How many marbles are in the bag?

I walk up to a child with a bag of marbles. I tell him he can reach into the bag and whatever marble he pulls out, he can keep. He pulls out a black marble.

Excited for only a moment, he asks me what other colors are in the bag. I tell him that the only way to find out is to reach in and grab another marble. Excited again, he reaches into the bag and pulls out another marble. It’s yellow, and he quickly tells me how much he likes the bright color.

He then asks me if there are any other colors in the bag or if they are all black and yellow. I smile and tell him he will have to figure it out for himself.

He then looks back at the black marble, now at his feet. He asks if it’s OK to pick it up. He is asking if it is OK for him to have more than one marble. I explain to him that there are no rules to this game he is playing.

He puts the black and the yellow marbles into his pocket before reaching back into the bag again. He pulls out a red marble. He really likes this one, but I encourage him to reach back into the bag for another one. This time he pulls out a metallic silver marble.

In that moment he understands that this game has so many more possibilities than he originally thought. He tells me that he never would have expected to get this type of marble until now, as he was holding it in his hand.

He then asks me, “How many marbles are in the bag?” I tell him there are more than 2.1 billion marbles inside the bag. At this point he realizes there are more marbles than he could ever play with.

Lesson:

Life is like the bag of marbles, full of opportunities. People can reach into the bag and whatever marble they pulls out, they can keep. The way to find out and get which marble is to reach in and grab the marble.

What I learned this week - #05

Google Dictionary Plugin

Probably one of the best browser plugin for those who wants to read huge number of articles on the browser. Just double click on a word and it will show up its meaning on the browsing page itself.

No need to Google search or open another dictionary software.  Check the photo out.

NMAT EXAM

Gave my first NMAT exam. Was a good experience. The one thing I learned from giving the exam was the use of rough pad. It was not the usual pen and paper as it happens with most of the competitive/entrance exams.

The pen got replaced with Marker pen and the rough pad acted like a marker board. Nice way to save papers :)

Zoho Mail

If you have a custom domain and want to use it for your own email id like "your-name@your-domain.com",  there is no better than Zoho Mail right now. Yes, people do use Google App and Microsoft's live.com but I like Zoho Mail better.

Get it here at ZohoMail.

 

That’s it folks from my side,  so What Did You Learn This Week?

Share your learning experiences or other comments on the comment section.

What I learned this week - #04

Custom Domain Name for Bitly

Was thinking about using a custom short domain for this blog using Bitly. Learned that I will have to register another domain for that.

For eg. Yourstory.in is a domain use for publishing contents. They also have bought another domain called your.st just to shorten their links. When you click on your.st link, you will not be visiting the YourStory main site but will be redirected towards Bitly.

Good technique but not essential for me right now. Can't afford another domain!

3rd Industrial Revolution

3rd industrial revolution is happening and 3D printing is going to play a major part in it.  If you have any plans of becoming rich in the near future and want to learn something new GO learn something about 3D printing.

Do explore Thingiverse for more information.
If you have time do read Makers: The new Industrial Revolution by Chris Anderson.

Advent Christmas

Christians celebrate Advent Christmas and it happens in the month of November(any date).

Words

Bane: Poision
Banel: Unoriginal

That’s it folks from my side,  so What Did You Learn This Week?

Share your learning experiences or other comments on the comment section.

What I learned this week - #03

Remove Google Ad Setting

By now you must have seen the Google alert telling you that they are using your G+ profile name and profile photo for their ads known as "Shared Endorsements".  You can manually unchecked this service from your Google Account setting. It's very easy.

Go to Google Profile Setting  and unchecked it. Don't forget to save the settings.

Fashion is a whole new world!

After cashing out from last week's Amazon cheque I went out and bought a pair of shoes from Zara. This is my first pair from a non-sports brand. Being a curious guy I googled to learn more about the fashion industry and I have become wiser since last week.

I have learned the difference between high street and high end brands. What a designer label is and the word "Haute couture".

To learn more I am reading Dressing the Man: Mastering the Art of Permanent Fashion  by Alan Flusser.

Just for Laugh Gags Youtube channel is the best

If you love comedy and haven't watch any Just for Laugh gags videos. you are missing out on fun. Check out the videos.

 

That’s it folks from my side,  so What Did You Learn This Week?

Share your learning experiences or other comments on the comment section.

What I learned this week - #02

Amazon Mechanical Turk pays Indian users via Citibank

Thought of withdrawing some amount from Amazon's Mechanical Turk account in Indian rupees. Received a cheque from CitiBank.

What will I do with the amount?  Probably contribute some to Rangde and get this shoes!

There is a guy called Arjun and he rocks!

At first I thought this guy was crazy. Then realised he was making more sense than I do. Arjun makes videos and earns money via Fiverr. He performs crazy testimonials for his clients. Check out his videos here.  Have put up one as an example.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VKVwYxInLx8

Two clean places to start writing.

Just as I thought Medium was the best place to write anything on the internet, I found two more sites where you can edit and practice writing anything you want. The editor is very clean, better than any Windows/Mac document editor I have use. Check out Editorally and Draft.

There is a Firefox Plugin called AdblockPlus.

Someone should have told me about this Plugin long long time ago. This add-on block ads on any pages and help users(includes you and me) surf internet at very fast pace. If you haven't install this, you are making a BIG BIG mistake. Get it here at AdblockPlus.

Google Street View and how to upload images.

Probably the coolest thing I learned this week. We can now upload 360 degree photos via Android on Google Street Views. Some of the streets which I have watched are fantastic. To know more about Google Street view go here.

 

That's it folks from my side,  so What Did You Learn This Week?

Share your learning experiences or other comments on the comment section.

What I learned this Week - #01

Tracking Gmail Messages

We can now manually track our sent Gmail messages. This means we can now know whether our recipient has open our mails or not.

Here is how:
1. You can install a plugin called "Signals" developed by Hubspot. Till the time of writing this blog it only works in Chrome Browser.

[caption id="" align="aligncenter" width="540"] Credit: Hubspot Inc[/caption]

2. Another way is to use Google Analytics. Read this tutorial by Amit Agarwal of Digital Inspiration.

Gawker Media

Gawker media is BIG and a parent company. Gawker.com, Deadspin, Lifehacker, Gizmodo, io9, Kotaku, Jalopnik, and Jezebel comes under Gawker media.

MailChimp has a great lab

Check out MailChimp's Labs. Love their Tiny Letters and LongReply projects.

New Words

Antithesis: the direct opposite. [anti= against, thesis= position]
Ameliorate: to make better . [ a= to , melior= better ]

 

What Did You Learn This Week?

Share your learning experiences or other comments on the comment section.

Simple lesson a soap taught me

A simply product can teach us many things. This is one of them.

Me at a shop.

Me: "I want a Fiama Di Wills bathing bar".

Shopkeeper: "Out of stock. Try another brand".

Me: "Which one? Is it good?"

Shopkeeper: "Yes, it is. Denver for men. Take it."

Hesitatingly I took  it as he wanted me to try out something different. The shopkeeper even refused to take money as the product I wanted was out of stock and he did not want to disappoint his customers. So I came back and tested it for a week. The product was good. The smell was fine, shape and size were fine. But there was something that didn't click with me. I didn't feel like I was bathing. You know the feeling, right? It was like not having the feel of mint after brushing the teeth for about 3 to 4 minutes.

After a week, I went back to him and asked for Fiama Di Wills again. Fortunately this time it was available.

Me at the shop again:

Me: "The Denver soap you gave me was fine but didn't click like Fiama Di Wills used to do. It must be something with me but now I would like to have only my choice of soap."

I continued.....

Me: "The thing is....I like only the brands I have been using and no matter what happens to other brands....whether it's given for free or cost a premium I don't want to use it."

That moment he interrupted and worriedly said....

Shopkeeper: "Please don't misunderstand us like that. I did not charge money and gave to you....not because it was a bad product but I because I wanted you to try a good brand so that you might like it in the future. This is embarrassing. I guess I will have to stop giving free stuffs to my customers."

I pleaded with no no no.... I didn't mean like that.......but then the damages had already been done.

Lesson Takeaway:

1. In anything you build or produce, build brands. It matters. It's always going to be Fiama Di Wills for me. I don't really care whether Dettol, Lux, Dove or Denver exists or not. For you, it might be different.


2. Think and Say. Very important lesson.  I thought I was saying some cool things by blurting out "whether it's given for free or cost a million..."  but no....that silly dialogue made my shopkeeper look bad in front of his customers.

That's it folks. I learned the hard way. Don't forget to grab the last two takeaways. It will surely come in handy one day.

BigRock event httpx - Delhi

I almost forgot to write this blog. Heck, better late than never.

On 12th Sept I went to an event (httpx) hosted by BigRock at The Lalit, Delhi. The focus of the event was about web industry. Here are some details:

• 8:00 am: Woke up early and boarded the metro train for Rajiv Chowk. Reached The Lalit after half an hour.

• 9:00 am: Registered for the event. Got my participation identity card .

• 10:00 am: Seated in the middle of the hall waiting for some good knowledge.

• 10:15 am: The guys from ixigo.com, Rajnish Kumar and Ernesto Cohnen started the proceedings with their The Appy Hour presentation. As much as I want to say good things about them, I can't. For me they were bad, boring and their information were pretty useless. It almost seemed like both of them were the only people inside the hall and were talking to each other. One thing to take away from their presentation was "The browser is the new OS" . How true!

• 11:00 am: Next was Amit Somain of Makemytrip. He spoke very well, engaged with the audience and made sure #httpx was just not another free event. Many in the audience liked their(MakeMytrip) approach to customer driven innovations. The 'AHA' moment of the day was when he disclosed about Video Testing Analytics from the backend.

Amit Somani -- Photo credit: BigRock

• 12:00 am: Next was the Secrets of Online Marketing by Akanksha S and Abhinav of Google. Secrets? Yes, they were. Google Re-marketing was a new term for me. Hope to research and learn more about this in the near future.

Akansha S -- Photo credit: BigRock

• 1:00 pm: Lunch. By this time I was about to die. It's been long since I seated for a continuous 4 hrs. I did not have a good lunch as there was too much of waiting. I got to eat only 1 Roti after standing in a queue for half an hour.  To make matter worse it was followed by waiting of another 15 minutes for Ice-Cream. That's when I decided to leave the event and sleep peacefully back in my room.


• 2:00 pm: Went to the main hall of The Lalit to take some rest. I was feeling very tired and sick. Left the event sensing something was wrong with my body.


• 4:00 pm: Reached room. Heart's beating very fast. Leg's dead. Head ache. Fever. You named it I got it. Could it be Dengue?

UPDATE:  Finished all the regular check-up. Just viral fever and weakness. No Dengue. YaY!

Overall, the experience of BigRock event httpx, Delhi was really good. Couldn't blame BigRock for my unfortunate turn of events. I wish I was healthier and could have attended the rest of the program. It was really surprising to know there were many web designers and developers from Delhi and nearby regions. Hope to attend such kind of events in the future also.

Note: Thank You to all the speakers who took their time out and shared their knowledge.  Thank You BigRock, Verisign, The Lalit and other sponsors.

Things not to do while drinking with friends

The next few lines will make you wiser.

I enjoy drinking with friends. Hope you do too. Almost everyone does. But in order to make the best out of a drink session there are some actions you have to avoid. These are automatic habits you and your friends will normally fall for as you have no control over your subconscious mind.

So how does one not fall into these traps? Well it's simple.

While drinking, DON'T argue.

Don't spoil the mood. You start with a story or a news. Opinions starts circling around. Then as time goes by "my my my opinions" turns into arguments. With arguments flying here and there, the high you got takes a back seat and you are left with nothing but negative energy. There is a time and place for debates. Don't waste your drink.

Stop Phubbing

Phubbing: The act of snubbing someone in a social setting by looking at your phone instead of paying attention. Don't be a me, myself and my phone person while you are drinking with a group of friends. It's a crime. A serious one. *Attention Phubbers*  No Tweeting, No Facebook, No Instagram, No Foursquare, No Sexting. Only drinking & talking with the group face to face.

Don't get Wasted.

Drinks are meant for enjoyment and to bring relief from stress. Don't add another stress to you and your friends by getting wasted. Drink but up to your limit. Be a part of the drink and enjoy the kick afterwards. I have seen and met people who literally starts throwing out, starts to cry and even goes to the limit of not capable of moving their body parts after a heavy drinking session. This is bad and not funny. Learn to know yourself.

The above 3 points are a must "NO" for people who want to enjoy their drinks. Hope you all have learn something from here and are on the way to make the best out of every session. Cheers!

A new beginning.

From the moment I saw  This is a web page on Hacker News I have been itching to start my personal blog again. The only reason why I learned web designing last year was to blog and I have completely failed at that. I feel I have let My World Stuff down by not writing contents in the previous two years.

Yes, I have learned how to blog, how to screw the search engines,  what responsive sites are and many information relating to blog, internet marketing etc but couldn't commit myself to put all those into real actions. The sad fact is I am loaded with information with no actions at all. One of the main reason you did not read my blog was because I thought I did not have a good design that was almost perfect and one which would have made you go wild. BIG MISTAKE.

Another mistake was searching for a perfect niche or subject to write. Should have realised contents which are thoroughly researched are hard to write if we don't spend much time online.

I will try to write as much as possible from now on which will be of great benefits to you and me. Hope to see you on my next post :)

Cheers,


Mansingh Nepram ( @mansinghnepram )