Technology, Money & Questions

Alwyn started his day very well, with high spirits. He had properly planned the tasks for the day as he does everyday. He started with his work and never cared to keep an eye over the time. He was totally engrossed in his work, when his telephone rang in a very high pitch making everybody around him to look at him sheepishly. Embarrassed, he picked up the receiver and he didn't expect the caller to be his manager.

"Alwyn, can you meet me in my room in another ten minutes?"

"Sure, Naveen. I'll be there!"

He put the receiver back in its place and started pondering about why his manager would want to meet him. Anyway, he walked over to Naveen's room.

"Ah, Alwyn. Come on in!", greeted Naveen. "Nothing serious. I'm just wondering, will it be possible for you to prepare the annual transactional document for Irvin & co before you relieve for the day. Is it okay?"

Alwyn, thought for a moment and it didn't take a long time to understand that its a laborious task. "I already have a lot of stuffs to do, and this is such a time consuming task. It's already 12 noon now. Its highly impossible to finish it off by evening. I should tell him that it could not be done", he told to himself.

Alwyn looked up at Naveen, thinking of saying a no but said, "Sure, Naveen. No issues."

"Good Alwyn. I'd really appreciate your efforts. I'll catch up with you in the evening."

"Sure, Naveen." Alwyn came out of the room wondering why he does this every time. He cursed himself for letting himself to fall into the same old trap once again. He knew, there are no other options available now. He has to finish it off whatever it may take.

The ability to say a NO when it is highly appropriate has a tremendous impact on many a things in one's life . Lets take Mr. Alwyn's case. Alwyn is very good in keeping up time, a goal based, career oriented, high spirited person. Alas, he is an I-Won't-Say-A-No maniac. Though he has many good qualities, his inability to confront people with a denial doesn't allow him to be what he wants. It doesn't takes a genius brain to understand his problem. All you need to do is to sit back for a while and think about it. You are sure to find a bit of yourself in my friend Mr. Alwyn.

Being bad at saying NO is an universal problem. Every single human being around the globe faces this issue and those who master this specific skill always have a clean conscience and a better lifestyle.

Time to hit the grapevine. Read carefully.

Why do most of us hesitate to say a NO?

Because, we are human beings and we've been accustomed to live in a society. The answer is just that simple. Remember, more often we say "yes" to someone in order to please other person. We do it many a times in a row, we increase the expectation of the other person and also, with that the dependency level. And one fine day, we may not be able to do it and we will feel guilty, leaving the other person fuming over us. Both of us will suffer.

Why is it important to say a NO when it is necessary?

1) You should be able to stick to your plans, goals and strategies.
2) Helps in better planning and finding out alternate solutions.
3) Avoids eleventh hour surprises.
4) Helps in establishing proper expectations.

How and when to say a NO?

1) Be polite and explain the reasons properly, but only if it is necessary. You need not explain yourself to every one.

2) If the other person is persistent, so you be. Be persistent and polite.

3) Analyze and understand before you respond. Understand the implications, and the amount of work involved before accepting a schedule.

4) If need be, ask for some time to do your homework. Its no bad to spend some time before hand to come up with a proper schedule.

But, saying a "NO" is not always possible. Yes, you heard it right. You may not have the liberty all the time. So, what would you do then? Just accept it, say "YES". But make your stance very clear. Make sure, the other person understands that they owe you one.

Our actions contribute only a 10% of whatever happens in our life, rest whopping 90% happens due to our reaction. So, think before you react.

"Okay, honey. I gotta go. I've a very big day tomorrow. I love you, bye!", I ended the call with my girl Natasha and sheepishly looked at the watch. Oops, I did it again, the time is well past 3'O clock in the morning and I'm gonna be royally screwed tomorrow. It's okay, after all work-life balance is more important, isn't it?

Suddenly, I felt an urge to go for a walk. Of course, not the best of an idea when you have an important consult meeting with your client. But, its 3 AM in the morning and I've this early-morning-idiosyncrasy, I just won't get sleep now. Oh, its not that I wake up everyday by this time. I just won't get to sleep that easily if I get to bed in the late hours of the night. And with all the consult meeting and stuffs, I'll really get hyperactive and wouldn't sleep in the end. So, I decided to take an early morning walk to the park in my neighborhood and I swore myself to be back in half hour.

The park is very near to my house, just about 5 minutes of walk. I locked my room, very much unnecessary. Even, if some burglar manages to get into my house, he would pity me and leave something for me. I do not stay in the same place for a long time or rather, I do not get to stay. Either I'd have to move to some other place because of my work or there will be one or the other reasons to move on. Not sure whether I fabricate those reasons, never tried to analyze them anyway. love something new every now and then.

I slowly strolled along the side of the road towards the park and got a glimpse of two or three stray dogs looking at me devilishly. I often laugh at people when they say that they're afraid of stray dogs. Now I see it very clearly. The dogs really seemed to have greater impact in the deserted road with deathly silence.

I should have brought my jacket, I could feel the chillness in my spinal cord. I envied everyone who is sleeping in their cozy bedrooms. I had a weird feeling of someone following me for quite some time now. When I turned back, I'm totally appalled by seeing my company, one of the stray dogs. It's eyes were glowing like red hot iron and I don't know whether it has any plans of tasting my blood. I had to beg myself not to run.

I started to walk briskly when already I reached the park. At least, the park is well lit, one less thing to worry about. I decided to go around the park once and leave to my room. The park is full of tall trees and the moon light formed a wonderful silhouette, just picture perfect. Just like my Natasha.

Natasha, we have been dating for the past one year. Thanks to my friend Ramya. Natasha and Ramya were colleagues. Natasha, is just perfect, a girl of my liking in each and every bit. I have felt many a times that we're indeed made for each other. Thinking about Natasha made me very happy as it had always been from day one.

But, something is not quite right for the past one week or so. We have been fighting a long time, of course its a part and parcel of being in a relationship. But, we never fought this much in our more than one year stint of togetherness.

I'm thinking about our last conversation over phone. It started off very well with a default discussion about our respective work day and slowly the talking drifted towards our marriage. Of course, I'm the one to start it. I wanted to get married , I do not wish to waste time any more. I knew that she is the one for me, and I'm pretty much sure that she also feels the same way about me. But still she is not yet ready for the big decision. So, I picked up the topic, she said no as usual and we fought for god only knows how many hours. Its 4'0 clock now and I felt very sleepy. I walked back to my room and just crashed in my bed.

I woke up on time in the morning, did not care for my breakfast and rushed to the office. It's a real big day. Suddenly, its seven in the evening and I'm not yet done with my work. My phone rand and went silent for the third time in line. I was cursing whoever invented the mobile phone and suddenly it doomed on me that I had dinner plans with Natasha. I told her that I'll pick her up from her office. It was her, she had called me thrice and I bet you that she is already waiting for me. I have no other choice, packed my laptop and started running to the parking lot. I called her on the way, she didn't pick my call as expected.

After a considerate amount of effort,I convinced her and we went to our favorite place for dinner. All went well until I asked to marry her.

"Ratheesh, I do not understand why would you want to get married so soon. I just can't imagine getting married now, we're together for just over an year and I've not got settled in my job either."

"Natasha, listen. For gods sake, I'm 29 years old now. Don't you think that your argument is quite baseless? I never told you to quit your job. All I'm asking you is to marry me."

She just gave me an disapproving look. And neither of us spoke for the rest of the dinner. Well, at least it was peaceful. I dropped her, reached my home, finished off my pending work and dozed off. The next morning I got a call from Natasha. She has got an opportunity to go to UK for an year and she has decided to take up the offer. Bang!!!

Just then I realized it. We're already in the expiry date of our relationship. That's what all the fuss is about. Great, didn't I tell you, I just do not get to continue with anything for a long time. Within a weeks time I bade her good bye and we parted away as good friends. Of course, I like her a lot, but I like this change too.

Though cloud computing promises a lot of meaningful cost savings, most businesses are not adopting cloud computing even though they recognize it as a viable option to reduce up-front and ongoing costs. The basic idea behind the cloud is not having to care who, where or how the service is provided. This totally contradicts to what large enterprises are used to for a long time now, total control over everything. The CIOs of the enterprises are used to ensuring that everything is done properly. The fear over security and loss of control over data and systems is the main reason which hinders the adoption of clouds at enterprise level.

Data Security

Data security seems to be the first and foremost concern for the cloud users. But then, data security in the cloud is no different than data security at a remote data center. We need to think about one important thing, Do you really think Amazon is more vulnerable and in-secured?

The main reason why clouds seems to be more practical than ever before is because of the giant players we have in the market now. For instance, Amazon's Elastic Compute Cloud - EC2 offering allows customers to provision hardware infrastructure on need basis and it allows them to configure the security restrictions on their own terms.

The big cloud players - Amazon, Google, Sun Microsystems, Salesforce.com - practically know a lot more about maintaining the online security and, considered their effectiveness, worries about outsiders knocking off the security firewalls and having their way with users data indeed seems to be a over kill.

Another major worry across enterprises when it comes to adopting public cloud is "control over the data uploaded to the cloud". This is indeed a legitimate worry. What if the company's strategic plan is accessible in a public cloud? Catastrophic. All that we need is clear policies, and then we have to educate employees about the proper usage.

Directly attack the concerns and that's the way to vanish them.

Secured Log-on

Currently, with many of the cloud providers - log-ons are way-too-primitive. It will be very difficult for large enterprises to embrace cloud with out significant improvement in this end. This is something every cloud provider should take into serious consideration. And from the enterprises end point, they should only permit data to migrate to the cloud where two-factor, strong authentication is in use. When enough of the cloud users cry for safeguards the cloud companies will have to respond.

Durability of the cloud provider

Another main concerns for the cloud users is the trust over the cloud providers and also, durability of the cloud provider. What if my cloud provider vanishes from the market without any prior intimation? How easy it is for me get back all of my data? Most importantly, is is possible for me to port all of my cloud resource to some other provider? These are some of the lingering questions. Of course, this needs to be answered right away. If you are giving up your IT infrastructure, you need a reliable service provider.

It is better not to deal with such questions in such a early stage. Go with cloud providers who have the financial means to be in the game for a long time.

As a final note, it is not all or nothing. It doesn't have to be. Just consider whatever you can move to the cloud without compromising your security needs. That's the first step towards adopting and preparing for a big change. We are still in an era of experimentation. But understand one important thing, cloud computing is not a buzz word anymore, its happening and learn to harness its benefits.

The answer for the following question explains everything:

How will you eat an elephant? Just one bite at a time. Start your little steps.

Of late, I was thinking about the various inventions and innovations of the last century. Human race have achieved a lot in the past century when compared to the further past. I can even say, the past century as the magnificent period in the history of human race. We have learned a lots about nature to science to psychology to particle science to medicine to what not, a great deal about everything. The last century had given a great leap forward, at the same time, in the other side of the coin, we have seen the worst inventions of the human race as well. From nuclear bombs to biological weapons to AIDS to anthrox to the worst of all, GLOBAL WARMING.

So much has happened in the last hundred years, and it seems to be really difficult to comprehend what has conspired out of those inventions. Though there are numerous inventions, some of them have really made a huge impact in the human life and have paved the way for a new civilization in its entirety, like the first discovery of fire, the design of a wheel etc,.

If I've to pick up one such invention, it would be nothing else but the COMPUTER and I believe you all will accept it. Of course, the computing machine is THE INVENTION of the past century. It is just like fire and wheel, it had changed everything and everything has changed so fast, in the blink of an eye. The invention of the computing machine have just laid the foundation for the rest of the wonderful things that happened over time, actually in no time. Like, the internet, then the World Wide Web to everything else and thus we entered the INFORMATION INDUSTRY.

Now, nothing gets done in the same way as it used to be. Electronic mails replaced post cards, people no more go to banks to transact, people buy stuffs over internet, they even get all their professional work done from home and still get paid for their work. Geographical differences are no more considered as differences at all, we are absolutely in a GLOBAL VILLAGE.

Though several new technologies developed over the internet platform, only certain technologies marks the milestone. According to my opinion, one such technological product offered over the internet, which really gave access to the tons of information available across the globe, which really bought the entire world at your door step, steals the show. And it is none other than, GOOGLE - a name that replaced the word SEARCH officially.

According to me, Google is one of the best innovation of the past century. Of course, there are so many other important innovations like VIRTUALIZATION, which changed the way we utilize our hardware resources. But still, Google stands very close to my heart - not only because I use almost every time I need to get some information, mainly because of their intellectual work towards making the world's knowledge accessible just with a click of your mouse.

A brief introduction about GOOGLE:

Mission

Google's mission is to organize the world's information and make it universally accessible and useful.

Founded: 1998
Founders: Larry Page and Sergey Brin
Incorporation: September 4, 1998
Initial public offering (NASDAQ): August 19, 2004
Headquarters: 1600 Amphitheatre Parkway, Mountain View, CA 94043

Can you just imagine a whole new world without Google? A world without google, would be like huge book without an INDEX. Very difficult. Don't you agree that GOOGLE is easily one of the best innovation of the past century?

Most of the times, we believe that if we HAVE a certain thing, we can actually DO certain other things and BE a different or better person. Do you really think this mode works? Just think about it.

To be frank, most of the times this whole ideology backfires. We end up waiting to have that magical edge which will help us to be what we want to be. Of course, we do try our best but still we're not there yet most of the time.

May be we should just see how this model works to get clarity over the topic. For example, I've always thought that I'd invest some money every month, only if I'm earning a few thousands more. I do seem to get a salary increment year after year and still, I've not started my investments. Very typical of me. But, only until I realized my mistake.

Another classic example, people always say, "I'd go to gym regularly, only if I get to come home a little bit early". But, how early is actually early? It doesn't works out this way. Never! If you are waiting for something to happen on its own without your conscious effort, I'm telling you, it's not going to happen.

What we need is a shift in our perspective, not some magical moment. HAVE something, to DO certain things and BE what you want is not perfect. Mainly because it contradicts the natural flow of events. You need a strong correct cause for some expected effect to happen, without that nothing would change. If you want different results, then you will have to do things differently. We cannot expect a drastically different result with no change in the actions.

So, what we really have to do is to move from this HAVE...DO...BE model to BE...DO...HAVE model.

The crux is, believe that you already are what you want to be and do things that way. Finally, you will have that magical moment you always wanted to have. Take our first example, if you want to invest a certain amount of money every month, just start doing it. However less money it may be, just put it aside. Only when you do that, you will really know your financial situation and only then you will think about how to improve financially and more importantly, you will analyze your cash flow pattern. So, once when you start saving some amount of money monthly, without you knowing it, you would start doing things differently.

Suppose, if you want to be the best lecturer of the world, just believe that you are the best lecturer and start being one. Think like the best, and in no time you will start doing what the best will do. In no time, you will have all the qualities you need to be the BEST.

Your actions are the scientific children of your thought process. Your thought process provokes your actions. You are what you think, your mind takes any shape you insist. So, concentrate on your thought process and see tremendous difference in yourself.