New VRL Bus stand – mega private bus stands in Majestic Bangalore

October 22nd, 2011 No comments

October, November is a season to celebrate… filled with Holidays, Festivals, shopping, travel, gifts. On eve of Dasara I visited Hubli on short notice. I booked VRL travels since no tickets in KSRTC, IRCTC. Mimimum 2 months booking before travel for IRCTC and 3 weeks for KSRTC during festival season.
With no other choice, I booked VRL and on time in VRL Travels in Anand Rao Circle. I must tell you that its surprising to see the VRL Bus Stand near majestic Bangalore. You may be wondering whats the big deal…Yes.. its a big deal. They have all the facilities what KSRTC Bus Stand offers..except KSRTC has huge land to manage. An Inquiry Office, Seating Arrangement, Fresh rooms, nicely managed departure dashboard. I am stunned and happy to see the VRL Bus Stand.

There are many arguments regarding the price comparison that KSRTC is cheaper.. in some ways service, travel comfort plays major role than price. Of course Price is important if you planned your travel. If you are not planned, you are paying price for that..

One of the service offered is VRL sends you SMS indicating your bus number. Thats great way to avoid hassle in queue, looking for person, inquiring and requesting the staff like they are doing favor on us by informing bus number.

KSRTC provides water bottle in Airavat but VRL badly lacks it. I guess this is due to VRL’s revenue model to provide other services and make people to pay for their own brand of water bottles… some (Innovative???? may be not) ways of forcing people to pay the money..

Having said, I am big fan of KSRTC and will always like to travel in KSRTC Bus rather than private.. if KSRTC can follow good service strategy from private firms like VRL, SRS – I am sure people will be much benefited. Hope to see these kind of better services introduced in KSRTC.

Categories: Daily Events Tags:

Common Abbreviations

October 14th, 2011 No comments

I would like to update this post with some common Abbreviations…
ASAP – As Soon as Possible – http://www.acronymfinder.com/ASAP.html

AM – Ante Meridiem (before Noon), Amplitude Modulation
BBC – British Broadcasting Corporation

DDMI – Discovery and Dependency Mapping Inventory – An Inventory tools for Mapping your IT Infrastructure

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Biztalk Good resources to start

October 13th, 2011 No comments

These are some useful links I got from my dear friend Chandra…If you are looking to start up, prepare for Biztalk certificate this is the good way to start.

ou might already know that Biztalk 2006 is no longer available… Biztalk 2010 is the new certification and we are still using Biztalk 2006 in our work.
There are plans that we will be upgrading Biztalk 2010 and hopefullly next year we are all geared up for Huge 2010 release to use.

About Installation -
http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/aa577356%28v=bts.20%29.aspx

Auto-mapping -
http://geekswithblogs.net/benny/archive/2007/02/20.aspx

http://geekswithblogs.net/bosuch/archive/2010/03/19/biztalk-orchestration–port-tutorial-part-2.aspx
http://geekswithblogs.net/bosuch/archive/2010/03/19/simple-biztalk-orchestration–port-tutorial.aspx

SSO -
http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/aa578411%28v=bts.10%29.aspx

Host and host-instances -
http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/aa561042%28v=bts.20%29.aspx

Biztalk DBs -
http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/aa578342%28v=bts.70%29.aspx

Artifacts -
http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/aa560751%28v=bts.10%29.aspx

Categories: Technology Tags:

Starting with Digital Marketing

October 13th, 2011 No comments

What is Digital Marketing:

There are many definitions in recent digital era and some of the simplest definitions are
Digital Marketing is traditional Marketing which focuses on using digital channels to communicate with customers and promote products and services.
Digital Marketing is the promoting of brands, products using all forms of digital advertising channels to reach consumers. This now includes Television, Radio, Internet, Mobile,social media marketing and any other form of digital media.
Most of part of Digital Marketing deals with many of the techniques and practices of Internet Marketing, but Digital Marketing is wider term and extends beyond Internet Marketing. Digital Marketing achieves its objective by including other channels to reach people that do not require the use of The Internet. That means Digital Marketing involves usage of whole host of elements such as mobile phones, sms/mms, display / banner ads and digital outdoor.
Digital marketing comprises set of marketing pieces and campaigns that incorporate some or all of the below characteristics:
Based largely on the Web and/or mobile applications
Offer “experiences” and “immersion” versus simple impressions
Create dialogue and “conversation” between company and customer
Measurable as to outcomes
Potentially quick revolution and can be changed quickly and on the fly

How Digital Marketing is different from Traditional Marketing:

Traditional Marketing uses demographics to attempt to narrow a large population down to a targeted ‘potential’ viewer and then interrupting masses of these targeted people with ads be it on TV, print or on billboards but as this video suggests an over reliance on this won’t work. As slowly more and more people move online, we can hope to see less of this kind of marketing and more digital marketing.

Digital Marketing is the reverse because it is the very targeted viewer (consumer) searching for very specific content. Thus, the strategy of Digital Marketing is very different and most of all it is very much measurable.
And Digital marketing is relatively inexpensive. Companies can reach a wide audience for a small fraction of traditional advertising budgets.
The nature of the medium allows consumers to research and purchase products and services at their own convenience: An internet marketing campaign puts an organization’s message in front of consumers precisely when they want it.

Which is the best approach – Digital or Traditional?
It all depends on your marketing objectives and type of product. We cannot really pin point as generic strategy.
But advantage in today’s marketplace for digital marketing is that it offers a lot of flexible options for your marketing. Whether you choose social media, email campaigns, online ads, web video, or any of the other digital tools at our disposal, traditional marketing just can’t match the speed, low cost and instant feedback you get with digital marketing.
But traditional marketing will always be relevant, even essential. But the efficiencies of digital technology — a website, social media, video — can make delivering their new message a lot easier and less painful.
Despite all the buzz out there, we really need not have to think about who will win the traditional versus digital marketing debate. They both win in one way or other.
It’s the choice we make for Product/Brand Marketing.
Digital Marketing Components:
Online Marketing – Search Engine Marketing (SEM)
- Video Search Engine Optimisation (VSEO)
- Social Media Optimisation (SMO)
- Blogs & Forums
- Online Display Advertising
- eMedia
- Website Optimisation
Mobile Marketing
- eMedia
- Messaging
- Mobile Internet
- Mobile Aps

Radio Marketing
-Radio Advertising
- Podcasts
- Interviews
- Sponsorship
TV Marketing
- TV Advertising
- Sponsorship
- Product Placement
- Interviews

Main reasons responsible for growing popularity of online Digital marketing:
1. Making You Go Global: Imagine sitting in the comforts of your home in Bangalore and selling your product to a guy sitting in Texas, US. Now you are only a mouse click away from the global products or from promoting your services and goods to the global audience. All you need is an internet connection, ecommerce website with your desired catalogue and you can wait for the orders pouring in.

Now a days, most of the online marketing websites uses geo location software to display the relevant content to the site visitor based on the location. This means targeting the audience with right content. Moreover Google uses this principle to populate search results.

2. 24*7 Advertisement: Another benefit enjoyed by the advertisers using online marketing is the 24 hour availability of their advertisement over the World Wide Web. This enables the publicity of their product through out the day and also during the night.
3. Detailed Product Catalogs: You can The flexibility of having detailed, some times shorter, and dynamic catalogs makes a Digital a great place to market.

4. Pocket Friendly: When compared to the traditional marketing, means like television advertisements of publishing ads in the local or national newspapers, online marketing scores again by being most inexpensive. To get started all you need to do is own a website and with website creation softwares, developing a website is a child’s play. You can even make a one time investment and take the help of professionals in coming up with a SEO website which will give it a more professional look bringing in more user hits. With the availability of the cheap hosting space online marketing is finding many customers.

5. Accountable and Improved Return on Investment (ROI): Online marketing has another advantage in offering in terms of ease of measuring statistics with the helps of numerous web analytics tool available like google analytics. By deploying various means like pay per click or pay per action or even pay per impression, you as an advertiser can determine what catches the audience’s fancy. Tracking of website traffic can also be a testimonial of your surging popularity. Also more number of visitors will result in more business thus resulting in huge ROI.

6. Faster Communication and Larger Reach: Faster and effective communication plays an important role in promoting business in this competitive world. Online marketing helps in faster communication of news and advertisements to the customers. Also an advertisement displayed using traditional marketing means of television ads and newspaper ads would only be targeting a specific audience whereas by sending promotional emails or setting up your website you can catch the attentions of a wider audience. Using direct marketing technique of emails you can read the pulse of the customer and also keep them updated about the new arrivals in your stores or the latest release of your product.

7. Making Customer Feel Truly Like a King!: Online marketing is a truly enriching experience for the customer as he is quickly directed to his items of interest based on the keywords he had entered in the search engine.

You can make a purchase irrespective of the place and time if you have a credit card. Always ensure an authentic payment gateway is being used while making online purchases. Also because of extensive competition over internet customers can get the product of their choice at very competitive prices making them the ultimate winner!
With hectic work schedules, more and more people are getting dependent on internet to make their purchases which help them in saving time by avoiding a trip to the store and also help them in striking good deals from the confines of their homes. Online marketing with its multifaceted advantages have changed the way the world does business.
Going ahead, I would like to touch upon Internet Marketing, SEO Tools and technology, how it is little different from Digital Marketing and popular Digital Marketing tools widely used in Market.

Categories: Technology Tags:

E72 images of AOL Ashram

July 18th, 2010 1 comment

I got my new Nokai E72 in the month of March. On March 16, my friend gifted my brand new E72. Till today, I could not explore much on E72. As I started to use extensively, I feel that its a fabolous gadget. Truely its connecting people.
Today, first time, I uploaded images to my Picasa using E72.

http://picasaweb.google.com/kiransnaik/AOL?feat=directlink

With the grace of SRI SRI Ravishakar Guruji, when I brought E72, my first visit was to AOL Ahsram at Kanakapura Road Bangalore. Its on March 20 2010 Saturday. These photos are taken from AOL Ahsram and for these days, I use the images as wallpaper.

Thanks to my friend fro such a wonderful gadget, Thanks to Nokia for great Gadget E72. I am grateful to GURUJI for allowing me to take excellent snaps of holy Art of Living Ashram in Bangalore.

Categories: Uncategorized Tags:

30 Day resolution of Fruits

July 18th, 2010 1 comment

Last year I cosnulted Dietician in our office. Main objective was to reduce weight for 5 kgs. Dietician after measuring my weight informed that I am 5 kgs overweight. Her advice was to eat two types of fruites daily.

As usual I followed for 2-3 weeks and then did not followed up. I thought this is good time to begin and from last 3 days (Friday 16 July 2010) started on it. This time I want to continue for not long time but for One month. This will help me to keep track and control.
Last 3 days have been successful and I go to taste Banananas, Pappaya, Apple.

“Making resolutions is a cleansing ritual of self-assessment and repentance that demands personal honesty and, ultimately, reinforces humility. Breaking them is part of the cycle.”
Eric Zorn quotes

Target end date is 16 August 2010. So far so good. Hope to continue the same:):)

Categories: Daily Events Tags:

Nanjangud Nanjudeshwara’s visit

July 14th, 2010 1 comment

Tuesday is a usual hectic day every week. Its the day of real working day. Monday will be gone in setlling down in office. Hectic work starts from Tuesday. I am fortunate this week to have off on Tuesday and visit Nanjagud Najudeshwara near Mysore. Nanjudeshwara temple is situated at 25 kms from Mysore and considered as one of the oldest temples in India. It is near to the banks of Kapila (Kabini) River.

The Nanjundeshwara temple, Nanjangud is one of the biggest temples in Karnataka and built in Dravidian style. Holy Shiva Linga is installed by great sage Gauthama Maharshi who had come and stayed here for some time. Its belived that This Linga was also worshiped by Parashurama when he had stayed for some time in this town on his journey to get cleansed from the sin of beheading his mother.

The main entrance dwara is facing east. Tall Gopura (tower) is 120 feet high and a beauty to watch. All along the sides, we find all the different rupas of Shiva. It is said that Gopura is largest gopura in Karnataka. It has seven gold plated Kalasas on the top of the Gopura. Lord Nanjundeshwara, Goddess Parvathi (wife of Lord Shiva) and Lord Vishnu with Sridevi and Bhudevi are main deities of the Nanjudeshawara temple. The other deities in the temple are Ganesh, Subramanya, Goddess Sharadamba , Chandikeshwara, Navagraha, and Nandi (Bull). There are sixty six Idols of shaiva saints called as Nayamnars. There are more than 100 lingas in the temple which are of different kinds and sizes of which Sahasra Linga is not to be missed. The Srikanteshwara (Nanjundeshwara) Linga is the oldest one.

We plan to leave at 5.30 AM to avoid Bangalore traffic. Planned members:8. We managed to leave at 7.30 AM and final members are 4. 50% is good compared to Bangalore life and 7.30 AM is great as we finally started to moive on to Nanjangud. I am happy that we left not so late and avoided all the morning traffic.

Route taken: Banashankari, Katriguppe, Food World, PES Collegeue (Along the ring road). Reached Mysore road junction towards State Highway 17 which goes to Mysore and then onwards to Nanjangud.
The total distance from Bangalore to Nanjangud is around 150 km. 25 kms from Mysore.
You might get little confused about how to go from Mysore to nanjangud. Thanks to Mysorians for guiding us the rooute. Its comes on the way to Ooty.

More Info can be found at: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nanjangud
Uploaded Nanajangud photoes at http://picasaweb.google.co.in/kiransnaik/Nanjangud?feat=directlink

Kanteshwara darshan went very well and I feel I am blessed by the Great Shiva and one cannot restrain without chanting Om Namha Shivay…Om Namha Shivay…Om Namha Shivay.

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Vijender v/s Dhoni aura on Deccan Herald front page

October 1st, 2009 No comments

Have you seen September 30 2009 Deccan Herald. The funny first page posters. Front right side article says: Team India in troble. Dhoni aura fast vanishing. With a Dhoni photo and bal bla bla…
At the top middle poster is a Vijender photo stating that Boxer on top. Vijender becomes World No 1. Sports P18.

Vijendar has become World No 1 in Boxing and to see the details, user has to go to Page 18. To read the troubled Indian cricket team and Dhonis aura, all details are put up in the from page. What a irony!!!!!!! For me, reading World’s number 1 in Boxing is a proud than the Dhoni’s fast vanishing aura.

This is how media can make and break the personalities.

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I got drenched in heavy rain

October 1st, 2009 No comments

Rain is beautiful today:) I just came back to home. Got drenched in heavy rain in Banashankari. I know some of my friends, who hesitate and annoyed because of the rain.
Let me tell to those guys, if you have not drenched in rain and that too in two wheeler. You are missing amazing experience of the rain and romance in life. Sme times, I used to appreciate the rain, used to stare at heavy rainfall some times back.
From last two months, I have been continuously travelling in rain. A trip to Shimoga, trip to Dandeli. Dandeli trip was a life time experience and I realized what the rain means in the forest. I want to post separately on Dandeli trip in violent rain. Last week visit to Udagatti – a sacred place near Ranebennur and Mukteshwara temple near Ranebennur. All in this so called late Mansoon. Don’t know what to call for the rain in Septemeber end. Its not at all mansoon. Probably post mansoon rain :)

I am still enjoying those visits mainly because it was the trip with family. Secondly I had my I10 and most importantly it was raining. Its amazing feeling and I loved it.

I still cherish the bike ride in Hero Honda- I and Pradeep went in Hero Honda from Banashankari to Nagarbhavi. Had hot mirchi and came back drenching. We roamed all around the KR market flyover, and where not. When rain starts drizzling, first thing people(most of) do is to look for shelter, a safe place. I think best thing to is, if you can – is to enjoy the rain and be with it. There is nothing like in the rain to be with it.

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Visit to Balligaavi – Hosyala and Chalukya temples

September 24th, 2009 2 comments

September 19 – Saturday. Visit to Balligaavi:
I reached Ranebeenur at 5.00 AM. Went to Kaka’s home in Mrityunjaya Nagar. Had Idli and Uppit (Upama) at 8 AM. Again in my mama’s (Suresh mama) home, had chapathi and potato bhaji. So had heavy brekafast at both the palces.
Plan was fixed that we would visit Varadahalli (near Sagar) and Balligaavi.
I and anna(My one more elder cousin brother – Vinayak) started to decide how many would be coming and where are all possible places. Three members were fixed. I, anna and aai (My mother). We asked kaka (Shivanna – Anna’s father). He said No. Everone forced him to come for tour. Somoehow he did not agreed. My another cousin brother (Vijay – Mama’s son) also came and forced. He did not agreed. Then we called mama (Suresh mama) and mami (Pushpa mami) to join us. They happily agreed. After the breakfast at 10.00 AM, we were all ready to visit Varadahalli (Sridhar aashram) and Balligaavi.

I have not visited both the places and all others had seen Varadahalli (Sridhar aashram) many times. Anna was in driver seat as usual. I was cleaner :) and aai, Suresh mama and Pushpa mami in back seat. All set and we headed tworads Hirekerur. Its a small road and not many humps in between. After Hirekerur, major station is Shiralakoppa. Shiralakoppa is a part of Shimoga District. As I10 entered into the Shiralkoppa, its all greenary. City is so much rich in agriculture and people dont have the water problem here. Everywhere there was trees, small ponds. Road is well maitained. Roads are good in Shimiga distict, mainly because our Karnataka CM is from Shikaripur. In and around Shikaripur roads are well maintained.

Shiralkoppa to Bellegavi is around 5 to 6 kms. We took right turn towards Balligaavi and left turn goes to Sagar. Balligaavi village is surrounded by old temples of Shiva. Its a beautiful place and famous for Paccha linga. It means a green shiva linga around 4 feet high is situated in the temple. The approximate cost of Paccha linga (Green stone) is around 10 to 15 crores in intenrational market.

Here are the photoes of Pachha linga.

More photos here: http://picasaweb.google.com/kiransnaik/SridharSwamijiAshram#

This green shiva linga was situated in the temple which was on the corner of the small pond. Recently some people tried to steal this but could not succeed. Now this linga has been moved into one temple inside the village with security.

We visited Chalukya and Hoysala temples in the Bellegavi. Lot of people visit these temples and its a amzing sculpure. Big nandi (Cow) inside the Chalukya temple is a mjor attraction. Photography is prohibited inside Chalukya and Hosyala temples. Big nandi is a pleasure to watch. Its a precision of art at the highest level.
Below are some snaps of Chalukya temple in Bellagavi:

Below are some snaps of Hoysala temple in Bellegavi:

Everyone was happy to see the Paccha linga and two temples. We progressed our journey to another great place called Sridhar Ashram in Varadanhalli. Varadanahalli is again part of Shimoga district.
We went via Shiralkoppa–>Tadagunne (Petrol bunk). take right turn and proceed to Sagar. Whole journey was pleasant with cool breeze of air, surrounded by green trees, small ponds, nice curvings of the road like ……….:)

More photos are shared here: http://picasaweb.google.com/kiransnaik/SridharSwamijiAshram#

Categories: Experiences Tags: