Your own site is like your own home, only it is online. If you’re looking forward to build your own site, such as yourname.com, here’s a training program I’m offering to help you with just that. You get free assistance in setting up your custom email IDs, such as you@yourname.com. Over the coming weeks and months, my goal is to help build as many online homes as possible!

Note: If you own a business, you can consider hiring me for your web design and branding requirements.

Why do you need your own site?

Radio was a luxury before TV was invented. TV was a luxury before computers came about. A PC was a luxury before Internet and emails happened.

Today, we have Internet and emails at the center of our lives at work and home. Your own site may seem like a luxury, but very soon, it’ll be an essential part of your identity and your brand. You cannot think of being without one or more.

In fact, your site, or rather your online brand, will be the central hub of your life, be it at home or office. You’ll communicate on your blog, share interesting stuff with your family and friends, discuss things that matter with your community and participate in causes you believe in. The biggest benefit will be seen in your career where you’ll have a clear differentiator compared to your peers.

Pick your course

The courses are organized in increasing levels of advanced topics. You’re encouraged to browse through the different courses and pick the ones that you’re interested in. For a customized package of courses, write to me.

• Beginner’s Course
  For the absolute newbie, I’ll offer end to end help in getting your site online and managing it without any assistance. Contact me for an initial discussion about your requirements, ideas, domain names, registration, setting up the new site, tutorials, duration of the course, and the charges involved.
• Intermediate Course
  For current bloggers and Internet-savvy individuals, I’ll offer help with migrating your existing sites to your own site and integrating it with your social network profiles. Contact me for an initial discussion about your requirements, ideas, domain names, registration, setting up the new site, tutorials, duration of the course, and the charges involved.
• Advanced Course
  For freelancers who want to pursue a career in web design and consulting, I’m offering advanced courses over multiple sessions. I’ll help you prepare for reviewing and taking up most types of assignments. Contact me for an initial discussion about the topics to be covered in the course, duration, and the charges involved.

Free with all courses

With all the courses:

• I’ll help with the integration of your domain with Google Apps to setup your custom mail ID (you@yourname.com) and mail server (http://mail.yourname.com/), your Google Docs repository (http://docs.yourname.com/) and more.
• I’ll offer tips and resources that have helped me gain my knowledge in the last few years.
• I’ll be available for any specific queries and issues over emails for the first three months after the course is completed.

For any related queries, feel free to contact me.

Happy online home!

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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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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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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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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.

I’ve been part of at least 6 teams and every team has it’s heroes, cribbers, followers, gurus and foxes. You could also say that about the people you know or familiar with. You could still get some work done from the foxes, but always, beware of the cribbers. They’re on the one-way road, and it goes down.

When something we expect is not happening, it’s common to feel negative/pessimistic. Accept it, move on and work on it. The sooner, the better. It’s only YOU that can figure and sort it out. Don’t expect things to sort out by themselves, they may, but to an extent only.

Often, we’re ready with solutions and guidance to others in similar situations, but not when it comes to ourselves. We seem to be lost and give up hope. If you can remember just this fact, you’re at the first step of believing that there’s a solution to every problem. You may never have any ‘best’ way to do things. You just have to make the ‘best’ informed decision you think might work.

It’s a good thing to have one or more mentors/friends whom you trust. Talk to them. Get ideas and perspectives. Ask how they would’ve dealt with the situation. Take them with a pinch of salt, meaning – don’t think they’re always right. In fact, it’s never a question of a right or wrong. It’s a question of what will work best for you, in your given situation, with your given constraints.

In short, the power to deal with your problem is with you and you alone.

“You’re not given a problem without the power to solve it.’ ~ Unknown.

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1. The Joy of Doing Nothing

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).

My destination is 300 kms away and is divided into 5 parts:

1. My home to City: 10 kms.
2. City to the Suburbs: 10 kms.
3. 6-lane highway: 150 kms.
4. 1-lane road, without median: 100 kms.
5. Bumpy, single road for ongoing and oncoming vehicles via villages: 30 kms.

The average speed I travel and the time I take is below – for high speed and average speeds:

The total time I save by deciding to drive at high speed is 1 hour 21 minutes. Is this worth the risk?

Now, anyone who have ever driven or traveled would know that – the control of the vehicle decreases as the speed increases. The studies show that after about 50 KMPH speed, the control of the vehicle drops at an exponential rate. Meaning, if we drive at 60 KMPH, we can react and control to obstacles in front of our vehicles for about 100 meters. It drops to about 70 meters at 70 KMPH speed, to 50 at 80 KMPH speed and may be about 20 meters at 100 KMPH speed. I may not be right on the numbers, but I’m right on the point I’m trying to make.

The point is, drive at reasonable speed where you have complete control of the vehicle. Start early, at non-peak hours to avoid traffic. Reason with what we stand to gain in the time we save by driving at high speeds. Think if it’s worth the risk and if we’re being responsible to our families. That’s the point.

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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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1. Everybody wants to make more money
2. Inertia – Why We Won't Start

• 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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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.

I couldn’t explain this – if it was a puncture, why would it take so long for the air to drain out? Anyway, I went up to get the Tyre repair guy and he said these were Tubeless tyres. What? I went around and checked – yep, they were all subscripted with “Tubeless Tyre” on them. I was surprised and felt good in way. If it was any normal tube tyre, I would have had to spend that morning in the middle of a road, outside the city, wondering how to get help. Or just change the tyre with the step-knee (spare tyre) with the jack I never used before, alone.

With tubeless tyres, I learnt that even if there is a puncture, you can still drive if the hole is blocked by whatever that caused it. You can pump in air if it has drained out too much. I drove back home that morning, without knowing what happened! Follow the links below to know what are tubeless tyres and the advantages.

The lesson I learnt was to know your stuff, know what things you’re using and know how to act when something fails. Perhaps, this is a topic for another day.

Later, I read more here:

Wikipedia – Tubeless tyre
Tubeless Tyre – Explained with pictures
Advantages of a Tubeless Tyre
Choosing The Right Set Of Tyres for your Car

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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.

They figured HP was making money, but was also spending too much – which made the net profit margins smaller. As the first measure, they began cutting costs – by reducing redundancy and bringing in efficiency. That didn’t mean no spending – they bought a few companies which made sense for future business. They invested in additional business areas. They scraped loss-making ventures. Today, HP and Mark are being hailed for turning around the tables. And they will sure have more things to do.

There are a lot of things to learn from how companies are run. Everyone of us is running a company – it’s You. There’s not much of difference in terms of – setting goals, thinking ahead, making mistakes, loss and gains. It’s just that we focus too much on earning for the companies we work for and are a little lazy when it comes to working for our own goals.

Making money involves the same set of strategies that HP or any other company uses. Think of all the ways you can avoid spending money. Think if we really need it. Think if we can live without it for a couple of days – if the answer is yes, we may possibly don’t need it, or we could buy it when there are cash reserves in our bank accounts.

Save. This one has been said too many times, by just about everyone we met – but surprise. Not many of us save regularly. That includes me as well. I know I need to save for my wedding, for my car, for my house, for my kids, for my retirement – but. There’s always a but. Just start allocating any amount every month as your savings – never mind even if it’s a few 100s. And don’t spend it – just think it’s not yours.

Diversify. Once you’re comfortable with the two of the above, you’re ready to go to the next level. Apart from your regular work, think of your passionate interests/hobbies. Or find something that excites you. See if you can make a habit out of it. See if you can find ways of making money out of it. Sometime or the other – it may yield dividends. It may take years, and it may not work out at all. The point is to think, try and focus. The coming days will see the jacks-of-all-trades thriving much better than the masters/specialists. But then, that’s a topic for some other day.

Write everything down. This one makes a difference between successors (or something close) and those who just thought/tried it. You need not write code to create software to log your entries. Just a pen/paper or a notepad will do.

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1. I Can't Save Money

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.

The analogy is not too far away from how we generally react to any change – either in our thoughts, decisions or by force. We try to resist change for as long as possible. We give excuses for not starting that one thing we always wanted to do – working out, learning new skills, start investing or getting a health check.

Since at least my college days, I’ve wanted to go to the gym to get some physical activity into my daily routine. I read and people advised. I got into my job and I got a good reason that I didn’t have time or the working hours didn’t fit in. A few years passed by, I had horizontal growth, rather than the vertical growth I was looking for ay work. My paunch was growing and my favorite jeans had to be discarded. I kept making new year resolutions.

Then, it was close to my wedding and this rang an alarm-bell. Somehow, there wasn’t enough ‘time’ and I was ‘tensed’. After all the wedding formalities, I saw my weight, which was now above the BMI for my age and height. That’s it. I went up on a Sunday noon and registered with the nearby gym.

Now, notice how the activity of working out started out – as a wish, and started growing into more of a must-do and finally, it became forced because of the high risk involved. Most of us are quite familiar with this pattern – we do things or we change when it’s a question of survival or when we are left with no other choice. Yep, it happens a lot of times.

The funny part is we all seem to know how to make our lives better – but we’re stuck with inertia. We would not start. We wait for something to happen on it’s own. Obviously, this may work for the mediocre, but if you want to be the best and get to the place you want to be, you’ve got to Start NOW. The time is NOW. Not later, not tomorrow – it’s NOW. This cannot be said enough times.

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