Category: Tips and Tricks

General use tips and tricks

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How to prepare yourself before traveling from the US to Belgium

Belgium is a beautiful country. It was my second home for a while, I lived there for 3 beautiful years after I moved from Lebanon. I moved out of Belgium almost 6 years ago to start living in the U.S.A. Last month, I had to go to Belgium for work and it seems I was not fully prepared for the trip.

This post is not to complain about anything but to remind myself or others how to be best prepared before traveling from the US to Belgium.

You can keep the tips…to yourself

Yes, unlike the U.S, you pay exactly for the item price on the menu. You don’t have to tip anyone for the rendered service. I am not just talking about not tipping when you are eating out in restaurants; even your barista, cab driver, your hair dresser, your apartment cleaner, etc. Keep the tips to yourself or tip up to your discretion. That’s a positive thing in my opinion because those workers are getting a proper salary and not waiting for tips from clients.
In the US, you are expected to tip 20% of the total bill. Often times, when a party of 5 or more are being served then mandatory gratuity is applied. It can get very tricky and passive aggressive when you don’t like the service and you don’t tip enough. That sucks and is unfair towards the workers. I think the tipping mentality stems from the fact that it incentivises service workers to provide good service. If they do well, they get a fat tip. Well, if you are generous and happy you can still tip a Belgian waiter on top of his proper salary. Continue reading “How to prepare yourself before traveling from the US to Belgium”

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The Ten Paramis

I learned about the paramis when I partook my first Vipassana meditation retreat. A parami is a good mental quality that one must practice and perfect in order to attain liberation.

The 10 paramis are as follows:

  1. Generosity, giving (dana): giving for the sake of giving.
  2. Morality (sila): lead a moral life and follow the 5 precepts
  3. Renunciation (nekkhamma): drop attachment to your personal belongs and lead a generous life. Give and volunteer whenever you can.
  4. Wisdom (panna): participate in wholesome learning. The ultimate knowledge and wisdom comes from within. Hence, practicing the insight meditation helps achieving true wisdom.
  5. Energy/Effort (viriya): conserve your energy and do wholesome activities. Work hard and earn your livelihood. Help others.
  6. Patience/Tolerance (khanti): replace anger and frustration with patience, forgiveness and compassion.
  7. Truthfulness (sacca): every action should come from a place of truthfulness. Prejudice blinds you from the truth.
  8. Determination (adhitthana): success does not come easily. Stay determined and remember that success begets success.
  9. Loving-kindness (metta): or self-less love. Practice loving without expecting anything in return.
  10. Equanimity (upekkha): nothing in life is permanent. Learn to recognize the impermanence and stay equanimous

May all beings be happy!

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The Maori Wisdom – Youth Talks – Age Teaches

Little dogs make most noise.
No one needs help to get into trouble.
The God of evil and the God of fear are good friends.
An idle young man – an unhappy old man.
Never be late to a battle to win it.
A piegon won’t fly into a wide open mouth.
Wishing never filled a game bag.
An obedient wife commands her warrior.
Beauty won’t fill te puku (stomach).
Today’s meal is better than tomorrow’s feast.
The brighther the clearing the darker the shadows.
Chase two Moas – catch none.
Time to dream when you are dead.
The widest mouth has the widest grave.
One rotten fish, one fresh fish – two rotten fish.
A warrior without courage has a blunt taiaha (spear).
Great griefs are silent.
A fine food house doesn’t fill itself.
No twigs on the fire – no flame.
A bad thing usually costs a lot.
A wise man knows both pain and joy.
The little wedge reduces the mighty Kauri.


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Zipping all files in a Git repository

Hello,

This is a quick / reference post illustrating how to archive (zip format) all the files in a branch in a Git repository.

From the command prompt, type:

 
git archive --format=zip -o files.zip master

Explanation:

  1. The “–format” argument lets you specify the archive type. I used the zip file format
  2. The “-o” argument lets you specify the output file name
  3. “master” is the name of the branch to be archived.

 

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batchography-good-resDo you want to master Batch Files programming? Look no further, the Batchography is the right book for you.

Available in print or e-book editions from Amazon.
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Online Chatting and The 4 Magic Questions

Back in the days, when I was learning PUA techniques from pickup artists, I ran into “The Magic Questions pattern” by Jack Ellis (the author of “Forbidden Patterns”). The purpose of these questions is to have a nice and fun topic to talk to women whom you just approached in a public setting. Women like it when men talk about them, compliment them or do anything thing that make them feel special.

The Magic Questions

Here are the magic questions, ask them in any order:

  1. Visualize yourself in a white room. You’re in a bed and everything is white. How do you feel?
  2. What is your favorite animal? What qualities do you see it as having?
  3. What is your favorite color? How does it make you feel when you think about it?
  4. Imagine yourself on a beach. Nobody is around and the ocean is right in front of you. What do you do?

Take mental note of the answers because you will have to interpret the answers back to them.

What the answers mean

After you finish asking the questions and taking notes, it is time to interpret the answers back to the interviewee. The meaning of each question is as follows:

  1. This is how they view death and dying
  2. This is how their friends view them
  3. This is how they view themselves
  4. This is how they view sex

Putting it into practice

Let me give you an example. You meet a random girl that you want to approach and talk to. You can use the four magic questions as a nice conversation opener: Continue reading “Online Chatting and The 4 Magic Questions”

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7 simple methods to achieve success in life

Source: http://www.jamesaltucher.com/2016/03/started-bottom-now-im/
Tips for success
  1. Study hard when you’re young
  2. Work hard when you’re older
  3. Never shy away from making connections
  4. Leverage your network for opportunities
  5. Life 10% below your means -> save 10% of your income
  6. Don’t foster any addictions (alcohol, cigarettes, drugs, gambling)
  7. Don’t fall for scams

Those really are “proven steps”!

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The stereogram experience

I first learned about stereograms in 2001. Back then, the term was new to me and I had no idea that it was possible to see 3D shapes on a 2D screen with the naked eyes.

What are stereograms you ask?

A diagram or computer-generated image giving a three-dimensional representation of a solid object or surface

Wikipedia, as usual, has a nice article explaining stereograms.

After a long week of trying hard, researching and learning various techniques, I managed to see my first stereogram:

snowman-softsource
3D snowman

Continue reading “The stereogram experience”

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How to turn your bookshelf into an e-book library: Digitizing all of your books

digitizing-books-scannedSince I moved to the US, I collected around 350 books. I love books and the thought of giving them up is not a pleasant thought.

Each time I used to move from an apartment to another, the majority of boxes would be packed with books. Each time I travel somewhere for a long period, I miss being able to grab a book from my bookshelf and start reading (most of my books are old and they do no exist in digital format anyway). It is clear that I have attachment to those books.

To break this attachment, I had to make a couple of decisions. The first was whether to just forget about the books, leave them on the shelves and get myself busy with another chore. The other decision was whether to scan and /or give away the books. With that came other questions like how to scan books and convert them to eBooks, what methods to use, how much efforts would it take to convert the books, etc.

I decided to get rid of the books and the trim down on the space they occupy. For the reasons outlined later in this blog post, I chose to destructively scan my books. By scanning the books, I get a digital and searchable copy of my books (in PDF format).

In this blog post, I will share with you different ways you can use to digitize books and then the remainder of this blog post will illustrate how I destructively digitized all of my books and what tools I used. Continue reading “How to turn your bookshelf into an e-book library: Digitizing all of your books”

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Sleeping tips – Basic Sleep Hygiene

This is a multi-part short article about sleeping tips to help you improve your sleep.

Basic sleep hygiene

Like you have food hygiene principles, there are also a set of sleep hygiene principles that can help you get a good night’s sleep:
sleep-1

  • Slow down your mind: do relaxing activities before going to bed, do not keep on working and then abruptly try to go to sleep. Your mind will keep on “rolling” and will take the problems with it. Slow your mind down before going to sleep.
  • Don’t feast at night: Unless you want to watch lots of action dreams or nightmares, do not eat heavy meals before going to sleep! You don’t want to make your body busy digesting. You want to have your body rejuvenate itself.
  • Avoid bright lights: Don’t stare at bright screens too long before going to sleep (like your phone or tablet). Instead, read a physical book or if you have to, use a dimly lit e-ink based reader like Amazon’s Kindle Paperwhite.
  • Avoid caffeine at least a couple of hours before going to sleep: to some, drinking caffeine will not help them fall asleep fast or soundly at night.
  • Your bedroom is for sleeping only: while you can do other “stuff” in your bedroom, keep unpleasant and distracting activities outside the bedroom essentially. No computers, eating, playing with your electronic devices all night long, etc…
  • Organized sleeping time: your body loves order and routine (same like your mind loves patterns). Make a habit to sleep no longer than 10PM each night and learn how to wake up naturally without an alarm.

…and the list goes on, but you get the idea.

Now you may ask “What if I still cannot fall asleep?”

The answer to this is a topic for another blog post in this series. However, if there is something I learned during my quest for better sleep is the fact that if you are in bed, tossing around and around not able to sleep then don’t stress about it! Accept that fact and relax until you eventually lose consciousness and drift into sleep.

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4 things to consider when looking for an apartment to rent

Apartment-for-rentThis year I set about to start looking for a new and cheaper place to rent in the Pacific Northwest / Redmond, Kirkland, Bellevue area. I tell you, apartment hunt was like an adventure.

I learned a lot from this ordeal, so I am going to share with you a few tips on how to make an informed decision about renting an apartment. Continue reading “4 things to consider when looking for an apartment to rent”

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7 tips to help you spot Amway / WWDB recruiters in coffee shops

working-in-cofeeshopsIn my previous article “An encounter with Amway / WWDB recruiter” I shared my story about encountering an Amway recruiter.

In this article, I want to give you some tips on how to spot and recognize Amway recruiters so you know what to expect before they waste your time / money.

Continue reading “7 tips to help you spot Amway / WWDB recruiters in coffee shops”

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An encounter with an Amway / WWDB recruiter

amway-logoThe other day, I was in Starbucks, working on my laptop, until I said hello to the lady that just came in and sat next to my table and started chatting.

What follows is my story and experience about meeting an Amway/World Wide Dream builders recruiter.

I will make efforts to be as objective as I can and share with you the short journey that unfolded thereafter. Continue reading “An encounter with an Amway / WWDB recruiter”

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A brief interview with Dan Green from TheMortgageReports.com

Hello,

Today I met Dan Green, the founder of TheMortgageReports.com at Starbucks. It was fun to see him blogging.

Here’s a short bio from Dan’s blog:

Dan Green is a mortgage market expert, providing over 10 years of direct-to-consumer advice. You can also connect with Dan on Twitter and on Google+

I kind of interviewed him about how he started his blog and I took some advise from him about blogging and how to succeed.

Continue reading “A brief interview with Dan Green from TheMortgageReports.com”