The February Robin Sharma Report starts like this:
It’s so easy to get discouraged as you reach for your dreams and your greatest life. It’s natural to face disappointments, rejection and a seemingly endless stream of challenges. That’s just life’s way of helping you grow and detecting your commitment. The best wins always appear after the biggest tests. Always.
I am in a similar situation. There are many great goals I am set out for, and challenges come up every day - sometimes every hour. I keep pushing and moving forward. Sorting things one by one.
And I am loving it!
I can empathize with anybody who’s done his/her home interiors now! We got keys to our new home on 6th January 2006, and have the puja on 25th Feb. Things have been crazy these two months! Three main architects, two who offered suggestions, many service providers and many material suppliers. I have not interacted with so many different kinds of people on any single project in my life!
The budget you keep for your interiors, will always be crossed. Double or more in normal cases. There are n number of small things you have to buy for a house. From floor traps in the bathrooms to the light fixtures for the dining area. If you are doing it for the first time, you have no idea how much you will end up spending before you start living in your new home! So be prepared.
Finalize the plan in as much detail as you can. Having the electrical and ceiling plan ready before you start the civil work will help avoid re-works and tension between civil work team, electrician and the color fellow. It also means you have something documented that everybody can refer to.
Schedule things. But be prepared for schedule slips. Schedules will slip. It is possible to work with tight timeframes (about a month for me), but work will go easy in the initial days and the last few days will always be battle grounds.
Decide between ready-made and custom-made furniture. Kitchen, Dining, Sofa, TV-Units - a lot of things can be purchased off the shelf or with little customizations. You would save about 30% if you do them in-house. There would be difference in the finishing though. So select wisely. I used professional agencies for kitchen, sofa, tv unit and bookshelf. Had in-house carpenters for wardrobe, center table and a whole bunch of other miscellaneous work. Bought bed and dining from furniture show rooms. Postponed two bedrooms for time and budget considerations!
Bathrooms will be expensive! There are thousand things that go in them and you will realize the impact when you see the bills.
Colors and lighting can change the way your home looks.
Utility and ease of use are prime factors in the kitchen. I spent the highest on kitchen. I want to give a great place to my mom (and wife, when I marry) to spend time in.
Contractors and service providers will suggest you what they like to do. You don’t always have to accept their suggestions. Most of the times, they are expensive suggestions. Many a times a contractor will give good suggestions for things that relate to other contractor. E.g. a civil work guy would give a great furniture solution. But may not be willing to accept your budget conscious idea about using marbles instead of granite.
Have somebody who can take care of daily supervision on the site. (yes, you will start calling your home “the site” two weeks into the interior work). I didn’t have this. My sister and brother in law visited once or twice a week from Ahmedabad and one of her friends came twice in the week. There were communication problems because of three architects and their scattered visits. Having a single point of decision and frequent visits can greatly improve the processes.
If you are like me, you would take fast decisions. That’s good. There are simply too many choices in the material and fittings. You can’t get everything right. Everybody will tell you that you make the house once in a life. Tell them you are going to buy another in less than ten years; and do not get swayed. This is the number one trick to make you spend more! Of course you want to take good material for your home. So do that, but take some practical decisions too!
Create some personal space. Your home is your identity. It should reflect your style and preferences. And your feelings!
Alright, it’s high time I rush back to the site! There are a lot of things to catch up. The color guy has said he can’t complete the work tomorrow. And we need something done for the puja the next day!
JSON is a simple way of representing data. A simple format that can be exchanged easily between machines and can be even understood by humans.
Wikipedia says:
JSON, which stands for “JavaScript Object Notation”, is a lightweight computer data interchange format. JSON is a subset of the object literal notation of JavaScript but its use does not require JavaScript.
JSON’s simplicity has resulted in its widespread use, especially as an alternative to XML in Ajax. One of the claimed advantages of JSON over XML as a data interchange format in this context is that it is much easier to write a JSON parser. In Javascript itself, JSON can be parsed trivially using the eval() procedure. This was important for the acceptance of JSON within the AJAX programming community because of JavaScript’s ubiquity among web browsers.
JSON parsers are available for almost all popular languages. JSON is very similar to how we have been passing around data using JavaScript and ActionScript. It’s simpler than PHP’s serialization routines and works pretty well.
You can learn more about JSON from the official JSON site. Yahoo! is very hot about JSON and Google too uses it well. JSON is widely know as the “fat free alternative to XML” 
Wish you a very happy Valentine’s Day!
I remember we launched MagNet - Magazine on the Net around Valentine’s in 1998. It’s been quite a journey from there.
Make it a lovely day!
I bought an LG 6230 mobile phone three weeks back. I used to carry around the “pioneer scheme” classic till date and am happy with the features of the new LG. It’s not the color screen or the camera that I found useful, but just the standard calling and address book functionality is implemented nicely. I liked the user interaction model and the cross linking of menus. The search in address book could be faster (it has a one second delay after you type, and before it searches the address book) and I would have liked if they made it easier to store mp3’s on the phone via the data cable. I would have also liked if they allowed more than 30 sms’s. The phone has a nice 128MB memory so why have limitations like this?
MouthShut has a few good reviews about this phone.
Interestingly, ads of the phone have the silver color piece. But if you go to the Reliance Web World, they have only the black model. They say they have not even seen the silver piece anytime! The data cable costs something like Rs. 1350 if you buy it from LG, but you can get it much cheaper (around 200 + delivery) from eBay.
The audio quality is much better with the headset. Othewise you got to turn the phone and speak into the microphone placed at the bottom of the phone when you are in a noisy place. I think it’s a lousy place to keep the mic.
I am waiting for my SD card to play the mp3’s and audio books. This is going to be my cheaper alternative to buying another iPod 
