J.Jeyaram's Blog

2010 - Need an R & D Job - மாட்டு பொங்கல் வாழ்த்துக்கள்

activj@activj.net (s.j.jeyaram at gmail dot com) — Fri, 15 Jan 2010 22:53:00 +0000

Allo all & Allo 2010. 'Allo' is tamil version of Hallo. 2009 was good; actually It was great.

Let me list my

2009 achievements.

Jeyaram. BSc (Hon) [ Not a normal person anymore ]
Found a Job as soon as I graduated.
Met trillions of new people.
France VISA - [ Never wanna talk about ]
Labelled myself as a true Google fan. I love Google.
The only thing makes me high, Checking Google's new product launches.
Completed my JAVA api - SMPSI fully (Tested 1000 times, Documentation is ready)
3 "ACTIV" projects to fill my pocket.
Normal cook to Great cook.
Revamping THEACTIV.COM with Shiya _/||\_ & Ratha ( Pending )
Learned a bit of Flash AS3 and ASP.NET.
Earned some good friends at Platt halls. ( My uni hostel )
And many more small ones.... I mean, regular size ones

So what 2010 brought me? So what am I up to? Now, I need to find a Job somewhere in R & D even If I don't get paid much. I need a Job where I can think out of the box and use my creativity and do something amazing. I know I can do amazing things, but I need a better platform., I mean a better Job which allows me to be creative, allows me practise my own way of doing things and so on and so forth.. If I like or excited about anything, I can learn whatever it is quickly. That's why I always say my mates, I would pay Google, If I can get a Job in Google.:p It's a metaphor, Obviously I can't pay Google, but you know what I mean.

My lecturer told me "You can't get an R & D Job with out PhD". He must be wrong.. He is Jealous ...

I though of posting something on my blog on the first day of 2010, but I was deep inside my bed mattress. Then woke up on the 6th and made a test HD youtube video using my mobile. Check it http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bb9MMbekfFE

Now I'm trying to establish a habbit of updating my Twitter, Picasa, Youtube & blog regularly. So, In 2086, in my 100s, I can look back and say "Fellows! That was me."

I wish you a best மாட்டு பொங்கல் & my deepest sympathy to all those who suffer in Haiti. What can I possibly do to help my fellow Haitians?

Days pass by so fast

activj@activj.net (s.j.jeyaram at gmail dot com) — Sat, 24 Oct 2009 19:59:00 +0000

Now it's almost four months from my last post. Time passes so fast and I don't know how I get busy without doing anything. Organizing my time and finishing things as I plan is simply a pain, and In many occasions it doesn't work. I schedule things then something very important comes in and I reschedule everything all over again.

I wanted to update my website or post a new blog entry on every Sundays, but it didn't work. Always, something is there to puts this plan on hold. Last week, I had to do my laundry. Always something is there to put something else on hold. We do batch process. We process a very big queue of thing from the day we are born till the day we die weather we like it or not. I know, .... my dump philosophy, but I don't care, I like to look at things on a broad timespan. ERRRRRRR stop.. ok

Last week I happened to meet one of my favourite lecturers and got a chance to talk to him about a 15 minutes. We talked about all sort of things and finally he told me "You need to relax jeyaram., move things a bit slow. Think more. Do less". He's absolutely right. I start to do things immediately without thinking much. Actually, I'm scared of being late, so I start immediately which make the scenario worse. For an instance; If I want to design something, I start designing it without imaging/picturising in my mind how the end design going to be. I can take bit more time to think about it and finalize the design in my mind and put my thoughts quickly into the actual design and get it done, rather than designing it without thinking in the beginning, and get everything messed up.

Always this was the case in my life. When I start playing football, I just hit the ball the way I want, the way it's easy for me. Just hit, no matter where my team mate is or no matter where the goalpost is, just hit. Then I figured it out, always have a rough idea of where your team mates are, and take the ball, stop it, control it and pass it on to one of your team mates.

I learn things every sec. Things keep getting better and better. My mates around me helps me a lot to figure things out ; grow. I love the whole thing. As big cinema stars say, I would like to take this opportunity to thank everyone behind the scene, but there is no scene here though. Some make scene, some are real; I just like the real part and just like to ignore the scene part.

I hate when people ain't real. I hate people pretend to like you. The most annoying thing in this "English" western world is, you say "Hi, hello, how are you, you all-right, I'm fine.... " whether you like the person/situation or not. As many of you know, in Tamil or in any other Asian languages we rarely say, "Please". Once I went to a swim pool and asked the entrance ticket issuing lady "Two Adult-Swim-tickets". Then she got a bit angry and she was like "Please...." and waiting for me to repeat it. Then I said again the whole thing " Two Adult-Swim-Tickets Please..", humbly. Then she was happy...

All just drama. I want to just let go of all the pointless drama and the people. I just need real people and real things all around me and Of cause, I'm real , I'm real to everyone and I offer real things, not the fake ones.

Hopefully, I will post something interesting next week. I'm gonna listen to some new good songs and sleep.

Relativity

activj@activj.net (s.j.jeyaram at gmail dot com) — Wed, 15 Jul 2009 00:50:00 +0000

This is one of the subjects I think all the time. When I travel in the bus, when I cook my food, when I walk, when I’m in the toilet and even when I was in the Lecture hall. This is just not a word, this is a theory, this is a concept, this is very broad subject applicable to many day-to-day things in our lives, it's a philosophy and it’s even lot more to me. This is the answer to many problems in the world. Understanding this word will make us many times better, not because it’s giving us the answer to be happy, not because it solves our day-to-day problems, not because it makes us understand the things we never understood, but because of all that.

This is not only about the “Relativity” we study in our physics classes, but also about some other places where we forgot to think about it. How many of us buy a toffee in a retail shop? How many of those, who buy toffee think about toffee when it tastes good. For how many of us buying a toffee is as happy thing as buying a car or buying an aeroplane? When we have a bar of chocolate, a toffee does not matter to us. When we have a packet of chocolate and toffees, a bar of chocolate does not matter to us. When we have a motorcycle, a bicycle does not matter much. When we have a car, a motorcycle does not matter much. When we own a helicopter, a car is as cheap as a bicycle. We value things in terms of money. In other words, we relate almost everything to money. But in reality, having a bicycle is more important than having a helicopter when we need to go to our friend’s place near or to a shop next street.

What we had and what we have, the deference is the vital part of happiness. When someone really poor buys a toffee, the happiness he/she feels; when someone really rich buys a toffee, the happiness he/she feels; real deference. The poor person will enjoy the toffee most where the rich guy will feel nothing.

What we have – what we had ∝ happiness

What we have – what we had ∝ development/success

So we can’t just scale our development or success by what we have. Understanding these related things makes it easy to deal with hard times or problems. In fact, this kind of mechanical thinking on our day-to-day problems helps us reduce stress.

Relativity, in physics and in nature, helps us find the truth. If we look at an object with a naked eye, we would not know how far away it is. We may think it is 10 meters away, but it might be more than that or less than that. As we study in Kinematics, outer environment appears like moving in an opposite direction when we are in a train, although the outer environment does not. How we differentiate a three dimensional environment from a two dimensional film or computer screen, even though both of them screen as two dimensional in human eyeball’s “Fovea”? Human brain relates things and finds the truth. More related data we have, more nearer we are to the truth.

My final and third point is, recognizing the relationship between things is the best way to find the truth, solve problems and It should be the only way making Albert Einstein’s “unified field theory" or new “theory of everything” possible.

So what exactly am I suggesting?

Do not judge or define anything or anyone without considering the effect of other related things or people.

Practise to relate things/people easily.

I believe having maps of related things in our memory will help us reveal many spiritual secrets and scientific truths.

P.S: After I read this post, I realize that I have somewhat failed to materialize my thought on relativity. When I am alone and think about these things, thoughts flow naturally, but when I sit to write I loose the flow in the middle. I’ll try and do better in my next post.

I'm done. Got my first Degree

activj@activj.net (s.j.jeyaram at gmail dot com) — Wed, 08 Jul 2009 23:01:00 +0000

Words cannot express the happiness and joy I feel right now. I knew I was gonna make it finally, but there were just things that made it rather difficult to be happy about. I mean, how could I not graduate? Last semester, my final project and other courseworks made me worry about graduating this year. Finally I managed to finish those better than I planned with the help of my friends and family.

When I fail my A Level, I thought, my life is over. One portion of my life was closed, but the door to the rest of the world was opened to me. Now I strongly believe, there is always a way to get what we want. Sometime things are easy, sometimes hard. As one of my flatmates always says, everything has a reason to happen. We just need to accept it and work harder. This first degree will definitely give me more confidence to face my future, to get a good job and to develop myself more. Sometimes things go, not the way we expected them to go, but in the end everything turns out well.

As I blogged earlier, the musical God, A.R.Rahman had come to my graduation ceremony and our university honoured him with a doctorate. I finally got a chance to see him in front of me. Actually he looked at me. I never thought I will see him. The whole thing was unbelievable. I am really lucky.

So congratulations to myself, congratulations to my fellow graduates, congratulations everyone else who is graduating in Middlesex University and to everyone else who waited out side of uni and met A.R.Rahman!

தமிழ் & සිංහල NEW YEAR!

activj@activj.net (s.j.jeyaram at gmail dot com) — Tue, 14 Apr 2009 01:43:00 +0000

இன்று புதுசு. நாளை பழசு.

பழசை கொன்று புதுசை கொண்டாடுறம்.
பழசுகள் செய்த பாழாய் போனவை புதுசு

வரிஷங்கள் வந்தன. மாசங்கள் போயின.
வாழ்கையின் வருத்தங்களும் வசந்தங்களும்..
வாரங்கள் வந்தன. நாட்கள் நீண்டன.
வந்த மாற்றங்களும் சமாதானமும்.

வந்தவை வரமாக.!
வாழ்கையில் இருள் நீங்க..!
மதி கொண்டு மனிதன்
கருனை நிதி கொண்டு கடவுள்
கடந்து வந்த வாழ்வின்
கஷ்டங்கள் நீக்க...!

வடக்கையும் தெற்கையும்
கிழக்கையும் மேற்கையும்
கத்வுகள் திறக்க.!
சாந்தி சமாதனம்
சர்வமும் சமமாக..!

புது வரிஷத்திலை புதுசா எதாவது நடக்கட்டும்.

I wish everyone a peaceful, healthy and happy தமிழ் & සිංහල new year.

A.R.Rahman conferred with Middlesex University degree

activj@activj.net (s.j.jeyaram at gmail dot com) — Thu, 02 Apr 2009 19:41:00 +0000

OMG! Guys, I'm thrilled! The musical god, A.R.Rahman is going to graduate with me:P! I can't wait to see him. This is the best news for me this year.... wooooooooowwwwwwwwwwwww.....!!

A R Rahman is on the receiving end. After the honorary doctorate offered by the Anna University, Chennai for his achievements in the field of music, now it is the turn of Middlesex University, London.

The Mozart of Madras has been identified for an honorary degree by the reputed Middlesex University, London. The degree is likely to be conferred on the maestro on the day of the Graduation Ceremony to be held at Middlesex University in London in the month of July this year. Mr. Joe Victor, Regional Director of Middlesex University met Mr. A.R Rahman and Mr. T Selvakumar Co-founder & CEO of KM Music Conservatory in Chennai, regarding this issue.

KM Music Conservatory & Audio Media Education was launched in the month of July last year. Their main goal is to train Indian students in Western music performance, Composition and Music Technology so that they can compete in the international arena. They are also working towards forming their own symphony orchestra consisting of its own musicians.

Talks are on with the Regional Director South Asia of Middlesex University, London, for academic recognition for the Bachelor of Arts Honors Program for Music Composition and Music Performance. This will be a three year program the first two years of which will be at Chennai at the KM Conservatory and the final year in London. The course is likely to start from January 2010. The eligibility criteria to avail this degree would be a pass in twelfth standard and one year training in KM Music Conservatory Foundation Program.

Things get a bit crazy. Help please..

activj@activj.net (s.j.jeyaram at gmail dot com) — Mon, 09 Mar 2009 02:09:00 +0000

Things get a bit crazy. I have been given an individual project to finish within a month and I have three more coursework and a test to be done. My life's getting crazy. For my individual project, I need to interview people with speech impairments. I'm trying to find someone to interview and to finish this off.

Yesterday, I was talking to one my friends about my project and about meeting someone to get an interview recorded. So, me and my friend went to his cousin's place to meet one of his relatives who has some problems with his speech, and finally end up meeting a guy who can hardly hear anything clearly. He is from Zimbabwe and he speaks very funny with too much of filthy words, though he can not hear anyone clearly. His normal talk is like African-American rappers, so I asked my friend "he looks white and he can't hear a thing, how's he doing this rap?". He told me that he uses a special equipment to watch TV which was the only useful information for my project on the interview. He was telling us a nice joke of Chris Rock, I just found on youtube and watched. He says...

" You know the world is going crazy when the best rapper is a white guy, the best golfer is a black guy,the tallest guy in the NBA is Chinese, the Swiss hold the America’s Cup, France is accusing the U.S. of arrogance, Germany doesn’t want to go to war, and the three most powerful men in America are named Bush, Dick, and Colon. "

Ah.. the whole point of this blog post is, getting help from you to collect information and other useful stuffs for my individual project. My individual project task is to develop a very cost‐effective Human‐Computer interactive system to help people with speech impairments. Please comment or mail me, if you konw someone who has problems with his/her speech.

Credit Crunch

activj@activj.net (s.j.jeyaram at gmail dot com) — Mon, 09 Feb 2009 20:18:00 +0000

Dear friends. A thousand apologies, I couldn't post anything useful last 5 months. Now, I'm doing computer science in middlesex university and I'm quite busy with doing coursework, studying, cooking on my own and with my works. New place, new people, multicultural environment, new rules, new regulations, new lifestyle and new challenges kept me away from my regular things. But, now, I'm getting used to it and really like it; doing things own my own. Initially, when I join this university, I had to struggle a lot to know the rule and act according to the regulations and to get a job. Here in London, now it's pretty difficult to get a good job and they say it's because of the "credit crunch".

What is it? Whenever they say this phrase, I act as if I know the word. I asked about this from some of my friends, they told me about it what they think, but not even close to the truth. Then, I started googling about it in the Internet and I found that it isn't a solid concept or clear-cut thing to explain. It's a name for a problem and its roots. I try to explain about it as accurate as possible and I put some links below for further reference.

The main idea of credit crunch is reduction in availability of loans or credit crunch is a state in which there is a short supply of cash to lend to businesses and consumers. I guess from what I studied by reading all these webs, unplanned lending causes credit crunch. I seriously don't know how it affects job market. I guess, companies face problems when there is no lending from bank and they couldn't afford to pay salary for its employees.

Times news paper clearly explains : http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/money/reader_guides/article4530072.ece

some of the other links on this area of study:

http://www.creditcrunch.co.uk/

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Credit_crunch

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/business/6993980.stm

Why Are We Alive?

activj@activj.net (s.j.jeyaram at gmail dot com) — Sun, 24 Aug 2008 05:06:00 +0000

Last night, I was suffering from fever and stomach ache and I was thinking about our lives. It does not make any sense for me.

We are born
We grow
We drink
We grow
We eat
We grow
We smile
We grow
We cry
We grow
We laugh
We grow
We stand
We grow
We listen
We grow
We speak
We grow
We think
We grow
We read
We grow
We write
We grow
We communicate
We grow
We learn
We grow
We face exams
We grow
We fail
We grow
We experience
We grow
We experiment
We grow
We expect
We grow
We plan
We grow
We succeed
We grow
We collaborate
We grow
We earn friends
We grow
We make enemies
We grow
We help
We grow
We get help
We grow
We dream
We grow
We imagine
We grow
We love
We grow
We are loved
We grow
We hate
We grow
We are hated
We grow
We care
We grow
We are cared for
We grow
We feel
We grow
We take responsibilities
We grow
We face challenges.
We grow
We get advice
We grow
We graduate
We grow
We work
We grow
We earn money
We grow
We feel lonely
We grow
We marry
We grow
We ****
We grow
We become parents
We grow
We care for our children
We grow
We make them stronger
We grow
We make money for them
We grow
We get older
We advise
We get older
We see them marry
We get older
We feel lonely
We get older
We see our spouse die
We get older
We loose hope
We get older
We die

Something is there which we don't have any idea about. We better find it, rather than working hard lifelong just to die. Comment your ideas below.

Know your Mobile phone

activj@activj.net (s.j.jeyaram at gmail dot com) — Thu, 31 Jul 2008 18:57:00 +0000

Friends! This is a very useful and interesting post as we all use cell phone very frequently in our day-to-day life. Actually, My immediate boss at my previous work place, mailed me these mobile secrets. I just post the mail here with his permission. Please read fully and experiment/try/check these in your phone. Your comments will encourage me to do more, so please...

Would you like to know if your mobile is original or not?

Press the following on your mobile *#06# and the international mobile equipment identity number appears. Then check the 7th and 8th numbers:

	1	2	3	4	5	6	7 th	8 th	9	10	11	12	13	14	15
Phone serial no:	x	x	x	x	x	x	?	?	x	x	x	x	x	x	x

If the Seventh & Eighth digits are 02 or 20 this means your cell phone was assembled in Emirates .

If the Seventh & Eighth digits are 08 or 80 this means your cell phone was manufactured in Germany.

If the Seventh & Eighth digits are 01 or 10 this means your cell phone was manufactured in Finland .

If the Seventh & Eighth digits are 00 this means your cell phone was manufactured in original factory which is the best Mobile Quality

If the Seventh & Eighth digits are 13 this means your cell phone was assembled in Azerbaijan.

THINGS YOU NEVER KNEW YOUR CELL PHONE COULD DO

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:

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.**
Have you locked your keys in the car?
Does your 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).
Editor's Note: *It works fine! We tried it out and it unlocked our car over a cell phone!'*
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.
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.

CD50/6V/Battery powered - table fan motor-cycle:P

activj@activj.net (s.j.jeyaram at gmail dot com) — Thu, 26 Jun 2008 06:16:00 +0000

Today, in the morning, I was on my way home with my friend from Jeya Book Shop. As we pass Vajira temple, a woman was riding a lovely scooter smoothly without any noise. It's an electric scooter.

Trend is changing, time has come to throw away our fossil fuel vehicles and switch to a new technology which is electric-motor-engine. Particularly, It's new to Sri Lanka.

I thought of making a bicycle, electric motor - fixed, when I was in chavakachchari. Actually, I tried it once with my "CD50/6V/motorbike-battery" and with a small fan-motor. I don't care whether you believe this or not, but I did. I didn't know how to fix an accelerator for that. So, I had to pedal my bicycle first, then I had to switch on the motor. As I switch on the motor, it will have an impact on the bicycle and it'll start to move in a constant speed. I rode it couple of weeks like that and finally burnt the fan's motor coils and ruined my motor cycle battery. Till I came colombo, I had to use the bike without a battery.

That's all about my Jaffna electric-bike story! So, let me come back to the point. The electronic bike I saw in the morning was "e-max 70". My friend wanted to get details about the bike at MotoLanka, so we went to Motolanka Limited and checked some electric motorbikes.

My friend acted like he is going to buy that bike then and there towards the sales assistant. The sales assistant told us to give it a try. Both of us circled the shop twice in the bike, showed an unsatisfied facial expression and came home. Probably, He will never allow us inside anymore.

It's a really nice and smooth bike.

Very economical - 65 cents per km.
6 months battery warranty and 2 years for motor.
Maximum speed 60 km/h.
8 hours battery charge - 70 km to 90 km.
Environmentally friendly.

My view is that it's just a new modified modern version of my
"CD50 6V Battery powered - table fan motor-cycle"

உள்ளொன்று வைத்து புறமொன்று பேசுவார் உறவு கலவாமை வேண்டும்

activj@activj.net (s.j.jeyaram at gmail dot com) — Fri, 30 May 2008 17:21:00 +0000

ஒருமை யுடனினது திருமலரடி நினைக்கின்ற

உத்தமர் தம் உறவு வேண்டும்

உள்ளொன்று வைத்து புறமொன்று பேசுவார்

உறவு கலவாமை வேண்டும்

பெருமை பெறும் நினதுபுகழ் பேசவேண்டும்

பொய்ம்மை பேசா திருக்க வேண்டும்

பெருநெறி பிடித்தொழுக வேண்டும் மதமானபேய்

பிடியா திருக்க வேண்டும்

மருவு பெண்ணாசை மறக்கவேண்டும் உனை

மறவா திருக்க வேண்டும்

மதிவேண்டும் நின்கருணை நிதிவேண்டும் நோயற்ற

வாழ்வு நான் வாழ வேண்டும்

தருமமிகு சென்னையிற் கந்தகோட்டத் துள்வளர்

தல மோங்கும் கந்த வேளே

தண்முகத் துய்யமணி உன்முகச் சைவமணி

சண்முகத் தெய்வ மணியே.

இது நான் மிகவும் விரும்பி சிந்திக்கும் இராமலிங்க சுவாமிகள் பாடல்களில் ஒன்று. உள்ளொன்று வைத்து புறமொன்று பேசி பணம் தேட கற்பிக்கும் கலாசாலைகளே உள்ள இந்தக்காலத்துக்கு இப் பாடல் சற்றும் பொருத்தமற்றதுதான். சென்ற வாரம் இக்கால Business/Management/Marketing பற்றியும், இவற்றோடு முரண் படும் இடதுசாரி கருத்துக்கள் பற்றியும், இவற்றால் ஏழை செல்வந்த ஏற்றத்தாழ்வு அபிவிருத்தி அடைந்துவரும் நாடுகளில் அதிகரிப்பது பற்றியும் சிறிது எழுதியிருந்தேன். எழுத ஆரம்பித்த பின் தான் தெரிந்தது இதுபற்றி எழுத எனக்கு அறிவும் அனுபவமும் போதாது என்று. இம்முயற்சியின் போதே இப்பாடல் எனக்கு நினைவுக்கு வந்தது.

Workers' Day

activj@activj.net (s.j.jeyaram at gmail dot com) — Thu, 01 May 2008 13:37:00 +0000

May 1st, Workers' day, I got a chance to have a good lunch this noon and celebrate. Now, I'm one of them, who celebrates this day:^V^ A good work makes us stand where we want to stand and it lets us be happy. No need to beg anyone for anything. I thankfully remember all my colleagues those who support, advice & help me to improve myself and do what I do, in this special day.

Still I see, workers work for long hours, earn lower salary and have no facility available to them. The majority of them moved from the countryside to Colombo to earn a living. They are forced to lead an unhygienic and miserable life. Some companies pay a lot but some are not.

Workers of the world, awaken!
Rise in all your splendid might
Take the wealth that you are making,
It belongs to you by right.
No one will for bread be crying
We'll have freedom, love and health,
When the grand red flag is flying
In the Workers' Commonwealth.

Why am I?

activj@activj.net (s.j.jeyaram at gmail dot com) — Thu, 28 Feb 2008 19:28:00 +0000

I had to comment on my friend's blog and I found it interesting after I type it. So I modified it a little and posting here for you to read. After you read this, comment what you think.

Why does god allow bad things to happen? Why the god permits people to kill each other. Why does he allow bad people to hurt innocents? Why he is there without letting us know that he is there?

I always ask this question myself. Most of the people realize/know that there is a creator of this universe and things in it. But the question is, Does he really cares about people who live on the earth? Or does he know that we pray upon him? Or does he know that there are good people and bad people and does he know who are they? I think, god/creator of the universe is not what we think. We have no idea about what's happening out there. What we have taught is wrong or we couldn't understand what our religion teaches us.

I don't think, we can make the god happy by singing spiritual songs. I don't think, we can communicate to him by spelling manthras or by praying. As an ordinary guy, I couldn't understand any of these things. My mind is not allowing me to accept anything without prove.

May be I'm wrong. I don't say that what people are saying is wrong. I just don't understand any of these. Since I don't have a better answer for all of these questions in my mind, I listen what others say without questioning them. And for the same reason I follow my religion as closely as possible.

I feel bad to be a person who doesn't know why he is. I feel bad to be a person who doesn't know why all this. I feel sad to be a person who doesn't do anything to know it.

live, study and work abroad

activj@activj.net (s.j.jeyaram at gmail dot com) — Sun, 23 Dec 2007 04:49:00 +0000

Hi!

Like I always say, I’ve been too busy last couple of weeks. I quit my work and trying to go abroad for higher studies and work. In the mean time I’m doing web, graphic-design, networking and software-development projects in my own company, activ.

This year, somehow I need to find a better place to live, study and work. Cost of living is getting higher and higher in Sri Lanka. Can’t survive, if you don’t have a work which pays you at least 20,000 Sri Lanka rupees monthly. If you want to live fairly good life, you need more than 60,000 Sri Lanka Rupees.

Now, I’m in the process of collecting information about living, studies and work opportunities in abroad. I think those information that I’ve collected will be surely useful to you, if you’re in my category. So this post is all about “live, study and work abroad”.

Here I’ve chosen some of the countries, I can possibly go or I like to go. Ok. This is the list.

	Cost of living*	Allowed working hours	Educational Fee*	Languages	Other Info
1.USA	Currency: U.S. Dollar Meals Budget: US$3-5 Mid-range: US$5-20 Top-end: US$20 and upward Lodging Budget: US$12-25 Mid-range: US$25-60 Top-end: US$60 and upward If you camp or stay in hostels, catch buses and self-cater, you could feasibly explore the country on around US$50 a day. Staying in motels and eating at modest cafes will mean you'll hit the US$100 mark, and enjoying the convenience of a rental car will push your daily budget up to US$150. If you want to do the US in style, welcome to the world of credit and consumerism. You'll save yourself hassle and expense if your traveler's checks are in US dollars. Restaurants, hotels and most stores accept US dollar traveler's checks as if they were cash. Major credit cards are widely accepted; you'll find it hard to perform certain transactions (such as renting a car or reserving tickets over the phone) without one. You may also be able to access your bank account using US ATMs. Tipping is expected in restaurants and better hotels. The going rate in restaurants is 15% or more of the bill; never tip in a fast-food or self service environment. Taxi drivers, bartenders and hairdressers depend on similar-sized gratuities. Sales taxes vary from state to state but are typically 5-8%, though some states have no sales taxes at all. Top-end accommodation also often attracts a bed tax, which can be as high as 15%. It's worth checking whether quoted prices for lodging include all relevant taxes.
2.Australia	Currency: Australian Dollar Meals Budget: US$3-5 Mid-range: US$6-14 Top-end: US$15 and upwards Lodging Budget: US$6-17 Mid-range: US$18-55 Top-end: US$60 and upwards If you're coming from Europe or the USA, Australia is going to look pretty cheap. Food, in particular, is great value. Accommodation is also reasonably priced, and if you're staying in hostels or on-site caravans or camping, and mostly making your own meals you could conceivably get by on about US$20 to US$25 a day. Travel will be your biggest expense - distances are long - so if you're moving around a bit, eating out once or twice a day and staying in budget hotels, plan for around US$50 a day. If you're only coming for a couple of weeks and plan to take a few internal flights, you'll be looking at more like US$100 a day. You'll have no problems changing foreign currencies or cash at almost any bank or exchange bureau. Travellers cheques generally get a better rate than cash, though banks take out a commission. Credit cards (particularly Visa and MasterCard) are widely accepted (and pretty much compulsory if you're going to rent a car), and ATMs all over the country accept credit and Cirrus cards. Tipping is getting a foothold in Australia, particularly in cafes and restaurants in the bigger cities - 5-15% is the usual. However, you won't be looked down upon if you don't tip. Taxi drivers are always grateful if you leave the change.
3.UK			10000-16000 (GBP)
4.New zealand	Currency: NZ Dollar Meals Budget: US$5-15 Mid-range: US$15-30 Top-end: US$30 and upwards Lodging Budget: US$10-20 Mid-range: US$20-100 Top-end: US$100 and upwards It's possible to travel economically in New Zealand. Budget travellers can expect to get by on less than US$35 a day if camping or staying in hostels and self-catering. Motor camps and motels all have kitchens for guests' use, so staying in these also gives you the option of doing your own cooking. One of the main reasons people come to New Zealand is to participate in the activities the country is known for. Some cost nothing - tramping, swimming, birdwatching - but as so many enjoyable activities are expensive, they can end up being a major part of your travel budget. If you stay in hotels, eat at restaurants and spend money on rafting, bungy jumping and the like, be prepared to outlay about US$100 a day. The currencies of Australia, the UK, USA, Canada, Germany and Japan are all easily changed in New Zealand. You'll have no trouble with the major travellers' cheques and credit cards. Banks will give cash advances on Visa and MasterCard, but for American Express card transactions you must go to an American Express office. Tipping is becoming more widespread in New Zealand, although many Kiwis still regard it as a rather odd foreign custom. Nevertheless, it is on the increase, principally in the major centres where there's been more foreign influence. You should tip 5-10% of the bill in a restaurant (not in a simple café) if you feel you have received exceptional service.
5.Manleshiya
6.India	Currency: Indian Rupee Meals: Budget: 100 IRS Mid-range: 100-500 IRS Top-end: 500 IRS and upwards Lodging Budget: 120 IRS Mid-range: 120-700 IRS Top-end: 700 IRS and upwards Normally 4500 IRS is enough for living, monthly. House rent is 5000 rupees monthly and initial advance is 50000 rupees. 4 students can accommodate. This information is applicable in bangalore. Bangalore is very quickly developing place in India.	Can work as much as you like.	160000 IRS per year	Hindi, English, Tamil, Telugu and so...
7.Canada	Currency: Canadian Dollar Meals Budget: US$5-10 Mid-range: US$10-30 Top-end: US$30 and upwards Lodging Budget: US$15-30 Mid-range: US$30-45 Top-end: US$50 and upwards For most visitors, the largest expense will be accommodation. Food prices are generally much lower than those in Western Europe, but are a little higher than those in the USA. If you stay in budget accommodation and eat in cafes, expect to spend around US$45 a day, not including long-distance transport. If you stay in motels and eat at restaurants occasionally, you're looking at around US$80 a day. It's best to change money at companies such as Thomas Cook, which specialises in international transactions. If you can't find a money exchange office or booth, try a bank. American Express and Thomas Cook are the best travelers' checks to have, and you should make sure they are either in US or Canadian dollar denominations. Credit cards are widely accepted, especially Visa, MasterCard and American Express. A 7% Goods & Services Tax (GST) is applicable to all transport, accommodation, restaurant meals and just about anything else you're likely to purchase, including newspapers. On top of this, in most of Canada, a provincial sales tax also must be paid. This can, in some provinces, add 15% to the quoted price, so factor it into your expenses so you don't get a nasty surprise at the cash register. It's considered normal to tip 15% of the bill. Tips are usually given to waiters, cab drivers, hairdressers, hotel attendants and, by savvy drinkers, bar staff. Ref: www.how2immigrate.net

* Cost of living and educational fee are depend on which place you live and which university or college you have selected. So, I have listed here the average.

I'll update this list as soon as I get new information about any of these.

I need some time and your help to fill this list. I couldn't find information about some of these. If you are in any of the listed country here or if you know the information about those countries, Please help me. My mail address is s.j.jeyaram@activj.net or go me.activj.net to reach me easly. Thanks.

Finally..! I bought a Guitar.

activj@activj.net (s.j.jeyaram at gmail dot com) — Sun, 02 Sep 2007 07:51:00 +0000

Hi there! After all these years, one of my dreams has come true. I bought a new Korean box guitar and I got a guitar self-learning DVD from one of my friends. My plan is to create nice guitar sound tracks and put those on my web. I did a test recording in my personal computer. Then I listened to it, quite nice. Probably after I finish this learning DVD, I will be able to produce some quality tracks. I’ve shot some photos of my guitar and published to my photos page “September 2” directory (photos.activj.net).

Find your favorite music file using Google search..

activj@activj.net (s.j.jeyaram at gmail dot com) — Sun, 29 Apr 2007 03:40:00 +0000

Hi! Sorry, I couldn’t post any thing on my blog last couple of weeks due to some…mmmmm No actually, I had to do an assignment on Java. Ok. This post is gonna be quite interesting. Now you can find your favorite music or video or any other files using Google search or Google powered search engines like activj.net search.

Ok. Now let’s see how to search music or video files using Google. First you need to type like
intitle:”index.of” (mp3|wma) file.name –exclude.this
into the search box.

When you type
Intitle:”index.of”
Google lists all the web pages with the title of “index of”.
Mostly all the web directory listing pages has this key word by default. It’s a web server functionality. Say, if you have a folder into your apache web server root without any index file, apache will list all the files and folders in it. That directory listing page has the word “index of”.
Next, you need to type the extension of the file type that you want. If you want to specify only one extension, no need of parenthesis. You can just type
Intitle:”index.of” mp3
But, if you want more file types to prefer, you need to type like.
Intite:”index.of” (mp3|wma|mp4)
Next, the file name. Remember; don’t give any space between words. Instead of giving space type a full stop sign.
Intitle:”index.of” (mp3|wma) shakira.hips.dont.lie

Next, if you want to exclude anything in your search. Just put a minus sign and give the word that you want to exclude.
Intitle:”index.of” (mp3|wma) shakira.hips.dont.lie –edited.version

Ok. Now you try this out and post your comments and questions.

List of Initialisms and Acronyms

activj@activj.net (s.j.jeyaram at gmail dot com) — Sat, 03 Mar 2007 09:29:00 +0000

Hi!
I hope, this post will be useful to you all. Sometimes when I'm chatting with my friends, they use short forms, but I can't understand. If it's a very basic like "10q", i can , but other short forms i can't understand. Sometimes i will have to ask my friend - "what does it mean?". Once, one of my friends(Thiruvarangan) gave me this list. I've edited his list a little.

List of Initialisms and Acronyms

S	Smile
10Q	Thank You
1FTR	One For The Road
24/7	24 hours a day; 7 days a week
A/S/L?	Age/Sex/Location?
A/S?	Age/Sex?
AAMOF	As A Matter Of Fact
ACK	Acknowledgement
ACRONYM	Abbreviated Coded Rendition Of Name Yielding Meaning
ADD	Attention Deficit Disorder
ADHD	Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder
ADN	Any Day Now
AFAIAC	As Far As I Am Concerned
AFAICR	As Far As I Can Recall
AFAICT	As Far As I Can Tell
AFAIK	As Far As I Know
AFAIR	As Far As I Remember/Recall
AFAIUI	As Far As I Understand It
AFJ	April Fools' Joke
AFK	Away From The Keyboard; Away For A Kwickie
AFL	AbsoFreakinLutely
AFOG	Another Fucking Opportunity for Growth
AHPF	All Hail Pass Fail (via MIT)
YA x AICMFP	You are x and I claim my five pounds (Britishism; via old newspaper promo)
AISB	As I Said Before
AISE	As I Said Earlier
AISI	As I See It
AIUI	As I Understand It
AIW	As It Were/Was
AKA	Also Known As
AMAP	As Much/Many As Possible
ANFAWFOS	And Now For A Word From Our Sponsor
ANSI	American National Standards Institute
AOB	Any Other Business
AP	Age Play
APAC	All Praise And Credit
API	Application Program Interface
ARPA	Advanced Research Projects Agency
AS	Another Subject
ASAP	As Soon As Possible
ASCII	American Standard Code for Information Interchange
ASL	Age-Sex-Location
ASNWS	A Simple No Would Suffice
ATB	All The Best
ATK	At The Keyboard
ATLA	Another Three Letter Acronym
ATM	At The Moment
ATSL	Along The Same Lines
ATTN	Attention
ATTYOB	Anything That Turns You On Baby
AUP	Acceptable Use Policy
AWCIGO	And Where Can I Get One
AWGTHTGTATA	Are We Going To Have To Go Through All This/That Again
AWGTHTGTTA	Are We Going To Have To Go Through This/That Again
AWHFY	Are We Having Fun Yet
AWOL	Absent Without Official Leave
AYBABTU	All Your Base Are Belong To Us
AYMK	As You May Know
AYT	Are You There
B&D	Bondage and Discipline
B/C	Because
B4	Before
B4N	Bye For Now
BAC	By Any Chance
BAD	Broken As Designed
BAG	Busting A Gut
BAGL	Busting A Gut Laughing
BAK	Back At Keyboard
BBB	Busy Beyond Belief
BBFN	Bye Bye For Now
BBIAB	Be Back In A Bit
BBIAS	Be Back In A Sec
BBL	[I'll] Be Back Later
BBM	Big Beautiful Man
BBR	Burnt Beyond Repair
BBS	Bulletin Board System / Be Back Soon
BBT	Be Back Tomorrow
BBW	Big Beautiful Woman
BC	Basket Case
BCC	Blind Carbon Copy
BCNU	Be Seein' You
BDSM	Bondage & Discipline, Dominance & Submission, Sado-Masochism
BDSMLMNOP	BDSM and whatever else we might do
BEG	Big Evil Grin
BF	Boy Friend
BFD	Big Fucking Deal
BFH	Bastard From Hell
BFMI	Brute Force and Massive Ignorance
BFN	Bye For Now
BFNN	Bizarre Format with No Name (document format)
BG	Big Grin
BI	Breidbart Index [the SPAM index of a Usenet post]
BIAB	Back In A Bit
BIAF	Back In A Few
BIALW	back in a little while
BIAS	Back In A Second
BIAW	Back In A While
BIC	Best In Class
BIL	Brother In Law
BION	Believe It Or Not
BIOYIOP	Blow It Out Your Input Output Port
BITD	Back In The Day
BITD	Beaten It To Death
BK	Because
BMHATK	Banging My Head Against The Keyboard
BMHATW	Banging My Head Against The Wall
BMOC	Big Man On Campus
BMTA	Brilliant Minds Think Alike
BMTIPG	Brilliant Minds Think In Parallel Gutters
BNF	Big Name Fan
BOC	But Of Course
BOF	Birds Of a Feather
BOFH	Bastard Operator From Hell
BOHICA	Bend Over, Here It Comes Again
BOHOF	Back Of Hand On Forehead
BOS	Big Orange Switch
BOT	Back On Topic
BOTEC	Back Of The Envelope Calculation
BPD	Borderline Personality Disorder
BRB	[I'll] Be Right Back
BRS	Big Red Switch
BRT	Be Right There
BSG	Big Smiling Grin; Broad Sweeping Generalisation
BSOD	Blue Screen of Death (Windows NT, et al.)
BSTS	Better Safe Than Sorry
BTA	But Then Again
BTAICBW	But Then Again I Could Be Wrong
BTAIM	Be That As It May
BTDT	Been There, Done That
BTDTGTTS	Been There, Done That, Got The T-Shirt
BTOBD	Be There Or Be Dead
BTOBS	Be There Or Be Square
BTSOOM	Beats The Shit Out Of Me
BTTH	Butt To The Head
BTTP	Back To The Point
BTW	By The Way
BWG	Big Wide Grin
BWQ	Buzz Word Quotient
BY	BusY
BYKT	But You Know/Knew That
BYKTA	But You Know/Knew That Already
BYOB	Bring Your Own Bottle/Booze
C&P	Copy & Paste
C/O	Care Of
CADET	Can't Add Doesn't Even Try
CB	Call Back
CB	Chastity Belt
CBT	Cock and Ball Torture/Training
CC	Carbon Copy
CCWC	Can't Cook Won't Cook
CD	Cross Dresser
CE	Creative Editing
CERT	Computer Emergency Response Team
CFD	Call For Discussion
CFV	Call For Votes
CG	Cute Grin
CGI	Common Gateway Interface
CHOWUR	See HOW yoU aRe
CHUR	See How yoU aRe
CIAC	Computer Incident Advisory Capability
CIAO	goodbye [pronounced Chow]
CIC	Christ I'm Confused
CIO	Cut It Out
CIS	Complete and Irrevocable Submission
CLAB	Crying Like A Baby
CLM	Career Limiting Move
CMIIW	Correct Me If I'm Wrong
CNC	Consensual Non Consent
CNP	Continued [In My] Next Post
CO	Clothing Optional
COD	Cash On Delivery
COTFLGUOAHAHA	Crawling On The Floor Laughing Guts Out And Having A Heart Attack
COTS	Commercial Off The Shelf
CP	Corporal Punishment
CPF	Can Pigs Fly
CRC	Cyclic Redundancy Check
CS	Cop Shop
CTS	Carpal Tunnel Syndrome
CTTD	Cute Things They Do
CTTOI	Come To Think Of It
CTTS	Cute Things They Say
CU	See You
CUL	See You Later
CUL8R	See yoU LateR
CW	Continuous Wave (the carrier type used for Morse code communications)
CW	Conventional Wisdom
CWYL	Chat With You Later
CYA	Cover Your Ass
CYA	See Ya
CYA	See You Around
CYL	See You Later
CYT	Cute Young Thing
C\|N>K	"Coffee (piped through) Nose, (redirected to) Keyboard"
D&W	Ducking And Weaving
D/L	Download
D/S or D/s	Dominance and Submission
DADT	Don't Ask, Don't Tell
DAP	Parents Against Dyslexia :)
DARFC	Ducking And Running For Cover
DBA	Doing Business As
DBT	Dialectical Behavior Therapy
DEB	Don't Even Bother
DFM	Don't Flame Me
DFU	Don't Forget Units
DGT	Don't Go There
DID	Dissociative Identity Disorder (used to be MPD)
DIIK	Damned If I Know
DIIN	Damned If I kNow
DILLIGAFF	Do I Look Like I Give A Flying Fuck
DIM	Do It Myself
DIY	Do It Yourself
DK	Don't Know
DKF	Dreaded Koosh Flogger
DL	DownLoad
DLG	Devilish Little Grin
DLTDHYITAOYWO	Dont Let The Door Hit You In The Ass On Your Way Out
DMQ	Do-Me Queen
DNA	Did Not Answer
DNDK	Don't Know, Don't Care
DNO	Do Not Open [used in the subject line of a test post or email]
DNPM	Damn Near Pissed Myself
DNS	Domain Name System
DOA	Dead On Arrival
DOB	Date Of Birth
DOM	Dirty Old Man
DOS	Disk Operating System
DOYC	Deity Of Your Choice
DOYKB	Down On Your Knees, Bitch
DQOTD	Dumb Question Of The Day
DSW	Dick Size War
DTA	Don't Trust Anybody
DTOKAB	Drop To One Knee And Bow
DTP	DeskTop Publishing
DTRT	Do The Right Thing (contrast with DTWT)
DTTAH	Don't Try This At Home
DTWT	Do The Wrong Thing (contrast with DTRT)
DTYD	Drink Till You Drop (party at MIT)
DUCWIC	Do YoU See What I See
DUK	Dead Upon Keyboard
DWAI	Don't Worry About It
DWIM	Do What I Mean
DWIMC	Do What I Mean Correctly
DWIMNWIS	Do What I Mean Not What I Say
DWISNWID	Do What I Say Not What I Do
DWIW	Do What I Want
DWYW	Do What You Want
DYE	Damn Your Eyes
DYHWIH	Do You Hear What I Hear
DYSWIS	Do You See What I See
DoS	Denial of Service
E&OE	Errors And Omissions Excepted
E2EG	Ear to Ear Grin
EANAB	Equally Attractive Non-Alcoholic Beverage
ECP	Excessive Cross Posting
ED	Emotionally Disturbed
EDP	Emotionally Disturbed Person
EG	Evil Grin
EGBOK	Everything is Going to Be OK
EIF	Exercise In Futility
EIP	Everything Is Permissible
EMFBI	Excuse Me For Butting In
EMSG	email message
EOB	End Of Business
EOD	End Of Discussion
EOD	Explosive Ordnance Disposal
EOF	End Of File
EOL	End Of Lecture
EOM	End Of Message
EOT	End Of Thread
EPID	Every Person Is Different
ESOSL	Endless Snorts Of Stupid Laughter
ESP	ESPecially
ETA	Estimated Time Of Arrival
ETLA	Extended Three Letter Acronym
ETOPS	Engines Turn Or Passengers Swim (powerboats)
EWAG	Experienced Wild-Ass Guess
F2F	Face To Face
FA	Fat Admirer, one who prefers a fat sexual/romantic partner
FAIK	For All I Know
FAQ	Frequently Asked Question(s)
FCFS	First Come First Served
FCOL	For Crying Out Loud
FDROTFL	Falling Down Rolling On The Floor Laughing
FF	Fist Fucking
FFR	For Future Reference
FGM	Female Genital Mutilation
FIAWOL	Fandom Is A Way Of Life
FICCL	Frankly I Couldn't Care Less
FIIK	Fuck[ed] If I Know
FIIR	fuck[ed] If I Remember
FIL	Father In Law
FIOFY	Figure It Out For Yourself
FIRST	Forum of Incident Response and Security Teams
FISH	First In Still Here
FITB	Fill In The Blank
FLEA	Four Letter Extended Acronym
FLT	Fermat's Last Theorem
FM	Fibromyalgia
FMTYEWTK	Far More Than You Ever Wanted To Know
FOAD	Fuck Off And Die
FOAF	Friend Of A Friend
FOAFOAG	Father Of A Friend Of A Girlfriend
FOAG	Father Of A Girlfriend
FOD	Finger Of Death
FOS	Freedom Of Speech
FOT	Full Of Tripe
FOTCL	Falling Off The Chair Laughing
FRZ	Fruitin' Religious Zealot
FSD	Fools Seldom Differ
FSDO	For Some Definition Of
FSVO	For Some Value Of
FTASB	Faster Than A Speeding Bullet
FTF	Face To Face
FTL	Faster Than Light
FTM	For That Matter (or Female To Male trans)
FTMP	For The Most Part
FTP	File Transfer Protocol
FTR	For The Record
FTS	Fixin' To Start
FTSO	Fuck The Skull Of
FUBAR	Fucked Up Beyond All [Repair\|Recognition]
FUD	Fear, Uncertainty, And Doubt
FURTB	Full Up Ready To Burst
FWIW	For What It's Worth
FYA	For Your Amusement
FYI	For Your Information
FYIV	Fuck You, I'm Vested
G	Grin
GA	Go Ahead
GAC	Get A Clue
GAFIA	Get Away From It All
GAFIATe	(to) Get Away From It All
GAL	Get A Life
GBH&K	Great Big Hugs & Kisses
GBH&KB	Great Big Hugs & Kisses Back
GCD	Greatest Common Divisor
GD&R	Grinning, Ducking, and Running (after a smart-ass comment)
GD&RF	Grinning Ducking And Running Fast
GD&RVVF	Grinning Ducking And Running Very Very Fast
GD&W	Grinning Ducking And Weaving
GF	Girlfriend
GFR	Grim File Reaper
GG	Genetic Girl
GGN	Gotta Go Now
GGP	Gotta Go Pee
GHOD	General Heuristic Organizing Device
GIF	Graphical Interchange Format
GIGO	Garbage In Garbage Out; Garbage In Gospel Out
GIWIST	Gee I Wish I'd Said That
GJP	Good Job Partner
GL	good luck
GLBT	Gay, Lesbian, Bi, Trans
GLG	Goofy Little Grin
GLGH	Good Luck and Good Hunting
GMT	Greenwich Mean Time [UK Time]
GMTA	Great Minds Think Alike
GOAT	Go Away, Troll
GOK	God Only Knows
GOOML	Get Out Of My Life
GOTFIA	Groaning On The Floor In Agony
GOWI	Get On With It
GPF	General Protection Fault
GRQ	Get Rich Quick (a type of spam - compare MMF)
GRUIT	Get Real yoU Impudent Thing
GS	Golden Shower
GTBOS	Glad To Be Of Service
GTG	Got To Go
GTGN	Got To Go Now
GTP	Got To Pee
H&K	Hugs & Kisses
H2	How To
HAK	Hugs And Kisses
HAND	Have A Nice Day
HCB	Holy Cow Batman
HHGTTG	Hitch Hiker's Guide To The Galaxy
HHIS	Hanging Head In Shame
HHO1/2K	Ha Ha Only Half Kidding
HHOJ	Ha Ha Only Joking
HHOK	Ha Ha, Only Kidding
HHOS	Ha Ha, Only Serious
HHVF	Ha Ha, Very Funny
HIB__	Have I Been ___________
HICA	Here It Comes Again
HNG	Horny Net Geek
HOMPR	Hang On Mobile Phone's Ringing
HOPR	Hang On Phone's Ringing
HOS	Husband Over Shoulder
HOUER	Hanging On yoUr Every Word
HOYER	Hanging On Your Every Word
HP	Home Page
HSF	(variants: H-S-F, HSF) Hand-Staple-Forehead (theatrical angst)
HSIK	How Should I Know
HSP	Highly Sensitive Person
HTH	Hope This Helps (often used with HAND)
HTML	HyperText Markup Language
HTTP	HyperText Transfer Protocol
HW	HardWare
HWNINS	He whose name is not spoken
HWP	Height and Weight Proportional (i.e.: "normal" build)
HWSNBN	He Who Should Not Be Named
HWWNBN	He Who Will Not Be Named
IAAA	I Am An Accountant
IAAD	I Am A Doctor
IAAL	I Am A Lawyer
IAC	In Any Case
IAE	In Any Event
IAGFII	It's All Good Fun Isn't It
IAMFI	I Ask Merely For Information
IAMTA	I Ask Merely To Annoy
IANA	Internet Assigned Numbers Authority
IANAA	I Am Not An Accountant
IANAC	I Am Not A Crook
IANAD	I Am Not A Doctor
IANAL	I Am Not A Lawyer
IANALBIPOOTV	I Am Not A Lawyer But I Play One On TV
IANYM	In A New York Minute
IANYS	In A New York Second
IAP	Internet Access Provider
IARTPFWTSIOWIM	I Am Repeating This Parrot Fashion Without The Slightest Idea Of What It Means
IAW	In Accordance With
IAWC	In A While Crocodile [usually used to reply to SYLA(cf)]
IBC	Inadequate But Cute
IBM	Inadequate But Marketable
IBTD	I Beg To Differ
IC	I See
ICB	I Care Because
ICBW	I Could Be Wrong
ICCL	I Couldn't Care Less
ICOCBW	I Could Of Course Be Wrong
ICP	Internet Content Provider
ICTYBTIHTKY	I Could Tell You But Then I'd Have To Kill You
ICUR	I See yoU aRe
ICYWC	In Case You Were Curious
IDGI	I Don't Get It
IDIC	Infinite Diversity in Infinite Combinations (via Star Trek)
IDK	I Don't Know
IDTS	I Don't Think So
IDTT	I'll Drink To That
IERS	International Earth Rotation Service
IETF	Internet Engineering Task Force
IETGFTP	It's Easier To Get Forgiveness Than Permission
IHABICNRWTSF	I Hate Abbreviations Because I Can Never Remember What They Stand For :)
IHAFC	I Haven't A Fucking Clue
IHNFC	I have No Fucking Clue
IHNJ,IJLTS	I Have No Joke, I Just Like To Say... (via David Letterman)
IHTBS	It Has To Be Shown
IHTFP	I Hate This Fucking Place
IIABDFI	If It Ain't Broke Don't Fix It
IIANM	If I Am Not Mistaken
IINM	If I'm Not Mistaken
IIRC	If I Recall/Remember Correctly
IITYWIMWYBMAD	If I Tell You What It Means Will You Buy Me A Drink
IITYWITIWHTKY	If I Tell You What It Means I Will Have To Kill You
IITYWYBAD	If I Tell You, Will You Buy Another Drink
IITYWYBMAB	If I Tell You, Will You Buy Me A Beer
IJLS	I Just Like Saying
IK	I Know
IKWUM	I Know What yoU Mean
IKWYM	I Know What You Mean
ILI	I Like Ike
ILICISCOMK	I Laughed; I Cried; I Spilled Coffee/Coke On My Keyboard
ILIWAPCT	I Love It When A Plan Comes Together
ILTFP	I Love This Place
ILU	I Love yoU
ILY	I Love You
IM	Instant Message
IMAO	In My Arrogant Opinion
IMBO	In My Biased Opinion
IMCDO	In My Conceited Dogmatic Opinion
IMCO	In My Considered Opinion
IME	In My Experience/Estimation
IMHO	In My Humble/Honest Opinion
IMMOR	I Make My Own Rules
IMNSHO	In My Not So Humble Opinion
IMO	In My Opinion
IMOBO	In My Own Biased Opinion
IMPE	In My Personal/Previous Experience
IMPOV	In My Point Of View
IMS	I Must Say
IMSLTHO	In My Slightly/Somewhat Less Than Humble Opinion
IMVHO	In My Very Humble Opinion
IMX	In My eXperience (perferred form: IME)
INGSI	I'm Not Going To Say It
INPO	In No Particular Order
INT	I'll Never Tell
IOTTMCO	Intuitively Obvious To The Most Casual Observer
IOU	I Owe You
IOW	In Other Words
IP	Internet Protocol
IR	Inter Racial
IRC	Internet Relay Chat
IRL	In Real Life
IROOC	I've Run Out Of Cigarettes
IRT	In Reply To, In Regard To
ISBAB	I Should Have Brought A Book
ISC	I Stand Corrected
ISDN	Integrated Services Digital Network
ISO	In Search Of
ISP	Internet Service Provider
ISTM	It Seems To Me
ISTR	I Seem To Recall/Remember
IT	Information Technology
ITAS	It Takes All Sorts
ITFA	In The Final Analysis
ITMA	Its That Man Again
ITMT	In The MeanTime
ITPIR	If The Price Is Right
ITSFWI	If The Shoe Fits, Wear It
ITYM	I Think You Mean
IUTHALORFH	I Used To Have A Lot Of Respect For Him/Her
IUTKATS	I Used To Know All That Stuff
IWBNI	It Would Be Nice If
IWIK	I Wish I Knew
IYF	In Your Face
IYFEG	Insert Your Favourite Ethnic Group
IYKWIM	If You Know What I Mean
IYKWIMAITYD	If You Know What I Mean And I Think You Do
IYSWIM	If You See What I Mean
J/K	Just Kidding
JAFO	Just Another Fucking Observer
JAM	Just A Moment/Minute
JAO	Just Another Observer
JAPH	Just A Perl Hacker
JAS	Just A Second
JC	Just Curious
JFF	Just For Fun
JFTR	Just For The Record
JFYI	Just For Your Information
JIC	Just In Case
JK	Just Kidding
JMHO	Just My Humble Opinion
JMO	Just My Opinion
JMOOC	Just My Opinion Of Course
JOOC	Just Out of Curiosity
JPEG	Joint Photographic Experts Group
JSYK	Just So You Know
JTLYK	Just To Let You Know
JTUSK	Just Thought yoU Should Know
JTYWTK	Just Thought You Wanted To Know
KHYF	Know How You Feel
KIA	Know It All
KISS	Keep It Simple Stupid
KIT	Keep In Touch
KITA	kick in the ass
KLB	Known Lazy Bastard
KMWIH	Kick Me Where It Hurts
KMYF	Kiss Me You Fool
KNF	kernel normal form
KOS	Kids Over Shoulder
KOTC	Kiss On The Cheek
KOTL	Kiss On The Lips
KTCOOTN	Keep This Crap Out Of This Newsgroup
KWIM	Know What I Mean
KYHOOTW	Keep Your Head Out Of The Water
KYHU	Keep Your Head Up
L8R	Later
LAB&TYD	Life's A Bitch & Then You Die
LAB&TYMO	Life's A Bitch And Then You Marry One
LALL	Live And Let Live
LAN	Local Area Network
LARP	Live Action Role Playing
LART	Luser Attitude Readjustment Tool (a.k.a. Clue-by-Four)
LDR	Long Distance Relationship
LJBF	Let's Just Be Friends
LLAP	Live Long And Prosper
LLD	Leather Lifestyle Dork
LLTA	Lots And Lots Of Thunderous Applause
LMA	Leave Me Alone
LMAO	Laughing My Ass Off
LMC	Lost My Connection
LMCOA	Lost My Connection Once Again
LMK	Let Me Know
LMSO	Laughing My Socks Off
LNF	Late Night Food
LOL	Laughing Out Loud
LPOS	Losing Piece of Shit
LSFIAB	Like Shooting Fish In A Barrel
LSHIPMP	Laughing So Hard I Peed My Pants
LSHIS	Laughed So Hard I Shit
LSP	Less Sensitive Person
LTBF	Learn To Be Funny
LTIP	Laughing 'Til I Puke
LTMS	Laughing To MySelf
LTMSH	Laughing 'Til My Sides Hurt
LTNS	Long Time No See
LTNT	Long Time No Type
LTR	Long Term Relationship
LTUAE	Life, The Universe, And Everything [Hitch-Hiker's Guide To The Galaxy]
LUSER	Loser USER
LoTR	Lord of The Rings
MAY	Mad About You
MAYB	Mad About You Baby
MB	Message Board
MBR	Master Boot Record
MCIBTY	My Computer Is Better Than Yours
MEU	(Henry Fowler's) Modern English Usage (OUP, ed. by R.W. Burchfield)
MFG	More Friendly Garbage
MHBFY	My Heart Bleeds For You
MHDC	My Hard Drive Crashed
MHM	Members Helping Members
MHOTY	My Hat's Off To You
MIL	Mother In Law
MIPS	Meaningless Information Per Second
ML	More Later
MLA	Multiple Letter Acronym
MMF	Make Money Fast (spam)
MOF	Matter Of Fact
MOMN	Milk Out My Nose
MOOS	Member Of Opposite Sex (usage at Brown U.)
MORF	Male OR Female
MOS	Member of the Opposite Sex
MOSS	Member Of Same Sex (usage at Brown U.)
MOTAS	Member Of The Appropriate Sex
MOTD	Message Of The Day
MOTIS	Member Of The Inappropriate Sex
MOTOPS	Member of the Oppositely-Plumbed Sex
MOTOS	Member Of The Opposite Sex
MOTSS	Member Of The Same Sex
MPD	Multiple Personality Disorder
MSCEA	My Southern Comfort's Empty Again
MSS	Member of the Same Sex
MTF	More To Follow (or Male to Female trans)
MTFBWY	May The Force Be With You
MUNG	Mung Until No Good (recursive acronym in fine old Unix tradition)
MYOB	Mind Your Own Business
N/M	Never Mind
NAGI	Not A Good Idea
NANAE	news.admin.net-abuse.email [Usenet newsgroup]
NANAU	news.admin.net-abuse.usenet [Usenet newsgroup]
NAVY	Never Again Volunteer Yourself
NAYY	Not Affiliated, Yada-Yada [origin unknown]
NB	Nota Bene [Latin for Note Well; i.e. what follows is important]
NBD	No Big Deal
NBL	Not Bloody Likely
NBTD	Nothing Better To Do
NC	Non-Consensual
NDM	No Disrespect Meant
NERD	National Establishment for Real Dorks
NFC	No Fucking Clue
NFI	No Fucking Idea
NFR	Not Flame Related
NFW	no fucking way
NG	News Group
NHOH	Never Heard Of Her/Him
NICBDAT	Nothing Is Certain But Death And Taxes
NIDWTC	No I Don't Want To Chat
NIH	Not Invented Here
NIMBY	Not In My Back Yard
NIMTO	Not In My Term Of Office
NINO	Nothing In Nothing Out
NIT	Not In Therapy
NLA	National Leather Association
NLI	Not Logged In
NM	Never Mind
NMI	No Middle Initial
NMP	Not My Problem
NN	Night Night
NNTP	Network News Transfer Protocol
NOOTO	Nothing Out Of The Ordinary
NOYB	None Of Your Business
NOYL	Not On Your Life
NP	No Picture [used in the subject title of an email]
NP	No Problem
NPF	No Problem Found
NPLU	Not People Like Us
NQA	No Questions Asked
NQOS	Not Quite Our Sort
NRE	New Relationship Energy
NRFPT	not ready for prime time
NRN	No Reply Necessary
NTG	Not Too Good
NTH	No Therapy Helpful
NTIBOA	Not That I'm Bitter Or Anything
NTIM	Not That It Matters
NTIMM	Not That It Matters Much
NTL	None The Less/Never The Less
NTYMI	Now That You Mention It
NUI	Network User Identification
NYCTMI	Now You Come To Mention It
NYI	Not Yet Implemented
NYM	New York Minute
NYP	Not Your Problem
NoCeM	No See 'eM
OATUS	On A Totally Unrelated Subject
OAUS	On An Unrelated Subject
OB	OBligatory
OBE	Overtaken By Events (see OTBE)
OBTW	Oh By The Way
OD	OverDose; Oh Dear
OFS	One Finger Salute [the 'bird']
OIC	Oh I See
OMG	Oh My God
ONNA	Oh No Not Again
ONNTA	Oh No Not That/This Again
OO	Over and Out
OOC	Out Of Curiosity
OOI	Out Of Interest
OOSOOM	Out Of Sight Out Of Mind
OOTC	Obligatory On Topic Comment
OOTD	One Of These Days
OOTQ	Out Of The Question
OT	Off-Topic
OT1H	On The One Hand
OTBE	OverTaken By Events
OTC	Over The Counter
OTD	Out The Door
OTF	On The Floor [mad laughter]
OTGH	On The Gripping Hand (via "The Mote in God's Eye"; implies multi-valued logic.)
OTK	Over The Knee
OTL	Out To Lunch
OTOH	On The Other Hand
OTOOH	On The Other Other Hand
OTT	Over The Top
OTTH	On The Third Hand
OTTOMH	Off The Top Of My Head
OTW	On The Whole
OTW	One True Way
OW	Oh Well
OWTTE	Or Words To That Effect
P&M	Posted & Mailed
PABG	Pack A Big Gun
PAW	Parents Are Watching
PBM	Play By Mail (games)
PCB	Please Call Back
PCF	Puritanical Control Freaks
PCMCIA	Personal Computer Memory Card International Association (People Can't Memorize Computer Industry Acronyms)
PD	Public Domain
PDA	Public Display of Affection
PDG	Pretty Damn Good
PDN	Public Data Network
PDQ	Pretty Damned Quickly
PEM	Privacy Enhanced Mail
PEST	Please Excuse Slow Typing
PFHOMW	Printed, Framed, and Hanging On My Wall
PFY	pimply faced youth
PGP	Pretty Good Privacy
PHB	Pointy-Haired Boss (Dilbert)
PIMP	Pee In My Pants
PITA	Pain In The Ass
PIV	Penis-In-Vagina (type of sex)
PKB	Pot [calling the] Kettle Black
PLMK	Please Let Me Know
PLMKO	Please Let Me Know Ok
PLOKTA	Press Lots Of Keys To Abort
PMBI	Pardon My Butting In
PMETC	Pardon Me ETC
PMFBI	Pardon Me For Butting In
PMFJI	Pardon Me For Jumping In
PMFJIH	Pardon Me For Jumping In Here
PMJI	Pardon My Jumping In
PMYMHMMFSWGAD	Pardon Me, You Must Have Mistaken Me For Someone Who Gives A Damn
PNG	Persona Non Grata
POA	Power Of Attorney
POC	Point Of Contact
POETS	Piss Off Early Tomorrow's Saturday
POLA	Principle Of Least Astonishment
POM	Phase Of the Moon
POP	Point Of Presence; Post Office Protocol
POQADCB	Piss Off Quickly And Don't Come Back
POS	Parents Over Shoulder
POS	Piece of Shit
POSSLQ	Person of the Opposite Sex Sharing Living Quarters
POTS	Plain Old Telephone Service/System
POV	Point Of View
ppl	people
PPL	Pretty Please
PPP	Point-to-Point Protocol; Petty Pet Peeve
PPPP	Previous Paragraph was Polemical Position
PS	Post Script
PSA	Public Service Announcement
PTB	Powers That Be
PTMM	Please Tell Me More
PTMY	Pleased To Meet You
PTMYA	Pleased To Make Your Acquaintance
PVFS	Post Viral Fatigue Syndrome
PW	Pathetic Wanker; PowWow
PhD	Piled Higher and Deeper
QED	Quid Erat Demonstrandum; Quite Easily Done
QEF	Quod Erat Faciendum (which was to be done)
QPQ	Quid Pro Quo
RE	REgarding
RFC	Request For Comment
RFD	Request For Discussion
RFM	Reply To Flagged Message
RFT	Request For Thinking
RHIP	Rank Hath Its Privileges
RHPS	Rocky Horror Picture Show
RL	Real Life
RLC	Rod Length Check
RLCO	Real Life COnference
RNA	Ring No Answer
ROFFNAR	Rolling On the Floor For No Apparent Reason
ROFL	Rolling On Floor Laughing
ROFLASTC	Rolling On The Floor Laughing And Scaring The Cat
ROFLMAOPMP	Rolling On Floor Laughing My Ass Off Peeing My Pants
ROFLMHO	Rolling On Floor Laughing My Head Off
ROFLWPIMP	Rolling On Floor Laughing Whilst Peeing In My Pants
ROTBA	Reality On The Blink Again
ROTF	Rolling On The Floor
ROTFL	Rolling On The Floor Laughing
ROTFLAS	Rolling On The Floor Laughing And Snorting
ROTFLMAAOBPO	Rolling On The Floor Laughing My Ass And Other Body Parts Off
ROTFLMAO	Rolling On The Floor Laughing My Ass Off
ROTFLMAOSTC	Rolling On The Floor Laughing My Ass Off And Scaring The Cat
ROTFLPMP	Rolling On The Floor Laughing, Peeing My Pants
ROTFLSHISMC	Rolling On The Floor Laughing So Hard I Spilt My Coffee
ROTFLWM	Rolling On The Floor Laughing, Wetting Myself
ROTM	Right On The Money
RP	responsible person
RPG	Role Playing Game
RSN	Real Soon Now
RT	Real Time
RTFB	Read The [Fucking\|Fine] Book
RTFM	Read The [Fucking\|Fine] Manual
RTFMP	Read The [Fucking\|Fine] Man Page
RTFS	Read The [Fucking\|Fine] Source
RTFSA	Read the Fucking Stock Answer
RTS	Read The Screen
RUMF	aRe yoU Male or Female
RUMORF	aRe yoU Male Or Female
RW	Real World
SAD	Seasonal Affective Disorder
SAM	Smart Assed Masochist
SASS	Short Attention Span Society/Syndrome
SCA	Society for Creative Anachronism
SCFTHI	Smiley Captioned for the Humor-Impaired
SCNR	Sorry; Could Not Resist
SD	Sensory Deprivation
SEC	SECond (wait a second)
SEP	Somebody Else's Problem
SFA	Sweet Fuck All
SFAIAA	So Far As I Am Aware
SFDH	Shit Flows Down Hill
SFLA	Stupid Four Letter Acronym
SFP	Self-Fulfulling Prophecy
SGML	Standardised Generalised Markup Language
SHAM	Stay At Home Mom
SHID	Slaps Head In Disgust
SHTSI	Somebody Had To Say It
SIG	Special Interest Group
SIIK	Stuffed If I Know
SIK	Society for Interactive Killing (LARP)
SIL	Sister In Law
SITD	Still In The Dark
SLIP	Serial Line Interface Protocol
SM	Sado-Masochism, Sex Magick
SMLSFB	So Many Losers, So Few Bullets
SMO	Serious Mode On
SMOF	Secret Master Of Fandom (the people who really get things done)
SMOFF	Serious Mode OFF
SMOP	Simple Matter Of Programming
SMTP	Simple Mail Transfer Protocol
SNAFU	Situation Normal, All Fucked Up
SNERT	Snot-Nosed Egotistical Rude Teenager
SNR	Signal to Noise Ratio
SO	Significant Other
SOB	Son Of a Bitch
SOHB	Sense Of Humour Bypass
SOI	Stink On Ice
SOL	Shit Outta Luck
SOML	Story Of My Life
SOP	Standard Operating Procedure
SOP	Standing Operational Proceedures
SOVS	SomeOne Very Special
SOW	Speaking Of Which
SPAM	SPiced hAM [refers to unsolicited commercial email]
SQO	Some Quantity Of
SSC	Safe, Sane, Consensual
SSDD	Same Shit, Different Day
ST	Such That; Star Trek
STBY	Sucks To Be You
STD	Sexually Transmitted Disease
STFU	Shut The Fuck Up
STFW	Search The [Fine\|Fucking] Web
STI	Sexually Transmitted Infection
STL	SomeThing Like
STR	Spot The Reference
STS	So To Speak
SUNOILTY	Shut Up No One Is Listening To You
SUS	stupid user syndrome
SUT	Stupid User Tricks
SW	SoftWare; So What; Says Who
SWAG	Scientific Wild Ass Guess
SWAHBI	Silly, Wild-Assed Hare-Brained Idea
SWAK	Sealed With A Kiss
SWALK	Sealed With A Loving Kiss
SWDYRTW	Since When Do You Rule The Web
SWEIN	So What Else Is New
SWMBO	She Who Must Be Obeyed
SWYP	So What's Your Problem
SYSOP	SYStem OPerator
SYT	Sweet Young Thing
TAF	That's All Folks
TAFN	That's All For Now
TANJ	There Ain't No Justice
TANSTAAFL	There Ain't No Such Thing As A Free Lunch
TANSTASQ	There Ain't No Such Thing As A Stupid Question
TAWIS	That Ain't What I Said
TBC	To Be Continued
TBD	to be {decided,determined,done}
TBE	To Be Expected
TBH	To Be Honest
TBYB	Try Before You Buy
TC	Telephone Call; Take Care
TCB	Taking Care of Business
TCD	The Cat's Dead
TDD	The Dog's Dead
TENS	Transcutaneous Electrical Nerve Stimulator
TEOTWAWKI	The End Of The World As We Know It
TFS	Three Fingered Salute
TFTB	Topping From The Bottom
TFTHAOT	Thanks For The Help Ahead Of Time
TFTT	Thanks For The Thought
TG	TransGendered
TGAL	Think Globally Act Locally
TGIF	Thank God It's Friday
TGTF	Thank God Tomorrow's Friday
THOK	Thundering Horde Of Kittens
TIA	Thanks In Advance
TIATLG	Truly I Am The Living God
TIC	Tongue In Cheek
TIME	Tears In My Eyes
TIMTOWTDI	There Is More Than One Way To Do It
TINALO	This Is Not A Legal Opinion
TINAR	This Is Not A Recommendation
TINC	There Is No Cabal (in response to any mention of the Cabal)
TINWIS	That Is Not What I Said
TIP	To Insure Promptness
TIWTGLGG	This Is Where The Goofy Little Grin Goes
TJATAW	Truth Justice And The American Way
TJATAW	Truth, Justice, And The American Way
TLA	Three Letter Acronym
TLC	Tender Loving Care
TLG	The Living God
TM	Thread Mangler
TMA	Too Many Abbreviations
TMI	Too Much Information
TMIKTLIU	The More I Know The Less I Understand
TMPTAWWTLO	The Missionary Position Twice a Week With the Lights Out
TMTOWTDI	There's More Than One Way To Do it (Perl's motto)
TN	TelNet
TNOTVS	There's Nothing On TeleVision So
TNX	Thanks
TOBAL	There Oughta Be A Law
TOBG	This Oughta Be Good
TOCOTOX	TOo COmplicated TO eXplain
TOS	Terms Of Service
TOTBAL	There Ought To Be A Law
TPAE	The Possibilities Are Endless
TPE	Total Power Exchange
TPTB	The Powers That Be
TRDMC	Tears Running Down My Cheeks
TS	Top Secret
TS	TransSexual
TSOHF	Total Sense Of Humour Failure
TSR	Terminate and Stay Resident (program); Totally Stupid Rules
TTBE	That's To Be Expected
TTBOMK	To The Best Of My Knowledge
TTFN	Ta Ta For Now
TTL4N	That's The Lot For Now
TTM	To The Moderator
TTSP	This Too Shall Pass
TTUL	Talk/Type To yoU Later
TTYL	Talk To You Later
TTYRS	Talk To You Real Soon
TTYS	Talk To You Soon
TTYT	Talk To You Tomorrow
TTYTT	To Tell You The Truth
TV	Transvestite
TWAIN	Technology Without An Important Name
TWIAVBP	The World Is a Very Big Place
TWIMC	To Whom It May Concern
TWIS	That's What I Said
TWYAS	That's What You All Say
TWYT	That's What You Think
TY	Thank You
TYVM	Thank You Very Much
UALI	Used, Abused, and Loving It
U/L	UpLoad
UAE	Unrecoverable Application Error
UBE	Unsolicited Bulk Email
UCE	Unsolicited commercial e-mail (spam)
UFLA	Unidentified Four Letter Acronym
UL	UpLoad
UOK	yoU OK?
URL	Uniform Resource Locator
URLCM	yoU aRe weLCoMe
USU	USUally
UTC	Under The Counter
UTSL	Use The Source, Luke
UTT	Under The Table
UUCP	Unix-to-Unix CoPy
VBG	Very Big Grin
VEG	Very Evil Grin
VH	Virtual Hug
VR	Virtual Reality
VRML	Virtual Reality Modelling Language
VT	Virtual Time
W	With
WO	WithOut
W8	Wait
W8ING	Waiting
WAB	What Another Bill
WAEF	When All Else Fails
WAG	Wild-Ass Guess
WALOC	What A Load Of Crap
WAN	Wide Area Network
WB	Welcome Back
WCAGA	What Comes Around Goes Around
WDYMBT	What Do You Mean By That
WFM	Works For Me
WIBAMU	Well I'll Be A Monkey's Uncle
WIBNI	Wouldn't It Be Nice If
WIBNIF	Wouldn't It Be Nice IF
WIITWD	Whatever It Is That We Do
WIITWDH	Whatever It Is That We Do Here
WLOG	without loss of generality
WMMOWS	Wash My Mouth Out With Soap
WOA	Work Of Art
WOB	Waste of Bandwidth
WOFTAM	waste of fucking time and money
WOM	Word Of Mouth
WOMBAT	Waste Of Money Brains And Time
WRT	With Regard/Respect To
WS	Water Sports
WTF	{What,Where,Who,Why} The Fuck
WTG	Way To Go (Well Done!)
WTH	{What,Where,Who,Why} The Hell
WTMI	Way Too Much Information (see TMI)
WWW	World Wide Web; World Wide Wait
WWWWW	Which Was What We Wanted
WYGIWYG	What You Got Is What You Get
WYGIWYPF	What You Get Is What You Pay For
WYP	What's Your Point?
WYSBYGI	What You See Before You Get It
WYSIWYG	What You See Is What You Get
WYSOH	Where's Your Sense Of Humour?
WYTYSYDG	What You Thought You Saw, You Didn't Get
XYZ	eXamine Your Zipper
Y2K	The Year 2000
YABA	Yet Another Bloody Acronym
YAFA	Yet Another Fucking Abbreviation
YAFGE	Yet Another Fucking Growth Experience
YAOTM	Yet Another Off-Topic Message
YAP	Yet Another Ploy
YCLIU	You Can Look It Up
YGGM	Your Guess is as Good as Mine
YGLT	You're Gonna Love This
YGTBK	You've Got To Be Kidding
YHBW	You Have Been Warned
YHB	You Have Been
YHL	You Have Lost
YHTBT	You Had To Be There
YKINMK	Your Kink Is Not My Kink
YKINMKBTOK	You Kink Is Not My Kink But That's OK
YKINMKBYKIOK	Your Kink Is Not My Kink But Your Kink Is OK
YKINOK	Your Kink Is Not OK (bigotry)
YKIOK	Your Kink Is OK
YKIOKBINMK	Your Kink Is OK But It's Not My Kink
YKIOKIJNMK	Your Kink Is OK, It's Just Not My Kink
YKMV	Your Kilometrage May Vary
YKWIM	You Know What I Mean
YKYATP	You Know You're A Tired Parent
YKYBHTLW	You Know You've Been Hacking Too Long When...
YKYBRUTLW	You Know You've Been Reading Usenet Too Long When...
YKYBSTWTLW	You Know You've Been Surfing The Web Too Long When
YKYWT	You Know You Want To
YM x	You [mean\|misspelled] x (frequently followed by HTH HAND)
YMBJ	You Must Be Joking
YMMV	Your Mileage May Vary
YOYO	You're On Your Own
YOYOW	You Own Your Own Words
YR	Yeah Right
YT	Yours Truly
YW	You're Welcome
YWSYLS	You Win Some You Lose Some
ZN	ZiffNet
eom	End Of Message (nearly always seen in lower case)
frex	For Example

Happy Thai Pongal

activj@activj.net (s.j.jeyaram at gmail dot com) — Sat, 13 Jan 2007 09:22:00 +0000

Wishing that this festival is one, which brings good luck and prosperity and hoping that it is joyous, and fills your days ahead with happiness. Have a wonderful Pongal.

The first day of Pongal known as 'Bhogi Pongal' is a day for familygathering and is dedicated to Lord Indra, the king of the deities andGod of the Clouds and Rains. It is also the beginning of the New Yearaccording to the Malayalam calendar and before sunrise, a hugebonfire of useless things in home is lit that is kept burningthroughout the night. The houses are then cleaned till they shine andare decorated with Kolams painted using rice four. The harvest ofrice, turmeric and sugarcane is brought in for next day.

The second day of Pongal known as 'Surya Pongal' is dedicated to theSun God. The granaries are kept full on this day and Sun God with hisrays are painted on a plank as he is worshipped with the birth of thenew auspicious month of Thai. Since the word 'Ponga' means 'to boil'representing plentiful and excess yield, a special dish is cooked onthis day in a new mud-pot that comes in innovative shapes and haveartistic designs on them called 'Pongapani'. A colorful sugarcanemarket is also set up on this day. The special dish is called'Sarkkarai Pongal' and is offered to Sun God with sugarcane sticks.

The third day known as 'Mattu Pongal' is dedicated to the cattle ascowherds and shepherds pay thanks to their cows and bulls, wash them,paint their horns and cover them with shining metal caps. They arefed 'pongal' and tinkling bells are tied around their neck. Cattleraces are conducted and in the game called 'Manji Virattu' groups ofyoung men chase running bulls. Bull fights called 'Jallikattu' arealso arranged at some places where young men have to take the moneybags tied to the horns of ferocious bulls single-handedly and withoutthe use of arms.

The third day is celebrated as 'Kanni Pongal' when unmarried girlscooks Ponggal wishing for wedding bells soon.

Pongal, as all Indian festivals, have interesting legends attached toit. Originated as a Dravidian harvest festival, it has found nomention in Indo-Aryan Puranas. According to the popular legend, thefirst day of the festival known as Bhogi Pongal was once dedicated toLord Indra. The child Krishna came to know of the pride and arroganceof Indra on being the king of the deities and that he thought himselfto be the most powerful of all the beings. He conjured a plan toteach him a lesson. When, as usual, his father and other villagerswho were cowherds by profession, were preparing for the festival andofferings to Indra, Krishna objected and persuaded them to worship MtGovardhan instead, as it gave them fodder for their cattle. WhenIndra came to know of this, he considered it a heresy of thevillagers and sent thunderous pours, storms and lightning to drownthem and punish them.

However, Lord Krishna had other plans in mind and he lifted up theGovardhan mountain on his little finger to protect the cowherds andtheir cattle. The simpletons tried to help him by putting their ownsticks in the mountain out of love. The rains continued for threedays and at last Indra realized his mistake and divine power of theyoung boy. He promised humility and begged Krishna's forgiveness.Since then, Krishna allowed to let the Bhogi celebrations continue inhonor of Indra. A beautiful depiction of the scene can be scene atMahabalipuram where Krishna lifting Govardhan has been carvedskilfully and since then the origin of the festival of Pongal cameinto being.

Another legend associated to the third day of Pongal known as MattuPongal involves Lord Shiva and his mount, Nandi the bull. It is saidthat once Shiva ordered Nandi to go to the Earth and deliver hismessage to the people that they should take oil bath every day andeat food once a month. However, the dozing Nandi could not hear themessage right and told the people to eat everyday and take oil bathonce a month. Shiva was furious and said that due to his folly, therewill be lack of grains on the Earth and so he would have to remain onEarth to help humans plough the fields.

Thanks:anurai

How software development works?

activj@activj.net (s.j.jeyaram at gmail dot com) — Thu, 04 Jan 2007 04:13:00 +0000

Brainstorming

activj@activj.net (s.j.jeyaram at gmail dot com) — Thu, 23 Nov 2006 14:19:00 +0000

Some people frequently use this word "Brainstorm/Brainstorming", but i didn't know the meaning. Luckily I got a book two/three weeks before, it clearly talks about "Brainstorming". Brainstorming is a creativity technique of generating ideas to solve a problem. Last two weeks with the help of Google and some other books, I collected lots of information about brainstorming for my knowledge. I've posted those informations in a proper organized form. Most of the contents & diagrams from wikipedia & Jahn Chards "Decision Making Techniques" book.

Some Def:

Brainstorming is a process for generating new ideas
Brainstorming is "a conference technique by which a group attempts to find a solution for a specific problem by amassing all the ideas spontaneously by its members" - Alex Osborn
To brainstorm is to use a set of specific rules and techniques which encourage and spark off new ideas which would never have happened under normal circumstances

Brainstorming is a useful and popular tool that you can use to develop highly creative solutions to a problem.

It is particularly helpful when you need to break out of stale, established patterns of thinking, so that you can develop new ways of looking at things. This can be when you need to develop new opportunities, where you want to improve the service that you offer, or when existing approaches just aren't giving you the results you want.

Used with your team, it helps you bring the experience of all team members into play during problem solving.

This increases the richness of solutions explored (meaning that you can find better solutions to the problems you face, and make better decisions.) It can also help you get buy in from team members for the solution chosen - after all, they have helped create that solution.

Wikipedia says:

Brainstorming is a creativity technique of generating ideas to solve a problem. The main result of a brainstorm session may be a complete solution to the problem, a list of ideas for an approach to a subsequent solution, or a list of ideas resulting in a plan to find a solution.

Brainstorming and Lateral Thinking

Brainstorming is a lateral thinking process. It asks that people come up with ideas and thoughts that seem at first to be a bit shocking or crazy. You can then change and improve them into ideas that are useful, and often stunningly original.

During brainstorming sessions there should therefore be no criticism of ideas: You are trying to open up possibilities and break down wrong assumptions about the limits of the problem. Judgments and analysis at this stage will stunt idea generation.
Ideas should only be evaluated at the end of the brainstorming session - you can then explore solutions further using conventional approaches.If your ideas begin to dry up, you can 'seed' the session with, for example, a random word (see Random Input).

Individual Brainstorming

When you brainstorm on your own you will tend to produce a wider range of ideas than with group brainstorming - you do not have to worry about other people's egos or opinions, and can therefore be more freely creative. You may not, however, develop ideas as effectively as you do not have the experience of a group to help you.

When Brainstorming on your own, it can be helpful to use Mind Maps to arrange and develop ideas.

Group Brainstorming

Group brainstorming can be very effective as it uses the experience and creativity of all members of the group. When individual members reach their limit on an idea, another member's creativity and experience can take the idea to the next stage. Therefore, group brainstorming tends to develop ideas in more depth than individual brainstorming.

Brainstorming in a group can be risky for individuals. Valuable but strange suggestions may appear stupid at first sight. Because of such, you need to chair sessions tightly so that uncreative people do not crush these ideas and leave group members feeling humiliated.

Applictions

Brainstorming has many applications but it is most often used in:

New product development - obtaining ideas for new products and improving existing products
Advertising - developing ideas for advertising campaigns
Problem solving - issues, root causes, alternative solutions, impact analysis, evaluation
Process management - finding ways of improving business and production processes
Project Management - identifying client objectives, risks, deliverables, work packages, resources, roles and responsibilities, tasks, issues
Team building - generates sharing and discussion of ideas while stimulating participants to think
Business planning – develop and improve the product idea.
Advertising campaigns
Marketing strategy and methods
Research and Development procedures
Research techniques
Patents
Physical products
Written documents and articles
Services
Processes
Engineering components
Government policies
Consumer research
Factories
Management methods
Company structure and policy
Investment decisions
New industries
Better insurance policies
New and better ... whatever you want!

History

In 1941 Alex Osborn, an advertising executive, found that conventional business meetings were inhibiting the creation of new ideas and proposed some rules designed to help stimulate them. He was looking for rules which would give people the freedom of mind and action to spark off and reveal new ideas. To "think up" was originally the term he used to describe the process he developed, and that in turn came to be known as "brainstorming". He described brainstorming as "a conference technique by which a group attempts to find a solution for a specific problem by amassing all the ideas spontaneously by its members". The rules he came up with are the following:

No criticism of ideas
Go for large quantities of ideas
Build on each others ideas
Encourage wild and exaggerated ideas

He found that when these rules were followed, a lot more ideas were created and that a greater quantity of original ideas gave rise to a greater quantity of useful ideas. Quantity produced quality.

Using these new rules, people's natural inhibitions were reduced, inhibitions which prevented them putting forward ideas which they felt might be considered "wrong" or "stupid". Osborn also found that generating "silly" ideas could spark off very useful ideas because they changed the way people thought.

As you will discover, the development of this original technique was revolutionary and has since changed our world. With increasing refinement of the process, and the introduction of creative thinking techniques, the world of easy idea generation is yours for the taking. You need never be stuck for a new idea, whether you are in a group or working by yourself.

You can read Alex Osborn's original approach in his book "Applied Imagination".

Better brainstorming means better ideas leading to:

More money
Faster promotion
Increased creativity
Better society
More pleasant working environment
Better employee relations
A more responsive company
Taking advantages of gaps in the market
Creating new markets
New products and services
Better products and services
Better management
Less conflicts and arguments
Improvements in productivity and reliability

Brainstorming Step by Step

Define your problem or issue as a creative challenge. Creative challenges typically start with: "In what ways might we...?" or "How could we...?" Your creative challenge should be concise, to the point and exclude any information other than the challenge itself. For example: "In what ways might we improve product X?" or "How could we encourage more local people to join our club?"
Give yourselves a time limit. We recommend around 25 minutes, but experience will show how much time is required. Larger groups may need more time to get everyone's ideas out. Alternatively, give yourself an idea limit. At minimum, push for 50 ideas. But 100 ideas is even better.
Once the brainstorming starts, participants shout out solutions to the problem while the facilitator writes them down – usually on a white board or flip-chart for all to see. There must be absolutely no criticizing of ideas. No matter how daft, how impossible or how silly an idea is, it must be written down. Laughing is to be encouraged. Criticism is not.
Once your time is up, select the five ideas which you like best. Make sure everyone involved in the brainstorming session is in agreement.
Write down about five criteria for judging which ideas best solve your problem. Criteria should start with the word "should", for example, "it should be cost effective", "it should be legal", "it should be possible to finish before July 15", etc.
Give each idea a score of 0 to 5 points depending on how well it meets each criterion. Once all of the ideas have been scored for each criterion, add up the scores.
The idea with the highest score will best solve your problem. But you should keep a record of all of your best ideas and their scores in case your best idea turns out not to be workable.

Brainstorming is the name given to a situation when a group of people meet to generate new ideas around a specific area of interest. Using rules which remove inhibitions, people are able to think more freely and move into new areas of thought and so create numerous new ideas and solutions. The participants shout out ideas as they occur to them and then build on the ideas raised by others. All the ideas are noted down and are not criticized. Only when the brainstorming session is over are the ideas evaluated.

This is the traditional way brainstorming is done. The aim of this website is to train you in the methods of traditional brainstorming and then to move on and discover a series of advanced techniques available to you.

Some Rules and Principles

Rule 1: Postpone and withhold your judgment of ideas

Do not pass judgment on ideas until the completion of the brainstorming session. Do not suggest that an idea won't work or that it has negative side-effects. All ideas are potentially good so don't judge them until afterwards. At this stage, avoid discussing the ideas at all, as this will inevitably involve either criticizing or complimenting them.Ideas should be put forward both as solutions and also as a basis to spark off solutions. Even seemingly foolish ideas can spark off better ones. Therefore do not judge the ideas until after the brainstorming process. Note down all ideas. There is no such thing as a bad idea.The evaluation of ideas takes up valuable brain power which should be devoted to the creation of ideas. Maximize your brainstorming session by only spending time generating new ideas. Rule 2: Encourage wild and exaggerated ideasIt's much easier to tame a wild idea than it is to think of an immediately valid one in the first place. The 'wilder' the idea the better. Shout out bizarre and unworkable ideas to see what they spark off. No idea is too ridiculous. State any outlandish ideas. Exaggerate ideas to the extreme.Use creative thinking techniques and tools to start your thinking from a fresh direction.

Rule 3: Quantity counts at this stage, not quality

Go for quantity of ideas at this point; narrow down the list later. All activities should be geared towards extracting as many ideas as possible in a given period.The more creative ideas a person or a group has to choose from, the better. If the number of ideas at the end of the session is very large, there is a greater chance of finding a really good idea.Keep each idea short, do not describe it in detail - just capture its essence. Brief clarifications can be requested. Think fast, reflect later.

Rule 4: Build on the ideas put forward by others

Build and expand on the ideas of others. Try and add extra thoughts to each idea. Use other people's ideas as inspiration for your own. Creative people are also good listeners. Combine several of the suggested ideas to explore new possibilities.It's just as valuable to be able to adapt and improve other people's ideas as it is to generate the initial idea that sets off new trains of thought.

Rule 5: Every person and every idea has equal worth

Every person has a valid viewpoint and a unique perspective on the situation and solution. We want to know yours. In a brainstorming session you can always put forward ideas purely to spark off other people and not just as a final solution. Please participate, even if you need to write your ideas on a piece of paper and hand it out. Encourage participation from everyone.Each idea presented belongs to the group, not to the person who said it. It is the group's responsibility and an indication of its ability to brainstorm if all participants feel able to contribute freely and confidently.

Principles relating to Rule 1: Withholding judgment

Ideas which initially seem like they won't work can sometimes have enormous benefits when modified.
You will reduce the inhibitions in others.
You will encourage others to give you the freedom to share your own ideas.
Original ideas are more likely to surface.
Ideas which stimulate good solutions are more likely to be shared.
The generation of new ideas is maximized because no brain power is used on evaluation.

Principles relating to Rule 2: Encourage wild and exaggerated ideas

It's easier to tame wild ideas into a valid solution than it is to boost normal ideas into an original solution.
Ideas which stimulate good solutions are more likely to be shared.
Wild ideas are better at stimulating new thought patterns.
Original ideas are encouraged by such actions.
A loss of inhibitions is more likely.

Principles relating to Rule 3: Quantity counts at this stage, not quality

It's easier to pick out good ideas from a large list than a small list. Idea evaluation is often easier than idea generation, so give yourself lots of ideas to analyze later.
It's easier to create a good idea from combining lots of little ideas.
A fast output of ideas reduces the likelihood of evaluation and so helps a loss of inhibitions.
People get more absorbed by the process and think more freely.
Quantity, in this case, brings quality.
The focus on each idea is minimal at this stage and so participants feel less pressure on each idea.

Principles relating to Rule 4: Build on the ideas put forward by others

Every idea put forward has a principle or concept that will be useful.
Wild ideas can be turned into valid solutions.
You encourage others to put forward stimulating ideas by using those ideas.
You build freedom for yourself when you put forward stimulating ideas.
It's often easier to adapt someone else's idea than to generate a completely original one.

Principles relating to Rule 5: Every person and every idea has equal worth

You will get solutions from a wider range of people.
The breadth of ideas will cover different personality types.
You will encourage others to listen to your own ideas.
Every idea has equal worth as a stimulus.
You will know that you have created a healthy brainstorming environment if everyone feels confident to contribute.

Possible problems with Traditional Brainstorming

You don't have the time or resources for a group session
People don't lose their inhibitions
The same ideas are repeated again and again
The session doesn't flow naturally and people feel uncomfortable
People constantly struggle to think in new ways
You need a group of people to do it and cannot do it by yourself
There are too many awkward periods of silence and discomfort
The sessions are dominated by one or two people
Some people do not contribute
The facilitator needs to give constant encouragement to the participants
The same ideas are repeated again and again
No successful outcome or solution is reached

Possible causes of the problems

Many people are uncomfortable in the brainstorming environment
People do not believe they can be creative
Authority is accidentally used which makes people feel scared of their actions
No real objectives are set
Participants do not know how to think creatively
Participants do not use creative thinking techniques
A poor mixture of participants is present
Different personality types need different brainstorming styles
None or not enough training has been given
Not enough guidance and encouragement is given by the facilitator
No warm-up exercise was used
The brainstorming environment is hostile to creativity
People are not using other people's ideas to stimulate their own

Brainstorming by yourself
without the need for a group

You can hold a brainstorming session absolutely any time - and as many times as you want - with no money, time or difficulty spent organizing a group of people. In fact, many individuals find that they can be more creative on their own rather than as part of a traditional brainstorming group! And yet the freedom of being able to brainstorm by yourself is amazingly simple to achieve.

From en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brainstorming:

Approach

Brainstorming can be done either individually or in a group. In group brainstorming, the participants are encouraged, and often expected, to share their ideas with one another as soon as they are generated. Complex problems or brainstorm sessions with a diversity of people may be prepared by a chairman. The chairman is the leader and facilitator of the brainstorm session.

The key to brainstorming is to not interrupt the thought process. As ideas come to mind, they are captured and stimulate the development of better ideas. Thus a group brainstorm session is best conducted in a moderate-sized room, and participants sit so that they can all look at each-other. A flip chart, blackboard, or overhead projector is placed in a prominent location. The room is free of telephones, clocks, or any other distractions.

In order to enhance creativity a brainstorm session has four basic rules:

Focus on quantity: This rule is a means of enhancing divergent production, aiming to facilitate problem solving through the maxim quantity breeds quality. The greater the number of ideas generated, the greater the chance of producing a radical and effective solution. An individual may revisit a brainstorm, done alone, and approach it with a slightly new perspective. This process can be repeated without limit. The result is collaboration with your past, present and future selves.

No criticism: It is often emphasized that in group brainstorming, criticism should be put 'on hold'. Instead of immediately stating what might be wrong with an idea, the participants focus on extending or adding to it, reserving criticism for a later 'critical stage' of the process. By suspending judgment, you create a supportive atmosphere where participants feel free to generate unusual ideas. However, persistent, respectful criticism of ideas by a minority dissenter can reduce groupthink, leading to more and better ideas.

Unusual ideas are welcome: To get a good and long list of ideas, unusual ideas are welcomed. They may open new ways of thinking and provide better solutions than regular ideas. They can be generated by looking from another perspective or setting aside assumptions. If an idea is too "wild" to be feasible, it can be tamed down to a more appropriate idea more easily than think up an idea.

Combine and improve ideas: Good ideas can be combined to form a very good idea, as suggested by the slogan "1+1=3". Also, existing ideas should be improved. This approach leads to better and more complete ideas than just generation of new ideas, and increases the generation of ideas, by a process of association.

The main reasons why brainstorming does not yield the expected results are faulty operation and exaggerated expectations. When the basic rules and best practices are not followed, or when the group expects miracles, the session will not give the optimal result.

A short brainstorm session

Brainstorming is very well suited for ad-hoc problem solving. A short brainstorm session can be applied in many occasions where a quick solution is needed. For example: students working on a project, a support team looking for a quick solution for their customer or a project team who have to deal with the illness of one of its members.

The session contains, as depicted in Figure 1, three phases:

Figure 1: Activities of a short brainstorm session

Set the problem

Determine and specify the problem which needs a solution. Every participant must know the problem.

Generate ideas

Generate as many ideas as possible. Keep in mind the four basic brainstorm rules and record the good ideas. Continue for five to fifteen minutes.

Select best idea

Select the most appropriated idea from the suggested ideas.

A complex brainstorm session

Preparation

The preparation described here contains the basic activities, but depending on the situation more activities can be added. Figure 2 depicts the preparation activities in an activity diagram.

Figure 2: Activity diagram of preparing of a brainstorm session

Set the problem

One of the most important things to do before a session is to define the problem. The problem must be clear, small enough, and captured in a perfectly definite question such as “What service for mobile phones is not available now, but needed?“. If the problem is too big, the chairman should split it up into smaller components, each with its own question. Some problems seem to be multi-dimensional and non-quantified, for example “What are the aspects involved in being a successful entrepreneur”. Finding solutions for this those can better be done with morphological analysis.

Create a background memo

The background memo is the invitation and information letter for the participants, containing the session name, time, date and place and the problem. The problem is described with its question, and some example ideas are given. The ideas are solutions to the problem, and used when the session slows down or goes off-track. The example ideas also give the participants an idea of the direction upfront. The memo is sent to the participants at least two days in advance, so that they can think about the problem beforehand.

Select participants

The chairman composes the brainstorm panel, consisting of the participants and an idea collector. Many variations are possible but the following composition is advised:

Five core members of the project who have proved themselves.
Five guests from outside the project, with affinity to the problem.
One idea collector who records the suggested ideas.

Create a list of lead questions

During the brainstorm session the creativity may decrease. At this moment, the chairman should boost creativity by suggesting a lead question to an answer, such as "Can we combine those ideas?" or "How about a look from another perspective?". It is advised to prepare a list of such leads before the session.

Session conduct

The chairman; leads the brainstorm session and ensures that the basic brainstorm rules are followed. The activities of a typical session are:

A warm-up session, to expose novice participants to the criticism-free environment. A simple problem is brainstormed, for example "What should be the next corporate Christmas present?" or "What can be improved in Microsoft Windows?".
The chairman presents the problem and gives a further explanation if needed.
The chairman asks the brainstorm panel for their ideas.
If no ideas are coming out, the chairman suggests a lead to encourage creativity.
Every participant presents his or her idea, and the idea collector writes down the idea.
If more than one participant has ideas, the chairman lets the most associated idea be presented first. This selection can be done by looking at the body language of the participants, or just by asking for the most associated idea.
The participants try to elaborate on the idea, to improve the quality.
When time is up, the chairman organizes the ideas based on the topic goal and encourages discussion. Additional ideas may be generated.
Ideas are categorized.
The whole list is reviewed to ensure that everyone understands the ideas. Duplicate ideas and obviously infeasible solutions are removed.
The chairman thanks all participants and gives each a token of appreciation.

Best practices

Participants who have an idea but no possibility to present it should write down their idea and present it later.
The idea collector should number the ideas, so that the chairman can use the number to encourage quantitative idea generation, for example: "We have 44 ideas now, let’s get it to 50!".
The idea collector should repeat the idea in the words she has written it, to confirm that it expresses the meaning intended by the originator.
When more participants are having ideas, the one with the most associated idea should have priority. This to encourage elaboration on previous ideas.
During the brainstorm session the attendance of managers and superiors is strongly discouraged, as it may radically reduces the effect of the four basic rules, especially the generation of unusual ideas.

The process of conducting a brainstorm session is depicted in Figure 3.

Figure 3: Activity diagram of conducting a brainstorm session

Uses

Brainstorming can be used as a supplement for:

Individual ideation for quickly generating many potentially useful ideas
A business conference to stimulate creative thinking in a judicial and relatively unproductive atmosphere.
Creative training: brainstorming improves the creative attitude towards solving problems and improves the creative ability in groups and individuals.

Although the main purpose of brainstorming is to generate ideas, it has additional benefits:

Improves initiative that can last after the session, as participants are encouraged to constantly throw in their ideas, to take initiative all the time.
Improves creative thinking: participants learn to approach problems creatively and use association to create ideas, which they can use after the session.
Improves morale: Participants work together to find a solution to a problem and every participant is encouraged to take initiative. This can improve the morale of the team and its members.
Enjoyment: participants usually like the interactive and creative atmosphere.

Variations

Nominal group technique

Nominal group technique is a type of brainstorming that introduces structure to the process. It is useful in ensuring that all participants have an equal say and can be used to generate a ranked list of ideas.

Typically each participant is asked to write down their ideas. Then the moderator asks each participant in turn to express one of their ideas. The moderator writes down each idea on the flip chart. Then each participant copies the group's final list on a blank page giving each idea a score. The pages are collected from each participant and the scores summed, providing a rank-ordered list.

Group passing technique

Each person in a circular group writes down one idea, and then passes their piece of paper to the next person in a clockwise direction, who adds some thoughts. This is repeated until everybody gets their original piece of paper back. By this time, it is likely that the group will have created some powerful ideas.

A popular alternative to this technique is to create an "Idea Book" and post a distribution list or routing slip to the front of the book. On the inside cover (or first page) is the problem definition statement. The first person to receive the book lists his/her ideas and then routes the book to the next person on the distribution list. The second person can log new ideas or add to the ideas of the previous person. This continues until the distribution list is exhausted. A follow-up "read out" meeting is then held to discuss the ideas logged in the book. This technique does take longer, but allows individual thought whenever the person has a spare minute to think deeply about the problem.

Team Idea Mapping Method

This method of brainstorming leverages the natural associative process of the brain. It improves collaboration, increases the quantity of ideas, and is designed so that all attendees participate and no ideas are rejected.

The process starts with a well-defined topic. Each participant creates an individual brainstorm around the topic. All ideas are then merged into one large idea map. During this consolidation phase the participants discover a common understanding of the issues as they share the meanings behind their ideas. As the sharing takes place, the brain will naturally think of additional ideas based on the conversations. Those ideas are added to the large map as well. Now ideas are generated on both the individual and group levels. Once all ideas are captured, the group can prioritize and/or take action.

Selecting a Solution

When you are sure the brainstorming session is over, it is time to select a solution.
By using a show of hands (or another voting method), allow each person to vote for as many ideas
on the original list as they want. Note that they only have one vote per generated ideal.
Write the vote tallies next to the ideal. You can use a different color than the ideal to help it stand out.
Once the voting is completed, delete all items with no votes.
Next, look for logical breaks. For example, if you have several items with 5 or 6 votes, and no 3 or 4 and only a couple of 1 and 2, then retain only the 5 and 6 votes. The group can help to decide the breaking point.
Now, it is time to vote again. Each person gets half number of votes as there are ideals left. For example is you narrowed the number of generated ideals down to 20, then each person gets 10 votes (if it is a odd number, round down). Each person will keep track of his or her votes. The scribe should again tally the votes next to the ideal, only this time use a different color.
Continue this process of elimination until you get down to about 5 ideals.
Put the remainder ideas into a matrix. Put each ideal into its own row (first column). Next label some columns using selected criteria. For example:

Generated Idea	Low Cost	Easy to Implement and is Feasible	Will Help Other Processes	TOTAL
Outsource it to a vendor.	...	...	...	...
Hire a new employee.	...	...	...	...
Share the extra workload.	...	...	...	...

Next, working one column at a time, ask the group to order each idea. Using the above example, which one will cost the least, the most, and will be in the middle.
Repeat by working the next column until you have completed all columns. Total each column until it looks similar to this:

Generated Idea	Low Cost	Easy to Implement and is Feasible	Will Help Other Processes	TOTAL
Outsource it to a vendor.	2	2	2	6
Hire a new employee.	3	1	1	5
Share the extra workload.	1	3	3	7

It this case, the lowest number column, "Hire a new employee," would be the best solution.
Note that you should work each column first (not each row).
Some of the columns will require much discussion, as choosing an arbitrary number will not be that easy in some cases.
Often, you will have a couple of ideas that tie, but having it diagramed out in a matrix makes it much easier to make a decision.

Delphi Decision Making
In Delphi decision groups, a series of questionnaires are sent to selected respondents (Delphi group). The group does not meet face-to-face. All communication is normally in writing (normally letters or email). Members of the groups are selected because the are experts or they have relevant information. Steps include:

Members are asked to share their assessment and explanation of a problem or predict a future state of affairs
Replies are gathered, summarized, and then fed back to all the group members.
Members then make another decision based upon the new information.
The process may be repeated until the the responses converge satisfactory.

The success of this process depends upon the member's expertise and communication skill. Also, each response requires adequate time for reflection and analysis. The major merits of the Delphi process is:

Elimination of interpersonal problems.
Efficient use of expert's time.
Diversity of ideals.
Accuracy of solutions and predictions.

Dialectic Decision Making

The dielectric decision method (DDM) traces its roots back to Socrates and Plato. It helps to overcome such problems as converging too quickly one one solution while overlooking others, participants dislike of meetings, incomplete evaluations, and the failure to confront tough issues. The steps of DDM are:

Issue a clear statement of the problem to be solved.
Two or more competing proposals are generated.
Members identify the explicit or implicit assumptions that underlie each proposal.
The team then breaks into advocacy sub, who examine and argue the relative merits of their positions.
The group reassembles and makes a decision:
- embrace one of the alternatives
- forge a compromise
- generate a new proposal

The process looks like this:

This process helps the members to better understand the proposals along with their pros and cons. The main disadvantage is the tendency to forge a compromise in order to avoid choosing sides.

"Genius is one percent inspiration and ninety-nine percent perspiration." - Thomas Alva Edison

My favorite song for this month - I Can

activj@activj.net (s.j.jeyaram at gmail dot com) — Tue, 31 Oct 2006 18:22:00 +0000

This is a really nice video song by Nas. One of my friends gave me this video to watch 2 days before, but it was released couple of years before. It's really fantastic & meaningful video song . I've updated this video song on my favorite video page. And lyrics is blow 4 u. I got all of your mails. Thank you very much!! I'll reply all u guys soon. The new activj.net(Google's) search is ready to use. The search box & the button is next to the sign up button. As many of u mailed me, The text color and background colors are alike for some monitors. I'll try 2 do some color corrections on my web. Thank you. Keep In Touch through Electronic Mail.

...................................................................................................

I know I can (I know I can)
Be what I wanna be (be what I wanna be)
If I work hard at it (If I work hard it)
I'll be where I wanna be (I'll be where I wanna be)

Be, B-Boys and girls, listen up
You can be anything in the world, in God we trust
An architect, doctor, maybe an actress
But nothing comes easy it takes much practice
Like, I met a woman who's becoming a star
She was very beautiful, leaving people in awe
Singing songs, Lina Horn, but the younger version
Hung with the wrong person
Gotta astrung when I heard when
Cocaine, sniffing up drugs, all in her nose
Coulda died, so young, no looks ugly and old
No fun cause when she reaches for hugs people hold they breath
Cause she smells of corrosion and death
Watch the company you keep and the crowd you bring
Cause they came to do drugs and you came to sing
So if you gonna be the best, I'ma tell you how

I know I can (I know I can)
Be what I wanna be (be what I wanna be)
If I work hard at it (If I work hard it)
I'll be where I wanna be (I'll be where I wanna be)

Be, B-Boys and girls, listen again
This is for grown looking girls who's only ten
The ones who watch videos and do what they see
As cute as can be, up in the club with fake ID
Careful, 'fore you meet a man with HIV
You can host the TV like Oprah Winfrey
Whatever you decide, be careful, some men be
Rapists, so act your age, don't pretend to be
Older than you are, give yourself time to grow
You thinking he can give you wealth, but so
Young boys, you can use a lot of help, you know
You thinkin life's all about smokin weed and ice
You don't wanna be my age and can't read and right
Begging different women for a place to sleep at night
Smart boys turn to men and do whatever they wish
If you believe you can achieve, then say it like this

Be, be, 'fore we came to this country
We were kings and queens, never porch monkeys
It was empires in Africa called Kush
Timbuktu, where every race came to get books
To learn from black teachers who taught Greeks and Romans
Asian Arabs and gave them gold when
Gold was converted to money it all changed
Money then became empowerment for Europeans
The Persian military invaded
They learned about the gold, the teachings and everything sacred
Africa was almost robbed naked
Slavery was money, so they began making slave ships
Egypt was the place that Alexander the Great went
He was so shocked at the mountains with black faces
Shot up they nose to impose what basically
Still goes on today, you see?
If the truth is told, the youth can grow
They learn to survive until they gain control
Nobody says you have to be gangstas, hoes
Read more learn more, change the globe
Ghetto children, do your thing
Hold your head up, little man, you're a king
Young Prince thats when you get your wedding ring
Your man is saying "She's my queen"

Save the music y'all, save the music y'all
Save the music y'all, save the music y'all
Save the music...

New experience

activj@activj.net (s.j.jeyaram at gmail dot com) — Mon, 09 Oct 2006 16:09:00 +0000

Hi guys!
I experienced Trojan/Spy first time in my life. When I was chatting with my friends, I got an instance message saying “We have a party tonight. Please join with us. Click this for more information: http:/ /nl-school.org” from one of my friends ID. I accidentally clicked on it. My computer infected with a Trojan svhost32.exe.

1. The homepage in the IE is changed to "nl-school.org".
2. Every time I log into yahoo messenger it is automatically sending out messages to all the names in the friends list with the link ......."check this link nl-school.org".
3. My MSN nickname changed to “Jeyaram – myglobal-news.com”.
4. Registry editor is disabled.
5. Task manager is disabled.
6. The options in the IE - Tools- Internet options - general tab- use blank, use current, use default options disabled.
7. Whenever I open MSN/Yahoo messenger, some box type windows open and close.
8. My computer all the way got stacked.
9. When I click on anywhere, a small menu displayed.
10. Screen shot button didn’t work.
11. I have run the ewido avg anti spy ware and could not find anything. I have ZA and AVG antivirus installed. Also, when I am not connected to the net, I get a pop up message “Program trying to access nl-school.org, which connection to use.”

If you got the same problem, start the computer in safe mode and system restore turned off. And run your anti-spy program. Now I recommend “Ad-Aware SE Personal”. Or use yahoo anti-spy. Yahoo anti-spy is very simple and efficient program. Yahoo anti-spy won’t work for this Trojan, if you don’t update.

Download Yahoo! Anti-spy!!

Is the Trojan/Spy gone and the computer is safe now??
Is it safe to use the yahoo messenger now (without sending the unwanted links to the friends list)?????

If you get any messages like this; be carefully.

oh my god , I've won a 20000 used lottery http://myglobal-news.com/?id=winning_list . Come to my house tonight for a party !! ><
have you ever seen such a silly man like this ? http://nsl-school.org?id=stories )
Now you can avoid some critical online viruses by updating Windows . Click here to know how to Update your Windows : http://myglobal-news.com?id=update_windows <<
Breaking news : Mr G.Bush's son is kidnapped by terrorists !!! http://myglobal-news.com?id=1423 !!

I don’t know!! Please post your comments. If you know any thing more about this spy post that also as comment.

__________________________________________

Well opening nsl-school.org drops svchost.exe and svchost32.exe (made in VB and UPXed) in ur windows directory.

If you open the page in mozilla / opera, its full of adbrite ads.

It can be considered a good case of social engineering by bgohil7@yahoo. com

as he wrote nsl-school.org as a link in his post. Reading this post many woulr open up nsl-school.org and get infected if they use IE.

nice one dude.

Some details that i figured out :

it uses msinet.ocx and web browser control for communicating with websites or downloading more file.
the programmer of this malware has these folders -
E:\Lucky\My Document\Visual basic 6.0\Downloader\
the VB project was saved as termex.vbp
it also drops taskkill.exe in windows\system32 folder
taskkill is used by program to end programs like Antiviruses etc.
It kills all anti trojan and anti virus tools.
makes a script c:\killav.bat to kill antiviruses
It accesses http://giftshop.vn/update.txt where the malware writer will put commands or url from which trojan would update itself.
Its spreading well - http://www.alexaholic.com/nsl-school.org...
besides it disables taskmgr and regedit too
it accesses myglobal-news.com and probably autoclicks ads
the Module1.bas has subroutines like KillAV() and Killenemy()
it downloads italiandirectory.com/termex/ho... which is renamed as svchost32.exe
also downloads italiandirectory.com/termex/ho...
the malware author also has registered the domain mytermex.com
I think the malware should be named "Termex" as far as the programmer wished.

I will post more if i find about this. We can easily nab this criminal as he left the names of websites/domains he bought.

more coming soon

happy hacking

lobbyshake

_______________________________________________

Spyware, Adware, Trojans, Malware, Dialers, Popups Scanners:
http://www.download.com/ad-aware-se-pers...
http://www.ewido.net/en/download/...
http://www.javacoolsoftware.com/spywareb...
http://www.download.com/bazooka-adware-a...
http://www.javacoolsoftware.com/sgdownlo...
http://www.safer-networking.org/...
http://www.download.com/hijackthis/3000-...
http://www.emsisoft.com/en/software/down...
Online Scanners:
http://www.webroot.com/consumer/products...
http://www3.ca.com/securityadvisor/virus...
http://www.pandasoftware.com/products/ac...
http://www.bitdefender.com/scan8/ie.html...
http://www.windowsecurity.com/trojanscan...
http://www.kaspersky.com/virusscanner...
http://www.spywareguide.com/onlinescan.p...
http://housecall65.trendmicro.com/...
Spyware, Adware, Trojans, Malware, Dialers, Popups Scanner Lists:
http://www.softpedia.com/catlist/104...
http://www.download.com/adware-spyware-r...
http://www.majorgeeks.com/downloads31.ht...
http://www.filehippo.com/software/antisp...
http://www.soft32.com/s/windows/security...
Antivirus:
http://www.grisoft.com/
http://www.avast.com/
http://www.free-av.com/
Antivirus Lists:
http://www.softpedia.com/catlist/1...
http://www.download.com/antivirus/3150-2...
http://www.majorgeeks.com/downloads29.ht...
http://www.filehippo.com/software/antivi...
http://www.soft32.com/s/windows/security...
Firewall:
http://www.zonelabs.com/store/content/co...
Firewall Lists:
http://www.softpedia.com/catlist/97...
http://www.download.com/firewalls/3150-1...
http://www.majorgeeks.com/downloads34.ht...
http://www.filehippo.com/software/firewa...
http://www.soft32.com/s/windows/security...
IP Blocker:
http://prdownloads.sourceforge.net/peerg...
Browser:
http://www.mozilla.com/firefox/...
Email, News, RSS:
http://www.mozilla.com/thunderbird/...
System Cleaner:
http://www.ccleaner.com/
System Cleaning List:
http://www.softpedia.com/catlist/98...
http://www.majorgeeks.com/downloads12.ht...
http://www.filehippo.com/software/cleani...
System Info:
http://www.softpedia.com/catlist/92...
http://www.majorgeeks.com/downloads9.htm...
http://www.soft32.com/s/windows/system_u...
_______________________________________________
Thanks: Yahoo! answers

Lonelygirl15

activj@activj.net (s.j.jeyaram at gmail dot com) — Wed, 27 Sep 2006 16:07:00 +0000

Hi guys! This is quit interesting post - about Jessica Lee Rose. lonelygirl15 is a fictional video log that came to international attention via YouTube, a popular video sharing website. The central character is a YouTube user of the same name, although she is commonly known as Bree. This article refers to both the character and the series interchangeably.

The character achieved massive popularity with her series of videos, which acquired over 15 million cumulative views. But after viewers grew suspicious (see Initial speculation), researchers exposed lonelygirl15 as a fictitious character played by New Zealand actress Jessica Rose. An interview with the New York Times then revealed the series creators, Ramesh Flinders, a screenwriter and film-maker from Marin County, California, and Miles Beckett, a surgical residency dropout-turned-film-maker.

The series is still running, with new videos appearing at least once a week. The first video was posted June 16, 2006. On September 25, 2006, Bree posted a video stating it would be her last, whether this is true or not is still unknown.

Jessica Lee Rose (born April 26, 1987) is an American-born amateur actress from New Zealand who rose to popularity after playing the role of lonelygirl15, a fictional character on the popular website YouTube. Controversy arose when she was "outed" by two hackers (C. Yoon) who discovered her real identity, and that she was merely playing a role. Many viewers of her videos on YouTube believed that her episodes, played out in vlogs, represented actual events being retold by a living person.

Born in Salisbury, Maryland, Rose attended Mount Maunganui College in New Zealand's Bay of Plenty and is a graduate of the New York Film Academy's one-year acting for film program at Universal Studios She has previously done make-up and costume work on a New Zealand short film titled Us, and she played a leading role in a short film titled 'Dearly Beloved.'

Most of her videos on http://video.activj.net , just check.

Ref: wikipedia.org, youtube.com

How to prepare for exams?

activj@activj.net (s.j.jeyaram at gmail dot com) — Fri, 08 Sep 2006 05:07:00 +0000

I couldn't post blog entries last couple of weeks, since I was busy with my exam & assignment works. One of my friends gave me a book - "Help for Common Problems" by University of Cambridge Counselling Services. There are four or five nice articles to solve common problems. Such as exam, concentration, procrastination and some other. According to my web login statistics, most of the blog viewers in my site are between the age of 16 and 27. So I hope this exam preparation tips/techniques/ideas will be very useful to you all.

Preparing for exams

Start a revision programme in good time before the exams. Whilst you do not want to 'peak' too early, leaving revision too late is an excellent recipe for stress. Doing the work takes less effort than thinking about doing the work!

A certain amount of pressure is good for us and helps us perform well. But this is different from the popular game of "look how stressed I am" which is supposed to impress others with how hard one is working. Similarly, maintaining some balance in life and some perspective on the exams is different from that other popular game of "look how cool (and on top of my work) I am"!

Organising your space

Most people preparing for exams know they should organise their time - and we come to this in the next section - but fewer people know that it helps to organise their space too.

Think about where you work. See if you can separate out the places where you work from the places where you relax. Even if this all happens within one small room, create a 'working place' (around a desk/table?) which contains your papers, books, etc. and everything you need for your work.

Move all distractions out of your work area - pictures, music, TV - and put these into your 'relaxation areas'. Similarly, keep work out of the latter, so that when you are relaxing or sleeping your working is not intruding into this space.

Get used to working when you are in your work area, and 'switching off' when you get up from this place. Creating a physical separation of this kind will help you to do the same mentally.

Organising your time

People are different in how they react to revision plans. When these go wrong - as they often do - it is usually because they were planned too tightly and did not allow for sufficient flexibility: plans need plenty of blank space to allow for the unexpected.

Bearing in mind that plans need to be flexible, draw up a weekly timetable for yourself, firstly putting in everything you need to do: meals, sleep, lectures, supervisions, shopping, laundry etc. Then allocate time for revision and time for relaxing and enjoying yourself.

Be realistic about how much time you can aim to spend revising. As a guide, if you divide the week into 21 units (one per morning, afternoon and evening) you should aim to work in total for no more than 15 units per week, as it has been shown that ability to work effectively over a prolonged period decreases over this level. Therefore, you should have 6 units (e.g. 2 full days or 1 full day and 3 evenings) to do other things.

Allowing yourself time every week for relaxation, recreation, socialising and rest will help you feel less stressed and make it more likely that you will stick to your timetable. This is not wasting time; it helps you work more effectively.

Plan how you will use your time during your revision periods. You might want to list all the topics you want to revise, decide what order to learn them in, and how much time to spend on each. If you have other tasks to complete (e.g. reading, note-taking) you need to decide how much time to spend on these.

Be realistic about what you can achieve and stick to your deadlines. If there is too much work to do in the time available, use the following questions to help you prioritise:

which are the most important topics?
which subjects do you know best already, or are easiest to get 'up to scratch'?
which topics are compulsory?
for which subjects do you already have the most information/research/material?

Set specific goals for each revision period. Make a list of your goals; keep them realistic; and tick them off as you achieve them so you can see what you have done. Allow more time for subjects you find difficult. Check out what you do not understand.

Some people find it helpful to work in groups - perhaps arranging to meet a few friends to discuss particular topics. You can use this to test each other's memory or talk through aspects you have not understood.

Motivation

Some people struggle with a lack of motivation. These simple strategies may help:

plan rewards for yourself when you have achieved goals
start with easier/more interesting subjects
and establish a work routine - once started, a routine becomes easier to maintain
remind yourself why you have chosen to do these exams - if you do not want the qualification you do not have to do them!

Improving concentration

There is a separate leaflet in this series which deals specifically with improving concentration, but here are a few pointers.

People vary in how long they can concentrate, so experiment and find a work pattern that suits you. Take regular, short breaks when you are working - for example, 10 minutes out of every hour you work - is likely to help you concentrate for longer.

If you are finding it very difficult to concentrate, start off by setting yourself a small, manageable goal. When you have achieved this, give yourself some reward. Keep repeating this goal setting and rewarding yourself. As you achieve your goals, gradually increase what you set out to do. In this way you can train yourself to concentrate more effectively. Here are some other ideas:

Make notes as you read. Keep questions in your mind as you work. Speak out loud. Record yourself.
Mix topics frequently. Mix easy and difficult topics, and interesting and dull topics.
Try to work in a comfortable environment (not too cold, hot, noisy) and remove distractions if possible. Find out where you work best, e.g. in the library with a friend, or alone in your room - see the earlier section on 'organising your space'.

Active learning

Try to revise in an active way: do not just read notes through, but perhaps make a list of key points (writing reams of new notes is very time-consuming and is not an effective method of revising!). Test your memory as you go along and try to devise questions/answers concerning the information you are learning.

Some people find it helpful to use memory aids such as memorising a trigger word which is associated with a 'chunk' of information, making a trigger word out of the initial letters of key points or names, or finding a way of visualising information.

Practising

Spend some time going through past exam papers and practise answering questions within the allotted time. It doesn't matter if your attempts go wrong to start with - in fact, now is the time to make these mistakes! Such practice will give you a good idea of the format of the exam, the sorts of questions you could get, and will give you invaluable practice in planning and structuring answers under time pressure. In makes no sense to get your first 'practice' at this during the real examination!

Remember that you are not expected to produce an essay under examination conditions which looks like it took a week to carefully polish. So, be realistic: people tend not to be able to write 'perfect' essays during exams. Keep focusing your attention on the task in hand (i.e. answering the question) rather than being distracted by 'what if's.

Sleeping better

There is a separate leaflet in this series on insomnia, but here are a few pointers that may help during periods of revision and exams:

Don't work in or on your bed - keep bed for relaxation and sleep.
'Switch off' before going to bed: stop working at least an hour before you intend to sleep and spend the time doing something more relaxing e.g. listening to music, talking to a friend, having a bath, doing relaxation exercises, taking a stroll.
If you stick to a regular bed time and getting up time it will be easier to maintain good sleeping patterns.
Too much alcohol will prevent you from sleeping properly and will tend to make you tired the next day.
Do not 'catastrophise' about not being able to sleep well i.e. stop telling yourself that you will not be able to do anything the next day if you cannot get to sleep. Even when you are not sleeping much, you will still be able to function well, think logically and do difficult mental tasks. It is mundane, vigilance-type tasks and mood (e.g. irritability) which are mainly affected by lack of sleep. Most people manage to sustain sleep deficit over a few days (but not weeks!) before needing to 'catch up'.

On the day of the exam

Looking after yourself - for example, getting enough rest and eating reasonably - is more important and effective than trying to do some last minute cramming. This is a day to have planned beforehand and to take things gently in order to conserve your energy for the examination(s).

Don't get up very early, as this will just make you more tired. Eat breakfast, but do not drink too much liquid! If you have spare time, do something you find relaxing - have a bath, go for a stroll - and keep away from those whose stress levels are contagious.

Rather than trying to learn any new material, perhaps just look over a few key points.

Arrive at the exam hall comfortably in time but not too early; the tension hanging over this short period of waiting just before the exam is highly contagious so you do well to minimise your exposure to it!

It is natural to feel some anxiety when you go into the examination room. Use the few minutes before you are allowed to begin to do some simple relaxation and breathing exercises; sit back and separate yourself mentally from those who are getting stressed.

Read the exam paper through slowly. When you have chosen your questions read them through twice to make sure you have understood and not misread the question. If you are allowed to do so, underline key words or phrases in the questions.

Answer the correct number of questions and divide your time equally between them - or according to the marking scheme if questions have different weighting. With essay questions, you will get more marks overall by doing three (say) average answers, than by doing two brilliant ones but leaving the third question undone!

Some people write out essay plans to all the questions they need to answer at the beginning, so they can add things as they occur to them while working on other answers; others take each question in order. Which method works best for you, or is most appropriate to the format of your exams? After doing your plan, look back at the question and check you are answering the question asked - you do not get credit for a brilliant answer to a question you were not asked!

Take regular 'micro-breaks': whenever you pause at the end of writing a paragraph or stop to think for a moment, put your pen down and sit back, even if just for a moment.

If you start to panic during an exam

In an examination situation it is not uncommon for one's mind to go blank for a moment, or to be confused by a question put in an unfamiliar way. At these times it is easy to begin to panic. This is likely to take the form of doom-laden thoughts as well as physical symptoms such as feeling your heart racing, feeling faint, hot or sweaty. Although these symptoms are disturbing, perhaps even frightening, they are in fact very common and are not at all dangerous.

First, pause for a few moments: put your pen down and sit back; slow your breathing down a little. Let your body relax. Relaxation and breathing exercises will help to reduce these symptoms. Reassure yourself that you are not going to collapse or lose control - these things never happen because of anxiety. Push upsetting thoughts to the back of your mind and re-focus your attention on relaxing, and then back on the exam itself. No matter how bad the anxiety feels, do not leave the exam as the anxiety level will fall within a short space of time. Panic is always time limited and the symptoms will reduce in a short while.

When you are able, get back to work - remember that it is better to put something down rather than nothing.

After the examination

Before the day of the exam, it can be a good idea to decide what you are going to do immediately after the exam ends. Standing around and joining in with others' delight or dismay is almost always discouraging. If you have something already planned you can simply leave others to do the post-mortem, while you go and do something more enjoyable.

If you are exhausted, some food or a sleep may help; if you are still wound up, you could do something physical, such as go for a run or a swim. If you are going to meet up with someone, you could agree with them that you will only talk about the exam for 5 minutes - or even not at all.

Thanks: University of Cambridge Counselling Service, 2003.