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techspeak.com is the new home of the company!

April 30th, 2009 | 3 Comments | Posted in Personal Share

Finally I got the domain techspeak.com. I had been told forever that a website which doesn’t have the dot.com domain is not a real business, and while there were a lot of exceptions, I somehow believed this as well.

There was a generous Canadian lady who owned this domain for about 10 years. She got this first registered in 1997 and then in 2007 I first got to see it (because that was when I started the company!). I contacted her via the form on her new website and requested her to let me know if she was interested in parting with the domain as she was not using it at that time.

She surprised me with her quick and pleasant response. She politely refused to give me the domain at the moment because she didn’t know if she wanted to give it to me, or to anyone. I told her that I am starting my company and it will be a great boost to me if I have the TLD. She probably understood and told me that she will think about it and let me know when she has decided something.

I mailed her a couple of times and she promptly responded, telling me her situation or point of view. In the beginning of the year 2009, I wrote again and she said that she was leaving for a vacation. She told me that she will decide about transferring the domain once she is back, finally. She was back in a couple of months and wrote to me saying that she was all prepared to transfer it to me. I could send the payment to her and she will ensure that the domain is transferred without any trouble.

I didn’t know if this was the right thing to do, it was a decent amount by any means. I was sure that she genuinely wanted to give me the domain otherwise she wouldn’t have written to me. I knew my money was safe but I was only unsure of the registrars as I had never transferred a domain comfortably before. I moved 2 of mine from Rediff to Znet and it was a horrifying experience.

Well, I did transfer the money and she sent me the authorization code in less than 12 hours of receiving it. I tried to move the domain to my registrar and as I had expected, something went wrong somewhere and the transfer didn’t happen. I was really troubled and anxious to get it all happen. I wrote to the support staff and they were as usual, clueless.

She was a great help in the meantime. She kept on writing to me to find out about the status of the transfer and she also ensured that I was comfortable during the entire process. She didn’t disappear after receiving the money but let the transfer complete till the end. It was a great relief and I am really thankful to her.

So, don’t forget to check techspeak.com in a couple of days. I am trying to figure out the best CMS at the moment and will ensure that the site is up before the end of next week. Fingers crossed!!

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You Need to be Connected to remain Disconnected!

April 13th, 2009 | No Comments | Posted in Lessons from Life, Personal, Tech Gyan Share

Please bear with me as I give the background of this story.

I was trying to look for a nice template for Zen Cart, which I have installed for the new domain, ITShopIndia.com. This site is supposed to be a place where the buyers of Computer parts and Accessories can connect directly with the suppliers and manufacturers and get products at wholesale prices. I reached the site of Kuroi Web Design, which has demos of free Zen-Cart templates. To appreciate the service by Kuroi Web Design, I decided to Tweet the page using Twitthis. I started to browse the top twitted pages and found a nice article by Seth Godin, the marketing guru. Phew!

The article is about personal branding and the Google effect. It talks about three people who applied for a job and how Google revealed the truth behind their claims. It is important to realize that privacy has a new meaning in the Internet era. People may think that they can disconnect their lives by not signing up to FaceBook, Orkut, MySpace and the likes, but it is not true.

Recently, I was seeing my own profile on FaceBook and realized that someone had tagged me in a photo. With over 2 billion photos uploaded, almost everyone in the world who has ever been clicked must have been tagged at least once, or will be tagged soon. It is true that you can restrict people from tagging you in pictures but you need to have a FaceBook profile for that!

You need to be on the network to ensure that you are not on the network!

It is difficult to remain behind closed doors when there is someone on the prowl all the time. The crawling spiders will not let any stone unturned. It is better that you are in control of the situation and manage your Online Profile judiciously. Even if you consider your privacy very important, just ensure that you have a decent public profile available to those who seek it, lest they will have to settle for what is made available to them.

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Facebook Status, Twitter and Micro-blogging

April 2nd, 2009 | No Comments | Posted in Personal Share

How much can one write in 140 characters? Not much?!? There are millions of people who are posting their thoughts on Twitter daily, in 140 characters.  There is yet another set of young netizens, who login to Facebook only to update “What’s on your mind” and share it with the rest of the world.

Micro-blogging has been around for a while and has started to catch up recently because of the ease of venting the increasing frustration in the youth. A crashing economy, pink slips, lower pays and higher taxes have led to a situation where the current generation can not think about anything but work. The hectic schedules and omnipresent stress doesn’t allow people to interact with each other and spend quality time with friends and family.

Micro-blogging is the easiest resort for this community to interact, discuss, shout, tell, share – What’s on your mind! When I update my status on Facebook, I know that it may be read by 150 people. These people may sympathize, appraise, help, comment, suggest or just add to my emotions.

It is a nice way to connect to the world and the best part is that you do not have to speak to anyone about it. It is personal, discreet and yet so public! It helps people in getting rid of their emotions, or enjoying them more, and that’s the reason it became so popular in such a small time.

Follow me on twitter @ranaonline or let me know if you like micro-blogging!

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