Avast sprang up a warning today that 10 websites from India were infected and Blogspot.in and Travelocity.co.in were among them. Are the websites unaware of security threats?

A couple of well-known online malware website checker does not seem to agree:

http://sitecheck.sucuri.net/results/blogspot.in

http://sitecheck.sucuri.net/results/travelocity.co.in

http://siteinspector.comodo.com/public/reports/13563320

http://siteinspector.comodo.com/public/reports/13563351

Avast is resorting to cheap tricks to promote its paid pack and that urges me to not trust them at all.
Can known brands like this resort to cheap tricks? What is your point of view?

Clicking on Best Value Offers and Plans on Airtel Website leads to an Error 404 Page. This page was clicked through from http://www.airtel.in/wps/wcm/connect/Airtel.in/airtel.in/home/foryou/mobile/pg_fy_mb_home .

Anyone else seeing the same?
Is this a negligence of the brand to actively monitor its web presence or does Airtel take its online consumers for granted?

While browsing for something, hit upon this cool calculator that would make many lives easier. You no longer need to find keys and type to calculate. All that you do is draw the numbers and operators with one finger and the MyScript Calculator will return the result. Even complex calculations such as Square Roots and To The Power Of are also a breeze. The written problem is morphed into digits and result is displayed instantly.

Ain’t that cooler than the boring calculator you see on your table, right?

Normally on my iPhone, I wouldn’t want to really go to a bigger screen unless its for watching a movie. Even shopping is something most of us with 3G or WiFi connections today would wish to finish on our phones. My perspective here is of websites matching user convenience and user friendliness.

Let’s see how Yebhi.com lost 3 of its 5 stars on my ranking today.

When I went to Yebhi.com on my iPhone’s native Safari browser, I found it most annoying to see the desktop version of the website open up. Too small to experience anything great, I had to repeatedly use the pinch to zoom. Not done. There goes a star.

Scrolling through the menus is quite a tedious task. Seems like that was never built keeping the mobile screen in mind. This also accounts for their checkout and payment screens being really tiny. There goes another star off their rank.

When I searched with even one letter they gave me some results, however when my search string was a blank space, it too me to an error page like the one below. Not expected and that lost them the third star.

At the same time, Flipkart’s error page for an unknown string was as below. And what made me happy to see is that their mobile is much better and friendlier than their main website and even on their error pages they have the continue shopping button, as expected.

Don’t you think bettering user experience is the key to effective branding?

The design is always something woos me into trying something out, however what ups the interest is the experience the products give me. And I don’t like compromising.

These Masala Peanuts come with a Tangy flavour of I would guess chaat masala and a tad more dry mango powder. I would quote it to be beyond competition.

What would you say?

Although WordPress has all the ingredients to be the best blogging platform in the world, what I saw today, in my opinion, will help exponentially grow its fan base a lot more. What it had missed on heavily all these years is the simplicity and WOW that it can give to a blogger/ user right on the first page. However, is it just copying a trend?

Though I think WordPress has dubbed the Tumblr UI pretty much, seeing the home page icons, the realization has come at a time when Tumblr is gaining quite some attention.

Though the clear big fonts, the single color logos and the relief space it has given on the page, all resembles what Windows or Apple have gotten to, the design is certainly commendable. I, for a minute, thought, WordPress has been bought over by Microsoft, judging the interface to be following the Metro Design Philosophy, however just a tad subtly. 

Now just what bloggers look for – everything neatly segregated and right in the face. 
I should admit, I have really started linking this interface, 

Do you feel this interface is copied just to stay in trend? 

Sadly, to add to the fear of an Indian consumer of online transactions, the mobile recharge website though sleek, is unsafe. It does not have a SSL certificate in spite of asking for critical payment data like debit card details.

Do we really want to risk this?

I finally got to see the most talked about Fashion Street of Mumbai, this visit. Tucked cozily on the street side close to Churchgate in old Bombay, it’s a plethora of options to choose from.

As always, girls have more choices and better ones. However, most of the designs, be it for men or ladies, is much inspired by the blockbusters of Bollywood and Hollywood and tees with imprints of known rock bands. The cuts and designs are so vivid and sometimes strange, I was lost either appreciating or disliking them.

I also heard that I went in time to get the best prices due to clearance sales as Navaratri and Diwali will see a surge of new fashion.

Some are fixed price shops and some are bargain outlets. However, even the fixed price shops will have some bargain friendly goods.

And talking about the Mumbai shopkeepers, I am happy to see so much customer friendliness. When he quotes a price and you start to walk away, he says “aap Batao kitna doge, bolna aapka hak hai” (translating to “you tell me the price you would wish to offer, quoting your price is your right”. Now that’s not just as a smart line, they really mean it, making it a proud experience for the consumer. Something for our entrepreneurs to learn from.

Variety, politeness, customer friendliness and smart talk mixed in a comfortable proportion is what you would get to see there.

All in all a great experience.

Quote yours in the comments and could include it in my next review or update.

Where brand managers and marketing consultants are their burning midnight oil to make a significant difference to customer experience, there are a few Samaritans who are winning over customers by just extending a good deed to make sure the customer’s convenience is met.

Just a little while ago when stranded in Wakad, Pune waiting for my bus and making repeated attempts to understand the pronunciations of the locals, I felt it was time to take a bite and was guided to Spice Curry hotel by a passerby with the assurance that its hygienic. That was enough to build my first impression. And so it was.

On walking in one of the attendants showed me a seat and also the washroom to wash my tired hands and face off the grime. Second impression built.

The waiter, who I was talking to in Kannada, comfortably assuming he understood the language as the restaurant was run by a Shetty, heard me patiently and then confessed he did not know the language. Here it was the patience that paid off.

Then was my order of Curd Rice without green chillies, which they willingly accommodated against their regular recipe. Fourth impression built.

The last one was the best. The manager Shashi Shetty understood that I was having a tough time figuring the place and offered to drop me to my bus boarding point, which I willingly accepted.

Did the respective people have to take those less expected efforts? Not really.
However, what it did was leave a very positive impact on a casual customer like me that got me to blog about them immediately. Certainly worth the selfless initiatives. What say?

Talking about this I have to quote my visit to R City Mall observing the various new brands and visual experience of the branded booths and exhibits.

I saw this gaming device with a elevated seat, a steering wheel and a huge 42”+ LG digital display attached. The curious I am, I went to have a closer look and found that its a dedicated console for racing games and is built to convenience. Except of course, the price. When asked about the cost the exhibitor unassumingly quoted 20 lakhs.

Considering you had to buy a gaming device for a kid in your family, would you spend that amount?