www.BPODigest.com i-Vortal

Spice up your Blogger Blog with Free Blogger Templates

I came across this cool site: BLOGGER TEMPLATES :: A template for my blog, which has a collection of free blogger templates. You can get the source code and spice up your blog.

Optical Illusions

Check out this cool Optical Illusions and Visual Phenomena. Reference from Deeshaa.org

Open Source reporting library - Jasper Reports

I came across this cool open source reports tool:

JasperReports is a powerful open source Java reporting tool that has the ability to deliver rich content onto the screen, to the printer or into PDF, HTML, XLS, CSV and XML files.

It is entirely written in Java and can be used in a variety of Java enabled applications, including J2EE or Web applications, to generate dynamic content.

Its main purpose is to help creating page oriented, ready to print documents in a simple and flexible manner.

Can anyone beat this resume ?

I got the following resume in my email from Prateek. Once can hardly find very few world leaders can compete with resume.

RESUME

EDUCATION /Qualification:

• Stood first in BA (Hons), Economics, Panjab University, Chandigarh,
  1952.
  
• Stood first in MA (Economics), Panjab University, Chandigarh,
  1954.
  
• Wright's Prize for distinguished performance at St John's College,
  Cambridge, 1955 and 1957.
  
• Wrenbury scholar, University of Cambridge,
  1957.
  
• DPhil (Oxford), DLitt (Honoris Causa); PhD thesis on India's
  export competitiveness.
  

OCCUPATION /Teaching Experience:

• Professor (Senior lecturer, Economics, 1957-59.
  
• Reader, Economics, 1959-63.
  
• Professor, Economics, Panjab University, Chandigarh, 1963-65.
  
• Professor, International Trade, Delhi School of Economics,University of Delhi, 1969-71.
  
• Honorary professor, Jawaharlal Nehru University,New Delhi,
  1976 and Delhi School of Economics, University of Delhi,1996 and CivilServant.
  

Working Experience/ POSITIONS:

• 1971-72: Economic advisor, ministry of foreign trade.
  
• 1972-76: Chief economic advisor, ministry of finance.
  
• 1976-80: Director, Reserve Bank of India.
  
• Director, Industrial Development Bank of India.
  
• Alternate governor for India, Board of governors, Asian Development Bank.
  
• Alternate governor for India, Board of governors, IBRD.
  
• November 1976 - April 1980: Secretary, ministry of finance (Department
  of economic affairs); Member, finance, Atomic Energy Commission; Member, finance, Space Commission.
  
• April 1980 - September 15, 1982: Member-secretary, Planning Commission
  
• 1980-83: Chairman, India Committee of the Indo-Japan joint study
  committee September 16, 1982 - January 14, 1985: Governor, Reserve Bank
  of India.
  
• 1982-85: Alternate Governor for India, Board of governors,
  International Monetary Fund.
  
• 1983-84: Member, economic advisory council to the Prime Minister.
  
• 1985: President, Indian Economic Association.
  
• January 15, 1985 - July 31, 1987: Deputy Chairman, Planning Commission.
  
• August 1, 1987 - November 10, 1990: Secretary-general and commissioner, south commission, Geneva.
  
• December 10, 1990 - March 14, 1991: Advisor to the Prime Minister on
  economic affairs.
  
• March 15, 1991 - June 20, 1991: Chairman, UGC.
  
• June 21, 1991 - May 15, 1996: Union finance minister.
  
• October 1991: Elected to Rajya Sabha from Assam on Congress ticket.
  
• June 1995: Re-elected to Rajya Sabha.
  
• 1996 onwards: Member, Consultative Committee for the ministry of finance.
  
• August 1, 1996 - December 4, 1997: Chairman, Parliamentary standing
  committee on commerce.
  
• March 21, 1998 : Leader of the Opposition, Rajya Sabha.
  
• June 5, 1998 : Member, committee on finance.
  
• August 13, 1998 : Member, committee on rules.
  
• Aug 1998-2001: Member, committee of privileges 2000 onwards: Member,
  executive committee, Indian parliamentary group.
  
• June 2001: Re-elected to Rajya Sabha.
  
• Aug 2001 : Member, general purposes committee.
  
• May 22, 2004 onwards: Prime Minister of India.
  

BOOKS:

India's Export Trends and Prospects for Self-Sustained Growth -Clarendon
Press, Oxford University, 1964; also published a large number of
articles in various economic journals.

OTHER ACCOMPLISHMENTS:

• Adam Smith Prize, University of Cambridge, 1956
  
• Padma Vibhushan, 1987
  
• Euro money Award, Finance Minister of the Year, 1993;
  
• Asia money Award, Finance Minister of the Year for Asia, 1993 and 1994
  

INTERNATIONAL ASSIGNMENTS:

• 1966: Economic Affairs Officer
  
• 1966-69: Chief, financing for trade section, UNCTAD
  
• 1972-74: Deputy for India in IMF Committee of Twenty on International
  Monetary Reform
  
• 1977-79: Indian delegation to Aid-India Consortium Meetings
  
• 1980-82: Indo-Soviet joint planning group meeting
  
• 1982: Indo-Soviet moni toring group meeting
  
• 1993: Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting Cyprus 1993: Human
  Rights World Conference, Vienna
  

RECREATION:

Gymkhana Club, New Delhi; Life Member, India International Centre, New
Delhi

Name: Dr Manmohan Singh

DOB: September 26, 1932

Place of Birth: Gah (West Punjab)

Father: S. Gurmukh Singh

Mother: Mrs Amrit Kaur

Married on: September 14, 1958

Wife: Mrs Gursharan Kaur

Children: Three daughters

Our Prime Minister seems to be the most qualified PM all over the world.

Sweat, sweat, sweat

When I was in my 9th class, Steffi Graf used to be favourite tennis player. I used to collect her posters and paste them on the walls of my room. In one poster, that was published in Competition Success Review a prominant and popular magazine of India, there was a quote : "The Secret Of Success is Sweat". For many years, this poster remained as a prized collection for me and the quote inspired me in all of my career paths. Today there is a article published in Sify :
Kalam reveals his recipe for success - Sify.com.

"Sweat, sweat, sweat," President APJ Abdul Kalam said on Wednesday, spelling out his recipe for success.

The quote is so true!

Sweat, sweat, sweat

When I was in my 9th class, Steffi Graf used to be favourite tennis player. I used to collect her posters and paste them on the walls of my room. In one poster, that was published in Competition Success Review a prominant and popular magazine of India, there was a quote : "The Secret Of Success is Sweat". For many years, this poster remained as a prized collection for me and the quote inspired me in all of my career paths. Today there is a article published in Sify :
Kalam reveals his recipe for success - Sify.com.

"Sweat, sweat, sweat," President APJ Abdul Kalam said on Wednesday, spelling out his recipe for success.

The quote is so true!

Interested in finding out how computer thinks ?

Via: Via [Vallabhi], check out this Online Chess! where the computer thinking is shown visually. After looking @ this you will never ever regret of losing against a machine!

India Unleashed

Download the presentation on India
PPT Version: India Unleashed | Ourmedia

PDF Version:

Open Source Beer

Are you wondering what this open source beer is all about? Well, open source beer is a recipe of beer given out to public and the license to sell the beer is also free to anybody as long as the manufacturer publishes the exact recipe they adopted in brewing the beer. Its a creative commons license model beer recipe. You can find the Open Source Beer @ ..::...Vores ØL...::..

What's this "Vores Øl"?
Vores Øl (Our Beer) is a great tasting energetic beer and it's the world's first open source beer! It is based on classic ale brewing traditions but with added guarana for a natural energy-boost.

Version 1.0 is a medium strong beer (6% vol) with a deep golden red color and an original but familiar taste.

Is it a real beer?
Yes and no. You can't buy it in stores (at least not yet) and by the time you read this we have probably drank all the beer we brewed in the first batch. (It tasted good.)

But somewhere in the world someone might be using our recipe right now, and as long as they publish their version of the recipe they are free to sell it in a store near you...

How can beer be open source?
The recipe and the whole brand of Our Beer is published under a Creative Commons license, which basically means that anyone can use our recipe to brew the beer or to create a derivative of our recipe. You are free to earn money from Our Beer, but you have to publish the recipe under the same license (e.g. on your website or on our forum) and credit our work. You can use all our design and branding elements, and are free to change them at will provided you publish your changes under the same license ("Attribution & Share Alike").

Who are "we"?
We are "Vores Øl Group", a group of students at the IT-University in Copenhagen and have created Our Beer in collaboration with Superflex as an experiment in applying modern open source ideas and methods on a traditional real-world product (beer).

Read more @ http://www.voresoel.dk/main.php?id=70

Atanu Dey Linked My Blog

Lately I have been busy with numerous happenings in my life and not updating my blog that often. But, today I realized that I need to get more serious about blogging. Why b'cos, today I was going through www.deeshaa.org and I realized that my blog is listed in his 'Blogs I Read' section. When Atanu links to my blog, it is a previlege and it tells me that I need to become more responsible in blogging. I will try to live up.

How to get a better brain ?

Via Atanu Dey: New Scientist 11 steps to a better brain artilce features the following points.

1. Smart drugs - Does getting old have to mean worsening memory, slower reactions and fuzzy thinking?

   A few drugs that might do the job, known as "cognitive enhancement", are already on the market, and a few dozen others are on the way. So why aren't we all on cognitive enhancers already? "We need to be careful what we wish for," says Daniele Piomelli at the University of California at Irvine. Tinkering with memory may have unwanted effects, he warns. "Ultimately we may end up remembering things we don't want to."

2. Food for thought - You are what you eat, and that includes your brain. So what is the ultimate mastermind diet?

   First, go to the top of the class by eating breakfast. Beans on toast is a far better combination, as Barbara Stewart from the University of Ulster, UK, discovered. If you can't stomach beans before midday, wholemeal toast with Marmite makes a great alternative. A smart choice for lunch is omelette and salad. Round off lunch with a yogurt dessert, and you should be alert and ready to face the stresses of the afternoon. Don't forget to snaffle a snack mid-afternoon, to maintain your glucose levels. Just make sure you avoid junk food. Finally, you could do worse than finish off your evening meal with strawberries and blueberries.

3. The Mozart effect - Music may tune up your thinking, but you can't just crank up the volume and expect to become a genius

   This sounds like the most harmonious way to tune up your mental faculties. But before you grab the CDs, hear this note of caution. Not everyone who has looked for the Mozart effect has found it. What's more, even its proponents tend to think that music boosts brain power simply because it makes listeners feel better - relaxed and stimulated at the same time - and that a comparable stimulus might do just as well. In fact, one study found that listening to a story gave a similar performance boost.

   There is, however, one way in which music really does make you smarter, though unfortunately it requires a bit more effort than just selecting something mellow on your iPod. Music lessons!
   

4. Bionic brains - If training and tricks seem too much like hard work, some technological short cuts can boost brain function

   Click for the Graph 1

   Click for the Graph 2

5. Gainful employment - Put your mind to work in the right way and it could repay you with an impressive bonus

   A team led by Torkel Klingberg at the Karolinska Institute in Stockholm, Sweden, has found signs that the neural systems that underlie working memory may grow in response to training.

6. Memory marvels - Mind like a sieve? Don't worry. The difference between mere mortals and memory champs is more method than mental capacity.

   Learn a trick from the "mnemonists" who routinely memorise strings of thousands of digits, entire epic poems, or hundreds of unrelated words.

7. Sleep on it - Never underestimate the power of a good night's rest

8. Body and mind - Physical exercise can boost brain as well as brawn

   Balding suggests that aerobic exercise may boost mental powers by getting extra oxygen to your energy-guzzling brain.

   There's another reason why your brain loves physical exercise: it promotes the growth of new brain cells. Until recently, received wisdom had it that we are born with a full complement of neurons and produce no new ones during our lifetime. Fred Gage from the Salk Institute in La Jolla, California, busted that myth in 2000 when he showed that even adults can grow new brain cells. He also found that exercise is one of the best ways to achieve this.

   Just as physical exercise can boost the brain, mental exercise can boost the body.

9. Nuns on a run - If you don't want senility to interfere with your old age, perhaps you should seek some sisterly guidance

   The sisters' miraculous longevity - the group boasts seven centenarians and many others well on their way - is surely in no small part attributable to their impeccable lifestyle. They do not drink or smoke, they live quietly and communally, they are spiritual and calm and they eat healthily and in moderation. Nevertheless, small differences between individual nuns could reveal the key to a healthy mind in later life.

   Obviously, you don't have to become a nun to stay mentally agile. We can all aspire to these kinds of improvements. As one of the sisters put it, "Think no evil, do no evil, hear no evil, and you will never write a best-selling novel."

10. Attention seeking - You can be smart, well-read, creative and knowledgeable, but none of it is any use if your mind isn't on the job

    Pay attention to everything in you are involved with. If you find your mind wandering, tell your brain - "Stop! Be here now!"

11. Positive feedback - Thought control is easier than you might imagine

    IT SOUNDS a bit New Age, but there is a mysterious method of thought control you can learn that seems to boost brain power. No one quite knows how it works, and it is hard to describe exactly how to do it: it's not relaxation or concentration as such, more a state of mind. It's called neurofeedback. And it is slowly gaining scientific credibility.
    

Read the complete article @ New Scientist 11 steps to a better brain