India - the good, the bad and the ugly

This is my last post in India, and I wanted to write about the things I've noticed and learnt along the way, although there is so much that I'm sure I'll miss something:

1. Indian men are often sen walking hand in hand and arm in arm - in fact they are not gay (apparently), it is just the way. Homosexuality is actually illegal in this Country although Mumbai is leading the fight against this law.
2. A country of contradictions - Indian people are known to brush their teeth for 20 minutes or more. They are actually incredibly hygienic in the way they eat and share food and drink, never touching the mouth of a bottle with their lips. However the streets are their landfills, and the rivers their sewers and many people have luminous orange teeth.
3. In some regions of India, widows are complete outcasts of society. It used to be that they were burnt to death and some say that this still happens although it is rare.
4. If you are born into a low Hindu caste, and you get sick, you might refuse treatment and put your life in fate's (or the gods) hands. I learnt this from a Spanish girl who was working for MSF in the Bihar region after the floods this year.
5. In Delhi (and elsewhere), people tap into the electricity grid illegally, and if you walk the streets with your eyes to the sky you'll see knots and tangles of wires pulled in through people's windows.
6. Speaking of electrics - why are there SO many switches everywhere? Every room I've entered has a minimum of 6 switches, although only 1 light and 1 fan.
7. People advertise their children in the local papers (in Delhi) for arranged marriages. Similar to a lonely hearts column.
8. Indian salesmen are the best in the world.
9. A camel costs from 10000-20000 rupees (GBP 130 - 250)
10. During Diwali, thousands of Owls are sacrificed - tortured, mutilated and bled to death as a sacrifice to bring wealth and fortune.
11. As urban growth accelerates, so do pollution levels. For the past 15 years the Indian Government has been procrastinating about introducing a high capacity bus system that allows buses to run in dedicated lanes where no other vehicles can enter. It is cheap as it doesn't require new road space to be constructed. This has been proven to work in South America and other countries, yet still hasn't been introduced anywhere here yet. At times in these cities you can barely breathe or see past the smog, and no-one seems to care to do anything about it.
12. The poverty. I was naive and stupid to think that it wasn't that bad. I thought that, although India is a developing country, the economy was catching up rapidly with the west. Now I'm not convinced. I can understand why global warming is not high up on the agenda when the majority of people are just surviving on 100 rupees a day. Last night I walked back at night, past the men sleeping in their taxis, or on the pavement amongst the giant rats and stench of urine. If I hadn't looked down I may have stood on the small 2 or 3 year old, wearing nothing but a vest curled up asleep on the road. I wanted to take him home but then what about the other children, mothers and babies? There doesn't seem to be a refuge for them. I can buy a big bag of rice that will last a boy 4 months, and maybe some milk so that a mother can feed her baby, but then what? And what about the others? At first it was a challenge, and then there was pity and frustration, and then a certain numbness to it all. And now I feel tired and very sad.
    

Although I feel relieved to be leaving in a way, I also feel a horrible guilt to be turning my back on these people. Ghandi would be disappointed in me. Maybe I should take a leaf out of his book and give up my material life and devote myself to the poor. But I know I'm not going to. I'll go straight back to my nice flat, with my nice clothes and expensive food and moan about the weather in England.

I think I understand this country less now than I did before I arrived. It's such a massive, unique blend of history, culture, character and religion and to get to the heart of it would take a lifetime. One thing I do know for sure is that I will definitely be coming back - Bollywood beckons.

Do you want to be a Bollystar?

Quick recap - Sam and I travelled from Delhi to Goa last week, visited a few sunny beaches, explored the capital, Panjim, and then headed to Mumbai for our last few days. There's not much to tell when it comes to Goa - perhaps it's because I'm from Jersey and have been spoilt with beautiful beaches my whole life. The difference in Goa is that there are more beach huts, stoned hippies (debatable), palm trees, and people selling fresh pineapple. Also, the sunset seems to be bigger and more red. In Goa I felt like I was cheating slightly, and had actually left India - although it's the same continent it really does feel like a different country.

Enough about Goa, Mumbai is much more interesting. The home of Bollywood and the Gateway to India. Bollywood. Sam and I both were offered the opportunity to be Bollystars for the day - 13 hours on set for a massive 500 rupees (GBP 6). Miles away, beyond the shanty villages, are the Bollywood studios. Apparently much of the filming is carried out in western Europe, and when the budget is tight, they relocate the sets to the North Mumbai studios. Because the majority of the films are shot in western Europe, they require western actors to fill in the studio sets to retain the balance. It seems so odd to me but it's the way it works. Apparently light skin is a hit - there are even skin-lightening creams advertised on tv (for men and women).

Back to Bollywood - originally we were excited, but that wore off after 5 hours of sitting around, being told conflicting information, and being dressed up like stupid dolls. Fortunately I got away with it and it was only Sam who had to act (actually ACT!), as the maid. I watched the filming and the shouting and the chaos unfold, relieved to be allowed to sit and read my book whilst poor Sam suffered. Finally it ended at about 10pm with Sam on the verge of tears after being bullied and misled for most of the day.

This morning I was accosted by two more scouts asking me to be an extra in Bollywood. But thankfully I fly out tonight.

Do you like spinach?

After Jaipur, we caught another bus to Pushkar, where we had heard they were holding their annual camel fair. We arrived at the hotel Sony had recommended us which was hidden in the backsteets of the town. On arrival we were held up by the manager for a long time on the roof, as he explained to us the sights of Pushkar. We soon found out that he was trying to stall us whilst tapping into the electricity line, so that we wouldn't find out about the lack of power. It didn't matter, we stayed as it was clean and cheap enough.

Pushkar surround a holy water lake lined with Ghats - on finding the lake we were immediately accosted by some self-proclaimed priests who instructed us to wash our hands and face with the illuminous green water and pay stupid amounts of money for a string bracelet and our families safety! I have never felt so cheated and angry in my life.

However, we weren't there to find enlightenment and good karma, we were there for the camels. And they were incredible. For as far as the eye could see, camels and nomads with brightly coloured turbens were scattered across the dusty landscape. We stayed watching for hours and it has to be one of the highlights for me so far.

I have to show you a picture of a dinner we had in Pushkar - I asked the waiter what he recommended and his response was: 'Do you like spinach'? I said yes and went for the spinach and veg curry, whilst Sam went for the stuffed pepper. However, we both ended up with this:

The Indian sales technique

Just to let you know that I've finally managed to put a few pictures on and added some Taj Mahal pictures to the last post. It's been a crazy week and so much has happened. From Agra we caught a bus to Jaipur where we were driven high-speed around the city by Sony, our friendly auto-rickshaw driver. He took us to the Maharajah's palace which was amazingly beautiful, and after that he took us on a tour of his mates shops! This is where I learnt about Indian Salesmen, and why it is they're the best in the world:

1. Pay rickshaw driver commission for bringing the unsuspecting tourist to your shop.
2. Tell customer to take off their shoes when they enter - makes it feel special for them, and also makes them feel at home.
3. Drug customer with Chai.
4. Show customer how product is made.
5. Tell customer it is the only place in the country where you can find such quality.
6. Bring out every type of product you have and put it in front of the customer. This takes time, and customer feels bad that you have gone to such trouble.
7. Emphasize quality, beauty, and uniqueness.
8. Be persistent and don't let them walk out of the door until they have seen everything there is to see, heard everything there is to hear, and spent everything there is to spend.

Dirt, Smog and the Taj Mahal

This will be a short post as I'm feeling very tired and smogged out today. I now have a travelling companion, Sam, although in her short time in India she has already been suffering from a nasty sick bug which kept her head in the toilet for the majority of last night. We spent the day on a very crowded (by which I mean that half the passengers were travelling on the roof) bus from Agra to Jaipur where we've got lucky with a nice hotel near the centre.

Yesterday we were in stinky Agra for the day and visited the Taj Mahal and the Red Fort. Unbelievably foreigners get charged 75 times that of Indian residents to get in but it was worth it nevertheless. The Taj is actually a tomb - Shah Jahan had it built for his wife when she died giving birth to her 14th (or maybe 12th) child!

I'm afraid there are to pictures to post yet (although I took about 100), as I haven't got the right cable, so I'll keep this a short and dull entry. Rajestan is a tiring place but hopefully tomorrow I'll wake up with a new lease of life and some much-needed assertiveness...

28 years old and scared of the dark

I arrived back in Delhi this morning at 4am after having just had my first Indian adventure - one that I doubt I'll ever forget. I went to Rishikesh on the advice of my friend Katy. Unfortunately I didn't follow her guidance on how to get there and had one of the worst travelling experiences of my life. Clare's driver, Sunil, dropped me off a Delhi's central bus station in the morning a few days ago - on the way in the middle of 5 lanes of traffic, was an elephant meandering along the road. I've decided it was an omen.


At the bus terminal I was immediately followed by a number of men through the station and there wasn't another traveller in sight. I can't begin to explain what the station is like - suffice to say I was eager to leave after about 30 seconds. A man approached me and told me there was a 'deluxe' tourist bus (lie number 1) to Rishikesh (lie number 2) which took 6 hours (lie number 3). The bus was full of Indian people and there was one seat available right at the back in the middle of the aisle. Before I knew what was going on my bag was on the bus, and I was on my way.

We drove for a few hours slowly as the traffic was bad due to Divali on the weekend. More people got on and stood in the middle of the bus. I was glad they were there because they blocked my view out the front window of the bus. A man on the bus asked me if I was searching for my spiritual guru in Rishikesh. When I said no he looked at me like I was the devil and didn't speak to me again for the rest of the journey.

By the time we get to our final destination (not Rishikesh) it was dark. Everyone was turfed out onto the street which I later found out was just on the outskirts of Haridwar, 25km from Rishikesh. After a few more Rickshaw journeys, and being thrown out onto the street in various random places, I arrived in Rishikesh. I was dropped at the top of a hill and the driver gestured ahead into the darkness. I walked down a long windy road in the pitch black, found the bridge which Katy had told me about and, on the verge of tears at this point, I found a hotel.

The next two days were completely magical days. I met some wonderful people, did lots of yoga classes, walked along the River Ganges and witnessed the Divali festival. You have to dodge the street fireworks but the atmosphere is electric.

I have decided that it's been a good thing to have such a bad introduction to travelling in India alone, because every day since has been a wonderful surprise. I now feel completely energised, and although I didn't find my spiritual guru, I did find a strength I didn't know I had and a respect for the Hindi people who can be so kind and generous, and can party harder than I thought was possible in the absence of alcohol. Speaking of which - Andy's left me a beer in the fridge - time to go.

Delhi - magic and mayhem

I don't think anyone can prepare you for the sights, sounds and smells of Delhi. I'd spoken to a few of my hardened traveller friends about what to expect, but this place goes beyond anything that my imagination could handle. Yesterday I arrived in the morning and was picked up by Sunil, my good friend Clare's driver. He was expecting to pick up two people - 'Gilly' and 'Challinor' - so it took a short while to persuade him that I was travelling alone. He kindly reminded me that I was not allowed to sit in the front seat and drove me to Clare and Andy's beautiful apartment in Sector 15, Noida, on the outskirts of Delhi.

The smog, dust and mass of contruction work going on is astounding. I have never been a place so polluted as this. And I now know why my friends have a driver because there is a very particular style of driving in India that would astound even an experienced Italian driver. The road markings are completely futile, and the car horn takes the place of indicators. Apparently there are 1000 more cars on the road every day in Delhi - it's a wonder the traffic moves at all.

Yesterday afternoon I tried to brave the streets of Delhi - my mission was to go into the centre and buy some mosquito repellant. I didn't get far. Delhi is so spread out so I knew the only way was to get a motor rickshaw. But after spending 15 minutes trying to cross the road, and another 15 trying to stop a rickshaw, I gave up. How pathetic!

Today was much more successful - mostly because Clare took the day off to show me around. We went to a mesmerising Sikh Temple, wondered around the streets and markets of Old Delhi, and got escorted out of the biggest mosque in Delhi. It was because I was filming in the courtyard and hadn't paid for the privelage. I'm learning.

I have approximately 43 mosquito bites, and a very sweaty back, but I'm feeling much more relaxed and happy than yesterday, mostly thanks to Clare and Andy. Tomorrow I'm braving it alone. Although I'm beginning to think that you're never alone in India.

London, Japan and Round the World flights

Now that we’re all content with reading, writing, listening, watching and buying online, is there anything left for us to try? It’s important to ask yourself this now and again in order to keep up with the internet’s ever-changing technologies and uses.

Central to any advances in the internet from now on is internet speed. This will change the entire ethos of media distribution. What's the point in having a tv or dvd player if you can watch the same programme at the same high quality over the internet?

According to The Washington Post article: "Japan's Warp-Speed Ride to Internet Future,” the Japanese are already way ahead of us in internet connection speed. Broadband service in Japan is eight to 30 times as fast as in the United States, and considerably cheaper. Japan has the world's fastest internet connections, delivering more data at a lower cost than anywhere else, recent studies show.

So once we’ve caught up with Japan’s technology, where will that leave us?
One of the major changes we’ll see over the coming years will be in media. News and publishing will all move even further online and we’ll be able to watch, read or download a good deal more than we do currently.

Another advance which I’m hoping for is in schools education. Schools (rather than universities) are still quite behind in making the best use of internet technology and I think that there could potentially be some leaps forward in the coming years.

And finally, the last change which I hope we’ll see sometime in the next 10 years or so will be that network security concerns will be resolved and online voting will take off, resulting in an increased voter turnout.

One thing that I don’t think will change is our need for the human travel agent. Try to book a round the world flight online and you'll notice your blood pressure rising, eye twitching and fist clenching from the frustration of it.

Is the firewall dead?

One of the last things we do at Webreality prior to putting an ecommerce store 'live' is to configure and activate the firewall. This is a complex procedure that needs the attention of a developer as it requires considerable understanding of network protocols and of computer security. In essence a firewall makes a website secure so that it is safe from viruses and worms. A firewall protects networked computers from intentional hostile intrusion that could compromise confidentiality or result in data corruption or denial of service.

Recently however, the Google security specialist Niels Provos made the bold statement that 'the firewall is dead'. He said this because the firewall does not inspect data that is downloaded through internet browsers - a loophole that attackers are starting to exploit. What this means is that attackers can infect PCs with 'bot' software which turns computers into zombies that can be remotely controlled. Until recently these 'bot' programs arrived at computers via spam email as downloads. Now they can come through seemingly ordinary websites and you may not even be aware of the malicious software as it installs itself.

This 'bot' technology is evolving at an alarming rate but thankfully internet security specialists are keeping up and constantly looking into new ways to track the 'botmasters'. So is the firewall dead? I hope not because it is an essential tool for keeping our internet safe and secure. However, it seems that it might not be enough to prevent malicious software from doing the rounds on the world wide web. So it is important to always take steps to keep your PC safe:

1. Keep your web browser up to date. If you haven't already done so it's time to install IE7 or the latest version of firefox.
2. Don't click on links within spam emails....Ever
3. Don't be sucked in by free software offers
4. Pay attention to warnings provided by search engines (they're displayed next to the hyperlinks.)
5. Make sure your anti-virus software is up-to-date.

Click fraud - worth the worry?

As pay per click (PPC) advertising gains popularity, more and more of our customers are raising concerns about click fraud, which is still a pretty fuzzy area. So what is it? PPC adverts are those 'sponsored links' that you see at the top and down the right hand side of the Google search page. Every time a web browser clicks on one of those links, the advertiser pays a small fee to Google. So on the one hand you don't have to rely on the organic search engine rankings, but on the other hand you are paying the search engine to help people to find your website.

With the correctly configured advert you can direct the 'searcher' straight to the page you wish them to land on and see. But what if someone starts clicking on your advert 20 times a minute? Even if you're only paying 10p per clickthrough it's still costing you £120 per hour! Even worse there are automated scripts available which can imitate legitimate web browsers clicking on ads - it may be against the law but as most things internet it is very difficult to track down the culprit.

In February Google announced that they are now making it possible to block certain competitor IP addresses from receiving ads in the hope that this will stop rivals from clicking on ads over and over again. Click Forensics, which provides click fraud services and operates a Click Fraud Index survey of advertisers and agencies, pegs the click fraud rate for the top tier search engines at just under 12 percent.

If you are concerned about this issue then there are a number of programs such as clicktracks and clickdefense that can be used to review and compare sessions, conversion rates, costs, IP addresses etc. in order to detect possible click fraudsters. PPC advertising is a major revenue source for the big search engines so they do take click fraud very seriously. Google and Overture will automatically detect some instances of click fraud and will not charge for these. If you do suspect that you are paying more than you should be on PPC advertising due to click fraud then the best thing you can do is to alert the search engines of the problem and let them do your dirty work.

In my opinion it would be wrong to be deterred from PPC advertising because of click fraud fears - with a well-thought-out campaign, the benefits of this type of advertising far outweigh the potential drawbacks.

Shameful - but not as bad as some!

I know, it has been over a month since my last gem of advice and it's not even the holiday season. Shameful. I've been busy but I think I could have found a spare twenty minutes to be writing a blog. Blogging though is one of those things that if you leave it for too long the whole concept morphs into an irritating niggle at the back of your mind which is far easier to ignore than to face. Perhaps that's how our local politicians are feeling about it.

Recently I've come across a number of indivuals who play a big part in our island politics and although they talk about starting their own blog very few of them if any are willing to share their insights online. I don't understand it, what are they so afraid of?

The web has become a participation-orientated medium - one where presidential hopefuls can win votes through youtube and social networking sites such as meetup.com. In America, Barack Obama, the new US presidential hopeful, is recruiting supporters via facebook - another social networking site. The site is popular with students who may otherwise not be interested in voting.

Yes it's true that sometimes the web can work against you - providing you're doing something wrong in the first place. But if not then at least you can fight your own corner. I think it's about time the States members took matters into their own hands and started participating with their islanders online. It takes less than 5 minutes to set up a blog, you may even learn something - it's really not such a scary prospect is it?

XML vs HTML

HTML (Hyper Text Markup Language) is the language we use to build webpages. If you right click on a webpage and [view source], invariably notepad will open with a page full of gobbledigook but somewhere near the top you'll see the tag html. This is the language of the web and it tells the web-browser WHAT to display.

HTML can also go hand in hand with CSS (Cascading Style Sheets) which tell the web-browser IN WHAT WAY to display the html instructions. For instance, go to the webreality website, right click on any area of white space to [view source], and about 20 lines down find the sentence which reads [div id="navigationcontainer"]. Underneath that you'll notice lots of tags within which read [li]. These are list items and are referring to the navigation links on the website:



However, it is the CSS which tells the website to display these links in a straight horizontal line, with the white dashes in between and in a white font.

So what I'm saying is that there are two main elements to building a website:

1. HTML - Tells the web-browser what to display
2. CSS - Tells the web-browser where and how to display

However, HTML has a cousin called XML - like HTML it also identifies elements in the webpage and it uses a very similar syntax to HTML. However XML is much more portable and can be used in many different types of applications. It is for this reason that, with the advent of Web2.0, XML will probably end up replacing HTML altogether.

However at the moment not all browsers support the XML language so for now HTML is still the primary language of the web. If you'd like to understand this more have a look at the video below.

Google tip: Why it's useful to search your own website URL

Google has a few tricks up its sleeve to help you see how your website is doing. In the Google searchbar there are a number of operators you can use to bring up information on your website.

Firstly, if you type in site:www.yourdomain.com, Google will bring up every single page within your site that has been trawled and indexed. If it brings up no records, then your URL has not been indexed and needs to be submitted. To do this, go to: http://www.google.com/addurl/. You can also use the [site:] command to find particular pages of your website. For instance, type into the searchbar SEO site:www.webreality.co.uk and Google will find the page(s) within the webreality site that contain information on search engine optimisation (SEO).



One of our clients the other day had inadvertantly managed to delete a section of their website. Rather than rolling back the database we were able to retrieve the content of that page by using the [cache:] command. The query [cache:] will show the version of the web page that Google has in its cache, in other words the last snapshot that was taken during the trawl.

Another useful operator is the [link:] command which will bring up all of the webpages linking to your website. Inbound hyperlinks are effective in improving your search engine rankings, especially if the link comes from meaningful keywords.

But remember, when it comes to search engines, content is a key factor in maintaining and improving upon rankings. To keep the search engines trawling it is important to make sure you update your site regularly with meaningful and useful copy.

Sock-Puppet Marketing and Bad Karma

It seems as though people are cottoning on to the power of cyberspace marketing. But before you start throwing your money at Google or any agency that claims to know the ins and outs of e-marketing, it's worth knowing what to watch out for.

I recently learnt about 'sock-puppet marketing' which is a means of promoting yourself by way of fake online identities. Software writer, Will Shipley recently observed a number of suspicious instances of 'private' postings on the web that look like endorsements of products and services but which have actually been planted by the manufacturers themselves. The use of virtual identities, also known as 'avatars' is completely legal and currently there is no way of policing it.

Morally it seems a bit wrong to me that through dissing your competitors, and praising your own products you can drive traffic to your site and increase ratings. Such is the power of the web. The fact of the matter is that anyone can play that game. Anyone is entitled to have their say, and if its on the web, then equally anyone can read it. What goes around comes around. So it's worth checking up on your online reputation - it's easy and cheap to set up regular searches for your brand within blogs, forums and general search engines, and that way you can head off any bad press at the pass.

In my opinion sock-puppet marketing is a futile marketing exercise - the more it is used, the less trustworthy it becomes. And if a company requires to stoop to such levels to win business then surely their reputation is beyond repair in any case.

Anti-Virus software and my new PC

I've just bought myself my first very own PC which means that I truly am becoming a computer geek. After lots of deliberation I went for a Dell, partly due to cost, reputation and familiarity, and mostly because that's what my sister was getting.

Getting the thing up and running was actually pretty pain-free which I found surprising. It seems that Dell has come up with a product so idiot-proof that even I couldn't mess it up. According to Tom the machine's got a decent specification (although not as decent as his of course), so I'm pretty happy.

But I have reached my first hurdle - Antivirus software. I bought McAfee with it but I haven't installed it yet since I heard that it makes your computer crawl, as does Norton apparently. Tom and Liam both suggest AVG as it's free (for now at least), and works really well. According to the most recent reviews, The Shield Pro is rated top for effectiveness, customer service, ease of use amd low cost. However for more advanced users, Kaspersky 6.0 comes highly recommended.

So that's my lesson learnt; next time I'll do my research first. And in the mean time I think I might have to return Mr McAfee back to the Delhi Dells and start again.