The Modern Under Construction Template by Design3edge is really cool. But the author has only published the PSD (Photo Shop Document) file. So, I’ve converted the PSD to valid & optimized XHTML file for my own use as well as for our visitors.

You can see the preview at: http://demo.webnow.in/under-construction/
And you can download the converted files from: http://www.megaupper.com/files/UTCPYRW3/under-construuction.zip
And you can download the original source files from the author’s site.

You can easily edit the files to match your requirements.

• The timer is can be set by editing the source and entering the date you are planning to launch the site.
• The subscription form saves the visitor’s e-mail ids in a text file, and it needs PHP support on your server, and you need to make subscribe.txt writable. However, you may change it as per your needs.

I hope you will like it.

PS: Contact me if you want me to convert your PSD files to valid XHTML layout for quite economical rates.

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Confirmed through Official Google Blog: Google once again hires 200 Goats to mow down the overgrown Greens(Excess Grass in their Mountain View headquarters). They did this last year too. According to them it is comparable to hiring Lawn mowers in terms of monetary expenses, Animal Love, plus its completely natural Green Solution – Which Google supports by heart.

Read more about this in the Google Blog.

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Google is simply awsome. This time Google Geeks have managed to port lagendary game Quake II to Web Browser, completly HTML5, WebGL and Canvas API based. No flash etc has been used in this version of browser based Quake II game.

Lets see the preview:

For more information please visit: http://code.google.com/p/quake2-gwt-port/

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Currently, PayPal is having a lot of trouble in India. They stopped personal payments to and from Indian PayPal accounts, only business transactions were allowed through PayPal, and also Bank Withdrawal requests were being refunded after about 10 days. This was all due to PayPal not complying with new RBI policies.

Today, I got this e-mail from PayPal.

PayPal

Dear Shobhit Prabhakar,

We have been diligently working with the RBI and our business
partners to resume Indian bank withdrawals for the thousands
of Indian businesses who depend on PayPal to sell their goods
or services in the global marketplace.

Today, we are happy to announce that the RBI has allowed us
to continue local bank withdrawals for settlements for exports
of goods and services. We are currently making changes to
comply with Indian regulations for settlements for exports of
goods and services, and we anticipate that, as of Wednesday,
March 3rd, customers will be able to use our
bank withdrawal service.

As part of the changes, you will be required to fill out a
new field entitled ‘Export Code’ when you request a withdrawal.
This information is required under the current laws of India in
order to identify the nature of cross-border merchant transactions.

On Monday, March 1st, we will be back in touch with specific
instructions on how you can move your money into your bank account.

Moving forward, the RBI has told us that PayPal needs specific
approvals to allow personal remittances to India, which we
currently do not have. Until we get these approvals, personal
payments into India will remain suspended. However, if you are
an exporter, you will continue to be able to use the PayPal
service for payments of goods and services. In fact, with the
changes we are making to our system, PayPal is now set to be a
more powerful engine for exporters in India. With purpose codes
for export transactions and FIRCs (Foreign Inward Remittance
Certificates), you should now be able to get the export
related benefits you seek.

You can check the PayPal blog for additional updates.

www.thepaypalblog.com

We thank you for your business and for your patience during
the past few weeks.

Sincerely,

PayPal

This might bring some relief to Indian exporters with valid IEC (Import Export Code), but the rest of the service providers like us will have to first get Export code, which in itself a troublesome task in India. Also there might be some tough time ahead for PayPal after this, as RBI will be keeping an eye on PayPal’s operations.
I guess I’ll be going with some other Payment processor until PayPal becomes fully functional and convenient again.

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I agree PayPal is in difficult situation in India, but they ideally should register themselves as proper banking service provider before providing money related services worldwide. I am unsure how they got that big even before registering in their home country.

They accept payment/cash from individuals, as well as keep it without giving any interest and also they transfer it into cash in foreign countries. They are actually breaking laws, but they are still in business.

In India the conditions are changing, the RBI(Reserve Bank of India) wants the banks to monitor and report every suspicious banking activities to them, on the other hand the PayPal can’t actually report or give details of every transaction before it can control person to person transactions, and that is what they have done. I have come to know from a lot of sources(specially the DigitalPoint Forum) that PayPal is returning/refunding payments made to/form Indian PayPal accounts. From now on only Business/Service related transactions are allowed and personal transactions to and from India PayPal accounts are disabled. This is all due to RBI restrictions. Keep in mind that a lot of PayPal transactions are related to Indian users.

With increasing competition and tough rules I am unsure about the future of eBay India as well.

Another thing is: as USD/INR forex rates are fluctuating, they find themselves in a bit trouble to keep up their services in India. I am sure how they can handle the differences, but it would require some preparation on their side. The paypal to bank withdrawals are being delayed in India, I also initiated a withdrawal on 31st January 2010 and still waiting for the money. It has been over 7 days and usually PayPal funds are deposited in Bank accounts in 24 hours, I guess they will find a way to complete the due transactions in short time. I am not like Uncle Scrooge, but I Love my money.

I like PayPal for being a good and simple alternative to other expensive payment processors online, But they need to change the way they serve their users, specially in India.

Update(10th February 2010): In pretty unprofessional manner, today paypal refunded my money back to my PayPal account without even giving any reason or notification. They should at least inform the users if they are having some kind of problem. Anyway, now I am going back to xoom.com to withdraw my paypal balance. Let’s see what’s their response. If you would like to use xoom, you can use following xoom coupon code for 100% fee waiver: XOOMONETIMER

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Nick Vujicic is a differently-abled brave young man suffering from rare Tetra-amelia disorder. He has no limbs yet he lives his life independently and gives inspirational speeches to people all over the world.

He believes that anyone can overcome any situation if he/she does not stop trying, No failure is ultimate, and with courage and continuous efforts all the problems in life can be solved.

Are You Going to Finish Strong?

For more information please visit – Life Without Limbs.

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Life inside the cell – An Animation Video

This is a short animation showing the activities inside a cell. Prepared by Howard Hughes Medical Institute, this marvelous video shows most amazing things that happen all the time inside a small cell.
The Nature is truly amazing.

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Windows 7 is a great Operating System. It is fast, Stable, Secure and much more pleasing to the eyes than previous Windows Versions. I am not a great fan Microsoft Products, But Windows 7 is a bit of different story. I installed Windows 7 beta months ago just to see what Microsoft is up to, Since than I’ve been using it without much problems. Most of the drivers installed automatically and few left were installed automatically when I connected to the System to the Internet, Windows 7 installed in comparatively less time and everything went smoothly. There are many other features that would like to describe, but in this post I will be focusing on Virtual PC add on for the Windows 7 to run Windows XP inside the Windows 7 box.

After clean installing Windows 7, I wondered if it was possible to install XP as well in the same PC in dual boot mode. Dual booting is possible, but like in previous situation, It is required to clean install XP first than install the Windows 7 in a separate drive. If you wish to dual boot XP OR Vista with Windows 7 then you can get detailed help from this page: http://lifehacker.com/5126781/how-to-dual-boot-windows-7-with-xp-or-vista

Anyway, as I had to do random weird things and didn’t wanted to spend time and get bored while installing XP and Windows 7 again, I decided to use Virtual PC solution. Microsoft is providing beta(now RC) version of Windows Virtual PC with Windows XP Mode add-on. Actually Microsoft Virtual PC is stripped down in features and it is now only possible to load Windows XP into the Virtual PC. Edit: You can load other OS too in the Windows Virtual PC, but so far I haven’t found another compatible one.

It is pretty simple and straight forward, it requires two files to be downloaded and a reboot.

Here is how you can do it.

Step 1: Go to Windows Virtual PC download page and select appropriate Windows 7 version (32 bit or 64 bit) and select the language.

Step 2: Download Windows Virtual PC and install it. It is required to reboot the PC after this feature upgrade.

Step 3: Download Windows XP Mode and install.

That’s it. Now you can run the XP mode Virtual PC by going to Start -> All Programs -> Windows Virtual PC -> Windows XP Mode.

Here is the screenshot of Windows XP running inside Windows 7.

Action menu allows you to option to view it in Full Screen mode, Put it to sleep, Restart and Close the Virtual PC.

You can adjust the size of RAM allocated to the Virtual PC(by default it is 256 MB), manage HDD etc by going to Tools -> Settings.

You can also load other USB devices such as web cam and printer etc by clicking on USB -> { appropriate device name }.

Windows XP running inside Windows 7.

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