Sunday, May 5, 2013

Terry Fox - The Marathon of Hope!




Terrance Stanley "Terry" Fox CC OD, (July 28, 1958 – June 28, 1981) was a Canadian athlete, humanitarian, and cancer research activist. In 1980, with one leg having been amputated, he embarked on a cross-Canada run to raise money and awareness for cancer research. Although the spread of his cancer eventually forced him to end his quest after 143 days and 5,373 kilometres (3,339 mi), and ultimately cost him his life, his efforts resulted in a lasting, worldwide legacy. The annual Terry Fox Run, first held in 1981, has grown to involve millions of participants in over 60 countries and is now the world's largest one-day fundraiser for cancer research; over C$ 500 million has been raised in his name.





Fox was a distance runner and basketball player for his Port Coquitlam, British Columbia, high school and Simon Fraser University. His right leg was amputated in 1977 after he was diagnosed with osteosarcoma, though he continued to run using an artificial leg. He also played wheelchair basketball in Vancouver, winning three national championships.
In 1980, he began the Marathon of Hope, a cross-country run to raise money for cancer research. Fox hoped to raise one dollar for each of Canada's 24 million people. He began with little fanfare from St. John's, Newfoundland, in April and ran the equivalent of a fullmarathon every day. Fox had become a national star by the time he reached Ontario; he made numerous public appearances with businessmen, athletes, and politicians in his efforts to raise money. He was forced to end his run outside of Thunder Bay when the cancer spread to his lungs. His hopes of overcoming the disease and completing his marathon ended when he died nine months later.
Fox was the youngest person ever named a Companion of the Order of Canada. He won the 1980 Lou Marsh Award as the nation's top sportsman and was named Canada's Newsmaker of the Year in both 1980 and 1981. Considered a national hero, he has had many buildings, roads and parks named in his honour across the country.
The Terry Fox Website - Terry Fox Organisation
References: Wikepedia, ESPN & Youtube
Do you know anyone who was as brave and compassionate as Terry?

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Friday, April 20, 2012

Why a To - Do List is useless! (Time Management)

Our existence in itself is a time based phenomenon. We are on this planet for some odd 60 - 80 years (mostly). Our actions won't effect us an ounce before our birth and after we are gone. What time will hold is our ability to have an impression on it (read history).
Time is the costliest commodity. Time is money. It is wrong. We can't buy a lost second by all of the world's wealth. Thus every second, every moment must be spent very wisely.

To start working on Time Management the need to feel the importance of time is crucial. If the value of time is not percieved and realised there will not be any attempt to protect it. By daily reviewing over efforts spent for the day and where we could have done better is a key to realise the same. A manual time log will be very handy. 



When i get overwhelmed by my To-Do list i resort to a quick fix approach. I call this the "Right Away Technique".

If you have so many things to do and you are not able to decide then pic the most urgent, most pressing task. Pick a task such that if you didn't do it the whole world will come down. Decide on the task and do it. Period.

Once done with your First "Right Away" task pick the second Right Away Task. Pick it, do it. Move to next.

The difference between a To - DO list and right away approach is that you create a to do list and then start working on it one by one. While in a RA Technique you just think about the most unprocrastinable task. Everyother task goes off your mind. You are in the most alive present and your whole focus is on completing this task rather than thinking about the whole list.


If we are able to prioritise our tasks half the battle is won.  

Distractions are the worst enemy of a time manager. I bet that as soon you'll start to make a time managemnent plan the distractions will start to jump in. Here self discipline and ability to say NO comes in very handy. Willpower to say no to unplanned movies, parties and other stuff plays a major part.

Stick to a daily regime and complete it by all means. Regular practice will reduce the will power needed to get the tasks done. The saved will power could be used for harder tasks such as dating Selena Gomez and buying LinkedIn.

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Thursday, April 5, 2012

How Content Management System Works (Non Technical)


Many times it becomes very difficult to change content of our website. There could be several factors. The designer is on leave. The design company is over charging you for every single change. The list might be endless.

http://amitstheory.blogspot.com

To tackle such situations a CMS comes very handy. CMS is short for Content Management System. It is a piece of software embedded (mostly) in your web design pages. With the help of a login system the user can himself update his existing content. It could be addition of a new text, modification of an existing one or deletion of some text or images. 

How a Content Management System works:

A CMS saves all the dynamic information in a database such as Mysql or xml file system.
When the site is requested by browser (user) the currently available text / images are pulled from database and loaded into the webpages which are rendered along with the fixed design.

CMS Flow

To manage this data a login system is present which show all the information to a user in web forms in editable mode. The user (admin) can edit the text, change images, and do other stuff as per the complexity of the cms. Once done he need to save the same to the database. This updated info will now be available to be seen to the viewer of the site.  

Popular Content Management Systems:

The popular cms currently available can be categorised into free and paid. The most popular free cms available are:

1. Wordpress
2. Drupal
3. Joomla 

While Wordpress is blog based it is one of the most used for ease of installation and use. Drupal is thought to be more of techie oriented but its new version is more bent towards user friendliness. Joomla is more developers and designers oriented.

All of the three are freely downloadable and have a great community support. Many free and paid plugins are available for each of them. A plugin provides additional functionality like login, gallery etc.

Many companies sell monthly / yearly membership plans for their theme services for these cms platforms.

Free Wordpress themes->

http://wp.smashingmagazine.com/2010/08/19/100-free-high-quality-wordpress-themes-for-2010/
http://www.artfans.info/37-the-best-and-coolest-free-wordpress-themes-2011/

Bonus: Wordpress ECommerce Themes:

http://www.webdesigndev.com/web-development/10-incredible-ecommerce-wordpress-themes

Free Drupal Themes ->

http://www.1stwebdesigner.com/freebies/27-best-looking-free-drupal-6-themes/
http://creativefan.com/100-best-free-drupal-themes/

Free Joomla Themes ->

http://www.joomla24.com/
http://www.bestofjoomla.com/component/option,com_bestoftemplate/Itemid,46/

What are the other free / paid CMS solutions?  


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Wednesday, March 28, 2012

How can we fight Hunger and Starvation?

"A person does not have to die to prove that he is starving." 


It was the month of May 2002. I can remember my mother pondering over a piece of newspaper. I asked her what was that?

She showed my the photographs of people who died of starvation. They died because of not getting a single meal in a day. How was that possible. I went through the whole article surprised and dejected.

I was not able to sleep well in the night. 

The next morning i called two of my friends and discussed on what could we do in this matter.
We decided to form an NGO to do whatever was possible.

Somehow we were not able to start it as we got busy with studies and job.

In July 2011 we finally registered  "Lets Help Charitable Society".

As the NGO was registered we needed a bank account for it. The people at State Bank of India were very cooperative and they got it opened within a single day. It was all good till this point.

We were waiting for the checkbook to reach us via the Indian Post Office. It never reached us. On inquiring they asked to get a verification done. The form which they provided us to fill in the details was that in a format  applicable to small businesses. Still they insisted to fill it. We did it and returned to the PO staff. Now they wanted some other documents. 

We are in an endless loop here. We are working on it and hopefully will get all the formalities done in a couple of months. 


Being of any help to the starving population of world is lot more important than our own NGO. 
Will keep you updated on our efforts on this.

Currently people from 9 states of India are on the founding board of members.

As we get the website running in a month or so we'll also open the international memberships.

Till then feed someone who is unable to do it himself. 

Lets Help Charitable Society FB Page: 



Suggested Resources where you can get more info or you can give a donation:






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Tuesday, March 27, 2012

What is Amit's Theory Anyway?

Who Am I?

I am an entrepreneur. I work with the spirit of an entrepreneur at my day job in an awesome IT company. 


Education?

B.Tech. Computer Science & Engineering.
Self educated through hosts of self help books, blogs, videos and inspirations from some real nice people.
I'll post reviews of books that could really help you.

Will it be useful for you?

I can't promise it. I will share all my experiences, trysts, travails and other wonderful stuff with you. May be you can find some value in not repeating it yourself. I will also share any wonderful stuff, idea, people or website that i consider to be useful /entertaining for you.

My Startups!

Dec 2007: Infocorp Software Solutions InfocorpSolutions.net
After running Infocorp for one year I moved to another company to learn more. As of now Infocorp is being run by my wonderful brother.

July 2008: Escalera Technologies EscaleraTechnologies.com
This is an institute we started back in 2008 in Pune. I left control of this when I started with another job. It is growing rapidly and they are planning to open branches in other cities as well. Whenever I go to Pune (India) I make sure that I visit this place. 

July 2011: Lets Help Charitable Society Lets-Help-Charitable-Society
This is an NGO with members from nine states of India. We are trying to help people with terminal medical conditions and people on the verge of starvation. You may feel free to contact me if you wish to help this cause.

You can contact me on:


amit.ellipsis@gmail.com
FaceBook: https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=1219258591