eSudhir blog » Tools/Service

ClearTrip.com offers Indian railways reservations

Sudhir Upadhyay — Thu, 25 Sep 2008 17:27:30 +0000

Cleartrip.com has partnered with with IRCTC (Indian Railway Catering and Tourism Corporation Ltd.) to offer train reservations for Indian Railways.

So, what has changed? Now, you can book Indian railway ticket with simple and ease on Clear Trip. I did try some search on Cleartrip and was amazed by the speed of results. I wonder why these results do not appear so fast on IRCTC website?
Although, the Cleartrip’s clean interface and speed is appreciated but the website does not show the full list of trains. See in the below screenshot: I searched for trains between Mumbai Central to New Delhi for 16th Dec, 2008. Cleartrip show’s me only one train whereas IRCTC shows 9 trains for the same day.

Is IRCTC not sharing the complete database?
I am sure once Cleartrip overcomes these minor issues, it would be a breeze to book railway tickets online on cleartrip and there would be no Unable To Retrieve Due To Communication failure messages.

Get latest news in your Gtalk by IBNlive

Sudhir Upadhyay — Sun, 10 Aug 2008 21:02:47 +0000

CNN IBN, the leading English Indian news channel has introduced IBNlive Gtalk buddy. By using this buddy, you can get latest news update right inside your Gtalk chat window.

Here is how it works.

Add im@ibnalerts.com in your buddy list in Gtalk.
Send help as instant message and you can get the list of accepted keywords.
The keywords are like sports, ent and top. You receive news stories snippet along with link to the news story.

By using IBNlive Gtalk buddy you can also search for stories on IBNlive.com, just send search “your query” (without quotes) as your message and you will receive links for your search related stories (for e.g. search Beijing Olympics )

See the how to video on IBNlive

Rediff launches Bus Fare Search

Sudhir Upadhyay — Thu, 07 Aug 2008 10:01:43 +0000

After Train Fare Search, Rediff has launched Bus Fare Search. The new service lets you search for best Bus fare between different cities. The interface is clean and easy to use. While searching for Bus fare, you also get a comparative view of the trains available for the same route.

The Rediff bus fare searches mainly state transport websites and RedBus.in, Ticketvala.com. The search result takes you to the parent site or to the contact information of the operator.

Try Windows Vista online for free

Sudhir Upadhyay — Fri, 13 Jun 2008 09:00:46 +0000

Want to upgrade your Windows XP to Vista but not sure if it worth the upgrade?

You can take Windows Vista Ultimate edition demo online for free. You can actually use and explore a lot of features of Windows Vista in the demo. The features are categorized in four categories as safe, easier, reliable and versatile. Under these categories you can view and explore new interface, Internet Explorer 7, instant search, Windows BitLocker drive encryption and many others. Advanced user can explore features like remote desktop, group policy, account, firewall management etc.

Although, you require good Internet speed to see Windows Vista in action but this is really cool. check it out.

Vakow.com- Indian twitter?

Sudhir Upadhyay — Sun, 08 Jun 2008 09:57:28 +0000

Vakow the SMS forwarding portal has transformed it into micro-blogging on tunes of Twitter. Now, you can create your SMS blog on Vakow! and post your micro posts through SMS. Another new feature in new Vakow is you no more require score of +2 in order to send SMS to your ~~subscribers~~ (oops..now they call them followers).

If you are twitter loyalists in spite of their frequent downtime then also Vakow has a solution for you. you can tweet to your twitter account using Vakow and it’s money saving as Vakow has a 10 digit number 99015 54321 unlike twitter’s 5566511, which is a premium number on which you are charged from Rs. 2-3 depending on your service provider.

Way to go Vakow!

Turn your mobile camera in a Webcam

Sudhir Upadhyay — Sun, 10 Jun 2007 06:40:07 +0000

Motvik, a Bangalore based startup, has launched public beta of their software WWIGO (Webcam Wherever I GO), that turns your mobile phone camera into a wireless Webcam. All you need to do is download and install the software on your PC/laptop. The software supports Yahoo Messenger, Skype and Windows Live messenger and you can also upload live video on Youtube. Currently, software supports only Symbian phones and Windows PC/laptop. I have to wait to test it because I posses a Sony Ericsson mobile phone

Update: The comments have been disabled for this post due to obvious reasons.

Webaroo sms gupshup- free group sms service

Sudhir Upadhyay — Wed, 30 May 2007 13:50:19 +0000

This could be a good news for sms forwarding community. SMS Gupshup a service by Webaroo, forwards your SMS free to your group. You can create a channel (group) and users can subscribe to your channel through website or SMS. You can choose to send your message public or private. Private messages will be forwarded to your channel subscriber but will not be shown on website. one can use host of commands while sending SMS. The service has become very popular and there are channels for almost everything, from Stock market to Health to anagrams puzzles and more.

mGinger-earn money by reading ad sms on mobile

Sudhir Upadhyay — Thu, 24 May 2007 23:16:36 +0000

How many times have you cursed that lady who called you to sell that life time free credit card?
We all are fed up of these unwanted calls but how about a service that pays you to recieve ad sms. Introducing mGinger, a SMS advertiser service which will send you ad sms and will pay to read. The pay model is as follows:

The service is in initial stage and they don’t have many advertisers as of now. However, as their user database will increase more advertiser may join.