Free shopping worth Rs.250 x the number of mobile phones in your household

Yes, it's true. You can do free shopping worth Rs.250 from a variety of online stores ...without any cheating. Here's how.

GiftMate, a new mobile payment service launched in India, is offering free trial vouchers worth Rs.250 if you fill up an online survey form.

Making payments through the mobile phone (not billed on your prepaid or postpaid mobile phone) is a relatively new concept in India and lot of people might be reluctant to try out something new. Hence they are offering a free trial voucher worth Rs.250 for the users to try out before they feel comfortable transacting with their mobile phone.

In the process they also collect your mobile number so that they may send you periodic offers and discounts from time to time. Hence a win-win situation for both, GiftMate and the user. Hope all your suspicion might have been cleared by now.

The benefit of making payment through your mobile phone is that you do not have to give your credit card details to the online merchants and hence feel safe. Also when mobile payments become common at brick-and-mortar stores, restaurants etc., you may not have to carry your credit card or wallet. Just make the payment using your mobile phone.

So here's how to go about claiming your free trial voucher. Believe me, it's really very simple.

1. Click here.
   
2. Fill up the form and click Get my free voucher.
   
3. You will receive an SMS on your mobile phone and an email on your email address containing a 4 digit PIN which will be used while redeeming your free voucher. Make a note of it.

You can now use this voucher at any of the 2500 online stores who have got a tie-up with GiftMate/Paymate. You can find a short list of these stores here. Remember to select Pay by mobile or Paymate / GiftMate while checking out and making the payment.

Futurebazaar.com is one of my favorites since it belongs to one of my favorite brick-and-mortar stores, BigBazaar. They have got a wide variety of goods on sale right from Rs.28 to Rs.2,25,900. They even have a 7 day delivery guarantee and a 15 day Unconditional No-Cost Return policy. Not only that, their user interface is very simple and user-friendly although I had experienced a slow down at times. Also I was automatically signed out and my shopping cart emptied automatically at the payment stage requiring me to repeat the whole process and reselect the items.

You can use Advanced Search on Futurebazaar.com to find items between a price range. Enter * in the Search input box to display all items.

Shopping for more than Rs.250

You can buy as many items as you may want within the Rs.250 limit in a single order. If you want to buy a single item worth more than Rs.250 or you want to buy several items worth more than Rs.250, you may have to top-up your GiftMate account using your credit card or net banking account. You can top-up your GiftMate account here. Just enter the same details for the Sender and the Recipient.

Alternatively, if you have more than one mobile number, you can register the other mobile numbers on GiftMate as above here. You can use the same email address for all the mobile numbers. Still you can only use one mobile number to pay for a single order. So you will need to transfer the balance from the other mobile numbers to one single mobile number which you can give while making the payment at the online stores. Here's how you can transfer the balance from one mobile number to another mobile number:

1. Click here.
   
2. In the Sender details enter the name, mobile number and email address of the mobile number account from which you want to transfer the balance.
   
3. In the Recipient details enter the name, mobile number and email address of the mobile number account to which you want to transfer the balance.
   
4. Select Voucher Value as Rs.250.
   
5. Select Payment Option as PayMate/GiftMate.
   
6. Check I Accept.
   
7. Click Accept.
   
8. You will now be asked to select Payment Mode and Mobile Number again. Select GiftMate as Payment Mode. In the Mobile Number box enter the mobile number from which you want to transfer the balance.
   
9. Click Submit.
   
10. You will now get an SMS on the Sender mobile phone asking you to confirm the payment. Reply to the SMS in the "Pay abc 1234" format. Once you send the SMS the browser screen will automatically show you that the payment has be completed successfully.

Now you can use the Recipient mobile number to shop for items worth Rs.500. You can repeat the above steps for as many mobile phones as you may have.

Also note that when you claim your trial voucher by filling up the survey form, you only get 7 days validity within which you have to use the voucher. But when you transfer the balance from one mobile number account to another mobile number account the validity of the transfered amount in the Recipient account would become 365 days.

You can check your GiftMate account balance and transaction details here. » Continue reading

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Sending gifts to South Africa?

Dos and don'ts

It's the season of gifting. However, if you are sending a present to someone in South Africa, make sure you comply with the following requirements:

• The gifts have to be sent from an individual abroad to an individual in South Africa.
  
• Any gifts sent from a company to an individual or an individual to a company will not qualify as a gift.
  
• All gifts are subject to Customs duties and VAT at their respective rates.
  
• All gifts have to be sent on a Demurrage and Duty Paid (Inter Station Billing) basis.
  
• The invoices have to be Commercial only and in English.
  
• Proforma and hand-written invoices are NOT allowed.
  
• Vague invoice descriptions such as "Gifts" are unacceptable.
  
• The individual commodities have to be spelt out with their respective quantity and unit prices.
  
• No PO Box addresses are allowed; only physical addresses and contact details are critical in order to ensure fast and effective clearance through Customs.
  
• No perishables are allowed as this will be stopped for Port Health to verify if it is fit for human consumption, with the risk of destruction.

» Continue reading

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Women are better multi-taskers than men

Multi-tasking, or doing more than one activity at a time, is a way of life for everyone these days. Between work, family and social life, people are finding themselves busier than ever. But the results of a recent global online survey conducted by Nokia indicated that women are better at multitasking than men with 60 percent of respondents, both men and women. Only six percent of women believe that men are better at doing more than one thing at a time.

From the total of more than 5,000 respondents, 79 percent consider themselves multitaskers, with 50% describing themselves 'productive' and 31% 'busy'. The majority of men and women in the Scandinavian countries of Denmark and Norway indicated they can do several things at once. The most relaxed were the Finnish people at 74 percent.

An overwhelming 80 percent of respondents believe that having a mobile phone makes them better at multitasking.

According to the survey, mobile phones are helping people be more productive. Sixty-two percent of respondents do two or three activities while talking on their mobile phone, including internet browsing and shopping. Seventy-five percent of women said they prepare food and 50 percent put on makeup while using their mobile phone.

Although the majority of respondents claimed they do more than one thing at a time while on their mobile phone, 48 percent indicated the call was their main focus. When asked what was the most fun activity to do while on their mobile phone, most said "being in bed," although no more specifics were given.

Multitasking while on your mobile phone can certainly lead to amusing situations. Forty-seven percent of respondents to the Nokia survey indicated that they have sent a romantic or controversial text message to the wrong person and 56 percent of women did that. » Continue reading

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Help for pudgy pooches

Even for our pets, losing weight isn't easy. To slim down a plus-size puppy, you must do away with table scraps and significantly increase her running or walking time. But more help is on the way: The [US] FDA recently approved Slentrol, the first canine diet drug. The prescription drops are administered once a day, either directly into the mouth or with food, and work by suppressing appetite and fat absorption.

It's no quick fix, however: Dogs typically have to take the drug for six to ten months, and follow a diet and exercise program, to see results. Weight loss will differ form pooch to pooch. Slentrol is recommended for dogs that are at least 20% over their ideal weight. (And don't try it yourself or give it to a fat cat.)

Fancis A. Kallfelz, a professor of veterinary nutrition, is taking a wait-and-see approach with the drug but says initial data look promising. Slentrol will be available soon. Meanwhile, it's not too early to cut the treats, grab the leash and get moving -- it'll do you both good. » Continue reading

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ATM ...cash machine or a Magic Machine

Mohammad Jamshed Khan replaced the ATM card in his wallet and counted the crisp new notes he'd just withdrawn from the cash machine. Rs.6000? This can't be right! thought the young Mumbai civil contractor. He counted again. It was indeed Rs.6000.

"All I'd asked for was Rs.1200," Khan told his friend Faisal Mukhi who was standing nearby.

"You pressed the wrong buttons, silly," said Mukhi.

"No way!" exclaimed Khan as he pushed his card back in again, keyed in his numeric password and asked for Rs.1000. Beep, click.... whirrr, beeeep! Out popped Rs.5000 -- and a little transaction slip that read: WITHDRAWAL Rs.1000. "Let's try again," said Khan. Card, password, 2-0-0-0...beeeep! But he got Rs.10,000. By now it seemed certain that the ATM was giving away 500-rupee notes instead of hundreds.

"May be something's wrong with your card," Mukhi told Khan, "let me try mine." Mukhi's balance was low -- only Rs.1,300. He pushed his card in and asked for Rs.1000. The machine spat out 5000.

ATMs (short for automated teller machines) are extremely secure and among the hardiest of machines. Look up the Encyclopedia Britannica for "ATMs" and you'll find - entered only under "Locks" - it's virtually impossible to fool an ATM. And the probability of an ATM overpaying is virtually nil. But here they were, two buddies with Rs.26,000 between them - Rs.20,800 of it free money.

There were no other customers in sight on that warm July afternoon. And they could have kept on going. Instead, Khan and Mukhi went outside the ATM's enclosure and summoned the guard on duty. "The machine's all mixed up," they told him. The two men then gave the guard a demo: "Look here," said Khan as he inserted his card one last time and hit the buttons, "I'm with drawing Rs.500... but here's 2500!"

"Don't let anybody near this place," they told the guard as they hopped into an autorickshaw and sped off with all the money.

It looked like daylight robbery -- in reverse. For they drove two kilometres, to the nearest branch of the bank that owned the ATM, placed the cash -- Rs.28,500 -- on the bank manager's desk and complained about their faulty machine.

"We could have lost a real lot that day," says the manager. "This is the kind of honesty we can only dream about. A human error made while loading cash in the ATM had caused the problem. Although we could have traced the customers, it might have meant a lot of trouble for us, had they kept our money."

But did either Mohammad Khan or Faisal Mukhi ever think of keeping the money during their moment with the magic machine? "Not once," says Khan. Adds Mukhi: "Never."

This article appeared in Reader's Digest India Edition. » Continue reading

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Bean-anza

As you make your way through the salad line at the cafeteria, do your heart a favour and ladle an extra scoop of beans onto your plate.

Using data from more than 9000 people who were followed for 20 years, US researchers found that people who ate beans or peas four or more times a week were 20 percent less likely to suffer coronary heart disease than people who ate legumes less than once a week. Beans and peas -- canned, fresh or dried, rajma (pinto bean), soya, black or any other type -- are rich in soluble fibre, potassium, calcium, magnesium and folate, all of which have been associated with lower cholesterol and heart-healthy eating. » Continue reading

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Romantic stories of the vikings

Having been brought up listening to stories of a tall, blonde and handsome prince rescuing a fair and beautiful princess, historical romance novels have taken up a major portion of my book shelf. Johanna Lindsey's The Fires of Winter, one of the oldest in my collection, is a favourite.

The novel portrays the strong character of Lady Brenna who is captured by viking Garrick Haardrad's father and given to Garrick as a slave. Her love for Garrick inspite of the sexual abuse is absolutely fascinating. What's more interesting is that Johanna Lindsey has portrayed Lady Brenna's character in a rather contemporary light as a smart, athletic and courageous woman with sword skills and a fighting spirit. The story takes a very emotional turn when Garrick who is in love with Brenna refuses to believe Brenna's story of her kidnap after she tries to escape from Garrick due to his abusive behaviour. She goes to live alone with a broken heart. Garrick's heart, however, softens when Brenna gives birth to their prematured baby and learns about the truth of Brenna's kidnap. At the end of the story they are happily married, ever after.

These days it has become difficult to find historical romance novels at book stores and new titles are rarely published in hardcover. Authors are switiching to the contemporary romance genre. However, if you are looking for historical Romance Novels, you could check out Mills & Boon website and order them online. » Continue reading

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