Business, Politics & Controversy of Arnab Tagore

Artificial Christmas Tree

Christmas is a fun time for the people that celebrate. Even out of religious significance, it brings all family members together. Half of the fun of Christmas actually the days leading up to the special day. This includes shopping and decorating house and surrounding.

This is time of the year where everyone goes out to look for Christmas trees. While it’s very fun to decorate the house, it’s also kind of a hassle to find the right tree to match the home atmosphere. The trees itself sometimes can be a little hassle when trying to get rid off at the end of the Christmas.

On top of that, there has been lots of discussions and also regulations regarding keeping Christmas environmentally “clean.”

One of the ways of achieving that purpose would be using recyclable Christmas trees. I have come across a site for Artificial Christmas Tree. I have seen some people using these trees before and reusing them every year. However, usually they do not look that authentic. Nevertheless, looking through the website I was surprised to see how much effort they have put in to make the artificial Christmas trees look real. If you are a fan of authenticity like me then definitely you should take a look at this site. A lot of the trees also come pre-decorated or you can purchase accessories as you need. This is very easy to setup and at the end of Christmas you don’t have to worry about disposing it.

Currently they have a sale going on until December 18. Take advantage of this. You can order from online as they provide highly secured transaction system. They also provide free shipping. However, do make sure if this is valid for the area you want it to be shipped.

I hope you take a look at this site and have a very wonderful Christmas.

This is a sponsored post.

This video pretty much explains my views on global warming.

Computer World Magazine

Blogging after a long time to inform you guys about a nice promo. ITW0rld Canada is currently giving away free subscriptions to Computer W0rld, Network W0rld, CDN and CIO Magazine. They also have one french magazine. There is no catch really. They just want to increase some Canadian readership. If you sign up now then you are up for free subscription forever.

I think in terms of my visitors, computer world would be the most attractive of all. The reason is because this magazine talks about overall industry news. I have gone through these magazines and I find them to be an excellent read.

Sometimes internet has too much information and you are not sure where to begin if you are looking for some ideas on current industry. These magazines are great read for that purpose. Anyways, check them out. They are currently free only for Canadians. This promo will last until the end up April.

Click on the following links to sign up

Computer World
Network World
CDN
Direction Informatique (French Language)
CIO Magazine

As you can see, my last post on this blog was on December 16, 2008. Before that it was on October 22nd. I haven’t been blogging regularly. However, traffic to this site is tremendously high at this point. I am getting a lot of Google image traffic to my post on Obama and Linux being sexy.

Anyways, I have been really busy and still is. I am in my last year at University, doing a double major on Psychology and Neuroscience. I have been working full time at an internet publishing company since February 2008. Therefore, I really have to focus on studies and also work. I acquired an 3.8 GPA last semester. I am trying real hard to accumulate money, experience and keep up my marks.

My daily regular routine goes something like this….

9 to 5 at work
6 to 11 at University studying
12 to 1 at home
1 to 7 sleeping

I am also doing a lot of affiliate marketing on the side. I work on those sites mostly on the weekends beside studying. Therefore, as you can see, I am doing a lot of things. I have to work extra hard for 2 reasons

• I am a science student with entrepreneural ambitions. When you study in business then you meet similar minded people, who want to go towards innovation or entrepreneural field. Therefore, you create a good network while in university. In science field, you mostly meet people, who would want to do hardcore research and interested on learning.
• Members of immigrant families have less network & capital to start business.

I have started using twitter more or less regularly. Please follow me there if you wish.

http://twitter.com/Arnab_Toronto

It seems like all powerful Apple is falling behind in terms of their sale growth during December. For retail, especially for electronics, this is the most critical time of the year. However, PCs seem to be a way ahead of MACs. The reason is very simple.

During the time of economic crisis, people don’t really go for those nice looking MACs. People look for cheap alternatives and something that work. PCs seem to be the best option for everyone. Apple really needs to learn pursue cheaper MACs for the people. 

In the notebook sector, however, MACs are doing better than PCs in terms of growth. I think it has to do with university kids jumping into apple market as everyone else doing it. Giving up to the fads is a very dumb thing to do, especially for us, the university students.

Anyways, I have nothing against MAC. I find them pretty cool but as a student my priority is getting things done as fast as possible with as little hassle as possible. PCs work the best for me on that sector.

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Update: Check the new Video

India has been a little late on this however India is sending unmanned mission to moon for the first time.

I think it is a significant step from India’s part. This mission costs only around 70 million. That is MUCH cheaper than other missions carried out by the western world. India also wants to send men to moon by 2020.

A lot of people seem to be complaining because India and China are pursuing space while those two countries have problems with poverty.

Well, that’s a baseless complain from the people, who don’t know a lot on the Indian goal behind space program. India earns lots of money from Antrix corporation, which is the commercial wing of the Indian Space Research Organization. This is a very smart business plan. Money from Antrix Corporation funds Indian space research. Therefore, the government doesn’t need to cut funds off from poverty to fund space research.

This mission to moon will bring in lots more money since the world would be interested to know how did India was able to pull it off with only around 70 million dollars. Not to mention this probe is also carrying lots of research materials for NASA.

Therefore, before jumping on the complain boat, let’s please do some research.

Indian Space Station

Currently in my computer I have these browsers

Chrome
Firefox
IE
K-Meleon
Safari
Opera

I would say in terms of the “startup” speed, Chrome is the best. After that K-Meleon/Opera, then IE, Firefox and then Safari

Chrome is a cool looking browser with a high speed. I really like the incognito feature. However, I think in terms of stability Chrome definitely sucks. It freezes a lot. I found firefox, K-Meleon and Opera to be really stable. Safari, IE and Chrome crashes and freezes a lot for me.

I am coming across a bunch of articles analyzing Chrome as Google was able to create a huge buzz around Chrome. Here’s an article that tries to remind IT on certain things regarding Chrome.

A lot of companies are popping up that are strongly focusing on Open Source. Companies such as Google are releasing softwares such as “Chrome” that are on open source. Many people believe that this is going to be the software of future. Everyone would be contributing on a piece of software to make it better, powerful and safer.

Therefore, a lot of people in IT should also keep open source in mind for their career choice. I came accross this small quiz that asks you a series of question to see how much you know about Open Source.

I got a 85%. Check how much you can get….

I have been talking about MagicJack for sometime. 

MagicJack After a Week in Toronto

Using MagicJack from Toronto, Canada

I was really excited about MagicJack at the beginning. I did make a few calls. Once I talked with a customer representative in the US for like an hour using this. The experience was good and was pretty cool. However, as time goes on I am really losing interest on MagicJack. At this point, I have the magicjack unplugged because I need that USB port to connect my external HDD. 

I know people who use Magic Jack a lot. However, if you like me and have a cell phone and a landphone and a phone at work, I don’t understand when you would be using this device. Yes, when you make long distance calls, then it does become handy. However, I don’t make that much long distance calls. The reason is because you cannot have people call you.

If we had a local number for Toronto, then it would have been really good. However, we don’t have it. Therefore, people cannot call us, we have to call people. This is very stupid. They have been saying that we will have a local number soon and we haven’t got it. I don’t want to be cynical but the owner of MagicJack sounds like a shady person to me. When have you seen people promoting the owner as well as the product? 

The lack of improvements with MagicJack and constant lies about making magicjack available for Toronto make me feel like as if MagicJack was created for a short-time project. 

Please don’t get me wrong. I do understand it helps a lot of people. However, I don’t understand why isn’t there any improvement with this device. The sound quality isn’t that great for the non-MagicJack people you are talking to. There is no proper customer service. For no reason sometimes it stops working. 

I don’t want to complain because I paid only 40 dollars for a year. I have had nothing to lose to invest that amount and that’s why I did. However, I really got what I paid for nothing more. Sometimes you pay some money and feel you got a way more. However, this was definitely not that case.

Not my territory of expertise but….found this very interesting….

Here are the three I enjoyed the most.

1- Take her off that pedestal

Don’t idolize her and build her up into something great. She is nothing of the sort. So don’t gaze lovingly at pictures of her. Don’t jump to answer her e-mail or phone calls. And definitely don’t go out of your way for her. She no longer deserves preferential treatment.

Definitely the next one makes sense….do not send any emails or try showing how much you like because you will become a laughing stock

4- Get negative feelings out on paper

Write her a letter pouring out your negative and weepy feelings, then disassociate them from yourself. Throw the letter away or burn it. But definitely don’t send it to her. You will only regret it. She will show her friends and her new boyfriend. And they will all share a good laugh.

and finally….

10- Remember the bad times

If you feel nostalgic, then think of all the times she was a bitch to you. That should do it. Remember the time she made you wait by the dressing room as she endlessly tried on clothing? Or the time she reminded you not too drink too much in front of your posse? Nobody wants that back.

11 Tips For Getting Over Your Ex

Many of you might have read my previous post on my initial experience with MagicJack. With this post I will say what I still think about this. With this device I can hear people really clearly….almost as good as my cellphone. However, the problem is that the volume is really low for other people. I tried increasing the mic volume to the highest but the problem still prevails. I really do not know if this is an issue at Toronto or Canada but it seems to be an issue for me.

It’s not living up to my expectations to tell you the truth. I do have the 30 days money back guarantee. Should I return in? Well, I decided not to return this because as I said in my previous post I got what I paid for. I cannot expect a smooth connection with 20 bucks/year. I will leave this. I am also currently doing some research to figure out if there is any way I would be able to use this device with skype. This VOIP service from canada is really good as I have heard and I will try this out in the future.

Also, I am thinking that MagicJack will improve their services along the road. If that happens then that would be great. Until then I am not sure how much I would be using this.

Figure: Picture of MagicJack

Voice Over IP is becoming an interesting topic to discuss overtime. We see so many VOIP services popping up every where. People are becoming more open to using Skype and other services for their long distance rather than expensive landline phones.

Since there are so many services it’s becoming increasingly hard to choose the service that would be the most reliable of all. MagicJack is relatively a new player in the market. This device has been endorsed by various media for being very simple and also cheap. Basically, you get a small USB device that you plugin to your USB port and then you connect your phone jack to that device. After that you will be able to use MagicJack immediately. The device costs only $20 so far and the subscription cost is $20 per year. As part of your package you get a local phone number that other people would be able to call even from their landphones. For skype, it costs $60/year but with monthly subscription it’s $30/year.

After reading so many reviews against and in favour of this device I have finally decided to give this a shot.

I bought mine from the MagicJack Canada website. With shipping costs it came down to approximately $60. Apparently, we do not get to choose a local Canadian number yet. Still, we can get an American number and then switch to a Canadian local number as soon as it becomes available. I decided to switch to a cheaper cellphone plan and get this. Looked like a good deal.

It was very easy to install. My first problem was that I was not able to make any calls to toronto cellphones that had Rogers/Fido as the carrier. I could make calls to Rogers cellphones outside of Toronto but not in Toronto. It worked fine with bell and telus. It was a bit of problem for me since most of my friends use Rogers phones. It seemed to have been defeating the whole purpose of my purchase. I tried so many workaround for this. I talked to a bunch of people in the livechat and they couldn’t help me. After searching a lot I finally came accross a workaround for this.

Basically purpose of this post of mine is to help out those Toronto users of magicjack, who are having problems calling Rogers cellphones in Toronto. Basically, if you have a number let’s say, “416-123-4567″ you dial it like, “*67+4+*+16-123-4567. This seemed to have eliminated my problem.

MagicJack is very new and it has lots of bugs. However, I believe you get what you pay for. I paid 40 bucks for the first year and 20 bucks per year after that. I do not expect a landline experience out of this. On the other hand, the cellphone carriers charge us a way more than they should. I don’t get enough out of my money from them. Therefore, with magicjack, be patience and think about the money you are saving. Also, you are becoming known to a new technology that not a lot of people are familiar with.

So, goodluck with MagicJack. If you are from Toronto and a magicjack user, give me a shout and I will give you my number and we can have a chat in our magicjack . Even if you are not a Torontonian but just wants to talk to me shout anyways and we can talk.

I am not talking about searching through google.ca but I am talking about searching in your computer. I know that I have had issues with this eventhough not as much as others. Once in a while I do face a tough situation trying to find something that has been buried in hundreds of files and folders. Apparently, this is just not a issue that individuals like me face in everyday life. this is an issue that even employees have been facing as well.

According to the an ItBusiness article, “Search and you often don’t find…and here’s the reason why“  a new survey shows that the employees have been struggling in this sector. Searching and not being able to find a very crucial data seems to be really slowing down these employees. In my opinion, this shouldn’t be happenning. I am very organized with my computer files atleast both at work and home. I divide everything into simple little folders with date in the file names making it extremely easy for me. I never had to use the desktop search feature at my work because of my approach. I do have to use it at home somtimes especially when I am trying to find an mp3 song. Other than that, I am very organized.

How good are you? Are you organized with your files or are you extremely messy saving everything in the desktop?

Yahoo decides that they would work with Google not with Microsoft. These executives of Yahoo are pathetic to tell you the truth.

Yahoo walks away from Microsoft negotiations
Yahoo is nearing an agreement with Google involving its search advertising business

Today there is an internet monopoly by Google. I am not against Google. I cannot live without Google as I said before. However, I really do not like the Monopoly that Google currently has over the internet. Similarly, I cannot live without Microsoft but I do not like the Microsoft monopoly over the Operating Systems and softwares.

Therefore, an agreement with Microsoft would have meant the rise of stronger competition against Google. Now, Yahoo made Google more powerful over the internet. I wished Yahoo! made a bit more smarter choice.

This is just too funny. Microsoft starting their propaganda war against Safari.

Stop Safari NOW!

Microsoft created Windows in a way so that IE works the best with Windows and hence forcing people to stick with IE. A lot of programs required in IE actually starts up at the beginning when you boot up your computer. Therefore, they are scamming us. Now that Safari started to take over the market they are spreading propaganda wars against Safari asking people to stop using this browser. This is absolutely ridiculous. I really hate these types of propaganda that Microsoft runs. We do not see Apple doing such a thing ever.

Let’s beat Microsoft in their own propaganda game. Diggity diggity diggity NOW!

There are a lot of websites that have reached the PR 10. These ones might be considered the Gods of Search Engine Optimization. You can reach this position too. Just work hard!

http://www.adobe.com/

http://www.energy.gov

http://www.macromedia.com

http://www.nasa.gov

http://www.nsf.gov

http://www.real.com

http://www.usa.gov/index.shtml

http://www.whitehouse.gov

http://www.w3.org/

I never tried out the Microsoft World’s blog posting features. I always post from the Wordpress WYSIWYG. I know a lot of people type up their posts in Microsoft Word because they like the spell check features and many others. I am personally not a big fan of Microsoft Word for creating online contents. The reason is because a lot of the characters that the word includes do not appear with a lot of older browsers. I do not want to take the risk of assuming that all my visitors are using latest IE. Most of the developers (including me) are actually still using the IE 6.0 simply because this version has a bigger market than 7.0. People just don’t seem to want to upgrade to 7.0 yet even though it’s out for a long time. Anyways, I try to make sure that all my visitors get the best user experience as much as possible. Therefore, I do not use it.

Today, however I decided to give this a try. Currently, I am typing this post my in Microsoft Word 2007. After I am done I will click on publish to publish it to my blog. This is just a test run to see how it goes. I know that many established people in blogs strongly recommend to type up our posts in Word before posting. I would rather suggest using something like Frontpage to type your posts up. Frontpage also uses the same spell check but it won’t insert the stupid characters that mess up display in older browsers and emails.

Better, why not give Google Docs a try? They have a decent spell check and you can just copy and paste your posts after you are done editing. This one automatically saves your information and therefore, while you are outside with an internet connection you can easily type it up.

There are lots of options you have. I would definitely suggest using a spell check no matter what. If you are using Firefox browser then it automatically includes one. It might actually be better to type up in MSWord if you don’t have any other options. However, look for characters that cause issues. Anything that is “curvy” like the quotation mark I used around the word “curvy” could cause issues in older browsers. There are other characters such as “ellipses” or” apostrophe.” Watch out for them and you will be fine.

Thanks for the submissions everyone. I received 34 submissions just in one week. There is simply no way I can approve all of them. Many of them were really good but I accepted only 7 most relevant posts.

Computer Vision Syndrome and How to Avoid it written by Physician Entrepreneur.

What’s Love Got To Do With Social Media? written by The Engaging Brand.

How to Get Free Music and Video Downloads from iTunes – Satellite TV Guru written by Satellite TV Guru.

The Problem With WordPress – An Uncategorical Failure written by The Ominous Comma

Cisco TelePresence Holographic Video Conferencing written by Bachelor Design

Do You Test? Yes! Why? written by The Kaizen Business.

Forced Continuity: A Different Perspective written by The Michel Fortin Blog

If you have an interesting post that you want me to post here please let me know.

The new iPhone of American politics, Barrack Obama did it finally. This is an extremely smart guy. No one in their right mind would want to run against someone like Hillary Clinton, who had such an established base behind her supporting her campaign. He went for it anyways and won the nomination. i believe he knew that he could do this. I believe he had a specific goal and he reached it tonight. He has tremendous amount of confidence on him and he strongly believes in himself. I think this is very important for you to be confident on who you are. If you are not confident with yourself you cannot be big in life. Obama’s story is a success story that we should all cherish. We need to learn a lot from his life. I am pretty sure that he has a lot more to offer to this world.

Neither Obama nor HIllary differ much in their policies but I have supported Hillary Clinton from the beginning. The main reason is because I really wanted to see the first woman president of the US. I think this would have dramatically brought a big change in the western society.

Oh by the way, for those ignorant people out there, he is neither a Muslim nor an Atheist. Not that there is a problem of him being those two but he is just not. People should get it by now after the famous Wright controversies.