Indian comparison shopping sites

Did you know, India has 120 million Internet users & the Indian e-commerce market is worth $7 billion? Travel accounts for over 80 percent of the e-commerce market.

Forbes believes "the rise of e-commerce is significant because it shows the limitations of physical retailing and the rise of aspirations of small town India. Between the large unorganised retail (kiranas and unbranded supermarkets) that serves the masses and modern retail that serves the aspirational class in large cities, there lies a thin wedge of aspirational classes who live in dusty towns. The economics of physical retailing have always left them short changed."

(Update: 25-Apr-2012, Economist) "Nowadays more than 100m surf the web. Close to 30m scour for bargains online, and the number which grows by 1.5m every month. The industry is worth around $10 billion, though travel-ticket sales alone accounted for $8.4 billion last year....There is certainly room for growth. E-commerce accounts for just 0.12% of all retail sales in India, compared with over 4% in China and America. But expect growing pains. Even Flipkart, arguably the most successful online retailer, has yet to turn a profit."

Yet another indicator of the rise of e-commerce is the growing number of comparison shopping sites -

• Junglee - product comparison and advertising site offered by Amazon which enables customers to find and discover products from online and offline retailers in India and from Amazon.com
• MySmartPrice - for books & gadgets
• 90DI - finds fastest & cheapest travel options (train, bus & flights)
• Redbus - choose travel options from over 350 bus operators
• Expedia.co.in - flights & hotels
• Rediff FareSearch - compare domestic flights
• IndiaBookStore.net - search engine for books available at major Indian online book stores.
• iShopper.com - compare prices of laptops, tablets, mobiles on popular online shopping sites, set price alerts
• FindYogi - compare prices of laptops, tablets, mobiles

If you know of any more much websites, please leave a comment

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HOW TO back up a database (schema and data) as a SQL Server script

Did you know, SQL Server 2008 Management Studio has an in-built option to generate a script that can help you restore an entire database alongwith the data? Compared to a .BAK file that can also be used to restore a database, a script lets you peek into the schema AND data (INSERT statements for rows within tables are automatically generated) before you restore it.

Unfortunately, this cool feature is hidden under layers of options and isn't easily discoverable unless a really discerning user points it out.

Steps to generate script:
1. Right click on a database name, choose Generate Scripts.. option under Tasks.. in the context menu
2. In the Generate and Publish Scripts wizard which appears choose the database object for which you want to generate a script
3. Under the Set Scripting Options, make sure to click on the Advanced button which reveals a bunch of more options.
4. In the new dialog box that opens up, scroll down to the last option in the General category and for Types of data to script, choose Schema and Data

Related:
HOW TO view parameter values of a stored procedure through SQL Profiler
Why are these Visual Studio Settings not enabled by default?

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Fastest dictionary on the web - thefreedictionary.com

As per the most voted answer on Web Applications StackExchange forum, thefreedictionary.com with the print layout is the fastest and their content is pretty comprehensive too.

WordWeb is my favorite desktop dictionary tool & now I also have thefreedictionary.com configured as my search engine for words within Chrome.

The URL looks simple - http://thefreedictionary.com/p/Word & this makes it super easy to add the site as a search provider in Chrome & Opera. This generic article how you can add thefreedictionary.com as a search engine option.

I assigned the letter "d" to represent thefreedictionary.com as a shorcut for dictionary. So now, whenever I need to search for the meaning of a word I type "d" in the Chrome address bar, hit space followed by word & bingo...a detailed page pertaining to that word appears in a flash.

Related:
HOW TO Google specifically for discussions/answers on only online forums instead of articles
Free Programmable & Searchable Dictionaries

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Get over pesky layout/design changes, use keyboard shorcuts on Twitter, Google products

When popular websites change their layout & design, it takes time for users to get accustomed to it. If you don't like frills and rather like features that get your work done faster, explore keyboard shorcuts that web apps like Twitter, Gmail, Google Reader, Google Docs offer. Just hit the question mark (?) key while you are logged into one of those sites and you will see a popup with a list of all supported hotkeys. While the keyboard shortcut Help popup has been in GMail & Google Reader since a couple of years now, I came to know about the Twitter hotkeys today from Scott Hanselman's blog.

I found the choice of letters used by Twitter hotkeys more intuitive than what Google has (how easy is it to correlate Sneak Peak with the letter "h"?)

... so I identified for myself a list of shortcuts that are easily memorable from the much larger list:

• g then i : Go to Inbox
• g then s : Go to Starred conversations
• g then t : Go to Sent messages
• g then d : Go to Drafts
• g then a : Go to All mail
• g then c : Go to Contacts
• g then k : Go to Tasks
• g then l : Go to Label
• u : Back to threadlist
• k / j : Newer/older conversation
• o or or <Enter> : Open conversation; collapse/expand conversation
• c : Compose
• / : Search
• ? : Open shortcut help
• ! : Report as spam
• # : Move to bin
• r : Reply
• <Shift> + r : Reply in a new window
• a : Reply all
• <Shift> + a : Reply all in a new window
• f : Forward
• <Shift> + f : Forward in a new window
• z : Undo last action
• g then w : Create a blank document
• h : Sneak peek
• <Shift> + t : Add conversation to Tasks
• <Tab> then <Enter> : Send mail
• . : Open more actions menu
• <Ctrl> + s : Save draft

The ? hotkey Help shortcut popup is an interesting UI Pattern that other web apps should start using as well.

Just as browsers have almost standardized on keyboard shortcuts, it will be good for users if web sites standardize helpful features like the keyboard shortcuts Help popup and maintain similar mappings.

Here's a list of sites that support keyboard shortcuts (those supporting the ? hotkey Help shortcut popup are shown in bold):

• Twitter
• Gmail
• Google Reader
• Google Docs 
• Yahoo
• Remember The Milk
• Hotmail

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HOW TO take a screenshot of any screen on Samsung Omnia 652

The Wife finally cracked the mystery of how to take a screenshot of any screen on her Samsung Omnia 652.

For months since she saw the message "Screen captured. Saved as image file" while trying to unlock the smartphone, we were intrigued what key combination had led to it. We turned to Google but found no answers and this was too trivial to ask on online forums.

It's finally a relief to know that the combination is Alt+*+Confirm/OK key

You can access the screenshot by going to the Images folder in My Documents that you can find under Contents Manager. 


A few other tricks we discovered (after we didn't find them in the manual):
While composing a text message, press the Shift key (up arrow on the extreme left of bottom row) twice to type everything in capitals and if you need to type only numbers, press the Alt key twice.

The Sym (Symbol) key lets you activate the XT9 option, the predictive text feature that helps in typing words faster. XT9 & T9 are typically found on phones made by LG, NEC, Nokia, Samsung Electronics, Siemens, Sony Ericsson, Sanyo, Sagem.

One of our favorite camera features on the Omnia is the Multi shot option that lets you take a series of photos of an action with a single click.

Also see:
Save time while typing with PhraseExpress

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Pluralsight Introduction to PowerShell Course - Notes

Summary of the 2hour 40 minute duration Pluralsight  Introduction to PowerShell course, including other interesting material I found -

+ What is PowerShell?
Windows PowerShell command-line interface is a new command-line tool
It's a scripting language from Microsoft that complements Cmd.exe in the Windows administration context.
Based on .NET
Everything is a .NET object
PowerShell version 2 is included with Windows 7, Windows Server 2008 R2, XP SP3, Windows Server 2003 SP2, Windows Vista SP1
PowerShell scripts have a .ps1 extension

+ How to get started?
To start working with Powershell, go to Windows Accessories & select Windows PowerShell.

PowerShell Environments:
Out of box – PowerShell command window, PowerShell ISE (Integrated Shell Environment)
Free ISE’s – PowerSE, PowerGUI
Commercial

PowerShell ISE or Integrated Scripting Environment is  a GUI for working with PowerShell
You can hide the Script panel in PowerShell ISE if you work a lot in Interactive mode. In the Script pane, you can run either entire script (F5) or run a selection of commands with F8

+ Why learn PowerShell?
In the SharePoint 2010 administration context, Windows PowerShell supersedes the Stsadm.exe administration tool.
Windows PowerShell scripts can also be used to administer other Microsoft server products. This gives administrators a common scripting language across servers.
SQL Server 2008 introduces support for Windows PowerShell.
Windows PowerShell lets SQL Server administrators and developers automate server administration and application deployment.
The Windows PowerShell language supports more complex logic than Transact-SQL scripts, giving SQL Server administrators the ability to build robust administration scripts.
SQL Server cmdlets support actions such as running a sqlcmd script containing Transact-SQL or XQuery statements.
SharePoint 2010 has some 500+ cmdlets.

+ Commands in PowerShell are in the form of Cmdlets (“pronounced Command-lets”).
PowerShell commands have a Verb-Noun syntax. Example:
Get-command – retrieves a list of all system commands that are currently loaded into the PS environment

+ Common verbs:
Get
Set
Out
Start
Stop
Restart
Add

+ Common Nouns:
Help
Command
Service
Computer
Location
Childitems

You can pass parameters, verbs or nouns, to  view cmdlets featuring those keywords
Get-command –verb “get” : will get all cmdlets that have the verb get
Get-command –noun “service” : all cmdlets that have the noun service

To find explanation about at command: get-help get-command
get-help get-command - examples
get-help get-command -detailed
get-help get-command –full

To view environment variables:
Clear-Host
Set-Location env:
Get-children

Show list of snap-ins:
Clear-Host
Get-pssnapin

Show list of registered snap-ins:
Clear-Host
Get-pssnapin –registered

+ What is a PowerShell snap-in?

A PowerShell snap-in is a .NET assembly or set of assemblies that contains cmdlets, providers, type extensions, and format metadata.
All the commands and providers that ship as part of the Windows PowerShell product are implemented as a set of five snap-ins. You can view the list of snap-ins using the get-pssnapin cmdlet.
When a snap-in is loaded in Windows PowerShell, all cmdlets and providers in the snap-in are made available to the user. This model allows administrators to customize the shell by adding or removing snap-ins to achieve precise sets of providers and cmdlets.
PowerShell built-in snap-ins, such as Microsoft.PowerShell.Host, cannot be removed.

You write a snap-in when you want your cmdlets or providers to be part of the default Windows PowerShell.

+ Aliasing makes it easy for a lot of commands to be mapped to specific PowerShell commands.
Useful for folks transitioning from Linux or DOS. Dir & ls are both mapped to get-childitem, they are both aliases
You can set your own aliases. Example: set-alias list get-childitem # will create a alias called list to display directories & files
The lifetime of this “list” lasts till this PowerShell window is open
It is possible to save your aliases into a file & re-load them. Example: Export-alias c:\ps\myalias.csv list (wildcards also possible)
When you reopen window, use this - import-alias c:\ps\myalias.csv & then use list. You can load a whole bunch of aliases within a csv file & load them when you want to.

+ Pipelining – combining cmdlets for power. Examples:
Get-childitem | where-object {$_.Length –gt 100KB}
$_ represents the current object

Get-childitem | where-object {$_.Length –gt 100KB} | sort-object length

Get-childitem | where-object {$_.Length –gt 100KB} | sort-object Length |
Format-Table -Property Name, Length –AutoSize

Get-childitem | select-object Name, Length
select-object can be used to retrieve certain properties from an object

Get-ChildItem | Where-Object {$_.Name – like “*.ps1”}

+ Provider is a .NET library that provides a standard interface through which we can navigate through whatever object a provider represents.
Providers can extend the list of cmdlets that are available to you.
Get-psprovider command shows a list of providers we have currently loaded in our environment.
Each one of these providers reveals itself to us through the form of Drives. It is through these Drives that we can navigate & retrieve data.

+ Variables:
Get-Variable – displays the variable & its value
Set-Variable – assign a new value to an existing variable
Clear-Variable – clears the contents of a variable. Variable still exists but without any value
Remove-Variable – wipes out a variable.

+ Automatic variables:
$false, $true
$pwd – current directory
$Home – users Home directory
$host – info about a users machine
$PSVersionTable – info about the current version of Powershell
$PID – process ID
$_ - special variable name to represent the current object

+ Strings:
String comparisons are case insensitive by default
To get quotation marks within a string, use mixed quotes or use the quotation mark twice
Here String - for storing large blocks of text, enclose the string within quotes & then precede & terminate quotation marks with @. Lines containing the “@” should exist independently.
Expressions can be used in strings & they need to be wrapped in $(). Example - “There are $((Get-ChildItem).Count) items in the folder $(Get-Location)”
Wildcards & Regular expressions are supported. Example - “Pluralsight” –like “Plural*[s-v]”

+ Arrays:
Arrays in PS are zero-based
$array = “plural”,”sight”
$array = @(“plural”,”sight”)
$array = 1..5  #numeric range notation
The formal array creation syntax is useful when creating a blank array -  $array = @()

+ Hash tables:
$hash = @{“key” = “value”;}
$hash[“mvark”] = “mvark.blogpsot.com”
$hash.Remove(“mvark”) #remove by passing in key
$hash.Contains(“mvark”) #see if key exists
#list keys & values
$hash.Keys
$hash.Values

+ Branching and Looping constructs:
PowerShell supports Branching construct like if-else, switch and Looping constructs like while, do-while, do-until, for, foreach
PowerShell has if & else but doesn’t have if elseif
Switch will match all lines that match. To stop processing once a block is found use break
Switch works with collections, looping & executing for each match
Break – exits the loop on first hit. When used in a nested loop, break exits to the outer loop
Continue – to skip the rest of a loop but go onto the next iteration
Trap – to catch exceptions
Use loop labels to break to a certain loop

+ Script block:
A basic script block is code inside {}. The for (as well as other loops) execute a script block
To put multiple commands on a single line use the ;
You can store script blocks inside a variable
$cool = {Clear-Host; “Powershell and bowties  are cool”}
To run the variable precede it with a &. Example: & $cool
You can use return to return a value. Once it is used, the script exits
"process" is used to pipeline enable a block
Variables declared outside a block are useable inside a block
If you try to change the variable inside a block, PS makes a local copy & uses that, leaving the original alone

+ Functions are basically script blocks with names.
No parentheses or commas required to separate parameters
To add Help to your functions, use custom tags within a comment block and Get-Help can recognize them.

+ Filters are alternatives to functions; work like the Where-Object cmdlet
Filters can be built to remove unwanted files

+ Files:
Contents of a file are stored in a array
Get-Content - can display a file. Get-Content supports wildcards
Set-Content -  write text to a file. It can however be destructive. If a file already exists, it’s overwritten
Add-Content - to append text to a file
User-defined functions can be defined in a .PS1 file & it can be referenced in a script using Import-Module
$psise is a special variable that represents PowerShell Integrated Server Environment
.ps1 can be omitted while running script from the command prompt

+ Other references:
Windows PowerShell Quick Reference
Windows PowerShell Survival Guide

In this course, the presenter Robert Cain has done a good job of covering the basics of PowerShell at a relaxed pace. He has a charming style of delivery & his accent should be easy to follow even by international audiences.

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HOW TO Google specifically for discussions/answers on only online forums instead of articles

There may be times when you want to look for results for a particular keyword or phrase from among discussion boards and online forums. For instance, you may want to know about opinions on solving a complex programming issue or find the experiences of people with a particular ailment or gauge the reactions of food aficionados to some exotic recipe. In such cases, articles don't help and to cut to the chase, you can turn to Google Groups Search. It now gets results from not just threads within Google Groups but also other online forums. Currently, not all forum sites are included & a glaring omission seems to be the StackExchange family of Q & A sites.

Adding Google Groups as a search engine is relatively easy in Chrome & Opera than the other browsers. Once you configure Google Groups as a search provider within Chrome...

...you can type the keyword you assigned that provider (I choose "grp" to represent Google Groups Search) followed by your search query. When you type the search provider's keyword and hit space, a label corresponding to the search engine name would show up in the Omnibox.

Keywords specified while configuring search providers make it easy to switch between search engines in the browser.

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