Feedburner: Create,Publish,Deliver

Feedburner is a publishing tool for bloggers. It can be used to create a feed for the blog and then post the feed to the social networks you use to promote your blog.

Simply log in with your Google account and type the URL of the blog or the RSS link of the blog. It gives you a choice between RSS or atom feed. Select the one you want and then proceed. It will ask you for a feed name and feed address. Fill the desired feed name and URL. For example, my feed URL is http://feeds.feedburner.com/LetItRemainNameless .Under the publicize tab,select socialize and add the twitter account where you want to deliver your content. Select the frequency of posting and additional text etc. You can also monetize by displaying ads between the RSS feed items in the feed page.

Now,every time the a new post is posted in your blog,Feedburner will post it on your behalf on twitter. You can check the click summary under the analyze tab. Your tweets will be posted 'via google' .

Tweepi: A geekier faster way to bulk add quality followers

Tweepi is a twitter account management application which works fast and smoothly . The application is web based and you don't need to download it. It's a great application to manage your following list and well as followers list,giving you details about whom you follow. You can quickly follow and unfollow twitter users.  

The application comes in free and paid version. But the former version works well for everyone. Tweepi offers the following tools:

Flush: Flush the people who don't follow you back. It lets you have a check whether any of your friends unfollowed you. 

Reciprocate: Reciprocate shows you a list of those people who follow you but you don't follow back. You can select the users and then follow them back.

Cleanup: This application is effective when your timeline gets crowded,unfollow the users based on their activities so that your timeline becomes less crowded.

Follow followers: This loads the followers' list of the user you specify. You can select multiple users and follow them. 

Follow friends: This tool loads the following list of the user you specify. You can then follow the people from the list and follow them.

Copy-Paste: Copy paste the handle names of the users separated by a comma. Tweepi would load their statistics. This can help you to make a comparison between tweeps you know.

List-members: This loads the list members of a public list from the user you specify. You can then add users from the list! 

Premium features: 

• Add selected followers to a list.
• force unfollow (Block users)
• clean up eggs

Link : Tweepi: A geekier faster way to bulk add quality followers

Twitterfeed: Feed your blog to your social networks

Twitterfeed is a basic distributing tool for bloggers. It is a nice application to distribute the content you create,without putting in much efforts! You don't need to post the same link in each and every social network you use to promote your blog. Simply feed your blog's RSS feed to the application and every time a new article is posted,it will automatically post it on your behalf.

It has three steps to create a service

Step 1: Fill up the feed name and the feed URL. Click on the advanced setting below to add suffix,prefix and to control the frequency at which the posts are made. You can also change the URL shortener and filter your feeds using keywords.

Step 2: Add the necessary social networks (Facebook,Linkedin and Twitter) where you want to share the content.

Step 3:  You are all done. Make sure that you have checked the 'feed active' button.

Twitterfeed will now post the content to your social networks and would also give you analytics of the clicks. Do check your click summary from time to time . The best part of Twitterfeed is that it perfectly fetches the RSS feed and posts at the perfect time specified. 

Buffer - A Smarter Way to Share on Social Media

Buffer is another scheduling application that finds itself on the favorite list of many twitter users. I have personally seen some of the awesome tweeps using this application to post their tweets. Just like Tricklr,buffer app lets you schedule tweets in a buffer: set and forget. It's integrated approach lets you share across Twitter,Facebook and Linkedin.

One can sign in with their twitter,Facebook or Linked in account or they can directly log in through their buffer account.

The main interface is again quite simple one. You can type the post in the post box. The lower part or the page contains the posts list. Just like Tricklr,you can re-order,edit,post immediately or delete the post. 

By default,the size of buffer is 10 tweets. You can increase the size by either inviting other friends to buffer or by going to a premium plan. The times to post can be changed in the settings options.

On the whole,buffer is a great application to post tweets at the right times,great application for the bloggers and marketeers to share their content across the social networks.

Link:

Buffer - A Smarter Way to Share on Social Media

Tricklr: Regular tweets,fewer distractions

Tricklr is a great application for those twitter users that want to remain present on their followers' timeline throughout the day. It is basically a scheduling app and lets you schedule tweets so that you don't spam your followers' timeline and even then remain productive on twitter.

The application is quite easy and simple to use. You just need to sign in with twitter and that's it! One doesn't needs to make a separate account for tricklr.

The working interface (above image) is the simplest interface that one can think of. Simply type the tweet in the box and add it to the queue. In the queue,you have the options to move,edit,publish immediately or delete the tweet. The major advantage of the application is that you needn't schedule each and every tweet. The tweets will be posted one after the other in the interval you decide!

By default the time interval between two tweets is 2 hours but you can change the time interval in the settings option. Apart from the time interval,you can also change the time period between which the tweets will be posted.

Overall,the app is just awesome. It is the right app for those who are in a hurry but want to remain effective on twitter. It's simple interface makes it the easiest to operate.

Link: http://tricklrapp.com/

Mummy's Khichdi

I always loved my mummy from the bottom of my heart. It's always a different feeling to call her Maa . But I never cared to show my love. Perhaps I never found it important to show my love towards her. After all,she is always there for me regardless of my attitude towards her. It's perhaps her duty to take care of me.Perhaps she's doing nothing special for me,every mother does this for their children. There are possibly endless reasons like that and no special reason to understand her worth.

I remember the school days when mummy would remain too busy handling the household affairs and on some days she could manage to make just Khichdi for me. Every time she used to make that,It used to be my utter pleasure to to make faces while eating it,since I liked to eat spicy food. It is the duty of every mother to please their children. It is the right of every children to criticize her when she fails to do so.


But times changed. I am living a bachelor's life now,and thank god there are two awesome restaurants at the walking distance from my home. Life is good with all the spicy Biryaani and paneer dishes I can eat now. I have the access to the best food now so there isn't any problem. But perhaps you can eat these food for weeks and months but one day you are bound to reach the saturation point. I was a fine October evening,and by then I was bored of all the food that I had access to. I didn't wanted to eat Biryaani,neither did I wanted to eat Dhosa or Tandoori Chicken. I wanted that old Khichdi that my mummy used to make. But that day,I didn't have my mummy with me! There was no one whom I could order to make that uninteresting Khichdi for me,neither could I criticize anyone for not making food while I was hungry. Life taught me the worth of my mummy in a hard way.

The best of mouth watering dishes available in any restaurant are no match for the food mummy  makes

My eyes were moist. Situations showed me the mirror and I saw how ugly I was from inside! Two days later it was Saturday. I decided to catch the earliest morning train to home and I did. I was back home and the first thing I did was that I hugged mummy tight and say thank you.  My mummy was perplexed on why I said so,but I didn't speak anything more... my voice chocked and I just smiled. Later my mummy asked "Babu toke to jhaal khete bhalo lage na? Aajge kopi diye dalla banayi?" (You like eating spicy food no? Should I prepare cauliflower's dalla for you?) I said "Na ma.. Khichuri kavar mon koreche.. banabe?" (No mummy,I would like to have Khichdi..  will you make it?) 

Going topic less

I wouldn't have been writing this blog post if I hadn't been inspired by Salman Khan's movie Wanted. It's definitely very strange to establish a relationship between a blog post and an action movie,after all the extreme thing to expect is a movie review but perhaps there are too many film critics in this industry and definitely an ambitious person like me dreams to be different from the crowd (Only dreams,some dreams never change into reality).

Let me now reveal the relationship between the two,without further digressing (okay.. I can't digress much as well,today I am topic less). The thing is Salman's dialogue "Ek baar jo maine commitment kar di to mai apne aap ki bhi nahi sunta"  (For the English friends the translation is: Once I commit something,I don't listen to anyone,not even to myself) influenced me a bit . If you had expected some humor to be revealed,then I must say,it was my sheer pleasure to let your hopes down,perhaps this is going to happen a lot more as you you read further down. Okay,the commitment is that before some weeks,I had decided to complete 26 blog posts this year before June ends. For those who have never stressed their minds much while solving mathematical problem,the engineer inside me (yes there are chances that I would get the degree after three years from now) would like to to inform that we are about to cross half of the year,both month-wise and week-wise,a year that would have 10 days less than usual,if we consider what the Maya calender predicts. 


Anyways,without digressing much for the second time,I'd come back to the point (at least to the failed attempt of making one) I wanted this journey to look a bit smooth,with one blog post posted every week in the calender year 2012,amid a busy schedule (which included a lot of sleeping) but perhaps it's easier to commit than to fulfill it (I hope the ones in relationship would agree to me) Anyways,I am a warrior and I fight until the last moment and hence this attitude inspired me to write a post without a topic. There are situations when things change from bad to worse,still one needs to make a fair attempt to fulfill the commitments they made,and writing this particular blog post,I want to set an example as how disciplined one must be to give priorities to their commitments.


I won't deny the fact that I am bragging about my abilities to fulfill commitments (at least there's no harm in saying so) partially because I have become desperate enough staying singe (yes I may sound way too melodramatic to say these things at a tender age of 19,but that is true :( ) and this would be the best way possible to let the single girls know that I am a sincere guy who knows how to be responsible enough. Although numerically, this particular blog has been been viewed more times by me than a combination of everyone else who accidentally clicked the link,I personally hope some single girls would be reading this post and would approach me after this,this hope remains intact as Google fails to give gender based analysis and there always remains a possibility that at least any girl would come across this post.


Okay,enough of telling the world how much pathetic I am.. I have something better to tell you. The title would have been more interesting if I would have performed some simple subtraction and would have used "Going top-less" . At least it would have attracted more men to the post. They would have faced disappointment later but that doesn't matter as they would face disappointment in any case. Top-less reminds me of the phrase that my friends used to use in childhood "Iska to top-floor khaali hain" (Yes they used to consider me dumb right from childhood,I don't know how I made it to engineering) . It's no doubt that you must be thinking the same about me till now after reading  this much of the post.


On a serious note,it's quite difficult to post an article without a topic. It is much easier to post tweets when you are blank. In fact all my tweets serve as a living example (If you consider tweets as living thing,otherwise non-living) of how things can be posted without dealing in even an iota of significance. Unfortunately I can't write a blog post to wish everyone good morning. Neither can I write a blog post to comment a single 'LOL'. Yes things are so easy to deal in 140 characters :) 


Although I have brought some contrast between my blog posts and tweets,there is a similarity between them: Both suck and no one pays attention to any of them! (Neither do I) :(. This guilt of not getting any attention,neither on twitter nor on blogger bites me hard. Perhaps sometimes I feel like changing my online name to Natasha Mehra or Ayesha Malhotra and start being obnoxious. This will definitely get me attention but I will get nothing else out of it!

It's better to suck at being original rather than being fake and awesome

It took me more than half an hour to think and type so much. Yes thirty minutes of my life has been wasted in writing another post that won't receive any attention. If my room partners come across this particular post of mine,they would be highly pleased over their decision to devote their precious time to sleep rather than pretending to be a blogger. Dear reader (I know no one is reading this but still it's good to pretend and escape the reality) thank you for the attention that you have paid to read this entire piece of crap. This piece of crap was brought to you by my parents (now that I have acknowledged them as sponsors they can't blame that the money they paid on my internet bill went in vain). I hereby end the 22nd blog post for the year.

  

Missing undo button: The story of my first love

Undo button: How desperately we need it,but in reality,life doesn't provides us one.

Human beings are prone to make mistakes. We make mistakes,more mistakes,silly mistakes in exams,serious mistakes in life and some embarrassing ones too. The saga of screwing up goes on.

A flashback to childhood reminds me of  those times when I was first learning to ride a bicycle. I fell down probably a hundred of times,getting a lot of scratches on my knees and elbows before "finally" learning the thing. I was yet to learn operating the computer at that time and the innocent me was not aware of these commands:  The undos and the redos. Therefore,I couldn't have thought of these vague ideas at that time,but remembering those times,I always feel funny how pleasurable the process of learning to ride a bicycle would have been if we were powered with these virtual commands.

Mistakes such as falling down from a bicycle aren't big ones. We can afford making such mistakes and they do no harm whatsoever. However,as we grow up in life,mistakes turn out to take a new definition,a new face,which end up causing embarrassments at time. Perhaps there are lot of such mistakes each one of us has committed,so have I. But in life,some of the embarrassing mistakes turn out to be sweet in the due course of time.


It was early days of September and I was new to Facebook. I was new to chatting and I instantly fell in love with it! On one such day,a sly classmate of mine had provided me a link telling me to check it out. As a newcomer to social networks and possibly unaware of the pranks that could be played out,I followed her instructions like a lost puppy. The link directed me to a "compatibility match test". One had to fill out their name and the name of their crush and it would analyze on how compatible the couple turns out to be. 


This girl,my crush,was a classmate of mine,pretty descent and pretty as well. I had a crush on her since 9th standard and I always adored her presence in the class. Although she was unaware of this,she used to make my day. I always felt lonely when she was absent in class. I was deeply lost in her love but never had enough guts to contact her. 


Okay,coming back to the point,I saw at the page. "Cool! Why not give it a try?" I said to myself and filled up the details and whack! I pressed the enter button. The next moment,I was redirected to a message "Sorry! You have been fooled,the name of your crush has been messaged to so-and-so@some-xyz-mail.com (The girl's email ID who had sent me the link)". 


I desperately tried to press the undo button,forgetting that life doesn't happens to be on Microsoft Word,you can't press the undo button. "Shit! You have been trapped".


For the next two days,I faced all sorts of embarrassment,with my classmates not leaving any chance to pull my legs. Although that didn't concern me much,the real concern lied in how embarrassing these things would have been for her (my crush). Out of guilt,I never looked at her,trying to avoid eye-contacts whenever we were about to face each other.

How desperately I wanted an undo button from god at that time but god flatly rejected my plea. 

Perhaps god had better plans in mind. 


Two months later,it was the fun fair. Each of the class in our school is allotted two stalls. The responsibilities are then divided among the classmates. Coincidentally,I was given the responsibility to manage the Chole Bhature stall's affairs with her. I smiled at her and she smiled back. After the duty got over,I gathered all my courage and spoke up "Hey,are you hungry?". Amid confusion,she remained silent before finally telling yes.
"Cool! Lets taste how bad the Chole Bhature is" I said.  "Umm.. okay" She smiled. 


We took two plates full of the mouth watering Punjabi Dish before settling down.


Me:  Hey I'm seriously sorry for all the mess I made 


She: What mess?


Me: The one at classroom...


She: It's fine re! I was actually shocked to know that you..


Me: You?


She (smilingly): sort of like me.. I seriously never expected that from you.. 


Me: actually I wasn't sure on how to approach so I decided to keep it to myself.


She: idiot you are! You would let someone go away from your life rather than approaching her..


I remained silent,being totally blank on how to reply. But she wasn't done yet..


She: And so silly.. you can't even dare to ask your crush's phone number.. phattu (timid) you are.


Adrenaline rushed throughout my body and my heart pumped as wildly as possible. All I wondered was at what rate my heart could pump blood before my veins collapsed. She took the responsibility of interrupting my baseless thinking. "What? You don't even have a phone or what?" We exchanged our numbers and we stayed together throughout the proceedings that evening. We wished good night at the parking and left for out respective homes.


For the next four months,we endlessly texted each other during our free time. We'd be busy during the lectures exchanging glances and endlessly staring each other. During the lunch time,we would be busy sharing each others' lunch. My classmates were shocked and they tried to make fun of me,but perhaps I was too lost in her to pay attention to their comments.


Finally the farewell day came. A series of songs were performed right from "Purani jeans" to "pal" leading to a mixed feeling of joy (remembering the entire journey) and sadness (Feeling that the journey had finally come to an end). Everyone had tears in their eyes and the girls melodramatically hugged each other to express their grief. Finally it was click click time. She was dressed in a beautiful black saree that day. She handed over the camera to one of the juniors and hugged me tight for the photograph. After the photograph,she brought her lips close to my ears and whispered something that I had never expected "Idiot! Do you already know or do I need to tell you that I have fallen for you?"


I was completely cold,unable to believe what she just said. Controlling the sudden burst of euphoria,I whispered to her ears "Oh shit! Now I need to suffer you for the entire lifetime,poor me". She softly slapped me one. No one around us was aware of what just happened,I quickly remembered god and I could feel like he's smiling and telling to me "So you still need an undo button?"


Getting screwed up is an usual thing in life. Everyone chalks out a plan for their life,but at different times,life ceases to be the dream we dream it to be. But in the end,things turn out to be magical,being a part of the story that perhaps even the most excellent writers can't write,after all it has been written by the best story-writer in the world: The almighty.

Reference Points

It was the last exam of our second semester. I had reached the exam hall a bit early since I was done with the revision somewhat two hours before the exam. My semester exams were okay okay and I didn't wanted this one to go away in a similar fashion.

While I sat on my bench,I saw the guy who sits ahead of me. There's some unusual thing about this guy which would make you respect him. He wears specs,has mustaches and light beard but doesn't care to trim them. Neatly dressed and quite reserved. His face remained quite expressionless and calm,knocking out the exam fear.

In the first four exams,I had not talked to him much,but this time,I decided to get into a conversation with him. He was from the Electrical Engg department which I understood from the orange strip on his ID card. 

Me: Today's exam is a bit tough.. I guess there will be a lot of diagrams to draw

He: Yeah.. I'm sure there will be some tough numerical as well.

Me: Lets see.. anyways,done with all the chapters

He (In a modest way): Don't know.. Lets see :)

Me: Ahem! Don't try to be so modest.. how much did you score in the first semester?

He: Umm.. 9.37 points. 

It was a sudden shocker for me,he was the college topper and I guess he had scored the highest in the city as well. He didn't ask my pointers and by then the supervisor had entered the hall. 

That evening,I was back to home after a long train journey and from the shelf,I decided to pick up 'The Greatness Guide' by Robin Sharma (P.S: I love reading his books again and again,it rejuvenates my spirit). I reached a particular topic called  'Choosing Reference Points'.

I re-introspected my performance over the year,I mean the last two semesters. I found that I wan't aiming much from the exams,thanks to the tremendous amount of complacency I had gathered during the year. The entire year was spent without much hard work and with low expectations.

I decided to change this habit and start with new and more efficient habits. I asked to myself "If he can,why can't I?" after all god gave me everything that I needed . I decided to set him as a reference point for my exam performance. I decided to set some more reference points as well. For example,there are some guys in my class who are good and regular at completing assignments,I'd refer them for my progress in assignments and continuous checking would help me buck up whenever I get loose and lag behind. Some guys are good at workshop,some are good at managing the class affairs. When I check their performance and I try to learn from them,it does wonders.

"There's something to learn from everyone around us,all we need is a positive attitude"

The best thing about reference points is that you always get a direction and standard. Merely saying that I'll get 9 points this semester becomes a bit vague,at times you don't know how to approach things. Don't ignore the fact that there are some smarter people around you and it's always wise to learn from their work and get it incorporated into you work. 

Monkey Thieves

I am not a fan of any particular show on TV! I have this habit of surfing between channels and then fixing up with something that I like. In such a attempt,I ended up on National Geographic (I used to be a great fan of Nat Geo Wild in my childhood) and I found this particular show being aired.



Initially I thought it would be a special episode of any show on the lives of macaque monkeys,who are well reputed for their restless activities. I love this species and I decided to watch the show,however later I found that this is an entire show itself,the show's name was 'Money Thieves'.

The production team has done a great job to make the viewer understand the monkey's life. This show is based on the lives of monkeys in the city of Jaipur. To be more specific,the show showcases the lives of a gang called the galta gang. The group lives in a temple and is well fed by the devotees, thanks to the love of Indian people towards Hanuman Ji,who incarnates as a monkey and helps lord Ram to defeat Raavan . The devotees therefore religiously feed these monkeys.

However,apart from the food they get at the temple,they are quite efficient thieves as well, terrorizing the people and vendors and snatching away food. The effect of economic slowdown takes a heavy toll on the amount of food provided to them and hence the troop resumes to thievery to feed their bellies. The group becomes too large and ultimately splits up into two.

This show brings awareness on the loss of natural habitat of many species due to cutting down of forests. These animals find themselves in an urban surrounding where their food pattern changes and so does their style of living. Hence,it is quite interesting to see the changes caused due to loss of forests. A mutual respect should be maintained between human beings and other species and if this respect is violated,both the species face trouble,which is well brought into the picture in this show.

The innocent thievery made by the monkeys is quite cute to watch. They fight with each other and with other gangs too. Sometimes they need to face the monkey catches too. Their life is full of struggles but they don't give up and strive to survive. 

How I got into engineering

Engineering is one of the most respected things to study. The foundation of any country is laid on the shoulders of capable engineers,doctors and managers. Their skills and their creativity determines to what extent a country can develop! Therefore the vision of any country must be to nurture the talent of the youth and promote them to become skillful professionals who'd strive to make their country a better place.

I am an engineering student,I got into engineering in  a purely conventional manner just like many other students of our country. I managed to score well in Higher secondary (10th grade) thanks to the limitless cram work I had done in the entire one year. I passed off the exam with a decent 88.8 percentage of marks,decent enough to get me into the science stream,I had a special interest for economics apart from mathematics and physics,but I decided to opt for science.

As I got into 11th,I was not sure in how to approach the subjects. I took wrong coaching and I screwed up almost the first six months with poor marks in the unit and terminal exams. I changed my  coaching classes,and things did change,the new sir,a chemistry teacher mentored my progress,teaching me enough of chemistry to bring about any sort of conversion. I did fairly well with the organic part and slowly bucked up in the other two parts of it namely inorganic and physical chemistry.

Mathematics was a total failure in 11th,I didn't get a proper approach to calculus and I screwed up with the differential calculus (which later has become one of my favorite subject) . I surely got weak with the mathematics part. Nothing bright happened with physics either,with me lacking in the conceptual part of Newtonian Mechanics and oscillations. Textbook were appearing boring and I never fared off well. 11th grade was bad at personal level too. I suffered a lot of embarrassment from my classmates,thanks to the weak links which earned me the tag of a failed crammer who crammed in 10th to get into science,probably it was enough to get me into a doubt on whether I did justice to myself in opting for science.

The only good thing for which I would remember 11th is for the computer science part. Our school teacher taught us from the root level and I worked hard to get the fundamentals of programming right. We had C and C++ in our portion and I did well in both of them,thanks to clear concepts. (Please note: The fundamental to programming is clear logic,be clear on the how to approach a problem and then code it in the given language,you need to get the commands right,but logic should be clear before you proceed)

With a bad approach,I scored some 78 % in my 11th grade's final exam and I had left all the hopes of getting an admission into a good engineering college. The vacation between 11th and 12th was short,and the immediate step I decided to take is change my coaching in physics and mathematics. The beginning of 12th wasn't so rocking. More of personal embarrassment I suffered,and I became completely demoralized.  There was a vacation in may before the school finally resumed. This vacation was the turning point for me,I read 'The monk who sold his Ferrari' by Robin Sharma and I finally realized where I was going wrong. I read 'The Greatness Guide' by the same author. Both these books made me believe in myself and I realized everything was getting screwed up because I had lost faith in myself.

After the vacation,I was determined to proceed. I scored 68% in the unit test,but I took this score as a benchmark and I worked hard in school,coaching and then at home to grab all the concepts and
do well. Within two months,my physical and inorganic chemistry improved,physics was fair,I covered both electrostatics and magnetism and there wasn't any problem. The real hard work I made was in mathematics,where my new teacher patiently solved all my doubts and got my concepts clear. I grasped the integral calculus and spent time revising the differential calculus. I suffered more of demoralizing from my classmates but I decided to ignore their comments and alienated from them. In pure solitary,I worked hard with my aim clear.

After two months in the first terminal exam,I got the results of my hard work,scoring 10% more than the unit exam,getting 78%. I worked with my concepts in the succeeding exams but could score only 68% and 72% in the two prelims,however the exams were tough and I found myself doing better than most of my classmates! Finally it was board exam time,with my aim entirely fixed at doing well at boards. The exams went off well,but my parents had already decided to get me into a B.Sc college for a majors,thanks to my poor scoring. But I didn't lose hope.

Apart from board,I had appeared for the National Defence Academy, Gujarat Common Entrance Test and The All India Engineering Entrance Exam, the first two went off well but I hadn't really prepared anything for the third one.

Finally,the month of may arrived and it was result time. One after the other,results were out. I was confident that I'll score decently,but my parents didn't feel the same and somewhere back in my mind,I was a bit discouraged due to the same. Okay,now coming back to results, I scored 88.2 in my board,with 84 in physics,88 in chemistry and 95 in mathematics. I stood 9th best student overall in the class. I got 341 rank in the Guj-CET and  I cracked the NDA exams as well,getting a walk-in interview in navy (executive part). I got 122 out of 360 in AIEEE exam. I brought smile to my parents,meanwhile proving them wrong.

Unfortunately due to my extraordinary height of 5 feet 5 inches and a whopping weight of 80 Kgs,I didn't get an admission in the NDA. AIEEE score wan't high enough to get me into a National Institute of Technology or the IIIT (Not IIT). I got Shri Swami Atmanad Saraswati Institute of Technology in my Guj-CET counselling and I grabbed the opportunity. A bit of disappointment was faced in the successive one month. I didn't appear for the re-counselling and then after the final list was out,I came to know that I could have easily got an admission to any of the best institute in the State with my rank. Doors were closed,and I seriously found myself in a place where I had got into,but personally I always felt that I deserved something better. I tried to focus on the engineering thing and in two months I was over the depression!

Now my only aim is to get better points in my semesters and then get a job with handsome salary or to directly go for MBA and this time,I won't make the same mistake,I'll prepare for the entrance exams in a more disciplined way. My only aim now is to get my life in such a position that after 10 years, I don't repent that I made mistakes when I shouldn't have made. I want to get a clear aim now and I don't want to be distracted by the distractions that students of my age find. I am getting aggressively active in Social Media and I want to explore all it's possibilities,sort of an out-of academics interest I have decided to pursue. But my main focus will always remain the same,to perform fairly in the academics part. 

Samosa and tea...

It's almost 5;15 pm and the sky is changing it's color from a combination of blue and white to reddish orange. After a hectic college schedule of 10-5 I'm totally exhausted. I barely caught an auto-rickshaw from the college and I get that irritating call! Yeah,that's my room partner (Ankit,whose college timing is 8-3) just woken up after the afternoon sleep.

Me: hello?

RP: Kamine,where are you?

Me: Just left for the room

RP: idiot! Want to top or what? Attending all the lectures..

Me: So will you come and meet the Head of Department the next time my name gets featured in the low-attendance list

RP: Attending lectures for studying or just to fill up the attendance sheet?

Me: You're too dumb to understand that! Or may be you must sleep for some more time

RP: No! Enough sleeping,I want to drink tea,get some tea when you return


Me: I've been paying for the naashta (snacks) for the last two days. I don't have any money


RP (in a friendlier tone): Arey! We will share it! I'll pay for the dinner tonight.


Me (still looking for a better bargain): Leave it! I'll pay for my own dinner. I don't have money to fill up others' tummy!


RP: Don't cry now! I'll get the movie tickets tonight okay? Don-2 is a hit! 


The offer is tempting enough for me! The unofficial peace treaty has been signed between us.


Me: Okay! But I'll get the tea only,nothing else okay?




*second room partner (Gaurav) screams from behind*


RP2: I want to eat samosas. 


Me (to RP1) : You'll pay for it?


RP1: I don't know! Our deal has been finalized okay?


Me: no samosas okay?


I reach the locality till then. Both the room partners fight ignoring that I'm still on the phone. I decide to cut the phone and get the tea! 


The chaiwala (tea vendor) makes the best cutting-tea in the world! I decide to get six glasses of tea. he packs them up in plastic packets. My eyes naturally get attracted to the samosas freshly prepared. "Both the idiots will be hungry!" I feel (yes the softer side always cares for them) . I get 9 samosas packed for them, meanwhile calculating how much money they owe to me!


After 5 minutes of walk,I reach the room. Gaurav opens the door,hungry and frustrated by then. Ankit rather remaining silent, thanks to the deal we already made!


RP2: Some people are too selfish! They're able to pay for the Manchurian balls at the canteen when they are with classmates. Useless people! Can't do anything for the room partners.


*RP1 decides to ignore the conversation and instead pretends to text his girl friend*  


Me: Some people can taunt but can't appreciate their room partners. I brought the tea.


RP2 (frustrated): I'm hungry but who cares,bring the tea! 


I place both the samosa's packet and tea on the table,room partner's frustrated look vanishes after he gets the smell of hot samosas.

RP1: Wow! You brought samosas?

*Ankit leaves the phone in the bed and rushes towards the table. Gaurav blocks him*

RP2: Girlfriend went to sleep or what? Go and cuddle her.

RP1: Jaa na.. we hae equal share,3 each!

We three settle to eat,and the cold war silently comes to an end.

Friends are recognized by the love between them and the selfless help they offer.....but without any doubt, it is these silly fights that bring us closer than ever!

Arizona plans to spread awareness of highway dust storms in a unique way

The state of Arizona has planned to combat it's old enemy in a new way. Summer dust storms,harboobs are quite troublesome for the drivers. These storms reduce the visibility level and also increases the risk of highway accidents leading to loss of property and life.

                                                   (image courtesy:  newdeal.feri.org )

However,Arizona has planned to combat this problem in an interesting way! The state is trying to promote awareness about this problem by conducting a haiku challenge. 

Haiku are micro-poems that contain 17 syllables arranged in the format of 5~7~5 syllables. These poems have originated from Japan but have considerably been popular in other countries too! These micro-poems are short but convey great poetic excellence and meaning. It has been popular among the twitter family too,with increased number of people tweeting these micro-poems under the hashtag #haiku.

Basically the challenge invites the twitter users to tweet haiku about the dust storm under the hashtag #harboobhaiku. This unique idea came out during a brainstorming session conducted on how the social media could be used efficiently to reach out to the drivers! Social media is connecting in a stronger way with the common public and these connections can be efficiently used to bring awareness to the daily life.

Source:

http://in.reuters.com/article/2012/06/15/us-arizona-haiku-idINBRE85E0EO20120615

Power of Social Media: A nine-year-old girl's blog goes viral!

There are probably millions of people who are into blogging,Martha Payne is one such girl. However what's unusual about her is that she's just nine-years-old and she has turned up to a unique and interesting way of raising charity! Her blog neverseconds has gone viral in the past few weeks and has got over 6 million hits!

(image courtesy: blog.hellomagazine.com )


She actively blogs and photographs about her school lunch. She has a unique way of describing the food by giving a detailed information about it ranging from food rating to mouthfuls to the price to the number pieces of hair found. 

Her blog has served as a nice forum of debate and discussion,attracting a large number of comments to her posts and eventually drawing up quite a fantastic amount of money for her charity mission. She has raised  stg £80,000 for the charity Mary's Meals Kitchen in Malawi. 

The controversy

The Argyll and Bute Council stopped her from taking photographs of the meals following a newspaper report criticizing the meal arrangement. This was followed by her writing the following post

This morning in maths I got taken out of class by my head teacher and taken to her office. I was told that I could not take any more photos of my school dinners because of a headline in a newspaper today. 

I only write my blog not newspapers and I am sad I am no longer allowed to take photos. I will miss sharing and rating my school dinners and I’ll miss seeing the dinners you send me too. I don’t think I will be able to finish raising enough money for a kitchen for Mary’s Meals either.

Goodbye,
VEG

The post eventually received over 2800 comments,drawing criticism from people and fans all over! 


A large amount of support was seen on twitter too with #neverseconds trending for over 5 hours. Finally the ban was lifted by the council leader Cllr Rody Mcuish. 


Finally she is back to blogging and rating meals in the unique style. This incident clearly exhibits the power and unity of social media and also on it's direct influence over the traditional media. 


Sources:

• http://www.siliconrepublic.com/new-media/item/27810-9-year-old-blogger-sparks-a/
• http://www.business2community.com/blogging/the-power-of-blogging-how-a-9-year-old-girl-became-a-social-media-star-0198932
• http://neverseconds.blogspot.in/2012/06/goodbye.html
• http://neverseconds.blogspot.in/

Top quotes-Part 2

“You are the average of the five people you spend the most time with.” 
E. James Rohn


"It is not flesh and blood but the heart which makes us fathers and sons."
Johann Schiller


Giving is the secret of abundance.
Sivananda


"Development of compassion and understanding for others can bring us the tranquility and happiness we seek." 
 Dalai Lama


"Fortune favors the brave." 
 Publius Terence 


"If things seem under control, you are just not going fast enough." 
Mario Andretti


"True change is within; leave the outside as it is." 
 Dalai Lama


"Pain is temporary. Quitting lasts forever."
Lance Armstrong


Source:
Tweets that I came across

The Teacher of Management

There's a post graduation course called Masters of Business Administration, more popularly known as MBA. These graduates are hired by firms where they exhibit their extraordinary skills of managing affairs,be it handling clients,handling the clerks,managing the accounts and so on. (P.S: I don't have much knowledge as I am an engineering student). These managers are paid huge amount of money to manage the affairs of company and optimizing the company's performance.

Okay,now coming to the point,this post has got nothing to do with these MBAs,I just thought of enlightening the readers with all the knowledge (or ignorance,whatever you call it) about the same. Apart from these professional institutes that teach management skills,there's one more institute or I say a single teacher who teaches management,called life (I guess you've already guessed it!)





Life introduces us to different situations at different ages. Each of these stages of life has good things to cherish about and some challenging things and difficult times. Fortunately,be it good or bad,situations always teach us something or the other,and almost every time we face some them,we always find a refined version of us! (Well the fact can't be ignored that some incidents leave us in deep trauma,and if that has ever happened to you,my sympathy is with you and 
yeah! Time is a great healer of wounds).


In life,at different situations,we are surrounded by different types of people,ranging from parents to teachers to girlfriend(s) to wife to children to bosses to clients. Each one of them have different expectations from you,as an individual and you need to manage all the relations pertaining to them! Initially we may not be good at all of them, we may tremendously fail at things,but life,by virtue of time and failures,teaches us to become better in managing people and handling situations. These lessons aren't provided by any other school or college in the world.

"Develop success from failures. Discouragement and failure are two of the surest stepping stones to success."
Dale Carnegie

 Situation after situation,our life gets molded,and if we look back at time,we will realize that how some difficult situations that we came across left making us stronger than ever,and also improving our management skills. Late Mr.Steve Jobs puts it in a better way:

"Again, you can't connect the dots looking forward; you can only connect them looking backwards. So you have to trust that the dots will somehow connect in your future. You have to trust in something — your gut, destiny, life, karma, whatever. This approach has never let me down, and it has made all the difference in my life."

The best part of life is that knowingly or unknowingly,we get enrolled to it's course of learning and that we remain a student of it at any age. Willingly or unwillingly,we need to take the lessons and learn from them. Truth,no matter how bitter it is,always brings about positive changes. Miracles can happen and who knows something miraculous is waiting to happen in your own life,thanks to the better manager you are becoming!

Sources:
Wikiquote: http://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Steve_Jobs

Brainyquote: http://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/topics/topic_success.html

The genius inside us

I was wondering what makes a person a true genius. Being a science student and taking special interest in the biographies of scientists,I always cherished their lives and their works. It feels great to know more about the extraordinary achievements they have made,especially because it always makes me feel inspired!

I always wonder whether it is the "genetic factor" or they are "god gifted" or something else that makes someone a genius! Definitely,they are gifted with some special interest in a specific field. But is that the only reason why they rise and shine?

We too,in some way or other have a special interest in some field. But,perhaps we have never shown any special enthusiasm in cultivating the interest. May be someone is gifted with special talent in dance,some have special interest in singing,in guitar,in piano or may be in horse riding. However,we choose to go with the crowd,always preferring to give a special impetus to academics over anything else.

I won't blame the children in this case! They don't have any fault whatsoever. The parents,in this competitive age,want to ensure that their child's future remains secured. hence,a special care is taken that the children excels within the academic field and get an admission to one or the other good colleges,and then get added to the ever growing league of doctors,engineers,chartered accountants,researchers and so on!

However within this force of engineers,doctors or chartered accountants,there hides enormous talent who could become the next Michel Jackson,Pele or Madonna. However,the creative side under them is choked to death in extreme cases,or exists only as a hobby.

Several students and professionals,despite performing well,face a lot of depression,most probably being pushed to do things they don't want to pursue! There is a serious need to understand that life can be awesome by pursuing the god-gifted talent. Initially there may be a large amount of struggling,but enthusiasm when directed in right directions can overcome all sorts of hardships.

In the end I'd like to quote Aamir Khan in 3 Idiots

"If  Sachin's father would have forced him to become a singer and Lata Mangeshkar's father had forced her to become a fast bowler,then they wouldn't have ended up in being where they are currently"

The Presidential Election

For the past one month (and probably more) Indian politics has been on fire. Prior to this,some amount of similar fired up activity was witnessed last year when Anna Hazare charged in with the dream of bringing about a watchdog to corruption,more famously known as 'Lokpal'. Delhi was on fire,and so was the entire country,people's frustration over corrupt governance was quite naturally visible by the numbers of people that came to open support! And this wasn't all,Baba Ramdev too,took the advantage of the situation and brought the attention of the nation to the massive amounts of Black money which were deposited and safely kept at Swiss Bank.

Unfortunately,our government,which promised to act seriously in both matters,failed to show sincerity in any one of the matters. Lokpal bill and black money remain stagnated in the places where they were,one year ago. A series of political meetings took place,and the entire country remained glued to the Hindi and English news channels which used to bring some or the other experts to talk on the same!

One year later,somewhat same amount of political activity is again witnessed and the media is active in a similar fashion. However this time the common man isn't the participator,he remains the observer,with media being the eyes to him. The race begun and a lot of names were thrown in,a lot of speculations happened and a lot of articles were written. As time passed,newer names were thrown and more of media blah blah took place. Some ministers,some leaders,and the Ex-president himself is into the race. Each day,and infact each hour something new is taking place. The election has turned into a game of chess,where it's quite impossible to determine the winning name until the results are declared.

Some semi-national parties (I call them so because they play a significant role in the national politics but are much more active in one or maximum two,three states) are playing the major moves dragging their coalition partners to the back-foot. These parties have a special importance and they have seized this opportunity in the best manner, to make their importance felt in the right manner! These parties have nothing to lose,but have a lot of say in the number game that is taking place. Their activities are also pointing at the amount of decentralization that has taken place in the recent years.

Amid all these number games and speculations,the management capacity of the national parties is also to be observed. Their coalition plays a major part in their power and if they are not able to manage and keep their partners satisfied,they can be in serious trouble,which in an extreme case can lead to a mid-term poll. They have to manage 50% of the total votes,by hook or by crook! Also,the candidate selected would play an important role in determining the execution of the policies. An apolitical candidate selected can be expected to be fair in the execution part. This is also the major concern for the opposition parties. A president comes with a lot of powers and wrong use of these powers can lead to disastrous results and unbalanced democracy!

The election activities have been quite rapid and major twists and turns have been witnessed,even in the time span of hours! It is quite difficult for any political enthusiast and observer to predict the outcome. Hence,all we can expect is that the body of our elected representatives choose the best of the best and our democracy remains  safeguarded under fair and worthy hands.

Jai Hind!