Pic for representation only – I don’t really have a Nexus!

Back in the days when the iPhone was first launched, a large portion of buyers found that the missing Bluetooth feature inexcusable. Samsung learnt from Apple’s mistakes and the new galaxy range of phones has a feature that I have really come to love – The WiFi hub feature. It’s also called as MiFi by some.

I purchased my Samsung Galaxy Y last October at a time when mobile prices were lower than what they ended up being towards the end of the year – at around 6800INR. The phone was with every penny for its other features ..the one that helped me the most was the Wireless Hotspot or the WiFi hub. It’s available in most new android phones now and you may just need to check your phone’s manual to see if your phone has it.

How it works: Say you have a PC, tablet or laptop that connects to a WiFi confection and you have a working data connection on your phone – 3G or ordinary. With the Samsung galaxy phones you activate the WiFi hotspot feature and just connect your laptop to the net.

If you have 3G your new hotspot will probably even faster than your broadband connection.

How to activate: For Samsung galaxy android owners, just first start your data connection by going to Settings > Wireless & Networks> Mobile networks > Turn on ‘packet data’

Next start the hotspot by going to Settings > Wireless & networks > Tethering & portable hotspot > turn on ‘portable wifi’. Give your network a name.

Important: Don’t forget to add a password to your network as any one could connect to it.

Now connect your laptop to the available WiFi network after finding the network you just set up.

Applications:

1. You don’t need a 3G dongle anymore of you’re satisfied with the battery life and network support. The dongles usually cost around 1000 more and come with limited data plans. Save all that, use your phone.

2. If you shift to a new location like I just did, and your broadband hasn’t been connected yet, this could be an alternative connection. At my place, we’ve used the connection to stream the IPL Matches! It works amazingly.

3. The middle-of-nowhere net facility. I was in Pune earlier this month, and one of the guys I was working with needed a file urgently. Not that the city of Pune hasn’t got any cybercafes but we needed it at 6am in the morning. The phone made sure we got the file.

A phone as a WiFi hotspot  might lose battery relatively quickly, however its use will cover that up.

Try it out. And do leave a comment if the feature is happening got you!

Related articles

• Samsung announces Galaxy S III mini: 4-inch Super AMOLED, 1GHz dual-core, NFC (engadget.com)
• Tips & Tricks: Print from a Mobile Device (samsung.com)
• Wi-Fi roaming: Hotspot 2.0 and Next Generation Hotspot (zdnet.com)
• 10 Ways to Get the Most From Your Wi-Fi-Only Tablet (pcworld.com)

Typing with all ten fingers

A friend of mine was chatting on the internet with me via Gtalk. She was from a vernacular background (not blaming her) and I noticed most of her IMs were in SMS lingo – Hw r u? Whr r v gng  4 pknik?

She is not the only friend of mine to do that while typing. Many of them resort to using SMS text while typing. I.e. they prefer to write the shorter version of the word rather than the longer and legitimate version of it.

India boasts of a booming IT industry and a lot Software developers have come in from India’s graduates. Yet in while becoming pros at the hardware and software, these pros are getting the fundamental basics of Input wrong – in Typing.

Here’s how the infection occurs:

Stage 1

Some people haven’t don’t get a computer since their childhood. Either because they couldn’t afford it or because computers weren’t the rage back then. They grow up, they get a job themselves, then their first laptop or PC comes in. They are all eager to chat with all their friends, send emails and update their social media etc. Their friend has sent them an Instant Message but they’re still replying to their email. They don’t know where each alphabet is placed.

The urgency to respond is higher than the need for accuracy. These are all fore finger based inputs. They’re looking for the even basic letters on the keyboard.

Stage 2

They look out for more complicated key on the keyboard. Gradually with the fore finger they have brought in the middle finger too (no pun intended). They’re typing is faster. Thumbs get involved to hit the space. It’s now becoming a habit.. to use the wrong fingers for the wrong keys. This is the teen-age stage. People now have a sense of being able to type fast, and with that new-found power, they keep at it.

Stage 3

The disease reaches it’s ‘adult’ stage. They become close to the touch typists speed using three fingers. They however need to gaze down at the keyboard for keys far apart. They do not see the need to replace their current typing style with the recommended one.

[This bit is Fiction] One day they realize that their two fingers are bigger than the other three put together. Doctors also tell them that they might be suffering from bone and tissue damage due to extensive use of those fingers. [End of Fiction]

So what’s the cure for the disease? Or What’s life on the other side of three finger typing?

1. Learn to place your fingers properly on a keyboard. Using a software like TypingMaster.
2. You cut away the need to hit the P and the A with your fore finger.. by just not doing it. In case you did it. Hit backspace with your index finger or pinky and use the little finger to type. Force the damn hand.
3. Don’t skip the vowels, write the whole word. Don’t write “Hw r you”.. write “How the hell are you punk? Where were you the last couple of days??” .. full sentences.

Need outweighs importance. Sometimes you may have to shorten your words. But if you become good at typing, you may find it easy to type the whole word without even thinking about it. i.e. You will soon eliminate the need for short messaging all together.

Just three simple rules to not having your fore fingers swell up like sausages because you’ve been typing with them all your life. You might be able to prevent early arthritis on your fingers doing this, who knows? It also helps when you’re able to type out a whole sentence without using SMS text .. like the sentences in this blog. Gradually your spelling will get better too!

Your colleagues get a lot more done if they typed with all ten fingers, wouldn’t they?

Wishing every one of you a blessed resurrected life.. Happy Easter folks!

This Easter sunday turned out to be much more special than any of the pervious years. This morning I left the laptop bag in the back of the rick I took to church. It wouldn’t have been as bad if it’d been my personal one. This one though, was the church’s and included the data of all our songs and vital spreadsheets of the upcoming camp. Nowadays the data is worth more than the pc itself. To add to the anxiety, it was a special sunday and we would be expecting a lot of guests.

Well, the whole church prayed. We fished out our back up and we waited. Not long before the end of the service a friend tapped me. There was someone outside I needed to see.

There he was, with the laptop and the other bag with it. My joy knew no bounds! Honesty is alive and kicking. I was so grateful. With a bit of faith and a whole church praying, miracles are possible.

There is something extra special about the lost being found on Easter!

Don’t you agree?

Shopping Carts becoming obsolete?

There will come a time, when just before you go to bed, you place an order for milk and bread online for the next morning and it’ll be there at your door. That day is not too far.

While surfing around last week, I came across an ad on the web for macs being sold online. First hand macs! I rolled my eyes and said finally! For some reason, no new mac computer was being sold online unlike the US. Even Reliances’ iStore website is just a showcase of the real product. To buy any mac, you had to still walk out of your house. That was until futurebazaar launched their macs.

Here’s a list of some websites that you can purchase stuff from:

1. Flipkart: From what I remember about them, they started off by selling books. Now they’ve expanded into phones, pen drives, home appliances, software, latest being computer components and digital music. They’ve taken on the absence of  iTunes in the retail music division by launching their ‘Flyte’  music store. That even has a download manager available. This site is evolving. 10 points for their ease of use.
2. Jabong: They sell stuff from shoes to perfumes and clothes. They’ve advertised themselves to be something like a fashion store.
3. Studds: I was looking up a helmet for my dad, and turns out these people are doing it online.
4. Junglee: This site, doesn’t have it’s own products, but it collects products catalogs from sites like snapdeal, indiatimes, and puts each of those prices down so you can make the purchase from the cheaper seller. Like a review site. The site is still in beta stage and for some reason, they don’t feature any products from flipkart yet. These guys, are from Amazon!
5. Futurebazaar: These guys will probably take out grocery shopping from your weekly to-do list. Oh and they’re the one’s selling the macs firsthand. Although interestlingly, all the macs are ‘Out of stock’. What the hell?
6. Shopperstop, Pantaloons, Bigbazaar, Pizza hut (Food), Domino’s etc. Endless number of online shoppping

This evening there was ad on TV for baby stuff being sold online. That was followed by one ad for Quikr.  Woah. The amount of digital trade happening is overwhelming.

An article in the Harvard Business Review suggests that India will have 376 million Net users by 2015 thanks also to the rolling out of the government’s National Broadband plan. An Infibeam founder (An Amazon lookalike site) projects growth of the retail economy from $400 billion today to $1 trillion by the end of the decade due to the contribution of Digital India. Did you know that 70 percent of the national population spends money on content, both online and off?

I can’t wait to see price wars in between these portals heat up. With the growing consumers in India, we may soon enter a phase where we’ll have to come up with Consumer forums for internet based shopping portals.

What do you think of this new digital shopping boom?

image by schizoform

Gandhi's new Avatar

The question asked in the column titled ‘Yo Bappu’ was whether it was good for Gandhi to be made ‘cool’ so that perhaps the millennial generation would catch the philosophy. Turning the simple dhoti-clad-with-walking-stick image of Gandhi into a Nehru topi-wearing, guitar playing rocker may probably make the young inclined to the ideologies he had. Perhaps make them give an ear at least. Many of the respondents surprisingly had a black of white answer – either embrace Gandhiism or leave it. There couldn’t be a morphed version of the age- old philosophy that won India her independence. The article, I felt, just highlighted views instead of drawing out a way of getting the issue at hand sorted.

My own view is that you don’t need to reinvent the wheel on this. The issue is not of the youth being able to find him and  his teachings ‘cool’ to apply, it’s about them finding the teachings to be relevant to their life.  With increasing troubles for the youth today with studies, addictions, broken relationships or broken homes, few jobs, the picture of just standing still in the midst of the storm around is hard to digest.

About two centuries ago, Jesus went on to say “love your neighbor as you would love yourself”. Imagine today, that you were listening to that sermon by Jesus, and your neighbor was the party animal who blew the speakers off with music at any odd hour of the day. Wouldn’t you say “Ok Jesus, I’m sure you’re not talking about that guy being my neighbor!” . The funny thing is, someone did in fact get back to Jesus on that statement with this question “Who is my neighbor?”. Jesus answered with the parable of a The Good Samaritan.

The same teaching that was brought a couple of millennium ago, is still being taught with the same effect to millions of young Christians today. If those teachings could be brought in to the youth without the church re-imaging Jesus into a super-man who could even tweet and skype, then, what is lacking in spreading the philosophy of Gandhi is not the branding, but the relevance; how it will change their lives.

Anna Hazare has exemplified the fact that Gandhi’s yesteryear’s teachings still hold good today with the fast for the Lokpal bill in Delhi. His fight was against corruption. One cannot stop at just that. You don’t ‘do a Gandhi’ only when you want a bill passed. Like the faith you practice, it needs to be worked out in your own personal life daily.  You need to reach out at individual levels and address core issues. The Lokpal bill is of no use if tomorrow if you bribe a cop for breaking a signal or throw dirt around your own streets.

If the teaching is relevant, the audience will pick it up, no matter how the content is delivered, or for that matter what content. For a philosophy to continue, prolonged use depends on the effect that it has and thereby its net worth. If our country cannot substantiate either, then the new Uber-Cool-Gandhi may also flop two generations down the line.

Do you think icons of yesterday need to be given a makeover to make them relevant to your generation?

It’s not always nice to judge a church on the basis of their website, but then again, that’s the best impression you have of the church.

Do lemme know if you think my church website : http://www.treeoflifechurch.in made the cut!

Pic by James Almond on Flickr

I really doubt if time passes at the same rate of 24 hrs. per day. It really seems to have zoomed past this year.

1. Completed Graduation! Was in serious doubts over my passing.. and when I got my results I was like.. could’ve done better – how cynical can I be?

2. The Recession eased off and hiring began. Most of us in our last year were wondering if there would be jobs available for us when we graduated.

3. And I got a job, in the industry I wanted, in the company that I’d dreamt of, and with plenty of time to spare before I got in. My employment has been such a relief/blessing/miracle.

4. Started going to the gym. It’s been there for so long on my list, since first year at senior coll. And now it’s begun.

5. A new post graduation course that came along. This course in Leadership was well-tailored for my needs and that’s exactly what I wanted to do after my college. It came in just in time after college exams ended.

6. Got my first cheque for blogging. There were a bunch of ads running on my blog that I earned a bit from. They’re gone now. But still, it just encourages me to keep writing.

7. Desire fulfilled: Somebody made 3 full banners for the church. I wanted to design and print a few new banners for my church. I didn’t get any time during the year. Towards the end of November, someone from a church in Pune called in saying that they were printing extra banners and could custom make it for us for a minimal charge. In 6 days three new banners came home. You wouldn’t believe how big that was! One resolution complete.

8. My computer hasn’t stopped working. Not even a bit. It’s a P4, 11 years old, but it hasn’t stopped working even for a day last year. I can put of the PC and go to sleep knowing it’ll turn on in the morning. You don’t know how much of a blessing that is.

9. Went further in India than before: The furthest I’d been in india was Bangalore. This year, we went to Kerala and went even further from Munnar to visit Allapey, close to the bottom part of Kerala. Then in the same month went for a youth camp to Pune. You can say that it was a time of chilling out right after the board exams in May.

10. I’m getting help for the newsletter. It used to be a one man show – the church newsletter that I would design and print.. now there’s a new girl helping who gathers the articles and emails to me. This saves me around 6 days of work every month.

11. A trio of travelers landed up in our church through the blog. I have set up a blog for my church. It’s pretty convenient for someone living near the airport to visit our church since we meet in Santacruz. The hits on this site were going down and the bounce rate was increasing. Questions were raised over whether the website is a worthy investment. Just the next week, three guys pursing medicine were on an exchange trip form the US.. they came to our service. You can imagine my joy when they tell people they came in through the website.

Most importantly, and more than all of the above, my family, my friends, my relatives are safe! Accidents, calamities keep happening world over. This year, we’ve all made it through safely. You couldn’t ask for something better.

These are just a few things that I thought I’d list down. There are obviously many more. . I wrote this down in like 5 minutes. Maybe you want to take a look back at the year and see what’s happened for you.

I think in terms of my dream, 2010 has taken me 10 steps closer to it. The year has passed. And now it’s time to take on the next year.

What are the things you’re thankful for?

Here’s wishing you a very happy 2011 and may God be with you and prosper you in this year!

Getting ready for the Interview

My tales of doing things by the book and still not making it the way I should.

Have you landed your interview? Congrats! You made it half way.. now starts the real important part. The part that actually separates the best from the rest, the sheep from the goats, the milk from the water. You either make it or mess it in these few hours that you’re supposed to display your brilliance that was accumulated in the prior 20 years of your birth.

As I shared in my previous post, I got an interview at Big Bank Inc. (name changed thanks to company rules on blogging) Have you got one to go for? Here are few of the guidelines I followed.

What you need to do before the actual interview for the job in a bank

Interview

1. Read up on all possible Financial and interview prep material: Go through what you were taught in school and college. If you didn’t learn anything from there, sit with an accountant friend or girlfriend and ask him or her to help you out with certain important financial concepts. Make sure you get them all in. you don’t want to be left wanting in front of the probable scores of MBAs and PGs who’ll be applying with experience too. Rehearse all possible questions – theoretical and non theoretical as well.
2. Do a background search on the company: Go there understanding what the company stands for, how long it’s been there for, it’s business lines etc. the whole profile. Have it read.
3. Find out what your job needs from you: Do a search on the job profile you’ve been called for. Search the job descriptions and see if you’re up to it. And if you’re not, make a back up plan.. i.e. an excuse.
4. Dress formally: You want to have 2 people at least tell you if your attire is appropriate and professional. For guys, shirts and ties are a must at a minimum. Splash some cologne and get on a suit if you could. Personal hygiene if I need to mention. And carry a safety pack with Nail Clippers, breath mints, Deo and anything else you think you’d need. It’s a bit overboard, but when it’s your first time, going all out is essential.
5. Carry a pen silly! The interview may not just be taken verbally.. it may be written as well. So don’t land yourself in an awkward situation and forget to carry a pen.
6. Go well on time: Don’t make a bad impression on the recruiter by going there later than the scheduled time. Going early also helps you understand your environment better – so incase you find out the interviewer is a Bill Gates asking you how many steps you climbed up, or how many chairs were in the lobby.. going early helps you figure out all that.
7. Pray: Again? Yes, this time it’s not about getting in an interview, it’s about getting there and back in one piece. Pray that the trains run on time, that no one accidentally spills their coffee on you, that your shoe heel doesn’t come off… that you don’t become the next script for a Final Destination Movie. And that the interview goes well.

Or Alternatively… (as in my case)

Get told that you have to go for an interview but don’t know what position you’re being offered. Have a long weekend before the Monday that the interview is scheduled effectively getting ready hurriedly with whatever clean formal clothes available. Make it alive through the morning upstream train traffic, have people soil your shoes which weren’t polished anyway. Manage to reach the interview hall on time and you’re in the first ten.

Well I did reach on time, but then we were waiting there for over two hours. During the two hours I flipped the pages of the International Finance text-book that I had in my bag but put it down to play Football on my cell. Those few minutes were the only preparation I managed to do. Sometime later I had a brain wave. I googled Big Bank Inc. on my cell (Wikipedia) of course, and readied myself with facts about the company.

When around 60 people had gathered they called us all in together for the subsequent interviews. No point of going early.. the ones who suffered were the ones who came on time. So began the interview process.

Not the best run up to an interview, was it? What was your experience like before an interview?

The final post on the interview and the getting the offer letter to follow soon…

JOBS: Looking for a door to open?

I hope you’ve read part one of the story right here: Part 1.

When school would get over, it would be like a full tension-released situation.. free for the next two or three months till the next year or college was to start. When you graduate though in India, you’re not looking forward to freedom; you’re looking forward to the job that’s going to imprison you for the next most valuable part of your life. As morbid as this may sound, you actually look forward to it with zeal! I so wanted it too.

With all the tips and the advice in and around, it was overwhelming indeed. As you may have guessed there is no custom made job finding pattern. Sometimes even studying well doesn’t seem to cut it. Well, here’s some more advice.

I tried doing everything by the book you know.. to get my dream job or something close to it. But my story is a bit different.  I did everything and nothing to get my first interview. Did you read this line? Everything and nothing..

What you need to do get an interview in a bank or a Financial Institution

For getting an interview:

1. Pray: if I didn’t pray, it was surely my parents who kept praying. Praying has a calming effect. It’s kind of like throwing the weight of the job search on the almighty. You know he’s going to work behind the scenes somehow. It’s great to do that, but expecting him to email you with a mail saying “Neil, God has the right job for you, APPLY NOW” is foolish.  For a while that’s what I expected God to do (A bit of exaggeration).
2. Apply on all the job sites of the Banks: it’s pretty cool that companies these days have job sites themselves. I tried applying in Standard Chartered, Deutsche Bank, RBS, JP Morgan etc. The most irritating aspect is that you don’t get a reply.. not even an auto generated email saying your application has been sent. Please note that applying on these sites is different from putting up your resume on Monster and Naukri.com. None of the job sites proved useful because they had openings only for top positions and MBA+ candidates. I can say I got one good job offer from a contact through Monster.. but then again qualifications were required.
3. Network Like Crazy: If you’re spending time using Facebook and twitter, try and chat up with people who’ve got into companies before you. Doing that, I even was told to be ready for an interview with a certain established company. But the call never came. And still hasn’t. Update LinkedIn.
4. Polish your resume and make a cover letter: now this is a no brainer but I did this in readiness and anticipation of the interviews to attend. One day I got a call to send over my resume. I quickly from my phone found the draft of my resume in PDF and the cover letter.. and emailed it to the person. The next day.. I got a mail saying it hadn’t reached yet. The next day again it didn’t go. My resume didn’t reach that person ‘cause his company had firewalled his email address. Preparing the resume kind of went down the drain in that case.
5. Read Times Ascent and Classifieds 3x: When we were in college I remember always wanting to read the Times Education section. You know you’ve entered a new phase of life when you start reading Times Ascent (the job fortnightly in TOI). So many job offers to choose from, but you know the bigger the ad.. the more the work in the job.. or the lesser they’ll be paying.. and the longer you’ll have to stand in a line.
6. Do some more studying: During the ‘unemployed’ tenure that I served, I gave a lot of exams in Finance from the NSE.. the NCFM modules. It helps you understand the money market more than anything. Studying actually buys you time in a way to get the right job. And it looks better on your resume too.
7. If someone asks, tell them the truth: Tell people that you’re jobless because you’re focused on a particular career and don’t want to pick up all the marketing jobs that are available out there. Explain that your plan to study further and how you wanted your job to give you relevant experience. Don’t cook up anything here. Make sure you have a plan in the first place.

All this is what you SHOULD do.. now here’s what you COULD do

OR

Alternatively to all of the above, you could also accidentally bump into a guy (with whom you have never interacted with during your 3 years at college) while collecting your report cards from college. Then compliment him on his stylish new phone and have the following conversation:

You: Hey nice phone!
Stranger: Oh thank you!
You: You must be working in a nice company.. the phone looks expensive J
Stranger: Umm yes.. I work at BIG BANK Inc.
You: Really ? That’s where I’ve always wanted to work.
Stranger: Great give me your number then, I’ll let you know when there’s an opening.

Needless to say, in spite of doing everything possible in my strength, what landed my job interview was something totally unexpected. It took a long time like three to four months but the interview actually came. This guy, managed to set me up for an opening in Big Bank Inc.. And how did the interview go? That’s another post, really.

So what actually landed me my interview?

1)      Prayer

2)      Networking OR

3)      Destiny

Disclaimer: This weblog does not represent the thoughts, intentions, plans or strategies of my employer. Further

Pic by sun dazed on Flickr

You have to be very careful while choosing some jobs in the cities these days. And after getting it, you need to craft what you tell someone about your job.

Envy, happiness and sympathy are part of three reactions that people will give a person who tells them that he or she is employed at a BPO – one of the most successful outsourced Indian jobs.  Envy because of the pay packet, sympathy because they work graveyard shifts, and/or happiness because they’re not loafing around blowing their parent’s money.

A few years ago, a new type of offshore job also arrived in India called the ‘back office’. The general job description prevalent in that time was that of a computer technician – the ones whom you call when you’re office computer or program malfunctions. This was because of the IT companies who set up back offices initially.

Very recently I too got into a big offshore bank in the back office. They gave me a very limited job description. Mum and dad, like any prudent, cautious and loving parent quizzed me on every aspect of the promise of a job. We three began to ponder if the job at hand was a call center or not.

Here’s why we wondered if it would be a call center:

• The job application explicitly said that the candidate must be ready to work in shifts. Call centers are the only one’s everyone knows who want people to work in shifts. (of course my mom who’s a senior official in the airport also has night shift.. but you get what I mean)
• They had pick ups and drops. There again, a call center feature
• My recruiter said ‘there would be some calling to do’.. was it lots of calling compared to call center.. less than that.. or more than a normal bank job?
• I was to deal with the US clients. Our knowledge meant that it was customer service.
• The interview had great emphasis on English speaking. They asked to stand and speak up for about a minute.. and they had a pain in the neck aptitude test a fourth of which had Grammar questions. Now why would they go over the top in picking good English speaking candidates if it wasn’t a voice process?
• The location of the bank branch was in Mindspace, Malad. What is Malad known for? Companies like 2G.. sorry 3G, Wipro, Intelenet.. all have set up their BPOs and KPOs there.
• They were hiring fresh graduates from any stream : when I was waiting to give my interview there were many there who had come from B.A. , BSc IT etc. . no one had any exemplary accomplishment in studies. I know my friends who work in banks like Deutsche and Axis, had to slog it out to clear some Banking Entrance Tests to work in bank. If a bank like the one I am in, didn’t want us to have passed that test.. surely the job wouldn’t involve any core ‘banking’.

My recruiter finally told me that it was a back office job that I would be getting. Much to my surprise that did not allay their fears either. My family and friends weren’t aware of the concept of Back office. That created a whole new set of discussions for me.

To convince them and myself too I called the HR and did some research, and as it turns out, a back office is the spine of most banks. Not because they fix computers.. in fact not at all.. but because they perform many of the central and core activities in a banks’ day to day functioning like reconciliations, transfers, KYC checks etc.  I was glad that something was cleared… but some doubts still lingered on.

Work began. One week later I was fully convinced that this job was a neat banking job. I guess I had to convince my self more than my parents. My job involves receiving trades from exchanges in London, consolidating bank reconciliation statements i.e. making it easy for clients to read, then pushing the executed trades in their respective client accounts (You play around with millions of pounds every time you do that). Did you doze off halfway through that statement?

It’s so difficult to convey this to people. I mean personally I too am guilty of thinking of my friends in the back office as mechanics or sort like that. Guess you only know when you do that job. That’s why I wrote down this blog. Plan to print it out and give it to anyone who starts debating about the type of job I’m working in. And also to serve as a reminder not to judge people on the basis of their jobs.

What questions have people asked you regarding your job?