Cotton crop in Punjab, Haryana and Rajasthan, which together account for around 24% of the country’s total cotton production, is under threat from low rainfall in the earlier part of the season followed by sudden increase in showers witnessed in the last few weeks. Experts believe that if weather conditions do not improve in the next few days, cotton crop in the region could be around 10% less this year and its quality could also be impacted because uneven rains have made the standing crop prone to pest attack. Already, diseases like Bronze Wilt and boll weevil, which causes loss…
Business
Uneven rains may hit cotton output in Punjab, Haryana
Business
Oil drops 1.2 pct towards $68 as dollar bounces
TOKYO (Reuters) – Oil fell more than a dollar toward $68 a barrel on Monday as a rebound in the beaten-down U.S. dollar and nagging concerns that prices may have run ahead of market fundamentals extended last week’s late sell-off. The U.S. currency rallied sharply against a basket of currencies as investors covered short positions following last week’s slide of 2 percent to its lowest in a year, fuelled by funds flowing into riskier assets such as stocks and commodities and a drop in U.S. Treasury yields. The dollar’s reversal on Monday sent U.S. crude for October delivery tumbling…
Business
Retail majors bet big on business intelligence
Branded retail giants in the Rs 40,000-crore organised retail sector are betting big on adopting business intelligence (BI) software as a service (SAAS) model on monthly rent basis. With the move, the retailers plan to discontinue expensive software licences such as SAP, Oracle and Business Object. This is to counter a major challenge on how to save the time and cost in implementing BI solutions as a cost-effective measure, according to retailers and industry experts. Sunil Mehta, chief executive officer, Next Retail India Ltd from the belt of Videocon Industries Ltd (VIDEOIND.NS : 233.75 -2.4) said , “We first need…
Business
BSE Sensex falls 0.5 pct after 6-day rally
MUMBAI (Reuters) – The BSE Sensex (^BSESN : 16185.2 -79.1) dropped 0.5 percent Monday as investors locked in profits after a six-session rally, with weak Asian markets setting the direction. By 11:23 a.m. (0553 GMT), the 30-share BSE Index was down nearly 80 points at 16,185.94 points, with 20 components losing. The benchmark, which climbed 5.6 percent over the previous six sessions, had more than doubled last Tuesday from its March low. “There is very little room for buying at these levels,” said D.D. Sharma, vice-president, Anand Rathi Securities. “There might be pockets of demand at dips, but largely…
Facebook
MTV Partners With YoVille For VMA Promotion
YoVille, the popular Facebook virtual world, has partnered with MTV to help promote this weekend’s Video Music Awards. The campaign involves a number of integration points including custom MTV gear and items, a party at the virtual lounge “Sky Nightclub”, and an MTV VMA Room Contest. The promotion is one of the most integrated campaigns that we’ve seen on a Facebook virtual world and it’s a trend that we’d expect to continue.
I personally found the MTV VMA Room Contest to be one of the most entertaining promotions. Users are encouraged to design their room as stylishly as possible and…
Facebook
New Reports Suggests Tuesday And Wednesday Are Best Days To Post On Facebook
A new report published yesterday suggests that Tuesday and Wednesday are the best days to post status updates on Facebook. The reason is that click through rates are dramatically higher on those two days. It’s not surprising considering that this is a trend found around the web in traditional publishing channels. If you do a press release, the best days have traditionally been Monday through Wednesday as those are the days that most people read the news.
What was somewhat surprising was the substantial drop off in click through starting on Thursday. Content published on Thursday receives half the clicks…
Tech Support
Malicious Firefox Add-on Spies On Google Search Results
Trend Micro reports the discovery of a spyware (detected as TSPY_EBOD.A by Trend Micro) purporting to be an Adobe Flash Player update. Upon execution, the spyware creates a Firefox add-on called “Adobe Flash Player 0.2,” the installer of which uses JavaScript (detected as JS_EBOD.A) and appears to spread via forum posts.
The add-on injects ads into the user’s Google search results pages. More disturbing, however, is its capability to monitor the user’s browsing activities, particularly his/her Google search queries using the Firefox browser. It then sends the information it gathers to http://******jupdate.com.
Malware targeting Internet Explorer is probably one of…
Computer
how to keep your pc up to date
An important part of owning a personal computer is keeping your software up-to-date. Security patches, upgrades, and hotfixes need to be installed to make your computer safer while connected to the Internet. When using a computer running Microsoft Windows, this checklist can include windows, antivirus, antispyware, and firewall updates. However, for most computer users this can seem like a daunting task and I hardly ever work on a customer’s computer without finding at least one missing needed update concerning hardware or software. The Basic UpdatesWindows UpdatesAt the very least, you should keep your computer up-to-date with the latest Windows…
Facebook
CNN Money Comments Now Exclusively Powered By Facebook Connect
Earlier yesterday while stumbling across an article on the CNN Money site, I noticed that the comments were now exclusively powered through Facebook Connect. While there are no signs that this will become a broader trend for all of CNN, this is definitely a major move for one of the worlds largest global news organizations. One interesting thing to note is that this is for articles that previously didn’t have an embedded commenting feature.
While CNN’s blogs are not currently powered by Facebook Connect, it’s a big shift for any section of CNN to add commenting to news articles which…
Finance
Accept Business Credit Cards – Empower Your Business and Your Clients
Businesses today are increasingly making use of business credit cards to transact, both as vendors and as buyers. This trend in spite, there are still a number of vendors who do not accept business credit cards from their business clientele. The truth of the matter is that if such a vendor wishes to achieve higher trading volumes and increase its client base, accepting business credit cards changes from being an optional, to a must.
Accounts receivable is not only a nasty trap, but also creates a vicious cycle. Vendors that do not accept business credit cards, often agree to extending…
Facebook
Muggmaker Makes Animated Avatars on Facebook
Muggmaker is a new Facebook application that allows you to create animated avatars. The avatars can then be used as your profile photo on Facebook, or other social media sites. Unlike the trend for animating an existing photo of yourself, Muggmaker doesn’t convert existing photos but enables you to create an avatar entirely from scratch.
To get started, you’ll need Flash installed on your computer. From there, you can create a fully custom avatar, starting with a blank face. Add facial features such as eyes, nose, mouth, ears. Top things off with a funky hair style. Everything is customizable, from…
Facebook
Zynga Expands The Gap, Surpassing 60 Million Monthly Active Users
Zynga has been expanding the gap between them and competing developers now with over 60 million monthly active users when adding up the users across all their games. Playfish, the second largest application developer, has 35 million monthly active users, an impressive number however it’s still far from 60 million. So how does Zynga have such a dominant position on the platform?
The primary reason Zynga has such a dominant position is that they have 34 games, the top three of which add up to almost 40 million monthly active users alone. Not surprisingly, the company’s fastest growing game is…
