dEviL's Guide to Barcelona

I had to good chance to visit Barcelona on an official trip :) Here was what I did.

a) Mug up some decent Spanish terms. Examples.
i)"Por Donde se va" => "Where is..." {This was very helpful}
ii)"Como Estas" =>"How is/are"
iii)"No entiendo espanol"=>"I do not speak Spanish {Of course!}
Some Good sites to learn Spanish can be googled out. Here, here, and so on.... Barcelona: A small place in Catalonia/Catalunya, which is an autonomous community in Spain. Spain considers it a district in Spain, but as the Catalonians. They claim it is a country or close to that and it has its own elected parliment and government, a distinct culture, and also its own language-The Catalan..

b) Go to Spain and land at Barcelona Airport. Air France operates a Bangalore to Paris Direct and a connecting flight from Paris to Barcelona (Yes. I did visit Paris for a day when I returned. The next blog entry will be on Paris) . I was supposed to wait for a colleague to share a taxi, but both of our mobiles' roaming facility did not activate on time and we missed each other. Talk about going to a telecom seminar. The least they could have done is to provide free roaming to the delegates, huh.

c) Found out that my hotel was a good 35Km away from Barcelona ! Had to take a cab and try all my Spanish at him, which was a pretty pathetic event. The good thing was that the cabbie knew where Caldes de Montbui was.

d) The Place: Very scenic small town famous for its Balneari, which is an Ancient Roman Bathouse, found in the 1st and 2nd Century BC. There are hot springs at some corners which spout water at 76Deg C constantly !

e) Getting Around Caldes: The Hotel Vila de Caldes has cycles that they give out fo no extra charge to the hotel inmates. Along with a map. It makes an excellent trip. I visited the Thermales Musea de caldes and the House Dels Delger

f) Get to Work: Won't bore you with my work (I'm going to document that in a private company confidential memo shortly). The typical day at Barcelona starts not before 9.00AM. The place is dark until around until then. This, my colleague told me was because Spain chose to be aligned with the rest of Europe on their time, whereas being on the far east of europe they should in fact be behind France by a couple of hours or so (unverified). The Spanish are notoriously famous for taking off after lunch (Siesta), and I actually saw that even the shopkeepers were half Shut after lunch. Had a good time roaming around Plaza De Catalunya. There is an official Barca Merchandize outlet, but they quote astronomical prices (E60 for a T-Shirt that was made in Bangladesh. Probably Commercial Street can give some something for E0.6 on the same terms of quality and print)

g) The Food: A Vegetarian guide :) All restaurants open for dinner only at 8.30PM in the night. Except for the days when there is a soccer match, when they open after the match is over.
i) Tapas: Appetizers in Spanish Cusine. I had the Patatas Bravas which is very much like the Aaloo Fry. Tasted very good for my Indian tongue. Also olives(Aceitunas) that taste good.

ii) The Churro, or the Spanish Donut (I was sure to ask specifically for the vegetarian potato one). This is a tasty snack that comes with a chocolate dipping.

iii) The Rice: Now one can go in for the Paella Vegetables, which is cooked rice mixed with vegetables. Bread is served dipped in tomatoes, which is a traidional dinner accompaniment (I even saw folks eating tomatoes for breakfast. In fact Gazpachos can be a meal in itself). Or if you wimp out, there'z always Pizza Margherita !

iv) Grilled Vegetables: This is only for the Le gastronome adventurus. I had this for dinner once, and must admit, did not feel very well after eating vegetables that were grilled and smothered in olive oil (without a hint of seasoning I guess). This is authentic Catalonian Cusine. The next day I settled for a catalan vegetable salad that was much better on my insides.

v) Deserts: Here is my favourite. There were pastries, cookies, cheesecakes, or simple plain yogurt...

h) The Cafes: Cafes are nice cozy outlets that are open in the night until 11.00PM. The other alternative is sports bars. And that's how the day is ended, before another dull morning. Either way, people are on the streets all the way until late night. My manuals warned me repeatedly against pickpockets. But what is it to a person who has spent his life travelling in Pondy Bazaar and Commercial Street ? Nothing.

And thereby, I end this Post. Here is my Wafaring.com map. Next Post - A cheap day in Paris......

An Elephant in the way ?

What an innovative answer to a 12th standard Physics problem :)

Update

Added Snap Previews to the Blog.
Looks cool, but makes loading pages is slower...

Throwing it open !

I hereby declare my Blog open (Selectively) to :
a) Mansingh - The man of Letters (Link)
b) Swami - The Erudite one
c) CNX - Know-it-all
d) KS - Kool Man (My former roomie)
e) M - The Learned one
f) Kash - Smart Dude (Link)

Bye Rhododendrons - Hi dEviLoPer !

After a lot of soul-searching, coffee, and sleeping, I have decided to rename my blog. The reason I'm renaming it is three-fold (I have a friend who has the habit of putting in a three-fold reasoning, even though the situation may be plain enough to warrant just one. The habit stuck on).

a) Re-Branding: Take the example of the onida devil, which was killed a few years back, but restored right in order. This is a very smilar case, as ppl know me as deviloper(Or as Virus which was the result of an unfortunate series of events in college) more than probably rhododendrons (an alias that I used to chat with unsuspecting ppl when I was in college)

b) Merging my Blogs/Gmail account: I merged my deviloper blog, my gmail account and my rhododendrons blog. This did take a lot of time...during my office hours (ppl next to my cube eould have heard the furious typing from mine).

c) The third reason as I said is really nothing. So My blog can be accessible from both
http://deviloper.blogspot.com, and
http://rhododendrons.blogspot.com

Nokia and Sony -

Rules of Meetings

1) Never arrive on time, or you will be stamped a beginner.

2) Never carry stacks of papers/presentations to any meeting. You will be stamped as a beginner. Laptop is okay.

3) Don't say anything until the meeting is half over; this stamps you as being wise.

4) Be as vague as possible; this prevents irritating the others. Re-iterate some basic points as applied to the current meeting topic. Generally comment on processes.

5) When in doubt, suggest that a subcommittee be appointed.

6) Always praise someone or a team int he meeting. This elevates your status a lot and people would want you in a lot more meetings.

7) Make crude jokes on parties outside the meeting. This will make you popular

8) Be the first to move for adjournment; this will make you popular - it's what everyone is waiting for.

9) Explicitly take down an easy task for yourself to do; Repeat a couple of times. Ensures you don't spend too much time after the meeting, working out detail.

10) After the meeing is over, compliment someone on their clothes. This also makes you popular. On Audio conferences, talk about the weather and Iraq.

Photo of Launch of Space Shuttle Discovery

WIki !

I joined the Web 2.0 Bandwagon and created my own wiki page. You can access it at
http://rhododendrons.pbwiki.com/

How to Say NO, when you mean NO

This is somthing I learnt from trial and error. Saying No at the workplace is one of the most difficult things I ever faced. The below excuses are some of the best ones I've used in various situations.

1. "I CAN'T RIGHT NOW, BUT I CAN DO IT LATER"
2. "I'M REALLY NOT THE RIGHT PERSON FOR THIS"
3. "I JUST DON'T HAVE ANY ROOM IN MY CALENDAR RIGHT NOW"
4. "I CAN'T, BUT LET ME GIVE YOU THE NAME OF SOMEONE WHO CAN"
5. "I HAVE ANOTHER COMMITMENT"
6. "I'M IN THE MIDDLE OF SEVERAL PROJECTS AND CAN'T SPARE THE TIME"
7. "I'VE HAD A FEW THINGS COME UP AND I NEED TO DEAL WITH THOSE FIRST"
8. "I WOULD RATHER DECLINE THAN END UP MESSING THIS"
12. "I CAN'T, BUT I'M HAPPY TO HELP OUT WITH ANOTHER TASK"
13. "I'VE LEARNED IN THE PAST THAT THIS REALLY ISN'T MY STRONG SUIT"
15. "I DON'T HAVE ANY EXPERIENCE WITH THAT, SO I CAN'T HELP YOU"
16. "I'M NOT COMFORTABLE WITH THAT"
17. "I HATE TO SPLIT MY ATTENTION AMONG TOO MANY PROJECTS"

a simple, straight, direct "NO"

Character traits of different Functions

I believe I'm the most perfect (If there were a term to describe that I would use it) in the corporate world. I spent quite some time today trying to evaluate what I think of different people in my office and outside it. I came to some good (I think) conclusions. I classified them according to the various functions they perform.

1. MARKETING - These are ambitious yet stupid people. They chose a marketing or a generic degree to avoid having to study in college, concentrating instead on drinking and socializing which is pretty much what the job responsibilities are now. Least compatible with Sales, which is an essential requirement the management looks for, while recruiting.

2. SALES - Lazier than marketing, often referred to as "marketeers without a degree". These guys are self-centered and paranoid. Incompatible with any other function in the company, because they think of themselves as an extended arm of the customer, ready to slap others around.

3. ENGINEERING - These guys actually studied in school and college. They are unable to control anything in personal life. It is said that ninety percent of all Personal Ads are placed by engineers. Instead of girlfriends, they have all the latest "ergo dynamic" gadgets.

4. ACCOUNTING - The only other group that ever studied in college. These guys are mostly immune from office politics. The most feared persons in the organization; combined with extreme organizational traits, majority of rumors say that they are completely insane.

5. HUMAN RESOURCES - Ironically, given their access to confidential information, they tend to be the biggest gossips within the organization. Possibly the only other person that does less work than marketing, (Unable to return any calls today because had to get a haircut, have lunch AND then mail a letter)

6. MIDDLE MANAGEMENT - Catty, cut-throat, yet completely spineless, they are destined to remain at their current job for the rest of their life. Unable to make a single decision, their worth is measured by the number of meetings they can schedule. Every now and then, they get fits, throw tantrums just to make their presene felt.

7. SENIOR MANAGEMENT - (See above - Same sign, different title). Only one addition is that periodically, they come up with a plan to raise employee productivity through a motivational technique (they think). It is called re-organization. It is a skillfult art of convincing an employee that his new role will lead him nearer to his career goal (without any change in pay, position or even work content. Its all in the mind ).

8. CONSULTANT - Lacking any specific knowledge, they use acronyms to avoid revealing their utter lack of experience. They are perennially convinced that their "skills" are in demand and that you could get a higher paying job with any other organization in a heartbeat.

9. RECRUITER, "HEADHUNTER" - As a "person" that profits from the success of others, disdained by most people who actually work for a living. During a market upswing, they resemble squirrels during fall scrambling to save food for winter. During downturns, they hibernate.

10. PRESIDENT, CEO - Brilliant or Lucky. The inability to figure out complex systems such as the xerox machine suggest the latter. Their brilliance comes out when they mask company results to shareholders, just using words.

Hard Disk for $950 !

Here is an age-old ad, That I found while digging onthe web :)

Photo-Op (En-core) from Digg

A lighning storm illuminated clouds in such a way as to make it look almost like a volcanic eruption. Moonlight helped capture the motion of the clouds during the time exposure to accentuate the look, Monument Peak, Payson, Arizona

Photo-Op !

Got this on a mail fwd. This is actually an on-the-ceiling poster in the smoking room

Lessons From Olympic Athletes - Winning In Everyday Life

Winning Management

During the Olympics millions watched athletes challenge themselves and each other. What does this have to do with management? Two things. First, a manager's role is to lead people to aspire to be better, and to make anything appear possible. Perhaps we can gain insight into this process by learning from these athletes. Second, managers themselves can aspire to "winning management", using some of the techniques of athletes to increase their personal management effectiveness. Let's take a look at four general techniques that managers can use to enhance their ability to deal with challenging situations. Visioning Results Swimmer Mark Tewksbury indicated that part of his preparation included imagining standing on the gold medal podium and hearing "Oh Canada". This type of visioning, repeated over and over, becomes a central motivating force for overcoming obstacles, because it focusses you on the reward. It makes the reward seem attainable, real and concrete provided that you visualize yourself in the picture, and that you paint a picture that engages all your senses. What does it feel like? What are you hearing? What do you see? Some examples. The manager who needs to do a stressful presentation, imagines that at the end, the audience is standing and applauding (the reward or result). She imagines the sense of accomplishment, the sight of those people smiling. Or consider a manager who has to conduct a difficult performance review. He prepares by thinking about a
successful outcome, shaking hands with the employee, as the employee smiles and thanks him for the help.

Rehearsal
If you prepare for an event by actually carrying out the behaviors, it is called practice. If you mentally run through the behaviors, it is called rehearsal. You are practicing in the mind. Fortunately, practicing in the mind can be done anywhere and can be as effective as
"real" doing. However, mental rehearsal, as with results visioning, must be undertaken in detail, each step, action or word being imagined. The more vivid the picture painted, the better the results. Also, it is most effective if you imagine obstacles, things that might go wrong, and
imagine dealing successfully deal with them. Examples? The presentation rehearsal, where you run through in your head, what you will say, how you will say it, what you will look like
while you are saying it, and what you will do if the overhead projector doesn't work. Or a meeting with an irate client, where you prepare by anticipating his behaviour, and rehearsing your own responses.

Skills Building
All the visioning and rehearsal in the world can't help you if you didn't know what you were doing in the first place. You need to build your skills and aspire to continuous development, if you are going to improve. You need to learn. Read what you can. Talk to other managers
about how they do things. Take training opportunities. Ask subordinates. Network. And above all, reflect upon what you see and hear and learn. Even if it's in the shower or driving to work. Sneak it in.

Focus
One thing that stands out with olympic athletes is their ability to focus on their task and tune out other things. Imagine if you had to chair a staff meeting with 70,000 observers and 20 million T.V. watchers. When faced with difficult tasks, you need to ensure that other things are not intruding on your thoughts. Part of this is mental discipline which is not easy for some to learn. Part is learning how to manage your environment. If you are faced with a challenge, make sure that you are not interrupted in your preparation for the challenge. Focussing can be learned through mental disciplines such as meditation, or physical disciplines such as T'ai Chi or certain martial arts. Learning relaxation techniques will also help your focusing abilities.

Summary
It may seem that these techniques should be particularly relevant for ess experienced managers, but, they are even more important for those who have more experience. That is because there is a tendency, after awhile, to stop developing and stop learning. When this happens a once successful manager may become an inept one. By consciously applying
these techniques, you will begin to approach your peak performance levels at any task, and enhance your long term managerial effectiveness.

Signature - Reveals your character

1 .) SINGLE UNDERLINE BELOW THE SIGN
These persons are very confident and are good personalities. They are a little bit selfish but believe in "Happiness of human life".

2.) TWO DOTS BELOW THE SIGN
These persons are considered to be Romantic, can easily change their fiancees as if they change their clothes. They prefer beauty in other persons & they themselves try to look beautiful. They easily attract others.

3.) SINGLE DOT BELOW THE SIGN
These persons are more inclined towards classical arts, simple & are very cool. If you loose faith with them, then these persons will never look back at you. Hence its always better to be careful with these people.

4.) NO UNDERLINES OR DOTS BELOW THE SIGN
These persons enjoy their life in their own way, never pay attention to others views. These are considered to be good natured but are selfish too.

5.) RANDOM SIGN, NO SIMILARITY BETWEEN NAME & SIGN
These persons try to be very smart, hide each & every matter, never say anything in straight forward manner, never pay attention to the other person of what he is talking of.

6.) RANDOM SIGN, SIMILARITY BETWEEN NAME & SIGN
These persons are considered to be intelligent but never think. These people change their ideas & views as fast as the wind changes its direction of flow. They never think whether that particular thing is right or wrong. You can win them just by flattering them.

7.) SIGN IN PRINTED LETTERS
These persons are very kind to us, have a good heart, selfless, are ready to sacrifice their life for the sake of their near & dear. But these seems to think a lot and may get angry very soon.

8.) WRITING COMPLETE NAME AS THEIR SIGN
These persons are very kind hearted, can adjust themselves to any environment & to the person they are talking. These persons are very firm on their views & posses a lot of will power

Don't alter your signatures accordingly to the respective attributes.
Rely on the signature on your id card for genuine assessment


Anyway, mine looks like this :)

Six Sigma Management

The 1980s and 1990s mark the development of several quality tools, and these evolutionary quality techniques help companies deal with their customers' expectations as well as the changing standards of the business environment.

The competitive business environment has created a high degree of complexity, which caused a paradigm shift in quality and customer satisfaction. As a result, many companies, like Allied Signals, Motorola and GE, tapped into a quality tool of some sort to help them stay ahead of the curve in meeting both internal and external customers' expectations. The tools range from total quality management (TQM) and
continuous quality improvement (CQI), to the evolutionary tool known as six sigma.

In scanning and assessing the business environment in which a company operated, most companies realized that they would not be able to achieve competitive superiority if they did not become quality conscious. So, the need to adopt a "tool" and chart their business strategy in that direction became paramount for their core competence, and such deployment ever since has become exponentially more compelling as the business environment gets more sophisticated.

Basically, a tool to help better the company's position in the market environment was seen as a prerequisite to having a competitive advantage. In addition, it helps command a lasting and sustaining growth, which in the long run helps any companies win a unique image in the industry environment.

The six sigma concept
As companies' operations became more complex and the environment grew more competitive in the mid 1980s, quality and customer satisfaction became the criteria for judging whether an organization was efficient in delivering what it set out to deliver. The ability to deal with the non-homogeneous customer became paramount to sustainable growth and competitive advantage.

Many techniques, like total quality management (TQM) and continuous quality improvement (CQI) were the basic requirements for gaining a unique image and a competitive advantage. What was not central to these techniques, however, was the ability to measure quality issues and the root cause of product defects faced by the organization at the process stage. For the most part, quality issues such as defects did not come to light until the product was out or at the end of production, thus
leading to exorbitant costs.

These techniques' lack of quantitative measurement and a database approach caused organizations to be ill advised with respect to product defects. Although the techniques TQM and CQI enabled companies to measure their operations with some degree of awareness as to where the system had failed, they could not generate explicit data so that one could pinpoint at the early stage where in the processes the failure had
occurred.

The inherent limitations in these techniques prompted companies, like Motorola, to design a new technique known as "six sigma" in the form of a technical document to help minimize the defects that they were experiencing in their core competence. The emergence of this concept completely shifted Motorola's view and approach to process
evaluation.

Six sigma is a technique that shows how far away from the mean or average a process measurement deviates. Each time the deviation is minimized or eliminated, it is translated as "opportunity" and the reverse is known as a "defect". The evolution of the six sigma phenomenon and the ability that it gave organizations in identifying quality challenges has provided both tangible and intangible benefits. Some define the tangible benefit as the ability to reduce the number of defects from their processes. The intangible benefits have often been referred to as business initiatives that could create competitive superiority, like GE's accomplishments.

Conceptual approach
Conceptually speaking, the way to improve the process with six sigma is by applying the following four elements: define, identify, analyze, and continuous evaluation:

1. The process needs to be defined, and the requirements for that process must be spelled out.
2. The factors to be measured need to be identified as the process is implemented because they must be entrenched into the concept if maximum quality results are to be
achieved.
3. Careful analysis of the process must be put forth with sound process pathways to address the process defaults in order to attain the degree of quality or the minimum defects in the process.
4. The activities to be analyzed must be identified explicitly with the end in mind; and nurtured to prevent the process from going back to the old status quo.

These elements are critical in building a sustainable quality standard with the six-sigma quality concept.

"For six sigma to work well, implementation must be with the impetus of the top management."

Quantitative approach
The quantitative factor is to build the parameters in the methodology in order to quantify the process for a sound quality infrastructure. This factor is more concerned with the scientific approach of six sigma. At this juncture, several steps may be required to achieve the positive financial outcomes as achieved by many companies that adopt the six-sigma approach.

The data gathered are used to identify the patterns in defects. Once this process is completed, anything that can be measured gets measured in order to determine the level of defects by identifying where the defects fall under the bell-shape curve to compute the sigma level.

The scientific aspect has made the six-sigma concept a successful tool for organizations whose core competencies are products which require a measurable yardstick to determine defect level. Customers, and companies, view it as a technique that should be embedded in the day-to-day operation.

Formulation of the six sigma strategy
For six sigma to work well, implementation must be with the impetus of the top management. Top management should be dedicatedly involved from the onset of the program. They should understand clearly the requirements for its success. It must also be part of the vision of the organization with resources and human capital dedicated for its ensured success.

As the program begins to roll out, two important factors must be in the fore:

1. Top management must be willing to change when the technique suggests that such a change is required and the importance of it in the business structure must be underscored in order to deal effectively with employees' resistance. The organization leaders must be willing to be flexible in their change. Management must be able to manage flexibly from being coercive to coaching as demand arises.
2. Every key employee in the organization must be a participant in the process through various means, i.e. educational training and application. Those who complete the training should be encouraged not to shelf the concept, but put it to work on a project in their daily operation with three key elements in mind: the external customer, the internal customer, and the process. There are many positive results when its approach is set as such with a pyramidal commitment. The more flexible styles that management exhibit, the more the organization can deal with the quality issues through this technique and improve the delivery of its core competence.

Competitive advantage

The significant competitive advantage that can be obtained from implementing six sigma is by way of the three basic resources: customer, process, and employee. The strengths, weaknesses, and the opportunities of these resources, as stimulated by the six sigma concept in some way or another, tend to enrich organization culture and view on quality and improve its position and strength in the market in which it operates. It also enables the organization to create strength discovery, weaknesses
acknowledgement and advantages on opportunities.

Blending the six sigma concept into the organization's culture could result in unique acknowledgement of some of the tangible factors that could give the organization competitive edge and superiority. It will also enable the organization to be cognizant of some of the intangible factors that are intrinsic, thus creating unique value to the organization that is irreplaceable by others.

Six sigma alone as a concept does not guarantee success; rather, it is the way firms adopt it and channel it into the organizational culture that helps achieve successful results.

Secrets of Inspirational Leadership

Adapted From gbsgroup post

Great leaders inspire their people in a way that fosters creativity, innovation, and high performance. In today's demanding business environment, such inspiration is not a luxury, but a necessity. Leaders that practice this kind of philosophy develop highly resilient, high-performance teams that can operate in any situation.
But what are these principles of performance that result in success?
What are the secrets of the greatest leaders that are coming to the forefront in the new millennium?

The 8 Secrets of Inspirational Leadership

The 8 Secrets comprise our philosophy for creating the energy and spirit that sustain high performance teams. These secrets instill personal and group confidence, thus help to create an environment where champions are inevitable. This leadership philosophy builds upon two basic rules of human nature, includes five primary elements that address human nature in the context of high performance teamwork, and is tied together by a singular type of energy. The 8 Secrets are:

Secret 1: Everyone wants to be a part of something bigger than oneself.

Secret 2: Everyone wants to feel valued.

Secret 3: To build a team, you must DEFINE THE PERFORMANCE OBJECTIVE
� Leaders must clearly articulate the specific objectives of the team, including the expected timeframe for achieving the objectives.
� Leaders must create objectives that are both challenging and achievable.

Secret 4: To inspire followers, you must ENNOBLE THE EFFORT
� Leaders must help individuals to feel part of something bigger than oneself.
� Leaders must highlight the intrinsic value of the team in its historical and organizational framework.

Secret 5: High performance teams are possible if leaders EMPOWER INDIVIDUALS
WITHIN TEAM SYNERGY
� Leaders should take the time to make each team member special.
� Leaders need to provide the framework for individual accomplishment to support team objectives.

Secret 6: Leaders and teams must make time to CELEBRATE THE JOURNEY
� Win every day.
� Leaders and followers must create an awareness of the rewards that occur along the journey.

Secret 7: EMPHASIZE PERSONAL RESPONSIBILITY
� Challenge each team member to make a personal commitment to be the best they can be.
� Develop the value of the team's objectives within individual team members.

Secret 8: Sustained team high performance is tied together by POSITIVE ENGAGED ENERGY

Things you never knew your cell phone could do

This was posted on my Groups By Manish-Go-Vegan. Highly appreciate your inputs Manish and want to spread this around !!

There are a few things that can be done in times of grave emergencies. Your mobile phone can actually be a life saver or an emergency tool for survival. Check out the things that you can do with it: -

1
EMERGENCY
* The Emergency Number worldwide for **Mobile** is 112 .* If you find yourself out of coverage area of your mobile network and there is an emergency, dial 112 and the mobile will search any existing network to establish the emergency number for you, and interestingly this number 112 can be dialed even if the keypad is locked. **Try it out.**



2
Have you locked your keys in the car? Does you car have remote keys?

This may come in handy someday. Good reason to own a cell phone: If you lock your keys in the car and the spare keys are at home, call someone at home on their cell phone from your cell phone. Hold your cell phone about a foot from your car door and have the person at your home press the unlock button, holding it near the mobile phone on their end. Your car will unlock. Saves someone from having to drive your
keys to you. Distance is no object. You could be hundreds of miles away, and if you can reach someone who has the other "remote" for your car, you can unlock the doors (or the trunk).

3
Hidden Battery power

Imagine your cell battery is very low, you are expecting an important call and you don't have a charger. Nokia instrument comes with a reserve battery. To activate, press the keys *3370# Your cell will restart with this reserve and the instrument will show a 50% increase in battery. This reserve will get charged when you charge your cell next time. AND

4

How to disable a STOLEN mobile phone?

To check your Mobile phone's serial number, key in the following digits on your phone: * # 0 6 # A 15 digit code will appear on the screen. This number is unique to your handset. Write it down and keep it somewhere safe. when your phone get stolen, you can phone your service provider and give them this code. They will then be able to block your handset so even if the thief changes the SIM card, your phone will be totally useless. You probably won't get your phone back, but at least you know that whoever stole it can't use/sell it either. If everybody does this, there would be no point in people stealing mobile phones.

Cost cutting is not a growth strategy !

(Adapted from gbs)
Even the staunchest budget "hawk" understands that you can't cost-cut your way to growth.

One wouldn't think that cost control was ever an issue for the Beatles, especially when they were recording the Sgt. Pepper album at the height of their fame. But, in fact, the subject of costs and budgets apparently arose frequently, whenever John or Paul wanted to do something a little bit crazy.

As Geoff Emerick, the group's recording engineer, recounts in his recent memoir, Here, There and Everywhere, the matter of expense nearly squashed John Lennon's request to hire a 90-piece orchestra to fill a 24-bar gap in one of his songs, "A Day in the Life." John thought it would be really cool to have London's finest classical musicians show up and simply play every note on their instruments, from the highest to the lowest, each at his or her own pace, without a conductor.

George Martin, the Beatles' producer, was no doubt horrified by the thought of asking these classically-trained musicians -- many of whom were his personal friends -- to do such a thing, purely from an artistic perspective. However, his pushback was not artistic but economic; he simply told John that EMI, the Beatles' record company, wouldn't pay for a full orchestra to play just 24 bars.

It didn't matter that the Beatles were the most profitable property on EMI's roster -- or even in the world -- at the time. From the record company's point-of-view, Sgt. Pepper would sell just as many copies with or without hiring a full orchestra for the sake of 24 bars on one song.

John was flummoxed, but Ringo Starr provided a solution: Why not bring in half an orchestra and have them play twice? So, that's what they did. The rest, as they say, is psychedelic history.

"The cost-of-goods conversation is always a challenge," says Donna J. Sturgess, VP of innovation at GlaxoSmithKline, in the July/August issue of The HUB Magazine. "There's always someone who will say that you could sell just as much without spending the extra money." Donna found herself up against such challenges as she and her team developed Aquafresh Extreme Clean, a new entry in the ostensibly mundane toothpaste
category.

Donna knew that success depended on creating a different kind of toothpaste -- one that would provide a decidedly different experience versus Colgate and Crest, the category's leaders. As the third-place player, Aquafresh was in a bind. If the brand didn't start to sell better, it was in danger of losing its place on retailer's shelves altogether.

The difference started with the toothpaste itself. Finding a flavor that wasn't mint and a formula that created more foaming action may not have cost anything extra (or at least was not necessarily the kind of expense that would come under immediate scrutiny). Engaging engineers to design a cap that closes with a "click" (instead of the usual flip-top or screw-cap), however, started to push things.

When Donna insisted that the carton be made of plastic instead of paper (both so that it would stand out in-store while also building more excitement -- and loyalty -- among consumers) she really had to fight for it. She comments: "There's always internal tension over 'why can't you do it cheaper?' This product went through as much rigor as any new product launch with a bit more challenge around some things that you can certainly tell cost more money. But the result is that Extreme Clean, in
some respects, is the growth part of the Aquafresh brand."

Donna's success story would certainly seem to be the exception rather
than a rule in today's marketplace -- where most brands are obsessed with cutting costs and infatuated with measuring each incremental expense against each incremental return on investment. That she prevailed in a corporate environment is especially noteworthy; usually it's independent entrepreneurs who try to break the mold by breaking the bank.

Intelligentsia Coffee, for example, is carving out a niche for itself by
paying coffee growers a premium based on the quality of their crop. The
company's founder actually says he'll pay as much as a 200 percent
premium for beans meeting certain quality standards, on the assumption
that consumers will pay $20 or more a pound at retail for it. EV Rental
Cars has found a profitable niche in renting hybrid cars even though it
means paying full retail prices for the autos it rents. The big
car-rental companies wouldn't dream of doing such a thing because their
business models are premised on buying fleets based on volume discounts.

A few other big-name brands seem to be catching the spare-no-expense bug, however. Atari, for example, is actually turning its excessive ways into part of its marketing strategy. The videogame maker's VP of marketing, Nique Fajors, actually brags about how late he is with the introduction of Test Drive Unlimited, an online racing simulation videogame created for Microsoft's Xbox 360 console. As he told The New
York Times: "From a product quality standpoint, you should know that we have delayed the game four times."

And, of course, time is money. While Nique says Atari would have loved to have launched the new game sooner to get some revenues going, he explains that "the viewpoint is that we will ship it when it's ready and not before, which is what is done for all the truly great products."

Toyota is also paying any cost and bearing any burden to ensure that its customers are happy with its cars. The strategy centers on issuing vehicle recalls early and often -- often before consumers even know there's a problem. On top of the inherent expense involved, Toyota also gives its dealers as much as $3,000 per vehicle to fix problems that occur post-warranty, according to Forbes magazine. The result of such
expense is that "vehicles jump off the lot because consumers swear by their quality."

If there were a crown for spending more to make more, it would probably rest on the head of Gamal Aziz of the MGM Grand Casino. Gamal has created a process he calls "working backward," as reported by Paula Kihla in Business 2.0, which effectively shifts the focus from how much money is being made to how much could be made.

Gamal first "breaks down an operation into constituent parts, then calculates the maximum potential revenue that each business or space could generate in a perfect world -- that is, if every customer spent the most the market could bear and if traffic reached its physical limits." He then "subtracts actual sales from that hypothetical number and calls the difference a loss, even if the venue is making money."

By "working backward" Gamal managed to persuade MGM's board of directors that the $2.1 million in revenues it was realizing on its Gatsby's restaurant was really a $3 million loss on "potential" sales. His remedy was extreme -- he blew up and re-built the ostensibly profitable restaurant, which promptly exceed expectations by generating $6.5 million in sales.

So, the next time a bean-counter tells you that spending extra money won't result in any extra sales, consider telling them that it's not just about sales -- it's about growth. Real growth requires the kind of innovation that gets customers excited, and that kind of innovation often means just putting a crowbar in it.

Heck, even the staunchest budget hawk understands that you can't cost-cut your way to growth.

And if that doesn't work, tell them Ringo sent you.