Blog

Notice: after planning it for years, I moved this blog out of blogger/blogspot (which google has abandoned long ago) to wordpress on a fine evening in Dec 2024. This notice will stay here to warn that things might be broken. Let me know if you find anything.

Have A Rocking Browsing Experience (for Firefox users)
If you are a firefox user, which most probably you are (and if you’re not you should download and install it before reading the rest of this post) you already have a rocking browser. And after you read this post you will know how to make the impossible happen out of it.

See the screenshots below to get an idea of what I’m talking about.

This is my orkut home page. (The theme for which once I was ready to switch to live)

This is my facebook page

And finally these are my google pages.

Want to make your browser too so attractive or why not even better?

Here are some useful addons you will certainly need.
1. heaven.cube theme: Just so attractive. Though this simple, dark theme is full of cubes (starting from the back – forward buttons to the scroll bars) it is certainly the best theme I’ve used until now.
  Installing: Go to heaven.cube, select add to firefox, click install again, sit back and relax.
  If you ever feel like going back to the default theme (which you probably won’t, OK for trying personas or so) just go to Tools –> Addons –> Themes –> Default –> Use theme
2. Personas: If you are not for themes, personas has it for you. It is a nice extension that adds colour to your firefox toolbars by using specially designed persona wares. But I am not using it right now because as I’m going to reveal by this post how, I don’t have status bar or menu bar so personas won’t work so well, and also personas won’t feed my appetite for an overall great appearance.
  Installing: Install personas from mozilla addons, then wear grabs by using the personas menu, or going to the personas gallery and selecting wear this on any ware.
  
  If you are deciding to use personas, here are some skins you should check out
3. Stylish: This is the real reason why I’m making this post. Stylish is a great extension that allows stylising the websites that you visit (you heard it right, not just the browser, even the sites that you visit). And that is how I got that wonderful theme for orkut and a dark background for google and facebook.
  The way stylish works is a little complicated. Still if you are for the technicalities here’s how. Every website depends upon CSS for their styles. What Stylish does is load a preset CSS for your websites. Now the default CSS won’t work and stylish begins the work.
  Installing: Stylish is like personas. You should first install stylish extension. Then install separate codes from the stylish resource site. This is very simple just go to the page of any stylish style and select install to stylish
  If you’ve finished installing stylish here are the styles you should try out
  - AutoHide Statusbar: Does exactly what it says. Displays the status bar when we hover on links, or when the page loads, but hides it all other times.
  - Facebook – Dark Shiny Red, transparency: Get a facebook like mine.
  - Google Web Search – Dark Gray Theme (vC): Dark and great.
  - Modern-Wiki : Makes wikipedia exactly what we want it to be.
  - Orkut Live: Windows Live like Orkut.
  - YouTube – Dark shiny blue, transparency: Freaky theatre.
4. Hide Menubar: Can be skipped if necessary. Hides the Menubar (File, Edit, View, and all) until you press ALT.
5. Fission: Progress bar in your address bar.
Done. These little tools can make your day.

P.S. Don’t forget to comment if you find better styles.
August 25, 2009
ClearType Tuner : If You Are Using Windows XP and an LCD monitor
The above pic is a comparison between text as it is seen on most computers, and text as it could be seen on those same computers.

ClearType is a technology by which microsoft has made it possible to view texts more clearly in LCD monitors. But by default it is turned off in all computers. So, most people do not get the best out of their LCD monitors (which I understood when I went to my cousin’s home last week and found it extremely hard to read a thing)

It gets more interesting when you know that it is very simple to turn it on if you have cleartype in your system,
1. Right Click on your desktop
2. Select Properties. Now the Display properties window opens up. Yeah, the one you use to change screen saver, wallpaper, etc.
3. Go to Appearance tab. This is where we don’t go
4. Click Effects… button
5. Tick “Use the following method to smooth edges of screen fonts:” and select ClearType from the drop down menu.
(And if you don’t have that option, don’t worry. You can download it and install from microsoft itself. ClearType Tuner PowerToy setup.exe (2 MB 5 min @ 28.8 Kbps))

Happy reading
August 25, 2009
If by Rudyard Kipling – A Poem that Tells It All

This poem by Rudyard Kipling has all the secrets to a wonderful life. Just read it and get inspired.
I also have included this poem as a wallpaper. Feel free to download it and set it as your wallpaper.

If
If you can keep your head when all about you
Are losing theirs and blaming it on you;
If you can trust yourself when all men doubt you,
But make allowance for their doubting too;
If you can wait and not be tired by waiting,
Or, being lied about, don’t deal in lies,
Or, being hated, don’t give way to hating,
And yet don’t look too good, nor talk too wise;

If you can dream – and not make dreams your master;
If you can think – and not make thoughts your aim;
If you can meet with triumph and disaster
And treat those two imposters just the same;
If you can bear to hear the truth you’ve spoken
Twisted by knaves to make a trap for fools,
Or watch the things you gave your life to broken,
And stoop and build ’em up with wornout tools;

If you can make one heap of all your winnings
And risk it on one turn of pitch-and-toss,
And lose, and start again at your beginnings
And never breath a word about your loss;
If you can force your heart and nerve and sinew
To serve your turn long after they are gone,
And so hold on when there is nothing in you
Except the Will which says to them: “Hold on”;

If you can talk with crowds and keep your virtue,
Or walk with kings – nor lose the common touch;
If neither foes nor loving friends can hurt you;
If all men count with you, but none too much;
If you can fill the unforgiving minute
With sixty seconds’ worth of distance run –
Yours is the Earth and everything that’s in it,
And – which is more – you’ll be a Man my son!

– Rudyard Kipling
(content courtesy: everypoet.com)

(Click on the thumbnail to see a larger image)
Then, right click and save the picture or set it as wallpaper.
If you liked this post, you may also like

Gandhiji Best Expressed

The Don’t Quit Poem

Martin Luther King Junior – I Have a Dream speech

August 23, 2009
God As The Cosmic Consciousness
The reason why there are a lot of atheists in the world is that nobody could provide people with a rational definition of God.
Some people praised God as the great soul who created and controls the universe. And others knew this couldn’t happen.
Some defined God as the beat of one’s heart or the thoughts of one mind. And others knew that such a thing wouldn’t possess any powers that a useful God would have.

But, though unheard by a vast majority, there are excellent definitions of God and everything hidden inside many of our ancient text books like the upanishads. Only some people, lucky to have both access to Sanksrit and access to those literary gems, or lucky to have a great guru, happened to know the actual and rational definition of God, as proposed in the upanishads.

This definition, I have been reading again and again from Swami Vivekananda and Swami Paramahamsa Yogananda. It is not just rational, it absolutely gives today’s theists a hope and at the same time do not hurt atheists in any way too.

So let us begin.

When we go on dividing atoms we get subatomic particles. But though we can’t, as physicists, divide anymore, there is an even finer particle inside every atom. Let us call this fine particles.
So the whole universe is made up of these fine particles. (A lot like string theory)

Now, these particles can be controlled by human mind. Our mind can produce certain sensation / vibration / energy / wave or anything which can control the arrangement of these fine particles. Just like in nanotechnology we rearrange particles and get new things, when these fine particles are rearranged we can create things from thin air, etc… (yeah, you said it, miracles)

But not everybody’s mind can do it. Only a properly trained, well-experienced mind can do that. (So, you just can’t go about and do it)

(read this chapter from An Autobiography of a Yogi for more details. I know it is slightly different from what i just told. But i just fine tuned the theory to make it more rational. So, this is how miracles work.)

And God? God is superconsciousness. Just like you are conscious of yourself, there is a larger consciousness which is the sum total of every one’s consciousness. (Compare it to the world wide web, no one is the core, everyone is a part and yet as a whole it is a marvel). So, everyone’s consciousness is interconnected and this extreme collaboration of consciousnesses is called superconsciousness. Ordinary people (untrained, inexperienced people) can not experience this superconsciousness (like if you don’t have the password you can’t enter the database). But those who meditate daily and do other things that helps in improving the ability of mind (these are the things that is taught in yoga) they can access this superconsciousness as they wish.
(Read this from Swami Vivekananda’s complete works)
And they can manipulate others thoughts, rearrange fine particles, heal diseases, materialise at another half of the world, and so on.

Such a God is scientific, enviable and believable.

I know it’s a lot like a fairy tale.
But when you do get time feed from these two online resources
- Complete works of Swami Vivekananda
- An Autobiography of A Yogi
They will surely give you a lifetime worth ideas. (By the way, my next plan is to hack the password of the superconsciousness)
August 22, 2009
How to Get Rid of Obsessions

[update on 2011/02/11: This is by far, the most read post on this blog. And this is also one of the oldest articles of this blog. And I think this article hasn’t been well-written. But, I won’t edit my articles (except for grammar/spelling mistakes) and I don’t want to lose my readers from this article. So I’m doing some gimmick here]

Added on Feb 11, 2011:

The bad news is that there is NO ‘ONE surely working way’ to get rid of an obsession.
But the good news is that there are several ways you could try to get rid of an obsession.

For example, if you’re addicted to the internet, you could try the crazy tip given in How to Get Rid of Addiction to Facebook, Myspace, Orkut, Twitter, Other Social Networking Sites, Internet or Computer in General

And usually addictions set in when you are not a happy person. So, try reading The Secret to (Infinite) Happiness (which tells you how to control your mind and be happy)

You may also find 3 Questions to Define What is Productive and What is Not interesting too

And if you want to hear a largely biology oriented view about obsessions, read on the original article below

If you find yourself watching endless hours of tv, or jumping from site to site without noticing the clock on your desk running away, you probably know what an obsession is.

obsession – an irrational motive for performing trivial or repetitive actions, even against your will

While what you think is an obsessive behaviour of yours may be anything ranging from obsessive compulsive disorder to humane laziness, it is best to avoid them. It takes away most of your time. It shifts your focus away from things you need to really concentrate upon. It makes you feel less confident. So, we reach our topic of discussion. How do we get rid of obsessions? Of course some obsessions may be biological in origin and may need medication. But, let us try with our mind.

GET RID OF IT

The first thing we need to know to get out of a problem is to know that we are in a problem.
So let us tell ourselves that we are going to fight it. That we will master our mind and direct it to do what we want and not what it thinks.

And when we are ready, we are almost there.

” You are free the moment you think you are.”

So, what next? To get to the next step let us think why we developed the obsession at the first place. We are back home in the night. We have got nothing to do. We switch on…

Why? We’ve nothing else to do, we do something we normally don’t do. And this continues even when we have something else to do. Thus the behaviour is established. And our focus is destroyed. Now our bodies start loving the behaviour and it automatically repeats appearing in our daily life.
And that brings us to the next step in getting rid of obsessions – breaking old habits. It’s really easy to break your obsession if you know the right technique to it. If you observe your obsession for a few days you will see that it usually comes right after something else in our daily schedule. Sometimes you might be coming straight from work and getting into your obsession. Sometimes it would be after having tea. Or sometimes right after waking up in the morning. But it always comes just after something. Find that something. That thing which switches on your obsession. That thing which invariably precedes your obsession. And when you’ve found that, things are simple.
Eliminate the predecessor . The successor will lose its way.
Yeah. If you come home and get carried away, come home doing something, or reading something and continue that even after you’ve reached home. If you wake up to your pc, meditate from your bed itself.
Just don’t give a chance for the obsession to start.
Thus you have shaken the base of the obsession.

Now exploit the chance. The obsession is losing ground. And if we launch our attack right now, the obsession will sure fail. And our weapon?

Our only weapon against an undesirable behaviour is a desirable behaviour. Take a sapling from the desirable behaviour and plant it where the undesirable used to stay. So, we need a new behaviour as a substitute. Anything from reading to exercising will do. And it need not be static. You can exercise one day, read another day, cook one day, blog another day, but there should be a substitute ready to enter the playing field.

Now cement your victory by watering the new plant everyday. Never go back to the obsessive behaviour. Whenever you feel like just get away from the thing that lures you (physically, away). And start doing the other thing.
Now there will be a voice from our mind talking about why the obsessive behaviour is probably not bad for you. But just don’t listen to it. If you try to argue, almost always only that voice will win. (It has biological reasons: There is a neurotransmitter called dopamine in our brain which is related with the pleasure system. It is designed in such a way that whenever we get a pleasure, it is released, and whenever it is released we desire to have pleasure. Read more)

Due to this dopamine effect, the obsessions that have already been with you for a long time cannot be uprooted with anything I have discussed above.

But fortunately I have found a cure for dopamine.
Just like any other hormone, the effects of dopamine don’t last more than a few minutes. So, the moment you feel like doing something you don’t want yourself to do, tell yourself that you are ready for the obsessive behaviour (Am I telling the opposite? no! wait, read it completely). Then borrow a little time from your obsession. Think of how dopamine is working. Think of why you feel like doing that. And just sit in silence for a few minutes. And by that time dopamine will have failed to affect. You will slowly be thinking more impartially. And you will at last decide not to sway towards the obsession.

Bear in mind that fighting dopamine is difficult. But it is not impossible. And once you win this battle, you will certainly be rewarded by a stronger will.

Tell me whether this has worked for you after trying out.

August 21, 2009
How to Make Resolutions and Keep Them
We make a lot of resolutions. And we break all of them.
Can you tell out loud at least one resolution that you’ve kept (If yes, the comments section is open and waiting for you )
By the time you rack your brains to find one such resolution, I bet you’ll have found out ten resolutions you haven’t kept.

Why do we make resolutions and break them?

The reason is that we don’t make proper resolutions. When you make a resolution properly not only does you keep it, you will most probably end up building on the resolution. What makes a proper resolution different from an improper one?
- Proper resolutions are made when they are least required. Most people resolve to do things better just after doing the worst. If you’re a student you will decide to start learning daily only when you do your examinations very bad.
  But if you make that resolution during holidays, then it’s a proper resolution.
- Proper resolutions come from your heart, not from someone else’s. That is why most new year resolutions fail. On the new year eve, everyone is making resolutions. So, you too does and not because you want it from your heart.
  Proper resolutions are made during moments of solitude, when no one is around, and you are talking with yourself. You ask yourself who you are and who you want to be. Then you resolve to be that soul which you always wanted to be.
- Proper resolutions are not postponed for the next day. Most probably you would have done this. You resolve to stop watching TV, not from today, but from tomorrow. Today is the last day and you go on breaking resolution today thinking that you will keep it tomorrow. The rest I need not tell.
  But when you make a proper resolution, you begin this moment. The moment you resolve you begin realising the resolution. You do not postpone it for another hour.
- Proper resolutions are well planned.
  You just resolve to do something. You will fail.
  But you plan it in detail, how to do, what to do, when to do, for how long, where to do… A proper resolution is so well planned that the person who makes it knows exactly what he means to do.
- Proper resolutions are properly motivated.
Think like you want to make a new resolution, right now? One which you have been making and breaking. Let us start together.
1. What is it?
  Think of it. Think of why you need to do it. Think of how you can do it.
  Now clear some time in your daily schedule, and keep a time for your new habit. (If you had resolved to lose a bad habit then fill the time you used for it earlier, for something else. Read my post on getting rid of obsessions)
  Of course when you decide to do something new you will have to devote lesser time to something else. For example if you decide to exercise, you will naturally need 30 minutes to warm-up, exercise, and cool down. Your day can’t go as long as 24 hours and 30 minutes. The only thing you can do is to cut short something you do daily by 30 minutes. Be it sleeping. Be it blogging. Be it chatting. You’ll have to cut something short.
2. Get going
  You’ve decided. Now start doing. If you can do it now, do it right now. (Of course after finished reading the next few tips). If you need a prop, get one as quickly as possible.
  But that is not enough. As I told, you need to be motivated so as to keep the momentum. So, how do you get motivated?
  Here is the most important thing to remember
  The motivation that you create by yourself won’t last long. It will run out as soon as you meet the first obstacle. So, we need a never ending source of motivation. For this, I’ve found two extremely useful sources.
3. Keep the momentum
  So, you are properly motivated, and strictly keeping your resolution. Now after a week or a month, just do a review. See how much your muscles have grown, how good you can sing, how good you are with people,…
  If you are on the right track, the results will possibly be what you expected. And those results will in turn motivate you to keep doing things.
  Don’t worry if you don’t find any results. Think of what you could have missed, where you could have gone wrong. Rectify those errors. And start from step 1.
If these steps do not work for you, there is one last resort I would recommend you – similar minded people. Find online groups doing what you intend to do. Hear from people who have already done it. And you will probably know why you’ve been failing.

So, happy resolving. (OK! It’s over, now you can start from step 1, what is it?)
August 20, 2009
2 Freeware Tools to Monitor Your Network Traffic

Here are two tools which I’ve personally used and found extremely useful in calculating how much data i’ve downloaded/uploaded through my internet connection.

Anyone using a minimum pay internet connection will sooner or later need either of these tools.

The first one is a very small single file application called Network Traffic Monitor. This thing allows you to find the amount of data downloaded or uploaded in that particular session and also the speed of downloading or uploading. This comes useful when you have low memory or is just checking out how much downloding does browsing actually cause.
Direct Download Network Traffic Monitor (zip file, about 0.5 MB)

The next tool is a larger software, which always runs in the background – NetLimiter Monitor provides details and exportable daily/monthly statistics. It can be used to find the amount of data sent or received by individual applications. It also keeps a track of all the statistics. So, it can be used to find the total amount of upload and download in a month.
Direct download NetLimiter Monitor (exe file, about 2.5 MB)

Take control of your network life…

August 18, 2009
The Secret to (Infinite) Happiness
Everyone knows how to be happy when it’s party time. But how to be happy when s*it is happening to you?

Being happy always, in everything that’s happening in your life, even when tears are rolling down your cheeks, even when you’re wilting with pain, even when you’ve failed at the most important tasks… Yes, that’s possible, and that is what I call infinite happiness (This is not infinite bliss that is supposed to be coming after God realization)

You needn’t be successful for being happy. Because unlike success happiness is within you. You decide whether you are happy or not. There is no external condition necessary for happiness. When it comes to being happy you’re the boss. No matter what the world showers upon you, your state of mind is what you decide. If you decide to be unhappy even when you are having everything that an average man needs to be happy, then you will be unhappy. And if you decide to be happy when all the odds are against you, if you decide to smile at your enemies, if you decide to laugh out loud when the worst is happening to you, you will be happy. Happy or not, you decide.

The first step for being so is to know the mechanism of happiness.
What brings about happiness?

As Will Smith says in The Pursuit of Happyness (or as he should have said) “When you are pursuing happiness, you will never be happy. To be happy you must leave worrying about being happy and start enjoying life.

Did you say enjoying life?
Yes. Enjoy life. Enjoy failure. Enjoy success. Enjoy doing nothing. Enjoy doing things. Enjoy eating. Enjoy sleeping. Enjoy exercising. Enjoy reading. Enjoy life.
And how?

The courtesy of the following idea goes to ancient Indian philosophy.
Who are you? Are you your hands or legs? or your heart or brain? or your body? Or are you your mind? Are you any of these? If you think you are your body or your mind, then you will be unhappy when there is some sorrow to any of these – your mind or your body. And it’s easy for your body and mind to get hurt. Now, here’s where it gets interesting. Think of yourselves as someone else, a consciousness that controls your mind and body. Think of you as someone who sits at the back of your head and monitors the thoughts in your mind and the movements of your limbs. Don’t associate yourself with your mind or body. Dissociate yourself from them. Just be a witness. A witness of your actions. Of your thoughts.
When you are reading, it is not YOU that is reading, it is your mind that is reading with the help of your eyes.
When you are getting angry, YOU are not getting angry, it is your mind that is getting angry.
When you are exercising, YOU are not exercising, it is your body that is exercising.

Keep yourself out of everything. Let your body and mind do things. They are your servants. You are their master, sitting happily in a chair and enjoying the little mistakes that your servants – body and mind – do.

And when you are not your body or mind, nothing in this world can hurt you. Am I right? Things in this world can only hurt either your mind or your body or both. But they can never touch you. Because you are not your body or mind.

So, watch your thoughts. Watch your actions. Watch how your actions affect others. Watch how your actions affecting others in turn affect your thoughts. Watch how your actions affect their thoughts. Watch how they react. Watch how you fail. Watch how you succeed. Watch how you eat. Watch how you wash. Watch how life goes on. Be a witness to everything. Don’t involve yourself in anything (Now, your body and mind can involve in anything, but YOU won’t be invoved, you know how.)

And then you will reach a state where you can manipulate your mind and body as you wish. You tell the mind to be happy and it will be happy. You tell the body to be strong and it will be strong. You decide how your mind and body must be. This state of mind:

This state where you actively screen yourself, see your thoughts, and feel your actions; this state which is sometimes called “living in the present” or “being present minded”; this state where you feel no excitement and no worry but just a serene calmness; this state is the secret to infinite happiness.

Now go, be happy, and spread beauty in the world. Just remember “you are beyond your body and mind”

_________________
Similar posts:
August 17, 2009
Let Us Ask Ourselves On This Independence Day…

…we have come so far. We have seen so much. But there is so much more to do. So tonight, let us ask ourselves – if our children should live to see the next century; if my daughters should be so lucky to live as long as Ann Nixon Cooper, what change will they see? What progress will we have made?
This is our chance to answer that call. This is our moment. This is our time – to put our people back to work and open doors of opportunityfor our kids; to restore prosperity and promote the cause of peace; to reclaim…

US President Barack Obama asked Americans this question on the day of his victory. “What change?”
And he is on the path of answering that question.

Not very long ago, an Indian invoked in the Indians a similar vision.

“A developed India by 2020, or even earlier, is not a dream. It need not be a mere vision in the minds of many Indians. It is a mission we can all take up – and succeed.”

That is what Dr APJ Abdul Kalam said Indians through his book in 1998.

We are halfway there in terms of years (2020-2009=11, 2009-1998=11)
But have we made even a sway towards the dream in terms of progress?

Halfway through we still have poverty, corruption, crime, violence, …

Why? We are a billion strong, we have huge amount of human resource, we are intelligent, 34% of NASA employees are Indians, Americans are amazed at the quality of education in India, … and yet we can’t perfect ourselves? Why are we succesful in everything else but nation development?

We lack proactive citizens.

We have citizens who are ready to act when asked to. We have citizens who get goose bumps on hearing the National Anthem. We have citizens who speak/blog against injustices. (Well, I am not eligible to vote right now)

We have people willing to do when they must. We have active citizens.
But we don’t have people doing when they need not. We lack proactive citizens.

We need practive citizens.
Citizens who start movements against injustices.
Citizens who start charity organisations to help the poor.
Citizens who march in protest in order to protect the environment.
Citizens who start health clubs, libraries, schools (or tutorials), industries, businesses, super-markets, search engines,…
Citizens who create their own political party and strive to be a good minister.
Citizens who adopt poor orphans or sponser their education.
Citizens who take an accident victim to the hospital.
Citizens who complain about a crime to the police, or be a witness to something they’ve witnessed.
Citizens who read and make others able to read.
Citizens who are healthy and make others healthy.
Citizens who submit engineering projects to the government.

Citizens who rise themselves and raise others.
Citizens who organize.
Ctizens who create opportunities out of thin air.

Creative citizens. Proactive citizens.

Don’t ASK what you can do for your country. Just DO something for your country.
And the rest is assured.

Jai Hind.

Wish all Indians a Happy Independence Day

August 15, 2009
Recommendation: 101 Most Inspiring Quotes of All Time

101 Most Inspiring Quotes of All Time

That’s a really good collection. You’ll surely end up motivated.

August 11, 2009