1. Stop drinking soft drinks and start drinking water.
2. When you feel stressed take 10 deep breaths. Focus on your breathing.
3. Exercise at least 30 minutes a day. It's as easy as a walk around the block.
4. Drink Green Tea instead of Coffee.
5. Sleep at least 8 hours a night.
6. Stay away from Hydrogenated Oils. Read the ingredients on the back of products.
7. Surround yourself with positive and supportive people.
8. Do one thing special for yourself every day
9. Eat fruits with your breakfast and eat vegetables with your lunch and dinner.
10. Say a prayer or affirmation before you go to bed and when you wake up
11. Read one inspirational book a month.
12. Listen to your favorite song whenever you need a pick-me-up.
13. Eat breakfast. It will increase your energy and productivity at work.
14. Don't be too busy for lunch. Researchers agree that performance scores plunge when people miss lunch.
15. Take short breaks throughout the day. Get up from your chair and take a little walk. Stop looking at the computer screen. Stretch. Go get a cold drink of water. Short breaks help you refocus and reenergize.
Source Unknown
Wednesday, November 23, 2005
Friday, July 08, 2005
Baseline Benchmarking into the OS
Recently I got to install Microsoft ISA Server on top of a Windows 2000 server Standard Edition to be used by a small team of guys for a test environment. Win2KServer is the sole Active Directory controller on the domain, installed and running on a PIV 2GHz box with 256MB RAM. IIS is enabled and no other software was running on the PC. Idea was to connect a 512K DSL Line and share it to the group.
After installing the ISA Server 2004, the Firewall service doesn't auto-start in the startup. Event log entries shown that the Remote Connection Service has hung on startup. When started manually, it worked. After some checking and tweaking it was found that the PC is not capable of handling the load.
While thinking of the problem, something came to my mind. Isn't there a way for the operating system to measure up the performance of a installed PC with all its subsystems and arrive at some kind of index value which can be used as the performance metric for that system? So that, individual softwares wrote for that O/S can carry a number indicating the required processing value on the system. Today, the minimum and recommended configurations are not useful in real-life scenerio, as often you got to install many different software into the same hardware.
Can the Unit of Measurement be MIPS, something similar or something more complex?
After installing the ISA Server 2004, the Firewall service doesn't auto-start in the startup. Event log entries shown that the Remote Connection Service has hung on startup. When started manually, it worked. After some checking and tweaking it was found that the PC is not capable of handling the load.
While thinking of the problem, something came to my mind. Isn't there a way for the operating system to measure up the performance of a installed PC with all its subsystems and arrive at some kind of index value which can be used as the performance metric for that system? So that, individual softwares wrote for that O/S can carry a number indicating the required processing value on the system. Today, the minimum and recommended configurations are not useful in real-life scenerio, as often you got to install many different software into the same hardware.
Can the Unit of Measurement be MIPS, something similar or something more complex?
Monday, May 30, 2005
P4 2GHz PC to connect to Internet?
According to Reliance Infocomm, they recommend a 'Pentium IV 2GHz or Higher' PC to use their broadband connection from home. Isn't it too much to ask?
Monday, May 16, 2005
How to Protect your Home Computer
OK. I am about to tell you a few simple steps to protect your home computer. This is important if you are connecting to Internet by Dial-up and more important if you are using DSL.
1. Anti virus:
You should have anti virus installed, and updated at least once a month. Take my word - there are no other ways to it.
2. Firewall:
Windows XP Users:
Install Windows XP Service Pack 2. It is huge in size - about 266 MB to download. The good news is, you can order a free CD over Internet. Go here. Windows XP SP2 has a built in firewall which will protect you from most of the issues with Internet and is good enough for a home user.
Windows 2000/NT/Me/98SE Users:
Download ZoneAlarm and install. It is a very good free personal firewall, but needs lot of user intervention. Read the instructions well and you should get used it sooner.
3. AntiSpyware:
Windows XP/2000 Users:
Install the free Microsoft AntiSpyware.
Windows NT/Me/98 Users:
Install free tool Adaware.
4. Never open e-mail attachments from unknown senders. I can't say it more, please.
5. Never install a software from internet when you are not sure what it does.
6. Never allow any website to install software into your machine, however tempting it is, or however innocent it looks, unless you are sure what it is.
Important: All the tools specified here needs to be running in the background and needs continuous update and comes with built-in auto-update mechanisms. The golden rule is, check these tools at least once a month to ensure that they are up to date.
Happy Computing!
1. Anti virus:
You should have anti virus installed, and updated at least once a month. Take my word - there are no other ways to it.
2. Firewall:
Windows XP Users:
Install Windows XP Service Pack 2. It is huge in size - about 266 MB to download. The good news is, you can order a free CD over Internet. Go here. Windows XP SP2 has a built in firewall which will protect you from most of the issues with Internet and is good enough for a home user.
Windows 2000/NT/Me/98SE Users:
Download ZoneAlarm and install. It is a very good free personal firewall, but needs lot of user intervention. Read the instructions well and you should get used it sooner.
3. AntiSpyware:
Windows XP/2000 Users:
Install the free Microsoft AntiSpyware.
Windows NT/Me/98 Users:
Install free tool Adaware.
4. Never open e-mail attachments from unknown senders. I can't say it more, please.
5. Never install a software from internet when you are not sure what it does.
6. Never allow any website to install software into your machine, however tempting it is, or however innocent it looks, unless you are sure what it is.
Important: All the tools specified here needs to be running in the background and needs continuous update and comes with built-in auto-update mechanisms. The golden rule is, check these tools at least once a month to ensure that they are up to date.
Happy Computing!
Friday, May 13, 2005
Remove hidden personal data from your MS Office documents
When you create/modify a Word or Excel document in your PC and distribute it to internet or your friends, it carries a lot of personal information with it, like who created it, who modified it and when, etc.
You can download the Office 2003/XP Add-in: Remove Hidden Data tool from Microsoft. It works with Office 2003/XP only, and once installed, the tool is available right at your File Menu. When you are about to publish a document, just click this option which opens up a wizard, which will create a new document without these personal data for you to publish.
Check out!
You can download the Office 2003/XP Add-in: Remove Hidden Data tool from Microsoft. It works with Office 2003/XP only, and once installed, the tool is available right at your File Menu. When you are about to publish a document, just click this option which opens up a wizard, which will create a new document without these personal data for you to publish.
Check out!
Windows XP in Indian Languages
Now, Microsoft has introduced the Windows XP in Indian Languages. Go right here and select your Lanugage in the drop down list. You will need to download whats called a Language Interface Pack (LIP) about 4 MB in size for every language.
For instant, the Tamil LIP, Hindi LIP and Marathi LIP.
Once you install a particular LIP, most of the menus and dialogs in Windows XP speaks your language. Check it out!
For instant, the Tamil LIP, Hindi LIP and Marathi LIP.
Once you install a particular LIP, most of the menus and dialogs in Windows XP speaks your language. Check it out!
Monday, May 09, 2005
தமிழில் கூகுல் தேடுங்கள்
1. நீங்கள் தேடவேண்டிய சொல்/தொடரை யுனிகோடில் (Unicode) எழுதுங்கள். எப்படி? அழகி மென்பொருளை அல்லது Microsoft Indic IME உபயோகியுங்கள். உதாரணமாக, 'வானாகி மண்ணாகி'
2. அதை அப்படியே வெட்டி எடுத்து கூகுலில் போடுங்கள்.
3. Google Search செய்யுங்கள். அவ்வளவுதான்!
Friday, April 29, 2005
No Thanks, Microsoft!
I have just received an invite for Microsoft Tech.Ed 2005 by email, and decided not to go for it this year. I had attended the Tech.Ed 2004 last year. There was lot of hype and advertisements from Microsoft for the event, but end of the day there was very less delivered. First and foremost, Tech.Ed India was very different from the Tech.Ed in USA where lot of new products and beta releases are announced. Here we got only a few of the announced international speakers actually making out to the presentations. Speakers came out and repeated what we already know from websites and blogs. And even we were not given the right sized Tech.Ed T-shirt.
End of the day, it turned out to be a paid entry to a Microsoft Marketing seminar.
Not again Microsoft, Not at the cost of Rs.6500 per person to hear your PR stuff.
End of the day, it turned out to be a paid entry to a Microsoft Marketing seminar.
Not again Microsoft, Not at the cost of Rs.6500 per person to hear your PR stuff.
UTI Bank - Poor customer service
I have my Salary account with UTI Bank for the past few years and my experience is far from satisfactory so far, Let me explain some issues.
Phone Banking: Phone banking numbers are always busy (atleast in Chennai). Even when we get through, we never get right answers.
Staff: Often impolite responses. To change the address one has to go to the branch where the account is held in person. When I went to the Coimbatore Branch a month ago (I am at Chennai now), I was told 'You cannot change the address as you like, bring some proof accepted by government' in terse terms.
Mobile Banking: A while ago, ATM's were enabled with a provision to register for mobile banking and alerts which was a free service. From 1st April 2005, bank decided to charge for the service and promptly sent an SMS informing this. But I don't want Mobile Banking at a cost, and decided to cancel it. There is no provision to cancel the service in ATM, No way in Net Banking and you cannot reach the bank over Phone Banking. Great!
Cheque Book: Request for Cheque Book cannot be made from ATMs. Request through Net banking is not honoured. As the phone banking lines are not reachable, you have to make STD calls to the branch to get even a check book.
Phone Banking: Phone banking numbers are always busy (atleast in Chennai). Even when we get through, we never get right answers.
Staff: Often impolite responses. To change the address one has to go to the branch where the account is held in person. When I went to the Coimbatore Branch a month ago (I am at Chennai now), I was told 'You cannot change the address as you like, bring some proof accepted by government' in terse terms.
Mobile Banking: A while ago, ATM's were enabled with a provision to register for mobile banking and alerts which was a free service. From 1st April 2005, bank decided to charge for the service and promptly sent an SMS informing this. But I don't want Mobile Banking at a cost, and decided to cancel it. There is no provision to cancel the service in ATM, No way in Net Banking and you cannot reach the bank over Phone Banking. Great!
Cheque Book: Request for Cheque Book cannot be made from ATMs. Request through Net banking is not honoured. As the phone banking lines are not reachable, you have to make STD calls to the branch to get even a check book.
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