"Are you from India?" - the Amway/Quixtar pick up line

I am not from India - I am from Pakistan. But I have been approached a couple of times by Amway/Quixtar people with this "pick-up line". Other pick-up lines might be "Didn't you go to Cal State Fullerton?" or "Don't you work at Cisco?". Whether you answer yes or no, what the person is trying to do is strike up a conversation with you (a complete stranger) and "become your friend". Typical places where this might happen include Walmart, Target, Barnes and Noble, and desi grocery stores. After a few minutes of conversation, they tell you how they have a business opportunity they would like to discuss with you. They might refer to the nature of the business as e-business, franchising, outsourcing, individually owned business, marketing, or a number of other things. They will talk to you about "residual income" and "owning your own business" and how to get rich quickly.

Amway/Quixtar s a multi-level marketing scheme that you should stay away from. There is so much information on it on the web, with numerous sites dedicated to the topic - I am not going to go into the details. Check out http://www.amquix.info. There a ton of eBook and paperbacks available - if you have time, read the free eBook - Merchants of Deception. And remember - when things look/sound too good to be true, they usually are.

Next time someone approaches you with the "Are you from India?" question, respond back with "Not if you are going to talk to me about Quixtar!"

Best way to call Pakistan from the U.S. - ringpakistan

I have very little patience for poor voice quality and dialing long calling card numbers and PINs. Last year, with the launch of ringpakistan, there was finally a high quality service available with many "cool" features for calling Pakistan from the United States. Here are at least ten reasons why I use ringpakistan for calling Pakistan (in no particular order):

1) Calls go through immediately. Vonage was terrible for calling Pakistan. Although it is better now, it is still sometimes difficult calling certain numbers through Vonage. Also when there is an earthquake or Eid or something, Vonage sucks, and ringpakistan seems to be able to get through even at these times.

2) Calls are CLEAR. MUCH better quality than Vonage. Much better than Skype. No funny VoIP stuff going on here.

3) Can be used from any phone. There is no need for a PC or any special hardware. Vonage only works wherever you take the hardware box. I even use ringpakistan from my work and cell phones.

4) Don't have to buy any calling cards. Buy online, and keep recharging with your credit card. No need to go to any shops. The PIN number remains the same.

5) Speed dials! I have my nani's and dadi's numbers in there, plus others. Very easy to remember, but more important than that, very CONVENIENT to have "*1" as nani, "*2" as dadi, etc. Love it!

6) No PIN required. If you configure your home number, cell phone, etc on their web site, you don't even have to enter a PIN! I have the 800 number for ringpakistan on my cell phone, which when combined the speed dial capability of ringpakistan, provides an ultra-convenient system! Call Pakistan anytime from anywhere easily.

7) Call rounding done in SECONDS. Most calling cards or other services round up calls to 1 minute or 3 minute increments, or even in the best case, 6 second increments.

8) No funny connection charges, surchages, etc. Just a simple per-minute rate.

9) Benefits Pakistanis. The company is owned by Pakistani enterpreneur, Monis Rahman, and so the profits are going to Pakistanis.

10) Very competitive low rate. Currently 9.9c/minute.

Since its launch, ringpakistan has added numerous other features - calling from Pakistan to the US, calling from the US to other countries, conference calls, etc. I don't use any of these extra features, but if you are interested, check out their web site at http://www.ringpakistan.com.

Disclosure: I am not affiliated with ringpakistan in any way other than being a regular customer.

"The Agency Delta"

Although I thoroughly enjoy reading fiction, I have not read it [literally] in years. Recently, I came across an eBook written by Blake Schwendiman that is being distributed for free. I did not really know what the book was about, but once I started reading it, I could not stop until I finished it. Although it is sci-fi, it is more about people and social aspects (which is exactly what I like about Asimov's books). This book is full of suspense! Read it for yourself... The Agency Delta.

Web Site Renovation!

I spent a lot of time over the last few days "upgrading" my web site. Though much of the content remains the same, I updated all the underlying code. Frames are gone, and the navigation is now on the top instead of the left. My entire web site is now written using W3C standards using XHTML 1.0 Transitional and CSS. There are NUMEROUS benefits to using XHTML and CSS, including:

• Separation of the data and presentation layers
• Cleaner and more structured markup language
• Increased interoperability with newer browsers on mobile devices, etc.
• Compliance with standards such as XML

All the pages and the CSS have also been validated using the W3c markup validation service.

The web site has been tested fine to work with IE 6.0 on Windows and Firefox 1.x. However, the layout will now look REALLY ugly in the 4.0 and prior browsers as they are poor at supporting web standards such as CSS.

New sections have also been added. The blog is new, as is the articles section. Given that I have now started a blog, you might actually see updates from me more often. But that remains to be seen :-)