Google notebook

Another innovative service from one of my favourite companies - Google Notebook.

When you read e-books and want to take notes, what do you do? Typically e-books don't allow you to copy content, for obvious reasons. So, invariably one ends up taking notes in the traditional way and hopes that it doesn't get lost. I must admit here, I have never been good at note taking and to be specific, note retaining over a period of time. Another common problem is that sometimes you encrypt your notes so much that you cannot decrypt for yourselves later. This problem can henceforth be called Excess Encrypted Handwriting (EEH) :) Even if you don't have any of these problems, how often have you mailed your notes to yourself for reference?

Now, all this could be things of the past with Google Notebook. It allows you to take notes as you browse the web/ documents and more importantly keep all your notes in order, in the form of notebooks.

Here is a snippet of my notebook shown above. So, make a note of this! :)

No. This is not another April fool's news. Its true.

The writerly life

This is my first book review ever and if you thought I am writing a review of a book new to the market, think again!

The writerly life is a collection of essays and short stories written by none other than the legendary R.K.Narayan (If you haven’t heard is name yet, you must be slightly out of the world, I guess).The book has both fiction and non-fiction. I have never come across a more humorous collection till now. The essays are written over a wide range of subjects. That’s only to be expected from the great man. The topics range from umbrella to Chicago. But, my favourite essay is coffee.

I have been a coffee drinker for years - something that one does by virtue of being born in this part of the world – and had never thought about the thermodynamics of coffee. Tell you what, its worth researching indeed. Other pieces of beauty include the cat, headache, memory, ‘sorry, no room’ and many others.

‘Headache’ is another terrific essay that reflects on how headache helps people get away from things, like work, which otherwise they would never be able to escape. Another terrific piece of writing is ‘the cat’. I wish I had observed the creature sometime but, I do not dream to give such a narration though. Not many can.

You may wish to buy this book here or here. Its a must read for all fans of R.K.Narayan like me.

Let me know your review comments too :)

Simple ways to save the world

Hi all,

Walk to your nearest petty shop or mall if necessary and pick up the copy of India today dated April 23 and don’t ask for another plastic cover to carry that home. You can do without it, can’t you? And, BTW switch off the lights and fans and AC systems and the TV before you leave for all this.

Got the message? Here is a snippet

India today magazine has published 25 tips for everyday practice to save energy and hence prevent more global warming. This follows recent TIME magazine's article on similar lines.

Its a must read. You may read the article online (preview) here: http://www.india-today.com/itoday/

Have more tips to save the world? Share it with me, please…

Also, Greenpeace has started a campaign to ban the use of traditional incandescent bulbs as they consume more energy compared to modern CFL lamps.

I have joined Greenpeace and I am a web activist of Greenpeace already. Are you?

please read Greenpeace's simple tips to save the planet here: http://www.greenpeace.org/international/campaigns/climate-change/take_action/12_steps?MM_URL=RSS12steps

the hardware and software of the human mind

Hi Readers,

I am back!
I stayed away from my blog for sometime now, thanks to connectivity issues with my ISP (Sify). Anyway, I thought of sharing thoughts from a Speech I attended last week within my company. The following is a glimpse of “the hardware and software of the human mind” by Prof Dr. Alagar Ramanujam.

The Prof seemed to have the calmness and yet the charisma that one would associate with the name “Ramanujam” and I was quite quizzed about the topic because any talk on mind matters either go way above my head or I get bored or even sleepy . But, that was not to be. He instead awakened me from the usually drowsy summer afternoon. First, the Prof set the background beautifully by explaining what he called “Consciousness”.

Prof explained it as below:

Each living body in this world has a Consciousness that makes it do what it does (like flowering in case of roses or bearing fruits or growing tall etc.). It is this Consciousness that drives the world.

Next, matter is something that has a birth, life and death. Before matter existed in this universe what did it contain? Prof explains that it was a space of Consciousness that filled the universe which in turn was responsible for creation of matter.

With this background we understand that we are made of matter and mind (Consciousness). To control your mind (restraining from what you very well know as bad), you need this understanding of what mind is made of (the hardware) and what drives it (the software).

Now, the big question; “what exactly is this thing called mind?”

Prof explained saying mind is a something that is able to help us receive, store and retrieve information and transmit (which we generally associate with a wave) to other minds. We are able to influence others minds aren’t we? (telepathy, mesmerism etc.)

Thus Prof concludes that our mind is a “wave complex”.

But, having said that, any wave would have frequency. We often tell others that we are thinking with the same frequency, don’t we? So, what is your frequency?

The mind’s frequency keeps varying through our moods. It becomes high with bad moods like anger and stays down when we are cool as a cucumber. (can’t help using it this summer ) Then, how does one keep the frequency low all the time?

Prof explains saying high frequency is associated with one’s ego and low frequency with one’s love (for others). Now, only practice can make one perfect. How do I practice my mind and matter?

The grand finale:

Physical exercise is a must for everyone to train his matter(body) as it is constituted by collection of lots of new matter (food) that we add everyday, each having its own (different) Consciousness. (and from different hotels too )

Mental exercise (medidation) is essential to practice a low frequency and not get jumpy the next time someone calls you fool :)

Please leave your thoughts via comments. Thanks!

Check the following URLs for more details on the meditation techniques: http://www.simplifiedkundaliniyoga.org/
http://www.vethathiri.org/

Holiday time!

Its summer time and holiday time too, if only I was at school :( Nevertheless, I wanted to take some time off from work for long now. Although the year started on a good note at Goa (Collage of pics shown), there has not been a chance after that yet. Getting like-minded people to go on a holiday is arguably the toughest task on earth! Let me see if I will be able to bring members of my family together for some time out...

Any holiday experts around? Help me please!!

GoogleTisp

Google Tisp? Another innovation from arguably the most innovative company in recent times. But, what is it? It is a technology I somehow fail to understand till now. Any help on this front would be really great!

I read their how it works link;
and this is my current understanding (or misunderstanding) of how it works:

The sewer lines are used as pipes through which the fibre optic cable is laid and connected to a node for further connections to servers etc. They also provide a setup for wireless access within your home I guess.

I do NOT understand why sewer lines should be used for optic fibre cable laying and even more confusing is how google manages to offer this for free!!

Answers? Anyone?

Whom to learn marketing from

Freebies and Tchotchke continue to be great marketing strategies in the world. There is no doubt that it is common in the corporate world, these strategies seem to work even better with the general public during elections. This is not surprising but, what is that a family has been using these to establish control over public's thought(less) process by using media as the tool. This is new as far as I know since media has always been another industry and obviously, with profit objective. The freebies offered to their now popular magazine seem to be endless and their relaunched newspaper seems to be successful on the same lines. Should I call it corporatisation of politics? Don't know!

If you had the slightest of exposure to social (read as political) happenings in TamilNadu or India, in general you should have guessed by now. If not, here is a clue:

Forbes quoted this mastermind as

"Politician's son dabbled in family's modest publishing business before launching Sun TV when India's satellite television market opened up in the 1990s. Sun now owns 14 channels, 4 radio stations, newspapers and magazines. Group's April listing made M... , who owns 90%, a billionaire. Brother ... minister for communications and IT."

and listed in him the India's richest 40 list last year.

So, next time when you get a freebie, trace that back to the objective behind and for more on the power of freebies, check out this old, yet relevant article from CNN Money.

Until next post, happy guessing :)

Theme blog

First of all, Welcome to my web blog at www.vinushankar.com ! Thanks for joining me here and let me tell you that this is going to be a theme blog or a 'themes blog' rather. Before getting into the themes, a little bit of background;

I hosted this blog based on

1. The confidence derived from my internal blog that I write within my organisation. So, a BIG thanks to Cognizant Technology Solutions, my employer, for giving me that launching pad
2. The words of inspiration and guidance from Kiruba Shankar, one of the most popular bloggers in India

Themes;

• Short stories, Book reviews
• Management and management studies
• Technology and Business news including IT and IT services

So, keep watching this space and thanks again!

My first post

Hi all,

This is my first post here. More to come. Enjoy!

Best wishes,
Vinu Shankar G