How to write Letters and Emails Effectively

You might be aware of the fact that the best way to convey anything is through written communication. Specifically when it comes to dealing with professional and personal matters. You can make wonders if you succeed to influence the reader no matter who ever it is. Many of us had already gone through rigorous practice of Essay and Letter writing at school level but we often ignore and do not implement what we learned. In fact you can notice a significant difference and better results when you use this means of communication when compared to others ways. The impact should be perfect and deep enough to get things done for you. To make this possible all you need to do is just keep these things in your mind next time you come across such a need.

See that you proceed by initially considering these parameters,

Purpose - Context or Why are you writing this letter ?

Expected result - Aim you want to achieve through this letter.

Motive that made you write a letter - Why did you wanted to write a letter instead of contacting directly ?

Who is the Reader - Either he is your Boss or Superior or Professor or Officer or Customer.

These things greatly affect your way of writing since they keep running through in your mind during the process. As a result you can expect a much refined output.

Tips that will make things drive your way while writing letter or mails,

1. When you are writing letters for your professional needs like an application for an interview or Statement of Purpose (SOP) for admission into a school or College, Request for an Appointment or a deal or a negotiation see that your are not emotional.

2. Reader must be convinced with your position which will be easier if you mention any facts. For instance, mention your achievements while you are writing an SOP.

3. It is always a strong point to provide facts and figures for any kind of letter writing purposes.

4. Stick to the layout of having a brief To note, Subject, Body, final paragraph and in the end regards like Yours Faithfully which would be more general than being experimental.

5. Use implications like try to convey your need indirectly then come to the point.

However the use of words depends on the intensity of the need and purpose. But try to keep things simple, clear and precise instead of going around the matter. The letter must never be wordy filled with plenty paragraphs since it annoys the reader and which might give negative results. So if you stick to these rules you will have greater scope of success mainly if you want to write a leave letter, SOP, Expression Of Interest, a Job application, Request for any appointment or even a business letter.

Unbelievable: Guess what is this?

Unbelievable! Guess what is this?

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Its a hard disk at 1956....

The Volume and Size of 5MB memory storage in 1956.

In September 1956 IBM launched the 305 RAMAC,

The first computer with a hard disk drive (HDD).

The HDD weighed over a ton and stored 5MB of data.

Let us start appreciating your 4 GB jump drive

How to capture full-sized screenshots of websites

Capturing a full-size screenshot of a lengthy website or a blog is a tricky exercise. There are some screen capturing programs available (SnagIt) , but they come up with a cost. There are some online services that help to achieve the same, but you have to wait in the queue and it is not handy of you want to capture screenshots at your will.

But, I have been using a free, firefox plug-in that not only captures the full screenshot, but it allows you to add text, arrows, and boxes so you can illustrate the screenshot with additional information.

FireShot - is the plug-in that I am talking about. It is a free program that can be installed on top of firefox and helps you to take the full length screenshot or just visible portion of a webpage. It is a neat, little time saver for me so far while making illustrated screenshots.

This plug-in is an extension of the free software ScreenShot which is a standalone desktop program for your PC. You can download Screenshot for free.
For example, look at the sample screenshot of this blog which is normally 4 or 5 screens length and FireShot captures in a single shot.

Seven more Secret habits of Successful Bloggers

After posting the “Seven Habits of Highly Effective Bloggers”, I thought I missed out some of the little-known, secretive habits of the successful bloggers. So, here we go:

1. Volume blogging: 

Can you guess how many blog posts a typical ‘A’ list blogger publishes every week? 7 or 15. No, the average is about 28 (that is 4 posts a day). When you post in such great volumes and regularly paced out publishing, the search engines take note of your blog’s update schedule and revisit your blog more often. When you publish a post, say every 6 hours, you attract visitors from every time zone – so, the chances of getting new readership is very high.

2. Value blogging: 

Once in few days, they write a blog post that you can not resist reading it at once. That’s value blog post. It might be a collection of tips or resources from the web; you would love to blog about it in your blog pointing to it (that’s link bait).

3. Establish the brand 

Successful bloggers place a high emphasis on personal branding. They have a distinct logo, favicon and they brand the RSS feeds – which strongly puts a credible image for the viewers. With a good branding, the marketing is easy. The first-time visitors will always become loyal readers if they ‘see’ a good, branded blog.

4. Run blogging contests

Blogging contests are a good way to create a buzz. The contest participants (who are bloggers) will mention in it (that they are participating in a contest) their blogs to inform their readers, that is a sure way to attract first-time visitors.

5. Encouraging guest posts

A professional blogger gives room to another blogger to write fill-in posts. It is a WIN-WIN situation, where both the guest and the host bogger will reap benefits, because, the readers of one blog would visit other blog and each will showcase their blog in front of a large number of new audience.

6. Two-day, intensive blogging 

This is the single-most secret that every professional blogger doesn’t want to reveal. Successful bloggers allot one or two days (just that) for intensive blogging ideas and posts. They develop their ideas and write the posts and schedule their blog posts for publication and forget them. In addition to these scheduled posts, when they come across ‘current events’ - something useful for their readers- they write at once and hit publish. Now, you know their secret of volume blogging.

7. Revenue streams

Every blogger depends ‘Google Adsense’ for making money (that’s the easiest passive money making option for anyone). A successful blogger has at least 10 different revenue streams apart from Google adsense.

My wishes to you for a blogging success.

The Seven Habits of Highly Effective Bloggers:Tips for becoming a Problogger

Who wants to earn a five figure income by blogging? Who wants to quit the 5-day job and work only few hours a week? And who else wants to retire early and rich?

Yes, every blogger aims to achieve all of these and more (money and fame) from blogging. We want the benefits of being a professional blogger - but, do we do exactly what probloggers do?

Here is the habits of highly effective bloggers who earn the money and fame in the blogosphere.

1. Professional bloggers are honest in their dealings: Yes, they understand that you can not mock around if they aim to earn money and fame from blogging. They are very serious about their blogging and they work hard something unique for their readers. Be it the blog's design, content, search engine optimisation or marketing - they give their heart into everything. No pain, no gain.

2. They give before they get: Every successful blogger would agree that there is a certain period of time - where you are expected to give all your energy into your blog. You can not expect your blog to earn bucks in the early days. Those who wait, shall reap big rewards.

3. Probloggers are not afraid of mistakes: Everyone makes mistakes (or shall we call them as experiments or trials?) when we venture into an unknown territory. The mother of all mistakes is 'not learning from your mistakes'. They experiment boldly - try new methods and techniques to improve their blog, different sources to build traffic, readership. They constantly get feedback and quickly learn and adjust their strategies.

4. They have set clear goals: What you want to achieve through blogging? How much readership do you want to build? How much you want to earn? What is the time frame to achieve? Do you have a blogging schedule? Very few bloggers are very clear about what they want to achieve with their blogs. Set realistic goals for your blog - think on them.

5. Money comes last: You get paid for the work you already did. This truth applies to blogging as well. It is very common that blogs do not earn much money in the initial months - but once you have the content, readership and traffic, you will get plenty of money. Probloggers understand this. Do not stop if your blog does not earn quick dollars.

6. Probloggers read a lot: Books. Blogs. RSS feeds. They follow, skim through every possible reading material in their specialty (niche) area. They meet fellow bloggers, attend conferences and learn outside the online sources to inform their blog readers. Unless you read, you will not have authority in your writing. Read more.

7. They understand users: They follow what users like. They track user behaviors on how they respond to a new design, a blog post and quickly adapt to the readers. If you are not in touch with your readers, then you are already lost. They send out newsletters, freebies to reward the users. With readers, you grow.

More importantly, they are passionate about blogging. They strive hard to reach new heights. They would sacrifice anything for the sake of blogging (at least till they retire).

What do you think the essential quality of a professional blogger? Have I missed anything? Comment on.

The Michael Phelps Diet: Don’t Try It at Home

Swimmer Michael Phelps’s next career may be in competitive eating. Besides grabbing five gold medals at the Beijing Olympics so far, making him the winningest Olympic athlete ever, he’s got to be setting new marks on the chow line.

A New York Post account of Phelps’s… wait for it… 12,000-calorie-a-day diet, gave us a stomachache. Could one human being really consume that much and still be in Phelps’s shape? And could this possibly be healthy for Phelps, even considering his five-hours-a-day, six-days-a-week exercise regimen?

Here’s Phelps’s typical menu. (No, he doesn’t choose among these options. He eats them all, according to the Post.)

Breakfast: Three fried-egg sandwiches loaded with cheese, lettuce, tomatoes, fried onions and mayonnaise. Two cups of coffee. One five-egg omelet. One bowl of grits. Three slices of French toast topped with powdered sugar. Three chocolate-chip pancakes.

Lunch: One pound of enriched pasta. Two large ham and cheese sandwiches with mayo on white bread. Energy drinks packing 1,000 calories.

Dinner: One pound of pasta. An entire pizza. More energy drinks.

If you eat fewer calories than you burn exercising, you lose weight. But an athlete like Phelps, who exercises up a storm, has to worry about eating enough to replenish the scads of calories he’s burned. If he doesn’t, his “body won’t recover, the muscles will not recover, there will not be adequate energy stored for him to compete in his next event.”

5 Tips to improve your memory

Man is endowed with a rare organ called ‘brain’, which is responsible for all his personal and official activities. Your creative talent and reasoning power etc, all depend upon the memory system of your brain. But your memory system is sometimes treacherous. Your children fare badly in the exams and score poor marks. You are failing in job interviews due to your poor memory system. Hence, naturally you are in a dilemma how to overcome your drawbacks and improve your memory system.

The following five tips will certainly be helpful to improve your memory:-

1) Play indoor games like chess and carom, which will stimulate the performance of your brain, your thinking and planning capacities and your organizing abilities. Similarly physical exercise is good for your physical and mental health. Walk thrice in a week, at least half an hour a day, which will increase of your power of concentration.

2) Pay attention to minute details when you go to a place or when you meet a person. For example when you meet a person, observe the size and color of his dress, his height, his complexion, the place where you meet him, the door number of the house, the name of the street, its location etc and try to recall them when you go back to your residence. It is a kind of exercise to the brain to enhance the memory power of your brain.

3)In order to keep your brain in good working condition and sharpen it, you have to do some brain exercises time and again, like playing word games, thinking games and above all by doing a most effective exercise called ‘laughter’ which is capable of stimulating the whole body of a human being and refresh your memory system.

4) You should try to indulge in new activities as often as possible and take up your favorite activities like cooking, painting, gardening etc and try to do them in a different way whenever you embark upon these activities.

5) Good memory is about method. You need to constantly work on it with some new techniques. Try to do simple tasks in your day to day life like putting your two wheeler key or a car key at a particular place and do some important memory tasks every day like remembering some key words and codes etc. As far as children are concerned, to improve their memory system, try all the above mentioned ideas in a play way method.

WORLD's ONLY SEVEN STAR ( 7* ) HOTEL

Burj Al Arab Hotel, Dubai, which was opened in 1999, is unofficially billed as a 7-star hotel and is the world's most luxurious and tallest hotel.

Designed to resemble a billowing sail, the hotel soars to a height of 321 metres, dominating the Dubai coastline. The hotel's own website describes it as the best in the world. With your chauffeur driven Rolls Royce, discreet in-suite check in, private reception desk on every floor and a brigade of highly trained butlers who provide around-the-clock attention, this hotel promises the finest the world has to offer.

Here are a selection of pictures to give you a taste of what you can look forward to as a guest.
- it's $75 U.S. just to get in the gate to look at this place!!!!

- the cost of it, is estimated at over 80 million U.S.

- the hotel opened this june 2003 for tourists.

The world's tallest waterfall, located in Venezuel

World's Smallest Bodybuilder

Meet Aditya “Romeo” Dev, who at just 2 ft 9 in. (0.84 m) is the world’s smallest bodybuilder: Pint-sized Romeo is well-known in his hometown of Phagwara, India - for his ability to lift 1.5kg dumbbells - despite his overall 9kg body weight.

Every day, crowds flock to the local gym to the see the mini-muscleman in training. Unlike many dwarfs, Romeo is well proportioned, with a head circumference of 15in and a chest measurement of 20in.

Romeo said: “I’ve been training as a bodybuilder for the last two years and by now I think I must be the strongest dwarf in the world."

The Icehotel

Situated in the village of Jukkasjärvi, 200 kilometers north of the Arctic Circle, in Sweeden, the Icehotel is one of the most fantastic tourist locations on the face of the Earth. Using pure, clear ice from the frozen Torne River, artists from all around the world come to Jukkasjärvi every year, to sculpt beautiful ice and snow structures. We are not aware of how spicy the prices but we’re sure it’s a unique experience that’s gotta be worth every penny!

The Fattest 15 Year Old in the World

Georgia Devis weighs 210 kg at just 15 years of age, which makes her the world’s fattest teenager.

Georgia began over-eating when she was five years old and her father had just died. She kept on stuffing her face and today she can’t take more than 2 steps without having to stop and catch her breath. She can’t sleep in a normal bed because, well she simply can’t get in or out of it and she recently got banned from the school cafeteria for the simple reason that she just ate too much.

“It’s like a drug. Some people choose heroin but I’ve chosen food and it’s killing me. Doctors have told me I could drop dead at any moment.” says Georgia Davis. To prevent this the 15-year-old will have to take a trip to the US and join a fat-camp and attempt to loose over 100 kg in six months.

Georgia’s daily diet includes 2 loafs of bread, an entire chocolate cake, 2 plates of chips, 7 sandwiches, a gallon of soda, lasagna and many more. Her calorie intake is 14,000 calories a day while a normal 15 year-old takes in 2000 calories.

Glass Keyboard

This glass “no-key” keyboard, designed by Kong Fanwen, could be a nice alternative to the “Really Cool” waterproof keyboard that we featured last month. The plan is to use a tiny camera with motion capture technology that will track your fingers as you type. Unfortunately, at this time, this is just a concept.

Amazing Shutter Art