Visiting Dubai? Must check this site - http://www.visitdubai.com/en

Keeping in view of the holidays theme and the upcoming Dubai Shopping festival, I thought of providing details on the sites that help travelers who visit Dubai.

The best site that's a must is http://www.visitdubai.com/en 

This site is maintained by Dubai Corporation of Tourism and commerce has all the details relevant for the travelers from Visa, stay to sites that are must visit inside dubai and the discounts that are available

The Best things first
1. It has a beautiful travel tool i.e Trip planner ( the best thing is they have an app too) which helps you to plan your trip itinerary and add it to your mobiles. Carry and tick mark things that you have visited and check the information about the places that you plan to visit on the go!. Cool.

2. The advised trip itinerary based on number of days of your visit. The normal question anyone has what to see first and what to experience next? and that too when your time is limited. The basics anyway are there to be covered ( Burj Khalifa, Gold Souq).. but the advised trip planner as per number your number of days of visit will ease your tensions and will give a jump start to your planning.

3. The discounts and the event planner links. Dubai is all about shopping and shopping and discounts go hand in hand. Check out the best discounts available and keep them in handy.. These discounts are for your stay, eat, relax,enjoy categories and will ease the burden of taking out your pocket every time. Enjoy your experiences and avail discounts .The events planner helps in checking what's running at the time of your visit be it a motor show or a GITEX

Now to areas of improvements
1. The site has heavy images and videos. So may have trouble on low bandwidths for opening up
2. Some of the links are not working ( esp the business set up ex. http://www.visitdubai.com/en/business-and-investment_new/business-culture/living-in-dubai)
which means the testing is not done properly..


Overall based on the content and helpful information , I would rate this site 4.5/5
Visit : http://www.visitdubai.com/en 

Welcome back

I started this blog way back in 2007 but I didn't continue it all these years. Well, the reasons can be many but the main reason is that I was lazy.
But today when I randomly checked the status of my blogs, I found to my surprise, this blog post has over 40000 page views. Wow. that's incredible for a person like me.

This has prompted me to start again and this time with more clarity and on new things.

I am going to focus on the sites that I visited.. there is no deviation on this. But, then this time I want to run a theme for a month. Say, the themes can be, the sites in Dubai, or the sites under a category ( wellness, Education etc). This way, I hope to focus better on the sites and their quality and also will help my viewers to easily check the sites organized under the same category.

I also wanted to list my own version of top 10 sites per week, in each category. The criteria will be
1. The content that is available on the sites   25%
2. The ease of use of the site ( in terms of contact information, navigation ) 25%
3. The theme of the site ( look and feel)  25%
4. Number of improvements  25%

Well, this is my rating and there are multiple sites that give these ratings as well and I have no competition with them.

In my next post, I am going to write about....what else? as this month being December and Christmas is approaching, Obviously the theme is based on Vacation sites and what one can do during the vacation in Dubai.

Thank you all my viewers and I sincerely apologize for my long absence. and I promise that I will be in touch with the viewers who request to review their websites.

Sites to be reviewed

I am lagging behind in reviewing sites on a daily basis. Neverthless, these are the sites that are going to be reviewed in the coming week.
http://www.fitness.com/
http://www.pgdp.net/c/ Distributed Proof readers
http://dli.iiit.ac.in/ Digital library of India
www.babiesonline.com
www.vedamantram.com

Keep coming back!

History In Pocket - For kids & numismatists

If you are a numismatist (A collector and student of money (and coins in particular)) then you would love to visit this site http://www.usmint.gov/kids/campCoin/collectorsWorkshop/.
This site provides information about coins and how to collect them.

Coins tell a lot about people, places and events. Knowing what clues to look for and what they mean provide you greater insight in knowing about the bygone era. This site provides step by step tutorial in understanding the nuts and bolts of coin collection starting from why people collect coins and how they do it. In next sections, it provides what clues to look into the coins and their inner meaning and gives tips of coin collection. There are some coin case studies to analyze and solve the mysteries. These are very intuitive in nature and are built on flash.

There are seven sections like games, time machine, cartoons, News about coins, Camp coins and lesson plans to teachers on how to educate kids about coin collection.
Games section provides simple to complex puzzles.. put real coins together and create your own coins etc..
Time machine is built on flash and gives you the option to choose any particular period from year 1667 till date. Once you choose any year, it provides information related to that year and a small puzzle related to the coins of that era. You need to choose the right outfit suitable to that year and enter the time machine and resolve the puzzle. Site provides key information about the year and the civilization details during the time machine travel. Its very informative for kids and for elders also and equally spectacular with nice flash animations.
Coin news is dedicated to all newsworthy about coins and camp coin is the place where one learns the art of coin collection. A guide on how to navigate and what each section meant is there to easily use the site.

Conclusion: Informative and fun filled site for kids and numismatists and to all who would like to learn a thing or two of history through coin’s lenses.

visit them at http://www.usmint.gov/kids/

Indiaparenting.com

Winner of 6th Britannica Internet guide,this site is very popular(http://www.indiaparenting.com/news/index.shtml) and is already been reviewd by major channels and I don;t have to write anything more about it. But would like to share my own experiences with this site.
They have a section to get lucky names by numerology and I use that section quite often and it has given me good results also. From their message boards section, we could find maid agencies in and around bangalore and could reach one and get a maid also. Ofcourse, the service of the agency after the payment is not up to the mark which cannot be blamed on this site anyway.

A very good and informative site for all parents and would be parents. It talks about stories to be told to our children to tips for their upbringing and informs about the responsibilities of parents. They have sections like Indian culture, Indian stories and legends, Indian prayers, Children Rhymes and songs and many more.

A must visit for all married people as they have some thing or other for them.
www.indiaparenting.com

For hungry Bangaloreans.. Find out who offers what and where..

Bangaloreans can now find the restaurants near to their place and order online. This services is offered to you by http://www.hungrybangalore.com/

It’s probably one of its kind of a site where you can search what hotels and restaurants that are operating in a particular area. The site claims to have details about more than 150 restaurants and the list is growing.

So, what’s the fun? I can google them also Yeah. You can google and get their contact numbers also. But, this site shows what the menu that particular restaurant is having and also the indicative price. So, you can choose your food and restaurant based on the weight of your wallet. Also, there is an option to reserve a seat to avoid disappointments at later stage. If you are not I a mood to visit, you can order online also.. and what’s more.. the service is free. Keep in mind that not all restaurants of this site offer these services but there are plenty which are participating in this service.

If you are in a mood to relinquish the tastes of Rajastani or Persian or simple south Indian, just search the hotels according to their specialty and enjoy their dishes. If you don't have time to order during the work day, order ahead and specify a later preparation time and delivery time.

You can browse through different recipes submitted by members. You can also submit a secret recipe and win free meal vouchers and if you want to provide a feedback on a restaurant you can do so for the benefit of all others.

You can plan a party by providing your details and I think they will contact you with options. I haven’t tried yet this option though! They have a good FAQ section both for customers and for restaurant owners to know more in detail about their services.

Conclusion: Next time you want to give a party or want to enjoy a special variety of food.. you know now where to log on to. .. www.hungrybangalore.com

Know your googling - make your search easier and focused

Name of the site: www.googleguide.com
One of the most popular search engines undoubtedly is google, so much so that the word searching is now being replaced by the word “googling” in day to day conversations. But, many of use would not have used the search engines capabilities fully, largely because we may not be aware of its strengths. But now, we have an option to know and understand how google works and also how we can use its capabilities to our advantage. Searching can be made easier and focused using these search capabilities.

You can find the guide to google at http://www.googleguide.com/
It’s an online tutorial where one can find and learn details about googling. In this guide, you can learn

How to place your query to search more effectively

What happens inside google engine once you click the word “go” meaning how google is going to interpret your search

The additional details available with our search results like cache, similar pages, sponsored links etc

What to do if we are not satisfied with our results

How to search locally and how to use synonym search / domain specific search

• And how actually google search engine works and what is the process of any search engines and the related terminology like crawler, robot etc.
  
  It has a neat interface with options to jump to which ever part we want to go. So, if you are finished one chapter and next day you can jump start from next chapter from the home page itself. Also, option is there to choose novice or experienced user according to your understanding of the search engine.
  
  Conclusion: A highly recommended site for all to fasten their search and get focused results and also to know how and what many unknown features are available in google search. Of course, one can get some of the details from google’s advance search tips page; this site provides elaborate details and is like a tutorial which one can refer when ever he is in doubt. You have an option to print the complete guide or only those parts which you feel are important. The tutorial is available in Hebrew and Danish languages also.