No Brainstorm

Somethings in life may look pretty easy, pretty obvious.

Here is one example of quiz, that might make you think that you know it all. Probably if you just use your common sense, this would look to be the most easy question and answers of all. But is it really so? There is only one way to find out….

I am putting all the questions and then followed by the answers. Just go through the questions one by one, if possible write down your answer and then cross check with the answers that i have written. Afterwards…. I hope you will be honest to yourself and won’t cheat.

Besides, this is going to be a fun game. Try yourself and then let your friends know about it.

Alrighty, Good luck to everyone. Here we go:

Questions:

1. How long did the hundred years war last for?
2. From which of the animals, do we get cat gut?
3. What is Camel’s hair brush made of?
4. What is the color of black box in a commercial plan?
5. Which country produces the Chinese gooseberry?
6. The Canary Islands in The Pacific are named after which animal?
7. In which month do the Russians celebrate October Revolution?
8. Which country makes the Panama hats?
9. What was King George VI’s first name?
10. What color is a purple finch?

That’s it. I hope you have written down all your answers.

Pretty simple right? I mean, seems like most of the solutions are answered in the question itself. This is just common sense game and if i am right, you might be thinking you have scored 10 out of 10. A perfect score.

Well, let’s see the answers now…..

Answers:

1. Hundred years war lasted for 116 years actually.
2. Catgut is a type of cord and we get it from sheep and horses.
3. Definitely not from camel’s hair. It’s made out of squirrel’s fur.
4. Black? well no… It’s orange. Atleast i got this one right.
5. Not in China. New Zealand is the place you were looking for.
6. Sorry, it’s not the sweet canary birds. It’s actually Islands of Dogs.
7. October Revolution is actually celebrated in November. I don’t know why.
8. Ecuador in South America is the answer to your Panama hats.
9. I hope you didn’t answer “King” and instead answered “George”. Well it’s “Albert” .
10. Purple finch is crimson in color. Sorry.

Okay, so how many did you get? Honestly, i knew Black Box in an airplane is Orange in color. But for the rest of it, i guess used my common sense more than my intelligence.

Lesson learned: You might just think that you’re doing the right thing, just because the path in front of you appears easy and obvious. But still think before you leap, as it may not be the right path to chose. Hope i made some sense here. If not, then i hope you had fun with the puzzle. Do let me know how many correct answers you had in there.

I’ve been through terrible times in these past three months. I’ve lost a lot. In terms of health, in terms of life and even wealth to some extent. I gave up on my life nearly 7-8 times in last few days but thanks to friends and family, i am still here.

I have no big expectations from life now.  I may not be happy or content for the rest of my life. Past 9 years have been one of the most beautiful time of my life. And i simply cannot forget those moments ever. But i guess i need to move on, atleast for those who care about me. For my family. For everyone around me. So here i am, once again, in front of you. Trying to be strong, inside out. Trying to make a difference.

So here i am playing second innings of my life. But this time, not for personal records, not for personal gains but playing for the team.

Hope you all can forgive me and be with me, once again. Thanks

Rest In Peace

SharatJaswal.com Rest In Peace:

When all is lost. The lost was everything…

Last Words :

• Always listen to your heart. Things will always fall in line for you then.
• Fall in love. It’s a beautiful feeling. But then respect the love of your partner.
• True love never dies. You can give life or take one’s just by love.
• Be strong and always take your own life decisions.
• It’s never too late to make the things right. It’s always upto you.

I guess most of the cricket fans would be aware of the ongoing cricket one day international series between India and Australia. Both the teams are considered as the best in cricket and so the rivalry between the two is pretty much obvious. Yesterday, the stage was set for the fourth ODI match between the two great teams. Venue being Mohali in Punjab which is just 15 kms from my home. Mohali’s PCA Stadium holds the record for most Day n Night One day matches in whole of India. It’s one of the finest grounds in the world. So watching a game between the two best sides in cricket world on the best-est of all grounds in the world was too much of a temptation that one couldn’t afford to miss. Specially for a cricket maniac like me.

I made to the ground in time to watch the match. I would have to say i have never been in a better position to view the match ever, as i was sitting right in the VIP box just above the Indian team dug out. I could see all the Indian players walking by and it was really very exciting. Australia batted first and scored 250 runs only on what seemed to be a superb batting pitch. Herein i would have to give credit to India fielders. It was one of the best performance by the fielding team. India somehow couldn’t bat well and failed to chase the meager score of 250. Although India lost the match, i still had too much fun over there. It was a good contest. Deep inside i wanted India to win but you know, a game is a game and Australia outplayed India this time. So all is well until and unless we get to see a great contest between the two.

Anyways, the match environment, the enthusiastic Punjabi crowd and the best lit stadium in the world under the night sky was very enthralling. It was an amazing night. I took some pics from my Samsung Omnia II and would like to share few of them with you!

Ind-Aus Match

I so wish i could take pic of Ricky Ponting, every time he gets out or when his appeals are turned down. He makes such a funny, crying, depressed face that it’s almost impossible not to laugh at that sight. I agree he is a great cricketer but at the same time he is the worst sportsman ever. I mean if you are such a great cricketer, that are you talked among the likes of world’s best batsmen Sachin Tendulkar, then you really need keep your mind, attitude and etiquette right. Look at Sachin, there is no down to earth person in cricket world than him, even though he is greatest of all. Anyways…..

India was leading 2-1 in the series before this match. Unfortunately, India lost this match and thus Australia leveled the series at 2-2. There are three more matches coming up pretty soon and it’s all going to be very exciting. Down to the wire as one would say. Full support to India whatsoever.

I have had hosting accounts with perhaps 7-8 different hosts over the past 4 years. Among all, my favorite always has been Hostgator. Slowly and slowly, over these years i have been moving my hosting accounts from all other web hosts to Hostgator. Before i knew it, i had 5 separate shared server hosting accounts, all at Hostgator.com

It was going all fine but soon i realized that keeping 5 accounts is not so tidy. And i was paying like $15 a month per account which makes it $75 a month. Surely i could have a lot better single server in that amount of monthly fees. So i decided to get a single bigger and much better server.  I looked throughout Hostgator but could find a thing. There are dedicated server but that would have been a little too much for me. Besides, the hosting fee would have been 300+ bucks with ease. It’s not that i couldn’t have afforded that price but it was just that i didn’t want to. Would have been sheer waste of money!

I have so much trust and faith and confidence in Hostgator’s service and support that i really wanted to stay on with them. But i guess that was not the case. I had to move on and so i searched for the best possibilities. I searched and searched among all the better hosts and finally after all analysis, i selected Servint Web Hosting. Now i have a Virtual Private Server (VPS) with Servint and it’s just in my range. Infact it comes out to be just nearabout the price that i was paying for the five accounts at Hostgator. Anyways, it took me a couple of days to get to know the VPS. It’s not same as share hosting. I used to have a CPanel in shared hosting and here i could actually make a CPanel account for a website as a whole. I can even be a web host myself. It’s so much fun having a VPS of my own. As for performance, it’s mean machine, bigger, better and more efficient. I am just loving the experience and the support staff is even better than previous hosts. So all this while, i have been very busy, moving my site from previous web hosts including Hostgator to Servint VPS. Probably that’s why i haven’t been onto my blog that often in the recent past. Anyways, funny story is that today i was moving my last site from the last account at Hostgator and would have canceled the hosting by evening, when i get this newsletter from Hostgator regarding their launch of VPS hosting. Arggggghhh! I remember the words that came up when i read the mail. I said  “Good morning Hostgator!!! Finally you came out of your hibernation”.

All in curiosity i did check the prices and what all they had to offer. As usual, they kept their promise of offering the best prices in the business with one of the best services in business. However they themselves admitted in the mail that they have been promising a VPS package forever and finally they are out. I guess from my point of view, the damage has already been done. I have moved to Servint with whom i am more than satisfied. There is now, no question of me moving back to Hostgator VPS. But for all of you my friends, who haven’t moved yet, i give you two options:

Servint VPS : Link to their website >> ServInt.

Fantastic servers. High speed and great reliability. Excellent staff with great knowledge and great turnaround time on answering your tickets.

Hostgator VPS : Link to their website >> Hostgator.

Excellent servers. Reliable. Best prices. Lot of hosting packages option. Good chat technicians. Good response from staff.

Having tried both i think i can give a good non-biased judgment on both. I really can’t compare their hosting services. Both seems to be doing excellent. As in hostgator, i have had little downtimes issues and very recently a server overloading issue that caused suspending a site of mine from hosting which caused me monetary loss as well. But they do offer better prices. On other hand ServInt has an excellent staff which really is dedicated in helping you all around. Instead of suspending my sites they would rather help me fix it as soon as possible. But they are little expensive compared to Hostgator. So it’s your call. You can either go for low costing VPS by Hostgator or you can go for all great service from ServInt VPS.

P.S. It seems that Hostgator has not updated their website with VPS Hosting plans. It’s a soft launch as on now where they intend to keep the slot open for first 200 clients a month and then disable it the next month and then again enable them some other time. They offer VPS packages starting at $19.95 (Yikes!!!!) where in they offer 384MB RAM, 10GB DiskSpace and 250GB Bandwidth. They have 9 such packages with the highest at $209.95 a month which includes 5.96 GHz CPU, 4435MB RAM, 231GB, 3150GB Bandwidth. I could give the link straight away but i guess if they have not updated their website with VPS hosting packages then there has to be some reason and i don’t want to play a bad boy giving out the link. But i guess you can go to >> Hostgator and ask the chat technicians for the VPS package options. Else you can go ahead and checkout ServInt VPS hosting.