Why are Tech Giants not accepting Amex in India?

I recently got a Amex card, primarily because it has no pre-set limit & I spend a lot for my startup Jewelove. However, it seems that taking the card has proven futile at the moment.

The main purpose, every month all of my visa & master cards hit their limits with my spend on adwords & other online marketing. I have talked to banks several times to raise limits but even the raised limits are not sufficient to fuel my growing business. & that results in an abrupt halt every couple of weeks for my advertising.

I had thought Amex with no pre-set limit would be the ideal solution.

But it so turned out that Google Adwords, Godaddy etc. are not even accepting Amex cards for billing addresses within India! 

I recently posted a quora question on the same topic. http://qr.ae/RHCZ6V 

Will update this post with relevant replies.

Jain Santhara : what it really means?

Jain Santhara, has become a big issue. Apparently the court has a put a restriction on it & this has enraged the Jain community. There is a India-wide strike today & a peace rally to protest the restriction & make the court lift the imposed restriction.

All that is okay, but I believe that the Jain community has really forgotten what Santhara really means. Santhara is not a way of dying, but a way of living.

What the general community thinks Santhara means?

What the general Jain community thinks Santhara means, little movement, no eating food & water & removing all possessions to be one with the Universe in peace.

This would be pretty right, except that the Santhara does not come from leaving things, but real Santhara comes from leaving the attachment to things.

It is the attachment that is the real cause of karma-bandhan (paap). For example, an ascetic has no possessions, but neither does a beggar. Then why do we revere ascetics & not beggars? Both have them have no possessions! Because the difference is not in not-owning-possessions, but the real difference is, in not having attachment (aasakti) to them.

Even if a beggar has nothing & lives by the roadside, he wants everything, from bungalows to cars. Whereas, an ascetic has voluntarily left all his possessions, along with, more importantly his or we attachment to those possessions. If an ascetic wants worldly things even after deeksha (sanyaas) then he is no more than a beggar in reality.

And that is the difference that the Jain community seems to have forgotten these days. We have started believing in leaving things rather than leaving our attachment to things. We are today  changing just our clothes for Samayik & not our thoughts, our way of thinking, our attitude towards life.

Santhara in truth is freedom from all worldly possessions & the attachment to them. & that is the real way of Jain living, not just dying. & none but we ourselves are responsible for living truly free from all attachments & there is no one, no law that can stop us from living free. But first we need to realise the difference.

It is just as, the real meaning of Christmas gifting is to help someone in dire need & not just gift to your own loved ones. The real sacrifice on Eid should be of the thing that is the most dear to you because these are the real sacrifices that free us & freedom is all that we really want.

P. S. : this post is based on my personal opinion & understanding of the world. No offence intended.

Yahoo! Directory shuts down! A historic monument has been taken down!

Yahoo! Directory (formerly at http://dir.yahoo.com) the starting of Yahoo! what it originally was, a hand curated list of websites, the first search engine since 1995 has finally been taken down after 20 years!

Yahoo! originally started as a directory, a hand curated list of authentic websites. Later the company evolved into an internet conglomerate with business & services ranging from Yahoo! Mail to Yahoo! Small Business Center to acquiring Tumblr & what not!

But finally, the original Yahoo! directory has been taken taken down. It is like a historic monument from the world of internet being taken down.

Zee News' faulty scoreboard scores a home run

The news channel's OOH campaign, executed during the India-Pak match, confused spectators with the wrong scores and then delivered a powerful message.

Usually, outdoor campaigns convey the message directly and quickly to the target audience, via text and images, as there is not much time for people to comprehend, analyse and then come to a conculsion. Brevity is the key, in these cases. But, Zee News took a different route in its recent OOH campaign, implemented across Jammu & Kashmir, Delhi, Lahore and Karachi, on the day of the ICC World Cup India-Pakistan match, held on February 15. 

The channel installed manual scoreboards of a different kind. While spectators thought they were the ordinary, run-of-the-mill scoreboards, to keep on-lookers updated on the match, they were caught off-guard as the numbers didn't tally. 

As India started to bat and the first wicket fell, the Indian wickets column displayed '1'. Within minutes, the wickets column read 2. People standing in front of the billboards in Lahore and Karachi celebrated. The Indians, on the other hand, checked the score on their mobile phones and realised the second wicket hadn't fallen. A few minutes later, the wickets column said 3. Before long, onlookers on either side of the border were convinced that the scoreboard was faulty. 

To their surprise, no one came to rectify the faulty boards, instead the wickets column seemed to be in a hurry. It moved briskly from tens to thousands to tens of thousands, in no time. A similar pattern followed when Pakistan batted. The scoreboard at the end of the match read: India 0 for the loss of 546,030, Pakistan 0 for the loss of 546,228

After India won the match, the copy on the scoreboard changed to 'When Lives are lost, No One Wins'. The numbers kept increasing and stopped at 547,290 for India and 546,228 for Pakistan. 

These numbers indicated the number of lives lost at the border, since 1947, during the battles fought between the two countries; thus, depicting that neither country won anything by losing their soldiers.

The message was loud, clear and well-presented. It had the right effect on people as many came forward to light candles at the site, in memory of the fallen. The message from the 'Misunderstood Scoreboard' was indeed well received. 

The campaign was executed by DDB MudraMax.

Reblogged via AFAQs

Canon image class multi function printer drivers for Mac OS Yosemite & Mavericks

I recently bought a Canon MF 3010 for the store. Worked like a charm on the store's Windows PC.

But then I realised that Apple Mac OS does not have native support for canon printers.

However, worry not. Canon provides the .dmg package for Mac OS to install & use Canon multi function printers. And once installed, it works like a charm.

1. Simply download the package from  the canon website. http://www.usa.canon.com/cusa/consumer/products/printers_multifunction/black_white_laser_multifunction/imageclass_mf3010?selectedName=DriversAndSoftware

2. Double click the download to mount the image.

3. Double click the installer to install the drivers.

4. Connect your printer to your Mac OS machine.

Your printer should be auto detected & ready to go!

Good luck!

Love and Vulnerability

New experiences in love. Love makes us vulnerable, someone new, someone entirely different sometimes, someone beautiful, someone scary at times, someone who becomes you, who together becomes US, WE, I. But love makes us vulnerable. Yet, the beauty of love lies in the belief that this vulnerability will never be used against you, it will only make you stronger, Love will make us stronger.

What is the best way to start a new life?

Happily

Google Authorship : The End

Google has withdrawn its authorship program from showing into the Search Results

Google had started the authorship program 3 years back when it started supporting the rel='author' tag & later started showing author photos in the search results. Now, since June 2014 Google stopped showing the author photos & later in August 2014 stopped supporting the rel='author' tag altogether.
Reasons stated were :

1. Low adoption rates by authors & webmasters.
2. Low value for searchers.
3. Minute difference in clickthrough rates

The Good Things about Getting Married

Okay, so given my last post on the big fat Indian weddings, it is not that I am against the institution of marriage or something, it is just that it does not make sense to splurge on publicly announcing the wedding. There are a lot of beautiful happenings about weddings especially when you have the right partner and you two connect well. Here are some of those :

1. You find someone who accepts you for who you are, you have a companion whom you can rely on, someone you can talk about anything, anytime. A friend you can trust, with the most precious gift, yourself.
2. You get to learn a lot from each other. A LOT. Especially when you complement each other & your partner is smart.
3. You learn to trust. It is generally difficult to trust people, but when you get married, I learn to trust instinctively.
4. When you connect well, life becomes beautiful :)
5. You have a whole new family. Whether you are a girl or a guy, you have people who come close, very close to you.
6. You learn to adjust & adapt.
7. & if you have a big fat indian wedding, the whole family has a major get together. lol

Wedding Celebrations in India : Announcement of a moving in ceremony

Infamous Big Fat Indian Weddings are a dream wedding for most people. (& yes, I call them infamous because they represent nothing, really.) But really, it is just a bucketload of crap, a very flamboyant announcement of a moving-in ceremony that really serves no other purpose than

1. Ego satisfaction : The primary purpose it serves is the ego satisfaction of the families & the society. That the whole junta was made part of the 'celebrations'.
2. Societal announcement about moving in together : The primary need of the wedding celebration is that you have to tell the fucking junta that you are moving in together. 
3. Public announcement that the couple is going to start having sex. (okay, I am being very naive here thinking that they haven't had sex before marriage)
4. Serving food to the rich, instead of the poor. Really just think of how many impoverished people can be fed/helped with the money that is spent on gala dinners for the well-to-do.

& yes, I am having a forced-upon-me wedding celebration soon & this post is coming from my very close observation & experience of this stupidity called Big Fat Indian Wedding.

Recommended reading : The Good Things about Getting Married