Thursday, September 02, 2010

Google Introduces New Beta Feature Gmail Priority Inbox

Thursday, September 02, 2010

Good news for people who do not have time to check mails regularly or those who get lot of mails throughout the day. Google introduced a new beta feature “Priority Inbox” which as the name suggests prioritizes your inbox. It learns from your email habits and categorizes your inbox to 3 sections: Important , Starred and Everything Else. It decides these categories under which contact you converse more or chat more or star the mails etc.

This feature makes your life easier when you do not have sufficient time to go through all the mails to find out your important mails. Also, this feature gets better with time as it learns with your email usage habit. Eventually it will even be helpful to segregate the unimportant and the spam mails which you can report spam or filter out of your inbox easily.

Here is the link to more details about the new feature from the Gmail’s official blog.

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People tell us all the time that they’re getting more and more mail and often feel overwhelmed by it all. We know what you mean—here at Google we run on email. Our inboxes are slammed with hundreds, sometimes thousands of messages a day—mail from colleagues, from lists, about appointments and automated mail that’s often not important. It’s time-consuming to figure out what needs to be read and what needs a reply. Today, we’re happy to introduce Priority Inbox (in beta)—an experimental new way of taking on information overload in Gmail.
Gmail has always been pretty good at filtering junk mail into the “spam” folder. But today, in addition to spam, people get a lot of mail that isn't outright junk but isn't very important—bologna, or “bacn.” So we've evolved Gmail's filter to address this problem and extended it to not only classify outright spam, but also to help users separate this "bologna" from the important stuff. In a way, Priority Inbox is like your personal assistant, helping you focus on the messages that matter without requiring you to set up complex rules.
Priority Inbox splits your inbox into three sections: “Important and unread,” “Starred” and “Everything else”:

As messages come in, Gmail automatically flags some of them as important. Gmail uses a variety of signals to predict which messages are important, including the people you email most (if you email Bob a lot, a message from Bob is probably important) and which messages you open and reply to (these are likely more important than the ones you skip over). And as you use Gmail, it will get better at categorizing messages for you. You can help it get better by clicking the or buttons at the top of the inbox to correctly mark a conversation as important or not important. (You can even set up filters to always mark certain things important or unimportant, or rearrange and customize the three inbox sections.)
After lots of internal testing here at Google, as well as with Gmail and Google Apps users at home and at work, we’re ready for more people to try it out. Priority Inbox will be rolling out to all Gmail users, including those of you who use Google Apps, over the next week or so. Once you see the "New! Priority Inbox" link in the top right corner of your Gmail account (or the new Priority Inbox tab in Gmail Settings), take a look.

Update

Google Priority Inbox is now available to Google Apps user as of today, 3rd September 2010.


Sunday, August 29, 2010

How to transfer feeds from one account to another

Sunday, August 29, 2010

 

FeedTransfer-1FeedTransfer-5FeedTransfer-2FeedTransfer-3FeedTransfer-4      Long back I had created an account with feedburner for creating feeds for my blog SMeher.com with a temporary account. Later I wanted to trasfer my feeds to my permanent account so that I could use the same google account for blogger, ad sense and feedburner. Today I discovered that there is a feature in feedburner which actually allows what I wanted (not sure if this feature was there earlier, but I discovered it just few minutes back). Here is few simple step to transfer your feeds from any account to any other account.

 

1. Login to FeedBurner.com

 

2. Click on the “Transfer Feed” link at the top of your dashboard (highlighted in the screenshot).

 

3. Enter the email address to which you want to transfer your feed and click on “Send Transfer Acceptance Request”.

 

4. Check the email to which you transferred the feeds to and click on the verify link.

 

5. You are ready to go!


Friday, August 27, 2010

Infrastructure Bond for Tax Saving - Analysis and Review

Friday, August 27, 2010

Recently Religare organized a camp in my office campus for selling the IFCI Infrastructure bonds which are a type of the new tax relief instrument from Govt. upto  A 20000.


I came across a nice article here with detailed analysis of the new tax relief instrument.


















IFCI Infra bond plan:


IFCI Tax Exemption Long Term Infrastructure Bonds
Issuer IFCI LimitedOffering 1,00,000 Unsecured, Redeemable, Non-Convertible, Taxable Bonds of Rs. 5,000/- each aggregating to Rs. 50 Crore with a green-shoe option to retain over-subscription for issuance of additional Infrastructure BondsType Private Placement basisInstrument Unsecured, Redeemable, Non-Convertible, Taxable Bonds having benefits under section 80 CCF of the Income Tax, 1961 for long term Infrastructure BondsRating BWR AA- by BRICKWORK RATINGS INDIA PVT LIMITEDEligible Investors Resident Indian Individual (Major) and HUF through Karta of the HUFSecurity UnsecuredFace Value Rs. 5,000/- per bondIssue Price At par (Rs. 5,000/- per bond)Minimum Subscription 1 Bond and in multiples of 1 Bond thereafter,Tenure 10 years, with or without buyback option after five yearsOptions for Subscription
The Bonds are proposed to provide the following options-
• Option I – Non-cumulative and Buyback after 5 years
• Option II – Cumulative and Buyback after 5 years
• Option III – Non-cumulative and no Buyback
• Option IV – Cumulative and no Buyback
Redemption / Maturity
At par at the end of 10th year from the deemed date of allotment. For Cumulative Option, at par with cumulated interest thereon.
Coupon rate
• Option I & II- 7.85% p.a.
• Option III & IV – 7.95% p.a.
In case of cumulative bonds, interest shall be compounded annually
Listing Proposed to be listed on BSETrustee Axis Trustee Services LimitedDepository National Securities Depository Ltd. and Central Depository Services (India) Ltd.Registrars Beetal Financial & Computer Services (P) Ltd.Mode of Payment
Interest payment will be made through ECS/At Par Cheques/Demand Drafts
Issuance Demat form onlyTrading Demat mode onlyIssue Open Date August 9, 2010Issue Close Date August 31, 2010
• The issuer would have an option to pre-close the issue by giving 1 day notice to the Arrangers
Deemed Date of Allotment September 15, 2010



Here is the article from Rediff business:


One of the fresh tax reliefs in the Budget 2010 is the deduction allowed for investing up to Rs 20,000 in infrastructure bonds.


Many media articles and the finance minister have said that this is a very positive thing. But how can the same thing be positive for every individual? If not negative, it should at least be neutral for many. Else life would be so boring.
This article will try to look the pros and cons of investing in infrastructure bonds for the sake of tax-saving. The analysis will be from the perspective of the different 'tax groups' post Budget 2010.
  • Tax group 1: Taxable income Rs 1.6 lakh to A5 lakh.
  • Tax group 2: Taxable income Rs 5 lakh to Rs 8 lakh.
  • Tax group 3: Taxable income above Rs 8 lakh.
To understand the pros and cons of any tax-saving investment, we need to look at four major parameters:
  • Actual tax-saving (let's take the highest saving possible);
  • Returns from the investment (during the lock-in period at the least);
  • Opportunity cost (what if the same money had been invested in some other investment?); and
  • Effect of Inflation on the returns on investment (what would the worth of your investment be when it comes to redeem/encash it?).
Assumptions
For the sake of parameter 2, we will have to make an assumption on the lock-in period (as nothing has so far been announced by the finance minister). As is generally the case with most tax-saving instruments we can assume two scenarios -- a 3-year lock-in and a 5-year lock-in.
Let's assume the rate of return on infrastructure bonds = 5.5% per annum.
Let's consider the overall rate of inflation at 8%.
For people in the Rs 1.6-5 lakh taxable income group, income will be taxed at the rate of 10%.
Parameter 1: Actual tax-saving: 10% of Rs 20,000 = Rs 2,000 (if you invest Rs 20,000 in the instrument you get to reduce your taxable income by Rs 20,000 thus giving a 10 per cent benefit).
Parameter 2: What will be the returns at the end of the lock-in period? For a lock-in period of 3 years an investment of Rs 20,000 would fetch an income of Rs 3,484. When added to the tax saved we get an effective return of Rs 25,485 (Rs 20,000 + Rs 3,484 + Rs 2,000) on our investment.
Parameter 3: If this same amount were to be invested in a market instrument that fetched a return of 15% (which is very reasonable considering that the benchmark Sensex and many mutual funds have given comparatively higher returns over a long period), the investment would fetch an effective return of Rs 27,376 (Rs 20,000 - Rs 2000 = Rs 18,000 invested @15% per annum for 3 years).
Parameter 4: What would be the minimum amount required to counter inflation at 8%? The amount would be Rs 25,194.
Thus we see that for a person in the Rs 1.6-5 lakh slab, the benefit from investing in an infrastructure bond as a tax-saving instrument will be only Rs 291 (Rs 25,485 - Rs 25,194) whereas the benefit from paying tax and investing the balance in any decent instrument would be Rs 2,182.
Similarly, we can calculate the benefits for each segment as well as for a scenario where the lock-in period is 5 years as given in the table below.
Rate of tax 
Investments in Infrastructure Bonds
Tax paid in lieu of investing in Infrastructure Bonds
Slab
Tax-savings
Effective Returns
Investment Returns from Market after Tax
3 years
5 years
3 years
5 years
30%
6,000
29,485
32,139
21,292
 28,159
20%
4,000
27,485
30,139
24,334
 32,182
10%
2,000
 25,485
28,139
27,376
 36,204
Required Returns to Counter Inflation Effect
 25,194
29,387
The bottomline
As seen from the table above, it makes sense for people in the over Rs 8 lakh taxable income slab to use the infrastructure bonds as a tax-saving instrument.
For the people in the Rs 5-8 lakh bracket, it would be advisable to invest in infrastructure bonds if the period of investment is 3 years, but not for five years and for those in the Rs 1.6-5 lakh bracket, it would be an absolute no-no to invest in Infrastructure Bonds for tax-saving purpose.
Note: The above example was calculated at a interest rate of 5.5%. IFCI offers a rate of 7.85 - 7.95%. From the calculation it seems like it's not a bad idea to go for the plan for 1.6-5 lacs taxable income group as well.

Friday, August 06, 2010

Symptoms of H1N1 flu

Friday, August 06, 2010

 

Swine Flu is threatening us again in India with another outbreak. Check the swine flu symptoms here if you are in doubt.

If you or a member of your family has a fever or high temperature (over 38°C/100.4°F) and two or more of the following symptoms, you may have H1N1 flu:

  • unusual tiredness 
  • headache
  • runny nose
  • sore throat
  • shortness of breath or cough
  • loss of appetite 
  • aching muscles
  • diarrhoea or vomiting

It makes sense to have a working thermometer at home, as an increase in temperature is one of the main symptoms. If you are unsure how to use a thermometer, go to How to take someone's temperature.

What to do

If you have flu-like symptoms, stay at home, take plenty of rest and use over-the-counter painkillers to relieve symptoms. If you are concerned, contact your GP, who will determine the most appropriate action to take.

High-risk groups

For most people, H1N1 flu is a mild illness. Some people get better by staying in bed, drinking plenty of water and taking over-the-counter flu medication.

However, some groups of people are more at risk of serious illness if they catch flu.

It is already known that you are particularly at risk if you have:

  • chronic (long-term) lung disease
  • chronic heart disease
  • chronic kidney disease
  • chronic liver disease
  • chronic neurological disease (neurological disorders include chronic fatigue syndrome, multiple sclerosis and Parkinson's disease)
  • immunosuppression (whether caused by disease or treatment)
  • diabetes mellitus

Also at risk are: 

  • patients who have had drug treatment for asthma within the past three years
  • pregnant women
  • people aged 65 and older
  • young children under five
Outlook

For most people, the illness appears to be mild. 

For a minority of people, the virus has caused severe illness. In many of these cases, other factors have been identified that are likely to have contributed to the severity of the illness. 

Where complications do occur, they tend to be caused by the virus affecting the lungs. Infections such as pneumonia can develop.


Original Post Here: NHS.uk



Sushanta Meher (Sushant) is a software professional and an avid blogger. He shares his thoughts and tips on various subjects through SMeher.com blog.
Sushanta Meher

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