holes in the browser.

In order to safegaurd yourself from external threats it’s advicable that you always upgrade your Internet Explorer to the latest available version / patches. This will save you from all the potential problems related with older version of Internet Explorer.

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RTO Bangalore (Bengaluru) Vehicle Details

It is now possible for anyone to find vehicle details within Bengaluru (Bangalore) jurisdiction.

RTO (Regional Transport Office), Bangalore provides this service to anyone through SMS.

To get details, users have to just SMS, RTO followed by registration no. (Example: RTO KA-‘XX’-MR-‘XXXX’) to 56006.

Messages charge will be INR 3.

However, this leaves most of us wondering if technology can be used for anti-social activities. As transport commissioner Bhaskar Rao points out, this service can be used to extract personal and private details of even those who are not involved in any hit-and-run-cases, like for example – miscreants can use this service to get details of girls in the city.

Note : This point can surely be used while debating whether ‘Technology is a boon or a bane‘!!

Check Bangalore traffic police fine details online sitting at the comfort of your home.

 

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Indians Cannot Use Paypal Mass Pay Feature Anymore

We recently blogged about the problems Indian Paypal users are facing in the wake of new RBI rules. We also discussed its repercussions on Freelancing in India. What I also figured out is that we Indians cannot make anymore Mass payments from Paypal.

Mass pay feature was one of best way to send money to friends and family in India without losing too much transaction fee and the ease with which Paypal Mass pay can be used added to it’s advantage !

After speaking to Paypal executives (you can call Paypal for free), there is no hopes of things coming back on track at any point in the near future ! I guess I should convert my Paypal Business account to Personal account, atleast that saves some transaction extra transaction fee 😉

End of my rant ! 😀

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List Of Recognized Universities And Institutions Eligible For UK Student Visa

Today Hindu daily mentioned that British High Commission has put out a list of recognised universities and institutions whose students would be eligible for student visas at the following link :

www.ukinindia.fco.gov.uk

This step is taken in order to safeguard travelers who are often duped by bogus travel agents. In the backdrop of Britain’s new Student Visa Policy, the list by British High Commission is a laudable effort.

However, if you visit the link hoping to check the list of Universities, you’ll be surprised to see that the link takes you to the homepage and not any specified page. I tried looking around for the list, but unfortunately I did not find any list as such ! My guess is, the list should come up in a few days time. However I found another useful link, for those who plan to travel to UK for Work and / or Study, there is loads of information penned down there. Visit the link at:

http://ukinindia.fco.gov.uk/en/visiting-uk/

If any of you find a link the list of recognized universities, please leave a link to the site in the comments section. I’ll update this post so that it’ll be useful for all those who plan to travel to UK for studies.