The bus story.

The images you see here shows the outer and inner view of a bus that I intend to recommend to a leading IT company.

My husband accompanied my son to his first job in a global IT company. After nearly two hours of orientation, all the new recruits (approx 300) were asked to wait considerable time to board a bus that was supposed to take them to a hotel where accommodation was arranged.

My husband was not allowed to board the bus but he happened to follow the bus in a taxi. The bus that must have been as old as my son (22 years) could use a parking in an open ground while raining.

I know about the simply superb looking buses built by Carpenterbus.com. Global IT companies need to maintain their standard all around and staff transportation is an important section in any company where compromise on the quality of transportation will bring down the company’s image.

To buy a bus exactly as per the picture here, contact 1.800.370.6180 or visit the link to get a free quote.

Reliance begins the cut.

The news that Reliance Retail is sacking technical staff didn't surprise me at all. I thought they will first close some of their retail outlets first. I already wrote about my experience with them and I foresaw some news on the lines as reported.

I think Reliance is far too big now to carry on business efficiently. The areas of lacuna are inefficient HR, the purchase department that lacks sincerity while procuring quality goods.

I truly wish Reliance Retail all success and they can achieve this if they have good administrators. The top executives of the company seems to be cooling their legs and they need a look in.

Wake up Reliance! India needs you.

Literally compact flash card..

We had to unpack a big suitcase to confirm if we have put in the really compact flash reader that my son bought recently. My husband assured me that he has kept it inside a pouch but I wanted to recheck. This compact flash drive is very important for my son during his job training.

This literally compact flash card is a USB powered device that came with extension cable of about one meter length and manual is a fast one that runs at about the speed of your hard drive.

There were a lot of choices of compact flash readers at memorysuppliers.com, but my son liked this (see picture) sleek and compact piece and he was sure it would serve his purpose. The cost was also very cheap; we bought it for only $14.00

Ah, at last it was there exactly as my husband said.

Easy to use language learning software.

I didn’t know people are interested in learning foreign languages still. I assumed the craze for other languages subsided long back. It was in the year 2001, when my son wanted to learn Japanese though I counseled him to learn Spanish. Even my husband chipped in his support and showed his knowledge of a few Spanish words. He belonged to the age of good old western movies and thus developed a liking for Spanish language, Spanish food and even Spanish women! (How dare?)

So, when a few weeks earlier one of students showed me a few audio teaching aids that contained Spanish language software, I was surprised but was happy too that people sustained interest in foreign languages. Spanish is the second most spoken language in the Untied States and the official language of over 21 nations.

My student boasted of her newly developed knowledge by throwing in a few trivia and here is one that amused me.

"Basque (native name: euskara) is the language spoken by the Basque people who inhabit the Pyrenees in North-Central Spain and the adjoining region of South-Western France."

My student informed other students of the class about Transparent.com, a website dedicated to selling language learning software. They sell audio CDs. Language learning suites for more than 100 languages. (No my native language was not among the 100) (Smile)

Every language learning software teaches one, the pronunciation, grammar and vocabulary of the language under study. Their language teaching aids are used by top universities across the world, Foreign Service Institutes and Defense department.

Big demand for Ultrasound Technicians.

The last 15 years or so, the world is witnessing abundance of job opportunities. As technology is taking giant strides and as it is also so diverse, newer field of education and career are being opened up. This again requires qualified teachers to impart training in myriad faculties.

When I went to college, there were a maximum of 7 or 8 faculties only. Of course the world also didn’t develop that much at that time. We had very limited career opportunities such as teachers, clerks, accountants.

Now, I am surprised at the number job opportunities in every field. Take for example the health care industry in which there are more than 30 different paramedical courses are available.

One of the recent developments is the ultrasound technology in the health care industry. In the case of pregnant women this ultrasound technology is widely used to help manage and care for the fetus.

There is growing demand for ultrasound technicians but the demand is not met adequately and the reason being the lack of awareness of ultrasound schools.

The schools that impart training on ultrasound technology require plenty of exposure and I am happy to introduce career-education.net, a web site that has a database of top class ultrasound schools in the U.S.

They say that one may opt for a 2 year Associate’s degree or 4 year Bachelor’s degree program in ultrasonography in order to gain the required skills and qualification.

Visit the link to learn more about Ultrasound Schools.

Fashion Schools in the U.S.

The transformation was complete. I could not take my eyes off the bride. And the proud costume designer was all humility. She looked so young.

The wedding reception was hall was crowded with guests and I identified quite a few VIPs that included a famous woman entrepreneur, two film directors and a number of film stars. The bride was my ex student and she was getting married to a software engineer working in Los Angeles.

The bride finally introduced the costume designer to the guests. The immediately became the star of attraction. She is a graduate from a leading fashion school in the U.S.

Though she is running a high profile fashion designing studio, she came to help her bride friend as the occasion demanded her skill.

The designer gave a brief introduction to fashion-schools.org, how it helped her to join the best fashion school and how the school has turned her into a pro. She narrated with fond memories about her education and training at the International Academy of Design and Technology, Detroit.

I think she has inspired quite a few youth at the wedding reception.

Reliance Fresh found wanting.

I already said that I like anything Reliance and that includes Reliance Communications, Reliance Petro and Reliance Fresh. The last mentioned is a retail outlet of groceries, vegetables, fruits, soft drinks, ice creams and staples.

There is an outlet very near my house and I used to frequent there for my home needs. Of late, I noticed a dire shortage of billing clerks. Out of three or four billing counters, only one was functioning and naturally, the girl at that counter is overloaded and frequently escapes due to fatigue.

Two days, before, I went to Reliance Fresh with my son, filled up the shopping cart and waited for the lonely billing girl but she simply wasn't interested in doing her work. She saw us and a few others waiting to pay their bill but still gave us scant notice.

We eventually left frustrated leaving our shopping cart at the billing counter.

I respect you Reliance but do you respect your customers?

Buy new and remanufactured automotive ac compressors.

This website-discountcompressor.com is probably one of a unique one dealing exclusively with ac compressor for all kinds of automobiles that includes Mercedes, Ford, Audi, Hyundai and many more.

In this website, one can purchase high quality a/c compressors and other allied components such as condensers and evaporators. You can either buy new ones or remanufactured.

By husband’s brother is an expert in finding out where one can buy remanufactured parts and accessories for cars. He has two cars and both are fitted with all sorts of modern accessories and gadgets including a small fridge.

Discountcompressor.com extends up to 3 years warrant on all its products. The promoters of the site call the website as “Automotive A/C Headquarters”.

Guest houses at Sri Aurobindo Ashram.

Sri Aurobindo Ashram in Pondicherry is just a 3 hour drive from Madras. We used to visit the ashram quite frequently but of late, our visits have become dearer. Time dear is one commodity that can't be purchased.

We never stayed in the Ashram's guest house. Yesterday, my husbad's friend told him that she stayed in one the ashram's costly guest house that is not open to all. The guest house is located in a serene atmosphere, just opposite the beach.

The rooms were named after various English words such as Passion, Serene, Love, etc. Only snacks and coffee or tea were available in the canteen. Most of the cottages have a meditation room and laundry service is alo available in all the guest houses.

Information on Culinary Schools in U.S.A

The legend goes like this: the chef of a billionaire film star was drawing more salary than his PRO. Some people might raise their eyebrows but knowledgeable persons and high socialites know this to be true as they too may be paying a king’s ransom to their kitchen head.

In the floor above our house lives a pastry chef that exhibits his talents in 5 star hotels only has rented a separate garage to park his four luxury cars. He once was talking to my son and fed his ideas of making him a chef but my son preferred computer processors to food processors.

This pastry king was a graduate of California Culinary Academy and has worked in luxury liners, as a personal chef for a film star before coming back to India.

If by chance, you are motivated by reading this blog post and set your eyes to become a world class chef, please go to culinary-schools.us, a directory of leading culinary schools in the U.S.

Or, if you would like to specialize in cakes and bakes, there are 28 featured culinary academies listed by Culinary Schools. You can also look for them by location of your preference. Read reviews of schools before you decide to apply.

Apart from information on education, you can also get a fair of idea of career opportunities. In summary, Culinary Schools USA is a great resource for students leaving school, unemployed persons, house wives and prospective employers of hospitality industry staff.

Excellent resource for aspiring nurses.

While people decide on their career only after the age 22 or so, some decide much earlier due to family circumstances. I know of a girl student of mine, who wanted to attend a top notch nursing school in the U.S. and she was so serious about her desire that she volunteered in a local hospital nearby for more than 8 months.

Her parents were against her goal but this girl had her foot firmly down. I would not say she had the basic qualities to become a nurse but the doctors at the hospital she was volunteering had different opinion.

Seeing her determination, they groomed her initially to some extant and helped her to search for the right nursing school through nursing-school.org, the best of resources for aspiring nurses.

It is a web site that helps you to search for nursing schools by location, by degree and by career.

I am yet to hear from her after she went to the U.S. three years before.

Easy solution for acne.

I felt as if a volcano nearby erupted yesterday. The heat and humidity was unbearable even at 6.30 AM. I was sweating profusely and that impeded my work on the white board.

I anticipated a mild eruption of pimples the next day as the symptoms were clear warning. Well, the next day is today and I already washed my face with acne treatment soap five times.

Being a Sunday, there is no class today. I can launch a concentrated attack on my pimples and I am determined to suppress the pimples in the next 48 hours.

This anti acne Asso Soap is very costly and I read about it in acnesecretsrevealed.net, a dependable source for acne treatment products review.

Express your refined taste.

Lingerie, tops, handbags, sweaters and jackets-these are some of the items that are most frequently purchased by my students. I am amazed at how these so young girls learn what the latest fashion is, which celebrity wears the most gorgeous tops, what types of handbags models are shown carrying in television ads etc.

Do they subscribe to women magazines or do they spend hours scouring the web to keep them updated of the fashion world?

When I could no longer suppress my curiosity, I asked them where they shop. One girl, the most talkative one volunteered to inform me that she gets ideas by visiting a few online shopping malls and one of them is Sparklenpop.com which I was requested to keep it as a secret. Obviously she didn’t want her friends to copy her taste.

The image you see is of a sweater she bought from sparklenpop.com last winter. I must admit- it is a fabulous piece.

Another girl showed me a violet color suede handbag and it was literally breathtaking. My God, these girls must be very rich to afford these costly goods. I am contemplating an increase in tuition fees!

Wake up at least now.

Collapse after collapse of financial institutions trigger genuine panic among Indians. Whether Americans can digest the fall of Lehman Brothers and AIG, I don't know, but we Indians in India are rudely awaken from the false rosy pictures depicted by Indian economy.

All sorts of erratic parameters indicate the total chaos and the general public are truly dazed. Have we all lost money only or confidence in the Governments?

All the leading American banks that were said to have employed top notch finance wizards, graduates of Harward and so on have miserably failed to foresee what is coming.

Citizens of the world, will you all wake up at least now and spend only what you earn?

The newsletter tool used by Barack Obama!

I am sure every blogger has subscribed to at least a couple of newsletters. Do you know that I have subscribed to 42 newsletters and bog feeds? The authors of those newsletters would just be happy to see the subscribers’ count but they have no way of knowing whether the newsletters are read by that many subscribers!

If only they have a way to find out who really opens their emails, then their email marketing will be more effective. Unfortunately, not all email marketing software are developed to track their performance.

Icontact.com offers this facility to track the email sent by you. Their integrated email newsletter tool comes with hundreds of attractive email templates, trackers, analytical graphs and charts etc.

I know their autoresponder tool is an extremely powerful one that manages literally all the administration tasks of an email marketing campaign.

The product is used primarily by small businesses but also has a number of Fortune 500 companies like Bank of America, Ford, Nissan, Super 8 Motel, and International Paper, and political campaigns like Barack Obama '08. The company is based in Durham, NC and was founded by Ryan Allis and Aaron Houghton in 2003.

Try their trial offer for 15 days.

Reliance satellite TV showing what?

Did you happen to see the website of Reliance Big TV? If so, were you able to gather what do they offer for us to see? I mean the channels we get to see for GSK (?) and for other weird abbreviated names?

My God! What a poorly designed site where navigation is given scant consideration! I could not comprehend anything form their offers.

The next big disappointment is the dealer locator where not even the telephone numbers of the dealer is provided and the name of the dealer is left to our guess.

I have a big regard for anything Reliance. I am terribly disappointed!

TV programs go mobile using Slingbox.

This is probably one of the technologies we have been wishing for-the technology that enables us to watch our favorite TV programs in our mobile phone or laptop. Wait, this is possible even while you are on the move!

Unbelievable-right?

Buy.com sells an electronic product called Slingbox Solo that allows you to watch all your favorite TV channels like ESPN, Animal Planet, BBC News from anywhere in the world on your laptop or mobile phone.

And read this dear, there is no monthly expenditure for this. With the Slingbox, you can watch all your favorites wherever you see fit and that means you need not buy a second TV for your bedroom.

Look at this feature:

“On screen remote control.” This means every feature that's available on your TV remote control is accessible through the included SlingPlayer software for your Windows or Mac laptop.

Badrinath Vs Kohli.

So, what is state of mind Badrinath? You made a big hue and cry over the issue of your selection (non-selection?) to Indian cricket team for the just concluded SriLanka tour. You were furious over the selection of Virat Kohli.

Now, he has proved his mettle and justified his selection. This really means he is more talented in you. But you stuck to your favorite number 6 in two innings.

I sincerely wanted to you to shine but you disappointed me and thousands of Madrasis.

This will be a lesson for you not to show your disappointment over selection issues and make a diplomatic statement in future if such a situation arise. Don't be always led by media who are out get the words out of you.

Sheer digital viewing pleasure.

Without any hesitation, we bought the first of the DirecTV offers at a time when the world cricket cup was scheduled to begin in the Caribbean Islands. My God, aren’t we glad that we installed the satellite TV.

The viewing of all the sports channels gave us hours of entertainment and we are grateful for this invention. The picture and sound quality are beyond imagination. The navigation of all the channels was fun and easy too.

Those who are yet to buy DTH entertainment system, it is still not too late folks! Now, you have more DirecTV deals from several service providers with lot of packages. You can choose any one of the several DirecTV deals and still can change your package plan at any time you wish.

After we bought our satellite TV connection form directsattv.com, we invited our neighbors to get a glimpse of the viewing pleasure and almost all of them are now happily watching movies, sports and news in digital quality.

Law of attraction on wetpaint!

It came to a bit of shock and surprise when I found out there are over 3200 websites created on law of Attraction in Wet Paint.

Do you know Wet Paint?
I quote them:
"Wetpaint lets you build a rich, online community around the whatever-it-is that you’re really into. Utilizing the best features of wikis, blogs, forums and social networks, Wetpaint mixes everything you need so you can create, collect, and organize content on your own social website."

So you see, over 3200 people have created their own Wet Paint based sites/blogs/journals on a relatively obscure topic as Law of Attraction. I thought I will only find Hollywood and Bollywood news there.

I think I am going to create my own Wet paint site on Live and Let Live.

When will the brain stop functioning?

Today is Teachers Day.

Students started visiting me with greeting cards and gifts right from the morning. I am overwhelmed with love and affection.

To reciprocate their wishes, I thought I could give something different and funny this year. And here is what I printed out and stuck it in my office.

Courtesy: Scrapu.com

Good insight on web hosts.

I ask around a lot before deciding on the webhosting service provider. I visit a few webmasters forums and read all the threads on web hosting. Then I read quite a few articles on how to choose the proper web hosting package.

It is not the money that matters to me. I don’t mind paying a couple of more dollars a month but I expect more than 99% uptime that all the hosting providers promise. Why should I compromise on that 1% that may prove to be potential for my business?

I also look around review sites that publish quality and honest reviews on best web hosting service providers. This is mainly to equip myself with the hosting industry’s current trends and offers that may include free domain registration, one or two months of free hosting and so on.

People who intend to buy top web hosting package can visit webhostinggeeks.com where they can find the top 10 web hosts and their offers. I am glad that I find my favorite Bluehost listed in the top ten.

An excellent blog on credit cards.

Some blogs on a few niches are really well maintained and updated by knowledgeable bloggers. I don’t fail to express my admiration for such blogs.

This new credit card blog is one such blog that has all the essential information for credit card seeking persons as well as credit card holders.

It has reviews of all the major credit cards, their rates and fees, terms and conditions. The blogger has given great tips on choosing a credit card, writes about news of credit cards rates, refunds etc.

For example, read this news posted by the blogger in smartcreditcardchoices.com/blog

“Many people who traveled abroad during the last ten years have received notice of a class action settlement in which credit card companies are required to refund international finance charges. The class action suit stemmed from the fact that many credit card issuers did not properly or clearly disclose the existence of international transaction fees.”

Don’t you think this information is essential for all travelers?

The best resourceful blog on credit cards!

So what if XBOX prices have ben slashed?

The news is Microsoft has slashed the Japan XBOX prices-how this is going to affect my day to day life?

No way!

But why this move by Microsoft? Is the competition between Sony, Microsoft and Nintendo is really stiff? Microsoft-is it finding the heat too hot to handle?

It is interesting to note that earlier this year, Microsoft Corp. reduced the U.S. price of its mid-range Xbox 360 console with a 20-gigabyte hard drive to US$299, down from US$350, but didn't adjust prices on other models.

Unfortunately, the play station market in India is not at all picking up to the expectation and I think Sony takes the major share because of its presence in India for long.