Book reviews The River Sutra, Holy Grail Holy Blood, Angels And Demons, Harry Potter, The Lost Symbol

I wanted to share my thoughts of some of the interesting books i read.

The one that i liked  most and which had me engrossed through out my reading was :

The River Sutra(Fiction) - by Gita Mehta

This Book i a recollection of memories by an old Government officer who is the In charge of a Guesthouse on the Banks of the river Narmada. He encounters many interesting people during his stay at the guest house and this book is the recollection of all the people he comes across and their lives that get intervened with river Narmada.

I admired the author for her great story telling skills.

This is a beautifully narrated story and it a touch of the contemporary , the old fashioned and the mythological India.

You will read of a Rich man turn in to a monk, of the mythological background and the rich heritage of river Narmada, the story of a Bandit. of a wise Fakir and much more. It a must read book.

I was reading a novel after many years and this book made me want to read more. My Brother is a big Harry potter Fan and he completed the Harry potter series around the same time. He already told me about the the harry potter books but we didn't discuss much about the last edition "Deathly Hallows" as he completed it very recently.

Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows :

It might sound funny but i only read the last book in thee series The Deathly Hallows.

Yes it is a very interesting book and i loved reading it. It brought back my child hood memories when i used to believe in Magic, Witches Magic doorways and secret passages and magical creatures.

Harry potter finally conquers all the hurdles and frees the Magical world from the Evil villain "He Who Must not be named".

In the book Voldimort the villain is never called by his name in fear of being punished. Harry potter is left with a Herculean task of finding and destroying Voldimorts Horcruxes which is the only way of killing Voldimort. Harry, Hermoini and Ron set out with this task. Its a must read book.

After i completed Harry potter , i had a feeling i was missing something that my life has become very bland no magical spells, no teleports and no magic brooms.


Then i found the book Holy Grail Holy Blood which to some extent filled the void as it delves in to a topic of ancient history and talks of kings and kingdoms and secret societies and their survival through the centuries.

Holy Grail Holy Blood :
Holy Grail is a topic that has been centre of many controversies. Holy Blood refers to the Blood line of Jesus.
This is not actually a novel but a compilation of findings and proofs found by a group of researchers that take up .

The Authors research is mostly on the two things which the name of the book describes. Holy Grail and Holy Blood. It covers a lot of controversial topics about the life of Jesus like His Crucifixion, Resurrection, His Blood Line, The Cross,  and what actually is "Holy Grail" and various Secret societies.

This also helped me understand a few things about the sacredness of Jerusalem and why is it so Important for Jews and Christians.

This book has been very well narrated leading to the final conclusion. I saw the move Davinci Code around that time and came across Angels and Demons by the same author.

Angels And Demons (Fiction):

This is one of the adventures of Robert Langdon, professor of religious iconology and symbology at Harvard Universityprofessor of religious iconology and symbology at Harvard University and he is requested to decrypt the religious sysmbols that a killer leaves on a Famous CERN scientist. The story unfolds form there and takes many twists and turns and takes Robert Langdon to Vatican city and discover most startling facts and mystery behind the death of the four possible candidates to become POPE. I wouldn't want to narrate the whole story as the book is very interesting it would be a good read.

The narration is very good and it has an element of mystery.


The Lost Symbol :

The Name of the Novel and author promised a lot but i did not like it as much as i liked Angels And Demons. I guess to much of the anything is not good. It has Robert Longdon in it and he is trying to solve mysteries and puzzels to save lives but still it is not so involving for me. I did not give me the kick i got out of reading Angels and Demons.

I didn't complete this book as i lost interest mid way and took a break from book reading after that.

I heard Chetan Bhagats Books make a good reading.

Below is the list of Chetan Bhagats books:

Five Point Someone – What not to do at IIT!
One Night @ the Call Center
The 3 Mistakes of My Life
2 States: The Story of My Marriage

I did a bit of reaserch and i found that below are the books that might intrest you if you are a Harrypotter Fan :

A Wrinkle in Time

Percy Jackson and the Olympians


A Wizard of Earthsea


The Alchemyst


The Magician’s Guild by Trudy Cananvan


Michael Reaves books


The Lightning Thief (Percy Jackson and the Olympians, #1)


His Dark Materials




Big Tree of Bunlahy: Stories of My Own Countryside





I acknoledge that wikipedia is the source of some of the information that i posted

The NIIT Course. NIIT profile


From my past memory i remember that NIIT is a very credible institute which provides a these service. Earlier there was a program which would train students in all the top technologies and then would provide a placement service through their recruitment partners and they have Good base of companies who come to recruit at the NIIT.


I enquired today and i heard that they have discontinued the Earlier course which encompassed all the technologies. They now have two course types. One would cover the DOTNET domain and the other would cover the Java Domain. its a 4 month course with certification included and it would cost around 29000/-.

NIIT also provides SAP certification courses in partnership with SAP Labs.

NIIT is now an SAP partner and will be providing Long/short duration courses and also courses on new dimension products. They are also providing Online SAP Education programs.

This partnership means that NIIT has one more hot technology added to it broad Spectrum of course offerings and SAP is now deepening its roots in ASIA Pacific which is a growing market. SAP Education also contributes to SAP overall revenues.

NIIT phone number :040-66747796

I hope this helps the IT Job aspirants and the panicking parents of the freshers :)

I just checked the NIIT site and i found out that they operate in lot of countries apart from INDIA.
Some countries include China,USA,Ghana,Fiji, Zimbabwe, Iran. They don't seem to be having a branch in Pakistan though :).

Rajendra S Pawar,is Chairman and co-founder of the NIIT Group
NIIT - National institute of information Technology

Funny i never thought stock market analysis website like Money control would provide such detailed info. perhaps it provides company profiles of all the Companies listed on stock market.



Errors with Yahoo mail. Try the new yahoo mail

I had recently being facing problems while opening mails in inbox with yahoo mail

I kept encountering errors ( Error Code 21) while trying to open the items in my yahoo mail inbox or move the items to a different folder.

I tried to search on yahoo for a problem but i could not find any. I found that there was a new yahoo mail version available. http://overview.mail.yahoo.com/products/new

I tried it and this resolved the issue. This is also very easy to use. Much better that the older version.
The interface was really good. And its very lite as well. The load time was really fast compared to the older version You can use shift+down button for selecting multiple mails to move or delete them. It looked more like the MS Outlook.

HUAWEI IDEOS cheap 3g Android phone to be launched in india soon


If you are looking for a cheap  smart phone with Android OS,WI-FI,3G and touchscreen then HUAWEI IDEOS which is going to hit Indian markets soon will be the most affordable phone.
HUAWEI IDEOS cheap 3g phone with Android OS to be launched in India soon. Read more at : Huawei IDEOS official website

CLikc Link for HUAWEI IDEOS Preview

Huawei Ideos release date in india is tentively fixed as Decenber End. They have been postponing it regularly.

Samsung star nano is also a good low cost phone. this costs around 7500. But doesn't have Wifi.
Check out Specifications at Samsung official site : Star Nano .

Samsung Corby Pro- has 3G and WIFI . Costs around : 11K
Check out Corby pro at : Corby Pro Specifications at SAMSUNG official website

Nokia X6 8GB costs around 14500/- its got Wifi,3G and more. You can checkout : Nokia X6

Latest addition to the cheap 3g phones list : SAMSUNG GALAXY POP and SAMSUNG GALAXY FIT. The cost around 10000/- and have all the features you need. They both differ in the screen size and processing speed. Otherwise they are the same. But both are good.

wondering What is Android?

Android is a mobile operating system developed by Google and is based upon a modified version of the Linux kernel

what is 3G?

International Mobile Telecommunications-2000 (IMT--2000) known as 3G or 3rd Generation, is a generation of standards for mobile phones and mobile telecommunications services fulfilling specifications by the International Telecommunication Union.[1] Application services include wide-area wireless voice telephone, mobile Internet access, video calls and mobile TV, all in a mobile environment. Compared to the older 2G and 2.5G standards, a 3G system must allow simultaneous use of speech and data services, and provide peak data rates of at least 200 kbit/s according to the IMT-2000 specification. Recent 3G releases, often denoted 3.5G and 3.75G, also provide mobile broadband access of several Mbit/s to laptop computers and smart phones.
More info at : http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/3G

The above info is derived from Wikipedia

How to create your own Website


First of all let me tell you how much my Blog cost me. Its hosted for free on Blogger (a Blog Platform by google).

My blog URL initially was http://indianreviewer.blogspot.com/ and i wanted give it a domain name of my own , so i spent Rs 199/- (4$) for getting the website name : http://www.indianreviewer.in/. This fees is for ownership of the domain name for 1 year.

Now lets drill down in to the topic of website building in detail.

Some of you may be having the following questions.

How to create a free website?
How much does it cost to create a website?
Do I need a server to host my website? And do I need programming knowledge to create my website?


You should consider the below things first while creating the website: 
 
Domain Name   
A domain Name like mywebsite.com to identify your website on World Wide Web . You should  ideally  choose a domain name that's catchy and which can be easily identified with the theme of  your  website.
You need to register your website Domain name with a Domain registrars. Generally this will cost you around 400 to 600 Rs based on the domain extensions like .com/.net/.org/.in.  The pricing  varies from company to company. ICANN is the organisation that certifies these registrars.

You can find information about the certified Domain registrars at :
 ICANN Accredited Domain registrars.
Hosting the Website
If you website content is confidential or is sensitive it is better you host your website on you personnel web server. You can use services of a web hosting companies like HOSTGATOR.com. Godaddy is my prefered website registrar. After i tried a few and finally settled on godaddy for their plans and service.


you create a lot of subdomains like blog.yourdomain.com. They also offer free 1 GB email hosting. This enables you to create your mail ID like admin@mywebsite.com

Often the Domain Name registrars will also provide hosting services. It is always better to register and host a domain with the same Service provider. The main thing you need to check hear is if the hosting company you have chosen is known for providing support services as there will always be minor issue with hosting a website continually. It is always good to do a little bit of research (just Google for user reviews on the respective web hosting companies) before you proceed with entering a hosting agreement. The hosting providers I listed seem to be safe options from the little research I have done.

There are two types of hosting plans which every hosting company provides.
Shared hosting and Dedicated hosting.

A minimal Shared hosting package will cost you around 2500/rs (55$) per year. You can also try out a package for 3 months.

You can use both windows and Linux platforms but Linux will cost you less and you don't need any Linux knowledge to host your website on a Linux platform. You just need to know how to upload and download files to ftp server.

I created a html website and all i did was buy a Linux hosting and upload all my html pages to the ftp server and get my website going. You can also user Joomla,drupal , wordpress and other content management soft wares for developing your website but they generate database pages and they are not static pages like html pages. Html pages always rank higher in the search engine rankings.

My personnel preference is GoDaddy.com.
Initially i have taken a 3 month hosting with godaddy and i got a free google adwords and facebook advertising coupon for advertisng my website. This will help you gain some internet presense for your website for free. Also the 3 month plan just costs around 230 rs. You will also get a good discount on yearly subscription. Also you can install a lot of content management tools like wordpress,jomla,drupal etc which help creating websites easily. The linux hosting plans have a good user interface and you dont need any linux knowledge.

Later i liked the service and have taken a 1 year hosting plan for hosting my website : http://www.howwherewhat.in/


Theme, Look and content of the website
This is the most important part of creating a website. Your website should feel good for the average visitor. It should not be overly crowed with tabs, pop ups preferably it’s better not to have bright backgrounds. If your website is hosted with a web hosting provider, they will provide a variety of themes. You can choose from them based on your requirement.
You should make sure that the content on your website is unique and should. You need to spend quality time creating your website. You can make use of Content management softwares like Joomla, Drupal, wordpress,Modx, DotnetNuke, ZENCArT etc.

HOW TO ACCEPT ONLINE PAYMENTS:
You can use zencart software for creating an online store and you also need a current account and use services of icici bank/ccavenue or others to integrate credit/debit card processing.
MOst of the webhosting companies provide zencart installation freely when you buy a hosting plan.


Looking to create a free website??


You can try Google's free web sites. Google hosts your websites for free. Your website will be created at
https://sites.google.com/site/<YOUR WEBSITE NAME>.

If you already have a domain name you would need to create a CNAME and direct it to your website.

Devhub also provides similar services and it’s worth a try. You can either create a free website on DEVHUB which will look like yourwebsite.devhub.com or use DEVHUB hosting service for hosting your existing Domain name.

Freely hosted Blogs:
You can also try the wordpress blog or the blogger platform by google. Wordpress does not allow advertising on the free blogs but it is one of the mostly used blogging platforms due to its customizability.

On Blogger blogs you can advertise with google adsense. Blogger also provides your incoming traffic stats. You can also use the google webmasters tool to review how your blog/website is indexed.

A free blogger blog would be like http://www.blogname.blogspot.com/
A free wordpress blog would look like <blogname>.wordpress.com
You can also try the livejournal.

You also have an option of pointing your blogger or wordpress blog to your own domain name to give your blog a more professional feel.

If you are going the blog way, my suggestion would be start with a free blog and then if you thing you want to really do it, then go for a personnel domain name and host your blog on it.

If you want your blog/website to be displayed on google search, add your URL at :
http://www.google.com/addurl/?continue=/addurl

If you scratching your head on what to write in your blog, check out My Blogging inspirations :

Check out Blogging Tips for more info on how to popularise your blog.

Add revenue from website


If you are planing to create website and generate some revenue from ads its not going so easy because your site viewers need to click on the advertisements and how often do you click on an add displayed on a website? You can also try impression adds but the payout is not the greatest.
Unless you create interesting and unique content you wont probably pull your average viewer back to your website.


This is where the difference between a Blog and a website is evident. You can use the full page size for advertising if you are creating a website with HTML.

If its a blog there are a lot of limitations.

If you are using Blogger platform and you get your Google adsense account approved you can put google adsense adds on your blog. But if you want to put adds from Adbrite , clicksor or others then you need to spend some time in getting them to work correctly. But its a lot easier to simply add the code to html pages that to a blog. But Blogs give you another advantage that you can immediately post your new ideas on your blog without having to spend lot of time formatting your content using the html tags and other syntax.



Best Blog Awards:
Yes blogging organisation awards best blogs in various categories.
There is also an Indian organisation indibloggies which gives awards for best Indian blogs.



Also check out
How to check if some one has coppied the content on your website/blog
Tips on how to get Adsense approved for Indian bloggers and website owners
Top 50 Ad Networks worth trying for your blog/website
Blogging Tips
My Blogging inspirations :
Reasearch before you start publising a post
Tips and Formalities for creating a website in India
How to chek if a website is safe and genuine
how to shorten long url links