Amar's Stuff- Music, Books, Articles, Opinions..

Conference on Marriage

noreply@blogger.com (Amar Shah) — Sat, 23 Nov 2013 12:42:00 +0000

Recently I attended a conference for young people looking to marry in the Catholic Church. It was organised by the Opus Dei (a Catholic church organisation) and invited were 40 something young boys from Sydney and Canberra. The conference was at the Kenthurst Study centre in Sydney where Pope Benedict stayed during his 2008 WYD trip. It was only six hours long and included a packed schedule: Sunday mass, two meditations by a priest, lunch, afternoon tea, DVD watching and three talks on aspects of a marriage. The meditation was great (I was sleeping), but what most I liked were the talks. They were inspiring. Everyone who gave us talk was experienced and would sit on a chair and the audience would sit around to form a semi-random circle.
The environment was stimulating too and more of an informal kind.

It started with highlights about the current situation. Facts were given to indicate why marriages are failing in Australia – because people are not prepared. It included a statistic of 3 million Medicare funded abortions in Australia. That is approximately 1 in every 4 baby. Other facts: Condoms are popular because men are not taking responsibility for their acts. Reason: addiction of lust. There is high rate of suicide and men lack real leadership (with virtues, purity). People are moving far from the God and towards consumerism. We are becoming obese while the 3^rd world starves, also indicated by our 60% higher rate of Cancers.

This is a crisis of saints, and of people with burning love for sanctification in their life. We watched a DVD of late Don Alvaro Del Portillo, the bishop of Opus Dei and now a “Blessed”. The further thoughts were on how we can be saints through our married life, something emphasised in most of the bishops writings. It said marriage could win the war of salvation and “brave new families” by living through a good marriage will bring new evangelisation. Marriage also provides opportunities to be heroic, gain virtues and draw others to Christ.

What struck me were the questions that men should ask themselves, whether your wife will make you a better man after marriage? He elaborated that your wife or girlfriend will always seek to change you, your personality, behaviour and character. Are you willing to accept those corrections? In marriage we have a path and person chosen by God to grow in divine love. Just as you are Catholic for your life, do you want to be with her for all your life? Most importantly, will your wife lead you to heaven? Among other things, we were asked to establish a good communication and friendship with our future wife and make efforts to know her like our best friend. Also some of the fundamental beliefs of the Catholic Church should be clarified before steps to marriage which including views on large family and many children.

Other parts focussed on different qualities of a good marriage and aspects of children.

Three qualities I remember were bringing unity of life, freedom and happiness. Non-unity or double life means you become a different person in your interior life (Catholic faith) and outside world. It is a temptation but an impossible thing to continue. So if our real life as a husband is same as our spiritual life, we can easily practise what we believe. Also we have to value freedom, and provide it to our wife on all occasions. We cannot impose our beliefs on her. These things should be clearly discussed and freely accepted.

Our happiness in marriage would be so great that it would attract everyone around us. It will be an example that others see to learn and apply to their life. Also, people will always ask for advice when they will see your happiness. This gives us opportunities to evangelise. It is our crucial duty to be an apostolate as a couple. Before we reach heaven, we want to make sure our kids, friends and families learn from us, so we could also bring them to God in heaven.

Our dangers are mainly around pride and misconceptions. We have to ask grace to become self-aware when we have pride as most men do not realise it is integral part of us. Women easily feel it. So we need extra efforts to serve our wife with humility and honesty. Apart from that we need to recognise that our wife is not a replacement for our mum. She needs to feel cherished. You have to make sure that everyday you renew your promise that you love her. We need to think about what do we offer to our wife in this area? Our role as a men indicate that we offer protection. It includes physical, spiritual, financial, household and all the needs of our children. This will make sure she will be in her complementary nurturing role, and can freely have more children.

There was a lot more on children and how men can play an integral role in loving his wife and the growth of children. I guess I will share more some other time. Even the above forms a lot to digest. When I reflect on it, I think it gave me a great learning experience when I look at what I would be like in future. Also opened up on Church’s belief and thought process behind marriage as a vocation. I am looking forward to experiencing in the future.

The future leadership

noreply@blogger.com (Amar Shah) — Sat, 16 Apr 2011 15:41:00 +0000

Everyone here knows that Leadership is not inborn. Even if it is, according to some people, they have to constantly learn-unlearn-relearn in order to keep themselves updated.

So how do you get leadership ? Its a big question, if understood properly can bring you to the CEO position from an ordinary worker. If you don't believe, just Google on Indira Nooyi and in just a couple of readings you'd agree.

The leadership is similar to studying a degree: Once you learn it's always with you. Its different as the relevant attributes always change with new challenges and case studies that come up following success stories. I have been doing a lot of study on how will the future leaders look like, and that what in yourself you need to develop NOW to be a future leader.

There was a six-week blog series run by Harvard Business Publishing on their blog during first half of 2010. Articles posted under that covered a wide range of topics and also opened up new issues for the practitioners. One of the most interesting one's I found were just about defining leadership. Still no one has yet reached a stage where they can describe it in few words. Reason: Its undiscovered yet, anybody can argue against my lame viewpoint. I would only ask to agree on: "Great leaders require a necessary quality of continuous learning", that includes all the skills that they possess, when they are already a great leader.

In order to train yourself in a good leadership skills, one needs to be a leader and keep wanting to be a leader. This does not require you to go and apply for the position of manager. Its also not necessary to do a leadership course or enroll into an MBA program as well. You rather just have to stand up and take charge of yourself. Lead your work(your project), life(outcomes) and your friends/relatives(stakeholders).

Bob Johnson, In his book titled "Leaders make the future" describes 10 key qualities that will matter the most in the future. The reason behind quoting him here is not just these qualities, but the self examination attributes linked to these qualities. Examining yourself after every dominant transaction would guide you to the path of becoming a future leader. There is freely available survey available to carry out self examination. The link to the survey is http://www.bkauthorapps.com/lmtf1/quiz.php

The above was my perspective on what should one understand by the word leadership, what is it all about and How would you become a future leader! Hope you had pleasant time reading it and best of luck in becoming a future leader!

Man vs Women

noreply@blogger.com (Amar Shah) — Fri, 26 Mar 2010 14:21:00 +0000

I found this conversation in an email, when women tries to be like man. Exercising "what ever" - The magical words but that turns out funny!!

Men: What should we have for dinner?
Women: Whatever..
Men: Why don't we have Mexican?
Women: No not Mexican, the last time i got pimples on my face
Men: Alright, why don't we have Szechwan cuisine
Women: Yesterday we ate Szechwan, today too?
Men: Hmm..... I suggest we have seafood
Women: Seafood is not good, I got diarrhea
Men: Then what do you suggest?
Women : Whatever..

Men: So what should we do now?
Women: Anything
Men: How about watching a movie? It's been a long time
Women: Watching movie is no good, it's a waste of time
Men: How about we go for bowling, or some exercises?
Women: Exercise on such a hot day?
Men: Then find a cafe and have a drink
Women: I am off caffeine
Men: Then what do you suggest?
Women : Anything..

Men: Then do we just go home?
Women: You decide
Men: Let's take the bus, I will accompany you
Women: The bus is dirty and crowded.
Men: OK; we will take a cab
Women: Not worth it... for such a short distance
Men: All right, then we can walk. We can enjoy the weather
Women: I am hungry, can't walk.
Men: Then what do you suggest?
Women : You decide
Men: Let's have dinner first?
Women: Whatever...
Men: What shall we eat?
Women: Anything..

Simple chicken curry - the indian way!

noreply@blogger.com (Amar Shah) — Tue, 16 Mar 2010 04:47:00 +0000

Indian chicken curry is delicious. Isnt it? I have come across many people who like indian food but dont exactly know how to make it. So they buy ready paste from markets and just mix everything. Believe me, Its the most crap indian food ever! And when I make in front of them, they are surprised with the taste and its simplicity. Well anyone can make delicious curries if they follow these simple steps.

Ingredients

* 3-4 tablespoons of olive oil
* two onions (Large)
* 500 g of chicken fillet (or whatever chicken)
* 4-5 big mushrooms (optional for Qty cooking)
* 3-4 garlic cloves
* little ginger finely chopped
* 1 green chili/chili paste/chili powder/nothing
* 1/4 teaspoon of salt
* 1/4 teaspoon of turmeric
* 2/3 teaspoon of ground cumin
* 1/2 teaspoon of ground coriander
* 6-8 teaspoon of tomato purée/a can of diced tomatoes
* 1/4 teaspoon of garam masala (or a teaspoon of curry paste)
* 3 tablespoons of double cream

Step 1
Get bowls and cut the vegetables really small. Just remember that the smaller something is, the faster it cooks and better it mixes. You'll want the garlic cloves, ginger, onion, and chili to be finely chopped.

If you want the curry to be less spicy, take out more chili seeds. You can always omit the chili if necessary or wanted. Its a myth that Indians always eat spicy hot food. I myself can not bear chili in the food. If you've accidentally cooked spicy food. You can somehow reduce its spiciness by eating it with Greek style plain yogurt.

Step 2
Get a clean chopping board and also chop your chicken breasts into small pieces. Remove the fat if you've got leg pieces under a hot water tap. Just be sure that you wash your hands after cutting the raw chicken before moving onto the next step.

Step 3
Heat oil in a frying pan and cook both the onions and chicken pieces over medium heat. Cook them for about 10-15 minutes, so that the chicken is cooked thoroughly.

Step 4
Add the chili, ginger and garlic. Leave it on medium heat and keep stirring.

Step 5
Add the rest of the ingredients. Also, add double cream. Mix and cook everything together. Put some water so that everything of chicken is dipped into the curry. Get a cover for your fry-pan and keep cooking with intermediate stirring. The chicken tastes best when its overcooked. You got to keep cooking the curry with the pan-lid.

Estimated cooking times in step 5
Breast chicken - 20 min
Leg pieces/Wings - 40 min
Any other - 30 min

Make sure the things do not burn from the bottom. Serve the chicken curry with yogurt and rice or nan-bread..

Escapade

noreply@blogger.com (Amar Shah) — Tue, 05 Jan 2010 05:20:00 +0000

When you have too much of something in your reach you tend to feel greedy and want more of it. You start expecting more and more from it. Soon you start feeling insecure and unreasonable. It is really not easy to have control over what you want all the time. So it is normal to feel this way. Specially when the source is so stable and reliable that even you might start taking it for granted sometime.

Same happens with love. First you fall in love. You find yourself hopelessly in love. Then you build your world around it. You start expecting that your journey to the end won't be so lonely anymore. You often start feeling that this is what you were waiting for all your life. You start building your own dreamland without even thinking that this might not be the other person is expecting from life. Or may be both are expecting same things from life but in different way. May be your meaning of living life is completely different from each other. There it falls apart.

And then when you realize you can't have it the way you want it, you can accept it at once and move on or you can just cry over it for sometime, like a child. But at the end you will have to accept it. Life teaches us its' lessons anyway. There is absolutely no way you can bunk the class.

Now when you face the truth that you will have to accept the truth what do you do?

I start feeling pity for myself. I feel hurt. I feel sad for myself. I even cry for being such a mess. I criticize myself like an enemy should. I feel angry for being so weak and dependent on others. And at the end I accept the truth.

But this is really very negative way to deal with hurt. Is there any way to minimize the hurt? There is, may be. I am still trying to find the way, the Escapade from hurt and self-criticism.

Last chance to prosperity

noreply@blogger.com (Amar Shah) — Wed, 29 Apr 2009 12:22:00 +0000

As the election dates for mumbai is nearing up, more and more people will be coming to house to ask for your vote. One should think that why do they come to your house from their cars, bungalows and from many luxuries they have got? The answer lies in power of your one vote! Your one vote is answer to all these questions and a pathway to your prosperity. And tomorrow is the last chance for the next 5 years, you have got to prove that you are not fool and ignorant about rights you have. You have got enough guts to notice who is working for the development of your area and who is playing shear politics. All you need to do it Vote!!

Here are some of the resources, which can help in deciding the most deserving candidate for your vote. It will give list of all the candidates that you will see on your electric voting machine tomorrow with their detailed profile for the best judgment. At the end, I will suggest only one thing, do not vote based on the party, look for the ability to work for janta in the candidate and then use your power.

List of candidates, party, criminal cases, education, age, assets

To check your name in election voting list - jaagore.com

To check your name in election list - Maharashtra state

To check your name in election list - Mumbai

Affidavites made by candidate's- Maharashtra

Locate a polling booth near your house - look for cities covered in right panel

Financial common sense

noreply@blogger.com (Amar Shah) — Sat, 25 Apr 2009 16:42:00 +0000

I have noticed that many people including some of my friends do not think much about the money they have in their bank account. A large amount whenever remains parked (I call it idle) in savings account, gets you the standard savings interest rate i.e. 3.5-4% p.a. in India. You are free to withdraw that money. But on the other way if you keep the same amount in fixed deposits (FD's), you earn 8-10%. Generally people avoid putting money into FD's because of several reasons. Few of them are hassles of creating/breaking/en-cashing FD's, ignorance, laziness etc.

In this article, I am explaining how you can use these FDs for earning better interest rates, at the same time with the flexibility to withdraw.

Interest rates in India are quite high when you compare it with the foreign countries. But at the same time cost of living is also going up compare to other countries. So actually, we do not get the advantage of high interest rates. It becomes necessary for us to survive our savings in terms of wealth. Every year our wealth changes due to Inflation (The increase in cost of living) and Interest rate of our savings; Because in India, the inflation is around 8-10% and the interest rate we get is 4%, so our actual wealth out of savings declines by 4-6% every year. In simple words, the purchasing power of the money (currency) reduces. Consider this example; in 2008 year, with 10,000 INR if you could have purchased 10 jeans than this year with the same amount you will be able to purchase only 9 jeans. So apparently you lose money equivalent to one jean in one year.

So, how do you avoid inflation getting onto your head? The simple answer is, do not invest into savings account. Invest in fixed deposits. The bank gives higher rate of interest on fixed deposits compare to normal savings account. It's around 9-10.5% p.a. But in that, how do you get freedom to withdraw your money, any time, anywhere you want? Yes, there is a solution available for that. You can have both high interest rate of FD's and ATM facility of savings account. The instrument providing that is called as Over Draft (OD's). It's been favourite of businessmen, but rarely used from investment perspective.

So the approach that I use is, create fixed deposits for small durations like one - two years. And pledge those fixed deposits for an OD in your savings account. Every bank gives a reasonable high rate of interest on fixed deposits and at the same time charges 2-3% over and above interest on OD's. They also give 80-95% limits on pledged securities (FD) which gets majority of your FD amount free for withdrawal. So the interest you have to pay to the bank for using the OD reduces to 2-3% if you subtract FD interest you get from bank. At the end of the year, if you have used the OD fully for the entire year, then also you earn interest of 7- 8%. Isn't it interesting to earn more interest??

NB: Inflation affects everyone, so investments in fixed deposits are insufficient to beat inflation rate. It's certainly not the best way to put your money, but at least better than savings bank account. The data and calculations shown are my personal view. The idea is derived from books by Robert Kiyosaki. Comments welcome. Thank you.

Click to get details: Fixed Deposit, Overdraft, Inflation, Purchasing power, Fixed Deposit rates in Indian banks

A small story..

noreply@blogger.com (Amar Shah) — Fri, 24 Apr 2009 04:00:00 +0000

A boy and a girl were playing together. The boy had a collection of marbles. The girl had some sweets with her. The boy told the girl that he will give her all his marbles in exchange for her sweets. The girl agreed. The boy kept the biggest and the most beautiful marble aside and gave the rest to the girl. The girl gave him all her sweets as she had promised. That night, the girl slept peacefully. But the boy couldn't sleep as he kept wondering if the girl had hidden some sweets from him the way he had hidden his best marble.

Moral of the story: If you don't give your hundred percent in whatever you do, you'll always keep doubting if the other person has given his/her hundred percent.. This is applicable for any relationship like employer-employee, love etc.,

So give your hundred percent to everything you do and sleep peacefully

Taglines and more

noreply@blogger.com (Amar Shah) — Sun, 19 Apr 2009 09:00:00 +0000

Some lines are so funny that you can not stop your laughs looking at them. They are created innocently but somehow unknowingly turn in a laughter shower. I have collected various emails and sources with such stuff that are just too good. Here is the top 10 of my collection. Happy laughing!

At the Spencer's in Pacific Mall, Kaushambi, noticed a perfume:
Cool Girl
For Women
The men are still alive. Mostly single. And desperate.

At Akshardham Temple, New Delhi, a month ago, on a tourist bus:
Jain Travels
So? So do I. And the Sharmas, Talwars, Singhs, Mallyas, Agrawals etc. etc.

On the paper towel dispenser in the restroom at the British Council:
Pull
Here
While pulling out a tissue, I vaguely happened to glance at it, and my brain registered the words with the last two alphabets of both the words transposed. What I read was:
Pure
Hell
Does put things in perspective.

On a wall in East Patel Nagar, New Delhi:
Yahaan par peshaab karna aur poster chhipkaana manaa hai.
Interesting to note that the two have become synonymous. Peeing in front of the walls is as much an advertisement of our culture/sensibilities as putting up awful posters in senseless places is defecating on the walls.

On a hilly road to Shimla:
Please be gentle on my curves.

On a trek in the Gharwhal region. It was a small refreshment shack in the middle of nowhere, and it said:

Lunch and dinner served here at all times.

Somewhere in Lansdowne, UP:

Perphection Tailors
Further superlative to perfection.

Read this in a bus on my way to Joshi Math (Uttaranchal):
Frust Aid box gaadi me hai.

Read one on a forlorn forsaken wall in Kanpur on my way to Rave:
Peshaab Karna mana hai.
Kaha bhaiya? Kidhar? Is peeing completely banned now? Hail Behen Mayawati!

On a banner during Block level elections in Kanpur.

Luxmi sabko pyaari hai, chunnav chinh almaari hai.

Read it Really, Luxmi sabko pyaari hai and it is understandable why the chunaav chinh is almaari. That's where it goes. For Luxmi, whether it's the money or the girl, the benefit of the almaari is that koi bhi aaye, to use almaari mein chhupa lo!

wHy pLaNnInG??

noreply@blogger.com (Amar Shah) — Thu, 16 Apr 2009 12:50:00 +0000

I have noticed that most of the people, especially men, do a lot of haphazard planning for their activities. They understand the importance of time management but somehow, plan at the last moment. You will often find people like me who will say, "Planning is not that important..How many things do you carry out in a day as per your plan? So why waste time and energy in planning daily activities!!"

But one must understand the importance of plans in their life. Not for day to day activities, but at least for one's career, job or studies. I have heard many of my friends saying, "I am planning for this, I will do xx things next year and I want to become this and that". Sometimes I really wonder, when I hear the words "I am planning..", that the person who says this really means it or not. So the way out from the bad plans is not to make plans at all..Isn't it??? Yes, to some extent, but the long term plans for the activities, goals you want to achieve are most likely going to come out of the paper. Also figure out how you are gonna make this happen. If you do this honestly, you wont have anyone asking about excuses..

Though I have been a bad planner for routine stuff but when it comes with pressure I have always made it well. When I was in engineering, I never used to study during semester times and because of that it was lot of tension for me during exam time. I used to study in SK Patil garden during those 4 critical days for preparing the entire subject of one semester. And I dedicate most of the success that I have got in my education to time management and planning!..So guys wake up..Plan ahead and win a chance to become successful..

Towards the end, here are some quotes that I would like to share with you all..take them in whatever way you want. You can use them to take inspiration for planning or annoy the planners around you..Choice is yours!

Life is what happens to you while you're busy making other plans
Bad planning on your part does not constitute an emergency on my part
A good plan today is better than a perfect plan tomorrow
Unless commitment is made, there are only promises and hopes; but no plans
You got to be careful if you don't know where you're going, because you might not get there
Expect the best, plan for the worst, and prepare to be surprised
Happy people plan actions, they don't plan results
Plans are only good intentions unless they immediately degenerate into hard work
Good fortune is what happens when opportunity meets with planning.
In preparing for battle I have always found that plans are useless, but planning is indispensable
All the flowers of all the tomorrows are in the seeds of today
If anything is certain, it is that change is certain. The world we are planning for today will not exist in this form tomorrow.
Let your plans be dark and as impenetrable as night, and when you move, fall like a thunderbolt
Dreams, ideas, and plans not only are an escape, they give me purpose, a reason to hang on
If you don't have a plan for yourself, you'll be part of someone else's

More quotes

Grant Legassick seascapes collection…

noreply@blogger.com (Amar Shah) — Sat, 11 Apr 2009 11:41:00 +0000

Yes, these are all real photos, not the enhanced ones using Photoshop. Isn’t it an amazing photography? The things I like about Grant’s this collection are its absolute blend of Nature, Sun and Oceans which is the unique part of it. The entire collection has about 52 seascapes. All are amazingly timed nature images.

The photo man Grant is passionate about film and photography. He gets great satisfaction out of it. He captures snaps in a natural, contemporary and unique style. He also has galleries for Landscapes, lifestyles and portraits. More pictures of Grant Legassick are available on his photo blog. Here you go!

Restrictions on Internet, Is it worth of spending?

noreply@blogger.com (Amar Shah) — Thu, 09 Apr 2009 07:00:00 +0000

In most of the companies where your work is on computers and quite often you require Google to search out stuff, you will have internet access. But if the first thing comes to your mind with the word internet is e-mail than you are getting me wrong, do people really have full internet access at work? In majority case no. There are very few companies where people are given complete liberty of using the internet. In this article I will discuss about how it is beneficial for a company to provide full internet access at work.

Generally the use of internet at work is for many different purposes. Most popular are Orkut, Face book, Gtalk, Yahoo messenger, checking Yahoo/Google emails, downloading stuff (for some geeks) and casual searching for doubts/knowledge. I don’t think there is anything apart which has more than 10% weight. In 95 out of 100 companies you will get messages from expensive web filters like “Access Denied as per company IT policy”, “You are not authorized to use this resource” or “Website you are trying to access is blocked, kindly contact your IT support department” Whenever I see something restricted, as usual I start finding a loophole out of it and I do not rest until I break that barrier. The point here is people generally use internet for the above most common tp means. They avoid any other usages of internet during office hours unless they are blessed with seclusion. So it is not surprising that anyone who is a boss will call these as distraction of time, money and resources. They will surely say – “This is not a Cyber café” in all their arguments. But my line is have they given full internet access for the six months and checked the productivity? Or they blindly believe about the outcome that such things will occur?

The reason is crystal clear. It has something to do with human tendency. In every day no matter what work you do and independent of your work load, you will surely feel a little boredom like “Pak gaya yaar!” or “I need a break Dude!” I have seen that people one or the other way take some time to relax after every chunk of work. Some examples may be reading news papers, big toilet breaks, snack breaks, friends call, office chit-chats, smoke break etc. the list is endless. So what I argue is what is wrong with a refreshing Google chat with a friend or checking some fun emails. On an average this takes less time than a typical break and there is nothing wrong in it. Is it?

The other major thing impacting human nature is long term use. Consider that everyday you see an ad of a new Cadbury chocolate “Bourneville”. You will be eager to eat that chocolate at least once. But ask yourself, will you be equally enthusiastic for having it the next time once you have already had it once. You will be naturally not. The same thing goes for the internet. You will chat with your entire closest pal’s once, twice a month but will you be doing that everyday? So the interest reduces with time. And if the person has got sufficient work, he himself will choose to work rather than to waste his time in internet activities. After all who wants to sit till late in the evenings?

So if the employees are given full internet access at their workplaces will ultimately benefit the company over the long term rather than being suffered by reduced productivity. Also the cost of expensive web filters and monitoring staff will be almost zero. It will also create trust between workers and senior management in the company. But as usual there is a catch (I learnt this dialogue in engineering from one of my professors and since have been using every time I get a chance) I also advise bosses to be little more cautious for the person with no work. All the idea’s and human tendencies fail when a person is sitting idle. They will find out hundreds of other ways

for doing tp. So according to me no internet should be given to a person sitting idle. It is extra cost. Instead give it video tutorials a try.

PS: This article is not my confessions. Although I have been fortunate enough to break security restrictions in the company I work, I will not advise anyone going for it. Do it at your own risk. Always remember you will be straight away given termination if you are caught doing any illegal activities. I wish you very good luck!

Coloured Water by Alena Nikiforova

noreply@blogger.com (Amar Shah) — Mon, 06 Apr 2009 04:54:00 +0000

Russian artist Alena Nikiforova creates some wicked effects in these photos. Instead of setting her beautiful models in a typical bubble bath, it’s as if she dropped in some brightly-colored magical powder over them. Isnt it amazing!! Well I really admire this girl for his sense of photography..

More Pics

Survival as a Geek

noreply@blogger.com (Amar Shah) — Sun, 05 Apr 2009 17:45:00 +0000

When you’re a geek like me and you’re forced to survive in the wild (outside of your room), you might not know what to do. Conversations can be awkward, and often lead to you striking up conversations about that shock video you saw last week online. But I find when I’m at school, surviving in the wild is much easier, because I’m surrounded by computers. The only problem is that its not MY computer. With this article, I aim to help you make any computer YOUR computer.

All you need is a USB flashdrive. I use a 1gig LG flash drive, but something as small as 128mb will do. First of all, go to Portable Apps and download the Portable App installer. Install the program onto your flashdrive. Once that’s done, you’ll want to start up the portable version of Firefox. This is where a majority of your survival kit will be going.

If you don’t already have one, head over to google and sign up for an account. With this account you’ll have access to Google mail (gmail), Calendar, docs, and many others. With this account, you get 6GB of online storage. And the best way to use that storage is a little Firefox plugin called GSpace. With GSpace, you can upload/download any file you want via Firefox. That means that if you’re finishing up a class and you’ve got some homework you need to finish up, you can upload the word doc, the images, the audio files, or whatever you need to Google and head home, download/complete the assignment and reupload for download at school. Now you might be saying that you can easily do this with a flash drive. This is true. But if you’re a graphic or web designer, you’ll have MASSIVE files that will very quickly fill up your flashdrive. But with Google + GSpace, you can fill up your 6GB with endless amounts of stuff.

This next one is setting your homepage to http://igoogle.com. Here you can find little widgets and dock them on the page. Personally, I’ve got Calendar, Gmail, and a few others docked so I can easily view my schedule, email, etc. Also remember to trick out your Firefox. Even though its portable, this version of Firefox can use plugins and themes just like the full version. The only difference is that Firefox auto-clears the browsing history when you remove the flashdrive (this reduces the amount of space needed to store Firefox).

Lastly, make use of the programs on Portable Apps. There are a ton of smaller versions of popular programs that you can use. There’s graphics editors, text editors, IM clients, and more. Also, you can easily add your own programs that will show up on the Portable Apps menu on the computer.

Flights of Fantasy

noreply@blogger.com (Amar Shah) — Sun, 05 Apr 2009 17:14:00 +0000

A dialogue between a call centre executive and a stewardess.

“Good Morning, ma’am. I’m calling from ICICI Prudential. Your number has been selected for a special scheme on our life insurance policies. We’d like to offer you a reduced premium on all our schemes. It’s a completely hassle-free process, with the least amount of time requirement from your end. I’ll be glad to read out the benefits if you are interested,” rambled the call centre executive on the phone as Tanya listened.

“Is this offer open irrespective of profession?” asked Tanya.

“Why yes, ma’am. Most definitely. Our only concern is to serve our customers and their interests,” said the executive, elated at finally having found a customer who was interested and listening.

“I do think I need insurance right now. I’m an in-flight attendant with one of the international airlines. Just this morning I got back from a, personally, highly eventful flight.” She hesitated, but decided to go through with the entire story. “I was complicit in a regicide, having poisoned the King of Brunei’s drink for a healthy sum. The autopsy reports are out, I have been in hiding ever since I stepped off the flight, and I have no clue how you managed to get this number.” A couple of deep breaths later, she continued further. “Every country has issued a statement denying me international immunity, and as soon as I’m found out, I shall probably be hanged, if not murdered by the King’s retinue of vengeance-seeking loyals. Yes, insurance would truly help my husband at this stage,” finished Tanya in a harrowed voice.

The executive realized he was wet. Sweating all over. Forehead, palms, armpits, groin, all the places where the sweat glands offer their fealty rather too generously. “I shall call you back in a moment, ma’am. I have some urgent business to attend to,” he managed to blurt before jamming the receiver back into its cradle.

“Hey! At least sell me a policy before you go,” screamed Tanya, howling with laughter, as the Bruneian head of state fondled her breast, the gleam of gold in his eyes.

Source-from email

Hi.I am back

noreply@blogger.com (Amar Shah) — Wed, 01 Apr 2009 11:07:00 +0000

Hello...everyone..
This is my first post after the soooo long time...I apologise that I couldn't complete to the promise of fresh conent and opinions I had made in the past due to some reasons. But I want to rectify my mistake by posting more and more articles and views.. so guys please give me a chance and keep visiting the blog regularly...

Cheers to recession!!

Hii to all

noreply@blogger.com (Amar Shah) — Tue, 20 Nov 2007 06:04:00 +0000

Hello people,
This is the first time i am doing blogging. I am very enthusiastic about this concept and will continuously monitor its activities. I will also post things of my interest from time to time here.
As this i am doing for the first time, I am requesting you people to support me with your comments, suggestions, views and opinions. They will definitely encourage me and will help me to post better...
Thanks a lot !!
Amar