Info For Use: tips

This post shares eight of the best stretches programmers—and computer users at large—can practice to reduce their chances of injuries and improve their productivity at the same time.

https://simpleprogrammer.com/ergonomic-stretches-for-programmers/

Recently self-employed? Six tips from experts on how to protect your wellbeing

What can those transitioning to self-employment do to protect their wellbeing? We’ve got six tips.

https://theconversation.com/recently-self-employed-six-tips-from-experts-on-how-to-protect-your-wellbeing-150307

Fundas

Why Flowcharts Should be a Developer’s Best Friend

This article takes a look at how fundamental flowcharts are in code development and will take you through the basics of how to get started implementing flowcharts into your development process.

https://simpleprogrammer.com/flowcharts-for-programmers/

Tips

13 Things You Should Give Up if You Want To Be a Successful Developer

The blog post author has collected 13 things, a novice programmer should avoid. With this guide, he wants to help all beginners focus on the important aspects of developing, thus having a promising start to a successful career.

https://simpleprogrammer.com/things-programmers-should-avoid/

Energy: Smart Grids

Tomorrow's Power Grid Will Be Autonomous

Autonomous energy grids use AI, renewable energy, and energy storage to optimize the grid

https://spectrum.ieee.org/energy/the-smarter-grid/tomorrows-power-grid-will-be-autonomous

Understanding

Twenty tips for interpreting scientific claims

This list will help non-scientists to interrogate advisers and to grasp the limitations of evidence

https://www.nature.com/news/policy-twenty-tips-for-interpreting-scientific-claims-1.14183

Innovations

21 Sustainability Innovations That Might Just Change the World

The world has to change if it's to survive: here are some of the most interesting sustainable innovations that could save the planet.

https://interestingengineering.com/21-sustainability-innovations-that-might-just-change-the-world

Books

The Top 10 Books of 2020 for Entrepreneurs

https://yourstory.com/2020/11/2020-books-entrepreneurs-startups

Entertainment

The Best Music of 2020 -- The New Yorker

https://www.newyorker.com/culture/2020-in-review/the-best-music-of-2020

Self Development

35 Proven Strategies: How To Make Your Employees Happy And Productive

In order to maintain the prestige of the company, you can rethink how to approach the employees as a team. This article points out some crucial areas of concern regarding productivity in work.

https://ceoworld.biz/2020/11/25/35-proven-strategies-how-to-make-your-employees-happy-and-productive/

Events

CSI, ACM & IEEE Events in Dec 2020: https://bit.ly/336UWkO

All events in Dec 2020: https://lnkd.in/gQuYQsk

Archives

Past posts of Intereresing Reads And Information

https://infoforuse.blogspot.com/2020/07/intereresing-reads-and-information.html

IRAI Quiz Archives at
https://infoforuse.blogspot.com/2020/08/archives-irai-quiz.html

IRAI Titbits Archives at
https://infoforuse.blogspot.com/2020/08/archives-irai-titbits.html

Pl. send your feedback & other communications to hrmohan.ieee@gmail.com

Monday, 5 October 2020

10 Expert Tips for New (and Aspiring) Managers

A guide for first-time managers: best practices from leaders at Intercom, Unbounce, Square (and more!) on the transition from individual contributor to manager.

There’s no better feeling than the “aha” moment when you realize that you’re ready to step up in your job and take on more of a managerial position. Better than this realization is seeing all of your hard work and perseverance materialize when you become a manager. Making this transition to becoming a manager is definitely exciting but it can also be super daunting… Now that you have this added responsibility, how do you adopt the right management style and skills?

If you’re on your way to becoming a manager or have just become one (congrats!), you’re in the right place. To support you in your new managerial endeavours we asked a panel of experts for their most valuable advice and tips for new managers.

Here are ten expert tips from our #ManagerChats on the topic of the transition from individual contributor to manager:

Act like a leader before you become one
Learn to delegate
Adapt your management style to each team member
Be an active listener
Stay organized
Build a culture of feedback
Schedule regular one-on-one meetings
Help your direct reports grow
Communicate goals and expectations
Never stop learning

Full Post https://fellow.app/blog/2020/expert-tips-for-new-managers/

Monday, 24 August 2020

Reasons to step into a leadership role, and the reasons not to

You might be considering stepping onto the leadership path, but may be unsure about whether you should or not. This article explores some good reasons to step into a leadership role and a few not-so-good ones.

The five good reasons to seek a leadership role:

1. Desire to have more impact

2. An opportunity to build different skills

3. Interest in watching others grow

4. Desire to improve the environment

5. Act as a Role Model

Reasons not to seek a leadership role:

1. Do it for the money

2. Do it for the power

3. Do it for the fame

Look deeply to understand your real reasons

Your reason for becoming a leader is the difference between becoming a great or a mediocre leader.

Read the full article

https://leaddev.com/reasons-step-leadership-role-and-reasons-not

Monday, 3 July 2017

22 Quick Changes You Can Make to Reverse the Effects of Staring at a Computer All Day Long

22 Quick Changes You Can Make to Reverse the Effects of Staring at a Computer All Day Long

Here are 22 tips you can try right now. Well, after you finish reading this:

Turn your computer brightness down to around the same brightness as your workspace. This not only saves battery life but also limits your exposure to excessive light.
Sit up straighter. And not just straighter, but correctly. Here’s your ultimate guide to good posture .
Go for a short walk around the office every hour or so to stretch your muscles and rest your eyes.
And, if you’re bad at remembering to do that, download an app that’ll remind you to take those breaks.
Do this 30-second stretch to relieve desk hunch . And yes, desk hunch is exactly what it sounds like.

For the rest 15 tips pl. visit

6 Things You Should Put on Your Personal Website—and 6 Things to Avoid at All Costs

6 Things You Should Put on Your Personal Website—and 6 Things to Avoid at All Costs

Now that you’ve been sold on the benefits of a personal website and hopefully started building your own , you may be thinking: So, what exactly do I fill it with?

Especially if you’re early on in your career or don’t work in a particularly visual field, it can be easy to feel like you don’t have enough content to make a personal website worth your time.

But you’d be wrong for two reasons. First, even if you only had a page’s worth of information, putting it on a website under yourname.com is still worth it just to have some real estate on the web and make it easier for hiring managers to find you, learn about you, and get in touch with you.

Secondly, and more importantly, you have more to fill a website with than you probably realize. To help you out, we’ve come up with a list of things that you should be including in your personal website (and, yes, a few things you should avoid at all costs).

1. Include: Your Elevator Pitch -- Avoid: Your Life Story
2. Include: Examples of Your Best Work -- Avoid: Every Piece of Work You’ve Ever Done
3. Include: Where You Are Around the Web -- Avoid: Links Totally Unrelated to Your Job
4. Include: A Great, Professional Blog -- Avoid: A Blog You Haven’t Touched in 2 Years
5. Include: Testimonials That Prove Your Worth -- Avoid: Testimonials That Just Sound Like You’re Bragging
6. Include: You, Visualized -- Avoid: Clip Art Graphics

Full Post

9 Steps to Solving an Impossible Brain Teaser in a Tech Interview

9 Steps to Solving an Impossible Brain Teaser in a Tech Interview

“How much does a school bus weigh?”
“How many people are currently online in Germany?”
“How many windows are there in New York City?”

And, most importantly: “How the heck do you answer these crazy questions?”

If you’re interviewing for a tech job, chances are you’ll get thrown one of these brain teaser questions at some point during the selection process. And when you do, you don’t want to stammer, “Um, I have no idea.”

So to make sure that you’re ready to handle just about anything, let me share nine steps that helped me earn offers at Apple, Amazon, Microsoft, LinkedIn, and VC-backed startups.

1. Understand What the Interviewer Wants
2. Clarify the Question
3. Ask for Time
4. Give a Roadmap
5. State Your Assumptions
6. Break the Problem Down
7. Round Your Numbers
8. Calculate on Paper
9. Offer Caveats

Full Post

28 Super Simple Tricks That'll Make Your Life Easier (Even if You Only Try One)

28 Super Simple Tricks That'll Make Your Life Easier

Whether you want to improve your productivity or take your stress levels down, these handy tips and tricks will make a big difference—without a ton of time and elbow grease.

If You Want to Save Time

Create a cheat sheet for the information you commonly need, so you can just copy and paste it.
Used canned responses to auto-fill those emails you find yourself writing time and time again.
Stop redoing the same report week after week and instead use Microsoft Word’s “Quick Styles” to apply your formatting with the click of a button. A number of other Word hacks can help you shave some time off your workday too!

If You Want to Get More Done (7 tricks)

If You Want to Streamline Your Inbox (5 tricks)

If You Want to Sleep Better (5 tricks)

If You Want to Plan Ahead (4 tricks)

If You Want to Reduce Stress (4 tricks)

Full Post

8 Behaviors That Separate Ultra-Successful People From Everybody Else

8 Behaviors That Separate Ultra-Successful People From Everybody Else

Ultra-successful individuals demonstrate some similar traits that set them apart from the ordinary.

Success has nothing to do with timing, luck or inborn talent, but rather a way of thinking and doing things to create a lifestyle of positivity and prosperity.

So why just sit back and admire ultra successful people when you could become one yourself?

There’s no microwave-ready recipe for success, so these aren’t five-minute fixes. But if you take this advice, you’ll be following in the footsteps of the entrepreneurial greats.

Embrace these eight behaviors to put yourself on a winning path:

They are continuously learning.
They surround themselves with other successful people.
They constantly seek out people smarter than them.
They learn how to lead different personalities.
They’re flexible.
They don’t care about being understood by others.
They channel negative emotions.
They don’t take “no” for an answer.

Full Post

10 Uncomfortable Things That Will Make You Happy and Successful

10 Uncomfortable Things That Will Make You Happy and Successful

Wouldn’t it be fantastic if the road to success and happiness were an easy one? Unfortunately, as we all know, this isn’t the case. The reality is, you’ll only succeed once you force yourself to do things that you don’t necessarily want to. It’s true. You see, our brains are wired in such a way that we often don’t take action until we feel some sort of uneasiness or uncertainty.

Multiple studies have backed this claim up, showing that performance spikes when we’re doing something out of our norm. The act of stepping outside our comfort zone is not only vital to our success, but also our well being and ability to grow as individuals too.

With a little understanding and a few minor adjustments, you can break free and achieve more than you ever dreamt possible. So step out of your bubble and embrace the following ten challenges:

Ask for what you want.
Get up early.
Say NO.
Take Compliments.
Give and take critical feedback.
Admit mistakes.
Network and make small talk.
Start practicing public speaking.
Overcome procrastination.
Let go.

Full Post

9 Things Every Person Should Do After 9 P.M.

9 Things Every Person Should Do After 9 P.M.

Recently an enormous amount of attention has been paid to establishing morning routines that set people up for success. Still, your nighttime routine is just as important, if not more important, than your morning routine.

As the popular saying goes, “It’s not how you start. It’s how you finish.” I would say it’s both. A great morning routine is like a great starting pitcher in baseball. He gets you off to a strong start, that sets you up to win. Just as important is that great nighttime routine, which is like a closing pitcher. Rather than have things fall apart, the closer comes in and pulls everything together, making sure you end your day successfully.

These 9 tips are thoroughly researched and drawn both from science, and the habits of the most successful people in the world. I’m writing this article as a process of improvement for myself. I personally have been spending a lot of time late at night on Instagram and in front of my computer. I’ve been waking up groggy because of a lack of slack. Whenever I implement the following behaviors I feel significantly better both that night, and the next day.

1. Turn Off Technology
2. Read a “Real” Book
3. Journal
4. Plan for the Next Day
5. Cool Down
6. Do Spiritual Practice(s): Meditate, Light Exercise, Pray
7. Spend Quality Time with Family and/or Friends
8. Clean
9. Sleep

A great nighttime routine is the perfect way to end a day. It leaves us feeling rested, rejuvenated and reflective. It sets us up for a great day tomorrow, and encourages us to develop outstanding habits.

Full Post

Tuesday, 6 December 2016

How to Write Email with Military Precision

In the military, a poorly formatted email may be the difference between mission accomplished and mission failure. During my active duty service, I learned how to structure emails to maximize a mission’s chances for success. Since returning from duty, I have applied these lessons to emails that I write for my corporate job, and my missives have consequently become crisper and cleaner, eliciting quicker and higher-quality responses from colleagues and clients. Here are three of the main tips I learned on how to format your emails with military precision:

1. Subjects with keywords.

2. Bottom Line Up Front (BLUF).

3. Be economical.

By adopting military email etiquette, you will introduce a kernel of clarity to your correspondence and that of your colleagues and clients.

Full Post

How To Be a Better Manager – An Interview with N. R. Narayana Murthy

Narayana Murthy is one of the giants of India’s IT industry. In 1981, he founded Infosys, a provider of consulting and business process outsourcing services, which is today India’s sixth largest publically traded company. Murthy talked with HBR about the most valuable advice he ever received, the advice he gives young professionals, and how he approaches leadership and management.

NM answers the following questions asked by HBR

What was the best advice you received as a young man, and what advice do you now give to young professionals?

What advice do you, in turn, give to young professionals?

What is the biggest mistake you made earlier in your career, and what did you learn from it?

Who is the best leader or manager you’ve worked with, and what made that person best?

What talents do Indian companies need most right now?

Read the Interview

Thursday, 1 December 2016

Credit, debit card frauds and how you can avoid them

On 19 October, the country woke up to a banking nightmare. The State Bank of India (SBI) blocked 6 lakh debit cards after a reported malware-related breach in a non-SBI ATM network. In what is possibly India’s largest financial data breach, nearly 32 lakh debit cards across 19 banks, including HDFC Bank, ICICI Bank and Axis Bank, were compromised. As per the National Payments Corporation of India (NPCI), 90 ATMs were impacted and at least 641 customers lost Rs 1.3 crore in fraudulent transactions.

Even as the council of Payment Card Industry Data Security Standard (PCI-DSS), an international body that sets data security standards, has ordered a forensic audit, banks have advised their customers to change PINs and confine themselves to own bank ATMs. The customers, meanwhile, are worried about how secure their debit and credit cards really are.

It’s a justified concern, considering that nearly 2.59 crore credit cards issued by 56 banks had a transaction worth Rs 24,341 crore via points of sale (POS) and Rs 202 crore through ATMs, while 69.72 crore debit cards registered transactions worth Rs 2.19 lakh crore through ATMs and Rs 17,100 crore via POS in July 2016. This is a fortune that fraudsters are waiting to tap into through several, ready loopholes. “Banks are definitely revisiting their network security by applying additional layers of security to prevent any compromise,” says Rajiv Anand, Executive Director, Axis Bank.

Even as the RBI and banks are trying to stay one step ahead by introducing several security features, including chip-based cards and two-factor authentication, customers need to take the initiative to prevent being conned. We list here the various ways that cards, credit and debit, can be used to commit fraud and steps you can take to steer clear of these.

Read the full ET article

Tuesday, 29 November 2016

30 Challenges for 30 Days of Growth

Scientists have suggested that, with a little willpower, it takes roughly 30 days for a person to form a new habit. As with mastering anything new, the act of starting and getting beyond the preliminary stage where everything feels awkward is 80% of the battle. This is precisely why it’s important to make small, positive changes every day over the course of at least a 30 day period.

Below you will find 30 challenges to be accomplished over the course of 30 days. If carried out diligently each of them has the potential to create a new positive habit in your life. Yes, there is some slight overlap between a few of them. And no, you don’t have to attempt all at once. Pick 2 to 5 and commit the next 30 days, wholeheartedly, to successfully completing the challenge. Then once you feel comfortable with these habits, challenge yourself with a few more the following month.

Use words that encourage happiness.
Try one new thing every day.
Perform one selfless act every day.
Learn and practice one new skill every day.
Teach someone something new every day.
...................
..................

Full Post

Friday, 25 November 2016

Research funding: 10 tips for writing a successful application

Securing funding through grant proposals can be a long and difficult process.Experts share their advice on how to help your applications succeed

Read the eligibility rules
Leave plenty of time to prepare
No unexplained jargon
Get other people to read it
Explain why research is needed
Network effectively
Justify extra time or resources
Participate in funding panels
Interpret referees feedback carefully
Plan applications in batches

Full Story

Monday, 14 November 2016

Know Your English -- 2016-11-14

What does the expression ‘You’re toast’ mean?

How is the word ‘minion’ pronounced?

What is the meaning and origin of ‘on cloud nine’?

Which is correct: ‘different from’ or ‘different than’?

Read the full story

Get your CV on top of the pile

It’s time to write that winning resume. Here are some basic guidelines.

A poorly written curriculum vitae (CV), despite the glowing achievements it may contain, will almost certainly create a negative first impression on a potential employer. After all, your CV is the initial point of contact companies have for judging how well you present yourself. Here are some basic guidelines to create the best line of communication.

Watch your length
List personal information
Order your content
Prioritize your past experience
Include professional and academic qualifications
Remember your language skills
Concentrate on skills when applying for an overseas position
Limit personal interests
Provide detailed references
Double check and triple check

Full story

Wednesday, 17 February 2016

10 Mistakes to Avoid to Make Open Source More Secure

Open source is becoming more popular in the enterprise. But so are open-source vulnerabilities. Here is how you can prevent open source-related mishaps in 2016.

It's no secret that open source is becoming more popular in the enterprise. Organizations from service companies to manufacturers to banks are tapping open source to take advantage of factors such as lower development costs, faster time to market and simplified application deployment through containers. Mission-critical performance is no longer a major hurdle. But there's another issue with open source that is sticking in enterprises' craw—and will continue to stick throughout 2016 and beyond. That issue is security. More than 6,000 new open-source vulnerabilities have been reported since 2014. Given the fact that, according to various surveys, 98 percent of companies are using open-source software they don't even know about, it stands to reason that enterprises don't have a good handle on how to defend against this growing threat. Most organizations lack automated processes for selection and approval of new open source as it enters a code stream, as well as inventorying and tracking the use of open-source software within their code base and Linux containers. Identification of or monitoring for known open-source vulnerabilities (like Heartbleed and ShellShock) is another issue many organizations now face as their use of open source grows. Based on interviews with eWEEK, Black Duck, a provider of software that identifies open-source components and maps known open-source security vulnerabilities, offers some advice about issues enterprises should consider to prevent open source-related mishaps in 2016.

Watch the slide show

Friday, 12 February 2016

An FBI Agent Shares 9 Secrets to Reading People

The ability to read others will greatly affect how you deal with them. When you understand how another person is feeling, you can adapt your message and communication style to make sure it is received in the best way possible.

But what should you be listening for? And what other signs can tip you off to what someone is thinking or feeling?

If you follow my column, you're familiar with LaRae Quy. LaRae, who spent 23 years as a counterintelligence agent for the FBI, now spends her time writing, speaking, and teaching others tips that she learned while working for the Bureau. Those tips provide valuable lessons for entrepreneurs, business owners, and everyone else.

As LaRae put it well:

"You don't need to be a top-notch interrogator to figure out what is going on in someone's head. The signals are always there--all you need to do is know what to look for."

Here are her 9 tips for reading others:

1. Create a baseline
2. Look for deviations
3. Notice clusters of gestures
4. Compare and contrast
5. Look into the mirror
6. Identify the strong voice
7. Observe how they walk
8. Pinpoint action words
9. Look for personality clues

Read the post