Business Standard

Online panacea

Image

Manisha Pande New Delhi

While searching for unique websites, we chanced upon www.tips4me.com, a portal best described as the web version of ‘daadi ma ke nuske (grandma’s tips)’.

The website promises remedy for our everyday problems, including what to do with frizzy hair in the monsoon, how to prepare for an interview or knot a tie, so on and so forth.

Created by a Mumbai-based entrepreneur, tips4me.com has a friendly opinion on car care, pet care, money matters, fitness issues and even dating woes.

From the spiritual to the superficial, the site seems to have covered almost every topic one can possibly think of. We liked the fact that the site not only gave tips on common topics like fitness or beauty, but also had a varied range of themes.

 

For instance, in the general knowledge section, users can ponder over the origins of some popular sports or interest themselves with a trivia on wildlife. The section on ‘world’s first’ with informative nuggets on the origins of the first bank note and chat system or the world’s first firefighters and doctors had our attention. The home-care section is tempting with some helpful tips on how to add a spark to your bathroom or take care of your houseplants. Tips4me.com tells us that houseplants can be kept watered by keeping all the plants in a tub and covering them with a plastic sheet. This trick allows plants to survive up to 2 week, while you are away on a vacation.

The website, however, falters in a few sections where the listed tips seem really commonplace. For instance, the A-to-Z about online gaming in the ‘PC Bytes’ section does not cover even the A-to-B of it. The website just lists some obvious steps to gaming online like choosing a game or picking up a portal. Similarly, the section on spirituality is nothing new and you would have probably read all of it in one of the many, best-selling self-help books. However, the section that discusses the spiritual meaning of numbers (that you can calculate with your birth date) is an interesting one, giving a peak into your inner-self.

If you have exhausted all the applications of psychological quizzes on networking sites like Facebook, then here there is a section where you can assess your personality, find out your stress threshold or even figure out how emotionally high-strung are you. However, we felt that the website’s various pages lacked graphics and illustrations that could enhance the user experience. Though the homepage is snazzy, the web pages containing the tips are somewhat drab and fail to hold your attention for too long. We have to say though that the site does have an easy-to-understand language even when it advises on health issues or lists computer tips for the uninitiated.

This approach might just lure you into registering yourself with the website for free. Once you are registered, you will receive weekly e-mails on the topics of your choice. You can also ask specific queries to experts such as Shahnaz Hussain, Sabira Merchant, Jawed Habib and even Dr Batra. If you are willing, then tips4me.com offers paid services like corporate programme that will assist you with basic etiquettes and corporate finesse to give you that extra edge. As a registered user, you can even pour your heart out to the site’s own agony aunt and get responses to your most personal queries.

Our suggestion: Go, check this website out and you might just chance upon some quick solutions to your most stubborn problems.

Don't miss the most important news and views of the day. Get them on our Telegram channel

First Published: Jul 27 2009 | 12:05 AM IST

Explore News