There are lots and lots of Web 2.0 services budding these days, and they are all going thru their own promotional strategies, and at times we dont get any alerts of these new services, and if we miss out that is something useful for us, we are the loosers.

That made me look around for blogs that I can put up on my rss reader where I could get updates, and I found a co blogger, who writes a cool looking review site, and apart from just web 2.0, the site also reviews financial services, travel services, real estate, shops, and offers a good range of toolboxes.

If you got anything at all on your feed reader, you should have this site in there. and it would do you good.

And my feed hunt still continues.

Understanding the scientific method and how to follow it is critical to building a good reputation in the technical community. In regards to science fairs, as a student progresses in grade levels the judges are going to demand more and more focus on using the scientific method.

Here is my seven step description of the scientific method.

1. Define the question 2. Gather information and resources 3. Form hypothesis 4. Perform experiment and collect data 5. Analyze data 6. Interpret data and draw conclusions that serve as a starting point for new hypotheses 7. Publish results

In science fair competitions, if you can show that you are following the scientific method, you are well on your way to impressing the judges.

Basically, start out by defining your question and topic. After that, form a hypothesis and perform your experiments. Step 6 is where you use that data to make any new hypotheses or theories about your science topic. If you want, you can take that new hypothesis you just developed and start again from step 3, then move your way back to 6. Follow this cycle as much as you want. The more focused your information and experiments the better.

Would you like an example to clarify how to use the scientific method?

Imagine you are doing your project on “Hot water” and we are going to follow the scientific method steps.

1. Define your question.

How about something silly, like “Will boiling water burn a person’s hand?”

2. Find lots of information about hot water and learn everything you can about it.

3. Now form a hypothesis based on your research. Our hypothesis is, “A person will not suffer any burns due to contact with boiling water.” Hopefully you are smart enough to know this isn’t true, but let’s pretend we aren’t just for the sake of the example.

4. Now we do perform our experiements. In real life we know we will burn ourselves with boiling water, and we should never touch it! But, suppose the experimenter has no idea. They run tests to see if contact with boiling water burns a person. BAD IDEA!

5. Now look at your data. Probably everyone in the experiments burned their skin during the tests. Looks like boiling water does cause burns! DUH!

6. Interpret the data. Hmm…our hypothesis was completely wrong. Our experiments showed that boiling water can cause burns.

7. Publish your results. I certainly hope you never make a project just like this, but here’s your chance to show the world what happens when you touch boiling water!

Keep in mind, don’t change your hypothesis because your final data did not agree with it. You don’t get more credit for having a correct hypothesis. You get credit for following the scientific method and coming to a correct conclusion based on your
masters information security data.

Don’t forget to include possible reasons for experimental error.

If you follow these steps your project or experiment will make sense to anyone who views it and you have a good chance of succeeding!

Unfortunately enough for me, I have never been able to connect to a better broadband from my home in Pondicherry than a BSNL connection. The operators who are available in my area are SIFY, Tata Indicom and BSNL, out of which BSNL is the best. The other two are even worse.

Sify goes down very often, and when you call their helpline, they just tell you that the problem will be fixed in 24 to 48 hours, and when your line goes down for 15 times a month, you will be left for a month without internet. TATA is horrible. I have written a lot about my experiences with them at the office and at home. So all that I am left with is BSNL.

The only good ISP in Pondihcerry is Airtel, and out of sheer bad luck, they dont operate in my area of residence, and at the office. The first office that I had taken in Pondicherry was in an area where Airtel served, and I was quite happy wiht the service, but now, I am stuck to BSNL.

What is so bad about bsnl? Well, there is absolutely no customer service to start with, though the lines do not go down for more than a few hours together at a streatch. I am supposed to have a 2 Mbps connection, but the speed never crosses that of a 256 kbps connection, and I dont understand why I have to pay for the limited line if I dont get the promised 2 Mbps, and why not go for an unlimited 256 Kbps. Well, thats the plan that I had in the beginning, and in that connection, no data is ever transfered, and if you download a torrent file or something with quite a number of data connections, meaning if your computer connects with more than say about 50 ips at a time, and still download data at around 8 kbps or something, you will never be able to access any other website though there will be a good amount of bandwidth that is open for your use.

Airtel was really good, and I miss the service, and for this if you ask me to relocate my home for the sake of gothic art, it would be quite difficult. Why dont Airtel expand here?

If you are involved in sales, fundraising or just an active networker, you have probably tried a variety of tools to manage your contact list and remind yourself to stay in touch with all of the prospects and people you meet. This tickler file is designed to be an inexpensive, effective, tool that can be used by salespeople in a variety of different types of organizations.

This tickler file uses inexpensive index cards and a simple file box. You will need the following items to create your own index card sales tool. I found everything I needed at my local office supply store. The total cost was around $25.00.

- A box to store the index cards
- Monthly 3″ by 5″ index tabs
- Daily (1-31) 3″ by 5″ index tabs
- Alphabetical 3″ by 5″ index tabs
- A ton of white ruled 3″ by 5″ index cards (you don’t need a photo, right?)
- A bunch of colored 3″ by 5″ index cards (pick your favorite color)
- A small case to carry your in your pocket

Once you have purchased the required supplies, you can organize your 3X5. For the sake of simplicity, let’s assume that you are assembling your 3X5 on January 1st. If this is the case you would first organize your tabs in the order below (front to back):

- January tab
- Daily tabs 1-31
- February – December monthly tabs
- A-Z alphabetical tabs
- Blank index cards – white and your favorite color

All of your cards should now be in the file box and the first thing you should see is the January tab.

Next, you should start creating cards for your leads. In the beginning, this is going to take some time (assuming you have a lot of leads). You might choose to use one color card for prospects, one color for customers, another for personal contacts, etc. If you are not going to organize your contacts by color, you will only need white cards. Nonetheless, you can either copy your contacts information onto the cards or simply staple their business card to one of the index cards.

The system works like this.

Let’s imagine it is January 1st. and you attend a networking event where you meet a potential client. You get this lead’s business card at the event and you want to contact him/her on the 2nd., so when you get to your office, you staple the leads business card to a white index card and drop it behind the “2″ tab and then go home for the day. After all, it is new years day and you have been working hard to create your new sales system and you attended a networking event.

So, you arrive at work on January 2nd. and open up your tickler file. The first thing you should do is move the “1″ tab back behind the February tab. You will always be rolling the system forward like this, so that the first tab you see in the box represents the most current month, then the most current day.
Now, you go to the tab for today (Jan 2nd.) and find the card for the lead that you met at the networking event yesterday. You call the lead and learn that he/she is out of town until January 6th. so you make a note which says, “1/2/05 – Mr. Lead is on vacation till 1/6″. Now you drop the card behind the “6″ tab for the month of January.

You will continue to roll this lead forward in the system, making notes at each step, until the lead either turns into a customer or asks you to leave them alone.

When the lead turns into a customer, I staple their business card to a colored card and place it behind the appropriate alphabetical tab. If their is another opportunity with this client, I move the colored card back to the dated section and move them through the process again.

Of course, as you add more people to your pipeline, you might not get to contact everyone on the day you have them slotted for. Just move them to the next day’s slot at the end of the current day so you contact them tomorrow.

You will not want to carry around a huge metal box full of index cards, which is why you want to have a small index card wallet or box, so if you are going to be on the road or out of the office, you can simply grab your cards for the day and go.
Not just for salespeople.

While the system is great for salespeople, it also is a great tool for those of us who are focusing on networking. I actually use three different colored cards and use white for leads, blue for clients and red for my networking contacts (patriotic, I know). On the red cards, I write either 7, 14, 30, 45, 60, etc in the upper right hand corner of the index card to remind myself how frequently I want to contact the person, so I simply move the card forward based on the number on the card. If I want to contact someone every seven days, I move the card ahead a week after I make contact.