Validating Credit Cards - An easy approach

Well, I have been using credit cards for about 3 years now. Long before when I was doing my E-commerce certification in SSI, Chennai(1999), one of our tutors taught us the art of finding out if a credit card number is valid or not. I was wanting to re-collect the learning and finally ended up googling as usual :-)

Just follow the below steps to validate if a card number is genuine or cooked up. Before we start there are some basic hygiene checks one has to do;

MASTERCARD Prefix- 51-55 Length -16

VISA Prefix- 4 Length -13,16

AMEX Prefix- 34 & 37 Length -15

If your card# is say 4216270001012807 then here it is how you validate;

Step 1- Multiply all the odd numbers starting from the first digit by 2. We get 82400040 as the digits. Adding them we get 8+2+4+0+0+0+4+0 = 18. In case on multiplying by 2 the number exceeds 9 say 12 then the resultant number must be put as 1+2=3

Step 2- Now, add all the even numbers in the card. 2+6+7+0+1+1+8+7 = 32

Step 3- Let's now add 18+32 = 50

Step 4 - Now on dividing 50/10 the remainder is zero. So, the card number is valid.

If the resultant number is not divisible by 10 then it's a fraudulent number!

Simple is'nt it? The name of this Algorithm is Mod 10(i.e.Modulus of 10)

Regards....

"Wow" Mozilla Rocks - Part 1

I am sure many of us would have seen the television Ad for Windows Vista. People from various walks of life express their delight in experiencing Vista by giving a "Wow". Banking on Customer Delight.

Well, I have not used Vista yet, but when it comes to web browsers Mozilla is & will remain to be the best. Its a product which creates customer delight for sure. Wondering why? Then read on about the various Add on tools Mozilla has....

1. Scrapbook - It helps you save a page or website or a snippet from it with a couple of clicks.Once you save it we can access the pages offline. The various steps involved are;

• Just access this URL and download the scrapbook.
• Once download is complete user is prompted to restart Firefox for completing the installation.
• Just access a page or select a snippet in a page or website and save it in a folder. You can also create a folder and save. :-) Now, go offline & experience the "WOW"
  
  Well, the unique selling points being
  a) User need not download the whole page for just viewing a snippet.
  b) A complete website can be downloaded without any download tool.
  c) Easily manage the pages or snippets or websites by saving them in separate folders.

2. Backword - How many times we would have wondered how to pronunce a word like
Plagiarism. Well, from now on you need not refer to Oxford or find a English language geek.
The various steps involved are;

• Just access this URL and download the scrapbook.
• Once download is complete restart Firefox (i.e close window & load firefox again) for completing the installation.
• Just access a web page and select a word in a page and mouse over.Now, you need to be patient though. It takes couple of seconds for the menu to pop-up.
• Now click on a speaker like icon {Visual Metaphor is not used well here :-( } and hear to the pronunciation of the word. A real wow isn't it? :-)

The main USPs being;

a) We can "back a word" i.e. bookmark the page from where we picked up the word. In the
future, if you encounter the word again just mouse over the word and right click on the
quote list. The page where the word appears gets displayed in a small window.
b) Search the web for the pronunciation incase it is not available in Backword. Hmmm what more can a user expect?? :-). Another good point being the web page opens in a separate tab too...

Watch out for Information on more Add ons in Part 2......

Rushing to office......

Regards..........

Income Tax - Is the calculation so Taxing?

"The hardest thing in the world to understand is income tax" -Albert Einstein

If this is the case with a mortal having highest levels of IQ then imagine the plight of intelligent IT professionals like me :-). Well, being a M.B.A student of LIBA I had the opportunity to learn the art of tax calculation. As the saying goes;

"No education is complete if it is not applied for the upliftment of self and the society"

So, I just wanted to share with my readers the slab rates for Salaried professionals like me in India;

For the assessment year 2006-07, rates of Income‑tax in the case of individual assessees are divided into the following three categories:

a) resident individuals, who is of the age of 65 years or more (senior citizens) at any time during the previous year;

up to Rs. 1,85,000/‑Nil
above Rs. 1,85,000/‑ up to Rs.2, 50,000/‑20%
above Rs. 2,50,000/‑30%

b)resident individuals, being a woman, aged below 65 years;

upto Rs.1,35,000/-Nil
above Rs. 1,35,000/- up to 1,50,000/-10%
above Rs.1,50,000/- to 2,50,000/-20%
above Rs.2,50,000/-30%

c)other individuals (this is were I fit in)

upto Rs.1,00,000/-Nil
above Rs. 1,00,000/- up to 1,50,000/-10%
above Rs.1,50,000/- to 2,50,000/-20%
above Rs.2,50,000/-30%

Please note that the tax rates are applicable on the Income remaining after Deductions.

Hope this article was helpful. Until next time.....

Ciao.......