E Greetings

Yesterday we were invited to our friends baby shower. As usual I forgot until the last minute to pick up a card and called up the missus who is very creative. She found a very good site for doing greeting cards americangreetings.com.

She created the above printable card using the available templates and mailed it to me for taking a print out. We attached the same and a small diaper shaped sheet cutout to the gift basket and gave it to the couple. The site was very helpful

Excel to Pipe delimited

As part of my work I got an Excel file today. We had to convert it into Pipe delimited file and upload it. Normally the reverse is easy ie converting from Pipe delimited file to Excel. I was under the impression that this also would be easy and started the work. Half an hour later I was frustrated and googling all over the place trying to find the solution. I was looking at scripts add ons and what not.
Suddenly our of the blue the simplest solution came from a user in a forum. Simple and utterly effective
1. In the excel file find and replace all commas into a special character *

2. Convert the excel file into a CSV file Comma seperated file

3. Open it in notepad and find and replace all commas into Pipe |

4. Find and replace all the special characters * into commas.

Voila you have the Pipe delimited file ready. Sometimes you need to think simple. Thanks to the guy in the forum

PERFECT SPONGE CAKE

Among all the varieties of sponge cake i have tried,this was the most perfect one. This is a fusion of many recipes from different sites. It was a thrill to do such a try, but it did come out well. Iam sure every one likes it.

Ingredients

Egg-5
Sugar-1 cup
All purpose flour-1 cup
Butter(room temp)-6 tbsp (85gm)
Vanilla essence-2 tsp
Baking powder-1/2 tsp
Salt-a pinch

Method

1. In a large bowl (large enough for the mixing bowl to rest its base) heat 3 cups of water.

2. In a mixing bowl add the eggs and sugar

3. Keep it inside the hot water bowl and stir continuously till the eggs mix well and the sugar dissolves. This takes about 10 minutes

4. Take out the mixing bowl and start beating it with an electric beater till it becomes frothy. Start from low to high speed. This takes from 20 to 30 minutes.

5. Sift flour,salt and baking powder.

6. Once it is done fold in the above mixture little by little to the batter with a wooden spatula.

7. Mix butter and vanilla essence in a bowl.

8. Fold in this mixture to the batter.

9. Pour the batter in a greased cake pan

10. Bake the cake till a tooth pick comes out clean (about 15-20 min) in a preheated oven at 400 deg F.

The cake is done and when you piece them you'll see the real spongy texture of it. Enjoy!!!!

David Phelps - The voice

When I first saw the GVB the line up was David Phelps, Guy Penrod, Mark Lowry and Bill. They remain as my favorite line up. I missed David phelps in the first home coming I attended and wanted to see him perform and thank God I was able to do that in the Homecoming in Baltimore.
In the first session he did a solo version of Nessum Dorma. During the break I was buying hot dogs when a couple of people next to me were gesturing. It was David going to meet his fans. He found time to oblige every one with a smile and a photo. I desperately wanted to take a photo however could not draw up my courage to do that. I am going to do that in the next GVB concert.
I was hoping that he would sing "O Holy night" since it was a christmas concert and I was not dissapointed as the lights dimmed in the end. It was David doing the finale of the show. When he started the first few notes of O Holy night there was a huge cheer from the audience. My words would not do justice to the song. Please see the video posted by pastorichard in you tube here. Blessed to be part of the evening.

Twitterfeed

Found out a new way to update both my Facebook and Twitter accounts using this cool site

http://twitterfeed.com/dashboard

This is a test attempt to check that. Lets see the effectiveness of this

Google In my life

Was surprised lately by the list of Google applications I tend to use in my day to day activities. As it is the time of the year to put forward a list here’s my list of Google applications that I use. I have not added Gmail and Blogger to the list since those are obvious ones

1. Google Maps

I am directionally challenged and this is one important tool which I use before going out for any trip or outing. I have a GPS device but by the time it announces the turn I would be in a wrong lane and would have to drive 20 miles to get back to that point. In India I would have taken a illegal U-turn somewhere where there are no watching Mamas. Everybody tends to act the good guy here in the US. Beats me why.

Anyway I digress. I take a look at the routes and decide which one is the best for me. Not sure how effective this is going to be when I go back to India. When I had no GPS the Google maps in my mobile was a major help.

2. Google Voice

This is one great application that allows me to make cheap calls. It is not available in India as of now

3. Youtube

No intros needed for this

4. Picasa

All my photos go here for sharing.

5. Google Docs

Google’s answer to cloud computing. You can store up to 1 GB and pay for the additional storage.I have started uploading a few critical files

6. Google Wave

This would be helpful from a project management perspective. Not sure how good its going to be on a personal front.

7. Calendar

Have started using this one recently. The best usage will be when I buy a smart phone that would allow me to sync up to the calendar.

8. Google desktop

Started recently on this one. Need to see how I can leverage this.

9. Orkut

In spite of Facebook’s popularity still the more prevalent social networking site in India

10. Gtalk

Do not use this any more. However there was a time when this was my trusty companion.

I would love to have a Nexus phone to complement all these. However the contract / price makes me think. Lets see when they roll it out to India

Lullaby

All parents would have committed this monstrous crime against their child at one point or other. I believe we all have been corrupted by the mid 90s tamil movies that have a village backdrop. The common unifying factor in all these movies would be infants crying in the village. Enter our portly hero singing a lullaby. Precisely when the song ends all the children would go to sleep. I sure wish I could have put my son in that village. He would have given our hero a run for his money.
In our house at the first sign my son shows of going to sleep, I take him from the missus with a assured glance. I take him to a separate room lest I terrify her. Then I would bring out the inner artist in me at full flow. I serenade him with a whole bunch of philosophical songs that ponder on the Heavenly home to the Beatles. No full stops there. I bring out a lot of special effects , runs what not to my audience of one. He will start with a glance of "What is the issue with this guy" to "O My God Why me". And in spite of my concert would go to sleep.
At this point of time my wife will take over. She knows if I continue with the same enthusiasm he might wake up with nightmares. She will start the mothers only patented lullaby that goes with just a single sylable and humming a tuneless tune. Well its kind of effective. Of course anything after my solo recital would be music from the heavens.
Well speaking of lullabies my special favourite is the one by Eric clapton.

Good night my angel time to close you eyes
And save these questions for another day
I think I know what you've been asking me
I think you know what I've been trying to say

I promised I would never leave you
And you should always know
Where ever you may go
No matter where you are
I never will be far away

Good night my angel now it's time to sleep
And still so many things I want to say
Remember all the songs you sang for me
When we went sailing on an emerald bay

And like a boat out on the ocean
I'm rocking you to sleep
The water's dark and deep
Inside this ancient heart
You'll always be a part of me

Goodnight my angel now it's time to dream
And dream how wondeful your life will be
Someday your child will cry and if you sing this lullaby
Then in your heart there will always be a part of me

Someday we'll all be gone
But lullabies go on and on
They never die that's how you and I will be

The kings Singers version of the song is superb. You can view it here.

Of course it is nowhere near mine.