Phew! Its been very hectic, the last 15 days or so. I had a news portal to be launched - AyurvedNews.com and the Indian version of my Ayurveda Store - AyurShop.in. Work took 25 hours a day and I still managed to squeeze a few hours for food, sleep and my Sunday morning games! All that I could not do was to update my blog! Here I am now, free to write what strikes me most.

What strikes me the most at the moment is that after a forth night of activity, wheres the result? Another few projects launched, but where’s the result?! Day and night worked for what? Thought about it for some time and got the answer:

It’s not what you start that gives you the results; its the sustained, sincere efforts and interest in what you do that drives results! What say?

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AyurvedNews.com - our dedicated news portal for Ayurveda has been launched. The news portal will also cover topics such as Yoga, Panchakarma, Meditation, Health tips, Government News, Product Launches, Reviews, Interviews, Ayurveda Company News apart from a host of information on such subjects. Alternate therapy news which have relevance to Ayurveda will also be featured.

Visitors can expect to find a neat and simple interface with facilities for searching, RSS feeds, registration and giving their views and comments on each article. One is also free to submit his/her news, story or even complaints on the site! AyurvedNews.com focuses to bridge the gap between the traditional Ayurvedic companies and the new technology enabled news seeker.

Do feel free to give me feedback on the site and pen down your suggestions here.

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Infused with enthusiasm & glamor provided by the local newspapers, about the ‘Flower Show ‘ in Lal Bagh, I decided to check it out. Lal Bagh as one would know, is a 240 acre lung space in Bangalore, big but insufficient for todays population! The visit did not turn out to a relaxing experience; but on the contrary, it pained my heart to see my Bangalore loose its glory even further. To start with please check the goodness and history of Lal Bagh at Wikipedia.

Before I entered the garden, the surrounding streets were filled with two and four wheelers. There were thousands of them!My awe at the city’s population and their interest in a flower show reached new heights! After paying 20 bucks for the entry, Lal Bagh was found strewn with litter and vendors. Yes! vendors, more than a hundred of them, selling stuff right from popcorn to watches! I never knew that this garden was such a business hub and such vendors were allowed in the park. When I asked a bhel puri vendor, if the security was not driving them away; he said that they security was ‘adjusted’ by them to allow the trade! This indiscriminate sale brought about another feature - waste paper and junk, that were found at the frequency of every meter of garden area. I am not joking here… the green garden was plagued by cut newspapers all over. For this I don’t blame the vendors completely. For one, the visitors should have some basic sensibilities and two, the Lal Bagh administration should provide adequate bins at regular intervals.

This brings us to the pathetic state of affairs of the garden itself. Uncut grass, unmaintained walk ways, water-less ponds and broken structures near the glass house. The administration better pull up its sleeves and get to work, lest it would be taken to task by some angry media or NGO! Further woes for the garden include getting a reputation for beings a showcase for public displays of affection! A friend of mine refuses to go to Lal Bagh due to this!

The administration may claim all things contrary to what I have said here, but I invite each and every one of you to visit the place and check it out yourself! If you plan to do something about it and need a hand do let me know. I have written this out of pain because I still remember playing as a child in this beautiful garden two decades back. Running between the trees and hopping on the stones to cross the pond was the way to do it and not sitting in a buggy and honking at people who are walking!

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Last week, my server was hacked by this crackers child! Don’t know why losers like him have to spoil innocent bloggers websites to convey their irrelevant thoughts. There are better ways to convey his anti-Bush sentiments. Ask any democrat and he’ll tell you!

Anyways for those looking for a cure to heir hacked Wordpress installations please Get Cure for Crackers Child here. Basically, this chap / group rewrites all files having the word “index” in them. So, one is simply not able to proceed as all index.php, index.html, index_whatever is overwritten. Thankfully, they are not qualified enough to hack the database, so all the posts, comments, settings, categories etc are safe. Quiet simply, if you replace all the index files, it should work! Or as the link puts it “Basically just delete all your wordpress files (backup things like plugins, themes, smilies etc) and then re-upload all the wordpress files onto your server. this will not delet any posts, comments or pages as these are all stored on your database.” BTW, replacing all the files works for any website & not just those on Wordpress. Just keep your database, themes, ads etc settings correct in the replacement files.
Check this out for an interesting read on crackers_child.

Check this for the amount of crap the world has to put up with due to crackers child.

The Guru in me speaketh - Thou shall backup regularly! And if thou gets hands on thy hacker, thou shall use your legs and fists too!

Let me know if you have more on this and permanent cures if any. Vikas Sharma.

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Great! That’s the word which comes to my mind when I recall the two days spent at Bangalore Bar Camp 4 held on 28th and 29th of July at Indian Institute of Management, Bangalore (IIMB). It was the first bar camp I attended, though it was the fourth one in Bangalore. Meeting similar bloggers, techies and people from the industry was just fantastic. In fact, I got so attracted to the concept, that on the second day, I took a session for all bloggers on “How to make money from a blog”. I will post more about my session in another post.

The event covered a lot of aspects on the Internet, Startups, Blogging, Programming etc. At one point of time, I was confused as to which seminar to attend! And then there were some of my old friends I bumped into J C Kiran, Madhav from Japan and Karthik! Other fantastic people I remember are Mr. Natrajan from Chennai, Sean, Sanjukta, Thejesh and Arun. Please visit their blogs; real great ideas! Food was good and the IIMB ambience and greenery made me be there longer!

I am waiting for Bangalore Bar Camp 5, where I intend to put in some of my organizing skills to good use!

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• Life is more strict than a teacher. A teacher teaches lessons first and then keeps the exams but, Life keeps the exams first & then teaches the lessons!
• 5 frogs are sitting on a log. 4 decide to jump off. How many are left? ….. There are still 5 left, because there’s a lot of difference between deciding and doing!
• No one can change a bad beginning, but anyone can start anything anytime and create a successful ending!
• We judge ourselves by what we are capable of doing, while others judge us by what we have already done.
• A blind person asked Swami Vivekananda, “Can there be anything worse then loosing your sight?” He replied, “Yes, loosing your vision!”

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Being in the web hosting & domain name registration industry, I have been asked this many times over by people from various backgrounds - novice bloggers to seasoned experts. Not because its my business, but due to many good reasons I recommend it. The most prominent advantage & reasons being the following which I will elaborate upon in my later posts:

• It gives you your own identity.
• You are not on the mercy of the blogs provider and fear of getting your blog deleted or suspended because of something you did or didn’t do!
• Having your own independent blog site gives you more options to make money and earn online.
• The best blog software packages are open source and hence free and totally customizable! Your cost towards the same is next to zero.
• The cost involved towards domain name registration and web space is very less, that too can be recovered within a month or two by a basic blogger! (PS: Ask me for all such requirement you have!)
• You have the freedom to add a forum, shopping cart, create a community or do nearly just about anything you can think up from your own domain or blog!
• You can customize just about anything on your blog, the look, feel etc by themes & plugins, which are available free and again open source for you to modify.
• And finally as Mike put in “if you are actively working to get back links (and you should be) you will want those to go to a domain that you control. If you create a high PR site you have an asset you can sell.”
• A few more advantages, I cant think of now as I have started sneezing due to dust allergy!

Well, anyways if you get more advantages on having your own blog to add please feel free to put it in the comments for the community. Questions and controversies are welcome too!

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Patient: Doctor, I have an ear ache. 2000 BC: Here, eat this root.

1000 AD: That root is heathen, say this prayer
1850 AD: That prayer is superstition, drink this potion.
1940 AD: That potion is snake oil, swallow this pill.
1985 AD: That pill is ineffective, take this antibiotic.
2000 AD: That antibiotic is artificial, here eat this root!

This is one of the first witty & humorous things I found on herbal products. Please feel free to add more from the comments!

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Not long ago, a lot of businesses would think a zillion times before plunging in to an ad campaign. The choices were very few and costs were very prohibitive. After the dot com bubble burst, a lot of sensibilities have crawled in to the online world. Companies such as Google, Yahoo, Discount click etc are offering good & affordable deals to the advertiser.

Discount click for example deals in Search engine marketing, Link management and Banner ad serving; all of which are pretty important for any advertiser. One needs to explore newer and customer friendly service providers rather than blindly go in for the most popular services. Any ad campaign done with due diligence is bound to bring good results.

Do let me know if you have had good or bad experiences with smaller players in the market; for sometimes David can outdo Goliath!

• This is a sponsored article.

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Here’s good news for all bloggers and webmasters! DclickAds an internet advertising services agency is all set to woo you with their Advertiser and Webmaster programs. Publishers are free to set their own rates for ads on their sites. As per DclickAds website “What sets dclickads apart from other forms of internet advertising services are 3 distinct features: Any Ad Types, DirectLink Technology, SmartCache XML Distribution.”

As an advertiser one gets to choose on which site or category they want to advertise. Click frauds can be eliminated by purchasing weekly or monthly ads! The advertiser has full control on the setup of ads be it banners, text links or the highly targeted embedded text advertising.

Publishers visit here. Advertisers visit here.

• This is a sponsored review.

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