Tuesday 17 September 2013

WHY TO VISIT TEMPLES ???


WHY TO VISIT TEMPLES ???
MUST READ AND SHARE.

Scientific Reason :

There are thousands of temples all over India in different size, shape and locations but not all of them are considered to be built the Vedic way. Generally, a temple should be located at a place where earth's magnetic wave path passes through densely. It can be in the outskirts of a town/village or city, or in middle of the dwelling place, or on a hilltop. The essence of visiting a temple is discussed here.

Now, these temples are located strategically at a place where the positive energy is abundantly available from the magnetic and electric wave distributions of north/south pole thrust. The main idol is placed in the core center of the temple, known as "*Garbhagriha*" or *Moolasthanam*. In fact, the temple structure is built after the idol has been placed. This *Moolasthanam* is where earth’s magnetic waves are found to be maximum. We know that there are some copper plates, inscribed with Vedic scripts, buried beneath the Main Idol. What are they really? No, they are not God’s / priests’ flash cards when they forget the *shlokas*. The copper plate absorbs earth’s magnetic waves and radiates it to the surroundings. Thus a person regularly visiting a temple and walking clockwise around the Main Idol receives the beamed magnetic waves and his body absorbs it. This is a very slow process and a regular visit will let him absorb more of this positive energy. Scientifically, it is the positive energy that we all require to have a healthy life.

Further, the Sanctum is closed on three sides. This increases the effect of all energies. The lamp that is lit radiates heat energy and also provides light inside the sanctum to the priests or *poojaris* performing the pooja. The ringing of the bells and the chanting of prayers takes a worshipper into trance, thus not letting his mind waver. When done in groups, this helps people forget personal problems for a while and relieve their stress. The fragrance from the flowers, the burning of camphor give out the chemical energy further aiding in a different good aura. The effect of all these energies is supplemented by the positive energy from the idol, the copper plates and utensils in the *Moolasthan*am / *Garbagraham*. *Theertham*, the “holy” water used during the pooja to wash the idol is not plain water cleaning the dust off an idol. It is a concoction of Cardamom,*Karpura* (Benzoin), zaffron / saffron, *Tulsi* (Holy Basil), Clove, etc...Washing the idol is to charge the water with the magnetic radiations thus increasing its medicinal values. Three spoons of this holy water is distributed to devotees. Again, this water is mainly a source of magneto-therapy. Besides, the clove essence protects one from tooth decay, the saffron & *Tulsi* leafs protects one from common cold and cough, cardamom and *Pachha Karpuram* (benzoin), act as mouth fresheners. It is proved that *Theertham* is a very good blood purifier, as it is highly energized. Hence it is given as *prasadam* to the devotees. This way, one can claim to remain healthy by regularly visiting the Temples. This is why our elders used to suggest us to offer prayers at the temple so that you will be cured of many ailments. They were not always superstitious. Yes, in a few cases they did go overboard when due to ignorance they hoped many serious diseases could be cured at temples by deities. When people go to a temple for the *Deepaaraadhana*, and when the doors open up, the positive energy gushes out onto the persons who are there. The water that is sprinkled onto the assemblages passes on the energy to all. This also explains why men are not allowed to wear shirts at a few temples and women are requested to wear more ornaments during temple visits. It is through these jewels (metal) that positive energy is absorbed by the women. Also, it is a practice to leave newly purchased jewels at an idol’s feet and then wear them with the idol’s blessings. This act is now justified after reading this article. This act of “seeking divine blessings” before using any new article, like books or pens or automobiles may have stemmed from this through mere observation.

Energy lost in a day’s work is regained through a temple visit and one is refreshed slightly. The positive energy that is spread out in the entire temple and especially around where the main idol is placed, are simply absorbed by one's body and mind. Did you know, every Vaishnava(Vishnu devotees), “must” visit a Vishnu temple twice every day in their location. Our practices are NOT some hard and fast rules framed by 1 man and his followers or God’s words in somebody’s dreams. All the rituals, all the practices are, in reality, well researched, studied and scientifically backed thesis which form the ways of nature to lead a good healthy life.

The scientific and research part of the practices are well camouflaged as “elder’s instructions” or “granny’s teaching’s” which should be obeyed as a mark of respect so as to once again, avoid stress to the mediocre brains.

Lock Down Facebook and Google With AVG PrivacyFix App

Do you know how secure your social network settings are? Can you remember all the services and apps you opted in to having access to your data? Security software maker AVG has a new and free app called AVG PrivacyFix that helps you manage your privacy on Facebook, Google, and LinkedIn.
AVG PrivacyFix is available on iPhone and Android, and it's also available as a desktop download for Mac and Windows PCs, which plugs into Firefox or Chrome to work.
When you start the app, you have to connect it to the services of your choice (Facebook, Google, and LinkedIn are supported), and then a dashboard displays a number of privacy settings and flags ones you probably ought to review or update. It will tell you whether your account is open on multiple devices, for example, or whether you have facial recognition (face-tagging) enabled.
 
 
One neat feature is that it has a much better interface than Facebook's own for creating a custom circle of people with whom you'll share your Facebook updates and photos by default. AVG PrivacyFix basically lets you deselect people whom you don't want included in this group, rather than selecting one by one the people you do want.
It has push notifications, too, so that the app can alert you to new privacy risks as they happen, as well as when policies change.
In the Google side of the dashboard, you can choose how much of your data is saved, viewed, or blocked; whether your settings allow your searches to be saved in your Google account; what happens with your YouTube viewing history; and more.
The LinkedIn features, which also check how much of your account is public and so forth, don't seem to be available on the mobile app at this time, but are available in the browser version.
 

Monday 16 September 2013

BRAIN DAMAGING HABITS


BRAIN DAMAGING HABITS

1. No Breakfast

People who do not take breakfast are going to have a lower blood sugar level.This leads to an insufficient supply of nutrients to the brain causing brain degeneration.

2 . Overeating

It causes hardening of the brain arteries, leading to a decrease in mental power.

3. Smoking

It causes multiple brain shrinkage and may lead to Alzheimer disease.

4. High Sugar consumption

Too much sugar will interrupt the absorption of proteins and nutrients causing malnutrition and may interfere with brain development.

5. Air Pollution

The brain is the largest oxygen consumer in our 20 body. Inhaling polluted air decreases the supply of oxygen to the brain, bringing about a decrease in brain efficiency.

6 . Sleep Deprivation

Sleep allows our brain to rest.. Long term deprivation from sleep will accelerate

the death of brain cells..

7. Head covered while sleeping

Sleeping with the head covered increases the concentration of carbon dioxide and decrease concentration ofoxygen that may lead to brain damaging effects.

8. Working your brain during illness

Working hard or studying with sickness may lead to a decrease in effectiveness of the brain as well as damage the brain.

9. Lacking in stimulating thoughts

Thinking is the best way to train our brain, lacking in brain stimulation thoughts may cause brain shrinkage.

10. Talking Rarely

Intellectual conversations will promote the efficiency of the brain

Social media analytics emerges as new area of focus for enterprise vendors

  

Is analyzing social media a necessity for today’s businesses? To answer this question, let’s consider these facts: If Facebook was a country it would have been the third biggest country in the world. Facebook has over 1.15 billion monthly active users out of which 82 million monthly active users are from India. As of March 2013, Twitter had 200 million active users creating over 400 million tweets each day. Nearly one in five individuals now looks to Facebook to obtain information about a brand or product, as per a Fleishman-Hillard and Harris Interactive Annual Global Study.

Social media, hence, has truly arrived as a huge listening and customer engagement channel for enterprises to better connect with their customers.

Social networking sites offer huge opportunities to organizations to create products and messaging that is more engaging and connect to their customers in a much better fashion. Apart from this, the medium also allows organizations to get unique insights like customer buying behaviour and spending patterns.
“The amount of social interactions and engagement has been steadily increasing in India and each social/digital interaction leads to the creation of data, which has potential to share valuable insights. Consumers are a lot more empowered today — they chat, create, share, comment, post and review. It is sacrosanct to listen closely to their views and preferences,” asserts Sudipta K Sen, Regional Director – South East Asia, CEO & Managing Director - SAS Institute (India).

In fact, a recent McKinsey Global Institute report states that companies that rely on brand recognition can increase margins by as much as 60 percent by using social technologies to connect with customers and to generate sharper consumer insights.

Social interactions have been steadily increasing in India and each interaction leads to the creation of data, which has potential to share valuable insights


Sudipta K Sen, Regional Director – South East Asia, CEO & Managing Director - SAS Institute (India)

However, given the unstructured nature of data generated on social media channels, it is a major challenge for organizations to gauge and measure insights from the huge volume of data generated. Thus, organizations are increasingly contemplating smarter analytic solutions to gain new insights from social media to better understand consumer preferences, market dynamics, brand affinity and to improve customer satisfaction, and make smarter decisions regarding marketing campaigns.

Derek Laney, Director - Product Marketing Management, Marketing Cloud, Salesforce.com corroborates the trend, “Today, C-level executives in both B2B and B2C segments are very keen to understand how they should go about setting up social technologies to take advantage of these opportunities and derive business benefits.”

This is where major enterprise vendors such as Oracle, software service firms like Persistent Systems and analytic firms such as SAS are sensing a golden opportunity in developing social media analytics solutions and are meticulously crafting strategies to target this space.

Let’s a take a look at some of the players in the social analytics space and how their offerings are helping organizations.

TURNING CONNECTIONS INTO CUSTOMERS

Salesforce is targeting the space with Salesforce Marketing Cloud (SMC), a unified social marketing suite that enables organizations to identify sales leads, discover advocates, detect trends for any topic or keyword, uncover social influence and analyze content in 17 languages. “55 percent of the Fortune 100 and leading brands including Ford, Hewlett-Packard, and Unilever are turning connections into customers for life with the Marketing Cloud,” says Laney.


Today, C-level executives in both B2B and B2C segments are very keen to understand how they should go about setting up social technologies

Derek Laney, Director - Product Marketing Management, Marketing Cloud, Salesforce.com


Hardware major Dell is one of the company’s clients, which is using SMC to gain a better understanding of the marketplace and build long lasting relationships with customers. With SMC, Dell is able to monitor over 25,000 conversations each month in 11 different languages. When Dell sees customers talking about buying a new laptop, or about server requirements, it engages with consumers to find out what they are looking for, sends them coupons, or directs their request to the right people within the organization. By adopting a proactive social strategy, the company has been able to fuel its sales leads. “In its first year of experimentation alone, Dell generated approximately USD 6.5 million sales through social media,” informs Laney.

The company’s another customer is United Spirits, which is using social media to connect with its customers about topics of their interest like sports, fashion and music.

Similarly, Oracle has introduced cloud-based Social Relationship Management (SRM) solutions that enable organizations to transform business processes with innovative social collaboration, marketing and insight services. Oracle’s SRM solutions simplify the deployment of social business applications through cloud delivery, mobile access, and integration with key business applications.

“By integrating the full spectrum of social activities and analysis in a single platform, Oracle SRM eliminates the inconsistency, duplication and delays of ‘social silos’ to enable users to create, measure, and consistently deliver more rewarding customer experiences,” says Sunil Jose, Vice President – Applications, Oracle India. A component of SRM suite, the Oracle Social Engagement & Monitoring Cloud Service provides listening, engagement and analysis capabilities across social channels to help companies understand their customers and act.

Another company betting big on social media analytics is Persistent Systems, which classifies the social analytics space in three broad areas, namely customer segmentation, branding and customer engagement and customer service and voice of customer management. In customer segmentation, social data is used to create accurate customer segmentation, which can then be used to make the right kind of offers and promotions for the segment.

Kartik Vyas, Head Big Data Marketing at Persistent Systems, explains this with an example, “If Micromax is planning to launch a mobile handset model specially targeted at music lovers in the age bracket 22 to 32, publicly available social data, such as Facebook page likes can be used to segment the customers accurately. If a person likes fan pages of musicians, music shows, writes about concerts, etc., it means that the person is more likely to be interested in the handset for music lovers as compared to someone who has most page likes for stuff related to cricket or fashion.”

For branding and customer engagement, the company suggests analysis of responses to advertising and branding campaigns. “Sentiment analysis of responses of customers on the brand fan page, nature of response to contests etc., can be analyzed to fine tune the messaging and improve customer engagement,” says Vyas. In the customer service and voice of customer management space, Persistent suggests text analytics of complaints and customer feedback expressed on social forums and other sites on the web.
Giving insights on how the company derives trends from social data, Vyas says, “We have built several connectors, which connect with social media sites like Facebook, Twitter and crawl public data with regards to a specific organization or entity from these sites. This data, once collected, is analyzed on a Hadoop-based social media analytics platform that we have built. Our platforms can automatically tag and cluster user responses. Once these responses are tagged and clustered, our analysts and data scientists pick out trends and help our customer organizations understand these trends from the data. Organizations can then quickly respond to these trends.”


T20 cricket league is a case in point, where Persistent released a dashboard to figure out the popularity of players and teams based on the analysis of tweet messages that were posted during the tournament. Further, for one of its customers the company has automated its customer relationship management system in such a fashion, that any social media message about the customers’ product would be responded to within 10 minutes of a message posted on that forum.

The analytics firm SAS Institute’s social media strategy surrounds around the fact that the value of social media analytics enhances when organizations are able to integrate the insights derived from social channels with their transactional data, campaign management systems, call centres, etc. “We empower users with superior social media and text analytics along with multi-lingual capabilities, which is the key for a diversely and densely populated nation like India. We also help organizations integrate this data with other data sources, enhance the data and derive meaningful insights from this comprehensive source of data, in easy to understand formats which can be used by business users and decision makers,” informs Sen.

The company enables this via simple and easy-to-use dashboards that can be used across the enterprise. Real-time and approachable analytics makes it possible for marketers to create offers and delightful experiences for customers and prospects based on their needs and via their preferred channel.
On similar lines, iGATE too is launching solutions in the buzzing space with its dedicated Center of Excellence. For example, the company has developed a solution especially targeted at companies in the pharmaceutical space. A lot of drugs often have side effects. It is a regulatory compliance in some companies that all the side effects being talked about in the social space need to be analyzed by the pharmaceutical company. To help companies meet this compliance requirement, iGATE  tracks social conversations about any drug from public medical sites and provides insights into the side effects that have not yet been explored. “We search for unknown side effects about a particular drug and then analyze the same using algorithms and advice the organization about the social conversation,” says Anil Bajpai, Senior Vice President and Head of Research and Innovation, iGATE.

Source : http://goo.gl/Stp0pt

Friday 13 September 2013

Facebook Autoplay Videos Come to Mobile


Select Facebook mobile users tomorrow will see the first autoplay videos in their news feeds, the digital giant has revealed. Advertisers cannot employ the feature for the time being, but the move likely signals a baby step towards when video marketing messages roll into view regularly as Facebook users sift through their friends' thoughts and photos.

Autoplay videos in the near term will exclusively feature a small test set of regular Facebook users and musicians/celebrities with verified pages, such as pop performer Lady Gaga or CNN's Fareed Zakaria. The videos will initially autoplay on mute, though users can click the multimedia player to hear sound.
Uploaded videos for those kinds of parties will autoplay automatically without the poster clicking a button—or having the ability to choose against autoplay. In other words, the news feed experience should closely resemble Instagram video.

Menlo Park, Calif.-based Facebook's test starts with consumers on the Android mobile operating system, but iPhone users will get into the mix sometime next week. Only videos uploaded to Facebook's platform will autoplay, including those shot via Instagram, Social Cam and Cinemagram. Videos from YouTube, Vimeo and other sources will not auto play.

No timetable was disclosed for Web-based autoplay video by Facebook reps.
Meanwhile, there's been plenty of speculation about when autoplay video advertising will come to Facebook. Originally, the marketing product was supposed to—per industry rumors—arrive in October. Adweek's sources confirm the initiative has been pushed back indefinitely. 

Unless Facebook is mulling the idea of not enabling brands to participate in autoplay at all, it'd be surprising to see the month of November go by without letting video advertisers use the product.

The cash that CEO Mark Zuckerberg & Co. could collect with autoplay video during the build-up to Black Friday and in December would likely be staggering. Per one major agency player, an exclusive national buy for the news feed ad unit for a day would easily surpass a Super Bowl spot when it comes to sheer impressions.

UP: A Man Is Attempting To Cross The Atlantic Using A Massive Cluster Of Helium Balloons

In this photo provided by Mark McBreairty, a balloon cluster carrying Jonathan Trappe lifts off from Caribou, Maine, Thursday, Sept. 12, 2013. Unlike a conventional hot-air balloon, Trappe lifted off Thursday using hundreds of helium-filled balloons clustered together. Trappe hopes to be the first person to successfully complete a trans-Atlantic flight using the balloon cluster.

CARIBOU, Maine (AP) - Hundreds of multicolored balloons used Thursday to launch a balloonist for a trans-Atlantic crossing look like a page taken from the script of the movie "Up."

Instead of using a conventional hot-air balloon, Jonathan Trappe lifted off using more than 300 helium-filled balloons, like those used in in the animated movie.

Trappe's goal is to float across the ocean.
 Jonathan Trappe soars in his bid to become the first man to cross the Atlantic in a balloon cluster system. Photograph: Paul Cyr / Barcroft USA

"The Atlantic Ocean has been crossed many times, and in many ways, but never quite like this," the North Carolina native said on his website, which detailed his efforts.

City Manager Austin Bleess said about 150 volunteers assisted in filling the helium balloons starting Wednesday night. Trappe and his balloons lifted off from a foggy softball field in northern Maine, near the Canadian border, at sunrise Thursday.

"Man, it was awesome," Bleess said. "It was amazing to watch."

Also on hand Thursday was Joe Kittinger, a retired Air Force officer who once set a record for jumping from a balloon 19.5 miles up and later became the first solo balloonist to cross the Atlantic in 1984.
As for Trappe, he's no stranger to the cluster balloons.

He's used them to fly in an office chair, and he's used them to lift a faux house, just like in the Disney-Pixar movie. In 2010, he crossed the English Channel using a cluster of balloons. For his trans-Atlantic crossing, the basket in which he's riding is actually a lifeboat that could be used if he ditches in the ocean.

Trappe worked on the trans-Atlantic crossing for two years and hoped to be the first person to succeed in doing so with a cluster of balloons. By Thursday evening, he was well on his way, headed toward Newfoundland.

The airborne journey, if it goes according to plan, could take anywhere from three days to six days. Wind currents could bring him to northern Africa or Norway.
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Source : http://goo.gl/dc7Zdr

Why Does Friday the 13th Scare Us So Much?

 
A painting depicts the Last Supper, whose 13th guest was Judas, who betrayed Jesus.
Photograph by Brooklyn Museum/Corbis

It's Friday the 13th, and millions of people are on edge, fearing a calamity with personal or global repercussions-a broken leg, a stock market crash, or the trigger pulled for World War III.

Why all the anxiety? In short, because the fear is ingrained in Western culture, according to experts. (Get more Friday the 13th facts.)

"If nobody bothered to teach us about these negative taboo superstitions like Friday the 13th, we might in fact all be better off," said Stuart Vyse, a professor of psychology at Connecticut College in New London.
People who harbor a Friday the 13th superstition might have triskaidekaphobia, or fear of the number 13, and often pass on their belief to their children, he noted. Popular culture's obsession with the fear-think the Friday the 13th horror films and even this story-helps keep it alive, added Vyse, the author of Believing in Magic: The Psychology of Superstition.

Although superstitions can be arbitrary-a fear of ladders or black cats, for example-"once they are in the culture, we tend to honor them," said Thomas Gilovich, a professor of psychology at Cornell University in Ithaca, New York.

"You feel like if you are going to ignore it, you are tempting fate," he explained.

Origins Rooted in Religion

The trepidation surrounding Friday the 13th is rooted in religious beliefs surrounding the 13th guest at the Last Supper-Judas, the apostle said to have betrayed Jesus-and the crucifixion of Jesus on a Friday, which was known as hangman's day and was already a source of anxiety, Vyse said. (Read more: "Friday the 13th Superstitions Rooted in Bible and More.")

The two fears merged, resulting "in this sort of double whammy of 13 fallingon an already nervous day," he said.

The taboo against the number 13 spread with Christianity and into non-Christian areas, noted Phillips Stevens, Jr., an associate professor of anthropology at the University of Buffalo in New York."It became extremely widespread through the Euro-American world, embedded in culture, [and] extremely persistent," he said.

More interesting, he noted, is why people associate any Friday the 13th with bad luck. The answer, he said, has to do with what he calls principles of "magical thinking" found in cultures around the world.
One of these principles involves things or actions-if they "resemble other things in any way of resemblance-shape or sound or odor or color-people tend to think those things are related and in a causal way," he explained.

In this framework, there were 13 people present at the Last Supper, so anything connected to the number 13 from then on is bad luck.

Thomas Fernsler, an associate policy scientist in the Mathematics and Science Education Resource Center at the University of Delaware in Newark, said the number 13 suffers because of its position after 12.
According to Fernsler, numerologists consider 12 a "complete" number. There are 12 months in a year, 12 signs of the zodiac, 12 gods of Olympus, 12 labors of Hercules, 12 tribes of Israel, and 12 apostles of Jesus. (See "Lost Gospel Revealed; Says Jesus Asked Judas to Betray Him.")

Fernsler said 13's association with bad luck "has to do with just being a little beyond completeness. The number becomes restless or squirmy."

Then there's Friday. Not only was Christ crucified on that day, but some biblical scholars believe Eve tempted Adam with the forbidden fruit on a Friday. Perhaps most significant is a belief that Abel was slain by his brother Cain on Friday the 13th.

Crippling Impact

On Friday the 13th, some people are so crippled by fear that they lock themselves inside; others will have no choice but to grit their teeth and nervously muster through the day.

Nevertheless, many people will refuse to fly, buy a house, or act on a hot stock tip, inactions that noticeably slow economic activity, according to Donald Dossey, a folklore historian and founder of the Stress Management Center and Phobia Institute in Asheville, North Carolina. (Read about animal phobias.)
"It's been estimated that [U.S.] $800 or $900 million is lost in business on this day because people will not fly or do business they normally would do," he said.

To overcome the fear, Vyse said, people should take small steps outside their comfort zone. Those who are afraid to leave the house could consider meeting a close friend at a cozy cafe, for example.
"Try some small thing that they would be reluctant to do under normal circumstances and gradually experience, hopefully, no horrible thing happen when they push through and carry on," he said.

Source :  http://goo.gl/5yxSh0