Bill Monk is an online tool for those forgetful people. Billmonk allows you to easily keep track of your bills and books and any other thing you may owe someone or someone may owe you.

For example, you have an extensive library of Marvel Comic Books and you don't generally lend it out to people but a few friends who you trust. You can keep a track of who has your favorite comics and get it back.

The interface is easy to use. No frills, just sign up and you can invite friends. You have 2 main options Money and Library. You can use the money options to report a bill, shuffle debts and settle with Obopay.

I really like the Library section. For a collector, this is ideal. You can choose to show your library to everyone by making it public or choose friends can browse your collection. This also allows you to track the items you've lent out or borrowed. While you upload your library, it allows you to search by name using Amazon.com, or you can bulk add using ISBN or UPC.

I really like this tool, it really fills that everyday need we have. It reminds you to return things that you borrow and it minimizes awkwardness.

Here is a video about Billmonk and its co-founders. It's a very interesting talk by Newbie entrepreneurs and how they created this cool tool.



If you like this article you could also see one of our previous article about expense planning here.

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Wolfenstein 3D in its First Person Shooter (FPS) form was first launched in 1992 by Id Software and is considered to be the beginning of the 3D gaming era. Based on two earlier games that go by Castle Wolfenstein (1981) and Beyond Castle Wolfenstein(1984), Wolfenstein 3D is a game that changed my perception of what computers could do. Until Wolf came out, 2D scrollers like Digger and Dave were the heights of gaming technology. And then when it did launch, it made 2D scrollers look bad (I still enjoy them). It put Id Software into the forefront of game development technology and they have churned out one awesome game after another. So when I heard that a new installment of Wolfenstein was releasing, my joy knew no bounds and I couldn't wait to lay my hands on it. When the game launched last week, I knew what I would be doing the most of this weekend. And now, I feel like an astrologer, albeit one who kills Nazis and monsters.

In the last decade or so Id has been widely criticized for making 3D FPS games that don't have much of a story. While I really haven't been bothered by this all that much (I like my share of digital killing), it certainly helps to have a strong plot in a game. Id has been licensing its gaming engine to other game developers and when I heard that Raven Software was one of the developers I knew I could expect a game with a proper story and good action.

The game is bloody brilliant. Any gamer who likes the 3D FPS genre shouldn't call himself one without having played this game. Take Call of Duty 4 (the game), mix it nicely with Da Vinci Code (the movie), and then after a few hours add Doom 3. This is the recipe for the latest reincarnation of the Wolfenstein series. And boy, is it tasty or is it tasty?

You play an American Spy William "B.J" Blazkowicz, mostly called B.J (I wonder why?) through the game, operating in the city of Isenstadt that has been taken over by the Nazi War Machine researching into paranormal activities to strengthen the Third Reich and defeat the allies. Though the game is set during the world war time, you do not battle in the front-lines and are sneaking around Isenstatd on missions, some aided by the local resistance fighters, that is vital to uncovering the Nazi plan.

The game has an interesting story line and for the first part your are mostly fighting the German soldiers, stormtroopers and their elite soldiers. Towards the latter half of the game you encounter more wilder hybrids between humans and other creatures that are the result of Nazi experiments with the paranormal. The paranormal being the Nazi attempts to build portals between earth and another dimension of an old civilization. The game is very fast paced and one doesn't have to travel very far for missions since you are mostly playing in and around the Isenstadt area. Besides fighting inside the town, you also get to enjoy the visuals while fighting in farms, underground bunkers and caves, castles and airfields. You even get to fight while flying on a Zeppelin airship. The total gameplay time was around 12.5 hours for me. One thing annoying in the game was collecting money. Money is needed to upgrade weapons and this is generally a distraction in the game. Being in the constant look out for corners of rooms and dark alleys for a bag of money deviates from the plot of the game. For an American spy, I would expect the guy to have sufficient money to buy weapons which should have been given as a reward for finishing missions. My other complaint about the game is the difficulty level. I would highly recommend any seasoned FPS player to try hard and not the medium difficulty level. The medium level almost borders on insulting shooting skills except towards the end of the game where things get tight.

The game has a huge armory. Besides standard Nazi war weapons like the grenades, MG40 and MG43 (both machine guns), the Kar98 (Rifle), Panzerschrek (rocket launcher) and the flame thrower, there are super weapons like the Tesla gun (electrocutes), the Particle Cannon and Leichenfaust 44 (something like a powerful plasma gun). All weapons are upgradeable and upgrading the weapons make a big difference to the damage and consequently the game play. In addition to all these weapons there are special modes that help shield enemy attack, slow time, look into the other dimension and shoot through enemy shields. Some of these modes even serve additional functions when used in combination and all special modes require a special form of energy that depletes quickly and has to be replenished frequently. There are many sources for replenishment - energy canisters or empty spaces that seem to be dissipating energy out of no where. I played most of the game with the MG43 machine gun and the Kar98. With scopes affixed on both of these there are plenty of opportunities for sniping in close as well as wide open spaces. The super-weapons are really helpful when engaging many enemies at the same time. The only weapon I didn't put to good use is the Particle Cannon.

The game has fantastic visuals and is unlike most other Id games which tend to be dark and cramped. All main characters have unique faces and can be easily identified. The interiors of houses, offices, factories and hangars are well done with unique textures that don't repeat very often. So are open spaces like the farm or the airfield. The body parts of soldiers are done really well. Grenade explosions will lead to flying limbs. Shooting on the head or the limb will clearly remove only that part of the body. You get a double kill if you shoot two people standing back to back. There is enough blood and gore to make the serial killer in you happy. On the other hand if monsters are your cup of tea, the game provides enough of them to satisfy you. The game physics are also nice. Flying limbs, particles in the air and fires, all follow laws of physics and add to the game play. The sound track is also pretty gripping. Though I don't have surround sound, the audio is clear and it helps to pay attention to those talking. I especially liked the bass sound when you shoot the enemy shields.

All in all the game is fantastic and would score a 8/10. It would have been a niner if not for the gold and the wrongly labeled difficulty levels (though this might be a matter of personal opinion). It would have been a tener if not for the often reused Nazi-monster theme. However, that is not to take away from what could possibly be one of the contenders for the 3D FPS game of the year (Until Call of Duty - Mordern Warfare 2 releases?).

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When the iPhone was first launched, it was never intended to be a gaming platform. This was largely because the first set of applications launched for the iphone were web-based and this didn't turn on the developers. However when the iPhone was jailbroken and the Cydia installer became popular (before the appstore was launched), the potential of the iphone as a gaming device was slowly being explored thanks to the built-in accelerometer and the touch screen that gave novel game play ideas. When the appstore did launch finally, thousands of games were developed and now the iPhone has a niche place in the gaming market. It also helps that the recently launched iPhone 3GS has a faster graphics processor and a CPU that should help push the iphone as a gaming device to a larger market. Now getting on to the list:

1) Labyrinth:
This is the game that started it all for the iphone. The first game to properly demonstrate the accelerometer. With the objective to tilt the iphone in different directions to navigate a ball bearing to a goal clearing an obstacle course is quite a challenge and a lot of fun.




2) Word Warp:
Honestly, I am not a big fan of playing games on a phone when I have a 2000$ gaming rig sitting at home. But then when I am travelling or am stuck at some place without much to do, I like taking out my phone and killing time. Wordwarp is a game that came highly recommended and I instantly fell in love with it, whipping out my phone every single idle moment I had to form 7-letter words from 7 alphabets that are given. Having achieved my target of 10000 points (11,500) I don't play the game much anymore but it is one of the best iphone games out there in my opinion. The game also helped me pick up a lot of 3 letter words that I hadn't heard of before to improve my scrabble skills.



3) Cops and Robbers lite:
Cops and Robbers lite (there is a paid version) is a nice 3D adventure game for the iphone and the lite version is a good technology demonstration game combining the accelerometer, touch and 3D. When I first saw the game I was shocked that the iphone was even capable of 3D graphics. This is one nice looking game that looks like a lot of fun though the lite version has only one level.



4) PapiJump:
This is as simple as a game can get and is fun. Yet another accelerometer based phone where Papi (a smiley circle) is always jumping and the player has to keep tilting the phone to ensure that papi lands on tiles and keeps making upward progress and not fall into a bottomless pit.



5) Paper Toss:
When I saw the game in the appstore highly rated, I wondered how something that sounded so silly could be so popular. All you have to do the in the game is launch crumpled paper into a waste bin in an office room with a pedestal fan that causes disturbance in the air. The magnitude of the wind caused by the fan is indicated by a number and the player has to compensate the angle of launch based on this magnitude. There are three difficulty levels to choose from and the game is surprisingly addicting.

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Tron Legacy is a 3D Sci-Fi movie sequel to the 1982 movie Tron. The film is based in a cyberworld like inside a matrix hopefully providing as exciting a content. The trailer is a lot of eye-candy and while I love the visuals, I wonder if it is a bit cheesy. Worth a watch though. The movie starrs Jeff Bridges (IronMonger from Ironman)





Enjoy!

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As a tourist to any city, very rarely would anyone recommend a bookstore as a place to visit (at least in India). But if you love books, Blossoms and The Bookworm are two stores that you shouldn't miss. Even if you are not much of a reader, a trip to these stores might change your mind. And if you are based out of Bangalore and haven't been to these stores, you should be ashamed.

Thousands of books, old and new, the musty smell of old books, the creases on the cover, the soft-bounded, the hard-bounded, fiction, non-fiction, graphic novels, they have it all. These stores are heaven on earth for book lovers.

Blossoms is located on church street. It is spread over 3 floors and is the bigger of the two stores. They sell new and seconds hand books with nice discounts and you will be hard pressed to not find the book you are looking for. Blossoms has a very good collection of graphic novels like Sin City, Maus, Batman and more.

Blossoms' Address: Church Street, Bangalore, Karnataka, India‎ Ph: 080-22261305‎


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The Bookworm has two stores - one is on MG Road next to Barton Center and the other one is on Brigade road after you enter and take the first left turn. The latter is a relatively low-noise and less crowded store to dig for your books in peace. Most books that you don't find in Blossoms, you will find them at The Bookworm. Bookworm also sells a lot of used books and probably has more used books than new. Bookworm also offers good discounts on books and some books are priced less here than in Blossoms. The Bookworm also has an interesting collect of antique books that are worth looking into.

The Bookworm address: #32, Basement, Behind Shoe Track, Brigade Road, Richmond Town, Bangalore, Bengaluru, Karnataka 560001, India‎ Ph: 080-41126755‎


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TopicBean had the pleasure of interviewing Mr. Amarjit Batra, Country Manager of OLX.in. Is OLX.in India’s answer to Craigslist? Read on to find out.

1. How did OLX come into being? What difficulties did you face in getting it going?

OLX was co-founded in March 2006 by Internet entrepreneurs Fabrice Grinda and Alec Oxenford. Fabrice previously founded Zingy, a mobile ringtones company that sold to For-Side for $80 million in May 2004. Alec previously founded DeRemate, a leading online auction website in Latin America. DeRemate sold to MercadoLibre.com, an eBay affiliate, in November 2005. OLX was formed with the purpose of creating the world’s largest free classifieds marketplace where users can buy, sell, trade or exchange products and services within their city across multiple categories.

The difficulties were typical of what’s in web startup – getting the right team in place, getting a bug free product off the ground; expand in the right markets etc. OLX, being an ambitious project of creating the largest classifieds site in the world also had to go through a lot of skepticism. Since then, we have expanded to 90 countries and 39 languages and are a leading classifieds site in about 7 to 8 markets.

2. How big is the company can you share some numbers with our audience?

OLX has over 70 million unique visitors per month and 500 million page views per month.
Almost 2 million new ads are posted monthly on OLX. OLX has raised $28.5 million in funding since March, 2006. OLX has offices spread over the globe with 125 employees working out of New York, Buenos Aires, Beijing, Moscow and India

3. How do you monetize OLX?

We are having text ads (currently provided by Google) as the only monetization option. These ads are displayed on our listings result pages and the individual classified ad pages. OLX core site will always be 100% free. However we have launched ‘Featured Listings’ in few countries that allows users to get prominent placement on the site.Our mobile site (http://m.OLX.in) is also completely free for users. The mobile site has a banner or text ad on top and bottom of each page and is monetized through ad networks.

4. What software and hardware drive the website?

OLX is on LAMP (Linux, Apache, MySQL, PHP) running on Linux boxes

5. What content in OLX.in is specific to India compared to OLX.com?

OLX is a city based classifieds site. OLX.in is the India site and all the content on www.OLX.in pertains to India. Within OLX.in, there are individual city sites and a user can search within a city or nationwide. OLX.in is present in all key cities in India and includes the Tier I, Tier II and Tier III cities. We have localization of OLX.in in Hindi language and have a ‘matrimonial’ category that is unique to India. OLX.com is our site specific for USA and all the content on this site is localized for the US market.

6. What differentiates OLX from other similar products on the internet?

First of all, we are a free site. Yes 100% free! And we want to keep our core site free forever. Our major difference with vertical category sites are that we are present in many categories- Jobs, Real Estate, Vehicles, Matrimonial (only in India), For Sale, Services, Classes, and Community. Being a local site, we are today present in all major cities in India, whereas the rest of the sites are focusing on few cities only. The other key differentiating factor is a user friendly mobile version of the site http://m.OLX.in on which one can do everything that can be done on the web version. We are also present in other languages like Hindi ( http://www.OLX.in/hi/ ) that gives us a wider reach.

Being a Web2.0 product, users can Easily design rich colorful listings with pictures and videos and display their listings on their social networking profile (Facebook, Myspace, etc.). Unlike others, we are a global classifieds site network with a local presence in India. Being present in 89 countries and 39 languages gives us an international reach and we do continuous improvements on our product and features.

7. Free classified sites have a tough time with Spam ads and junk listings on the website and hence sometimes end up with unwanted content. What security measures does OLX have in place to prevent this?

We have certain tools and filters to check for Spams and Scams. Our multilingual dedicated customer support team manually screens listings and deletes those with suspect content. We also have automated tools to detect Spams and Scams. We blacklist keywords, IP addresses, countries etc. and our customer team is vigilant 24/7 to tackle such issues. Over all 60% to 70% of postings on OLX are deleted in the process to keep the site clean and free from spam. In addition, we urge our users to flag a prohibitive listing and this messaging is provided at key user touch points.

8. Classified sections in India are filled with real estate agents whom not everyone is interested in dealing with. How do you propose to segregate the content?

On OLX, you will find many individuals posting ads for products and services that they are offering. In real estate, you will find many home owners posting their properties for lease or sale. There are similar cases in ‘Vehicles’ as well as ‘For Sale’ category. So we provide both the choice of content from brokers as well as content from individuals.

9. How can a user effectively use this classified, do you have any tips to make the best use of OLX.com?

OLX classifieds can be effectively used for both buying and selling activity. As a buyer, I can decide if I am looking for a seller within my city or I am fine with an intercity transaction. I can then zero in on my search efforts - citywide or nationwide. If I am not able to find an item of my choice, I can create a ‘Wanted’ Ad and list the details of the item I am looking for. Or I can create an ‘ Alert’ for specific keywords. As a seller, I can merchandise my listings with multiple photographs or a video of the products being offered. I would definitely provide my mobile number in addition to the email contacts, as the OLX mobile application allows a One –Click-Call on the mobile listed in the Ad.

10. How do "you" like OLX.com and how do "you" use it? Have you purchased anything online from OLX.com? ( Can this be changed to OLX.in, the India site).

Like many OLX users, I like the clutter free experience on OLX and I find browsing on OLX a lot of fun. I particularly like OLX search functionality and the ability to post ads in English as well as Hindi. I had once posted an ad in Hindi for a piece of furniture I wanted to dispose and got some genuine responses within few days. I am also a regular user of the Mobile application http://m.OLX.in and often search for deals. The best part is that I can use the mobile classifieds even I am on the move. One can do everything on the mobile that can be done on the Web. I am on the lookout for car deals and have set some ‘Alerts’ for a particular car model, so that I do not have to go to the site daily. I get an update on my email if that model is listed by somebody.

11. What goes on in the background when someone tries to buy or sell something? Is there any rating system in place for buyers and sellers?

When a seller lists the item on the OLX site, they have the flexibility to let people contact through email only or through phone. The listings appear on the search results for that particular city and category. When a buyer enters the site, he can browse through the categories or city or use specific keywords to search through a search box on the site. A lot of buyers find the listings and the seller through search engines and directly come onto the individual classifieds page. The buyer can send an email to the seller through the site messaging system or contact on phone directly if the seller has listed his numbers on the listing.
Once the buyer and seller get in touch with each other, the negotiation and transaction usually completes offline.

A rating system would not work on a classifieds site as the transaction does not complete online. However, a buyer can comment on the listing of the seller about their experience.

12. What is the next big plan for OLX? What features are you looking to implement to improve the product?

We have now expanded to 90 countries and 39 languages and you will see OLX expanding further to some more countries and new languages. Besides this, we keep on making improvements on the site making it friendlier for our users. We often take feedback from our users on features that they would like to see on OLX. OLX already has many cobrand partners (like Friendster in Philippines and Hindustan Times in India) and this list of partners has been growing every year.

We have also launched “Featured Listings” whereby users can put their ads in an exceptional place for a specific period of time giving increased visibility. This has been launched in select countries including US and will be introducing this tool to other countries. We also launch new categories that have relevance to the local markets and what users ask for.

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If you are guitarist, you should have heard about Les Paul, the man who invented the electric guitar and multi-track recoding. What you probably don't know is that the man was an incredible guitarist as well. Check out this vintage footage. Its awesome except when the camera points to the woman.



Lot of guitar manufacturers have Les Paul edition of their guitars. You will find Gibson's Les Paul edition guitars here. With two awesome inventions under his belt the man lived till the age of 94 and died yesterday of Pneumonia.

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Amazon is the largest online bookstore (besides selling other things) followed closely by Barnes and Noble. While Amazon does deliver books to India, the shipping costs make some of these purchases unworthy. Also, chances are most foreign author books will have an Indian Edition that costs less and these will not be available in Amazon.

FlipKart.com is an online Indian book store you can order from and have your books delivered at home. The pricing is pretty decent compared to other bookstores like Landmark or Crossword that mostly sell books at the printed price on the book. You will find discounts upto 33% on the books.

I ran a quick search for Sin City graphic novels and found some books that I have long been searching for but never found. Book descriptions are also pretty good but there aren't reviews and feedback like that is found in amazon. This is probably because of the lack of popularity of the website.

Dan Brown's next book - The lost symbol is available for pre-order at a 33% discount for Rs. 468 at FlipKart. The book features Brown's favorite hero Robert Langdon on another puzzle trail set in a time frame of 24 hours. If the previous books are a sign of things to come we can expect the book to be filled with interesting information. However, I wish they stop making the movies with Tom Hanks.

FlipKart does not sell used books and also does not sell digital copies of book purchased like how Amazon does. This would be a really nice feature for FlipKart to add.

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Moser Baer is not a very common name. The company is the world' second largest manufacturer of optical media like CDs, DVDs and Blu-ray discs. What may surprise many is that Moser Baer is an Indian company and is trying its hands in other products.

Moser Baer has been for some time now in the Home Video business and is a publisher of optical media with regional and foreign language films. The best part of the Moser Baer deal is the pricing. A lot of movies are priced from Rs.50 (for regional movies) to upto Rs.400 for foreign films on DVDs and CDs.

The movie ranges are pretty slick and they have a massive collection of award winning foreign films (Chinese, Korean, French etc). You will also find a lot of Tamil, Hindi, Malayalam, Telugu and other regional language movies - old and new.

What's best is that you can order your disc online and have it delivered at home. With prices this low, there is not really a need to break your wallet to own a copy of your favorite movie.

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In April 2007 I wrote this article about a projector on a phone using the Texas Instruments DLP chip. More than two years have passed since then and there isn't yet a sign of this technology that you can buy. Finally the wait has been reward and surprisingly this time the camera manufacturers have decided to take a lead with this technology integrating a projector into the camera.

Nikon has unveiled the CoolPix S1000pj featuring a resolution of 12 megapixels, Image stabilization and 5X Optical zoom. The key feature being the projector with a brightness up to 10 lumens and image sizes of 5 to 40 in and a throw distance of 26 cm to 2 m at a resolution of 640 X 480 pixels. The camera can project images and videos. What this means is that we no longer have to crowd behind a camera to preview a recently taken picture.

While the resolution is not much to talk about the technology is still in its infancy and we can soon expect projectors integrated into mobile phones and cameras becoming as common as cameras in phones. I wouldn't be surprised if we had a resolution race for projectors integrated into cameras and phones henceforth.

Yet another technology that seems like a dream making itself present in the real world. Kudos to Nikon for being the first to market.

Here is a video from Whatdigitalcamera.com showing off the camera:

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A differential gear system is used in cars and other four-wheelers to enable wheels on different sides of the vehicle can rotate at different speeds. This is essential because when making a turn, the outer wheel has to go faster than the inner wheel to make the turn without sliding. This video from the 1930s explains the concept beautifully.

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I will admit that I am not a big fan of the call handling capabilities of the iphone. However, the handy applications developed for the iphone make it worth having. A cheaper alternative is to get the iPod touch, but without a camera it is not as handy as the iphone.

1. Units:
Units is a tool for converting units of measurement from one standard to another. The tool is neatly grouped into different types of measurements like Area, Temperature, Length, Time, Speed etc. The application also comes with a ruler with inch and centimeter markings which can be used for measurements.

2. Dictionary.com:
This dictionary application references dictionary.com dictionary and thesaurus with 275,000 words and 80,000 synonyms. Wedict is an alternative which was earlier available for free download but is now a paid application for 6$ which I feel is a little too expensive for a dictionary. But the interesting thing about wedict is the downloadable dictionary files for multiple languages and even different types within a single language.

3. Flashlight:
There are many flashlight applications for iphone that help search for things in the dark. However, the Flashlight application from the Cydia or the ICY installer (you need to jailbreak the iphone for this) is brighter than the applications found in the Apple appstore.

4. Wikipanion:
Wikipanion is your wikipedia companion allowing you to search the entire wikipedia database after you have downloaded it to the iPhone. Beware that the database is a massive 4+ GB of information and an 8GB iphone is recommended at the very least.

5. Kindle:
Kindle is a book reader utility from Amazon that helps download the digital copy of books purchased from amazon into the iphone. Amazon also sells "Digital only" versions of books that are much cheaper than a real book. You will also find a lot of free books in amazon if you search for "0.00$" or "$0.00". Some of the free titles are Paranoia by Joseph Finder, The angel Experiment by James Patterson, Treasure Island, Sherlock Holmes Collection and Twenty Thousand Leagues under the sea.

6. Snapture:
Snapture is a replacement for the Camera application that comes with the iphone. Snapture adds features like digital zoom, burst mode, multiple image sizes, easy snap (you no longer have to click on a specific icon on the screen to take pictures), timer mode and multiple color modes like sepia, monochrome etc. This application is available only via Cydia or Icy.

7. Cycorder:
One of the best applications for the iphone that the original iphone should have come with. A must have application for the older iphone models that do not permit video recording, cycorder records video with brilliant quality that puts other cameras of 1.3 MP to shame. Cycorder is available only for download from cydia and not the appstore.

8. Batterystatus:
Battery status is a battery monitoring tool for the iphone that gives you information like % battery level, talk time over 3G, talk time over 2G, standby time, browsing over edge time, browsing over wi-fi time and audio and video playback times. Very handy application that can give you the time within which you have to find the next recharge point.

9. Epocrates:
Epocrates is a medical database with drug and disease information that is handy with detecting spurious drugs, general medication, drug interactions and other details. For more details about Epocrates refer to this article.

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I remember reading somewhere that atleast 30% of drugs in the Indian market are spurious. And that is a very scary number. With medicines being as expensive they are, it is really troubling that you may be spending a lot of money on a product that doesn't do what it is supposed to, and even worse, cause problems for you.

Add to this the quality of the doctors around these days, it is hard to get a satisfying medical solution. My personal interactions with hospitals and doctors haven't been very nice. For instance, I have found that if I visit a clinic for fever (which might be nothing very serious), chances are that the doctor will prescribe 4-6 tests that will cost you a bomb without even touching you. I feel I might as well go to a diagnostic center and get some tests done rather than visit a doctor and take advice. I feel the humanity in the medical profession has been lost in the greed for money these days.

With this background, I am constantly on the look out for a reliable source of medical information. Unfortunately, doctors cannot be ruled out completely but I am always on the look out for the next best solution. And this is where Epocrates comes into the picture. Epocrates is a medical database that provides:

1) Hundreds of diagnoses with evidence-based content
2) Drug-drug interaction checker, MultiCheck
3) Extensive disease images library and pill pictures
4) Integrated clinical details
5) Printable patient medication handouts
6) Health plan & Medicare Part D insurance formularies

They have free and premium services which you can choose from.

This video explains how to make the best use of Epocrates:



The free version has only the drug guides, formulary information and drug interaction checkers whereas the premium versions have much more to offer like treatment guides, alternative medicines, over the counter names, symptom assessments and diagnostic and laboratory tests.

Epocrates is available for devices like the Palm PDAs, Iphone, Ipod Touch and Windows Mobile Devices, making this a very handy tool. An online version of the tool is also available.

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All of us have rights. Our very existance is cause enough for us to have these rights and some of the things that go against these basic rights are violence and discrimination.

We have an online voice that will help us tackle both in India. Fight-back.net is an online petition to bring about a "Radical Change in Indian Rape Laws"

The site allows you to sign up a petition. The excerpt below gives you a few of the things the site stands for:

* The Definition of Rape. Merely because a woman does not put up a fight, it does not mean that the act was consensual.

* The Punishment. Ten years to do time is hardly punishment for rape, considering the heinous nature of the offence.

Life imprisonment at the minimum, and death penalty at the maximum should be the plausible punishments.

To read the rest of the petition click here.

You may wonder why we are putting this up on a mostly tech site? We are in an era where social activism is now online, and what you say and think reflects in the nature of your online activities.

There have been heinous crimes against women in the past in India and we really need the online community to be more sensitive about what is happening in the current social scenario. Just recently I came across the following video. Not only did it make my blood boil, it makes me unhappy that I live in a world where people think it is their right to do ill to others.

It's time we changed, and along with us our society. The pink chaddi campaign has slowly mellowed down and disappeared in the background, I hope this campaign continues and brings out some change to the world we live in.

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If you have been looking for online computer hardware stores in India where you can check prices for computer hardware parts before you go personally and haggle over the counter or if you want to order online, you have come to the right place. Here are some online stores which have a good range of products and prices are fairly representative of over the counter sales prices.

1) The IT Depot @ http://www.theitdepot.com/
This is one of the most professional looking online stores in India besides being one of the oldest. Based out of Chennai, IT Depot offers a lot of brands that were once hard to find in India. They deal with brands like Antec, OCZ, Logitech, Belkin, Sennheiser, Cooler Master, Silverstone, Razer, Abit, Corsair and EVGA. The prices are slightly higher than over the counter prices but then a lot of brands available at this store are not found elsewhere. Products are neatly categorized and are selectable by price ranges, brands and other sub-classifications. You will also find product specifications here.

2) The IT Warehouse @ http://www.theitwares.com/
Based out of Mumbai, this store is not very flashy looking but one look at it and you know they mean business. The website has a minimalistic look and is well organized. Some special brands dealt by this store are Tagan, Seasonic, Dell, Thermaltake, Razer, Thermalright and Arctic. Products are priced pretty decently.

3) Buy Gaming Stuff @ http://www.buygamingstuff.com
As the name gives away, this website prides in dealing with gaming related hardware and most importantly, the games themselves. They are the only store I have come across that sell popular games online and the pricing is competitive with retail stores. Most popular brands mentioned for the previous stores are also available here but mostly with focus on their gaming products. The store also deals with XBox and Playstation games and accessories.

4) Techshop @ http://www.techshop.in
7 days shipping, 6 shipping options and 4 payment options is the tag line of this store. Very similar to theitwares website, techshop in addition to computer hardware also deals with mobilephones, MP3 players and cameras. I also found the Zotac Mini-ITX GeForce 9300 motherboard here which was an interesting product.

5) Prime abgb @ http://www.primeabgb.com
Prime is just like most of the other stores mentioned here. What I like about their product range is their collection of Silverstone chassis. I have been lucky enough to work on a silverstone chassis and felt that it was one of the best in terms of attention to details to make life easier for the user. Now I know where to buy it from in India. And the prices are in line with most of the high-end chassis from Coolermaster and Antec chassis from other sources. They also have a decent collection of highly rated CPU and GPU Heatsink Fans.

6) Media Home @ http://www.mediahome.in/
I guess there are enough websites in the list already that should give most users a decent idea of the prices of popular and highly rated brand of computer hardware. Media home is yet another one in this list and their collection of Seasonic branded powersupplies impressed me. They also seem to have most of the brands. Suprisingly there is no separate section for motherboards. I also found some image rendering issues with the website that definitely needs a fix.

7) ComputerWarehousePricelist @ http://www.computerwarehousepricelist.com/
Computer Warehouse Price list is another old website which I used for checking prices of commonly available hardware before other websites became popular. Back then the prices mentioned were overpriced by about Rs.500-1000 but were a good indication of approximate counter prices. They don't seem to have the more popular and niche brands like the other websites. The website also feels very clunky though organized.

There it is. 7 Stores in India from where you can buy the coolest computer hardware parts. International brands and high performance products all now available in India. Now I wait for the day when Amazon and Newegg start delivering parts in India at competitive prices and raise the bar for online stores.

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Lightbot is one of the most awesome flash games I have come across. Don't let the article title fool you into thinking that this is some geek stuff that requires technical knowledge. It doesn't. What it does require is the love for puzzles and/or free time to kill.

Lightbot is a brilliant introduction to programming for anyone who doesn't know how to write code and wants to learn. This game will teach you the fun in programming and help you see how programming is relevant to problem solving in everyday life. Also, any programmer who calls himself that should be able to finish the 13 levels in breeze. Else you should consider yourself another career.

You can directly play the game in the flash box below.

Insane Central Arcade

The objective of the game is to move the lightbot (the cute looking robot) to the blue square and light the square. This is done by providing commands to the robot. Once you command the robot to reach the blue square and light it, the playing field changes and obstacles are introduced in different styles in newer maps. The difficulty level increases as you progress (not everyone might agree to this) and simple but interesting programming concepts are introduced gradually.

The game screen has commands at the top in the form of icons. Commands are like: Turn right, turn left, jump, light the bulb etc. To command the robot, drag the icon into the main function (one command per tile, a total of 12 tiles available) in the order in which you want the commands to be executed. Click on "Go" to see the robot in action. If you make a mistake, you can always change the sequence of commands and try again by clicking "Stop" and "Go" again. As the levels progress you will notice that you will need more than 12 commands to get the lightbot to reach all the blue squares and light them up. So you put in the additional commands into either or both of the functions Funct1 and Funct2 provided and call them inside the main function by using the F1 and the F2 command icons in the main.

Like I said earlier, this truly is one of the best ways to introduce kids to programming and I feel bad about not having the opportunity to play a game like this as a kid when I was learning to program. Have fun. And remember, the boss is always looking from behind your shoulders when you are playing at work. But of course, your code is compiling.

Lightbot for the iphone/ipod touch is now available at the itunes store.

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