Not sure if you have ever used UPS' 'I want my stuff now' feature. It's pretty neat. If you are like many, most of the times when UPS tries to deliver your package, you are away at work. They a leave a note and then make few more attempts to deliver. In the mean time, you can call them, ask them to hold your package at their facility, then you go and pick up your package when it is convenient to you. That's the normal process. There is another nice feature that I discovered recently.

When you get that note from UPS informing you that they tried to deliver and missed you, you can normally go online and when trying to arrange for alternate pick up method, you see a small hyperlink 'I want my stuff today (now)'. Once you click that, you can pick up your stuff on the same day as long as you are making that request within their time window. What happens is that when you select 'I want my stuff now' option, you can go to the nearest UPS center at the end of the day and pick up your package. This is especially convenient if you miss your package on a Friday. You do not have to wait till Monday to pick up the package. After you select 'I want my stuff now' option, UPS arranges to take out your package when the driver returns at the end of the day and they open their center for a short time at the end of the day (normally after 8 PM) and you can go and collect the package. UPS is pretty good about making sure that they can really hold the package for you on the same day. That's why they ask you to expect a phone call from UPS after you have placed the request. Normally within an hour after you place the request, they call you and tell you the time and place where to come and pick it up. You go there, follow the same process by showing your missed-delivery notice and ID and collect your stuff.

I was very impressed. I had missed the first delivery attempt on Friday. It was not going to be possible to be at home on Monday or visit UPS office to collect on Monday. I was preparing to wait for next week end to collect the package. Then I came across this nice feature and thought why not use it. I clicked 'I want my stuff now' link, provided my phone number. As expected, got a call from UPS within one hour and was asked to come to their facility at 9 PM sharp and that they would be open only for 15 minutes and I should collect it within that time. I went there around that time and there were quite a few people already. Looks like people like this feature very much. No wonder. Collected my stuff and was back in no time.

It is because of this kind of convenience features that UPS has continued to excel. I will certainly consider buying some UPS stock in the future. If a company can execute so efficiently, it is worth my business and investment. I liked their process very much. They want to make sure that they can really hold the package for you on the same day. That's why they ask you to wait for their call and only after they confirm, they ask you to come and pick it up.

Good job UPS.

Cheers!

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Posted by Mahesh at 11:41 PM EDT

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B - Believe

L - Listen

A - Apologize

S - Satisfy

T - Thank

BLAST, in the words of David Novak, CEO of Yum Brands (which owns Pizza Hut, KFC etc.), sums up the customer management philosophy at Yum brands.

Cheers!

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Posted by Mahesh at 3:27 PM EDT

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"Honest man's secret to sound sleep is his pillow. His conscience is that pillow."

If you have this pillow, you won't need chillow. By the way, chillow is not a bad product. It does seem to address the problem of pillow heating up during the sleep. I tried chillow sometime ago and it does feel really nice to put your head on a chilled pillow. Recommended for hot headed people :) Not kidding...check it for yourself...Chillow.

Cheers!

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Posted by Mahesh at 12:42 AM EDT

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"It is simple to be happy. It is difficult to be simple."

"Simple is better than complex. Complex is better than complicated."

"Creativity is making complex things simple."

So, be simple and be happy. Start off with your house. Get rid of all necessary junk. The day you are able to pack your all absolutely needed belongings in 2 suitcases and leave, you are almost there. So, rent what you can own. Keep all your assets in real liquid. That does not mean you have to stuff all your money in your mattress. Stocks and other forms of investments are pretty liquid as long markets exist. You may think real estate, gold etc. appreciate much better. But, if history is any indicator, stocks have out performed real estate, gold etc. You can refer to Prof. Seigals 'Stocks for the long run' and many other books. If you still want real estate component in your portfolio, buy REITs which are investment companies which specialize in real estate.

Cheers!

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Posted by Mahesh at 12:29 AM EDT

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If you are in the market for accessories for your Toyota, you may want to consider looking at http://toyotapartspeople.com/. You may find their prices much cheaper than what you find at your local Toyota dealer. Since http://toyotapartspeople.com/ is also a Toyota dealer, they ship only Toyota or Toyota approved OEM parts. Service is fast and reliable. Parts come properly packed.

I do not know what is the thinking these days at Toyota but most of the new cars they make do not come with body side moldings. Those simple stripes which you stick to the doors of the car and which help protect from minor dents and dings to your car such as while some inconsiderate person opens their door next to yours or shopping carts moving helter skelter in parking lots etc. May be Toyota wants to give additional business to body shops by not installing such moldings. No moldings. So more such dents and dings. You feel annoyed when the first ding happens which could have been easily avoided if these moldings were present in the first place. Another theory is that Toyota thinks their new curvy designs loose their looks due to these moldings. I do not see how. Look at the nice formal look with these moldings.

Anyway, I checked with local Toyota dealers in the bay area. Half of them did not carry these on hand and said they have to order them. A few who had quoted at least $25 more than what http://toyotapartspeople.com/ quoted. So, it was a easy decision to go and buy from http://toyotapartspeople.com/. Local dealer quoted $60 to install. I was not comfortable going to local dealers to have the parts installed when I did not buy from them. Who knows how they would treat me or my car? So I went to some independent body shop and had them installed. You can Google for instructions which provide exact measurements at which moldings have to be pasted. They come with prefixed adhesive tapes. With time and patience, it is easy to do it by yourself. But, I did not want to regret later by either installing them wrongly or wasting one-time adhesive. Local body shop charged $25. Total savings more than $50.

I still like those boxy styled old cars with sturdy bodies. These days with all these curves etc. it is such a worry to drive them freely, park them where ever you like. Cars should come with body armor :)

Cheers!

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Posted by Mahesh at 8:03 PM EDT

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I use Qumana to edit and post my blogs. Noticed some problems recently with it when it starts. The splash screen comes up and that's it. Nothing happens beyond that. There is no toolbar icon. I was kind a puzzled. This is how I fixed it. May help you if you also Qumana for blogging.

OK, whenever software gives problems, pattern to use is 'Log files'. This pattern did not let me down. I went to the directory where Qumana is installed. There it was - qumana.txt. The log file. When I opened it, there was all the info I needed to find out what the problem was. As you can well imagine, Qumana stores blog entries and others in its local database at C:\Users\mahesh\Application Data\Qumana\db. It seems that the database file was corrupted and it was not able to open the database file. So, Qumana was aborting on start up.

I just deleted the qumanadb.data and restarted Qumana editor and voila it started working. Of course, since I deleted the database file, all settings etc. are gone. So you have to go through adding your blogs by providing user name and passwords etc and it has to set them up again. Any unposted posts are probably gone. So, do not leave unposted important posts. Blogs the rule of the game is to post it ASAP.

Cheers!

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Posted by Mahesh at 12:58 PM EDT

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For a long time, I have been using ticket aggregators such as kayak.com, orbitz.com etc. to look for best deals on air tickets. They seemed to work very well for domestic travel. Even international fares started looking good. However, today I was looking for tickets to India in July. It seems July is a peak season and fares seemed quite high even after making adjustments. During non-peak season, round trip ticket should be around $1200. Add a couple of hundred for peak season and I expected to get something around $1500. But, the fares generated by all these aggregators were very high. More than $1800. I was about buy one such ticket. Luckily I thought of going to some airlines web sites direct and check out fares. I am so glad I did. I got tickets at much cheaper price. For example, Singapore Airlines did not figure for the dates I was looking for. When I went to their web site, found SFO-BLR round trip for $1551 from July 17-Aug 1. That's a good deal. Cathy Pacific showed in some searches and the price quoted on kayak.com was around $1700. On Cathy Pacific web site the fare was around $1500. Same thing with American Airlines web site. Kayak.com showed around $1900. AA web site quoted around $1700.

Something to keep in mind before buying tickets from aggregators. I do not know if this is true even for domestic fares. I will start checking airline web sites even for domestic fares now on.

Biggest disappointment was makemytrip.com which I thought was a great source for cheap tickets to India. Not this time at least. Their tickets were in the range of $1900. That too on British and some other European airlines.

Ticket buying experience from Singapore Airlines was very smooth. You can choose seats, meals etc. You can even do electronic check in and print your boarding card before you leave. Electronic tickets only. That is even better.

Some good lessons learnt.

Cheers!

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Posted by Mahesh at 1:09 PM EDT

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""Computers make it easier to do a lot of things, but most of the things they make it easier to do don't need to be done." - Andy Rooney

I have started believing in this after my own habit of spending way too many hours in front of my laptop doing things like collecting this kind of quotations. :)

"It was said that million monkey banging at million keyboards would produce the complete works of Shakespeare. Internet has proved it wrong."

Have we become computer monkeys (like grease monkey)? For those who do not know, 'grease monkey' is an inept mechanic.

Cheers!

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Posted by Mahesh at 10:11 AM EDT

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"Doing things you need to do changes things you need to do."

I had not come across a better quote to illustrate the nature of evolutionary (or incremental) activity than this. We do not need to know everything to get started. As such we know very little to begin with. Only way to know more is to do something based on what we know and that alone will open up what else we need to do. It is like starting the journey as and when the first light is green. Worrying about all the lights that may be red down the road is not going to help. On the contrary, it may get us some honks from angry people :)

Cheers!

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Posted by Mahesh at 10:58 PM EDT

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If you are thinking about what to do with your old eye glasses, you may want to consider dropping them off at your eye glass store. Most of the eye glass stores have a bin to drop off old glasses. Such glasses are used to provide glasses to the poor worldwide. It is a different story as how much of them really gets used well and how much gets simply trashed. But, at least I do not have go through the feeling of wasting glasses and frames by trashing them directly. I normally drop off my old glasses at Lens Crafter stores. They seem to be pretty well organized in terms of collecting old glasses. Considering how much frames cost, I think there is some real value in donating old glasses. With even very low end frames costing like 30-40 bucks, I hope they reuse frames and glasses well. Anyway, where possible donate and recycle to your best.

Cheers!

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Posted by Mahesh at 11:36 PM EDT

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A lot of great Kannada audio stuff is available at - http://www.kannadaaudio.com.

Best part of (at least for me) the site is an excellent collection of Kannada dramas. Nice dramas from legendary artistes like Master Heerannayya, Dhirendra Gopal are too good. Dhirendra Gopal is my all time favorite. It is very unfortunate that he passed away a few years back. He was too good. His dialogs are simply superb - witty, funny and hard hitting.

Cheers!

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Posted by Mahesh at 12:41 AM EDT

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"If you can't be funny, be interesting." - Harold Ross

Most of the time, funniness is inherent. You are born with some amount. You are lucky if you can be funny, not only to you but also to others, most of the time. Being funny to others is important because we all think we are funny. Danger is others should not find us as a pain in the neck. So, let's not confuse being funny. Perspectives of others matter.

So, if we can not be funny, we can try to be interesting. Easiest way to become interesting is to know as much as possible about as diverse topics as possible. You can probably relate to this experience. You are talking about something. You hesitate for a moment because you know what you are talking about is some sort of a specialty topic (say 'theory of constraints' (TOC). how many would know what it is.) How do you feel if the person you are talking to says 'TOC is interesting. Elli Goldratt pioneered it. I got learn a bit about TOC. Tell me more about it.'? Does it not light you up? How would have felt if the other person were to put a blank face? Not that we can know everything every time. But, people who read widely can become interesting without much effort. Being interesting will carry us much farther than being funny. Even serious people are impressed by interesting people. Moreover, funniness is very subjective. Chances are one or the other time funny people end up rubbing people wrong way even if they did not mean any offense.How others perceive our humor depends on their mood, personality etc.

Read widely. Watch interesting movies and shows. Most importantly listen with full attention. Good listening skills go a long way in making you interesting to other people.

Cheers!

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Posted by Mahesh at 1:23 AM EDT

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?Don't piss on my leg and tell me it's raining.? - Judge Judy (http://www.joelonsoftware.com/items/2008/01/29b.html)

This is bound to shut anyone up. Nothing less is expected from judicial queen judge Judy. God! wasn't she entertaining!!! Not sure if she still presides on those TV court shows. But, when she was doing those shows, they used to so entertaining. Wish all court proceedings were that comical. Anyway, I do not watch TV anymore. Happy to run to such quotes once in a while.

Cheers!

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Posted by Mahesh at 1:07 AM EDT

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"If you seek vengeance, then dig two graves."

Seeking vengeance is like trying to throw hot coal on someone. Whether it burns him or not, it is sure to burn your hand. If you seek vengeance, then dig two graves. One for your victim and other for yourself. Regardless of what happens to the one you are after, you are surely going to need one.

Instead of vengeance, try forgiveness. 'Forgiveness is the best revenge.'

Cheers!

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Posted by Mahesh at 12:55 AM EDT

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"You will have to kiss many frogs before you find your prince(ss)." So goes the saying. Holds good for many other endeavors in life as well. You will have to work at several places before you find your ideal job, partner etc.

Best joke around this quote I heard was -' you will have to kiss many asses before you find the right boss.' Friend who told this mutilation of the original quote was referring to his boss. His point was - he had to bear through many shabby bosses before he found a boss who really helped him. That's true. Bosses come and go but mentors are the ones who remain in your mind. May be for every 5 bosses you work for you may find one mentor. If other 4 are not tormentors, be happy and move on. Mentor and tormentor - so close. Bosses can be either of the two.

Zero based thinking (I hope I got the term right) says that every situational dilemma can be resolved by asking one simple question. That question is 'knowing everything I know now, would I have done what I have done'? If answer is yes, follow the current path. If answer is no, change it without a second thought. If the frog you kisses is not your princes(ss), move on in the search of next frog.

Cheers!

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Posted by Mahesh at 10:22 PM EDT

Updated: Wednesday, 9 April 2008 10:24 PM EDT

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Sometimes a slow gradual approach does more good than a large gesture. - Craig Newmark (1952 - ), Keynote Speech, SXSW 2006

Incremental evolution, gradual refinement, pilot project etc. can be used to describe the above quotation. 'What good is a big splash? All it does is make a big sound and get people around soaking wet.' Is it not?

For any endeavor, it makes sense to start small, looking for immediate feedback and correcting the course as we go along. This is so pertinent to small investors that they better have it inscribed on their bathroom mirrors. Sometimes when people get carried away by the news of killings made by some big bulls in the stock market, small investors run with all their life time savings and invest. Regardless of amount of money you have, it helps to understand the system by using some dummy trading systems and test our strategy. Quite a few sites on Internet offer such facility. For a small fee, you can access trading platforms, trade as though you are playing with real money, learn valuable lessons and then start gradually investing little by little. Making a big splash in the market is going to get you literally wet because after you lose your shirt and other proverbial garment in the market, aren't you going to get real wet? On top of it, if the big bang of bursting market bubble also occurs, it is bound to ring in your ears for a while.

Another drawback of starting any activity on a grandiose scale is the difficulty with getting some instant gratification. Good or bad, instant gratification is the best sense of accomplishment. So, we need it. On grandiose projects when the first milestone is so far and difficult, it is easy to give up at the first obstacle. To avoid this we can start small and maintain a steady pace.

Small is beautiful. All good things come in small packages.

Cheers!

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Posted by Mahesh at 11:24 AM EDT

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If you are looking for a free software to edit PDF documents, you may want to check out PDF editor from Foxit software. PDF editor from Foxit Software is pretty good. Free trial edition is pretty good and trial period is six months. Free trial version puts a small watermark at the top of the document when you save the document edited.

User interface may be somewhat confusing or may be I did not explore it fully. I had to fill out few form fields in a document and the way I did was to right click on each form field and 'add text'. I had expected editing it like any word document. That was okay as long as I could edit the document without having to buy Adobe.

You can download the trial version from - http://www.foxitsoftware.com/pdf/pe_intro.php.

Cheers!

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Posted by Mahesh at 11:39 AM EDT

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"Prayer is not a spare wheel that we pull out when we are in trouble. It is a steering wheel that keeps us on the right path throughout our life."

What a beautiful quote! I do not know who said it. Got it in an e-mail and could not wait to write it down. Only if we remembered to take the name of the God every time we start something, in no time all our insecurity, diffidence, lack of confidence all go away like the mist at the first rays of sun. When we start something new or about face a challenge, we seem to think about everything else but God. It is only when we run into some problem, we use the name of God as a last resort that too without much hope or belief. Even in desperate situations, we are not sure if things can turn for good. We somehow remember that people say it helps to pray during the times of trouble and we too do that. Instead of using prayer as the last resort, why not make it part of our daily routine. Even if we are absolutely scientific minded, believing in supreme power goes a long way in taking out most of the worries. Even scientific minded people acknowledge that there are way too many unknowns and factors not within our control, belief in God is a way to abstract them all and treat them as a black box and not worry about them. Worrying about all that is like plugging leaky holes in a boat instead of rowing the boat to our destination.

Cheers!

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Posted by Mahesh at 10:26 AM EDT

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Tibet is in the news once again. Ever since China invaded and annexed Tibet in 1950's, Tibetians have been stateless people. Many along with their religious leader came to India after Chinese invasion. They were settled in 3-4 places in India.

One such place is Mundagod - small town in North Karnataka. Mundagod is probably 30-40 miles from nearest metropolis Hubli-Dharwad. Being from Dharwad, I got to see Tibetians and their life quite a bit while growing up in Dharwad. Mundagod was also on the way to Sirsi/Honnavar in North Kanara district - my ancestral places. So every time I took a bus ride to the native, it passed through Mundagod and Mundagod bus stand used to full of Tibetians.

Tibetians who were settled in Mundagod wove sweaters. You could see them selling their sweaters on the footpaths of Dharwad and Hubli. Since many of them used to go to Nepal, Tibet etc. they also used to bring along rare items such as imported sneakers, jackets, jerseys etc. Not sure how it is now. But, during my time, most of the sweaters worn by people were made in Mundagod. There may still be some old sweaters at home - made in Mundagod.

It was a different story about the bargaining with these Tibet women selling sweaters. It was funny to watch them bargain with people from Dharwad in their own version of Kannada. It must be appreciated that these Tibeti people, rooted out from their homeland, forced to settle in some totally alien land, starting their lives from scratch, making a honest living by selling sweaters. They also started providing Tibeti medicines later. No experience with that. My dealings with them was over with probably half a dozen of sweaters bought over the period of 10 years.

It was a pure bargain game. Tibeti woman would say some price. You would quote something less than half of that, you go back and forth and then settle at something. Pay money and take your sweater. These Tibeti women were no less audacious than car salesman if you decided to back off after they agreed to sell at the price you asked. If you dared to do that, then be prepared to be humiliated by their entire lot occupying the footpath for being a sissy and what not.

Despite their extreme hardships (at least during initial days), Tibetians have rarely been caught for any criminal activities. This may be due to the fact that entire community was well managed by their religious elders. Absolutely no non-sense and hardworking people. Over the time, they transformed their colony in Mundagod with lush farms, home industries and medical facilities. Dalai Lama visits once in a while. His deputies run a tight ship and Tibetians continue to do well in their adopted country.

Hats off to these people.

Cheers!

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Posted by Mahesh at 1:40 PM EDT

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Recently had some problems with CD player in my new 2008 Camry Hybrid. It is the standard CD player/ radio unit. Looks like many others have also had similar problems on Camrys of previous years too. If you search Google, you will find many similar stories. Too bad for the quality that we have come to associate Toyota with. Seems like the vendor of CD players produced a large batch of such defective units and thus many are getting affected.

It is a very peculiar problem in the sense that it is not readily reproducible and on top of that it is self correcting too. CD will be playing nicely one moment and suddenly CD stops and does not eject out. Nothing helps. The display shows 'Error 1'. Radio plays ok. You give up and after a few hours, normally after you have parked the car for a while, try ejecting and CD pops out. You can play CD again. Works as though no problem for a while and the same cycle repeats.

I had this happen twice. I wanted to take it to the dealer when that 'Error 1' came so that they could see the problem. Since my car was still under warranty, they agreed to replace the CD player unit. Let's see how this goes. Luckily for me, between the time I went to dealer to show the problem and the day they replaced the CD player, CD popped out. Otherwise, it would have be bad to lose out on a good CD that too from the library.

Warranty process was pretty smooth. I took to the dealer right when it had that problem. No questions asked. The dealer ordered for a replacement unit, asked me to come back after a week and it took a couple of hours to replace it.

It is the first time I have had to claim any warranty service on 3 cars I have owned in last 10 years. Too bad that it had to be on my brand new Toyota Camry. Looks like Toyota quality is suffering. Especially by the number of similar problems reported by other customers. I hope somebody at Toyota takes notice and fixes such problems. Agreed that all such accessories are sourced from outside vendors. But Toyota should demand rigorous quality from their vendors. If such problems surface, regardless, Toyota brand is what going to suffer. Not that of unknown vendor.

I am hoping this fixes my CD player problem once for all. Although there are people who have had to have their CD players replaced multiple times. If the vendor produced so many defective units, even the replacement may come from such defective batch.

Cheers!

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Posted by Mahesh at 3:07 PM EDT

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