Magnetic slate-Go Green!

I saw this magnetic slate in Magnet mall (coincidence?!), Akurdi, Pune and I bought it for my daughter. Then I found that it is useful for all sorts of rough works and calculations. I normally use one-sided papers or any other rough papers found near the printer in my office. Then I found that I can completely get rid of the paper also. Since this plate is extremely useful for temporary writing. Now I plan to use in my office also.

Construction and work:
It consists of two plates, 1.Base plate and 2. Impression surface. There are fine magnetic particles entrapped in between. The impression surface is white in color and when the pencil with the iron tip is placed on that all the fine magnetic particles get attracted towards the tip and when the pencil is moved the magnetic particles traces the path of the pencil tip.

After the use, there is one slider which runs in between the two surfaces to neutralize the magnetic effect and even out the displaced magnetic particles in to one smooth coating.

The price is also nominal ranging from Rs.30 to Rs.60 depending on the size of the slate. You can treat this product as a gift idea to small children. They can have fun of unlimited writing.

Changing boarding station for train tickets

If by chance, you have missed to put the boarding point when you are booking through Internet, there is one option to get it corrected. Though it is given in the railway help guide, but the information is well hidden or we simply over look it. There can be some serious problems like berths allotted to other people by TTE if you don't turn up to the wrongly selected boarding point. So it is always safer to correct the boarding point.

The procedure for changing the boarding point is as follows:

1. Take the print out of the ticket
2. Fill the details of the ticket in the regular reservation form
3. Go to any railway ticket booking counter, show the ticket and request them to change the boarding point.
4. They will update the same in the system. I am not clear whether they will provide you with a new ticket or not. For me since, I booked through clear trip they did not give me a new ticket. Anyway, you can ask at the counter to get it clarified.

In addition to changing boarding point, with effect from November 2008, Railways has amended its rule of changing passenger name for e-tickets also. Two of the FAQ's in the www.irctc.co.in reads like this:

Question: How can I modify the details of my ticket?
Answer: A. Postponement / Advancement of journey, Change of passenger details, Change of boarding point etc, can be done across any Reservation counters subject to existing Railway rules. Payment, if any, has to be paid in Cash


Question: How do I change the boarding point and name of the passenger for e-tickets?
Answer: For getting these facilities, customer can now approach the nearest Railway Reservation Office with ‘Electronic Reservation Slip’ print out and photo identity proof of one of the passenger traveling in the ticket at least 24 hours before the scheduled departure of train as per extant Railway rules.
• Such request will be granted once only.

Further reading: http://irctc.co.in/Eticket_new_cancel.html

My Google Adsense story

I thought that adding Google advertisements in my blog would be a cool idea though I did not have any serious intentions of making money with that. So I applied for Google Adsense account and submitted my application. After sending the application, immediately I put the Adsense widget in my blogspot. Adsense advertisements started appearing in my blogspot, only MOMENTARILY. After refreshing the page I could not see any advertisements.

An email came to my gmail account asking for persmission to blogger.com to allow Adsense to appear in my blogspot. So far, so good. Then as usual, my hard luck came to play. My application was promptly rejected. Saying a specific issue type called Page type. The error message is something like this:

"

Thank you for your interest in Google AdSense. Unfortunately, after
reviewing your application, we're unable to accept you into Google
AdSense at this time.

We did not approve your application for the reasons listed below.
Issues:
- Page type
---------------------
Further detail:

Page Type: In order to participate in Google AdSense, publishers'
websites and application information must satisfy the following
guidelines:

- Your website must be your own top-level domain (www.example.com and
not www.example.com/mysite).
- Your domain must have been registered and active for at least 6
months. Before you apply for AdSense.
- You must provide accurate personal information with your application
that matches the information on your domain registration.
- Your website must contain substantial, original content."

I was really frustrated. But apparently I could not find any solution till now and feeling helpless. After wasting lot of time in Internet looking for possible solution, I came up with some conclusions:

Conclusions so far:
1. Adsense is not expecting a www.xyz.blogspot.com address or www.xyz.googlpages.com any more. This change has happened recently around October-November 2008 it seems.

2. If you have got your Adsense account before this new rule change, you are definitely LUCKY.

3. If you somehow convert your blogspot URL in to a static URL, you need to wait for 6 months after registering your domain, I hope.

4.You need to pay at least 15 dollars to get one time URL from www.blogger.com but I am not really sure about the maintenance charges if any or there after that.

5. I have not found any site which can give you real "free" domain, with out ads on their own, but still you have to wait for 6 months.

6. One FAQ from Google Adsense reads like this:
Do I have to own a website to use AdSense?
To use AdSense, you must have access to edit the HTML source code of the website you submit in your application. If you submit a site you don't own (for example, www.google.com), you won't be able to place the AdSense code on the site and your application will not be approved
I have not really understood the meaning of "access to edit the HTML source code of the website". Politically engineered words.
7. Google does not accept any more new entries for googlepages.com
8. Instead it is encouraging users to create one site at sites.google.com. There also you will get a complicated URL (similar to blogspot URL) and then you have to change the URL in to some domain name using Google Apps. I don't know whether we need to pay money or not.

Also even if I get a paid domain name from blogger.com, will that qualify the condition required by Google Adsense or not. I really don't' know. Now I am in a dead-lock position. I have decided not to go in to so much depth for this right now. Since I have other priorities, I changed the preference of this task.