Update: I'm delighted with the latest additions to my web consulting portfolio, the new STC India portal, and its newsletter, Indus.

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3
Jan 10

Happy New Year 2010 and Warm Greetings

This is the time of making and implementing new year resolutions, but I had made my list for 2010 a few years back. I’ll not reveal them out here, but you can see the means to the end on this blog. Hopefully, you’ll find stuff that is both interesting and thought-provoking in a positive way.

The inspiration for this blog comes from a desire and belief that I can offer something potentially valuable to the profession of technical communication.

If you’re not a technical writer, you would find this blog offering insights and trying to shed some light where few have bothered to do so.

You can drop in your ideas for topics on which I can spend my time researching and write about my findings. In a short while from now, I’ll accept guest posts from you as well.

Thanks for dropping by and hoping to start a long conversation with you in the years to come.

Take care and have a great 2010!

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Living / Recommended / Tools — 1 Comment
3
Apr 09

Take care of your comfort, productivity and well-being

While we toil away in front of the computers day in and day out, we take for granted and ignore the most valuable resource we possess – our safety and well being.

Take a moment to review the ergonomic guide at http://www.hp.com/ergo/.

What we do today has an impact in the years to come, and not just on ourselves.

Take care!

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Living — 2 Comments
13
Feb 09

The Joy of Doing Nothing

All of us are guilty of constantly setting goals, to-do lists, and preaching others. Apart from sleeping, my guess is we never stop thinking about things to do. Do we?

I wonder when do we stop and do nothing. Just be. Feel the air. Listen to the ambient sound. See things around us. May be when we go on those trips once in a while.

Today, try this for about ten minutes. Go to a lonely place, wherever you are comfortable. Try not to think of work to be done. Just stop bossing yourself with instructions and deadlines. A cup of coffee or tea would be wonderful.

Listen to your inner voice speaking to you. There are dreams put on hold for long. There are friends you’ve lost touch with. There are songs you’ve stopped humming. There is a whole new life inside that you’ve buried; yet, you know that’s the life that brings all the joy you’ve forgotten.

Go ahead, stop, do nothing once a day. You’ll know what’ve missed, and how you can reclaim your life (to borrow from the Tata Safari SUV ad)!

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5
Jun 08

Nothing ever works for me: Stop Cribbing

When you feel nothing is working for you, probably the first thing you need to do is stop cribbing about it – either to yourself, or worse, with others. Next best thing is to avoid being in the company of cribbers. You first ‘think’ nothing is working for you, then you ‘reiterate’ it, then you tend to ‘accept’ it and then, you’re ’sure’ nothing will ever work.

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27
May 08

Need for Speed: Time Vs Risk

My manager always asks me to drive/ride carefully when I’m going home or out of town. I was wondering why, and on one such occasion, we had just the time to discuss on it.

I want to calculate the time I save if I decide to drive at high and average speeds (KMPH – kilometers per hour).

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23
May 08

I Can't Save Money

There is simply not enough money to spend. How can I even think of saving? Perhaps when I get into a decent job, earn more and marry a working spouse.

Well, if only things were so straight. There is no Best way to save, except one. Start NOW.

My friend’s father said there’s a thumb rule. Save 25% of your total earning, invest 20% and donate 5%, if you can. The rest 50% can go into your loans, routine expenses and that ‘thing’ you always wanted to buy (one at a time). And as I said earlier, if you don’t need to buy something after a couple of days, you probably don’t need to buy it at all.

While we may not be able to strictly follow this, aim to come close. After all, you need to think of your insurance, investments, dependents, retirement and most of all, enjoying Life (travel, car, farm-house, home theater, library or whatever).

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Living — 4 Comments
21
May 08

Dreams Don't Come True

  • If you don’t have any dreams, to begin with.
  • If you don’t believe them.
  • If you don’t have the guts to chase them.
  • If you lack the Vision to succeed and Will to face challenges.
  • If you think they come true by miracles.
  • If you think you need luck and not work to fulfill your dreams.
  • If you don’t plan and execute them in a time-bound manner.
  • If you’re not passionate and mad about them.

Now, everyone knows these things. Take a re-look. What do you see? Do you see a lot of ‘Ifs’?

Meanwhile, if you see a pattern around the bold words, and can’t take your eyes off them, then chances are you will make your dreams come true, sooner than later. The trick is to Never Give Up.

Someone once said, “There is always some madness in love. But there is always some reason to the madness”.

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General — 1 Comment
19
May 08

Tubeless tyres

I was driving my Swift car from Kanakapura alone to my place in Bangalore (about 60 km’s) in Feb this year. The drive was nothing spectacular, except for the early morning serenity. I came home and parked it.

I started noticing that the rear tyre seemed to have lesser air, compared to others. I thought it might just be the case of low air pressure. After about 5 days, I was convinced it was a puncture – the air was almost drained out.

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Money — 1 Comment
19
May 08

Everybody wants to make more money

Nothing wrong with that – in fact, it’s absolutely good thinking. We sort of figure out how to do that, and sometimes just go blank. “What can I do?”

Hewlett-Packard (HP) is a great company. It’s big. It’s around the globe. And it had it’s problems. When Mark Hurd came in as the CEO, his task was cut out. HP was making money in some areas, but not much or losing in others. They figured there were too many people doing the same kind of work. Money was spent unwisely. There was not much focus in business areas. Too many layers.

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Living — 1 Comment
18
May 08

Inertia – Why We Won't Start

Let’s talk some Physics for a change. While at school, we learnt the Newton’s law which states that all objects will continue to stay in their current state unless acted upon by an external force. This is known as the ‘Law of Inertia’ – where inertia refers to the ‘current state’.

For example, when we’re moving in a bus going at a fairly consistent speed, we don’t feel we’re moving. But we know we’re moving at the same speed as the bus. The situation changes when the bus stops abruptly, when we jerk forward. This is a classic case of Inertia, where we move forward even though the bus stops – in effect, continue to be in the ‘current state’ of motion.

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