Airtel launches internet portal Airtel Live

Airtel has launched internet portal airtellive.com for it’s user base. The portal is built in association with Google using Google Personalized Home Pages.  This portal is made for Airtel Broadband users. Users can get simple yet powerful applications for free. Applications & services includes email, documents, presentations, spreadsheets…etc.  Portal is co-branded by Airtel & Google. Airtel also partnered with shaadi.com, 24×7 Guru.com & Naukri.com to provide exclusive offers to it’s users on portal.

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I am starting Future Tech catogory in Tech Bangalore with this post. It just my view on future technology & future possibilities. So what am talking about here, assume a virtual mobile phone on your PC which you can call , SMS & all basic functions you do with your mobile phone. Ya, I know it’s already there, provided by many companies online to ,make international calls for cheaper rates. But what am talking about is, it should be provided & connected to your current service provider. Say for example, You have Airtel prepaid connection on your actual mobile phone, & Airtel will also provide a desktop application to call, sms…etc. Your desktop client (virtual phone) will be linked with Airtel Prepaid account & you will be charged as per your plan. Options may also be provided for syncing your actual phone with virtual phone for contacts, messages etc.

Advantages:

1. You can avoid microwave radiations by using virtual phone on PC.
2. Better call experience, because of using mic & speakers of computer.
3. Messaging will be much faster with typing on keyboard. Typing on mobile even using t9 dictionary is a hassle.
4. No need of mobile handset, if you are always online!

This is technically feasible as per my knowledge.

Blocking unwanted calls from people you hate or from unknown people is the feature I think we should have on our mobile phone by default. I personally tired up with lot of promotional calls from tele-callers. Though many banks & services offers you to register for “Do Not Disturb”, you still receive many calls from other tele-callers. Vodafone was the first to provide “Call blocking system” to help it’s consumers avoid such calls (but at Rs.99/month). But I have not yet heard of similar service by other providers.

Fortunately there is an application which blocks unwanted calls on any network. Epocware Handy’s Blacklist is a series 60 application that blocks unwanted calls. In first run options will be provided for blocking calls from your contact list, recent callers or unknown numbers. It also provided with an option of adding rejected calls into black list automatically. It also keeps log of all blocked numbers for 60 days.

The dis-advantage of software is, It will not notify you when a call is blocked. You have to check your log to know which numbers are blocked. The application is priced $19.95 (Rs.785), I think is the better option to go instead of paying monthly rental to service provider for same. Purchase this application here.

For those who don’t know about Twitter, Twitter is a service which ask you “what are you doing?”. But it’s deviated a lot from this theme & evolved as a big microblogging platform. You can just update whatever you want through web, IM or Phone. Others can follow your updates & can receive updates via all three mentioned mediums.

When you update Twitter through SMS, you will be charged one international SMS. Eventhough there is an Indian number, it’s not working to update. If it works also, you will be charged atleast 3 Rs. I love updating while travelling, so my mobile bill went up because of sms charges. So I started searching for an application which can update twitter using GPRS. There are many apps which does this job. But Cellity Tweeter caught my eyes because it’s tiny (abt 17kb), clean & works on almost any GPRS enabled phone.

Cellity Tweeter uses your GPRS connection to update twitter & very much economical compare to SMSs. You can also view your timeline & public timeline. You will need to have working GPRS connection, Airtel Online or Vodafone. Airtel Live will not work.

SMS Gup Shup is a free group messaging service by webaroo. SMS Gup Shup is a feature rich service when compared to local player Activ Mobs. You can create a free account on SMS Gup Shup and add up to 100 friends (mobile numbers) into a group. If you send a message to group, it will be delivered to all members present in that group!

Group Creation:

Everything is easy with SMS Gup Shup. To create a group you can either create an account online at www.smsgupshup.com or just send CREATE GROUPNAME to 567673434

Adding Friends:

To add friends you can invite your friends by inviting them through web interface by giving their mobile numbers or email IDs. Your friends will be instantly added & start receiving your messages. You can also add friends through SMS. Send INVITE MobileNumber1, MobileNumber2….to 567673434.

Sending Messages:

Again you can use web interface after sign up to send messages to your group which is absolutely free :-). You can also send your messages to 56767343, which will automatically delivered to your group members. Messages to 56767343 may cost you up to Rs.3/msg depending on your operator.

Despite of you adding your friends to your group, anyone else also can join your group through online or sending sms JOIN GroupName to 567673434. For example: I have created a group TECHB for Tech Bangalore to update users about new posts. Anyone can join group by sending sms JOIN TECHB.

Group creator will have rights to remove a user from the group. You may not want your father inside your group ;-). Currently you can create only one group with one login (one mobile number).

After the success of "Lifetime Prepaid", Airtel now brings "Super Lifetime Pre-Paid". In lifetime prepaid, user should pay Rs.999 to have lifetime pre-paid. But tariff of Lifetime pre-paid was high. Now in "Super Lifetime Pre-Paid" all local calls will be charged Re.1/min. The service is available for both existing & new customers. To avail this service customer will have to pay Rs.999 & should use Rs.200 for every 180 days to stay alive!

Existing Rs.999 lifetime pre-paid users can avail this service free of charge & Rs.495 lifetime users can avail this service by paying Rs.504.

I never imagined whether this kind of web site will be launched. I am talking about www.YourBillBuddy.com which fetches your bill from your service provider & gives you complete analyses. Web site is capable of fetch & read your mobile bill. It even gives you an option to upload your mobile bill & it even reads that! It gives you graphical analysis of Number wise call distribution, Bill Break up which gives break ups like SMS, Local Calls, STD etc. Following are few

After analyzing your bill, you can check Bill Buddy’s recommendations of plans from other service providers which best suits you. It also gives you data on how much you can save if you switch to that plan & how much could be your average monthly bill.

The website is still in Beta stage, but working pretty good.

Now just send an sms to pay your mobile bill. It doesn’t matter where you are, doesn’t require any paper work to get activated. You need to register your credit card with Airtel by sending an sms. After registration you can pay your bill by sending a simple sms. Procedure to activate this service is given below:

1. Send sms “MCHEK” to 121. You can also use MCHECK, MCHEQUE, MCHK, MCHQ.
2. It will request you to create a four digit PIN, which will used for future transaction.
3. Then an USSD session gets invoked & asks you to enter 4 digit PIN.
4. Enter your credit card number, expiry date & CVV number as it requests on by one.
5. Re-enter your 4 digit PIN.
6. You are done! A welcome message appears including instruction for future transaction.

The procedure looks quite simple, but be sure that you are entering all details in Airtel. There is a chance that anyone else can implement same kind of procedure to steal you credit card details. Coming back to the post, the procedure to pay your bill after registrations is as follows:

1. Sms “PAY AIRTEL <AMT>” to 121. Ex: PAY AIRTEL 500
2. This will invoke an USSD session & ask you 4 digit PIN which you created while registration.
3. A request will be sent to your bank & bank replies by approving or declining.
4. If bank approve, you will get a confirmation receipt.

Just browsing through my friend Deva’s Blog & found this cool free stuff.

• To get free cricket alerts send sms START CRI to 9845398453.
• To stop this alert send sms as STOP CRI to 9845398453
• To get astrology daily to your mobile send sms START ZODIAC SIGN to 9845398453.Ex: START CANCER.
• To stop this astrology message, send sms STOP ZODIAC SIGN to 9845398453.

After digging a bit I got to know that this service is provided by MyTodaySMS & not limited to only above things. It also provides Jokes, Health tips, poems, Gandhiji thoughts, Budda thoughts, City Alerts & much much more for free!
Hope you enjoy these free services, as many service providers are charging about 30 rs/month for same service. This works with all service providers.