April 2008 – ankurb

The Vodafone Dog’s Back

The ‘Hutch dog’, in the commercials for the Indian cellular operator Hutch, was supposed to be phased out. Seems like he’s back! 🙂 Saw this new ad while watching Ocean’s Twelve (dunno how many times I’ve seen it) yesterday. ‘Chika’, was the name of the original pug, but I think he’s been replaced recently, by well, a new mutt. I think Vodafone must have faced a lot of alienation of ideology among its subscriber base after the sudden name switch, which they did overnight.

The Hutch pug commercials earlier weren’t that great – in the sense that the dog really was there just for the cuteness factor. The new Vodafone commercial actually seems nice though, because using the dog to get the message across is being used quite effectively. Watch the Vodafone India ‘Helpful Dog’ ad below.

Off topic, but I’ve noticed that the cell info display for the Vodafone network STILL gives the operator as Hutch! I found this out when I was trying to roam on another network my home network Delhi itself, the day I came back from the NTU exam. Airtel, or for that matter, everyone’s network seemed to have conked out around the airport that day because of the sheer number of people in that area. So I was trying to search for any working networking, and saw that Vodafone (obviously) is still listed as ‘Hutch’. THAT is something they need to sort out quick, rather than million dollar advertisement campaigns.

Your Web Hosting Pal

I’ve been thinking of starting a few websites off late, you know, now that almost all my exams are getting over (and the chances of getting through any place good, other than NTU, slim). Haven’t started work as yet, but yes, I do plan to as soon as my ‘fundraisers’ bring out their pot of leprechaun gold. For now, just hang on to your pyjamas and wait for updates on WHAT those sites would be about.

One thing which I’ve been doing a lot of these days is looking for some cheap and reliable web hosting to get started with. That’s because my current hosting plan – which I use for this blog – doesn’t allow me to host multiple websites on the same account. And apart from the new projects which I want to start, we also need a reliable host for the Code Warriors’ website, which has been having problems with its MySQL databases for some time.

It’s this searching-out-hosts thingy which is a pretty tough to task. Frankly, there’s so many choices around on the Web – hundreds, maybe thousands – of web hosts. It gets difficult to compare their features and their prices. One such nice place to do a search is Web Hosting Pal. Pretty uncomplicated website, not overloaded with information. That would be quite a bundle of relief to newer websmasters; with a nice beginner’s guide to walk them through an explanation of the various features which they might want and / or have to pay for. This is important, because many times I’ve seen people get swayed into paying for features they don’t really need. On Web Hosting Pal, you can compare features and read in-depth details / reviews about the different hosts – say, comparing between which ones support ASP / PHP, the databases offered, etc.

Anyway, stay tuned for more updates on any new sites I’ll be starting. 🙂

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