Life Tips

Double The Rainbow

2009-05-11T09:28:00.001-07:00

When one rainbow is not enough, double your fun with two rainbows.

Giant Really Greening Up

2008-12-07T12:26:00.000-08:00

Imagine my surprise to walk into a Giant this weekend and see a lady handing out cloth bags for free. She was even willing to part with more than one bag. Keep in mind that the bag is not that big and its made in China, so most probably you would save the planet but die of pollutants, nevertheless it is really admirable that they are giving out these bags. For free.

Macintosh != Windows

2008-11-30T17:35:00.000-08:00

Seen at Borders.

Korean Restaurant Engrish

2008-11-18T12:43:00.000-08:00

Spotted in a Korean restaurant close to Tysons Corner in Mclean, Virginia, USA

Consuming raw or undercook meat, egg or seafood will significantly increase your rick of food born ilness. (bold emphasis mine)

Fried Dumbling? (Someone tried to fix it)

Wardrobe Malfunction 2.0

2008-11-18T12:17:00.000-08:00

First it was Janet Jackson, now the Pope himself.

Accessorize Your Wallet With Credit Card Sized Gizmos

2008-04-20T14:56:00.001-07:00

My wallet is full of credit cards, receipts and business cards. The contents of my wallet sent me on a quest to dig up exciting things to fill up my wallet. Heres a list of stuff that I found.

Credit Card Lock Pick

For the James Bond wannabe in you! More Info.
Credit Card Sized Comb

Never have a bad hair day again! More Info.
Credit Card Cutlery

For the Germaphobes amongst us who don't like to get cutlery from public places! More Info.
Credit Card Bottle Opener

Be the hero of a party when the only bottle opener goes missing. More info.
Credit Card Subway Maps

Find your way in the NewYork subway system. More Info.
Pen And Sticky Notes

Pen and sticky notes for old fashioned note taking. More Info.
Wallet Light And Magnifying Glass

For the senior citizens and afraidy cats. More Info.
Credit Card Tool Set

The tool set includes a serrated blade, can opener, flat screwdriver, awl, compass, tweezers, toothpick, lanyard hole. More Info.
Credit Card Pedometer

Pedometer for the health conscious. More Info.
Another Credit Card Tool Set

This tool set includes a knife, wood saw blade, bottle-can opener, flat screwdriver, wrenches, ruler and lanyard hole. More Info.
Credit Card USB Card

Prove your geekiness to the world. More Info.
Credit Card Collar Stiffeners

Get control of your wayward collars. More Info.

What is all the subprime crisis about?

2008-03-18T13:38:00.000-07:00

In case you don't understand why there is a crisis going on in the financial markets, take a look at this easy to understand subprime primer! Just like the movie Office Space, this document gets funnier every time I read it.

Easy ways to save water and be Green

2008-02-19T18:28:00.000-08:00

Are you feeling guilty that you're not doing enough to be green? Here are five simple tips you can do on a daily basis at home.

1) While brushing your teeth don't keep the water tap on.

2) If you are single employ a 1 flush per 2 pee policy. Couples can do this also if they are understanding.

3) Buy a stop watch and measure how long you stand in the shower. Next day reduce it by a minute. Continue this for a few days. You can easily achieve a 20 percent reduction. (Thats 2 minutes less on a 10 minute shower)

4) While shaving shut off the water tap. (Guys can save a lot of water)

5) Don't turn the tap all the way to the maximum position.

Save the environment and save money on your water bill.

Whats wrong with this picture?

2008-01-23T15:45:00.000-08:00

I had my suspicions but this picture confirms that digg is catering to the lowest common denominator. If you cannot figure out whats wrong with the picture scroll down to see the answer.

(Click for larger Image)

Answer: The Onion is reporting that Bill Clinton is running for president. The Onion is a fake news site. Apparently diggers need the feel to report that this is possibly inaccurate.

(Click for larger Image)

Fun DIY Guns

2008-01-13T18:06:00.000-08:00

We live in dangerous times. However that has got nothing to do with this post. This is a collection of videos that show you how to build guns in under three minutes. Ammo consists of eggs, coins, orange peels and pebbles. These guns though not lethal, can cause damage. So be careful.

1) The Egg Gun:

2) Orange Peel Gun

3) Clothes Line Peg Gun

4) Simple Balloon Gun

5) Simple Glove Gun

6) Under powered Mechanical Pencil Gun

7) Powerful Pringles Cannon

8) The Ping Pong Gun

9) Laser Sighted Double Barrel Gun

10) The Match Gun

11) FireBall Shooter

Enjoy! Be careful where you point these guns.

Save money on clothing

2007-07-02T11:53:00.000-07:00

Money is tight and so are my clothes. I decided to manufacture my own clothes to save money. Sitting at a sewing machines was not an option. Thanks to the internets I was able to find alternatives that jive well with my college life.

The Cork Tuxedo:

The Coke Tuxedo:

The Ramon Noodle Dress:

The Condom Dress:

The Balloon Dress:

The Skittle Dress:

How I went from Twittering to Fwittering

2007-05-09T19:10:00.000-07:00

At first I could not understand all the buzz about Twitter. Do we really need to know when our friends cat coughs up a hairball? But then the buzz level reached 1999 boom levels. So I took the plunge and became a follower of techcrunch and boy was I sold!

For me techcrunch guys were these amazing mythical power yielding blogger beasts. People would do anything to get their attention and resort to cheap tricks like this article. But after following them on twitter I realized they are just like you and me, except they make more money in a month than I do in a year. Not to be creepy but I feel that there is a new spiritual connection between Arrington and me that was absent pre twitter. I love to know when men in white suits come to visit him or the fact that Arrington is done with taxes.

Realization struck that I need an easy way to keep tabs on Twitter/Arrington. My only criteria was that these tools should work in FireFox since I use FireFox 24x7. My other criteria was that at any time I should not have to move my mouse more than 6 inches. Im glad to report that I succeeded. Here is my FireFox and twitter solution or as I lovingly call it Fwittering:

The Green Arrow is a plugin called Twitbin. I can post through the address bar or the search bar through the twitterbar (red arrow) and hoopla (black arrow). So I had the North and West coasts covered and the only place left was South and East. I killed those two birds with an extension known as TwitterNotifier (blue arrow).

I did so much research on these extensions that I was compelled to blog about these Twitter tools.

Viva La Fwitter!

The 5 Most Important Travel Tips

2007-04-11T18:52:00.000-07:00

This post is for all the road warriors out there that are passing their time in one airport or the other and dont have money for fancy hotels, first class seats and convertible rentals.

1) Always have three safety pins with you. They come in handy when you cant overlap the curtains in your hotel room forcing you to see a white strip of light early in the morning. Also if your client tells you that your blouse is too revealing you can pin yourself up.

2) Call your friends, acquaintances, relatives and people you barely know when you land in a new place. Offer to take everyone out to dinner. 9 times out of 10 they will insist that you come and have dinner with them. Delete the phone numbers of anyone who accepts your offer of dinner.

3) Always choose a hotel that has some nice highend resorts in the same family. This happened to me twice in five years. Just this year I was in Phoenix and arrived at my hotel around 11 pm. The hotel had a confirmed reservation in my name but they had no rooms. Apparently they had oversold. Long story short they send me to the Arizona Biltmore Resort and Spa because the ABRS was in the same family of hotels for the same price. Title of the story: If you have confirmed reservations and do not get a room, it is the hotels responsibility to give you an equal or better lodging option. Make sure you insist on this point or you may end up in a flea motel.

4) If you travel less than 75 miles in your car you need to have a receipt that proves you filled gas in your car. Otherwise they charge you 9 dollars even if the needle says the tank is full. I got caught at Budget last month after traveling only 10 miles in the car. Not all the rental car companies are like this but Im guessing its just a matter of time.

5) Unless you are catching a connecting flight always take a seat in the back of the plane. Sitting in the back gives you a better zone number and you can go early in the plane before all the baggage space is taken.

How to hide programs in the Add or Remove Programs Section

2007-03-20T17:45:00.000-07:00

A friend of mine wanted to hide a program in the Add or Remove Programs applet under the Control Panel so that his kids don't accidently remove it. I looked at him with suspicion but set out to find a solution out of curiosity. The solution turned out to be fairly simple. You can fix it via the registry or just use this nifty tool called HideAddRemoveItems from Novell. Tested on Windows XP.

1) AVG is visible

2) Hide AVG using HideAddRemoveItems

3) AVG has disappeared

How to get your own personal number for texting.

2007-03-04T14:28:00.000-08:00

By now we have all seen those late night commercials where you can text a number and receive some goodies for your phone. If you would like to get one of those numbers for your own business this is what you need to do.

Visit usshortcodes to get your Common Short Code or CSC. You need to register with them to get a five to six digit CSC. Random CSCs are five digits only. Vanity CSCs are five to six digits. You can get a Random CSC for 500 dollars a month while vanity CSC are 1000 dollars a month. Terms are 3 months, 6 months or a year. After getting your CSC you are still responsible to implement it with various wireless service providers e.g. T-Mobile. Get more info here.

A 20 second trick to feel happy.

2007-02-25T11:00:00.000-08:00

Some of us are prone to feeling down more than the others. I heard about a simple technique while attending a seminar:

In the mornings when you're standing in front of the bathroom mirror put a fake smile on your face. The wider the better. Do this for 20 seconds and maintain eye contact with yourself.

When I stand in front of the mirror for 20 seconds I automatically break out into a genuine grin and believe it or not that sets the tone for the whole day.

Try it. Let me know what you feel.

Can you get rid of your land line?

2007-02-11T12:04:00.000-08:00

After convincing a couple of my friends to get rid of their landlines I thought I should share the findings with you.

If you have a cellphone and broadband you can easily get rid of your land line. For all your regular in town calls you can use your cellphone. If you do a lot of long distance calling, especially to Asia, then you will need to buy a VOIP service such as Vonage or SunRocket.

The good thing about Vonage is that once its setup even my Mom can use it. No need to worry about the PC being on or anything like that. Depending on what plan you get your savings could vary from 20 dollars a month to 4 dollars a month. Further savings can be realized if one is not afraid of the computer and can handle services like Skype and Gizmo.

But if you call a few select countries (e.g. Europe, Canada) then you can use your cellphone in conjunction with services like allfreecalls for the price of a local long distance call. With allfreecalls you can even place a call to Iran and shout at the Grand Ayatollah.

In case you dont have broadband then you need to see if you can live without calling people in Asia.

UPDATE: allfreecalls has gone out of business for the timebeing. (March 4, 2007)

UPDATE: allfreecalls is back in business as yak4ever with a few changes. (May14, 2007)

How I saved over a 1000 dollars with 3 phone calls.

2007-01-31T16:52:00.000-08:00

I have the pleasure of traveling about 1-2 weeks every month due to my work. As such I decided to take a closer look at some of my expenditures. Within an hour I was able to cut down 1212 dollars per year. Whats the secret? Just look at what you're spending on and ask yourself if you are really using the service.

My first cost cutting measure was downgrading my Netflix plan (Ok, I did'nt call them but I used their website). Their service is incredible, but I was only watching one movie a month. There were a couple of months where I had the same Michael Moore DVD gathering dust. So I went from their $17.99 plan to the $4.99 plan. This plan still allows you to see 2 movies a month. By downgrading I got a saving of $13 per month or $156 per year.

My next call was to Vonage. Vonage is a Voice over IP company. They have an unlimited calling plan for $24.99. I realized that I use my cellphone for all my calling needs. The only reason I have Vonage for is long distance calls to Asia. I discovered that Vonage has a relatively obscure plan called the basic zero plan. Its only $4.99 for a month. They charge money per minute but thats pretty negligible (3.9 cents). Net savings: $20 per month or $240 a year.

My best call was to Comcast cable. I went from a $109/month plan that included HBO and broadband to a $41 plan. The new plan does not have HBO or the zillions of channels I was getting before, but it still has broadband and all the basic channels. Savings of $68 a month or $816 a year. Of course they only gave me this deal after telling me about two higher priced deals but in the end persistence paid. You have to keep asking the operator if this is the best plan available.

Total savings:

Netflix $156
Vonage $240
Comcast $816

For a grand total of $1212. How much can you save?

Make Exercise on Bikes Fun Again.

2007-01-28T11:04:00.001-08:00

Usually when people get on bikes to exercise there are two variations. The stationary bike or the normal bike with torturous seats (not that there is anything wrong with it). For the first time I give you a list of alternative bikes that will make you really exercise and not be stuck in the gym.

1) The Stair Cycle. Its like the stair machine in a gym but the action of climbing stairs actually moves the bike. Regular prices are from 575 to 995 dollars but they are running a sale right now. Check out the video.

2) The Row Bike. This bike looks like your regular rowing machine in the gym with wheels attached to it. Prices range from $675 to $1999.

3) The Champiot. The Champiot is also a row bike. The main difference is that the Champiot is a quad cycle and you sit much lower than the above mentioned row bike. Price starts at $699 to $2500.

4) The Dog Powered Scooter. Think of a Razor Scooter with a dog attached to it. This can help exercise your dog as well as you. Price starts from $540. The site has some videos here.

5) The Pumpabike for water lovers. This unfortunately named bike seems to be a lot of fun. Its a bike for lakes and rivers. You stand up on it and pump your body up and down like a kangaroo, without leaving the ground. The only downside is that you have to jump in the water when you want to disembark. It costs around 399 UK pounds.

6) The Hyperbike. This bike is still a prototype. However this bike has 8 feet wheels. You have to stand to operate this bike and it gives you a full body work out. The size of this bike seems to make it unwieldy. But Ill reserve judgement until I see the final product.