PatnaDaily.Com - Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ)

Keep the article simple, short, and precise. Mere ranting and rambling does not make up for a good article. On an average, your article should not be more than 1500 words. We do make exceptions in some rare cases.

We reserve the right to reject any article without having to provide any explanation.

Other things to consider: please don't send articles written in "Hindi" while using English (Roman) letters. It makes it extremely difficult to read and decipher it. Also, please don't use all CAPS. THIS MAKES READING QUITE A TIRING JOB, not to mention it is equivalent to shouting on the Internet. Top of the page

2. Do we get paid for sending articles?

Unfortunately, no. Only full time PD employees get paid. Top of the page

3. I am interested in getting a job at PatnaDaily.Com. What do I need to do?

Your are free to fill out the contact form expressing your interest in working with PatnaDaily.Com. If and when there is a suitable opening, we will contact you either by e-mail or phone to discuss the matter with you. Please note that PatnaDaily.Com does not send confirmation replies to job seekers. Top of the page

4. I have sent many articles to you but you have not published them. What gives?

There could be many reasons for that: the article didn't relate to Bihar; the article was poorly written; the article suggested communal violence; the article was written in Hindi using Roman letters; your article was way too long or way too short, name and e-mail address were missing; the article was in all CAPS (see FAQ# 1) and a myriad of other reasons. If you think your article did not fell within one of the above reasons, please give it some more time. It will eventually make it to the Web. However, please don't expect instant result. Top of the page

5. I want information on Bihar schools/colleges/coaching institutes, their admission requirements, their phone numbers and/or e-mail addresses, government officials' name, addresses, e-mail addresses or phone numbers. Can you provide us the information?

Unfortunately due to lack of resources and time, we cannot find information for you. Please do not ask us to find out information that you can find out for yourself if you spent some time on the Search Engines or by calling one of your relatives or friends in Patna. Top of the page

6. Can I send a message or cash to my mother/father/sister etc. through PatnaDaily.Com?

Sorry, no such service is offered by PatnaDaily.Com. Top of the page

7. I am trying to find my long lost friend in Bihar. Can you help me?

Sorry, we used to have such service but have discontinued it for various reasons. Please read this for more information.

8. Why don't you have a Discussion Board on PatnaDaily.Com?

After much thought, we have decided against the idea of having a Discussion Board for now. Sorry. Top of the page

9. While I like most of the pictures in PhotoGallery, some of them show garbage all over the city and give negative impression of Patna. Why don't you take them off?

The images on the PhotoGallery section are candid shots as they happen. We like it that way and so do most of the PD visitors. This, however, does not mean we will be putting only such pictures that portray negative image of the city or state. Top of the page

10. Can I send pictures of Patna or Bihar to be included on PatnaDaily.Com?

Absolutely! You are more than welcome to send relevant pictures to PatnaDaily.Com. If we publish them, we will give proper credit to you with the pictures. Just make sure the pictures you send are in either BMP, JPG, TIFF, PNG or PSD format. Try to keep the file size less than 250k so we could resize them as needed. PatnaDaily.Com, however, retains the right to reject or publish the pictures as it deems proper. Send your pictures atthis address . Top of the page

11. PatnaDaily is very slow on dial-up connections. Can you speed it up just a tad bit?

Actually, all the pages on PatnaDaily.Com are properly optimized to work on anything above 28K modem. Some pages (like the photo-gallery) may take a little longer to load but they are exceptions. If the pages are too slow, there could be many reasons for it, temporary network/server problem being the main culprit. Try again after few minutes and it should be okay. Sometimes clearing up your temporary internet files on your hard drive can also clear up the problem (See FAQ# 15 below). Top of the page

12. I am on AOL and all the pictures look horrible in my browser.

Glad you asked. There is one option in AOL that can dramatically improve the quality of pictures in your browser. America Online, or AOL, by default, compresses images so that a web page loads faster. This makes the image display at a low quality. You can, however, change the settings so the pictures are displayed in the resolution they were intended to be viewed.

Open your AOL browser. You do not need to be connected to the internet. On the top menu, click settings then choose Preferences. Select Internet Properties (WWW), the AOL Internet Properties dialog box will appear. At the top of the box, you will see several tabs. Click on the Web Graphics tab. If you want to always display images at their true quality, select never compress graphics.

Make sure to get rid of the temporary cache files from your hard drive. Now launch the AOL browser, click on your favorite links, choose PatnaDaily.Com and voila! Don't the pictures look much better now?

The only catch is, it may slow down your download time since the pictures are not being compressed by AOL anymore. Top of the page

13. I have just started a business or Web site and I want you to review it and put comments on PatnaDaily.Com.

Sorry, we don't and can't do that. Unless the link of your Web site is consistent with the overall goal of PatnaDaily.Com or somehow enhances the value of this Web site, we do not include links or free ads of businesses. If you would like to see an advertisement of your business or portal, you must buy an advertising space on PatnaDaily.Com. Check out the Ad page for details. Top of the page

14. Can we get an e-mail address like joeblow@patnadaily.com as some other portals like indiatimes or sify do? It will really look cool.

We do not offer any such service, sorry. Top of the page

15. PatnaDaily.Com is not updated regularly. For days, we see the same news. Why couldn't you update it daily with latest news?

The fact is, PatnaDaily.Com is updated at least once in 24 hour and then as the news break or as the events take place.

Chances are the problem lies with your computer setting. You must remember to empty your temporary internet files, or cache, on a regular basis or you will run into problems like these on any site and not just PatnaDaily.Com. For Internet Explorer users, click on Tools (from the main menu), then choose Internet Options. Under the "General" tab, click on "Delete Files" under Temporary Internet files box. While you are here, you might also want to clear the history of the Web site surfed by clicking on "Clear History" under History box, though this step is not required.

Now exit out of the browser and open it again. Go to PatnaDaily.Com (you have added it to your favorite folder, haven't you?) and see if your news has been updated or not.

For Netscape, Mozilla and Opera browser users, the process to delete temporary internet files is quite similar but please check these browsers' help files for instructions. Top of the page

16. The Web site does not look so great in Netscape, Opera or other browsers.

PatnaDaily.Com has been optimized to run efficiently on Microsoft^® Internet Explorer (IE) 5.0 or above with screen resolution of 1024x768. However, all pages will work fine in 800x600 mode as well except for the picture gallery that is particularly designed for 1024x768 or more resolution because of the large size of the pictures. Based on our server statistics, over 80% of our visitors use Internet Explorer 5.0 or above, hence the reason for IE-centric enhancements on the site. Top of the page

17. I maintain my own blog. Can you provide a link to it?

Sorry, we cannot do so. We get numerous such requests and if we allowed one, we would have to allow others as well.

As a rule, PatnaDaily.Com removes any reference to a personal blog in articles sent to us by our readers. However, there are some exceptions to this rule. PatnaDaily.Com will be the final judge to decide whether a reference to personal blog should be included in an article or not. Top of the page