New ULIP plans

ULIP or unit linked investment plans are getting immanence popularity in these days. In India, the most important player in ULIP sector is LIC of India. Other private and public financial firms like SBI Life, ICICI prudential, IDBI Federal, Bajaj Alliaanze, Future Generali, HDFC Standard life and Reliance are also in the ULIP sector. Most of the ULIP plans to deposit the investment of the user in various funds and earn them good profit in long terms. As you might know, IRDA is the regulator for insurance policies in India. IRDA introduced several new rules in the ULIP sector, and they have already come into effect from September of 2010. Insurance is also a part of the ULIP products. Until September, the maximum amount of insurance for a person insured on ULIP based products was five times the annual premium. The insurance benefit, fund management charges and the policy lock-in period all have changed with the introduction of these rules.

Currently, ULIP plans contribute to around 60-90 percent of the annual premium collected by LIC, SBI Life, ICICI prudential, IDBI Federal, Bajaj Alliaanze, Future Generali, HDFC Standard life and Reliance life Insurance. It seems that people are getting interested in the investment plus  insurance campaign promoted by these companies. In general, in a ULIP policy, the money invested by the user is converted into units. Then the units are allocated on debt funds or stock/equity funds. Based on performance of the fund manager, the value of each unit goes up and the investor generates profit. The fund value of the investment is a few multiples of the annual premium. At policy maturity, either the fund value or FV plus the profit on investment – the higher amount will be given to the investor. The fund value will be paid in case of the death of the investor during the policy term.  ULIP plans also qualifies the investor for tax deduction as per the Government of India regulations.

Insurance companies usually impose several charges on the premium collected from the investor. It includes fund management charges, policy administration charges, agent charges and others. The charges are different for all ULIP providers, but it is in the range 10-20% for most of them, in the first few years. The actual portion of the investment converted into units  comes only after deducting these charges. Therefore, in most of the cases investor will not see any improvement in profit for the first few years. There is a three year lock-in period for continuous premium payment and then maturity time. Companies charge heavy amount on policies surrendered before its maturity.

The new IRDA rules come as a relief for the customers from the hefty charges and mis-selling  practices from the insurance providers. It was possible for the insurance companies to levy up-to 100% as the surrender charge on a lapsed or discontinued policy, until this September. Now there if a limit for the surrender charges, but the fund value will be paid only after the lock-in period, that is five years. Commission of the insurance agents has been reduced to 7-9%  from 15-18 % level. From this month onwards companies should provide a minimum  return on all ULIP investment plans. The minimum return is fixed as 4.5%  if the customer withdraws funds on the 5th year of the policy term. All these initiatives would improve the confidence of customers and lead to more investment. Companies in the other hand, are trying to cut various types of costs at the administration and operation levels to make ULIP products continue as a good business model.

New ULIP policies introduced after September 2010:

All ULIP companies redesigned their policy schemes to be under the IRDA rules 2010. Four new ULIP plans accepted by IRDA are SBI Life Smart performer, SBI Life – Unit Plus Super, Future Generali Select and LIC pension plus. HDFC Standard Life, Max New York Life Insurance, ICICI prudential, IDBI Federal, Bajaj Alliaanze,  and Reliance Life will also release new ULIP products in the coming days.

HTC HD2

I bought one HTC HD2 Windows mobile smartphone in last January. The device was exclusively launched on Tata Docomo network, and was only available through their Div-In stores. So I ran to their store after seeing the advertisement, and became the first one to own an HTC HD2 in Kerala. I also won a free Reebok Bag and 3 day trip to Malaysia. The first thing I noticed in this handset was the huge multi-touch screen, probably the biggest in the industry. The Sense UI in HTC HD2 makes it completely different from traditional Windows mobile phones. Actually I sold my Apple iPhone 3G to get this Windows mobile 6.5 phone. Overall the hardware of the device is good, but the software is still not up to my expectations. So here is some photos  from my HTC HD2 unboxing.

HTC HD2 photos:

HTC HD2 specifications:

4.3 inch TFT capacitive display with multi-touch, accelerometer senor.

5 MP camera with dual LED Flash.

Windows Mobile 6.5 professional.

Qualcomm Snapdragon 1 GHz processor, 448 MB RAM, 512 MB ROM.

WLAN, 3G, EDGE, Bluetooth with A2DP, Pocket Office, A-GPS, 3.5 mm headphone jack and Micro USB port.

HTC Sense UI.

Twitter client HTC PEEP.

Plastic-Metal outer case.

Disappointments :

No front video call camera.
Less number of applications when compared with iPhone.
No Windows phone 7 upgrade

At the time when I bought, HTC HD2 was the best phone in Indian market.  Things have changed in a few months. Now there is around 5 Android phones competing for the top-end position. The list includes HTC Desire, Motorola Milestone, HTC EVO 4G, Motorola Droid X,  Nexus One and Sony Ericsson Xperia X10.  Apple also released iPhone 4 with a good feature set. However, I still prefer HTC HD2, and after considering everything I give 8/10 for this handset. Coming to the price, HD2 is priced around 37000/- INR including an 8GB card and leather case.

Wordpress SSL

You might have seen a few websites with a lock icon inside the URL bar. The lock icon implies that it’s an SSL secured website. In normal case, the login credentials are transferred in a text data from, which is pretty much open and viewable across the network nodes. SSL technology encrypts the data transferred between user computer and the main server. The text data is encrypted using a public key; for which the private decryption key is only available at the server side. Thus an SSL enabled website would prevent data theft at public, enterprise level networks and other unsecured platforms. Here in this article, we will explain a simple method to protect WordPress login and admin pages with SSL security.

The following image illustrate the flow of information through different network nodes.

Protect WordPress with SSL

So when SSL is not enabled, your password and user name is at risk in these locations.

There are two types of SSL certificates, private and shared. The free shared SSL uses the domain  name of the web hosting provider-so that it would result in browser warnings. However,  the private SSL is installed on users own domain name. Comodo, Thawte, Verisign, Trustico and many other companies  offers private SSL certificates with latest encryption technology and browser support. The top-end shared hosting plans of certain providers include free private SSL facility. In all case, you will need to request the customer support of the web hosting company to install SSL  on your domain.

Protect WordPress login and admin pages with SSL:

We can force SSL on WordPress by editing the wp-config.php file. However, the process its much simpler with a plugin  called Admin SSL.

Just install Admin SSL plugin from the directory, select the option “Secure my site with SSL” and save the settings. This option can only be used with private SSL certificates. Others should get a shared SSL URL from the hosting company and fill it within the second box. The shared SSL is free on all web hosting plans from Hostgator.

Example for shared SSL URL in Hostgator: https://gator98.hostgator.com/~smartin

Here “smartin” is the cPanel user name and “gator98.hostgator.com” is the server address from welcome mail.

Admin SSL protects  wp-login and wp-admin/profile.php pages of WordPress, where we enter login information. The Additional URLs settings in the plugin can be used to add other pages of the blog to this list.

Example Wordpess login page with SSL: www.smartin.in/wp-login.php

WPsimpy WordPress theme

Page speed is now considered as an important signal that determines the position of a blog post or website in Google search engine. Keeping this in mind, we have developed the fastest* WordPress theme called WPsimpy. The WPsimpy theme for WordPress is simple, clean and most suited for blogs using in-text advertisements. It can generate high CTR from Adsense when used in correct color combination. WPsimpy WordPress theme uses 100% valid XHTML and CSS code and it is SEO friendly.

WPsimpy WordPress theme screenshot:

WPsimpy Screenshot

Demo

Features:

Compatible with WordPress 3.0.

Fastest loading WordPress theme.

100% valid XHTML (check) and CSS (check)code.

Highest Adsense CTR-when used with Blue color text ads.

SEO friendly:  Correct implementation of H1 tag, keyword density, speed and clean code.

Simple magazine style design.

Great support:  Ask your questions and customization requests in  the comment section.

Download WPsimpy WordPress theme.

Note*: Adding certain plugins would reduce the speed and XHTML/CSS validation of theme.