Enough Love

There is no difficulty that enough love will not conquer, no disease that enough love will not heal, no door that enough love will not bridge, no wall that enough love will not throw down, no sin that enough love will not redeem... It makes no difference how deeply seated may be the trouble, how hopeless the outlook, how muddled the tangle, how great the mistake. A sufficient realization of love will dissolve it all. If only you could love enough, you could be the happiest and most powerful being in the world...

- Emmet Fox

Most irritating about Microsoft Windows

I know what irritates me most about Microsoft Windows operating system: the way the focus can jump from one window to another without warning or control. There are no doubt bigger holes and issues in Microsoft Windows, but this one issue of uncontrolled focus-jumping irritates me several times every day.

Suppose you start a particular task or process in Window A - say, opening a particular folder or saving a document - and while this task is being performed, you navigate to another window B to do some other task there. The way the Windows operating system often behaves is that when the task or process in window A is completed, it automatically brings window A into focus, no matter what you are doing in window B. All of a sudden, you will find window A popping up in your face, replacing window B.

I hate this behavior. I work very fast at the computer. So, if some task takes too much time (more than 15-20 seconds, may be) in one window and it is not a really high priority task, I usually send the window to the background and switch to another task in another window. When I send a window to the background, I want it to stay in the background until I consciously navigate to it.

Instead, after a few moments, it will pop up into the foreground without warning. Due to this behavior, at times I end up typing stuff into the first window, that I intended to type in the second window. Sometimes I end up doing more damaging activities than merely typing - such as, saving or discarding changes when I did not intend to.

Anybody else hate this behavior of Windows?

Big Screen Productivity

I am switching to a new laptop at work. During this transition period, I have access to both machines - which means, two screens on my desk. I have been working this way for the past couple of days, and I love it.

A surprisingly big portion of working on a computer involves comparing, correlating or transferring information from one application or window to another. I like to have most of my windows maximized to full screen. So, I spend a lot of time switching back and forth between windows. Having two screens side by side made many of my tasks so much more convenient.

So, I am sold on the productivity of using big screens now. I wish I could have a monitor big enough to hold two or three 1024 X 768 sized windows side by side. That would rock!

Mom's Care No More

Last night, in a moment of intense anguish, I called out to my mother. I have not done that in such a long time - called out to her, that is. I don't even remember when was the last time I called out to her.

Anyway, my mother is in India. So, she could not hear my call. Nevertheless, a few minutes later, she called me on the phone. Only to tell me that she is getting admitted to a hospital today for a surgery. I am very concerned and worried for her health.

This is a milestone in my life. This is when I realize that I can no longer fall back on my mother's care. And that, it is now my turn to take care of my parents.

Oh, I am sure my parents care for me a lot. They are very concerned about me, and I am sure they would want to comfort and support me in my times of need. But my problems and concerns will only trouble them more.

I have always been an independent child. In fact, I have actively tried not to involve my parents too much in my personal challenges and difficulties. I have never really been able to fully express my pain and worries to them, for fear of getting them more worried. This is truer now than ever before.

Although I never really wanted to rely on them, there was some comfort in knowing that they are there, in case I needed to rely on someone. But now, this realization that I should take care of them rather than relying on them, makes me feel especially lonely.

VoIP - 1

Background
Last Thursday, I gave a speech at the Toastmaster's meeting on VoIP. The speech project was to research a topic and then talk about it.

It was supposed to be a 5-7 min speech. I planned on taking 1-2 minutes to give a brief explanation of what VoIP means. The rest of the time was to be spent introducing the audience to 3 or 4 VoIP services which are available in the market right now, to demonstrate how VoIP makes a difference in our lives. The audience was perfect for this topic - not one of them had a VoIP phone line in their homes. I thought that at the end of my speech, they would all be really inpsired to check out VoIP and benefit from it. Boy, was my speech a disaster!

As it turned out, the explanation of the theory behind VoIP took up most of my time. When you are giving a speech, time can fly real fast. I did not have much time at all to talk about the VoIP products/services I was going to show the audience. Even if I had the time, it would not have turned out all that great because my laptop would not connect to the projector. I was going to show them the features of the VoIP services on the screen for maximum effect. As it turned out, I learnt during the feedback that people did not even know that VoIP was related to their telephone service or usage.
They thought I was giving a speech on a theoretical technology that was way out there and did not affect their daily lives in any way! Repeat: what a disaster!

But I can see opportunity in this disaster. Two opportunities in fact. One opportunity is my next speech whose objective is to 'persuade with power'. I think I can show the audience these great VoIP products/services and persuade them to check them out, and perhaps, even use them. The other opportunity is, of course, to write this blog post as a way to gather my speech material.

VoIP Technology
VoIP stands for Voice over Internet Protocol. To put it in very simplistic terms, VoIP is the technology which is used to transport voice over the Internet. In VoIP, a person's voice signals are converted into digital packets, which are then sent over the Internet to the destination. At a very high level, it is not much different from sending textual data, such as emails. What this means is that, like most Internet traffic, there is no synchronous connection between the sender and receiver of voice data. The modern Internet channels are so fast and efficient that despite this asynchronous transfer of voice data, the data packets still manage to be gathered and re-assembled quickly enough at the receivers end, so that the receiver gets a signal which makes sense and is of great quality. In fact, the best quality voice conversations I have had between the US and India has consistently been over VoIP connections, and not the traditional phone lines.

The traditional telephone systems are called circuit-switched systems. In simplistic terms, in the traditional system, a synchronous, continuous circuit/connection is established between the sender and receiver of the voice signals. In the olden days, this continuous connection was made of copper wires. These days, we have all kinds of cables from copper to fibre optic cables, and traditional telephone signals are even sent over satellite.

The difference between traditional circuit-switched telephone systems and VoIP can be understood at a high-level through the analogy of the railways and roadways. Rail transportation requires that there be a continuous railway line between the point of origin and the destination. There is not much flexibility in the route. Even the containers used for transportation (the boxcars of the train) have rigidly defined size, shape standards. If there is a problem along the railway line, it can hold up traffic for a long time. The amount of railway lines and the places where they are available is quite limited. Compared to that the roadways are so much more flexible. There are many combinations of streets you can take from origin to destination. If there are accidents or problems along one route, you can take a different route. The size and types of vehicles you can use to transport goods over roadways are too numerous to list. The road network is extensive and almost unlimited to most places where people live.

The fact that voice signals are converted to digital data packets in VoIP is important. What that means is that the data packets can now be processed and manipulated by computers and newer digital phones, in ways that were never possible with the older phones.

It is also signifant that the voice data is transported over the Internet, instead of over regular telephone lines. What this implies is that the provider of the VoIP telephone service need not overly concern themselves about the route the voice signal takes from the sender to the receiver. They don't have to spend lot of time, effort and money in leasing bandwidth on telephone lines from the point of origin to the destination. They don't have to be concerned about providing a connecting line to each of their telephone subscribers. All that the telephone subscribers need to have is a high-speed Internet connection. All that the VoIP service providers need is a big enough connection to the Internet to send and receives voice data from all their customers. Of course, the VoIP service provider also needs to be connected to the traditional phone network to be able to provide connections between their VoIP customers and the users of regular phone lines. But this is a relatively smaller concern, compared to being concerned about the their entire network from the point of origin to the destination.

The two factors - manipulating voice data packets with computers and the telephone service providers not having to concern themselves too much about the entire telephone network - result in some great advantages and features to us, the regular telephone users. Those features, along with examples of VoIP products and services which offer them, will be presented in my next post on VoIP. Look out for that post to start taking advantage of these features yourself.

Lessons in Mistakes for Alpha Males

Making Mistakes

• Everybody in the tribe makes mistakes. The Alpha Male might make a big mistake. He has big responsibilities, big authority, big power. So, it is natural for him to be in a position where he might make big mistakes.



• The biggest mistake the Alpha Male can make is to think that he is a worse person because he made a big mistake. How big a mistake a person makes is not necessarily proportional to how bad a person he is. The Alpha Male must always remember that he made a big mistake because he is a big person with big responsibilities.

Admitting Mistakes

• The Alpha Male must be brutally honest with himself in admitting his mistakes and the causes for the mistake. Admitting his mistakes to others is a different matter.



• The Alpha Male must admit mistakes to others only if such admission is necessary for rectifying the mistake or for healing the hurts caused by his mistake or for teaching a lesson to others so that they don't make the same mistake. Otherwise, the Alpha Male should not admit mistakes to others.



• The tribe does not follow the Alpha Male because he makes mistakes and admits to them. The tribe follows the Alpha Male because he corrects mistakes and takes the tribe forward.



• While admitting the mistake might appear honest and honorable, most tribe members will see it merely as a weakness. It takes some maturity to recognize honor in the admission of mistakes, and most followers don't have that maturity.

Rectifying after Mistakes

• The first step to rectifying a mistake is for the Alpha Male to remember that he is the Alpha Male. He is the Do-er of Things. He is the Fixer. He is not a smaller person or a bad person just because he made the big mistake.



• Alpha Males can be hard on themselves, expecting to always do the best. So, when they make a mistake, they might spend time and energy brooding on it, beating themselves up. This is not productive. The Alpha Male should give only as much thought and energy to mistakes, as it is necessary to learn the causes and contributing factors of the mistakes, and learn what it takes to rectify the mistake.



• The Alpha Male should not allow himself to be defeated just because he made a mistake. The mistake might prove that he is not the smartest or the strongest, but he is still the Alpha Male. He should not give up his power and authority to others just because he made a mistake.



• If the Alpha Male is indeed broken or defeated by a mistake, and he is not able to correct it or lead the tribe, he should step down and let someone more capable take over. There is nothing more pathetic or dangerous than a person who is no longer the Alpha Male, but who is pretending to be one or trying to futilely to hold on to the title.



• By all means let the Alpha Male listen to other wise members of the tribe for advice on correcting the mistake. But what he does with such advice is his own decision and responsibility. He should execute the rectifications with his own power, as his own actions. He should be careful not to give up his power and authority to those who advice him in the time of his defeat or mistake.



• This is worth repeating: Mistakes and defeats do not make or break the Alpha Male. The Alpha Male is made or broken by what is in his heart, his head and in his balls.

Mistakes and Women

• One of the worst mistakes the Alpha Male can make is one involving a woman - doing something wrong to her or doing something wrong with her or doing something wrong because of her. The Alpha Male should take special precautions not to mix up mistakes and women.



• Most women follow the Alpha Male for the same reason the rest of the tribe does: because he is the Alpha Male, because he is the Do-er, the Fixer, the Leader. They admire and love him for the same reasons. Not because he makes mistakes or admits to them.



• The Alpha Male might feel the need to have some person with whom he can let down his guard, freely admit his weaknesses and mistakes, be vulnerable. He must be careful about whom he chooses to do these with. Doing all these with a woman does not necessarily make him the cute love-able puppy to her.



• The Alpha Male is better off having an older trustworthy mentor for letting down his guard, admitting his weakness and mistakes, and being vulnerable. Ideally, such a mentor is not a direct follower of the Alpha Male and is somewhat removed from the rest of the tribe.



• There is a rare woman who can see every weakness of the Alpha Male, still recognize that he is the Alpha Male, support and help him to overcome those weaknesses, and love and respect him at the end of it all. The Alpha Male who has such a woman in his life is very lucky. Such a woman will be one of the main strengths which make him the Alpha Male.