Tuesday 30 April 2013

Gillette - Shave for the Soldiers Campaign 2011

Hi Guys,

Gillette has always been a brand that has continuous promotional campaigns going on throughout the year. Way back in 2011, they were promoting Gillette Fusion which was just launched in India at Ambiance Mall, Gurgaon. I was there with my wife so got this opportunity to get myself shaved with the newly launched blade and got the same for me for free. Here goes the pics...


 Thanks all!

Philips Digital Photo Frames - Hyundai Motors India Limited

Hi Guys,

Won this Philips Digital Photo Frame in the Moments of Happiness contest on facebook page of Hyundai Motors India Limited.This is a nice 7" photo frame with built in memory. It can play your snaps from SD card also along with a calendar on display. MRP at Rs. 3990/- is available in the online stores at around Rs.3000. This DFF can be hanged on the wall to display your best pics displaying togetherness of life with friends, family & relatives! Thanks to HMIL for this great gift ever!


@araijain

@araijain

Monday 29 April 2013

Apollo - Modern Healthcare touching lives

Hi Guys!

Health and taking care of the same has been an important part of our life. We can only fully enjoy our lives if we are fully physically fit, not suffering from any kind of viral, infection or respiratory diseases. Health care has become a big business with hotel like hospitals have opened all across India. They do charge you high but then Corporate guys doesn't seems to bother as they have heavy insurance stuff packed in their compensation packages. It's just like calling the hospital for appointment and you reach just 10 min before the stipulated time and you will be free in maximum 30 min. All bills will be cashless charged directly to the Insurance companies.

Indian Healthcare has seen a lot of change and is one of the most advanced in the world. I have seen the NHS in London, where even if you are suffering from Viral, the appointment you get will be of next week as government Doctors are very less, but same can be said about our Indian Government run medical centers. Here though Doctors and antibiotics are just a shop away.

Good infrastructure has been set up by big Corporates of Healthcare Industry in big cities like Delhi, Mumbai, Gurgaon, Bangalore, Chennai, Kolkata etc. Now you know and have various options to venture if you are not satisfied with one Doctor. The big Corporates too have large LED displays showing Doctors name with photograph on their buildings, which I have seen here in Gurgaon just last week. They higher great Doctors in their panel and many of these hospitals works only on the goodwill of these panel members.

Healthcare in India has several aspects based on the type of medicines provided e.g. Allopathy, Ayurvedic, Homeopathic and others working in unison across all sects of Indian population. But whichever suits you, you will find a whole new experience developed for you by the big Corporates. Now you don't need to think that Homeopathy will not cure you if you are getting medicines from a road side small shop as you can go and enjoy AC environment of Dr. Bakson's and pay the heavy price too. Ayurvedic has been popular as the interest of Yoga arose in people motivated by Baba Ramdev and his Kapal Bhati, Alom Vilom and other pranayams and yoga exercises. He is the one who really taught people easy kriyas so that they could follow some of them at their leisure daily in the morning and evening.

It's changing India and everyone is conscious about his/her health. People have adopted great shoes to run and iphone/android phones are helping them see how much they have run today! This is one of the best methods to keep yourself fit without going to any gym. 

Healthcare via hospitals is the last choice and we won't regret the services rendered to us at the end of the discharge date! Bills will be long but considering having health insurance you will be happy! 

Cheers!   

More information can be found out at the link -

Apollo Hospitals has consistently led game-changing developments in healthcare. It has always brought to people the latest innovations in key medical specialties on par with the West. Be it preventive health check-ups, robotic surgeries or transplants, Apollo Hospitals has always believed in the sheer joy of living a stress-free life without having to worry about health.

  
This blog is my entry to the Indiblogger Contest by Apollo Hospitals - Touching Lives!

A Good Day to die hard - @FoxStar Goodies

Hi Guys,

Thanks to @FoxStarIndia Twitter page for organizing a contest on twitter for the Bruce Willis fans - A Good Day to Die Hard. I received these 3 shot glasses. This one is indeed a collector's item.Follow me on twitter @araijain :-)

Cheers!

Sunday 28 April 2013

Cinthol #AliveisAwesome Goodies

Hi Guys,

How tough is to win & how to keep playing even you have not won for more than a week is what Godrej Cinthol Twitter admin taught me. With more than 600+ tweets & retweets what I won at the end of 10th day was Cinthol gift hamper.
I started playing this contest as they announced the first winner but didn't win till the end of the contest. Thanks all! Cheers!

Friday 26 April 2013

Planet Radio City - Mekaal Hasan Band Autographed Mug

Hi Guys,

Won this from Planet Radiocity on Twitter.  This has autographs from band members of Mekaal Hasan Band.




Cheers!!!

HP Connected Music Event at Ambience Mall 13-14 Apr 2013

Hi Guys,

HP Connected Music organized a musical antakshri at Ambience  mall and one of my tweets won from Delhi NCR region.

I received Taylor Swift - RED as a gift from them via courier. Really thankful to the HP Connected Music!



Cheers!

Thursday 25 April 2013

HP Connected made me rethink about my love for Bollywood Music

Hi Guys,

HP Connected Music was my second Indiblogger meet and with the first one gone extremely well for you, you tend to weave a great lot of expectations out of it. With closeness of location for me I started for the meet. Even before I could, start received a tweet from Ramit Narang that I have won in their contest. Details were unknown to me though and then I reached the Hilton Garden Inn, a property that was launched just 3 months back in Gurgaon. It was a nice entrance and I could easily make out the way as rush seems to be towards a side of entrance only. 

This time the tees were not given at the time of registration but towards the end of the event. We sat down at the circular tables & as I called my friends from last event Aditya Pranav and Murtaza Ali. Very soon the event started with announcing the names of those people who have written a blog about the event. I was one of the few and received HP Headphones for the same priced at Rs. 799/- The quality of the headsets seems to be good as I tried the ones that were kept on their jukeboxes kept at the entrance of the event. 
@araijain


@araijain

The presentation soon started and people were made aware about the app and what it could do. Followed by this there was a break for High Tea. The cookies and snacks served were great and everyone loved the same. 
Sonu Nigam

Thereafter the event concluded with 2 people wining Laptops on the basis of english songs. I never knew any so i couldn't win the same. That's why the blog post name is so? Overall it was an average meet with good food. 
@araijain choice of songs

Coming back to my love for music - It's very much limited to Hindi music which doesn't mean that I don't listen to other genres but I love our own hindi music. I have written about my favourite hindi songs in the pre-event blog. It will remains same after the event also. 

Cheers! 

 

Monday 22 April 2013

UEFA EURO 2012 - Promotional Campaign in London

Hi Guys,

UEFA organized a great promotional campaign across UK to fetch a lot of viewers to travel all the way to Poland and Ukraine to see the matches of Euro 2012 live in stadiums. People are crazy about soccer in Europe and they do travel far far places to see the matches. Meanwhile, I participated in one of their contests and won these amazing goodies. This event happened near London Eye.
@araijain

@araijain

This is what the person was doing - Playing football in a different way!

@araijain


Thanks a lot! Cheers!!!

Maruti Ritz - Moments of Joy Goodies

Hi Guys,

Maruti Ritz organized a Facebook contest last year and the goodies received from them are goods worth Rs. 1000/- in the form of a laptop backpack, a keyring & pen set and a sipper.

Cheers!


My Dream Business – The Microsoft Office 365 Way



Let's say how many times do you think to purchase a product and check prices for the same in various stores and online? There has been many internet sites comparing prices and let's you choose the cheapest but considering many fake online sites are there to dupe people rather helping them. 
 
My idea is to open a Procurement Consultancy across London, Sydney, Delhi  NCR, California, Singapore with the help of my friends. We will be targeting people who will tell us the product they want to purchase and what is the minimum price they are getting it for? The next part of the work will be done by us to check various sources, codes, deals, agencies to get the least price we can buy the product at? We can charge the commission based on the savings we are able to do for the customer or can be a flat charge for every request for consultancy related to what product they should buy? Our services will target people with less internet knowledge skills and time to search for the schemes before buying the goods. If we are able to take orders from people who are not fully aware of the internet and coupons we will be able to make good amount of money and good word of mouth will fetch us more customers mainly during Sale seasons like boxing day, thanksgiving day or Christmas, Diwali sales etc.  


With teams sitting across all the Earth and in different timezones we need something which keeps us collaborated and on the same page so as to provide the best of the services to our customers. We need to have a sharepoint site where we can put all our requests for all of us to see and they should be sorted out on the basis of geographies so as to save a lot of efforts and focus can be done on the same. Also based on all the geographies various deal giving websites and coupon codes with expiry dates needs to be maintained by all of us. Skydrive will provide us with the necessary space requirements for the files to be saved on cloud. Lync will help us discuss before we finally present the deal before the customer so as to cover all the necessary schemes and validations in case one has missed some. Overall it will be a team effort and we could bring synergy in our business using Office 365 features. 


Microsoft Office 365 will be the key resource in our business as we will be able to send messages across each other, update excels, coupon codes, schemes offline as well as online and it will bring all of offline things in sync as soon as we go online. It will work across different platforms without us investing in hardware as we could use our regular laptops, lumia phones or MAC notebooks. May be in future we will be able to use in our iPADs  or Nexus tabs. http://www.office365.in

It will be a great exposure to different cultures and people and helping them purchase their required goods at cheap prices will be awesomely great as even £10 saved will bring smiles and a McDonalds burger or Dominos Pizza for our customers, may be a pint of beer is what they will buy in London to celebrate.CHEERS!!!

Sunday 21 April 2013

Product Review - Skullcandy LOWRIDER Stereo Headphones

Hi Guys,

Today I received Skullcandy Lowrider headphones from Parle Agro - @IAMAPPYFIZZ twitter contest win. Thanks a lot to Parle Agro for sending the same.

Let's see if they are really good!

The whole set has this plasticy feel that it will break any second you put pressure on, which led me to think if they are originals or fake? Also there was some glue material like bubblegum fixed as seen on the second image which also made me think that these are fake stereo headsets.

Let's put all these feelings aside, the audio quality of the sets is good but they doesn't fit tight on the ears and there seems to be some kind of angle problem with these one on my ears. I tried to use them via multiple settings but couldn't find the right way. Let's hope that till the time they work I can try try n try again.

If you are spending some serious money on buying these ones, better spend some extra and purchase Sennheiser ones! You will never regret your decision!



Thanks a lot!

Contact me for your product's review on twitter @araijain or @thelifesway or email - thelifesway@gmail.com

Thursday 18 April 2013

Creating Marvellous Art with Gel Pen

Hi Guys, 

We always say that  I will start something once I have purchased all the accessories for the same. I have this issue from the start. I always thought that I should have a good study table with a table lamp and then I will study. Then I thought that I should have a DSLR with 55-300mm lenses and then I will be doing photography. I thought that I will listen to songs only with Bose earphones etc but all this activities we think or do just postpones the pleasure to enjoy the moment.
Browsing through my snaps of London, I came this picture which really changed my outlook where this person is drawing with the help of a Gel pen. 

@araijain


Images do really change your outlook when you see them deeply with a free and open mind. Thanks a lot.

Saare Jahaan se Mehanga BMS goodies


Hi All, 

Sometimes you receive something that you really admire and it happened to me when I received this random cotton bag from Bookmyshow from their online contests. The movie was released and I was unable to notice the same but now I will remember it till the time I have the bag. Nice marketing skills and the bag will help to carry my camera and water bottle on some tours nearby. 


Thanks a lot BookMyShow. Also Congratulation on completing 2million fans on your facebook page. 

Cheers!!!

#HPCONNECTEDMUSIC - Me Myself and Music

Hi Guys!

Music has always been an integral part of our lives. It starts from the time when our moms used to sing lullaby to make us sleep during our childhood. As we grow older we came across the music through Radio, TV channels, Music concerts, movies and various other platforms. I have seen myself running to  
music stores every sunday to check on any new cassette tapes released for the upcoming movies. Those were at that time priced around Rs. 20-25/- and after discount I could buy three of them in Rs. 50/-. For that Rs. 50/- I need to work hard on my studies so that mom allows us to spend the same on cassettes.

When I was doing Engineering during 1997-2001 years, my mom dad gifted me a personal walkman and I cherish it throughout and it really made my travel comfortable. I used to purchase blank cassettes and then ask local music shop to fill in my favorite songs into the same. In those days, whosoever has the cassette and the latest songs asap was considered the COOLEST among his/her peers. I used to stay on the top and used to lend my cassettes to my friends and family. I have innumerable number of cassettes still today and I bought a special Sony Walkman from London to play all my oldies. The same is with my father who is easygoing in terms of technology to play his religious music early mornings with attached external speakers. In between I spent some time in Delhi NCR for some training so I bought this FM tuner small radio which really made me glued to box of songs – you never know what you are gonna listen to next kind.

As the number of years increased, desktop computer became more popular in households and I too bought one with good speakers. There started the path of MP3 CD's made available in the market at Rs.  25-50/-. It will have atleast 10 movie songs and I collected a lot of songs. I shared my Hard disk with other computer holding friends and put all the songs in 80gb hdd. It was a regular routine fetching songs from people all over in my city. Finally HDD crashed and all my data was lost.

As I entered the years of job as a lecturer I had this personal stereo from Philips accompanying me wherever I worked. As I entered my MBA college in Hyderabad in 2005, my brother, mom dad came to meet me and brought me a Nice MP3 – 256mb player operating with AAA size battery. This one really helped me with my docs of MBA and also could play music as and when required. The same only worked for a year with replacement.

I went to Singapore to meet my brother & he gifted me Motorola Rokr phone basically meant to play great music. It was an awesome phone and I really loved all my favourite songs on the same. Meanwhile, my brother reached USA and came in touch with Apple iPOD Nano 4gb and purchased the same with engravings on my bday. I had to pay Rs. 2300/- in Hyderabad to FEDEX for the customs duties. Apple device was awesome and it played continuous music for 14 hours at a stretch. All my train journeys from Hyd to Delhi – the music was always available.

As I joined the job in 2007, my Motorola Rokr died and I was gifted Nokia N73 Music edition by my soon to be Brother-in-law. The phone is still one of the best music phones with good speakers. As I grew older changed several mobiles to reach Nexus One and iPod Shuffle but music has been with me throughout. Ipod Nano gifted by my brother on my 26th bday was lost last year by my wife. I felt immensely sad and devastated.

This is the journey of my life which has been made very easy with Music. It has been an important part of my life. With the growing storage capacities of the memories inside the mobile/MP3devices my memories too grew immensely. Music makes life live as the Aashiqui logo goes and it remains my favourite album till date. As the music of Aashiqui 2 is picking up so is the love for music.
I still remember the time when I was preparing for the MBA exams and used to listen to movie - Lakshay – haan yehi rasta hai tera, tune ab jaana hai! for all the motivational aspects.

When I was hurt in love or separated from my gf, I loved to listen – Musafir – zindagi main kabhi koi aaye na rabba.

When it's raining – Tip Tip Barsa paani – Mohra because of Viju Shah's music. I always loved the music of Viju Shah in many of his movies.

The album which I can listen to again and again is “Yeh Vaada Raha”. I feel great to listen to all the songs from this movie.

My other favourite songs are -

1.        Tujh mein rab dikhta hai – Rab ne bana de jodi
2.        Haal-e-dil tumko sunata – Murder 2
3.        Chehra hai yaa chand khila hai – Saagar
4.        tu jaane na (unplugged version) – Ajab Prem ki gazab kahani
5.        Chak de India – Chak de India
6.        Kal ho na ho – Kal ho na ho
7.        Isq risk – Mere brother ki dulhan
8.        Pehli Nazar mein – Race
9.        Give me some sunshine – 3 Idiots
10.      Yunhi chala chal – Swades
11.      Tu jo Nahin – Woh Lamhe
12.      Roobaroo – Rang De Basanti
13.      Mitwa – Kabhi alvida na kehna
14.      Pehla pehla pyar hai – Hum Aapke hai kaun
15.      Kahe toh se sajna – Maine Pyar Kiya
16.      Aaja meri jaan – Aaja meri jaan

The list goes on and on.

My favorite artist has been Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan and I loved his album SALAAM very much. I can listen to Mera gham aur meri khushi / Yeh shaam phir nahin aayegi many time a day.

As my interest in music increased I also felt that I am inclined to love Earphones and Headphones a lot. I have bought a lot of earphones and headphones (Sony, Sennheiser, Panasonic, Philips etc) but the search to find the best one is still far as I have not used Beats or Bose or Ludicrous etc.

But as I look backwards I do realize that knowingly or unknowingly I have been part of Music Piracy. As in this new world where you have thousands of websites offering free music to download and increasing libraries of songs we need to come in terms with this and stop this misuse of music services.

HP has come with HP Connected Music service in partnership with Universal Music & Hungama where they are offering unlimited download to users who have purchased their new laptop HP ENVY 4 – 1105TX Sleekbook. This service will even let you listen to songs offline on your devices. This music library has wide collection of various genres from Bollywood films and regional films & international music too. I hope these steps will definitely reduce Music Piracy and will make people aware that they are doing theft in case they are downloading songs from the sites offering them at no cost.  More details are available at https://ssl.www8.hp.com/in/en/ad/hp-connected-music/overview.html

We say Music is our life and when we ask ourselves, have I ever bought any song online or have bought OST CD/Cassette? The answer will be very less number of time. I will say that I don't download myself, I take it from my friends through NFC/Bluetooth/data cable or whatsoever communication medium but the truth needs to be faced that we don't respect the creativity of all the people involved in creating the same. Thanks to all the online stores which now have made it easy to purchase the music online and jobs that are paying us good amount of money to enable us to either buy our fav Artist online or wait for the song to be played on TV/Radio.

HP has launched a great service with more than 1 Million songs with 20000+ artists of your choice and you can have this service at no charges for the very first year with no limit on downloading. May be in the future the app will be available on various devices as we now run in this world of 3G/4G and always connected & then we will be #HPCONNECTEDMUSIC. Moreover this app will help you see your favourite artist live and a lot of goodies from the one you listen to most. Winning is an art and not a science and few will be lucky ones who will really keep themselves connected to their passion of life - MUSIC.




I hope to live my dream of music through whatever I can do and to enjoy at the upcoming live Indiblogger meet with #HPCONNECTEDMUSIC to learn more about the same. 

It is really gonna be fun as PSY takes on the Indiblogger stage with Gentleman in Gangnam Style on Chikni Chameli or Fevicol se songs! Oh...Balma...

Thanks All!



Update:- This post is a prize winning entry #HPConnectedMusic 
Indiblogger meet at Gurgaon.  Thanks a lot to all from HP India as well as Indiblogger team for this HP Laptop. I am very happy to won this with an year of subscription to #HPConnectedMusic App to download all my favorite songs for free! 

Contact me for your product's review on twitter @araijain or @thelifesway or email - thelifesway@gmail.com 
 
<a href="http://www.bloglovin.com/blog/7905347/?claim=ne8n89ckwhn">Follow my blog with Bloglovin</a>   

Wednesday 17 April 2013

Right Angle makes all the difference

Hi All,

Sometimes in life somethings doesn't seems right unless you see them from the right angle. I was browsing through some of my mobile snaps and found this one really interesting. Check it out! 










This picture will come to the eyes as an everyday coffee template used by all the cafe houses and it will not recognize the beauty of the same.












Seeing the same coffee from this angle not only makes the brand visible and also the leaf design is visible clearly.












In the end, Whatever angle you see the cup of coffee, it doesn't matter as you have hot coffee to drink & that is always tempting!

Cheers!!!

Soldier for Women – A Friend in need



Woman’s safety today is not just about saving her honour or keeping her protected from the omnipresent lecherous eyes around. It is more about the all round well being of women right from the moment that she is an egg in her mother's womb. It encompasses the wide spectrum of crimes against her including female foeticide, female infanticide, girl child abuse and trafficking, honour killings, eve teasing, rapes, dowry related killings and every single thing that happens to women across the globe, all because she is physically not as strong as her male counterparts and socially not as empowered as them. The recent Delhi rape-murder case had shook the nation and evoked reaction from every soul having a heart. The only mistake the poor girl made was to be out late at night, wearing an allegedly provocative dress and responded to the unjustified comments passed by the gang of men. The price she paid was a battle at the hospital and ultimately death. This particular case was brought to light hence it gained momentum, but what about the thousands of cases that go unreported or worse reported yet ignored? I recall watching a movie "Matrubhoomi" which painted a horrid picture of what the nation would turn into if things continued the way they are with respect to killing of girl children. General awareness needs to be spread among the simpletons around us, to make them realize the wider picture of the consequences that await such gruesome deeds.

As mentioned in my earlier blogs, it’s the attitude towards women that matters the most and you need to always aware that your family must be having a women in your families. If you are passing comments so rest assured that your sister/wife/cousin must also be listening to. What goes out comes back to you with added interest – that’s KARMA! Though talking about religious stuff doesn’t matter to those who are already leading their lives the wrong way.

I would like to dedicate this post to one of my known who was studying with me at CDAC Noida and used to travel from Palam to Sector 62 Noida daily through public transport way back in 2001. At that time there was no Metro in Delhi NCR and it was only the white line buses and shared autos from 12-22 to Khoda and sector 62 in Noida. To come from Palam to Dhaulan Kuan was also difficult with shared auto filled full & IGI work going on and no highways. The autowallahs in Palam area used to fill all ladies and then more people more than auto can carry. Ladies did complaint of the same but no ears as there was no other way to travel.

My friend A. Mathur was travelling as usual that day and a girl was being teased by the autowallahs being pushed for the seat to be created for more people. My friend tried to stop Autowallah from doing that and it literally came to hand fighting between the two. Not only my friend and the girl was thrown out from the auto, his wallet was also taken and he has to call his father at home to bring his car and some money so that he can make it to the study centre. It was his courage and sincerity towards women that he was able to stand against those people. I felt very proud to know that guy and being friend with him.

Thanks a lot!


This post is a part of <a title="#Soldierforwomen" href="http://www.gillette.com/en-IN/" target="_blank">#Soldierforwomen</a> in association with <a title="The Best Community of Indian Bloggers" href="http://www.blogadda.com" target="_blank">BlogAdda.com</a> 

Big CBS Love - The Beauty & The Beast Tshirt

Hi Guys,

This is one of the best designed Tee that I received from @BIGCBSLOVE on a Twitter contest in their The Beauty & The Beast contest. This is one of the special Tee and I am always a fan of the @BIGCBSLOVE on twitter. Their goodies are always different and unique. Thanks a lot BIGCBSLOVE for showering your love on me all the time. Cheers!




Soldier for Women – My wife’s Brother

Hi All, 

A woman is the whole of nature wrapped up beautifully and sent to the world to make it a better place. She has the power to create, nourish, nurture, love and heal. Today, right from the moment the doctor tells a mother the three golden words, "It's a girl", a strange fear tugs the mother's heart. Fear of rejection, fear of what might be done to her because of the lack of that primarily important Y chromosome and the greatest of all, the fear of her little angel having to deal with rapists, eve teasers and dowry seekers. Each breathing moment carries a feeling of helplessness in the parents' hearts, when they see the apple of their eyes out alone in this big bad world.

In those moments of truth, it’s the brother/cousins who are of your own age and always acts as your friends for life. They are the protector and always are ready to go the extra mile to save you from all praying eyes. My wife is totally devoted to his brother Avanish who made her stand on her own feet. He helped her did ICWA and when that didn’t fetched her the job, he helped her to pursue MBA. He even helped her financially with the coaching fees, books, filling up all the forms and travel expenses. As she took admission to a prestigious MBA college he helped her with monthly expenses throughout for 2 years. She did manage to fetch a scholarship but all the other expenses were covered by him through his hard earned money. Finally he spent whatever was necessary to spent on her marriage to me, we had a love marriage and so no dowry was exchanged as we both saved money for our household goods and expenses through our jobs.

Overall, it’s his great love and sacrifice that my wife is happy with her life and what she is earning and what kind of job she is doing without MBA and with MBA. Avanish surely has helped her excel in her career and life.

Thanks a lot Saale sahib! 



This post is a part of <a title="#Soldierforwomen" href="http://www.gillette.com/en-IN/" target="_blank">#Soldierforwomen</a> in association with <a title="The Best Community of Indian Bloggers" href="http://www.blogadda.com" target="_blank">BlogAdda.com</a> 






My Android Love

Hi Guys,

My introduction with Google Android OS started when my brother gifted me Google G1 Mobile phone way back in 2009. This was the first Android OS mobile phone introduced by Google in collaboration with T-mobil & HTC. HTC names the set as HTC Dream. I really loved the phone as it has this sliding qwerty keypad and I was able to type very very fast on twitter and facebook. It was a small laptop for me as I didn't needed to open to check emails and all. I really loved the device very very much.


I went to London, I was introduced by Nokia to its new phone N8. It has a great camera with 12 Megapixels and old OS Symbian. I really loved it's large screen and nice design. The phone did came with a lot of features and accessories. But it has some lags and I didn't fall in love with the device and returned the same within a months of my use.

My brother again gifted my another Google phone named Nexus One which I still use. The phone is simply great with Amoled display and cool features. It upgraded itself to v2.3 Android and not further. The best thing about Android was the free apps and drag & drog of data files (movies, music, docs) into the Micro SD card & you are ready to see them on your device. I enjoyed the phone very much till recently when it's power button got broken. Then somehow I was able to find that this HTC phone has this problem and you need to take care earlier. I was able to find solution but could never switch-off the thing going forward. 

Now in this world of Phablets, screen larger than 5", quad core-dual core- processors, 8gb/16gb memory on board phones from all Indian as well as International brands I am feeling that I need to now say Good bye to my old phones. I still have both of them. Let's see if I could find solace in iPhone 5 or Nokia Lumia 920 or Samsung S4 or HTC One or BB Z10 etc. Till that time I need to save a lot of money as all the phones are highly priced in India. Thanks all! Enjoy!

Tuesday 16 April 2013

The Croods - Special Screening @ Delhi

FoxStarMovies organized The Croods contest on twitter & the motivating prize was the tickets to the Premier show of the movie a week before it was going to be released in India. It was a great motivational factor as I always wanted to attend one. I started tweeting Why I want to see The Croods and kept answering till the end of contest for the day. The other day when the results were announced I won and received the details of the cinema – DT Vasant Kunj, Delhi at 840pm on 12th Apr 2013. I asked my wife to come early from office that day so that we can leave home by 700pm & we reached the destination and became the first one to demand tickets from the person in Fox Star Studio tshirt.

Finally as we entered the Audi 5 with 3D spects in our hands we sat on the extra comfortable seats of DT Cinema. The surprise element Fox Star was talking about was the few trailers of the upcoming movies – The Heat, The Interneship, Turbo. The Internship was specially interesting to me as it was shot at Google office in California. Turbo has some upbeat feel about it and really made us laugh – looking forward to the same asap.

Finally we were displayed a screenshot to tweet with #IloveTheCroods and win some amazing prizes after the show. I really grabbed the opportunity at a lightening speed.

The movie started with a great chase sequence for the food hunt and the characters were introduced during the run. The run really replaced the memories I had of Casino Royale – James bond chase. The graphics of the movie was breathtaking spectacular and amazing. With every movie the graphics are getting better and better. This movie showed everything from fireworks, dry sea, avatar style jungle, rock climbing, Life of Pi style starry nights, fire, volcanic eruptions, sea, amazing animals.

The variety that was covered in a single journey to follow ones dream and survival really kept us glued to our seats and entertained. Some of the moments were so awesome that my 3.5 years old daughter was laughing out loud and she was seeing the movie without the glasses. I don't want to reveal the whole story and scenes in my blog.

This is one movie that you have been waiting for to take your kids on an adventure together and learn some moral lessons on family - staying together even when everything else is falling apart and Never ever be afraid. Go and enjoy as the movie is releasing 19th Apr 2013 and you will receive your money's worth.

Monday 15 April 2013

My tryst with Indiblogger Microsoft Office 365


Hi All,

I started blogging on 27 Dec 2012 and thought that I will make it a photo blog. Same day I relogin to Twitter account and found out that there is different world out there & I am missing on all the fun. To make short story more short I got approved by Indiblogger after I wrote 15-18 posts & my twitter tweets picked up too. Since that day I was wanting to attend the meets organized by the IB team and was going through all the earlier events and what people experienced at the events with lot of free goodies, wins along with entertaiment and laughing their hearts out! But yes a LIVE experience is required to know what blogging is all about and what IB meets are like...several quotes coming to my mind but let them rest in books! :-) You got them in your minds what I was about to say! LoL

Why I am talking about Twitter also? You will come to know by the end of this post. :-)

I was all set to leave for the Blue Frog, Mehrauli on my bike & I did reached the venue before time and found a place to park my bike just outside the premises helped by security guards.

Finally, I entered the hall to see Mr. Arvind Passey with his wife Sangita. It was great to see him though I didn't had a chance to interact with him. I did met Aditya Pranav at the gates where we took some photographs with the posters. I made it to the registration desk and got my FIRST INDIBLOGGER TSHIRT & that was the moment of joy and happiness. The interiors of the Blue Frog was awesome with Orange posters and neon lights. It was heavenly feeling as eyes could not capture all the beauty.

We did chose a seat near the stage as it will give us more visibility and we will feel more closer to prizes. We because I had Aditya Pranav with me throughout this meet to accompany. We sat near a person whom we talked to  & he turned out to be a prestigious movie blogger with all the movies he reviewed were Classics & European Cinema. APOTOFVESTIGES explained us about his blog and we too shared our blogs with him. Got several new ideas that I will be implementing in my blog soon. We all met Ramit Narang, a blogger with 10 years+ experience and running his own US firm. He has taken social media to another level and gave us all great tips & tricks of the business.

Ali & Aditya were nice fellows and we became a trio of new friends. Time flew away till the time meet started with Aroop taking the stage. He started with applauding for all of us for making it to the meet. The best thing that I liked about the guy is the NAMASKAR pose he did several time to appreciate all the love showered by all the bloggers on him during the meet. It was a small gesture but I noticed it dude!

Receiving Cash Prize of Rs. 1500/-
Started off with a game to choose numbers between 1 to 10 and people started raising hands and the first number chosen turned out to be a Stone procured from the surroundings. People won random prizes in that round with cash prize of Rs500, Microsoft Arc Mouse & Microsoft Tshirts. Finally the lady luck did shine on me as last number left was number 10 and it has the cash prize of Rs. 1500/- associated with it. I was jumping with joy. Wow! Awesome my first ever meet and I have cash prizes to take back home. Thanks.

After that there was a 30 seconds of fame for bloggers where prizes were given to all who's blog url was displayed on the screen. It was a nice feeling to know what people are and have achieved in their lives and what they are passionate about? My blog didn't passed the lucky draw test there. 




Microsoft 365 India Director Ms. Ritu Chaturvedi walked us through the features of the package with a video presentation of Mr. Steve Balmer, CEO, Microsoft Inc. Ritu explained to us about all the features of the package as it's based on 4 pillars i.e. Devices; Social; Cloud
& Control. This package was available across all devices no matter which one you are using as you just need internet connection. By Social it meant that all your social profiles will be displayed from Facebook, linkedin and others in a single timeline. All your data will be saved on Cloud and you could access it anywhere any device limited upto 5 just like Kindle app. Control is the security and other features that protects your business and important data from theft and risks. Overall it was a great presentation and I did bugged her a lot with my queries. Airtel too has to show some slides as they tied up to make the bundled package available for all types of users. The pricing of the product suits all types of businesses.

There was one benefit of using this new Office 365 that you can write it offline and it will automatically post to your blog. It has Skydrive features to store your files in Cloud and Lync to have an online meet with other people via IM/Chat & video chat too. A game was played with all who wore Striped clothes and was given Microsoft Tees. A booze break was announced immediately after this. There was a Microsoft stand to change your extra large sizes tees and get them replaced with right sizes of your choice & pick up extra tees if you want them.

During the break I got to meet Karthik and came to know how and why Indiblogger was created? It was a nice concept and really I felt that entrepreneur feeling all kicking inside me. While writing this blog a googling to check the spelling of Aroop's name brought me to a link to be shared with all you guys! - http://yourstory.in/2011/08/our-community-has-been-growing-at-close-to-around-80-yoy-vineet-rajan-indiblogger/   I came to know that there is no Wikipedia page for the Indiblogger team or it might be the case that I could  not google enough.
Booze Break

Microsoft Team did organized some contest there under the sun and a lot of people won Rs. 1000/- cash prizes. A lot of non-veg snacks was served with various Mocktails and Beers. I could not find any veg snack & didn't put effort also to get them. At that moment I was busy talking to other people and drinking Coca Cola.





Microsoft Arc Mouse
In the final part of the event we all returned to our seats as the numbers of bloggers got reduced. Many of them travelled from places like Nainital, Chandigarh, Muzzafarnagar which were more than 200 kms away. Aroop initiated the Twitter contest and started reading tweets with lot of MS Arc Mouse to giveaway. After a long ordeal he noticed my tweets and complimented me that "Man you have been tweeting since morning and you deserve it". I was elated as I always had a dream to hold the curved ARC mouse in my hands. Thanks a lot Indiblogger and Microsoft team. Now you all know why I was talking about twitter? It pays to have an account on twitter, this Blue Bird is always chirping. :-)

One of the luckiest tweet did win NOKIA LUMIA 820 and that was grand. She wrote amazingly great tweet by virtue of working in the publishing industry; she catched the nerve perfectly and got paid for the same. Kudos! :-)
 
Finally it was the time to say Goodbye as we departed for the photograph session outside the premises. We made promises to meet again at the next meet and enjoy ourselves all over again. I am really happy and reliving the time while writing this blog. Finally a video to say thanks all! 

Contact me for your product's review on twitter @araijain or @thelifesway or email - thelifesway@gmail.com

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Saturday 13 April 2013

Soldier for Women - Guards at our offices

Hi All,

As I entered the my office today, the guard at the gate said ‘Good Morning, Sir’. I was pleasantly surprised as this is not a usual phenomenon (unfortunately even from our side) and returned his greetings. I have been left wondering if it was a small gesture due to the fact that today is some special day or; whether it was an individual act or a collective decision by the administrative staff.  Out in the civil world we do get to see feel-good gestures every now and then from some people but not universally. When it comes to a woman’s security the need is for a universally secure environment in which we live. 

But once you are inside your company campus the guards are always there for your help. Starting from parking of your car, bike to checking of your identity cards and bags they do it all. They even help you to get the cabs and auto's. They are the unsung heroes who must have helped thousand of women and men staff at various moments of day to day work at an IT industry. 

Many a times we don't even look at their faces as we are completely engrossed in what to do and how much is left to be done in software coding/testing and other activities. This is really unrespectful on our part to not condsider them as someone and I too try to keep an check on myself to respect each and everyone. We are always alert in case of our boss is coming which ways or wherever he/she meets us, why not these guards?

In the end, it may have been an individual gesture or a part of an instruction given to them by their supervisor. If it was the former it’s appreciated very much but is an isolated gesture. If it was the latter, it would have been learning for many and a step in universal implementation. Perhaps, many would go home and greet their womenfolk lovingly & respectfully today.

As I see them they are really unsung heroes of our lives and I really salute them for being Solder for Women! 

Thanks all!   


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