Seventymm - Rent movies online

I recently became a member of – Seventymm. You can rent movies online from their catalog of 10,000 titles. They deliver and pickup for free from your doorstep. The best part is that there are no late fees - you can keep the movies for as long as you want. It costs as low as Rs.199 per month.

Click here to check them out!

Here how it works... Check out the four-step process below,

Micro-financing in India

Have you read about 'Muhammad Yunus' and his idea of micro-financing? Though micro-financing has been there for ages... It is fascinating to know that he has 6.6 million borrowers of whom 97% are women, that's a huge number for someone who is into micro-financing. I started reading more about micro-financing and came across a article by an advertising agency which talks about 'Seventy Things to Watch in 2007' and interestingly of one them is 'Web-based Micro Financing'.. I googled around and found this website 'kiva.org' it is quite a successful business today. 'Web-based Micro Financing' is a wonderful idea.. I am curious to know how much would these micro-lenders earn, like what would be the percentage of profit...? and would you invest in such ventures to get good returns...? How much do you think the website owners(kiva.org) are making money..?

I think you just need 3 things to build a company like Kiva.. 1, Technical skill to build a website. 2, Build contacts with local micro-financiers 3, Most importantly you need to have financial (banking/micro-financing) background to understand and run this business or may be degree in finance. I can build such a website with in a week and build contacts with micro-financiers - So, if anyone wants to start something similar to kiva then I would be interested to become a partner but your business plan should interest me.. I see a great opportunity in micro-financing esp India .

Ferrari fanatics

Source



Jeremy Clarkson (in 1998) interviewing a modern-day Da Vinci - "There are few if any models in the world to rival the Ferrari 312PB built by Pierre Scerri of Avignon, France. This 1:3 scale marvel is the real thing in every sense, from its operating 12-cylinder engine to the exact scale operating Ferrari gauges which are calibrated precisely to indicate rpm, oil pressure, water temperature and oil temperature.

It took Pierre 15 years and more than 20,000 hours to build this car. He learned to make glass so he could make the exact pattern lens for the operating headlights. He learned to make rubber so he could mold his own tires. His computer mainframe design background with the French telecommunications system allowed him to duplicate the Ferrari electronics system in exact miniature. It also provided him with the understanding needed to make a 1/3 scale operating fuel injection system identical to that in the full-size Ferrari.

Perhaps the toughest aspect of the car was the gearbox, for which Ferrari supplied drawings. While Pierre had an understanding of the object to be built, he lacked the very expensive specialized equipment required to build high-tolerance gears and synchros. Colleti, the builder of the full-size car's gearbox ended up building the model's gearbox.

There is no sign of deviation from the real car in terms of replication. The spark plugs are miniatures, the radiators were hand-built to the exact same core design as the real ones. Even the water reservoir fill cap is a Fiat radiator cap made exactly the same way as the real one and pressure tested. The suspension is exact and the hydraulically controlled brakes from the brake pedal have quick-change brake pads just as on the real car.

If you were 1:3 scale, you would open the door of the car, get in, fasten your seat belt as on the full-size car, take you Ferrari key (engraved identically to the real key) and put it into the ignition.
You would flip the toggle switch for the fuel pumps, and with this you would hear the fuel-injection system come to life, powered by a real scale battery built by Pierre. A crew member would stick the hand-held scale starter into the rear transaxle housing and as the engine turned over you would flip the ignition toggle switch and the 12-cylinder engine would come to life with a sound you'd never forget.

This 12-cylinder engine just isn't any 12-cylinder engine, it is a 1:3 scale Ferrari 12-cylinder engine with the same beautiful sound. It took Pierre six months of running the engine on his own dynamometer to tune the header pipes so they would give off the same sound value as he had recorded from the engine of the real car. Once Pierre had the engine bolted together for the first time, it started on the very first try and, since then, has logged more than fifty hours of running time with no failures or refusals to start (It's probably more reliable than the real engine).

In short, this model car is so incredible that one has a very difficult time focusing on the fact that it is a model and not a full-size car. Pierre has begun work on a 1:3 scale Ferrari P4.

Pierre Scerri's terrific website here - http://mps-sportproto.com/en/index.php

He'll be in Toledo in the United States in April to collect an award for "Outstanding Metalworking Craftsman of the Year".

You can also order a limited-edition fully-functional 12-cylinder Ferrari 312PB engine from this site. No mention of price.

IPOD Video Converter MPEG 4

I have been searching for a IPOD video converter, a software which can convert all popular video formats (DVD/VCD, AVI, MPEG, WMV, RM, RMVB, DivX, ASF, VOB video files) to iPod video. I was tired of finding something which is not limited.. for which I don't have to pay anything basically a free one.. who want to pay another $100 for a software like that.. I am srue you would not want to buy it too.. and searching for something free and reliable else why would you be here... hehe.. anyways.. here I found something which I have been using for quite sometime.. and can say it is reliable.. and simply works... it is just what I have been looking for..

Here you can download it at download.com...

Btw, it is 1.4MB... Happy IPODING.. wooo.. I just came up with a new word.. IPODING hehe..

Hutch sucks!!

I know I know.. there are a countless number of posts complaining about Hutch Service.. yes, you are correct this is just another such post.. plus one to the countless number of hutch's frustrated customers.

Just got a call from Hutch billing department, its a third party* asking me to pay my bill. I told them that I have few uncleared issues with the technical department and I will not until they clear those, not at least this time... as in the past I have made the same complain and they did nothing about it. So, the agent is furious (I don't know why) and hangs the phone on me. Hmmm, I was speechless... and after 10mins I get a call from another agent.. and asks me to pay.. Here goes our conversation..

Agent: Hello sir.. I am calling from Hutch billing department.. you need to pay the bill.

Me: Oh, 10mins ago a agent called me and I told her why I am not paying it.

Agent: Why Sir?

Me: I told her, do you want me to repeat it. Can I speak to your team lead.

Agent: She waits for a 2secs and says she is the team lead.

Me: (Laugh) Don't lie.. you sound like a fresher... go to hell. (I hung up)

I was sure the agent was no team lead... may be a trainee.. agent sounded like that. After 30mins I get one more call.. this time from a Manager... here goes the conversation..

Me: Hello...

Manager: Hello Sir, I am Ramya calling from Hutch, manage platinum and gold customers.

[I am their platinum customer.. because I get a huge bill at the end of every month, isn't this ridiculous that they differentiate their customer on the basis of how much they pay. So, that means they provide least service to the person who pays less.. or don't really care about them.]

Me: Its the third call in the past hour.. What do you guys want?

Manager: Sir, please tell me what is the problem I will solve it.

Me: I already made a complaint.. check the records.. solve it and call me.

Manager: Sir, according to the records you have some network issue.

Me: Its not some network issue.. I specified what it is.

Manager: Yes Sir.. you have to call a number thrice to get through it.. as it gives a network busy message.

Me: Yes, there is one more issue.. please report me on that too..

Manager: Sir I just have the record of one issue. What is the second one.. can you please let me know.

[Me... surprised that they did not even record my complaint :( ]

Me: I spoke to Leena, team lead of customer service department.. I made sure she understands everything.. so, she will know it.. please put her on conference.

Manager: Sorry I cannot do that..

Me: ok, please speak to her and get back to me.

Manager: Tell me what is the issue.. I will solve it.

Me: I don't wanna repeat it.. talk to Leena and get back. Also, did you guys at least made a note who the 2 agents who called me in past hour and what did they speak..

Manager: Yes.

Me: Can you please tell them not to lie and hung upon on the customer.

Manager: Sorry, they are from a agency and I will report. What did they lie?

[Ok.. here comes.. thats when I know it was third party (a agency) who called me]

Me: You said you know what they spoke.. listen to the recorded call again.

btw, did you observe she stopped saying sir and please.. Not that I want someone to call me sir or request me but I just sensed that she is pissed of me...

Manager: I will get bye.. you have a great day..

hehe.. she said that.. and hung up before I said bye.. lol.. these people will never change..


I have been having Network problems from past few months and after n number of complaints they don't solve it.. and they send me some stupid sms asking me to download HOT AISH, HOT BIPS.. hehe.. they do.. seriously.. So, all I asked them was to solve these network issues and stop sending me those crazy sms as I am paying for the service... they cannot advertise for the service I am paying...

The team lead (Leena), whom I complained about this issue asked me to send a sms to some 4 digit number (I don't remember the number) with a keyword 'DND' and that would take 72 hours to update that. AND THAT WOULD COST ME Rs.3... lol... can you imagine.. you pay for the service.. they still send you crazy download sms without your permission and then when you ask them to stop sending those sms.. they ask you in turn spend Rs. 3 to stop those ads.

I googled a bit and found out that I am not the only one who go through such horrible service.

http://www.complaints.com/directory/2005/september/3/9.htm
http://www.complaints.com/directory/2006/october/23/54.htm

Yeeks.. check this... "Results 1 - 10 of about 195,000 for hutch sucks. (0.09 seconds) "

Oh.. btw.. by now you might be thinking why don't I cancel the service and go with some other provider..??? Listen.. I have this number from past 4 years and cannot really give a trouble to my clients asking them to update my contact just because I am have a issue with it.


**Third Party, most of the service providing companies which think that they cannot get money out of few frustrated customers outsource this service to another company whose work is just calling such customers and make them pay the bill.

How does an IPOD Click Wheel works?

The Click Wheel is a touch-sensitive ring that we use to navigate through all of iPod's menus and control all of its features. It provides two ways to input commands: by sliding finger around the wheel and by pressing buttons located under and in the middle of the wheel.

Under the plastic surface of the Click Wheel, there are four mechanical buttons (Menu, back, forward, play/pause), and there's one button in the center (select).

Click Wheel face

There are five buttons and five corresponding contacts on the motherboard. When we press, say, the right side of the wheel while you're listening to a song, the wheel pushes down the forward button. The underside of each rubber button is metal, so pressing it completes the corresponding circuit on the motherboard. The motherboard tells the processor this circuit is complete, and the processor tells the operating system to fast-forward through the song.

The Click Wheel's touch-sensitive function lets us move through lists, adjust volume and fast forward through a song by moving finger around the stationary wheel. It works a lot like a laptop touchpad. In fact, the company that supplied the Click Wheel for the 4G iPod was Synaptics, most widely known for making laptop touchpad’s. For the 5G, Apple created its own proprietary Click Wheel design based on the same capacitive sensing principle as the previous Synaptics-designed Click Wheel.

Under the plastic cover of the Click Wheel, there is a membrane embedded with metallic channels. Where the channels intersect, a positional address is created, like coordinates on a graph.

At its most basic, a capacitive-sensing system works like this: The system controller supplies an electrical current to the grid. The metal channels that form the grid are conductors -- they conduct electricity. When another conductor -- say, finger -- gets close to the grid, the current wants to flow to the finger to complete the circuit. But there's a piece of nonconductive plastic in the way -- the Click Wheel cover. So the charge builds up at the point of the grid that's closest to the finger. This build-up of an electrical charge between two conductors is called capacitance.
The closer the two conductors are without touching,
the greater the capacitance.

The "sensing" part of the system comes in with the controller. The Click Wheel controller (see above) is programmed to measure changes in capacitance. The greater the change in capacitance at any given point, the closer the finger must be to that point. When the controller detects a certain change in capacitance, it sends a signal to the microprocessor. As we move finger around the wheel, the charge build-up moves around the wheel with it. Every time the controller senses capacitance at a given point, it sends a signal. That's how the Click Wheel can detect speed of motion -- the faster we move our finger around the wheel, the more compacted the stream of signals it sends out. And as the microprocessor receives the signals, it performs the corresponding action -- increasing the volume, for instance. When the finger stops moving around the wheel, the controller stops detecting changes in capacitance and stops sending signals, and the microprocessor stops increasing the volume.

Nike