Need a break ?

There are times in life when we get stressed out.  The biggest challenge when you are stressed out is to divert mind.  I build my own mind map of list of things that I can think off when I need a break.

Please click on the picture below to enlarge it

 

My love for Apple

When you love some one you think about it, talk about it and you spread the love.  This is what this blog post is all about. 

I feel privileged to be born in an era in which I saw Apple led by Steve Jobs creating awesome products that any one can use, which does not require a user manual. The company that puts customer first and design there business models.  Today my parents can use apps and video conference with me. they can share photos with me instantly…

Apple is the company which does not think of people as market, they design products with a thinking that people want the best.

Thank you Apple for making this world a better place and giving us tools that are powerful and are easy to use. My life would have never been the same if Apple wouldn’t have been there.

To Steve You made our world better, our spirits fiercer, our endeavors more noble, our creativity more powerful, and business more personal. Because you knew, it’s always personal.

Image Source : http://mashable.com/wp-content/gallery/steve-jobs-life-amp-times/jobs_1980s.jpg

Does Like button kills creativity?

For lot of creative people popularity is driving force behind creativity.  Let me share with you couple of examples how social networking is influencing creativity:

Example One:
You created a graphic image and shared it on social network and lot of your friends clicked the like button.  As a result you felt encouraged which brought energy and motivation in you.

Example Two:
You created another graphic image which you feel is superior than last one and you thought it better expresses the creative part of you.  You shared it on social network and this time you didn’t receive any likes.

How will you feel?

Most of us in today’s world will feel let down and think my last effort was not creative and i might need to rethink or change my approach.

Few days back i was reading a passage from the book “Mindfire”, it helped me in understanding that what is popular is not good always.  If something is popular it may be result of people using predictable and safe choice to make it popular.  On the other hand a good idea makes other uncomfortable, scares which works against popularity.

Reading above from Mindfire book makes me believe that popularity can work against creativity.  If you have done something different it might not appeal to others.

The kind of world we live in today, like button has bigger impact and meaning and we relate it with popularity.  After posting our work on social networks a wait cycle starts in brain looking for if we have received any like’s or not.  As we continue to get involved in social networks we have started believing the philosophy of like button and expect that more likes we receive better we are doing. Which may not be true always.

The key learning is when you are sharing your work on social networks and don’t receive any like than don’t feel let down, go with what you believe.  Don’t let the no of likes received stop you in being creative.

How to combine subject and verb to create stunning headlines

This blog post is a result of two books that i have been reading:

1. Presentation secrets of Steve Jobs
2. 50 Writing Tools

My learning from presentation book was how Steve Jobs created short headlines and used them to create mind blowing presentations.  Second learning from writing tools book was how to combine subject and verb to create powerful sentences.

I figured out that subject and verb is a powerful combination and can be used to create stunning headlines which can be used for blog post, article titles, subject lines of email etc.

Let me start with an impactful headline that Apple made few years back and changed the way we live, communicate and interact with devices:

“Apple reinvents the Phone”

Lets analyze why this sentence is able to make an impact.  The first word is the subject and second is the verb  =  Apple + Reinvents

Here are some more stunning headlines which follows subject and verb:

1.  Apple Unveiled Ipad

2. Brian Hall exposed Google by giving evidence.

3. America runs on Dunkin.

4. You Can Quit Your Job and Make Even More Money

5. Lincoln says war inevitable; Davis agrees

6. Clinton says there was no affair, urges witness ‘to tell the truth’

So next time you write an email subject line, twitter update, blog post or an article title start with this approach of Subject and Verb.

If you have followed my post than you have learned a writing tool called as : “Branch to Right” which is writing sentences starting from subject and verb.  Remember this is a tool for writing sentence not a rule.

Tags: apple, headlines, writing

Diagramming : PC vs Ipad

I am a fan of drawing diagrams, if you can express things visually it can leave an Impact to the audience.  So far I have mostly used Visio as my primary diagramming tools. Recently I downloaded Idesk app on my Ipad and started to use it.

Few things I liked about this app:

1. The feeling of drawing diagram using your fingers is way better than using mouse and keyboard.

2. Coloring of elements feels natural

3. You get involved in creating diagrams.

4. Shape recognition – It has a automatic shape recognizer, you don’t need to worry too much about drawing square, rectangles, circle.

The whole intent of this blog post is to highlight the fact that Natural Interfaces are set to rule in this space of creating diagrams.  I feel more productive in drawing diagrams in Ipad rather than PC.  The more I use the tablet, more confident I feel that we are in a post PC area, where lot more things can be accomplished using a tablet.

IDesk can be downloaded from here : http://itunes.apple.com/us/app/idesk-diagrams-graphs-schemes/id393111242?mt=8

Tags: idesk, ipad, nui, pc

The answer is Blowing In the Wind

Bob Dylan was one of the most powerful song writer of all times, this song is so powerful that it raises question to you whenever you think about it.  The name of the song is “Blowing in the wind”

This song sums the problems of the world and puts into question form.  This songs make me believe, how restricted are we in our lives and fail to help others. We all breathe same air, share same space on earth, we can see the answer but we dont do something about it.

The answer is “Blowing in the wind” :  These are the words from this song.

“How many roads must a man walk down. Before you call him a man? How many seas must a white dove sail. Before she sleeps in the sand? Yes, ‘n’ how many times must the cannon balls fly. Before they’re forever banned? The answer, my friend, is blowin’ in the wind,. The answer is blowin’ in the wind.. .

Yes, ‘n’ how many years can a mountain exist. Before it’s washed to the sea?. Yes, ‘n’ how many years can some people exist. Before they’re allowed to be free?. Yes, ‘n’ how many times can a man turn his head,. And pretend that he just doesn’t see?. The answer, my friend, is blowin’ in the wind,. The answer is blowin’ in the wind.. .

Yes, ‘n’ how many times must a man look up. Before he can see the sky?. Yes, ‘n’ how many ears must one man have. Before he can hear people cry?. Yes, ‘n’ how many deaths will it take till he knows. That too many people have died?. The answer, my friend, is blowin’ in the wind,. The answer is blowin’ in the wind.”

Enjoy this song for free on Youtube here : http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6tAFV1irG2E

Tags: blowing in the wind, bob dylan

Selecting rows from Datatable by applying Length filter

I wasn’t able to find a code snippet on web which select rows from Datatable by applying both Length and Trim function on a particular string column in datatable.

My requirement was to filter rows from datatable which are invalid and has blank columns.

This works for me.

public partial class Form1 : Form
    {
        public Form1()
        {
            InitializeComponent();
        }

        private void Form1_Load(object sender, EventArgs e)
        {
            var datatable = CreateDatatable();
            datatable = FilterDatatable(datatable);
            MessageBox.Show(datatable.Rows.Count.ToString());
        }

        private DataTable FilterDatatable(DataTable sourceDatatable)
        {
            // This is the line which does both the thing Trimming and length check
            string expression = “LEN(TRIM(FirstName)) > 0″;
            var rows = sourceDatatable.Select(expression);
            //Only works on .net 3.5 and above
            DataTable datatable = rows.CopyToDataTable();
            return datatable;
        }

        private DataTable CreateDatatable()
        {
            DataTable table = new DataTable();
            table.Columns.Add(“FirstName”, typeof(string));
            table.Columns.Add(“LastName”, typeof(string));

            table.Rows.Add(“Sumit”, “Gupta”);
            table.Rows.Add(“  “, “Singh”);
            table.Rows.Add(” Nagaraja”, “Singh”);
            table.Rows.Add(“            “, “Singh”);
           
            return table;
        }
    }

One caveat in approach above: This is going to change the order of rows which you might not want.

Ideally you should filter like this:

private DataTable FilterDatatable(DataTable sourceDatatable)
      {
          // This is the line which does both the thing
          string expression = “LEN(TRIM([First Name])) = 0″;
          var rows = sourceDatatable.Select(expression);
          foreach (var row in rows)
              row.Delete();
          return sourceDatatable;
      }

Please note that I have reversed my expression here. 

In case you have space in column name than please follow this blog to resolve that:

http://cpramod.wordpress.com/2009/01/06/datatable-select-problem-with-column-name-having-space/

Tags: ADO.NET, copytodatatable, Datatable, filter, filterdatatable, length, rows, Select, string, trim