The Alchemist

Read The Alchemist by Paulo Coelho for the 7th time and I have a Math exam tomorrow. Trust me when I say this is one of the most soulful books ever in history. With an intricate mix of philosophy and emotion, the book is a journey of a lifetime.. simply beautiful.

Join a cause- Say NO to incandescent bulbs

Incandescent or filament lamps (usually Tungsten filament) function on the heating effect of electricity. This means that while you get a fair amount of light from these bulbs, they also generate a lot of heat. Generation of heat by filament lamps is due to the high resistance offered by tungsten, causing majority of electrons flowing in the circuit to be dissipated as power, which is this case is heat that in turn causes the filament to glow, generating light.

The heat generated by filament lamps may affect the environment only locally (a small area around the bulb) but in the long run affects the environment. Keeping in mind the fact that these lamps are only 37% efficient, it would be stupid to waste 63% of input energy when there are several more efficient alternatives available. One of the energy alternatives to filament lamps that has gained popularity is CFL or Compact Fluorescent Lamp. Compared to general service incandescent lamps giving the same amount of visible light, CFLs use less power and have a longer rated life, but generally have a higher purchase price. In the United States, a CFL can save over US$30 in electricity costs over the lamp's lifetime compared to an incandescent lamp and save 2000 times its own weight in greenhouse gases.

Although the cost of a CFL would be 3 times as much as an incandescent lamp, it runs upto 10 times the life of an incandescent lamp and gives 3 times more light. The high purchase price is canceled out by the money you save on electricity, month after month. You are hence assured of efficiency as well as value for money and the lamp is far less destructive towards the environment which also means that you do your bit to the world.

Switch to CFL.

Monetize your blog - Advice to beginners

Alright. I've finally begun getting paid to blog (not really handsome money yet) and thought I'd share a tweak or two with others eager to start.

I blog for PayPerPost, BlogVertise and iHype, as evident from earlier posts. Now most paid-to-blog sites have one elementary requirement:

Your blog should be atleast a month (or 90 days in some cases) old with a minimum of 10 posts in the last thirty days, that is, updates at a frequency of one in three days. Not all that difficult.

If you actually thought of creating a blog today, while away a month by religiously posting an article every three days, you'd be losing a lot. Here's what you can do:

Register for free on Blogger and create a blog with the theme, title, template etc you want. Take care to NOT make it a photograph or artwork only blog. We need text article samples for blog approval.

Write about 12 post to be on a safer side and save them as draft. These can be about anything, with or without pictures but atleast 50-100 words of text. Now, publish them, taking care to use Post Options to set the date such that the posts are spread out at 3-4 days interval each. I filled my blog with utter junk and random stuff to generate posts (which will eventually be deleted so please please do not judge me by them *weeps*). You on the other hand may be better off writing quality stuff - reviews, personal experiences, anything interesting. Do not use profanity.

Now that your blog is rolling, sign up for paid-to-blog sites of your choice, best ones for beginners being PayPerPost and iHype. These sites offer the best earning chances available for infant blogs which have no Page Rank. However, with time, your PR will rise provided you offer good content and a LOT other webpages link back to your blog.

Once you have submitted your blog, wait for approval (about a week on PPP and iHype) and you can grab opportunities to complete which will generate cash.

Happy Blogging! :)

Poverty in India

A country with 1.2 billion people.

Melting pot of religion,language and culture.



Major seat of technology,innovation and human resource.




Yet..

26 million go hungry everyday.



13 million remain homeless .



10 million children might never know what school is..





WE can change it. Let us join hands.

Involvement in any kind goes appreciated. Fight Poverty

Stylish new frames from Zenni Optical

I wore glasses (and real thick ones at that!) till senior year of high school. The frame was a dull, boring black with rectangular lenses which did nothing to better my appearance. Instead of looking crisp and bright while giving reports, I ended up looking stupid and nerdy most of the times, partly because those glasses nearly killed my confidence. And no prizes for guessing how many times I was asked out throughout high school.

If you happen to wear spectacles, you should understand that the kind of frame you choose can make or break your personality. Executives and highly ranked officials need to appear professional and all wrong spectacle frames do is give your personality a sloppy tint. This is where Zenni Optical steps in.

zennioptical.com sells stylish spectacle frames and prescription glasses online. One can find huge selection of frames, with single vision lens, sunsensor (photochromic)lens, tinted sunglasses lens, bifocal lens and progressive lens. The secret to Zenni’s low prices
is that they sell only their own manufactured frames direct to the customer, with no middlemen and virtually no advertising budget. And the best part is that you could shop online, saving a visit to the optometrist.

Here are some samples of their best selling frames which are being sported all over the globe and fashion ramps as well:





How I wish I'd known about this a couple of years ago. High school would have been a lot better then. You could incorporate this little change in your lifestyle and see what a pleasant difference it makes!

(This review is sponsored)

I signed up for PayPerPost!

It is one thing to use the net for entertainment and other thing altogether to use it for learning. However, with PayPerPost, you will be able to use the internet for fun, learning and earning!


Being scammed several times by work online websites,I was on the verge of giving up on attempts to earn online when PPP happened. The concept was simple- to review products and be paid for the same. Unskeptically, I signed up and here's my first post.

PPP pays via Paypal, with a minimum of 5$ per review and there is a plethora of opportunities available. All you have to do is grab an opportunity from the list, write about it and check your Paypal account 30 days later. It also has an excellent referral system which adds to your earning bonus. More details can be found on the PayPerPost blog.

payperpost

Most of the money I earn will go to meet college expenditure and a birthday present for Mom this fall. PPP also runs SocialSpark, a network where one can befriend fellow bloggers. That makes PPP a sort of a package where one can learn about new products, earn for reviewing them and meet new people too! Who would want more, really..

Legitimate sites

After months (nearly a year) of research, I finally found a couple of legitimate sites that actually pay you. So glad that I'm close to getting paid on these sites.

www.mylot.com- It is an active community that encourages live discussions and pays you for the same. You can discuss about ANYTHING under the sun and get paid upto 5cents per post. Works well, minimum cashout is 10$ and paid through Paypal. (thanks for suggesting, Julie).

www.spidermetrix.com- I love this site! This is an Australian site that pays you for completing surveys. The surveys in question are aplenty, about 3-4 every week, regarding a variety of topics. Minimum cashout is 30$ for an amazon.com coupon, 50$ for Paypal. Also, you can contribute your earnings to charity. Works well if you're Australian as that's the country which gets most surveys. If you'd like to give me referral credit, here's the link:

Spidermetrix


www.valuedopinions.com - Same as above, different from country to country. Does not pay you in cash but gives shopping and gift coupons. Rate of new surveys is just about average. One survey a week.

A.W Surveys scam!

www.awsurverys.com seemed like a legitimate site at first. I did join, got several referrals and completed surveys to reach the cashout amount 75$ which took me over a year.

Then, without warning, my account gets deleted! Repeated attempts to contact customer care failed. And its not like I committed fraud. I had 32 referrals, all using different computers.

What a waste of time!

Best 10 fiction novels ever!

Guys, these are must reads! Waiting to get done with exams before starting on them.

1. The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao
By Junot Diaz

2. Then We Came to the End: A Novel
By Joshua Ferris

3. A Thousand Splendid Suns
By Khaled Hosseini

4. Out Stealing Horses: A Novel
By Per Petterson

5. Tree of Smoke: A Novel
By Denis Johnson

6. House of Meetings
By Martin Amis

7. No One Belongs Here More Than You.
By Miranda July

8. Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows
By J.K. Rowling

9. Like You'd Understand, Anyway
By Jim Shepard

10. The Post-Birthday World
By Lionel Shriver

(source: Time)

Yummy sundae!

Whipped this up today (Sunday) ;-) Tasted amazing, couldn't believe it myself!

6 oz. Vanilla Ice Cream (2 scoops)
2 oz. Fudge Topping (warmed to 140°F)
1 oz. Whipped Cream Topping
1/2 tsp Chopped Walnuts
1 Maraschino Cherry

Place ice cream in an 8 oz. bowl. Cover with warm fudge, top fudge with whipped cream, sprinkle with nuts and top with a cherry. Eat immediately.

It was yummmm! My pet parrot picked the cherry off it. :D

Giving up on a weight loss program

Stomachs are not meant to be flat. I don’t care what anyone says.

Charity

If you have a lot of money (and/or a warm heart) and want to do something good to the world, you might want to check this out:

http://www.servingourworld.org/index.htm?gclid=CIXN18SIoZQCFRYFewodA2rItw

Sichuan casualities

According to Chinese state officials, the earthquake in China last month caused 69,181 known deaths including 68,636 in Sichuan province; 18,498 people are listed as missing, and 374,171 injured, but these figures may further increase as more reports come in.

One rescue team reported only 2,300 survivors from Yingxiu, out of a total population of about 9,000. 3,000 to 5,000 people were killed in Beichuan county, Sichuan province alone, 10,000 injured and 80% of the buildings were destroyed. Eight schools were toppled in Dujiangyan.


Dear readers, I request all of you to kindly contribute to the relief operations in any which way. A simple gesture like contributing a packet of bread or old clothes at your nearest collection centre will go appreciated.

Interesting link

www.findmeahobby.com

www.comics.com

Loved both of them. While the first gives excellent suggestions on using your time well, the second gave me the complete collections of thousands of comics!

Haha!

This is one GREAT two-liner:

Apparently, if you play a Microsoft CD backwards, you hear Satanic verses.
Thats nothing though, when you play it forwards, it installs WINDOWS!

Another great song..

In My Life (John Lennon and Paul McCartney)

There are places I remember

All my life, though some have changed

Some for ever, not for better

And some have gone, and some remained

All these places had there moments

With lovers and friends that I still can recall

Some are dead and some are living

In my life, I loved them all

But of all these friends and lovers

Still no one, compares with you

And these memories loose their meaning,/p>

When I think of love as something new

No I will never, ever loose affection

For people and things that went before

I'll often stop and think about them

In my life, I loved you more

I know I'll never ever loose affection

For people and things that went before

I'll often stop to think about them

In my life, I loved you more

In my life, I loved you more

Ughh..

Those are called peep-toe pumps and are apparently hot on the ramp this year. I've never seen anything that looks so ugly. Who'd want to wear a shoe that looks like its been chewed off by a rat?! And this pair by Roberto Cavalli costs.. well..a lot!
Fashion, dear god, fashion..

Sony ericsson W580i

The long awaited W580i is one of Sony Ericsson's line of Walkman-branded handsets. These music focused phones are popular globally, but few of them have made it to the United States. The W580i provides a decent set of media features that is on par with many more expensive handsets. True to its Walkman billing, the W580i's music player does a very good job, but it didn't last that long playing back music; on measuring the battery life at 5 hours and 32 minutes. That's enough for everyday use, but is significantly shorter than other phones. Video playback was also a disappointment; the screen is too small for comfortable viewing, and the controls are awkward to use. The 2-megapixel camera takes decent photos, but the audio quality in calls could have been better. The interface is surprisingly responsive, and the Web browser is good enough for casual browsing.

The phone is small and cute, but feels plasticky, leading to concerns about its durability. The plastic case and exposed screen could both be easily scratched. We liked the W580i's integration of MMS and SMS, but the lack of an e-mail client and a small keypad that can be difficult to type on probably doesn't make this a good pick for big texters. Despite these drawbacks, the W580i offers a lot of good features for the price; it is available for $79.99 from AT&T with a two-year contract after a $50 mail-in rebate.

Tour & Design - The W580i is a small and cute handset that suffers from a plasticky feel and concerns about durability.

Audio Quality - The W580i didn't perform the best in our audio tests, with some aberrant results in the sound received.

Imaging - The W580i's 2-megapixel camera does a reasonable job, although it is a little lacking in the feature department.

Making/Receiving Calls - The W580i is easy to use and provides a solid feature set for calls.

Messaging - The W580i is not a good messaging phone, lacking an e-mail client and with a small keypad that's difficult to type on.

Organizer - The W580i's organizer is very basic. Don't expect it to replace a PDA or smartphone.

Multimedia - The W580i has an excellent music player, but does less well in the video playback department.

Software - We found the W580i's operating system to be very responsive, and the browser was surprisingly well featured.

Battery Life - The W580i could have done better in battery life, with music playback time our biggest area of concern.

Connectivity - No 3G is a problem, but Bluetooth capabilities are very good.

Hardware - We would have liked to see a bigger screen, and we had problems with the keypad, but otherwise the phone is solid.

Other Features - You can use the W580i as a dial-up modem for your computer, but there is no GPS or PTT functionality.

Value & Comparisons - At $79.99 the W580i is an excellent value.

F.R.I.E.N.D.S title track

The one which stirred friends all over the world:

'So no one ever told you life was going to be this way?

Your job's a joke, you're broke, your love life's DOA

It's like your always stuck in second gear

When it hasn't been your day, your week, your month or even your year

I'll be there for you, when the rain starts to fall

I'll be ther for you, cause I've been there before

I'll be there for you, cause you're there for me too'

Greenday

Downloaded Greenday's discography. Thought an article would be good too.

Green Day is an American punk trio formed in 1987.The band has consisted of Billie Joe Armstrong (vocals, guitar), Mike Dirnt (bass guitar, vocals), and Tré Cool (drums, percussion) for the majority of its existence.

Green Day was originally part of the punk rock scene at 924 Gilman Street in Berkeley, California. Its early releases for independent label Lookout Records earned them a grassroots fanbase, some of whom felt alienated when the band signed to a major label.Nevertheless, its major label debut Dookie (1994) became a breakout success and eventually sold over 10 million copies in the U.S. alone, and 15 million copies sold worldwide. As a result, Green Day was widely credited, alongside fellow California punk bands The Offspring and Rancid, with reviving mainstream interest in and popularizing punk rock in the United States. Green Day's three follow-up albums, Insomniac, Nimrod and Warning did not achieve the massive success of Dookie, but they were still successful, reaching double platinum, double platinum, and gold status respectively.Green Day's 2004 rock opera American Idiot reignited the band's popularity with a younger generation, selling five million copies in the U.S.

Their song 'Boulevard of Broken Dreams' won several awards in 2005. Ditto with 'Holiday'. You could say Greenday could be the next Floyd.

F.R.I.E.N.D.S

The popular television sitcom concluded in 2004, leaving the television world quite dry since. It wasn't some drab soap, thanks to which the world fell MADLY in love with it and here are some consequences:

FRIENDS has made a notable contribution to some areas of popular culture - in particular fashion. The series has been noted for its impact on everyday fashion and hairstyles. Aniston's hairstyle was nicknamed "The Rachel" and copied around the world.

Joey Tribbiani's catchphrase "How you doin'?" has become a popular part of Western English slang, often used as a pick-up line or when greeting friends. The show also popularized the idea of the "laminated list", a list of celebrities that a person's partner will permit them to sleep with if they were to ever meet them. In a certain episode, the characters exchange "lists" verbally, while Ross creates a physical list and laminates it, making his choices permanent. The concept of the laminated list has been adopted by the Hollywood Stock Exchange website.

The phrase "Ross and Rachel" has appeared as a joke in Scrubs: the janitor describes J.D.'s relationship with Elliot as "not exactly Ross and Rachel." After a pause, the "Ross and Rachel" in question is revealed to be two other employees in the hospital, "Dr. Ross, and Rachel from bookkeeping," and the offscreen shots. Friends has been referenced again in the Scrubs episode, "My Cold Shower"; Carla describes J.D and Elliot's relationship as being, "On and off more than Ross and Rachel, from Friends", J.D then explains how he is nothing like Ross and in Doctor Cox's tradition of calling J.D girl's names, he tells J.D he's more like Rachel. On the 100th episode of the television show One Tree Hill (Lucas' and Lindsay's wedding), a character references Ross saying the wrong name at the altar when he was marrying Emily. In one episode of the British show Skins, a Russian girl learns English from Friends, and uses many of the catchphrases (such as "How you doin'" and "We were on a break") as a recurring joke.

One of the principal settings of the series, the Central Perk coffee house has inspired various imitations worldwide (the coffee house is based on Cholmondeley's, a coffee shop and lounge in Usen Castle at Brandeis University, the alma mater of the show's creators), including the now-defunct "Phoenix Perk" in Dublin (named for the park in the city) and the 'Riverdale Perk' in Toronto. In 2006 Iranian businessman Mojtaba Asadian started a "Central Perk" franchise, registering the name in 32 countries. The décor of his coffee houses are inspired by that in Friends. James Michael Tyler, who plays Gunther, the Central Perk waiter in love with Rachel, attended the grand opening of the flagship Dubai café and is the spokesman for the company.^[20]

The name of every Friends episode, with the exceptions of the very first and last episodes (titled 'Pilot' and 'The Last One' respectively), starts with 'The One...', e.g. 'The One with Ross' Inappropriate Song', though the Pilot is sometimes called 'The One where Monica gets a Roommate', or 'The One Where It All Began'. In continuing with this tradition, a boxed set containing all ten seasons on DVD was called "The One With All Ten Seasons". This tradition is based on the way people, when unable to remember the actual title of an episode of a TV show, will describe it as "it's the one with..." and then state the main storyline of the episode.

The not-so-new iPod touch

So this gadget takes the world by waves and made most of us research its technology for months, having already made the world speculate for several more months on its launch. Technical specifications of the iPod touch can be obtained anywhere. What is more challenging to write would be its comparison with the iPhone.

The iPod touch is slimmer and lighter than the iPhone. It lacks some of the iPhone's features: access to any phone network, an internal speaker, a microphone, a camera, physical buttons for volume control, and Bluetooth capability. The iPod touch uses software-based volume controls which require users to double-tap the home button, bringing up an on-screen slider.

A number of early adopters complained that the screen could not properly display shades of black. The problem has been attributed to poor quality control and the misapplication of the reflective coating on the LCD.The defect caused the screen to have a very narrow optimal viewing angle and also resulted in "shimmering" blacks. This screen problem was later addressed with the firmware update 1.1.1, with mixed results. Apple has replaced iPod Touches with persistently defective screens. This problem was seen in the iPod Touches that were distributed in November to late January. The narrow optimal viewing angle and also made the screen easier to crack, shimmer, or break.

Another month would give several more estimates on the Touch. Till then, it is the iWay, all over again.

It might only be water to you. To me, it is beauty!

Religion

Happened to read some great quotes on religion. Despite being agnostic, I loved them.


Friends, I agree with you in Providence; but I believe in the Providence of the most men, the largest purse, and the longest cannon. -Abraham Lincoln

I do not believe in the immortality of the individual, and I consider ethics to be an exclusively human concern without any superhuman authority behind it. - Albert Einstein

I cannot conceive of a God who rewards and punishes his [sic] creatures, or has a will of the type of which we are conscious ourselves. - Albert Einstein

When we blindly adopt a religion, a political system, a literary dogma, we become automatons. We cease to grow. - Anais Nin

Religion is the state of being grasped by an ultimate concern, a concern which qualifies all other concerns as preliminary and which itself contains the answer to the question of the meaning of our life. - Paul Tillich

Electronics and Communication

I rethink choosing Electronics and communication as my major, mainly because I realized computer programming is a lot more fun.

With electronics, you have the scope of creation. There is HDL programming but it isn't quite the same as C++ or Java or even playing with Unix servers for that matter. And don't even get me started on the kind of money software engineers make.. Probably this semester's GPA would help me decide..

Megadeth concert!

The uber-popular rock band Megadeth performed today and I got lucky three days ago to win a couple pass. The performance was mind blowing, seeing concerts and crowds to a lot more to your adrenalin than head banging alone at home.

Once back in my sanctuary at 2am, I tried to play 'Wake up Dead' on my guitar - 5 minutes per string. Abandoned the attempt at 5am and brewed some coffee before sitting down to write this.

Wake up dead!

PC upgrade

Finally learnt to assemble a computer, not alone mind you. Older brothers can be charming sometimes, especially when they help you out with the best configuration in your budget.

I had -

A paltry 512mb RAM, 80GB HDD, a primitive GeForce graphics card and AMD Athlon processor..don't know its speed, about 1GHz, probably With this, the old CRT monitor and a USB scroll mouse.

Now-

Intel core 2 duo 2.6GHz, 4 GB RAM, 500 GB SATA HDD, GeForce 8600, 19" TFT screen, wireless mouse and keyboard.

All this and I have about 50$ left, enough to buy mom a birthday gift and flowers. :-)

Inaugural

Thus I place a foot amidst bloggers millions anonymous, cherishing the possible parallel existence in worlds real and not.

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The owner(s) of this blog would like to disclose the following existing relationships. These are companies, organizations or individuals that may have a significant impact on the content of this blog. We have a financial interest in the following that are relevant to our blogging: PayPerPost,AdSense,iHype.