GuardianUnlimited has an article on Simple ways to make yourself far cleverer . Brain exercises such as watching countdown, playing Sudoku, remembering telephone numbers and taking a shower with your eyes closed can make us all up to 40 per cent cleverer within seven days, according to research by a BBC programme this week.
Here is the Get Smater Guide:
Saturday
Brush your teeth with your ‘wrong’ hand and take a shower with your eyes closed.
Sunday
Do the crossword or Sudoku puzzle in your Sunday paper and take a brisk walk.
Monday
Have oily fish for dinner, and either cycle, walk or take the bus into work.
Tuesday
Select unfamiliar words from the dictionary and work them into conversations.
Wednesday
Go to yoga, Pilates or a meditation class, and talk to someone you don’t know.
Thursday
Take a different route to work; watch Countdown or Brainteaser.
Friday
Avoid caffeine or alcohol; memorise your shopping list.
Last week there were photos of video iPod all over the web. Now the guy who made the fake video iPod has released a video documentary, showing how he did it.
WikiHow is a collaborative writing project with lots of useful how-to manuals. They’re free, contributed and maintained mainly by volunteers. I saw some how-tos that could be useful for geeks.
BBC has a warning over valentine’s e-cards. Just beware and don’t open the e-cards from your secret admirer. In the past there had been an increase of virus, spam and spyware during valentine’s day.
“Just the receipt of an e-card can be a huge threat. Some people will ignore these but for others, curiosity draws them to making a simple click on an innocent looking advert, and unknowingly our Romeo or Juliet exposes the organisation to web-borne security threats.”
Previous viruses, like 2000’s Love Bug, have played on this tendency.
The best defense is not to open any unsolicited valentine’s-related messages.
Flowers, candy, jewelry and stuffed animals are probably the most received gifts on Valentine’s Day, February 14th. For the more creative and geeky of us out there, Valentine’s Day gives us the opportunity to truly show your girl how much you care for her by shelling out some cash on a useful tech gadget.
They recommend iPods, Cell phones, Digital cameras and other gadgets but also warn the geeks:
Be careful though: giving a good tech gift can serve as a constant reminder to your thoughtfulness or an unwanted token of your geekiness.
The blogging phenomenon has swept the Internet today. According to Technorati, there are now over 27.2 Million blogs, the blogsphere is doubling in size every 5 and half months and it is now over 60 times bigger than it was 3 years ago. On average a new weblog is created every second of every day. I started blogging (not seriously) on 2003 when my boss wanted to have a blog of his own and told me that Movable Type was a popular software. I remember trying Wordpress , Greymatter and some others but finally we stayed with the Movable Type. At that time I created a blog of my own nir.hkisl.net (which is redirected to this site now). I used to mainly post links to the technical news that I found interesting and those I wanted to read in spare time. I would go back to my blog and read them later. It was like my private delicious bookmarks.
We’ll be working with other, more interesting form factors (both larger and smaller). Wouldn’t it also be nice to identify which finger is associated with each contact?
Chinese New Year is always a very special time in Hong Kong. Everyone is in festive mood. Buildings, shopping malls and streets are decorated with colourful flowers and most of the high rises lightened up with high tech lighting effects. What Hong Kongers do in Chinese New Year?
Kung Hei Fat Choy! : Congratulations and be prosperous (Happy New Year) Lai See: Red Pocket with money. Married people give to unmarried people Visit Relatives: Greet and Eat Wishing Tree: Write the wishes and tie it up in the tree Flower Market: In Victoria Park Fireworks: In Victoria Harbour Crazy Sale: In most of the shopping malls
I had a good time with my family during this Chinese New Year Holiday and here are some photos I took. Enjoy and Kung Hei Fat Choy!
Beautiful Flower Tree in front of the Macau Ferry Terminal
Tomorrow we will be having an Annual Lunch. Our Company organizes annual lunch every year just before the Lunar New Year. It’s a fun event where everyone gathers. We have some presentations, games, lucky draw and a lot of good food and drinks. I’ll be giving a presentation about SSL VPN there and while I was preparing my power point slides, I found a speech that I wrote a year ago when I was a member of Toastmasters Club at HK Polytechnic University. I find it quite interesting to read now… and I am presenting it here as it is. I didn’t deliver the speech exactly this way but this is the material I prepared on. It’s about the question we ask to ourselves “why me?“… Read the rest of this entry »
After struggling almost for a week to find an appropriate domain name for my site I realized how difficult it is to register a name that you want. Finally I settled down with Nirlog.com (Nir=Niranjan & log=weblog) after trying many different crazy combinations. Then had to decide which blog software to use. For most of the people there are quite a lot of choices available e.g they can choose from many of the hosted services or apply for some web hosting package and install the software. But I had only one choice because I wanted to have absolutely 100% control of everything. The server, the software and the content. Read the rest of this entry »
Comment: In the age of web 2.0, this is a book you shouldn't miss. It demonstrates how you can use blogs, social networks, forums, web conference, emails and many more virtual tools to create a powerful professional presence, attract business and meet people online.
Comment: Many insights for personal management and productivity. Getting Things Done is about getting organized and freeing your mind for more important stuffs.
