Monday, June 20, 2011

epub

Hi All,

epub is not any electronic pub for boozing... ;) Its a e-book file format originated as an open e-book format standard by the International Digital Publishing Forum (IDPF).

These files have .epub file extension.

This post explains how to open books of .epub file format in Debian.

You have 2 readers to read .epub files.

1. FBReader and 2. okular book reader

Use synaptic to search for: fbreader, okular and okular-extra-backends packages. Upon installation you can read the books.

Note that a normal compressed pdf file of around 20Mb file size is less than 10Mb size if its in .epub extension.  :)

Enjoy reading,
Ananth Gouri

Wednesday, June 8, 2011

VCC

Hi,

So for all of you who thought for a while - this vcc is something similar to our good old friend gcc.. Sorry ;) And for the rest - this post is not anything related to Linux stuff at all..

Read it out to know yourself..

I was unfortunate not to get a credit card till date.. I must correct it to say - I 'am' :(

But these days - I started feeling the pinch of it more and more and I was in dire needs of getting a Credit card... I contacted most of the banks in and around my place but in vain - as they had their own criteria for giving me one or I did not like their options..

So I thought it was the end from my side and was dependent on my friends who already had one.. But many a times my friends were so busy that I could never get the job done - or buy the things I wanted on time. Me  being extremely impatient - would finally let it go..

But recently when I was again in the search of an alternative for this.. I saw some posts in a forum where it said about a virtual credit card in Paypal.com.. I was thrilled - but that did not last long as I came to know that though I have a Paypal account for long time now - they dont offer any credit cards to India due to our RBI guidelines...

One last hope lost.. I was pissed off - but today... Yes I found yet another site called EntroPay.com :) visit it at www.entropay.com and create a free account.. This site provides you Prepaid Virtual Visa Card.

Once you have got a free account - you can link your regular debit card / netbanking account to this vcc... You can transfer from minimum of 20$ to max 2k$ :)

Once you have transferred the amount to the card(Note that the site would charge you 4.5% of the total amount you transfer each time to your vcc), you can do any transaction as if you own a credit card..

The best part is - the site gives you a dummy card picture in your profile with the 16 digit number, valid upto date , name of yours on the card and as well as the cvv (Card verification value).

All you need to do is - do any shopping in any of the sites that support VISA. Thats it.. Once you are in the check out page - just give in the vcc card number, valid upto date, and the cvv code and the name on your vcc card.

Some points are:

1. This is a complete debit card type process only. You transfer money from your debit card through some net banking process to this card. So if you don't have money in your account - you cant do anything...
2. The process is secure enough and need not worry at all. But I or my blog is not responsible for anything that happens by trying this out. Please do the process under your own risk. I did not face any problems - thats what I meant.
3. The whole system is maintained by a company called Ixaris Systems Ltd, Great Britain.
4. One sad thing is - you cant get the feature of a plastic virtual credit card of entropay due to the same guidelines of RBI that Paypal also follow.

Last but not the least.. You can also link your paypal account to this vc card - where this card acts as a regular Credit card. Note that Paypal.com does not link any debit cards of Indian Banks.. You would now have the advantage of doing enough online shopping since most of the sites these days support Paypal service.

Do let me know your experience if you use this :)

Dont forget to leave thanks ;)
Ananth G S

Fading out...

Dear All,

This is for all of you folks - who may have thought that this blog is fading to darkness.. Nope thats not the case.. I was damn busy with some exams, valuation, invigilation and stuff like that - hope you guys dont forget that I am a lecturer now and not a developer...

But any how - I would keep you guys posted and will start writing more posts over time...

But do wait for me and keep visiting my blog once in a while though not regularly...

Cheers :)
Ananth G S