Thursday, December 20, 2007

Quotes for MEN

"I recently read that love is entirely a matter of chemistry. That must be why my wife treats me like toxic waste."
-David Bissonette

"When a man steals your wife, there is no better revenge than to let him keep her. "
-Sacha Guitry

"After marriage, husband and wife become two sides of a coin; they just can't face each other, but still they stay together. "
-Hemant Joshi

"By all means marry. If you get a good wife, you'll be happy. If you get a bad one, you'll become a philosopher. "
-Socrates

"Woman inspires us to great things, and prevents us from achieving them. "
-Dumas

"The great question... which I have not been able to answer... is, 'What does a woman want?' "
-Sigmund Freud

"I had some words with my wife, and she had some paragraphs with me. "
-Anonymous

"Some people ask the secret of our long marriage. We take time to go to a restaurant two times a week. A little candlelight, dinner, soft music and dancing. She goes Tuesdays, I go Fridays."
-Henny Youngman

"I don't worry about terrorism. I was married for two years."
-Sam Kinison

"There's a way of transferring funds that is even faster than electronic banking. It's called marriage."
-James Holt McGavran

"I've had bad luck with both my wives. The first one left me, and the second one didn't."
-Patrick Murray

"Two secrets to keep your marriage brimming 1. Whenever you're wrong, admit it, 2. Whenever you're right, shut up. "
-Nash

"The most effective way to remember your wife's birthday is to forget it once... "
-Anonymous

"You know what I did before I married? Anything I wanted to. "
-Henny Youngman

"My wife and I were happy for twenty years. Then we met. "
-Rodney Dangerfield

"A good wife always forgives her husband when she's wrong."
-Milton Berle

"Marriage is the only war where one sleeps with the enemy. "
-Anonymous

"A man inserted an 'ad' in the classifieds: 'Wife wanted'. Next day he received a hundred letters. They all said the same thing: 'You can have mine."
-Anonymous

"First Guy (proudly): 'My wife's an angel!' Second Guy: 'You're lucky, mine's still alive."'
-Anonymous

Wednesday, December 19, 2007

Accessing blocked websites using CALCULATOR

When both Domain Name & IP Address are banned, Use Calculator to Access that Website
Wuntoo has written a detailed comment on how to bypass the internet content filtering software of your school or office using just the calculator application (Start->Run. type calc.exe). This unique Mathematics based trick will probably work when websites are blocked in your institution or corporate network based on the host name or their IP address.


The trick is to convert the human readable website address that's blocked (like bebo.com) into an IP address ( 208.75.184.160) and again translate this value to a decimal address which is probably not blocked by the website filters.

Here's a step by step guide to render www.myspace. com to a decimal address:

How to Access Restricted Websites

1) get its IP address (
216.178.39.74), by pinging the name (if you have a direct internet connection) or if you only have access via a web proxy then find it out by using a networking website like network-tools. com.

2) start your PC's calculator, and change it to scientific mode (using the "View" menu)

3) enter each of the four IP octets, one by one, converting them to binary (enter number and click on the "Bin" radio button)
Thus
216.178.39.74 becomes216 = 11011000178 = 1011001039 = 0010011174 = 01001010 Notice how any binary numbers less than 8 digits long have had leading zeroes added to pad them out. Reassembled into IP address order, you get 11011000.10110010. 00100111. 01001010

4) Remove the dots, so you get one huge line of binary, thus: 1101100010110010001 0011101001010

5) Copy this binary string

6) Go to your scientific calculator, and hit the "Bin" button FIRST (as you are about to enter binary), THEN paste in the binary string.

7) Click on the "Dec" button on your calculator, and you will get the converted value of 3635554122

8) Add the hypertext protocol prefix and paste into your browser's address bar: http://3635554122

Wuntoo adds: I used to be in a place that had websense, where both website names and their corresponding IP addresses were blocked. However was able to get limited access by converting the IP address to decimal, which websense (at the time) did not know about. This might have changed since, or if your school runs an old version it might still work. Note that if you surf away from the page you might hit websense blocks again unless you manually reconstruct the next address you want to get to.

Thursday, November 15, 2007

What the Modern Woman Wants – Essay That Won First Price In Singapore

What the Modern Woman Wants – Essay That Won First Price In Singapore
By Amanda Chong Wei-Zhen

The old woman sat in the backseat of the magenta convertible as it careened down the
highway, clutching tightly to the plastic bag on her lap, afraid it may be kidnapped by the wind.

She was not used to such speed, with trembling hands she pulled the seatbelt tighter but was careful not to touch the patent leather seats with her callused fingers, her daughter had warned her not to dirty it, 'Fingerprints show very clearly on white, Ma.'

Her daughter, Bee Choo, was driving and talking on her sleek silver mobile phone using big words the old woman could barely understand. 'Finance', 'Liquidation', 'Assets', 'Investments'...Her voice was crisp and important and had an unfamiliar lilt to it. Her Bee Choo sounded like one of those foreign girls on television. She was speaking in an American accent the old lady clucked her tongue in disapproval. 'I absolutely cannot have this. We have to sell!' Her daughter exclaimed agitatedly as she stepped on the accelerator; her perfectly manicured fingernails gripping onto the steering wheel in irritation.

I can't DEAL with this anymore!' she yelled as she clicked the phone shut and hurled it angrily toward the backseat. The mobile phone hit the old woman on the forehead and nestled soundlessly into her lap. She calmly picked it up and handed it to her daughter.

Sorry, Ma,' she said, losing the American pretence and switching to Mandarin. 'I have a big client in America. There have been a lot of problems.' The old lady nodded knowingly. Her daughter was big and important.

Bee Choo stared at her mother from the rear view window, wondering what she was thinking.Her mother's wrinkled countenance always carried the same cryptic look.

The phone began to ring again, an artificially cheerful digital tune, which broke the awkward silence. 'Hello, Beatrice! Yes, this is Elaine.' Elaine. The old woman cringed. I didn't name her Elaine. She remembered her daughter telling her, how an English name was very important for 'networking', Chinese ones being easily forgotten.

Oh no, I can't see you for lunch today. I have to take the ancient relic to the temple for her weird daily prayer ritual.

Ancient Relic. The old woman understood perfectly it was referring to her. Her daughter always assumed that her mother's silence meant she did not comprehend.

Yes, I know! My car seats will be reeking of joss sticks!' The old woman pursed her lips tightly, her hands gripping her plastic bag in defense. The car curved smoothly into the temple courtyard. It looked almost garish next to the dull sheen of the ageing temple's roof. The old woman got out of the back seat, and made her unhurried way to the main hall.

Her daughter stepped out of the car in her business suit and stilettos and reapplied her lipstick as she made her brisk way to her mother's side. 'Ma, I'll wait outside. I have an important phone call to make,' she said, not bothering to hide her disgust at the pungent fumes of incense.

The old lady hobbled into the temple hall and lit a joss stick; she knelt down solemnly and
whispered her now familiar daily prayer to the Gods.

Thank you God of the Sky, you have given my daughter luck all these years. Everything I
prayed for, you have given her. She has everything a young woman in this world could possibly want. She has a big house with a swimming pool, a maid to help her, as she is too clumsy to sew or cook.

Her love life has been blessed; she is engaged to a rich and handsome angmoh man. Her
company is now the top financial firm and even men listen to what she says. She lives the
perfect life. You have given her everything except happiness. I ask that the gods be merciful to her even if she has lost her roots while reaping the harvest of success. What you see is not true; she is a filial daughter to me. She gives me a room in her big house and provides well for me.She is rude to me only because I affect her happiness. A young woman does not want to be hindered by her old mother. It is my fault.

The old lady prayed so hard that tears welled up in her eyes. Finally, with her head bowed in reverence she planted the half-burnt joss stick into an urn of smoldering ashes.
She bowed once more. The old woman had been praying for her daughter for thirty-two years.

When her stomach was round like a melon, she came to the temple and prayed that it was a son. Then the time was ripe and the baby slipped out of her womb, bawling and adorable with fat thighs and pink cheeks, but unmistakably, a girl. Her husband had kicked and punched her for producing a useless baby who could not work or carry the family name.

Still, the woman returned to the temple with her new-born girl tied to her waist in a sarong and prayed that her daughter would grow up and have everything she ever wanted. Her husband left her and she prayed that her daughter would never have to depend on a man.

She prayed every day that her daughter would be a great woman, the woman that she, meek and uneducated could never become. A woman with nengkan; the ability to do anything she set her mind to. A woman who commanded respect in the hearts of men. When she opened her mouth to speak, precious pearls would fall out and men would listen.

She will not be like me, the woman prayed as she watched her daughter grow up and drift away from her, speaking a language she scarcely understood. She watched her daughter transform from a quiet girl, to one who openly defied her, calling her laotu; old-fashioned. She wanted her mother to be 'modern', a word so new there was no Chinese word for it.

Now her daughter was too clever for her and the old woman wondered why she had prayed like that. The gods had been faithful to her persistent prayer, but the wealth and success that poured forth so richly had buried the girl's roots and now she stood, faceless, with no identity, bound to the soil of her ancestors by only a string of origami banknotes.

Her daughter had forgotten her mother's values. Her wants were so ephemeral; that of a
modern woman. Power, Wealth, access to the best fashion boutiques, and yet her daughter had not found true happiness. The old woman knew that she could find happiness with much less.

When her daughter left the earth everything she had would count for nothing. People would look to her legacy and say that she was a great woman, but she would be forgotten once the wind blows over, like the ashes of burnt paper convertibles and mansions.

The old woman wished she could go back and erase all her big hopes and prayers for her
daughter; now she had only one want: That her daughter be happy. She looked out of the
temple gate. She saw her daughter speaking on the phone, her brow furrowed with anger and worry. Being at the top is not good, the woman thought, there is only one way to go from there down.

The old woman carefully unfolded the plastic bag and spread out a packet of beehoon in front of the altar. Her daughter often mocked her for worshipping porcelain Gods. How could she pray to them so faithfully and expect pieces of ceramic to fly to her aid? But her daughter had her own gods too, idols of wealth, success and power that she was enslaved to and worshipped every day of her life.

Every day was a quest for the idols, and the idols she worshipped counted for nothing in
eternity. All the wants her daughter had would slowly suck the life out of her and leave her, an empty soulless shell at the altar.

The old lady watched her joss tick. The dull heat had left a teetering grey stem that was on the danger of collapsing. Modern woman nowadays, the old lady sighed in resignation, as she bowed to the east one final time to end her ritual. Modern woman nowadays want so much that they lose their souls and wonder why they cannot find it.
Her joss stick disintegrated into a soft grey powder. She met her daughter outside the temple, the same look of worry and frustration was etched on her daughter's face. An empty expression, as if she was ploughing through the soil of her wants looking for the one thing that would sow the seeds of happiness.

They climbed into the convertible in silence and her daughter drove along the highway, this time not as fast as she had done before.

Ma,' Bee Choo finally said. 'I don't know how to put this. Mark and I have been talking about it and we plan to move out of the big house. The property market is good now, and we managed to get a buyer willing to pay seven million for it. We decided we'd prefer a cozier penthouse apartment instead. We found a perfect one in Orchard Road. Once we move in to our apartment we plan to get rid of the maid, so we can have more space to ourselves...'

The old woman nodded knowingly. Bee Choo swallowed hard. 'We'd get someone to come in to do the housework and we can eat out - but once the maid is gone, there won't be anyone to look after you. You will be awfully lonely at home and, besides that, the apartment is rather small. There won't be space. We thought about it for a long time, and we decided the best thing for you is if you moved to a Home. There's one near Hougang - it's a Christian home, a very nice one.'

The old woman did not raise an eyebrow. 'I've been there; the matron is willing to take you in.It's beautiful with gardens and lots of old people to keep you company! I hardly have time for you, you'd be happier there. "

You'd be happier there, really.' Her daughter repeated as if to affirm herself. This time the old woman had no plastic bag of food offerings to cling tightly to; she bit her lip and fastened her seat belt, as if it would protect her from a daughter who did not want her anymore. She sunk deep into the leather seat, letting her shoulders sag, and her fingers trace the white seat.

Ma?' her daughter asked, searching the rear view window for her mother. 'Is everything
okay?' What had to be done, had to be done. 'Yes,' she said firmly, louder than she intended, 'if it will make you happy,' she added more quietly.

'It's for you, Ma! You'll be happier there. You can move there tomorrow, I already got the maid to pack your things.' Elaine said triumphantly, mentally ticking yet another item off her agenda.

I knew everything would be fine.Elaine smiled widely; she felt liberated. Perhaps getting rid of her mother would make her happier. She had thought about it. It seemed the only hindrance in her pursuit of happiness.

She was happy now. She had everything a modern woman ever wanted; Money, Status,
Career, Love, Power and now, Freedom, without her mother and her old-fashioned ways to weigh her down...

Yes, she was free. Her phone buzzed urgently, she picked it up and read the message, still beaming from ear to ear. 'Stocks 10% increase!'

Yes, things were definitely beginning to look up for her... And while searching for the meaning of life in the luminance of her hand phone screen, the old woman in the backseat became invisible,and she did not see the tears.

“The Future Belongs To Those Who Believe In The Beauty Of Their Dreams”

Monday, November 12, 2007

India today SEX & MARRIAGE survey

A total of 2563 couples between 21 and 50 years of age, across 11 cities were interviewed in this survey. The respondents belong to three age groups: 21-30 yrs, 31-40 yrs, 41-50 yrs from the middle and upper middle class families.

55% men prefer the “Man on top” position, while 19% like the “Women on top”
50% of couples believe sex is a source of pleasure.
26 % of those who had LOVE marriages admitted having extra marital affairs.
19% of couples prefer sex in bathroom, while 8% prefer in the kitchen.
10% of the respondents had sex with their fiancée before marriage, while 5% had oral sex.
39% couples say they watch porn with their spouse.
11% say they use sex toys to stimulate their partner.
19% say they talk about sex over phone or Internet.
33% men say during pregnancy they have sex in the first trimester, while 25% in second trimester and 23% all the time.
18% accept they had extra martial affair.
23% of workingwomen admit to have affairs with their colleagues at work.
76% feel its their right to have sex with their spouse.
42% homemakers say they have sex to please their spouse.
41% in the 31- 40 age group say they are forced to have sex.
32% males feel their spouse is less attractive after childbirth.
39% couples postponed having children for professional ambitions.
15% married men admit to gay fantasies.
80% of couples prefer arranged marriage than love marriage.
69% of respondents claim they did not have sex before marriage.

Tuesday, November 6, 2007

Difference between a Virus, Trojan Horse and Worm?

The most common blunder when the topic of a computer virus arises is that people will often refer to a Worm or Trojan Horse as a Virus. While the words Trojan, worm, and virus are used interchangeably, they are not the same. Viruses, worms, and Trojan Horses are all malicious programs that can cause damage to your computer, but there are differences between the three, and knowing those differences can help you to better protect your computer from their often damaging effects.

A computer Virus attaches itself to a program or file so it can spread from one computer to another, leaving infections as it travels. Some viruses cause only mildly annoying effects while others can damage your hardware, software, or files. Almost all viruses are attached to an executable file, which means the virus may exist on your computer but it cannot infect your computer unless you run or open the malicious program. It is important to note that a virus cannot be spread without a human action, (such as running an infected program) to keep it going. People continue the spread of a computer virus, mostly unknowingly, by sharing infecting files or sending e-mails with viruses as attachments in the e-mail.

A Worm is similar to a virus by its design, and is considered to be a sub-class of a virus. Worms spread from computer to computer, but unlike a virus, it has the ability to travel without any help from a person. A worm takes advantage of file or information transport features on your system, which allows it to travel unaided. The biggest danger with a worm is its ability to replicate itself on your system, so rather than your computer sending out a single worm, it could send out hundreds or thousands of copies of itself, creating a huge devastating effect. One example would be for a worm to send a copy of itself to everyone listed in your e-mail address book. Then, the worm replicates and sends itself out to everyone listed in each of the receiver's address book, and the manifest continues on down the line. Due to the copying nature of a worm and its ability to travel across networks the end result in most cases is that the worm consumes too much system memory (or network bandwidth), causing Web servers, network servers, and individual computers to stop responding. In more recent worm attacks such as the much talked about Blaster Worm, the worm has been designed to tunnel into your system and allow malicious users to control your computer remotely.

A Trojan Horse is full of as much trickery as the mythological Trojan Horse it was named after. The Trojan Horse, at first glance will appear to be useful software but will actually do damage once installed or run on your computer. Those on the receiving end of a Trojan Horse are usually tricked into opening them because they appear to be receiving legitimate software or files from a legitimate source. The Trojan horse itself would typically be a Windows executable program file, and thus must have an executable filename extension such as .exe, .com, .scr, .bat, or .pif. Since Windows is sometimes configured by default to hide filename extensions from a user, the Trojan horse is an extension that might be "masked" by giving it a name such as 'Readme.txt. exe'. With file extensions hidden, the user would only see 'Readme.txt' and could mistake it for a harmless text file. When the recipient double-clicks on the attachment, the Trojan horse might superficially do what the user expects it to do (open a text file, for example), so as to keep the victim unaware of its real, concealed, objectives. Meanwhile, it might discreetly modify or delete files, change the configuration of the computer, or even use the computer as a base from which to attack local or other networks - possibly joining many other similarly infected computers as part of a distributed denial-of-service attack. When a Trojan is activated on your computer, the results can vary. Some Trojans are designed to be more annoying than malicious (like changing your desktop, adding silly active desktop icons) or they can cause serious damage by deleting files and destroying information on your system. Trojans are also known to create a backdoor on your computer that gives malicious users access to your system, possibly allowing confidential or personal information to be compromised. Unlike viruses and worms, Trojans do not reproduce by infecting other files nor do they self-replicate.

Added into the mix, what is called a blended threat? A blended threat is a sophisticated attack that bundles some of the worst aspects of viruses, worms, Trojan horses and malicious code into one threat. Blended threats use server and Internet vulnerabilities to initiate, transmit and spread an attack. This combination of method and techniques means blended threats can spread quickly and cause widespread damage. Characteristics of blended threats include: causes harm, propagates by multiple methods, attacks from multiple points and exploits vulnerabilities.

To be considered a blended thread, the attack would normally serve to transport multiple attacks in one payload. For examplem it wouldn't just launch a DoS attack — it would also install a backdoor and damage a local system in one shot. Additionally, blended threats are designed to use multiple modes of transport. For example, a worm may travel through e-mail, but a single blended threat could use multiple routes such as e-mail, IRC and file-sharing sharing networks. The actual attack itself is also not limited to a specific act. For example, rather than a specific attack on predetermined .exe files, a blended thread could modify exe files, HTML files and registry keys at the same time — basically it can cause damage within several areas of your network at one time.Blended threats are considered to be the worst risk to security since the inception of viruses, as most blended threats require no human intervention to propagate.

Combating Viruses, Worms and Trojan Horses :

The first steps to protect your computer are to ensure your operating system (OS) is up-to-date. This is essential if you are running a Microsoft Windows OS. Secondly, you should have anti-virus software installed on your system and download updates frequently to ensure your software has the latest fixes for new viruses, worms, and Trojan Horses. Additionally you want to make sure your anti-virus program has the ability to scan e-mail and files as they are downloaded from the Internet. This will help prevent malicious programs from even reaching your computer. If this isn't enough protection, then you may want to consider installing a firewall as well.

A firewall is a system which prevents unauthorized use and access to your computer. A firewall can be either hardware or software. Hardware firewalls provide a strong degree of protection from most forms of attack coming from the outside world and can be purchased as a stand-alone product or in broadband routers. Unfortunately, when battling viruses, worms and Trojans, a hardware firewall may be less effective than a software firewall, as it could possibly ignore embedded worms in out going e-mails and see this as regular network traffic. For individual home users, the most popular firewall choice is a software firewall. A good software firewall will protect your computer from outside attempts to control or gain access your computer, and usually provides additional protection against the most common Trojan programs or e-mail worms. The downside to software firewalls is that they will only protect the computer they are installed on, not a network.

It is important to remember that on its own a firewall is unable to get rid of your computer virus problems, but when used in conjunction with regular operating system updates and a good anti-virus scanning software, it will add some extra security and protection for your computer or network.

Monday, November 5, 2007

Real soldiers !!!!!!!

You stay up for 16 hours
He stays up for days on end.


You take a warm shower to help you wake up.
He goes days or weeks without running water.



You complain of a 'headache', and call in sick.
He gets shot at as others are hit, and keeps moving forward.



You put on your anti war/don't support the troops shirt, and go meet up with your friends.
He still fights for your right to wear that shirt.



You make sure you're cell phone is in your pocket.
He clutches the cross hanging on his chain next to his dog tags.



You talk trash about your 'buddies' that aren't with you.
He knows he may not see some of his buddies again.



You walk down the beach, staring at all the pretty girls.
He patrols the streets, searching for insurgents and terrorists.



You complain about how hot it is.
He wears his heavy gear, not daring to take off his helmet to wipe his brow.



You go out to lunch, and complain because the restaurant got your order wrong.
He doesn't get to eat today.



Your maid makes your bed and washes your clothes.
He wears the same things for weeks, but makes sure his weapons are clean.


You go to the mall and get your hair redone.
He doesn't have time to brush his teeth today.



You're angry because your class ran 5 minutes over.
He's told he will be held over an extra 2 months.


You call your girlfriend and set a date for tonight.
He waits for the mail to see if there is a letter from home.



You hug and kiss your girlfriend, like you do everyday.
He holds his letter close and smells his love's perfume.



You roll your eyes as a baby cries.
He gets a letter with pictures of his new child, and wonders if they'll ever meet.



You criticize your government, and say that war never solves anything.
He sees the innocent tortured and killed by their own people and remembers why he is fighting.



You hear the jokes about the war, and make fun of men like him.
He hears the gunfire, bombs and screams of the wounded.


You see only what the media wants you to see.
He sees the broken bodies lying around him.



You are asked to go to the store by your parents. You don't.
He does exactly what he is told even if it puts his life in danger.



You stay at home and watch TV.
He takes whatever time he is given to call, write home, sleep, and eat.



You crawl into your soft bed, with down pillows, and get comfortable.
He tries to sleep but gets woken by mortars and helicopters all night long.


See who's life is hard, salute the real heros.

Thursday, November 1, 2007

SOUP RECIPES

VEGETABLE WANTON WITH SPRING ONION SOUP! 

Ingredients For the Wanton Case
½ cup Maida (wheat flour)
2-3 tbsp white oil
¼ cup corn flour
¼ tsp baking powder
1 egg, salt to taste

Ingredients For The Filling
2-3 tbsp sprouts (green moong / matki)
2-3 sprigs spring onion
½ tsp Soya sauce
¼ tsp ginger-garlic paste
Freshly powdered black pepper
a pinch ajinomoto (Mono Sodium Glutamate)
6-8 cups water
1 tbsp corn flour
Salt to taste

Method
For The Filling
Par-boil the vegetable sprout. Alternately, you can use pre-cooked/left over sprout. Drain the water and mix loosely with ginger-garlic paste, Soya sauce and 2 tbsp. finely chopped onion with a few leaves.

For the Wantons
Knead the wheat flour along with corn flour adding oil, baking powder, salt and egg to a stiff but smooth dough. Add a little water if required. Make small balls from the dough and roll them to thin small circles, put about 1 tsp of the filling, shape into round pouches giving a light twist at the neck, leaving the ends loose.

For the Soup
Boil water in a large pan. Drop the wantons one by one very gently and boil till they rise on top and change colour. This will take about 3-4 minutes. Add a few drops of oil to keep the wantons from sticking to each other. Make a smooth paste of corn flour and pour this in the boiling soup. Simmer for a while. Cut the remaining onion leaves into 1" long pieces and add to the soup. Add ajinomoto (Mono Sodium Glutamate) and salt to taste. Sprinkle freshly ground black pepper and serve hot with chilli-vinegar sauce.

STEAMY DELIGHTS


All of us like to cuddle up and stay warm as it rains. Take note of these easy to prepare recipes that you could cook up anytime.

Mushroom Soup 
Ingredients

200 gms fresh mushrooms
2 medium sized onions
300 mls milk
2 bay leaves
5-6 peppercorns
4 cloves
2 tbspns butter
1 tbspn refined flour (maida)
¾ cup fresh cream
Salt to taste
½ tspn white pepper powder
A pinch nutmeg powder

Method of Preparation

Clean and wash the mushrooms. Slice four to five pieces. Roughly chop the remaining mushrooms and onions.

Boil milk along with bay leaves, peppercorns and cloves. Strain and keep the milk. In a pan melt the butter. Add chopped onions and chopped mushrooms and cook till they are soft.

Add the flour and sauté till there is no raw flavour coming from flour, taking care that the flour does not get burnt.

Pour the milk slowly and stir continuously to avoid lumps from forming. Cook for five minutes. Puree the mixture when a little cold.

The soup should have a smooth texture. Bring it to a boil, correct the consistency by adding more milk if required. Add the cream (reserving a little for garnish), salt, pepper powder and nutmeg powder. Stir well, serve hot, garnished with mushroom slices and cream.

Onion Potato Soup


Ingredients

1 large onion
1 small sprig spring onion
1 medium potato
1/2 piece ginger
1 florette garlic
1 blob butter
salt and pepper to taste
1/2 tsp sugar

Method of Preparation

Chop the spring onion finely and keep aside. Crush both garlic and ginger.
Chop the potato and onion into large chunks. Pressure cook till soft.
Blend in a food processor till smooth. Sieve
In a pan heat the butter.
Add the ginger and garlic and fry till light brown.
Add the chopped spring onion and stock (prepared above).
Add salt, pepper and chilli sauce as desired.
Serve steaming hot.

VEG SOUP
Sweet corn soup


Ingredients
• 1 cream style corn tin
• ½ tbsp ajinomoto powder
• ½ tbsp Soya sauce
• 2 tbsp corn flour
• Salt to taste
• Chillies in vinegar and chilly sauce to serve finely cut French beans, carrot gypsium.

Method

1. Boil sweet corn with 4 cups of water
2. Mix corn flour with ½ cup of water, when the corn mixture boils add cornflower mixture and boil for to minutes. Add salt and ajinomoto powder and mix well.
3. Boil French beans and carrot in water adding soda-bi-carb.
4. For 5 minutes and remove from the water.
5. Cut finely 8to 10 green chillies and add 4 tbsp vinegar and keep it for 3 or 3 hours.
6. Keep the prepared the corn soup in a bowl, add Soya sauce, chilli in vinegar, chilli sauce and mix, decorate with vegetables and gypsium.

Hot And Sour Soup

Ingredients
• 1 Carrot (cut thin & long)
• 2 pieces French peas (cut thin in shape)
• 2 tbs sprouted moong 1 tsp Soya sauce
• 1 tsp corn flour 1tsp chilly sauce
• 1 tsp oil ½ tsp vinegar
• ½ tsp ajinomoto Salt to taste

Method
Fry carrots, beans, and moong for 2 to 3 minutes add two cups water as it boils put Soya sauce, chilly sauce, vinegar, ajinomoto, salt and let it boil for 5 minutes. Add corn flour and boil and serve.

Hot Cheese Soup

Try this delicious & easy to make soup for today’s dinner.
• Potato - 2 medium size - cut into 1-cm cube
• Onions - 2 medium size - chopped
• Tomato - 2 medium size - cut into cubes (no seed)
• Pepper - 1/2 teaspoon powdered
• Chilli powder - 1/2 teaspoon
• Cheese - Two rectangular cubes - sliced thinly
• Sugar - 1/2 teaspoon
• Butter - 1 teaspoon

Method
Melt butter in a non-stick pan. Add onions, potato and tomato slices. Stir for a minute. Add 4 cups water, chilli powder and pepper powder. Lower the heat and simmer till the vegetables get cooked. Add sugar, salt and cheese. Serve hot with bread toast.

Wednesday, October 31, 2007

Secret behind company names

ABN AMRO 
In the 1960s, the Nederlandse Handelmaatschappij (Dutch Trading Society; 1824) and the Twentsche Bank merged to form the Algemene Bank Nederland ( ABN; General Bank of the Netherlands) . In 1966, the Amsterdamsche Bank and the Rotterdamsche Bank merged to form the Amro Bank. In 1991, ABN and Amro Bank merged to form ABN AMRO.

Accenture 
Accent on the Future. Greater-than 'accent' over the logo's t points forward towards the future. The name Accenture was proposed by a company employee in Norwayas part of a internal name finding process (BrandStorming) . Prior to January 1, 2001 the company was called Andersen Consulting.

Adidas - from the name of the founder Adolf (Adi) Dassler.

Adobe 
Came from name of the river Adobe Creek that ran behind the houses of founders John Warnock and Chuck Geschke .

AltaVista - Spanish for "high view".

Amazon.com 
Founder Jeff Bezos renamed the company to Amazon (from the earlier name of Cadabra.com) after the world's most voluminous river, the Amazon. He saw the potential for a larger volume of sales in an online bookstore as opposed to the then prevalent bookstores. (Alternative: It is said that Jeff Bezos named his book store Amazon simply to cash in on the popularity of Yahoo at the time. Yahoo listed entries alphabetically, and thus Amazon would always appear above its competitors in the relevant categories it was listed in.)

AMD - Advanced Micro Devices.

Apache 
The name was chosen from respect for the Native American Indian tribe of Apache (Indé), well-known for their superior skills in warfare strategy and their inexhaustible endurance. Secondarily, and more popularly (though incorrectly) accepted, it's considered a cute name that stuck: its founders got started by applying patches to code written for NCSA's httpd daemon. The result was 'a patchy' server â€" thus the name Apache.

Apple 
For the favourite fruit of co-founder Steve Jobs and/or for the time he worked at an apple orchard. He was three months late in filing a name for the business, and he threatened to call his company Apple Computer if his colleagues didn't suggest a better name by 5 p.m. Apple's Macintosh is named after a popular variety of apple sold in the US. Apple also wanted to distance itself from the cold, unapproachable, complicated imagery created by the other computer companies at the time had names like IBM, NEC, DEC, ADPAC, Cincom, Dylakor, Input, Integral Systems, SAP, PSDI, Syncsort and Tesseract. The new company sought to reverse the entrenched view of computers in order to get people to use them at home. They looked for a name that was unlike the names of traditional computer companies, a name that also supported a brand positioning strategy that was to be perceived as simple, warm, human, approachable and different. Note: Apple had to get approval from the Beatle's Apple Corps to use the name 'Apple' and paid a one-time royalty of $100,000 to McIntosh Laboratory, Inc., a maker of high-end audio equipment, to use the derivative name 'Macintosh', known now as just 'Mac'.

AT&T - American Telephone and Telegraph Corporation officially changed its name to AT&T in the 1990s.

Bauknecht 
Founded as an electrotechnical workshop in 1919 by Gottlob Bauknecht .

BBC - Stands for British Broadcasting Corporation.

BenQ - Bringing ENjoyment and Quality to life

Blaupunkt 
Blaupunkt (Blue dot) was founded in 1923 under the name Ideal. Their core business was the manufacturing of headphones. If the headphones came through quality tests, the company would give the headphones a blue dot. The headphones quickly became known as the blue dots or blaue Punkte. The quality symbol would become a trademark, and the trademark would become the company name in 1938.

BMW - abbreviation of Bayerische Motoren Werke (Bavarian Motor Factories)

Borealis 
The Northern Lights or Aurora Borealis, is the celestial phenomenon that features bursts of light in colourful patterns dancing across the night skies of the north. Borealis, inspired from the shining brilliance of the Northern Lights, was formed in 1994 out of the merger between two northern oil companies, Norway's Statoil and Finland's Neste.

BP 
Formerly British Petroleum, now "BP" (The slogan "Beyond Petroleum" has incorrectly been taken to refer to the company's new name following its rebranding effort in 2000).

BRAC 
Abbreviation for Bangladesh Rural Advancement Committee, world's largest NGO (non governmental organization) . It works in development programs around the world.

Bridgestone 
Named after founder Shojiro Ishibashi. The surname Ishibashi (??) means "stone bridge", i.e. "bridge of stone".

Bull 
Compagnie des machines Bull was founded in Paristo exploit the patents for punched card machines taken out by a Norwegian engineer, Fredrik Rosing Bull.

Cadillac 
Cadillac was named after the 18th century French explorer Antoine Laumet de La Mothe , sieur de Cadillac, founder of Detroit, Michigan. Cadillac is a small town in the South of France.

Canon 
Originally (1933) Precision Optical Instruments Laboratory the new name (1935) derived from the name of the company's first camera, the Kwannon, in turn named after the Japanese name of the Buddhist bodhisattva of mercy.

CGI 
From the first letter of Information Management Consultant in french (Conseiller en Gestion et Informatique) .

Cisco 
Short for San Francisco . It has also been suggested that it was "CIS-co" -- Computer Information Services was the department at StanfordUniversityt hat the founders worked in.

COBRA 
Computadores Brasileiros, "Brazilian Computers", electronics and services company, was the first state-owned designer and producer of computers in the 1970s, later acquired by the Banco do Brasil.

Coca-Cola 
Coca-Cola's name is derived from the coca leaves and kola nuts used as flavoring. Coca-Cola creator John S. Pemberton changed the 'K' of kola to 'C' for the name to look better.

Colgate-Palmolive 
Formed from a merger of soap manufacturers Colgate & Company and Palmolive-Peet. Peet was dropped in 1953. Colgate was named after William Colgate, an English immigrant, who set up a starch, soap and candle business in New York Cityin 1806. Palmolive was named for the two oils (Palm and Olive) used in its manufacture.

Compaq 
From "comp" for computer, and "pack" to denote a small integral object; or: Compatibility And Quality; or: from the company's first product, the very compact Compaq Portable.

Comsat 
An American digital telecommunications and satellite company, founded during the President Kennedy era to develop the technology. Contraction of Communications Satellites.

Daewoo 
The company founder Kim Woo Chong called it Daewoo which means "Great Universe" in Korean.

Dell 
Named after its founder, Michael Dell. The company changed its name from Dell Computer in 2003.

DHL 
The company was founded by Adrian Dalsey, Larry Hillblom , and Robert Lynn , whose last initials form the company's moniker.

eBay 
Pierre Omidyar, who had created the Auction Web trading website, had formed a web consulting concern called Echo Bay Technology Group. " EchoBay" didn't refer to the town in Nevada, the nature area close to Lake Mead, or any real place. "It just sounded cool," Omidyar reportedly said. When he tried to register EchoBay.com, though, he found that Echo Bay Mines, a gold mining company, had gotten it first. So, Omidyar registered what (at the time) he thought was the second best name: eBay.com.

Epson 
Epson Seiko Corporation, the Japanese printer and peripheral manufacturer, was named from "Son of Electronic Printer"

Fanta 
Was originally invented by Max Keith in Germanyin 1940 when World War II made it difficult to get the Coca-Cola syrup to Nazi Germany. Fanta was originally made from byproducts of cheese and jam production. The name comes from the German word for imagination (Fantasie or Phantasie), because the inventors thought that imagination was needed to taste oranges from the strange mix.

Fazer
- named after its founder, Karl Fazer.

Fiat - acronym of Fabbrica Italiana Automobili Torino (Italian Factory of Cars of Turin).

Fuji - from the highest Japanese mountain Mount Fuji.

Google 
The name is an intentional misspelling of the word googol, reflecting the company's mission to organize the immense amount of information available online.

Haier - Chinese ? "sea" and ? (a transliteration character; also means "you" in Literary Chinese)

HP 
Bill Hewlett and Dave Packard tossed a coin to decide whether the company they founded would be called Hewlett-Packard or Packard-Hewlett.

Hitachi - old place name, literally "sunrise"

Honda - from the name of its founder, Soichiro Honda

Honeywell 
From the name of Mark Honeywell founder of Honeywell Heating Specialty Co. It later merged with Minneapolis Heat Regulator Company and was finally called Honeywell Inc. in 1963.

Hotmail 
Founder Jack Smith got the idea of accessing e-mail via the web from a computer anywhere in the world. When Sabeer Bhatia came up with the business plan for the mail service, he tried all kinds of names ending in 'mail' and finally settled for Hotmail as it included the letters "HTML" - the markup language used to write web pages. It was initially referred to as HoTMaiL with selective upper casing. (If you click on Hotmail's 'mail' tab, you will still find "HoTMaiL" in the URL.)

Hyundai 
Connotes the sense of "the present age" or "modernity" in Korean.

IBM 
Named by Tom Watson, an ex-employee of National Cash Register. To one-up them in all respects, he called his company International Business Machines.

ICL 
Abbreviation for International Computers Ltd, once the UK's largest computer company, but now a service arm of Fujitsu, of Japan.

IKON - copier company name derived from I Know One Name.

Intel 
Bob Noyce and Gordon Moore initially incorporated their company as N M Electronics. Someone suggested Moore Noyce Electronics but it sounded too close to "more noise" -- not a good choice for an electronics company! Later, Integrated Electronics was proposed but it had been taken by somebody else. Then, using initial syllables from INTegrated ELectronics, Noyce and Moore came up with Intel. To avoid potential conflicts with other companies of similar names, Intel purchased the name rights for $15,000 from a company called Intelco. (Source: Intel 15 Years Corporate Anniversary Brochure)

Interland 
A web hosting provider formally known as Micron Computer, Inc. which was named either after InternetLandor the combination of the largest acqusition it performed, Interliant with the word Land.

Kawasaki - from the name of its founder, Shozo Kawasaki

Kodak 
Both the Kodak camera and the name were the invention of founder George Eastman . The letter "K" was a favourite with Eastman; he felt it a strong and incisive letter. He tried out various combinations of words starting and ending with "K". He saw three advantages in the name. It had the merits of a trademark word, would not be mis-pronounced and the name did not resemble anything in the art. There is a misconception that the name was chosen because of its similarity to the sound produced by the shutter of the camera.

Konica 
It was earlier known as Konishiroku Kogaku. Konishiroku in turn is the short for Konishiya Rokubeiten which was the first name of the company established by Rokusaburo Sugiura in the 1850s.

Korg 
Formed from the surnames of the founders, Tsutomu Katoh and Tadashi Osanai, combined with the letters "rg" from the word organ.

LG 
combination of two popular Korean brands Lucky and Goldstar. (In Mexicopublicists explained the name change to the public as an abbreviation to LÃnea Goldstar Spanish for Goldstar Line)

Lotus Software 
Mitch Kapor got the name for his company from 'The Lotus Position' or 'Padmasana'. Kapor used to be a teacher of Transcendental Meditation technique as taught by Maharishi Mahesh Yogi.

Lucent Technologies 
A spin-off from AT&T, it was named Lucent (meaning "luminous" or "glowing with light") because "light as a metaphor for visionary thinking reflected the company's operating and guiding business philosophy," according to the Landor Associates staff who chose the name. Source: Design Management Journal 8:1 (Winter 1997).

Lycos - from Lycosidae, the family of wolf spiders.

Mazda Motor 
From the company's first president, Jujiro Matsuda . In Japanese, no syllables are ever stressed and some inner syllables are virtually skipped. Thus, Matsuda is pronounced "Matsda". To make the name fly better outside of Japan, the spelling was changed to Mazda.

McDonald's 
From the name of the brothers Dick McDonald and Mac McDonald, who founded the first McDonald 's restaurant in 1940.

Mercedes 
This is the first name of the daughter of Emil Jellinek, who worked for the early Daimler company around 1900.

MGM 
Metro-Goldwyn- Mayer was formed by the merger of three picture houses Metro Picture Corporation, Goldwyn Pictures Corporation and Louis B. Mayer Pictures. Goldwyn Picture Corporation in turn was named after the last names of Samuel Goldfish and Edgar and Archibald Selwyn.

Micron 
Computer memory producer named after the microscopic parts of its products. The official name was Micron Computer, Inc. Since, the company has become Interland, a web hosting provider, after selling/spinning off its RAM division and closing down its computer division, licensing the name. The company is now headquartered in Atlanta.

Microsoft 
Coined by Bill Gates to represent the company that was devoted to MICROcomputer SOFTware. Originally christened Micro-Soft, the '-' was removed later on.

midPhase 
The post-dotcom era gave using the .com in a companies official name untrendy. A new dotcom company may be named traditionally, in midPhase's case it was named midPhase Services, Inc., the midPhase stands for Middle Phase, or middle of the road.

Mitsubishi 
The name Mitsubishi (??) has two parts: mitsu means three and hishi (changing to bishi in the middle of the word) means water chestnut, and from here rhombus, which is reflected in the company's logo.

Motorola 
Founder Paul Galvin came up with this name when his company (at the time, Galvin Manufacturing Company) started manufacturing radios for cars. Many audio equipment makers of the era used the " ola" ending for their products, most famously the "Victrola" phonograph made by the Victor Talking Machine Company. The name was meant to convey the idea of "sound" and "motion". The name became so recognized that the company later adopted it as the company name.

Mozilla Foundation 
From the name of the web-browser that preceded Netscape Navigator. When Marc Andreesen , founder of Netscape, created a browser to replace the Mosaic browser, it was internally named Mozilla (Mosaic-Killer, Godzilla) by Jamie Zawinski.

MRF 
Madras Rubber Factory, founded by K M Mammen Mappillai in 1946. He started with a toy balloon-manufacturi ng unit at Tiruvottiyur, Chennai (then called Madras). In 1952, he began manufacturing tread-rubber, and in 1961, tyres.

Nero - Nero Burning ROM named after Nero burning Rome.

Netscape 
Named by first marketing employee Greg Sands, in a panic when the Universityof Illinoisthreatened to sue the new company for its original name, Mosaic. Netscape then paid Landor $50,000 to design a logo.

Nike - named for the Greek goddess of victory.

Nikon - the original name was Nippon Kogaku, meaning "Japanese Optical".

Nissan 
The company was earlier known by the name Nippon Sangyo which means "Japanese industry".

Nokia 
Started as a wood-pulp mill, the company expanded into producing rubber products in the Finnish city of Nokia. The company later adopted the city's name.

Nortel 
The Nortel Networks name came from Nortel (Northern Telecom) and Bay Networks. The company was originally spun off from the Bell Telephone Company of Canada Ltd in 1895 as Northern Electric and Manufacturing, and traded as Northern Electric from 1914 to 1976.

Novartis 
After the Latin expression "novae artes" which means something like "new skills".

Oracle 
Larry Ellison, Ed Oates and Bob Miner were working on a consulting project for the CIA (Central Intelligence Agency). The code name for the project was Oracle (the CIA saw this as the system to give answers to all questions or some such). The project was designed to help use the newly written SQL database language from IBM. The project eventually was terminated but they decided to finish what they started and bring it to the world. They kept the name Oracle and created the RDBMS engine. Later they changed the name of the company, Relational Technology Inc, to the name of the product.

Pepsi 
Pepsi derives its name from (treatment of) dyspepsia, an intestinal ailment.

Qantas 
From its original name, Queensland And Northern Territory Aerial Services.

Red Hat 
Company founder Marc Ewing was given the Cornell lacrosse team cap (with red and white stripes) while at college by his grandfather. People would turn to him to solve their problems, and he was referred to as 'that guy in the red hat'. He lost the cap and had to search for it desperately. The manual of the beta version of Red Hat Linux had an appeal to readers to return his Red Hat if found by anyone.

Reebok - another spelling of rhebok (Pelea capreolus), an African antelope.

SAAB

Founded in 1937 in Swedenas "Svenska Aeroplan aktiebolaget" (Swedish Aeroplane Company) abbreviated SAAB.

Samsonite 
Samsonite was launched as a brand in 1941, receiving its name from the Biblical character Samson, renowned for his strength.

Samsung - meaning three stars in Korean.

Sanyo 
The Japanese translation is disputed, although the Chinese name is "??" (literally, "Three Oceans")

SAP 
 "Systems, Applications, Products in Data Processing", formerly "SystemAnalyse und Programmentwicklung" (German for "System analysis and program development"), formed by 4 ex- IBM employees who used to work in the 'Systems/Application s/Projects' group of IBM.

SEGA 
"Service Games of Japan" (SeGa) Founded by Marty Bromley (an American) to import pinball games to Japanfor use on American military bases.

Sharp 
Japanese consumer electronics company named from its first product, an ever-sharp pencil.

Shell 
Royal Dutch Shell was established in 1907, when the Royal Netherlands Petrol Society Plc. and the Shell Transport and Trading Company Ltd. merged. The Shell Transport and Trading Company Ltd. had been established at the end of the 19th century, by commercial firm Samuel & Co (founded in 1830). Samuel & Co were already successfully importing Japanese shells when they set up an oil company, so the oil company was named after the shells Samuel & Co were importing.

Siemens 
Founded in 1847 by Werner von Siemens and Johann Georg Halske: the company was originally called Telegraphen- Bau-Anstalt von Siemens & Halske.

Sprint 
From its parent company, Southern Pacific Railroad INTernal Communications. Back in the day, pipelines and railroad tracks were the cheapest place to lay communications lines, as the right-of-way was already leased or owned.

Sun Microsystems

Its founders designed their first workstation in their dorm at StanfordUniversity, and chose the name Stanford University Network for their product, hoping to sell it to the college. They didn't.

Suzuki - from the name of its founder, Michio Suzuki

Tesco 
Founder Jack Cohen, who from 1919 sold groceries in the markets of the London East End, acquired a large shipment of tea from T. E. Stockwell and made new labels by using the first three letters of the supplier's name and the first two letters of his surname forming the word "TESCO".

Toshiba 
Was founded by the merger of consumer goods company Tokyo Denki (Tokyo Electric Co) and electrical firm Shibaura Seisaku-sho (Shibaura Engineering Works).

Toyota 
From the founder's name Sakichi Toyoda. Initially called Toyeda, it was changed after a contest for a better-sounding name. The new name was written in katakana with eight strokes, a number that is considered lucky in Japan.

Unisys 
Made-up name for the company that resulted from the combination of two old mainframe computer companies, Burroughs and Sperry [Sperry Univac/Sperry Rand]. It "united" two incompatible ranges. Unisys was briefly the world's second-largest computer company, after IBM.

Verizon
- A portmanteau of veritas (Latin for truth) and horizon.

Vodafone 
A multinational mobile phone operator with headquarters in the United Kingdom. Its name is made up of VOice, DAta, TeleFONE. Vodafone made the UK's first mobile call at a few minutes past midnight on the 1 January 1985.

Volvo 
From the Latin word "volvo", which means "I roll". It was originally a name for a ball bearing being developed by SKF.

Xerox 
The inventor, Chestor Carlson, named his product trying to say `dry' (as it was dry copying, markedly different from the then prevailing wet copying). The Greek root `xer' means dry.

Yahoo! 
A "backronym" for Yet Another Hierarchical Officious Oracle. The word Yahoo was invented by Jonathan Swift and used in his book Gulliver's Travels. It represents a person who is repulsive in appearance action and is barely human. Yahoo! founders David Filo and Jerry Yang selected the name because they jokingly considered themselves yahoos

Friday, October 26, 2007

Mission Chandryan

Manmohan Singh to Bush - We are sending Indians to the moon next year.

Bush - Wow! How Many?

Manmohan Singh - 100

25 - OBC
25 - SC
20 - ST
5 - Handicapped
5 - Sports Persons
5 - Terrorism Affected
5 - Kashmiri Migrants
9 - Politicians
and if possible
1 - Astronaut

Just for fun!!!!!

Wednesday, October 10, 2007

A trip to Alambara

The ruins of Alamparai Fort lie near Kadapakkam, a village 50 km from Mamallapuram on the land overlooking the sea. It was constructed by musilm rulers during 1746 AD by Nawab of Carnatic Dost.Alikhan during the Mughal era.

The Alamparai Fort once had a 100-metre long dockyard stretching into the sea, from which zari cloth, salt, and ghee were exported. In around 1760, the British destroyed a major portion of the fort and more recently the structure was damaged in the 2004 Indian Ocean earthquake.

Presently it is a picturesque and serene spot with backwaters and cool sand. Local fishermen assist tourists in a pleasurable boating experience around the fort. The fort can be reached on driving down the East Coast Road, about 100 kilometers from Chennai, 50 kilometers from Pondicherry.


However, by 1760, this fort was destroyed by the Britishers. This fort was also destroyed by 2004 tsunami. Alamparai fort is one of the major spot controlled by State Archaeological Department.

On the east side of the fort is a marvelous view of the backwaters. The waters lap gently against the edges of the fort, and you can see the sea in the distance. The hypnotic blue of the sky and the sea are soothing. A boat ride along the backwaters is another exciting possibility. Some recent history - parts of the Vikram-and-Surya-starrer "Pithamagan" were shot at the fort, says a chatty local. Fresh fish from the fisherfolks' evening catch is on sale in the village of Kadapakkam.

Now it looks like a small fishing hamlet with scenic backwaters.
















































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