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R.K.Laxman's Common man!

Have you taken a deeper look at the menu ?

We receive updates on LinkedIn every day.
Piqued by the quantum of updates, I was cursing LinkedIn for pushing irrelevant updates. 
The moment you open LinkedIn, you are greeted with updates of your connections following innumerable companies and these lists are never-ending. In the process, you may miss knowledge updates.
I was about to write to LinkedIn to give choice to the users what to view and what not to view. Then,I took a deeper look at the menu. I realized that my ignorance was profound.
The choice is already there.
I just had to find it.

The same is true with our lives. Everyday opportunities and choices are presented to you like a menu.
Have you taken a deeper look at the menu?

Yesterday's 8 GB is todays 32 GB !!!



Maybe my ignorance. 
Maybe it a simple issue for a finance professional but, I failed to understand...
The story goes like this....I bought an 8 GB SD card from a leading "TRUSTworthy" electronics store in Jan'12 for Rs.1200.Now, in Jan 2013 This SD card conked out!
I took it to store as it is under warranty and the store gracefully agreed to replace it. He had 2 choices
Choice 1: Replace an 8GB Piece
Choice 2: Give back Money and ask me to buy goods worth Rs.1200 (Incase my goods exceed Rs.1200/- I need to pay the difference amount) 
When I requested Option 2, the store manager agreed. 
So, I had Rs 1200 /- to purchase.
In lieu of an 8GB Card, I purchased a 32GB card for the same Rs 1200. (Nowadays a 32 GB SD Card  costs ~ 1200)  
No extra money or difference of money was paid. 
Now, my gain is 8GB to 32GB for the same Rs.1200
( Should I consider Rupee devaluation in 1 year + Inflation as my extra gain ? )
How about to Store? I understand the intangible gain like goodwill etc.
Other than those intangible issues, Did the store Gain ? or No Loss-No Gain or Notional Loss? 
Though no one measures P&L on a single SD Card, If we were to compute what is the P&L?
I am confused @#$%^&

Merge , Split , Reorder and more with PDF files. Absolutely free!

Most often we get or download magazines in PDF from the Internet and they contain lots of Ads. The size is big and you want to save just a couple of articles and discard the rest and the ads or you may want to convert PDF to images. This is where PDFill can be of great use...
PDFill is absolutely free software that enables you accomplishes many tasks with ease.
You can use it to Create PDF files from any printable file, You can create images from PDF files, You can split-merge, Order-Reorder, Rotate, Crop, add header- footer, add watermark, and even Encrypt and Decrypt a PDF file.
One more Secret...You can print a PDF file that is "Print Disabled" all that you need to do is recreate PDF using PDFill!
It's a valuable tool. This is what you can do with PDFill.
Download the same here. PDFill Download




!ndian'ovation

Here are the links to most fascinating videos from Ted on India and Innovation.
We understand that adversity and necessity can lead to Innovations and Inventions.
These simple frugal innovations can bring long lasting impact and make a difference in lives of people.
They are a must-watch.Truly !ndian'ovation.
Click on the topics. They are linked to Ted Talks.

9 talks about innovation in India
  1. Arunachalam Muruganantham : sanitary napkins
  2. Vinay Venkatraman: “Technology crafts” for the digitally underserved
  3. Anil Gupta: India’s hidden hotbeds of invention
  4. Jane Chen: A warm embrace that saves lives
  5. Bunker Roy: Learning from a barefoot movement
  6. Nirmalya Kumar: India’s invisible innovation
  7. Marc Koska: 1.3m reasons to re-invent the syringe
  8. Nandan Nilekani’s ideas for India’s future
  9. Anupam Mishra: The ancient ingenuity of water harvesting




Learnings from Swami Vivekananda

Five Point Summary : Box and Whisker Plots

One evening, when you were reading a newspaper and your ten-year-old son came to you and announced that he scored 90 marks in Mathematics and scored 80 in English and rushed to play cricket. 
You were Happy and Sad at the same time. If 90 makes you Happy and 80 makes you sad, Think again!
Well, the next day when visited his class, you received new information.
In Mathematics, everyone in the class got more than 90 marks and the class average is 95. In English, everyone is below your son. He is the topper! You are Happy and Sad again!
Well, that means more information, more clarity.
More the information does not mean all marks of all the children in all the subjects. 
So, you need a summary.  The best summary that can describe data is the 5 Point Summary.
What are those five points? ( The simple definitions are  from wiki.paranormalcop.org)
   1.Minimum - the value above which there is 100% data
   2.First Quartile - the value above which there is 75% data
   3.Median (second quartile) - the value which divides the data set into two equal halves, 50% above and       50% below
  4.Third Quartile - the value above which there is 25% data
  5.Maximum - the value above which there is no data.
These five points can be represented in a graph that is called Box and Whiskers plot.

Creating Box plots in Excel are quite tricky as excel does not offer a straightforward chart type for the same.
Here is a Box and Whiskers Plot template created for you.
You can create up to 10 plots. 
Download the excel from @Downloads .
This is a Do ..Co..Mo stuff: Download, Copy and Modify at your will.
Few Ideas to get started.
1. Plot employee performance scores before and after training. You may be able to find out the training impact!
2. Plot employees Incentive earnings of last 2 years… You may understand the truth of employee earning!

Here is a wonderful article named  Visual Presentation of Data by Means of Box Plots 
by D.L. Massart,a J. Smeyers-Verbeke,a X. Caprona and Karin Schlesierb

Here is another great resource for special excel charts.



Easy Scatter Plot with 5 Dimensions..

This is a Scatter plot 
Scatter plots are very useful graphs to display two variables. They help to identify and measure correlations between variables.
It is customary to plot Dependent variable on Y-Axis or vertical axis and  Independent variable on X-Axis or horizontal axis.
Adding Labels to data points on a scatter plot in excel is a difficult task and is similar to creating and labelling bubble charts.
You need to add each variable and name (label) as a series... It's purely manual work...Here is a tool to make your job easy.
This is a tool created by  Mathis from Clear Lines Consulting.
With a click of a button, you can create scatter plot with Two variables Plotted, with Labels, different Colors and different Markers.
( 2 Variables(X and Y) + Data Point shape for the category as another dimension + Color of the data point as one dimension and the Name of the data point as another. Totalling five dimensions)
You can also download the Excel workbook from Mathis’ post "Excel-ScatterPlot-with-labels-colors-and-markers".
This is a very useful tool! Thanks to Mathis...
Credits: Power Scatter Plot Excel sheet: Copyright © 2009, Clear Lines Consulting, LLC
http://www.clear-lines.com
Licensed under a Ms-PL license (http://www.opensource.org/licenses/ms-pl.html) : feel free to use and modify, but leave the © in if you distribute.

 Alternatively, you can use a add-in to show labels on the graph.
An excel add-in called Labeler, created by Rob Bovey can be downloaded from here.
It is free. Try It!
Excel Add-In Credits: