Coffee

This is my first trial at Photoshop. I followed a design idea that I saw on another website to create this one.

Hope things will improve from here on. Full resolution (5100×3300 pixels)!! You can make poster out of it.

Coffee - Click image to view and download the wallpaper

5 People Who Secretly Control You Life

Your Heroes

Heroes are often one-dimensional – whether they’re real or fictional.  We tend to put people on a pedestal and think because they are amazing in one sense that all their other capacities are flawless.  But they’re people just like we are, and they have their own failings.  When you emulate heroes, you have to be very careful not to absorb the bad with the good.

Your Nemesis

It’s easy to play the sucker to a nemesis.  Often, you’ll generate huge amounts of stress trying to have what they have, and you can make same pretty stupid decisions in the name of keeping up with them.  You can become extremely petty, burn bridges and actually have a negative impact on the people around you in your quest to never let your nemesis get the best of you.  You become reactive (to their decisions) instead of proactive (making your own choices).

Your Parents

Since our parents are the first authority figures we come to know, we tend to put them on a pedestal early in life, thinking they know absolutely everything about life.  That means some of our basic beliefs, opinions and life direction are stamped from their mold.  But their mold may not even be remotely right for our lives, because it carries the baggage of their individual lives (and that of their parents).

Sometimes this means you’re conditioned to believe in scarcity. Sometimes it’s cynicism, or racism, or sexism, or whatever kind of -ism dominated their formative years.  It’s hard to stomach, but in some cases we may have had parents who just plain indifferent to creating a fulfilling life or sadder yet, wanted to be better role models but just didn’t know how.  Their limiting beliefs may – when transferred to you – be what’s holding you back.

Your Partner

Because we spend so much time around our partners, and we want to be on good terms with them, we can begin to experience entrainment – we are likely fall into the same patterns they have.  If their standards are not as strong as ours, that can bring us down to their level.  (And it works both ways – you might be the negative force on them!)

This can create a strong negative pattern that’s hard to break, because once the two of you have relaxed your standards, it’s more difficult to generate the desire to snap out of it and break free.  Your new, lowered standards become “normal.”  The two of you may not even realize that you’re drifting downward.

You

The mirror can be the scariest thing in the world if you’ve been conditioned to look down on yourself (whether by parental criticism, bad experience, or those damned beauty magazines).  You look in the mirror and you judge yourself – you’re not pretty/thin/attractive enough, you’re a loser/fraud/sham, you’re not anywhere close to where you wanted to be at this point in your life.  Every failure you’ve experienced (or imagined!), every harsh word or insult you’ve received, it all comes back to you in a rush of depression as you see that tired face in the mirror.

Projects Completed and Underway..

Past few weeks have been a roller coaster ride. Been working on a lot of different personal and client projects… Sometimes high on natural enthusiasm and sometimes powered by Caffeine.

I have been up to:

• Completing client websites.
• Creating online presence for my sister who has started out as a doctor.
• Buying my own domain name and setting up a v-card.
• Adding business cards to ContentPad
• Honing my mad Photoshop skills.

And we have more projects in the pipeline… Wonder when I’m going to get some sleep?

Here are the screen-shots on everything completed so far.

http://www.vikramrathore.com

http://contentpad.net/vikram/#profiles

http://iait.net.in/

http://www.doctorvandana.com/#contact

http://www.doctorvandana.com/#profiles

WordPress and Yahoo Web Hosting

So, one of my clients asked me to move a WordPress based website over to his Yahoo! web hosting account and I thought this would be a breeze of a job. I could not have been more wrong.

I’ve done several WordPress blog and site setups on a number of different web hosts. Yahoo was something I had not done and now I am less than thrilled with the results I’m finding. It’s frustrating for me – but really frustrating for my client who was really looking forward to go live with this project.

Here are some details that I’ve found – hopefully you will find this list helpful when making a decision to host your WordPress blog on Yahoo! hosting.

Simple Resume Guide

THE RESUME SAYING IT WITH IMPACT Using verbs and adjectives effectively adds impact to your resume. Read this section again carefully just before you actually begin writing. DESCRIBING RESULTS – GOING BEYOND DUTIES The typical resume merely lists duties and does little else to sell the person. One of the best ways to sell yourself is to describe accomplishments in terms of results. Duties are often covered by “Responsible for …” Results are generally covered by using the verb developed, such as “Developed a secretary’s manual which explained hundreds of procedures and significantly reduced clerical errors.” This person’s duties were typing, filing, and answering phones, so to show that she stood above the rest, she demonstrated results.

Try out Zemanta – It’s Cool

Ever wish you had a blogging assistant who helped you write posts that are full of great links, photos, and tags? Wish no more: WordPress has partnered with the folks at Zemanta to give you a hand at quickly jazzing up your posts.

Once you’ve activated Zemanta, you’ll see several new widgets on your edit screen that let you quickly add recommended links, photos, tags, and articles. With just a few clicks your post goes from simple to snazzy.

This picture of a dog was automatically generated by Zemanta on detecting the post content. Pretty cool if you ask me 🙂

Image by State Library of New South Wales collection via Flickr

FireFox Extension For…

200+ extremely useful firefox extensions that save time and effort.

Advertising :

1. block ads on webpages : Adblock
2. block ads on webpages : Adblock Plus
3. automatically update adblocker filters : Adblock Filterset.G Updater
4. block Flash ads/content : Flashblock
5. Suggestions/Corrections : Comment in blog : wordpress : I want a Firefox Extension to …

Archive/History :

1. create a log of browsing history : Slogger
2. see sites visited today/yesterday/2 days ago/etc : History Menu
3. see thumbnails of pages in session history : Reveal
4. Back to Top of the Page
5. Suggestions/Corrections : Comment in blog : wordpress : I want a Firefox Extension to …

Blogging :

1. blog about the current page : Performancing for Firefox
2. blog to Blogger service : BlogThis
3. blog to LiveJournal/etc : Deepest Sender
4. comment about the blog page : coComment
5. know when blog content is under Creative Commons license : mozCC
6. Suggestions/Corrections : Comment in blog : wordpress : I want a Firefox Extension to …

What Does Independence Mean? – Challenging Assumptions

Freedom By Tatsu Subaru

The following is a post from another blog of mine that I abandoned long ago. Maybe I will revive it one of these days. Today being the Indian Independence Day, it was a cerebral revisit to the same thought pattern again.

As human beings born and raised in a society we are bound by assumptions, prejudices and the values of our forefathers, family and peers.
Most of us do not realize that the way we think, decide and act upon all matters (whether trivial or complex) are heavily influenced by:

1. The morals and the value system of our parents.
2. The peer environment that we had been exposed to as kids.
3. The religion we believe in just because we were born in a family that practices that religion.
4. The culture of the community/nation we were born in.

Some people would say that the above mentioned factors are what define us as an individual.

I happen to have a different view on the same:
I believe that all the above factors do not define you or me as an individual. Rather, these influences change a kid’s beliefs to align them with that of a group, society or cult. Original and free thinking is severely impacted by the way we are raised and the education system we have been exposed to. For example, a kid born and raised in a terrorist outfit would probably hate the western world all his life without even questioning the beliefs and education he was imparted.

While the above is a more extreme example, it does clarify that the way you and me have been schooled and raised, trains and conditions us to be a part of “The Group” rather than promoting free will and original thinking.

Most of the stuff we like, the choices we make, our likes and dislikes are actually not what you or me could really call “My Preferences”. These “preferences” were formed of time and influenced by the moral and the value system we were exposed to.

The icing on the cake is when we realize that we never had the independence or the discretion to choose this system of morals, values and religion by ourselves. This is what we were taught and always believed in. Some of the most important beliefs we live and swear by were never chosen or questioned by us!!

This is what I like to do:

Being naked. Not literally of course. We are not naked when we take of our clothes. We would still be wearing our assumptions. beliefs, faith, religion, morals and values. If you could take these off for an hour and spend that hour thinking like a free man who is unaffected by any external influences and uses logic and rational approach to think for himself/herself, take decisions by self and not succumb to peer, family or societal pressures.

Then, you would have the satisfaction of living life at your own terms and making your decisions.

Remember… Independence Is Challenging Assumptions!!

SmartAss Quotes

If you are pissed and stressed and would like to speak you mind in one-liners.. here are some quotes for you to throw around.

I found these off teh internetz and have used a lot of these in real life… epicness ensued 🙂

1. Well, this day was a total waste of makeup.
2. Well, aren’t we just a ray of f*****g sunshine?
3. Make yourself at home! Clean my kitchen.
4. Not the brightest crayon in the box now, are we?
5. A hard-on doesn’t count as personal growth.
6. Don’t bother me. I’m living happily ever after.

Create Download Page In WordPress

So you want to create a simple download page on your WordPress powered blog or website and would like to know how to create one? Recently I created such a page for a friend and you would be surprised to know how easy it is to create one.

There are a number of ways you can accomplish this. But we will be looking at a quick, simple and effective solution for your downloads page that you can put up without getting your hands dirty.

Here is what you need to do:

1. Log on to the WordPress admin panel and click on add new plugins.
2. Search for a plugin called “Download Manager” by Shaon.
3. Alternatively, you can download the plugin from here
4. Install the plugin and click activate.
5. You should now be able to see something like this in your left sidebar: