Vinu’s Online Cloud

• Getting Serious About Happiness | TIME
• Mohawke’s Best of the Best Free and Open Source Software Collection: Mac OS X and Windows software Collection
• ‘Getting Things Done’ In 60 Seconds - Tips to help you keep up with the frenetic pace of a life in the tech field.
• WIKISKY.ORG -Interactive Sky Map - WIKISKY.ORG
• The Happiness Project: Seven tips for making yourself happier IN THE NEXT HOUR.
• Ideawicket - Open Innovation Portal
• Yahoo! OurCity - Bangalore News, Events, Blogs, Photos & a lot more - Y! Bangalore events, photos, links, news, events
• 80108 Media: local insider info texted straight to your mobile phone.
• How OpenID Is Critical For The Future Of Social Networking - Nice blog
• “Don’t be too studious at B-school” - Baazee.com and Matrix Partners founder
• » Hard disks *do* get slower with use | Storage Bits | ZDNet.com
• How to Save the World
• Tumblr
• Know-How, by Ram Charan
• Library clips :: A list of SMS groups and services and mobile social networks :: March :: 2007
• twitter.start4all.com
• The Futures Channel Movies and Activities Deliver Hands-On, Real World Math and Science Lessons To Your Classroom.
• The Conversations Network » Recording Spoken-Word Events Worldwide

Zen Habits gives you some insights on how to change your habits - on the lines of Zen to done (ZTD). Some for me being currently - Go to Gym and getting over my ex Found them useful, just penning them. BTW folks, I have changed the theme of the blog - do take time to visit and comment on it.

1. Commitment. Commit yourself to your habit change, big time.
   Make your commitment as public as possible — put it on your blog, join
   an online forum and tell them about it, tell your family and friends,
   send out a daily email update on your progress. The more positive
   public pressure, the better.
2. Practice. Changing your habits is a skill, and
   like any skill, it takes practice. Commit yourself to a 30-day
   Challenge, and try to do your new habit every single day for 30 days.
   You will be training yourself to do that new habit, over and over. If
   you mess up, don’t beat yourself up, but just try again. Practice makes
   perfect.
3. Motivation. Find as many ways to motivate yourself as possible. See the Top 20 Motivation Hacks.
4. Tracking. It’s best if you log your progress
   on your habit every day. This may sound difficult, but it will make
   your habit change much more likely to be successful. Log it in before
   you go to bed, placing your log next to your bed. It’ll motivate you,
   and will make you feel great as you look back on all your progress.
5. Support. Join an online group,
   or do your habit change with a partner. However you find it, get others
   to do a habit change with you, and it will be much easier.
6. Rewards. Reward yourself often, early on
   — at the end of each of the first three days, and then at the end of
   every week, and then a big one at the end of your 30-day Challenge.
7. Focus. It’s extremely important that you maintain
   your focus on this new habit for the full 30 days. That’s why it’s hard
   to do more than one or two habits at a time — you can’t maintain focus.
   Find ways to bring your focus back to your habit. Post up signs or posters around your desk or home. Send yourself email reminders. Put it on your desktop picture. However you do it, keep a laser focus!
8. Positive thinking.
   This is perhaps the most important element. If you tell yourself that
   you can do this, that you will do it, then you will. Squash all
   negative thoughts, and replace them with positive ones. You can do this!

I added 3 more feeds to my reader and droped around 10 this week. I am finally catching up with the reading. Still have many unreads but its less than a thousand The three feeds are:

• Web Worker daily
• Caterina’s blog
• Spectatrix

I am changing from reading common lots of feeds to selective personal blogs. Guess its change in the way I am thinking. Becoming more personal and retrospective type.

I came across the first two blogss something I had read before but wanted to blog. Its on Networking style or something that MSN research calls ‘Anatomy of Modern Friendship‘. It talk about different friendship patterns (especially among Brits). I think there might be couple of more categories for Indians.

• Friendship Cultivators – friends mean a lot to them and they spend a significant amount of their time nurturing friendships. They’re always arranging get togethers and are in constant touch with friends online and on the phone
• Friendship Pruners – make and drop friends quickly according to how useful they are. Friendship Pruners name drop a lot – they like to be seen to be in social contact with the ‘in crowd’. They hate ‘dead wood’ so frequently prune names from their diaries, online buddy lists and mobile phones
• Friendship Harvesters – tend to have a very wide circle of friends that they get in touch with on a seasonal basis. They’re happy to leave long periods without contact and typically dedicate a set period of time every few weeks or months to a flurry of contact to keep up to date with friends’ news and gossip
• Friendship Gatherers – are quick to make friends but the least proactive at maintaining friendships. They gather friends wherever they go but are socially lazy and once friendship has been established they rely on the other party to keep it going. They often seek out Friendship Cultivators so they can ride on the back of their frequent social contact and arrangements.

Now which category do I Fall? Well I would say its related to my mood. And I moved from one zone to another over age as well. By default I am a Cultivator. Sometimes a Gatherer. And I sometimes become a Pruner if I feel I have too many suddenly or realize a bunch of people don’t respond back. I have never been able to be a Harvestor - too much time and planning. Its got to be Natural if you ask me! I realized Prnuing is needed especially after my Bipolar episode!