Some Useful Information

Don’t Drink & Tylenol

malaybansal — Sun, 07 Feb 2010 20:26:46 +0000

Recently, I saw a friend take Tylenol after having several drinks, and that prompted me to write this. But, a disclaimer is in order first – I am not a medical person, and this is not medical advice. Just couple of things regarding headache medicine that I had heard a while back but many knowledgeable and educated people seem to be not aware of.

Tylenol, or anything else that contains Acetaminophen, should not be taken with alcohol, as it can result in severe liver damage. If you have been drinking, and have a headache, aspirin is supposed to be better. However, aspirin has its own limitation – it should not be taken on empty stomach as that can harm the stomach lining. Tylenol is better on an empty stomach if no alcohol has been consumed, but even that is preferred on a full stomach. Finally, an obvious one – it’s not a good idea to mix the two.

Again, before taking any action, be sure to talk to a physician or a pharmacist.

My Other Blog

malaybansal — Sat, 22 Aug 2009 16:19:18 +0000

Thoughts on Markets & Economy

Helping Wounded Veterans

malaybansal — Sat, 23 May 2009 17:37:20 +0000

As we celebrate braveness and service of our armed forces personnel this Memorial Day, this previous post is worth repeating….

————

In this holiday season & the new year, wounded warriors and their families, are one group that deserves our support. Their sacrifices and pain dwarf almost anything else.

My mailbox, as I am sure is true for most people, has been full of solicitations from numerous organizations. To pick organizations that are efficient and do their job well, I asked friends & colleagues for suggestions. I have listed the responses received below (in no particular order), and will be happy if it helps even one more person make a decision, or think about helping our veterans.

Wounded Warrior Project (http://www.woundedwarriorproject.org): Helps wounded service members assist each other, and has several programs. Recommended by several people.
Special Operations Warrior Foundation (http://www.specialops.org): Helps fund scholarships for the college education of the kids of special ops soldiers who died in line of duty.
Soldier’s Angles (http://www.soldiersangels.com): Gives you an opportunity to “adopt” a soldier.
Freedom Alliance Scholarship Fund (http://www.freedomalliance.org/scholarship.htm): Freedom Alliance promotes strong national defense, and this fund provides scholarships to children of killed or disables veterans.
Reserve Aid (http://www.reserveaid.org): Provides financial support to the families of Reserve Service Members from all services, who have been called to active service duty and are experiencing financial difficulty.

Also, http://charitywatch.org/toprated.html#disabled (scroll down to Veterans) has a list of organizations and ratings.

I should mention that I am just sharing information that I received, and there are many many other organizations that are doing good work but are not mentioned here.

Some Useful Job Search Websites

malaybansal — Sat, 23 May 2009 17:25:59 +0000

Almost every company posts any job openings they have on their website. Two websites that do a good job of aggregating these can make it a lot easier to monitor openings posted in all of these sites: www.indeed.com and www.simplyhired.com. Both allow you to create and save a search using keywords combined with words like and and or etc. They also allow you to create alerts to receive periodic emails with any postings that match your criteria.

For those interested in real-estate related jobs, www.selectleaders.com is a good site.

For those looking for advice, sample resumes & letters, www.rileyguide.com has a lot of useful information.

Save Time with Windows Explorer Alternative

malaybansal — Sun, 01 Mar 2009 19:28:32 +0000

Windows Explorer is perhaps the most basic program in Windows. Since it comes installed with Windows, almost everyone uses it to look for their files. So commonly used, and yet such a slow & featureless program that has not evolved much in a long time. It shows one directory at a time, and takes a long time if you are looking for a particular file. Forget about things like comparing directories etc.

A search for a better tool led me to several programs on web – many free. I tried a few. The one I liked the most was a program called FreeCommander which, as the name implies, is free.

It lets you create multiple tabs and open a different directory in each. So, you do not have to keep switching between directories, or clutter the desktop with several different windows. Also, when you exit from the program, it remembers all directories you had open in different tabs, and when you restart the program, it opens with all the tabs and directories open as if you had never closed the program. That alone saves a lot of time.

If you are looking for files that have, let’s say, MF in their names in a large directory with lots of files, all you need to do is type MF in the filter box at the bottom.

It has lots of other features that you can read about here, or download from here and try.

Creating PDF’s for Free

malaybansal — Mon, 16 Feb 2009 17:12:13 +0000

If you do not have Adobe Acrobat on your home computer, it is still possible to create PDF files.

There are numerous free programs available on the web. I tried many – several of these had a quirk or a limitation that made them less than ideal. The one I found best in terms of features, quality, and file size etc is from a company called Bullzip. Just like many others, it installs as a Microsoft Windows printer and allows you to write PDF documents from virtually any Windows application – just print as you normally would and select Bullzip PDF as the printer.

It is free for personal and commercial use for up to 10 users, and does not contain any advertising, popups, nagging messages, or any marks on the pdf files created. It has lots of features including ability to append, password protect, superimpose other documents, etc., and can be downloaded from here.

If You Use Internet Explorer

malaybansal — Sun, 01 Feb 2009 18:05:15 +0000

I saw a statistic that 68% of PC owners still use Microsoft’s Internet Explorer for accessing the internet! I guess many people stay with it since it comes pre-installed on all PCs. But faster browsing is so much better and available for free – I can not imagine going back to Internet Explorer.

If you are in the 68% category, try Mozilla’s Firefox. Developed as an open software project, it is made available for free and can be downloaded from here. If you are not used to downloading and installing software, download and installation is very simple and takes seconds.

Opera & Chrome are two other popular browsers. I tried Opera, but some of the websites I use were not compatible with it (I have not had that problem with Firefox). Chrome is new and Google is still in the process of adding features.

Once you have Firefox, you can make your browsing even faster by using two add-ons: Adblock Plus & Flashblock. Adblock Plus blocks ads, and Flashblock replaces Flash objects with a button you can click if you want to view them. To install these, in Firefox, click on Tools at the top, select Add-Ons, click on Get Add-Ons, and type Adblock in the text box on the upper left corner. Then select Adblock Plus from the list and install. Repeat for Flashblock.

Free ASF Conference for the Unemployed

malaybansal — Sun, 25 Jan 2009 17:34:45 +0000

Even though the ASF 2009 website does not mention it, ASF is offering complimentary registration to those in the securitization industry who happen to be unemployed at present. Requests can be sent by email along with address and other details to Wendy Zuluaga, Events & Marketing Coordinator, at wendy@americansecuritization.com

A Nice Multimedia Player Utility

malaybansal — Sun, 18 Jan 2009 20:57:57 +0000

A nice utility suggested by Janaka Withana

VideoLAN’s VLC is a highly portable multi-media player which plays almost all audio and video formats.

It is free (developed as an open source project) and can be downloaded from here.

Quick & Free Info Using Cell Phone

malaybansal — Sun, 11 Jan 2009 21:18:49 +0000

When at home, it is easy to get information like directions, phone numbers, sports scores, stock quotes, etc from the web. But when outside, googling on the small screen of cellphone is not as convenient, and GPS does not always work if you are walking between tall buildings in the city. Also, using the web and GPS on phone drains the battery pretty quickly. What I have found helpful are some services that make it easy to get information using the basic cell phone. Here are some that you may find worth trying:

800-GOOG-411: Get phone numbers for businesses. It will connect you to the number without charge, or you can say “text message” to get the information in a text message.

800-FREE-411: Get Residential numbers.
800-555-TELL: All kinds of information. You can search businesses by saying type or name (e.g. “taxi”, “coffee”, or “Starbucks”), get sports scores/schedule/news (e.g. say “nba”, or team name), or get “weather”, “moovies”, “driving directions” and other information. See here for more details.

Directions by Text message: Call 347-328-4667 (DIRECTIONS). Speak the starting point and destination, and the service sends directions in text messages. See here for their website.
Cha-Cha: Call 800-224-2242 (800-2CHA-CHA) or text to 242242 (CHACHA). Ask any question to which an answer can be found on the web. Apparently a real person looks it up and answers by text message!. See here for details.
Google SMS: Get directions, weather, sports, moovies, and all kinds of information by sending text message with your query to 466453 (GOOGLE). See here for details.

All of these are free, but you may be charged for text messages by your cell phone service provider depending on your phone plan.