How to improve gut health !!

 

This is shared by an Indian doctor !! 

Basic funda is to eat atleast 30 different plant products every week. This is very much possible if you eat 4-6 different curries /dal in a week with our Indian diet. 

January 2024 recommendations

 

I decided to list down the things i liked and would like to recommend to others. It may be podcast, youtube videos, Movies , Songs and writeups. 

Movies : 

I had some good free time this month due to holidays and less work. I liked Salaar,Irugupatru, Hi Nanna, Mission Impossible Dead reckoning,  How is it for a Monday(Telugu- English) , Awe (Telugu). 

In Salaar, Prabhas got one of the best role for him which utilizes his cutout (i like how he is named that too in that movie for a while :P ) and the Kateramma fight was brilliantly executed , the high of Shreya Reddy shouting on top of her lungs screaming "Salaar Devaratha Raisaar" are some peak points, for me and Prashant Neel is probably the best SSR school topper now in India .

Irugupatru deals with married couples , so may be not everyones cup of tea but i liked how simplistic the topic was dealt. Hi Nanna, kudos to Nani for doing it and director Shoryuv for ensuring an emotional movie had enough high points to be hooked to . I watched Mission Impossible so that its checked off my the list and it was fun and as expected. 

One movie which i liked how a acquintance of mine , Sripal Sama executed and made such a wonderful film called " How is it for a Monday" , intertwining Telugu customs , Telugu NRIs and a very very good message . I even tried to nod like Kaushik ghantasala in that "Nenu Nasagaadina " scene quite a few times. 

Awe was another movie wanted to watch since long time and i now understand why it was so highly critically rated . Brilliantly made right from start to end with enough cues to keep hooked and some loose ends too. 

Music :

I am now hooked to Guntur Kaaram (Dum Masala, Mawa enthaina) and Hi Nanna albums . 

Podcast: 

Iam now commuting to office more due to new rules and have more time to finish pending podcast episodes. 

My favorite Telugu podcast "harivillu" by Nag Vasireddy where he is back with a review of 2023 movies with guest Yaswant Aluru. I am mind blown by the analysis and thoughts of Yaswanth and out of those 23 movies discussed, i had similar thoughts about 20 movies. 

I am a fan of Amit Varma podcast and i finished the KP Krishnan's one (probably the longest one i heard till now ) which is just great for anyone to understand the inner workings of a govt servant. Another one of India's pension crisis where as usual Ajay Shah keeps you hooked on to the subject. Another one with Pritika Hingaroni on citi planning . Lately, i think iam getting more interesting in cities planning and public safety. 

I heard couple of episodes from Ideas of India by Sruthi Rajagopalan , the year 2023 in review, Rahul sagar on hidden 19th century India  ( where he discusses some interesting things about how Indian monarchs did public policy in British Raj and lot more on Madhav Rao, the Diwan of Travancore ) and listened to a bit of Alain Bertaud episode too where he discusses some interesting points of city planning) . 

As usual , i finished Decoding Democracy episodes as soon as they are out. This is a treasure for every folk out there interested to public policy. Available on Spotify and Amazon too .

And finished all pending episodes of Morgan Housel podcast. I do think i am reading the book at free of cost.

I noticed that my org has now tied up with linkedin learning and also has some good book summaries available. 

On Youtube, i started watching Eco India series by scroll Link  . I do think we are getting over scared on Climate Crisis and doing so less on mitigation front. And Along with Waning Antibiotic resistance and Plastics, Climate Crisis will change lives so soon that when it hits the fan, we will be in a pandemic . 

I was so much fascinated by credit card and became a junkie recently that i started exploring credit cards for no particular reason, more on that later. 

Paytm payments bank going down has impacted me a lot and currently in mitigation efforts. 

I ordered a new fastag from ICICI and it arrived . 

I changed my UPI credit card linkage to Phonepe ( It already gave me decent cashback for this linkage than paytm ever gave me ). 

I am in process of changing my mutual fund auto pay mandates to my ICICI account . 

I am now looking for a digital account and if you have any suggestions, please do let me know. As of now, i am looking at Kotak 811(suggested by a friend) and Jupiter app ( Federal bank- i liked the jupiter app and their philosophy)  

Top Iphone tricks that will save you some time !!

 

• Set up a text replacement for your email. I never have to type my full email anymore, just @@.

• Tap the status bar (where the clock and battery are) to scroll up to the top on any app

• Settings -> Accessibility-> Touch -> Backtap
• Allows number of things to be set up by double/triple tapping the back of your phone.

• When marking up a photo, you can use the pen to draw the rough shape you want (eg an approximate circle, rectangle etc), but if you keep your finger on the screen the phone will convert it from your rough shape to a properly drawn one

• In the calculator app swipe left with one finger to delete one character

My best uses for Alexa

 

I had bought the first generation of Amazon Alexa from US in 2015. I was very excited with it and wanted to explore it more and even code some skills for it. That coding part didnt go as per plan . However, Alexa has been part of the daily life since then . I wanted to list down some cool uses i use Alexa for. 

1. I added my home and Office location and used it ask Alexa how is the traffic every day just before starting from home to office. It would give the time taken and route which helped me guess the traffic without looking at maps. 

2. I had a routine setup ( Series of commands grouped ) to list down the weather, top news on that day when i got up and taking care of morning activities. 

3. I have a 3 year toddler now and i have a lullaby playlist which i play it in loop while he sleeps and there are some outside noises. 

4. In extension to above, we use the skill " Animal sounds" where i play with my kid listening to various animal sounds . 

5. Ofcourse, listening to music from Amazon music with voice commands is the best use in addition to setting up Alarms and Timers. 

6. My best and fun usecase is playing with Smart bulb . I have a wipro smart bulb setup and we play it almost every day with commands , changing colours , brightness and on/off.

The Tech Magics

 Recently i came across the Paytm audio announcement box where it announces to the merchant that a payment has been received. This is so indigenous solution to avoid fraud , give a confirmation without much effort to the merchant and is a brand advertisement every time it speaks. And i marvelled at the people at Paytm for thinking such an awesome solution.

I was thinking what all other similar things i loved seeing in the tech world where it solved a problem with an awesome thinking.

My first on the list is Chromecast . I was blown away when i heard of it and experienced it in person. It was a simple thought that you can just use a small hardware piece and stream almost anything to the TV and make any TV connect to Internet. 

Next is the PayTm QR code payment and also its Audio announcement box. You can transfer the money by just scanning an QR code. It has decreased the transaction time , no touch and made it cool.

Next is the Airtel WiFi calling , this solves a bigger problem of cellular network availability using the Internet at home and is probably the biggest factor for me to continue with Airtel . 

Next is the UPI transfer mechanism ; This is mindblown . It is easier to remember an emailid than a number which is unique and be used for transferring the money. And that thought to implement the communication feature which revolutionized the world has been brought to be used for financial transactions. 

Next is the OneNote software from Microsoft. The most underrated and awesome software Microsoft has produced after Microsoft Excel. You dont need to save anything and it does tons of Auto formatting.

Next are the voice assistant devices, I know lot of work has to be done for these to work but whatever the progress done till now has been remarkable. 

What are your favorites ?

I got some answers that Google Docs . True. It has truly revolutionized the way we could collaborate.

What it means- Moon symbol in iphone messages

 

Recently i was intrigued when i found that there was a moon symbol before some messages in iMessage app in my iphone. 

After some browsing , it is nothing but that the sender is muted so that i don't get any further notifications of messages from that Sender. This actually saves a ton of time for some of the Spam messages we get continuously from some Ids or numbers but you are not inclined to take hassle of complaining them to authorities for Spam. 

You can also tap on "Hide Alerts" after swiping left on right side of a message to enable it . 

App to discover deals on cards you hold

Often we get swarmed with credit card and debit card offers which are in noway need of the hour and then when the times comes, we dont remember there exists an offer and we could have save some bucks.  We wish we know if there are any deals which only pertains to the cards we hold and make our purchases accordingly. 

I recently came across an app called "Russh" available on both ios App Store and Google Play store. It doesnt ask much details from you except your mobile number and it doesnt take any card details. No, this is not a paid post . If you are the developer of this app reading this, you letting you know that you got a fan . 

ios AppStore Link : https://apps.apple.com/us/app/russh/id1471083101

Google PlayStore Link : https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=in.russh&hl=en_IN

Websites of the Week Nov 30

Did u ever feel like a having a on the go playlist for youtube videos .
So , here it is http://youtubelister.com/

This is one interesting website i found , a social network for drivers
http://www.passingremarks.com/  . As per website, you can pass a remark on any road-user: anytime, anywhere. All you need is their number plate.

If you are an avid traveller, Govt of India has developed an website and app to create your personal itineraries  http://www.tripigator.com/home

Irctc has also created a mobile app that work flawless 
Android  : IRCTC 
Windows : IRCTC
Blackberry : IRCTC

Ixigo mobile app has a PNR status tracker . App

Take a visual journey through different facets of #India -view 350+ #documentaries, also in foreign languages, at Indiandiplomacy - YouTube

They say it's pretty hard to be creative in a quiet space so here's a solution Coffitivity - Increase Your Creativity!

Quora post for the week ;
Quora Spotlight - India

IFTTT– IF This Then That

One of the most awesome things i came across the internet is IFTTT. 

Put the internet to work for you. Seriously, automate everything what you do on internet.

For example, If u want to send out a tweet whenever u upload a video on youtube , that can be done.

Do you want to add ur favourite tweets which contain links  to the instapaper to read later , that can be done.

If you want an SMS to be sent whenever some stock raises , that can be done.

If you want all your instagram pics to be saved into dropbox, that can be done.

The total permutations and combinations one can do with all the services listed here is huge.

One such example is

 

The thing in background is pretty simple, take api of one service and poll it for every interval and if found, trigger another service.

Such an awesome idea you see. Add to that the awesomest interface to work on.

 

PS- Iam still exploring all these things.

Right now , iam using this for whenever i favourite a tweet with a link, it adds to up to my instapaper read later list.

whenever i add  a favorite to my readability list, it gets bookmarked to delicious.

Whenever i star an item in Google Reader, a tweet is sent.

Make Browsing Simpler

Browsing has become too complex with the advent of social media like Twitter and Facebook. http://www.blogger.com/img/blank.gif

We got lot of links to watch videos , recommendations for articles shared by friends and fellow tweeple.But how to cope with all these. This is what i have been trying to do and hope it helps for all.

Three main bookmarklets to be added to your browser are Google bookmarks,Instapaper and radbox.





Google Bookmarks - Adding a new bookmark when you come across an interesting website is as easy as adding a bookmark in you browser.So far, the best bookmarking tool for me is google bookmarks.


Instapaper (Read Later bookmarklet) - This can be mainly used for articles which you find interesting and want to read later in the day.The bookmarked can be easily found at http://www.instapaper.com/u.

Radbox - This is the best for viewing the youtube videos at a later time. Whenever, you are playing a outube video file , one can bookmark that video like the above and watch them later.One can actually save it in watch later playlist, the youtube provided one. However with radbox, the videos can be viewed rom radbox website itself and can eliminate the clutter of youtube comments and recommended/related videos thereby saving the valuable previous time.

Hope these are helpful.:)

Website of the Day - Rainymood.com

Ambiance and Surroundings play a important role while you are working and there are some websites which provides you with super background songs .
One such is rainymood.com


Listen to a soothing rain sound while working and increase productivity.

Listen it with your favourite music and relieve your stress.

Listen to the sound of nature and sleep happily.

All these can be done at rainymood.com

Also, follow the comments by fellow users and listen with the combos they suggest.:)

Quick Edit:
Other websites which offer such relaxing background sounds are
http://www.iserenity.com/environments/

http://moodturn.com/night/
PS: Website of the Day is not a sponsored activity.