Of Suggested Posts on Facebook and Can we get rid of them?

Have you recently noticed any post(s) on your wall by some person or page you don't know and when you look closely it says "Suggested Post"! That's nothing but Facebook's new way of earning money!

Yes, Suggested Posts are actually advertisements which are displayed on your Facebook wall considering your past activities and likes (they say so). While you might find these useful at times, it feels like someone has stuck un-wanted bills on your personal space! Ads were there on the right side-bar already, how far you want to go Facebook!?

One of many "Suggested Post"

Now, the other question is can we get rid of them? Well, the answer is both yes and no, at the moment.

Click on the down arrow at the top right of post, select Hide

You get an option "Hide all Stories" from that page

Like normal posts, you can hide these "Suggested Posts" and once you hide it, you get an option to hide all the stories from that particular page/company/advertiser. But the catch here is that you will still get these so called Suggested Posts from other entities, which is equally ridiculous!

Of course, if you want to get rid of these posts entirely, something like Google+ might be the answer! Is Facebook really going downhill?

Need more info, check the links below:

https://www.facebook.com/help/152415241565635/ 

https://www.facebook.com/help/community/question/?id=3838025872285

SMS Limit Busted, Freedom Regained!

In September last year, TRAI came out with a highly illogical way to curb the unwanted SMS by introducing the 100 SMS/ day limit which was later increased to 200 SMS/day following the huge criticism from the telecom operators and public at large.

In an interesting and more logical development in this story, the Delhi High Court on 13^th July 2012 has overruled TRAI’s order of limiting the maximum number of messages (SMS) that consumers can send per day. The petition was filed by an NGO, Telecom Watchdog.

The Delhi High Court decision gives a sense of relief and brings smiles on the faces of Indians for whom texting is most popular way of communicating with friends and relatives. But at the same time it raises questions on the policy decisions made by the Government and it’s regulators, especially those that have direct impact on the day-to-day lives of the citizens of this country.

This is not the only case where a Court has reversed a decision made by Government or it’s regulators. And that’s why question arises that what makes the Government take such decisions that are so impractical to implement and illogical to decide and which can be easily challenged in the courts. It’s well known that the Indian Judicial System has it’s own huge backlog and these unwanted cases and petitions increases it furthermore. And more than that, the time lag between Government taking a decision and Court ruling it out, puts a significant amount of unwanted burden on the citizens of India who suffer just because of highly un-thoughtful thinking of decisions makers.

A Smart Phone Now Becomes A Card Swiping Device

Ever wish you could use your credit card when a delivery boy rings your door bell?
The day is not so far away....


Earlier this year there was a buzz about PayMate launching a smart phone app (PayPOS) designed for merchants (retail shop keeper, home delivery boys, small shops, provision stores etc.). Here, the end customer would be asked to feed his/her plastic card details into this app on merchant's smart phone for paying bills.


However, in a country obsessed with security concerns it would not be a good idea to key in your credit card number and security code into delivery boy's smart phone.


Contrarily, MTS has come up with a better solution to this. MTS has launched a dongle which has a card swiping section and could be attached to smart phone's 3.5mm audio jack. Actually, this is new to us but not for rest of the world. This technology of using smart phone as a card swiping device is known as mPOS.

mPOS a.k.a. mobile Point Of Sale consists of a smart phone, an smart app and a pluggable card swiping dongle.

There is a well known Android app known as Square Card Reader which is doing the same in US for quite some time now. Square's one square inch dongle when plugged into a smart phone becomes quite efficient in replacing the shoe sized card swiping machine at merchant's shop.


How is MTS mPOS going to work in India?

• Merchants who want to give up their old and immobile card swiping machine must download the mPOS application on MTS smart phone. Then register themselves as merchants and provide necessary details.
• Once merchant is registered he can plug-in the MTS mPOS dongle into 3.5 mm audio jack of MTS smart phone and start swiping customer's credit/debit cards for payments. 
• A customer can cross check the amount on phone's screen and authorize the transaction by signing on phone's screen. 
• For every successful/unsuccessful transaction a e-mail/sms will be sent to customer. This would complete the transaction.

MTS mPOS bundle (MTS MTag 3.1 CDMA smart phone, mPOS 3.5mm jack dongle & one year Data plan) is expected to cost around Rs 4000. MTS estimates monthly data charges to be between Rs 200 to Rs 300. This makes MTS mPOS a serious competitor to classical credit card swiping machine which costs almost Rs 15,000 for one time setup.

Currently MTS mPOS is in pilot phase. This service will be used by giant online retailer Flipkart.com to allow its customer to pay through their credit card on home delivery.

Garbage Bin : A New Creative Hit

Video above is a great art by guys who run a Facebook page called "Garbage Bin"! Neat cartoons, nice little stories, the Garbage Bin started way back in December 2011 by Delhi Guys and now it is a craze among the Facebook crowd, many of which waits to get the daily dose of "gags"!

"Kaam na Dhandha, Bekaar Banda" is what their tagline says which re-iterates the fact that when talented people are idle, they are not wasting themselves, it's only matter of time when they come out with a miracle!!

These are early days for them and the future looks sparkling bright!

Facebook destination:
https://www.facebook.com/garbagebin 

REVAMPED: Train Running Information at TrainEnquiry.com

Hello Travelers!!

Have you checked the new beta version of Train Running Status website www.trainenquiry.com?

The User Interface is made superb and it looks like nothing we experienced in past! Though, it does throws exceptions sometimes, since it is in beta stage, yet it is very nicely done and easy to use (for people at large)!  Kudos to everyone behind the effort! Below are few screen-shots (-cum- how to use guide) from the website (Hindi version).

First Time Screen

Enter the Search Criterion

Select the correct train

Select the date when the train started it's journey

Wait a while!

Have the information you want!

Isn't it cool! Hope that the actual travel also become as cool as this in future!

--

Rahul.

Gmail Phishing Attack: do-not-reply mail from Activacorp

Hello friends! Beware of the new Phishing mail that you might receive on your Gmail inbox. The mail is very much different from normal spam and phishing mails. Gmail does not identify it as a Phishing mail and delivers it to your inbox normally with the label "important".

The mail has the following content (which might differ in your case).

******************************************************************************************************

do-not-reply ✆ activacorp.net@activacorp.net	2:52 PM (6 hours ago)
to me

You are receiving this message because you or someone tried to access your account from an unknown computer or mobile device. Numerous invalid passwords were logged and we are poised to open an investigation to this matter.

Click below to get started with your account validation.

******************************************************************************************************

And below that is a button called "Get Started" which takes you to a fake Gmail login page. If you take the bait and enter your username and password, then you are pretty much hacked!!

So, few of takeaways from this:

1. Always check the sender of an important e-mail.
2. Check to whom it is sent. If you are in bcc or one among many random receivers, it is most probably fake.
3. No need to get curious and click on the link. Simply ignoring it is better approach.

 If you like you can submit the Phishing attack to Google on following link:

http://www.google.com/safebrowsing/report_phish/

Thanks for reading! Safe surfing! :)

Zurker: Competition to Facebook?

Something is getting viral on and offline these days and it is called Zurker which is claimed to be developed by the twin brothers Tyler and Cameron Winklevoss who famously sued Mark Zuckerberg for stealing their idea that became a sensation called Facebook.

I checked out and joined Zurker today (quite late, maybe) and found the idea quite impressive. Since it is in a beta phase, therefore definitely lot has to be improved in the implementation because I did not find the interface as handy as Facebook or Google+ but the idea is important.

A unique way of promotion is used in which every user is been made owner of the website and the idea is catching up quite quickly as one can now has an additional reason for spreading the word.

But all said and done, it is too early to pass a judgement on the future of Zurker. The thing will be a hit only if it is well made, maintained and if takes care of the fallacies of the Facebook as it claims to be doing!

It can presently be joined only on invitation; so if you want to check it out yourself, below is the invite to join Zurker! Share your first impressions!

http://www.zurker.in/i-180701-myyqvybvhm