Lotus Notes Mails - Optimizing Screenshots

If you send a lot of screen shots through your Lotus Notes email, then this tip should work well for you.

First thing first: it is always more effective to use the the File->Import option or the Create->Picture option from the menu to insert an image into an email instead of just pasting in a screen shot. This is chiefly because the Windows clipboard stores the copied image in an intermediary format that Lotus Notes does not like much, and the translation is often disastrous. For GIFs and JPEGs, the Import or Create options work like a charm. The downside, of course, is that you have to take the pain of actually saving your screen shot to disk.

When you are pasting screen shots in directly, they sometimes grab more space than what seems appropriate. This can be remedied by adding a simple parameter to your notes.ini file (which is setup when Lotus Notes is installed, and houses user preferences, admin information etc). The name of this parameter is OptimizeImagePasteSize, and the entry that needs to be to the notes.ini file is OptimizeImagePasteSize=1 .

To edit the Notes INI file, you have to shutdown Lotus Notes. The INI file would be in the Lotus Notes data directory, which usually is the C:\Lotus\Notes folder. The notes.ini file can be edited in Notepad. A very strong note of caution: please do not mess around with the other parameters in the INI file; you do so at your own peril, and at the risk of incurring the wrath of site support!

The parameter itself works by reducing the size of the images that are pasted in. To be specific, it converts the image to 256-color, and also compresses it into a GIF format. Its not exactly a high-quality image, but it is fairly decent. Whenever you want high-quality, you can always import it in, as described earlier.

Once this parameter is included in the INI file, you will definitely notice faster emails when you send screen shots the next time.

Phone Etiquette

Today, one of my colleague posed me an interesting question : "It is common for you guys not to tell your name when you call someone?" My answer was may be yes, may be no depends case by case. Ha ha, funny answer, right!. Cool, anyway I observed that phone etiquette is very important when working in multi-cultural environment. So I reviewed myself and took a deep look at this soft skill which can win things for you. Just to share with you all here I put them together :

1. Try to answer the phone by second ring.

2. Say your name loud and clear.

3. Greet them in simple and friendly.

4. Speak slowly and clear.

5. Ask for their name(if they say) and contacts if needed.

6. Be clear of what you are saying.

7. Lower your voice if you normally speak loud. ( Keep mouth piece at least 2 inches away from your mouth)

8. Seek permission if you want to put the caller on hold.

9. If you want to transfer the call, inform the caller about whom you are going to transfer and transfer to him directly.

10. If caller wants to leave a message please take : Callers name and details ( Company name), timestamp, subject of the call, need a return call, contact details.

11. End the call with "Nice speaking to you" or "Have a nice day".



Things to remember :

1. Instead of 'I don't know' say 'That's a good question, let me find out for you'

2.Instead of 'I/we can do that' say 'Here's what we can do.'

3. Instead of 'Just a second', tell them how long will it take to complete whatever your are doing and tell them what it is about.

4. Avoid 'No', people hate to hears NOs.

5. When someone is blasting or emotional, you keep your nerve, don't over react to their trigger words.

6. If it is SUPPORT call, listen keen to the caller and with all senses. Take a note of details like Job name that failed, person who raised the ticket, person who is waiting for our update, etc.

7. Stop blaming the callers, its always counter productive to blame others.

8. Improve your tolerance levels.



With the above guidelines, one can improve quality of work as well as time taken to solve tickets(On-Call support cases) and will good relation with customers (callers). Atleast half of them, I do practise but need to improve. Thanks for the one who questioned me and gave me an oppurtunity to review this important soft skill. Hope it is/will be helpful to you too.

India develops a mobile for low price.

India built the world's cheapest car - the £1,250 Tata Nano - and has now unveiled the telecoms equivalent: the £10 “people's phone”.

The mobile handset, developed by Spice, the Indian telecoms group, is angled at the lowest end of the market. It has jettisoned all non-essential features, such as a screen. “It is just a phone,” Bhupendra Kumar Modi, the Spice chairman, who hopes to sell about 10 million in the next year, said.

Mobile phones priced under £20 account for a fifth of the global market. However, with half the world's population yet to make a phone call and Western markets becoming saturated, companies see huge potential in budget devices aimed at the developing world.



For more Information::: http://business.timesonline.co.uk/tol/business/industry_sectors/telecoms/article3372036.ece

Convert docx files to doc Online

You just got an email with a .docx file, which runs on Word 2007 but you don't have it installed on your PC. Here's a solution for you. Zamar is a free online file conversion utility which allows you to convert .docx files to .doc files. It also supports inter-conversion of many other file formats for images, documents, music and videos. Your file is converted in 3 easy steps. Browse the file you want to convert, select the new format and enter your email address. A link for your converted file would be sent to your mailbox within seconds.

But caution, don't upload any confidential documents as your document is stored on the server and is accessible to any person having the link of the document.

If you want to add support for Office 2007 file formats for your existing Office 2003, you can download the Microsoft Office Compatibility Pack.

Linux vs Windows - Security

The reason i am writing this post is not becoz i am an expert in linux, but a newbie. As a newbie i think i know the difficuties involved in understanding new concepts and that helps me explain them better.

Linux is always known to be safe from viruses. I installed Ubuntu 7.0 in PC at home and was surprised to find that there was not even a single option related to the Root account.

To explain things better let me start with what a root account is, for the sake of readers who are new to linux. A root account is similar to the administrator account that Windows offers. An admin account gives you complete rights over the system - read,write,execute,install and even crash the system. I soon found out that this was one of the big reasons why Windows has 60,000 odd known viruses while Linux has less than 40. How?? Read on.

If you have installed Windows OS before you would be aware that, the set up provides you with an admin account right at the time of installation itself. Most viruses are transmitted as e-mail attachments. When the unsuspecting users get a mail like "Click here for cool WallPaper downloads", they click it and BANG!!! - in comes the virus. Why does this happen? Becoz you are the admin. The system doesnt interfere with whatever you want to do with it.

SO how does Linux avoid this mishap? Well, the very first thing you ll do when you install Linux is get yourself registered in a Linux forum(Really!! You cannot avoid that). And the very first advice that you will get from any Linux geek is that to think zillion times before you use the Root account(the admin). So, most of us will listen to that and well that is a huge prevention for viruses. When you try to run any executables from a non-admin account the system doesnt let you do that. So every time what you have to do is to log in as root and then click on the attachments and let the virus in. And since most users are known to be reluctant(or lazy) to switch and then come back to have a look at a silly attachment, safety is ensured.

But wait.. There is more to it. What if we dont listen to those geeks and use the root for everything? Then isnt that similar to running windows on a admin account? Yes!! But the latest versions of Linux have come out with an OS that does not have a root. Again the question comes up - So, what if i really want to run an exe that i know is safe? Wont the system
stop me everytime. For this they have a keyword in Linux called "sudo". I think it means - do things like a super user. So if you really want to run that exe, you need to use the sudo command. Now thats double protection. So if you want to run an exe you have to do some work to get it up and running.

Putting it all together - In windows, viruses have an easy way of making it in. But to bring a virus to a Linux box you have to work on it.


source: blogs/167603

Online PDF Converter- Very Useful.

In order to convert any Word, Excel or PowerPoint file to PDF, a PDF converter is required. Instead, we can use this link…

Just browse the file that you would like to convert and click Convert button…

Now you will get the file in PDF format in IE window…

Now use ‘Save As' to save PDF copy of the selected file in your local PC.

Use the following link to convert your file into PDF.

http://www.doc2pdf.net/converter/

One More Link for converting the files to PDF:
https://www.pdfonline.com/convert_pdf.asp

This link has a limitation of 2MB.

Just browse the file that you would like to convert, Give the file name and your mail ID. The PDF will be mailed to you.

Note: If you give Yahoo, Gmail, Hotmail ids, this link works faster.

Hope this will be very useful.

Dropdown Menus implementation using javascript

HierMenus (Dropdown Menus) - a common element in many websites/ web applications. Whether you are adding items to cart or looking for some news or listening to music, HierMenus will provide you navigation to reach the page you wanted with much ease and efficiency. As HierMenus will not be displayed until you want (on mouse over of a particular content) the web page will look clean and uncluttered.

One common way of building the HierMenus is by using JavaScript. The common drawbacks/hindrances faced while using JavaScript for building HierMenus are cross browser compatibility, efficiency, reusability and expandability. All the issues are tackled by separating the content for menus, style and functionality for display into reusable components.

• A CSS file for look and feel of HierMenus.
• A Js file (Loader,js) for creating HierMenus on load of page and Displaying corresponding HierMenus on mouse over of tabs.
• Another JavaScript file containing the data for the Menus in the form of arrays. The arrays will have width of tab, color for the tab, background color of tab, images links for tabs, a field for checking whether the corresponding link is having submenus are not like that, menu name for the link and Href value for the links.

On load of web page a function in the Loader.js file will be called and will construct all the HierMenus based on the no. of 1st level tabs (1st level tabs will be created in JSP/HTML page). On mouse over of particular tab, POPUP(‘tabMenuName’) function in the Loader.js file will be called and will display the corresponding 2nd level menus and on the mouse out of tab POPDOWN(‘tabMenuName’) function in the Loader.js file will be called and will make display none for that particular tab. POPUP(‘tabMenuName’) will also make sure that the Heir menus displayed will be visible to user(Horizontal and Vertical alignment of menus) for all window sizes.

Advantages by using this approach:

• Fast and efficient.
• Content, style and functionality are separated and made independent.
• Font color or style and background color can be changed with simple changes in the CSS file with out affecting the functionality.
• The number of menu tabs can be increased without affecting the functionality or look and feel.
• Dynamic display according to the window size and menu size.
• Cross Browser compatibility.
• Heir menus built using this are supported in IE6, IE7, Firefox2 and opera.

Our Official Email Abbreviations

In our official mails, nowadays we have a habit of using the abbreviations like FYI, FYIP, PFA or EOD in body of mail and NNTO or EOM in a subject line etc. Most of us when sending such mails assume that the person reading it is aware of these abbreviations. It need not be the case.

One of the person near my desk in office asked me “I am getting a lot of mails from the others with PFA in the top of the mail. Do you know what that means?” I told him it means “Please Find Attached”.

The idea of communication is to make the other person understand what you are thinking/saying and if that very purpose is not meet then why use it. Something that is common/known to you might not be known to the others, so there can be abbreviations which only a certain set of people are aware of. Even worse it can mean something very different in another country or culture. But if you have the habit of using it often then it is better to expand it in the first mail to a new person and then use the abbreviation in the subsequent mails. A much better suggestion is to refrain from using uncommon abbreviations in business emails.

P.S: FYI - For Your Information, FYIP - For Your Information Please.

This reminds me of another incident at the client place, other than India. I referred to the number 100,000 as 1 Lakh while speaking to them. The client did not understand it and I repeating it did not serve any purpose. Then finally I had to say it as one hundred thousand. Until then, I did not realize that the term lakh is predominantly used only in Asian countries like Bangladesh, India, Nepal, Sri Lanka, Myanmar and Pakistan.

Even i faced same kind of experience with one of the mail with no body(message) but subject as:
Please send your details soon <>

By the time i received this mail, i was aware of the only term EOD (End Of Day). Can u expect what assumption i have made for the term <> in subject line to be ?- as End of Month ... instead of End of Mail. lol

And about other abbreviations:
NNTO - No Need To Open
NNTOM - No Need To Open Mail
these are place in subject line only.

Brain-Teasers

1. What is the easiest way to throw a ball, have it stop, and completely reverse direction after traveling a short distance?
2. What is at the beginning of eternity, the end of time, the beginning of every end, and the end of every place?
3. When things go wrong, what can you always count on?
4. What is always behind you but you can never touch it?
5. I am never the first to speak but I am always the last to be heard. Who am I?
6. We were born of the same mother, on the same day, at the same hour and in the same year. Yet we are not twins. How do you explain this?
7. Two fathers and two sons were seated round a table. There were four apples on the table. Each of them took one apple and ate it entirely yet there was still one apple left on the table. How was this possible?
8. Before Mount Everest was discovered which was the highest mountain in the world?
9. Here everything is not always in order. For example, Friday comes before Thursday, the cart comes before the horse, the driver comes before the employer. Where are we?
10. When I am alive I stay put where I am. It is only when I am dead that I move about here and there. Who am I?
11. How can you be behind a person when that person is also behind you?


Answers below :

1. Throw the ball straight up
2. ‘e’
3. Your fingers
4. The past
5. An echo.
6. They are triplets.
7. There were only three persons at the table comprising a grandfather, his son and his grandson.
8. Mount Everest, of course. It was always there!
9. In a dictionary.
10. A leaf.
11. Put yourself back to back of each other.

Delay Sending Email

I accidentally forwarded an email message to the wrong person in Gmail yesterday. I noticed just after clicking send … but a millisecond too late to fix it. A great feature for Gmail would be to have a delay the user could set on every sent message in their Outbox - say 1 minute to 5 minutes, that would allow users time to stop outbound messages.

Currently if you are using Outlook then this is possible. Microsoft Outlook (not Outlook Express) will allow you to set up a “Rule” to delay messages for whatever time period you need. This will give you a chance to open it and change messages before they are sent.

* Open Outlook, click on START, All Programs, Microsoft Office, Outlook.
* Click on TOOLS, Rules & Alerts.
* Click on New Rule “Start from a blank rule”.
* Click in Step 1 box, “Check message after sending”.
* Next, click on “On this machine only”.
* Next, Click in Step 1 box, “Defer delivery by a number of minutes”.
* Click in Step 2 box, “a number of” enter the number of minutes.
* Click on OK, click on Finish.

If you have set the Defer delivery by 1 minute and when you click on Send, your message will be held for one minute before being sent. If you realize there is something that needed to be changed, you just click on the Outbox, then click on the message to open, make any changes and click on send again. You will have another one minute, before the message will be sent. This procedure may save you some embarrassing moments.