Rachna's Corner

Family Picture - Mum, Dad, Sister, Brother-in-law, Nephews and both of us!

Rachna — Mon, 02 Mar 2009 12:21:16 +0000

A Simple Tip for Web Entrepreneurs to Increase Productivity

Rachna — Tue, 17 Feb 2009 09:35:05 +0000

A useful tip for Net entrepreneurs for better time management and increased productivity is to close your mail box. I know I have the tendency to keep my email open all the time and my fingers automatically go the the send and receive button. It’s almost like an email addiction. Truthfully, email eats up a lot of your time if you are not careful. Set aside some time in the day for answering emails and leave the rest of the time to do other things for improving your online business. You could just keep it as one hour in the morning and one hour before you finish work. The rest of the time shut it down and don’t let it distract your attention from other business goals. I guarantee you will see an increase in your productivity and use of time.

5 Rules for Success by Randal Pinkett - Winner of The Apprentice Season 4

Rachna — Sun, 15 Feb 2009 11:10:55 +0000

After watching The Apprentice Season 4 which was a great season, I looked up Randal Pinkett (the winner) on the Internet and found this short video clip which I found interesting as he shares his 5 rules for success.

Obtain Broad Exposure - expose yourself to many ideas, cultures, backgrounds etc.
Forge Diverse Ties
Think Entrepreneurially - Have a vision, act resourcefully, use all resources
Synergise and reach scale
Give back generously

Great Business Lessons That Can Be Learnt From the TV Show Apprentice

Rachna — Fri, 13 Feb 2009 10:50:38 +0000

The Apprentice is a television reality show hosted by Donald Trump, a famous real estate and business magnate. Its a great show for entrepreneurs and business people to watch as a lot of business lessons can be learnt from the show.

Learn to work as a team.

This was clearly shown by Randall in season 4. He got along with everyone and was able to be a good team player as well as a leader which finally won him the Apprentice job. He was liked by both teams and both teams picked him when they were asked for a team member from the opposite team.

The opposite of this was Andrea from season 4 who seemed to be a really good leader but wasn’t able to work well with a team. This was interesting to me as she had many victories as project manager but was not able to follow someone else’s vision and work with others on the team and hence she was fired.

Be a politician.

Don’t rub anyone the wrong way. Be diplomatic when working with people. The classic example of this was Lee in season 5 where he seemed to really be like a cat with 9 lives as he was called into the boardroom so many times but always seemed to survive because of his diplomatic ways.

Think outside the box.

Come up with different ideas. I thought Kendra in season 3 came up with some brilliant ideas to market and increase sales which ultimately made a big difference to the team as they won with a big difference.

Inspire Your Team

As a leader, inspire your team and get the best from everyone. I liked the way Kendra really inspired her team on the final show of Apprentice Season 3. She really deserved to win the Apprenticeship.

Put in the hard work to Succeed and don’t give up

Even when things seem to be falling apart and your team is not supportive of you, do your best and don’t give up

The New Sleek & Gorgeous Apple iMac (20 inch screen)

Rachna — Mon, 09 Feb 2009 13:03:43 +0000

Today we opened our new iMac 20 inch desktop computer. It was absolutely beautiful. The screen is sleek and has the CPU built in. All the ports are hidden at the back of the screen. The keyboard is really thin and neat. We experimented with a few of the features like Photo Booth, Garage band and iMovie. The Photo Booth application was especially fun as we took a few pictures with different effects like comic effect and pop art effect. We are still figuring it out and playing with the features. Once we get our home office completed we will open our other iMac 24 inch and each of us are going to have our personal apple desktops!

The Sleek & Gorgeous Apple iMac

Comic Book Effect in Photo Booth in iMac

Color Pencil Effect in Photo Booth in iMac

USA Dream Trip: All That I Imagined It Would Be And More!

Rachna — Sat, 07 Feb 2009 14:47:57 +0000

I’ve always dreamt of going to the United States of America ever since I was a child. I imagined how it would be, how the people would be, how clean and organized it would be and how great it would be to study, work or live there. I would talk about it in ‘larger than life’ terms and my friends would say that when I actually go there it would not be like that and I would be disappointed but boy were they wrong! America was all that I imagined it would be and more!

After dreaming about it and imagining it for so long, I finally visited USA with my husband for 2 months from 15th Sptember to 15th November 2008. It was like our second honeymoon. I can honestly say that I had the best time of my life in the U.S. We visited 10 different places during the 2 months we were there and got to see the North, South, East and West of the U.S.! It was an amazing and unforgettable trip. We visited Minneapolis, Fargo & Grand Forks in North Dakota (North), Vancouver (Canada), San Fransico, Los Angeles, Napa Vallery, Yosemite National Park in California (West Coast), Las Vegas in Nevada, New Orleans in Louisianna (South), Disneland in Orlando, Florida, Washinton, Buffalo & New York (East Coast).

The country is so beautiful and clean, people so friendly and warm, systems so organized and reliable, food so yummy and sumptuous and I could go on and on …..

Here are some pictures of some of the places we visited :

Golden Gate Bridge in San Fransisco, California

Niagara Falls - Ontario, Canada

Trump Towers - Las Vegas, Nevada

Yosemite National Park, California

Universal Studios - Los Angeles, California

Ziplining in Grouse Mountain - The Peak of Vancouver

Whale Watching - Victoria, Canada

White House, Washington D.C.

Grand Canyon, Arizona

Best Television Show of All Time

Rachna — Sat, 07 Feb 2009 08:05:04 +0000

Gilmore Girls is the best TV show I have ever seen. I have all the seven seasons and have watched it twice and I absolutely love it. If you are looking for a good family oriented television show to watch, I highly recommend Gilmore Girls. It’s funny, light-hearted, quirky and very entertaining. My husband and I bought the DVD’s during our honeymoon in Thailand and we both loved watching it and were really addicted to it. It was sad when the seventh season got over. We were hoping that there would be a season 8 and were very disappointed when we found out that the seventh season was the last season. Hope they come up with a movie soon!

The show is based on the story of a single mother and her daughter (Lorelai & Rory Gilmore) and their relationship is just amazing! Gilmore Girls is a great television show for anyone to watch, if you haven’t seen it you really should Here are some video clips of the Gilmore Girls.

Australia : The Movie

Rachna — Sat, 03 Jan 2009 08:33:42 +0000

I enjoyed watching the movie Austrailia. Amazing videography & beautiful landscapes. The actors were fantastic. After seeing some pretty terrible movies, this was a refreshing change. I would give this movie rating 4 out of 5 stars. It was a good romatic movie to watch.

State of The Art Gadget : The iPod Touch

Rachna — Sun, 14 Dec 2008 10:07:49 +0000

The iPod Touch is an amazing gadget to have. It’s sleek and beautiful and is very useful. I bought this for my husband and we both fell in love with it. You can access your mail directly from the iPod touch, you can watch youTube videos, listen to music, view your pictures, access the Internet and much more! There are many applications that you can add on from the apple site - like facebook, recipes, games etc. It has built in Wi-Fi and you can buy music on the go. It’s an awesome gadget created by Apple and all credit goes to them to create something so gorgeous, user-friendly and useful that anyone would be proud to own an iPod touch.

Ideas for Celebrating Your Wedding Anniversary

Rachna — Sun, 07 Dec 2008 09:04:52 +0000

Here’s what I did for my husband for our first anniversary. I wanted it to be special as it was our first anniversary so at midnight I woke him up and took him to the living room where I had lit candles to form the words “I Love You” and I had a strawberry cheesecake ordered for my husband (as he loves cakes and sweets). I had bought some gifts for him which I hid throughout the house and had him find it with clues like a treasure hunt and all the clues had P.S. I love you. The final gift was an iPod Touch! As he loves challenges and he loves gadgets, the treasure hunt with the final treasure of the iPod was a hit!

Cake, Gifts, CD's & iPod

So some ideas for celebrating your anniversary are :

1. Cook your favorite food and have a nice romantic candlelight meal at home

2. If you are a young married couple you could have a treasure hunt for finding surprise gifts

3. You could post love notes in places you know your husband or wife go everyday - like the mirror, wardrobe, fridge

4. Spend the day reminiscing about the year’s best moments and plan some new exciting things you would like to do in the new year.

5. Go for a short trip somewhere close by.