india ink

Recession Busters: Food, Fun & Frugality

2009-11-16T11:49:00.001-08:00

Avoiding eating out at restaurants and instead cooking inexpensive meals at home is one wonderful way to save money during the recession. Clara, a 94 year old woman whose parents raised her during the Great Depression, has many great recipes posted online. I watched a video of how to make her father's favorite meal, Couscous Stew, and have posted the link below.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3OPQqH3YlHA&feature=player_embedded

This recipe is not very difficult to prepare and the ingredients are not costly, which makes it a valuable recipe for recessionary times.

A few recession busters which I have heard about lately. Many small businesses are growing even during this recessionary time. Banquet Tables Pro LLC received an award for being a great recession busting home business. The company focuses on the time post-recession when corporate parties and banquets will be booming.

There are several tips to saving money during a recession which I have found to be helpful. Limit eating out to once or twice a month, and go to reasonably priced restaurants when going out. Try to go to the grocery store only once a week, and use coupons at the grocery store, many of which can be printed online. It is important to converse gas and carpool when possible. Try to avoid going to the movie theater and instead renting movies at home. Enjoy going to the library and checking out books for free, rather than spending money on buying them. Life can be a little smoother during a recession if you use your resources wisely.

A Consumer's how to # 44 how to & make

2008-11-04T17:19:00.000-08:00

I enjoyed exploring the sites Ehow, Wikkihow and Instructables. My favorite site though is Instructables, because I found lots of interesting receipes, especially Indian receipes. I watched some videos and learned some really good Indian receipes.I am sure I could use these receipes for my cooking.

Post # 43 - Buying and Selling

2008-09-26T09:48:00.001-07:00

1.I enjoyed exploring the sites listed. I checked out Craigslist, Ebay, Amazon and Etsy. I have used Amazon and Craigslist before. I have purchased things through Amazon and sold a few items through Craigslist. My family uses Amazon all the time, especially for electronics. The prices are very reasonable, and the items are shipped directly to my house. My favorite site though, is Craigslist because it has a lot of interesting items. It is very convenient because you can find items from any city you are in and get really good deals. I had never heard of Etsy site before, but I really like this site. Because it has some nice handmade items which might be good for some unique gifts.

2.PayPal, seems like is safe and convenient method of making payment. I could use paypal because me and my family buy oftenly on the internet. It seems safer and easier than entering your credit card information with any new company. We recently bought few things and the website listed paypal as the preferred method of payment, but I didn't have an account. I will probably sign up for one soon.

Post 30-Spring Cleaning,Don't clutter up expensive cyberspace

2008-04-03T15:21:00.000-07:00

I don't have anything to clean out on the s drive. Janet showed me how to place a file on the s drive, so I practiced that. I cannot see myself using this much. I moved my p drive folder from staff p drive to my own account. I also cleaned out the sent mail folder in my e-mail. I will continue working on keeping myself organized.

Post 29 - Spring Cleaning, E mail

2008-04-03T15:12:00.000-07:00

I am so excited, after completing this exercise, I only have less then 10 emails left in my account. I originally had 60 emails when I started. I always felt I might be needing them, so they kind of piled up on me. But since we were doing this as a work- related activity, I felt pretty good about spending some time on this. I created new folders for emails I wanted to keep, renamed a couple of them, and just had a great time getting organized. From now on, I will make an effort to take action on emails in a timely manner and delete anything not needed.

Post 28 - Spring Cleaning , take a load off your drives

2008-04-03T15:11:00.000-07:00

GTD-Getting Things Done. I like the idea of making GTDs easy to store and track the information you need to complete the tasks. I thought this exercise was pretty interesting as I am always trying to find ways to organize my paperwork. I always write my personal appointments and special events in my diary. I signed up on the "remember the milk" site. List reminders and plan your time can always be done at this site. I looked at the google calendar also, and it's really good. But I still like my paper calendar and my small diary, it is easy to manage.

Week 10 - Post 23 The End

2007-11-19T10:26:00.000-08:00

I can't believe that I finished all my 23 things on time. Every week was kind of exciting and stressful, never knowing about the next assignment. Every Monday Naomi would set up the lab for us and help us with our assignment. I learned quite a bit. I don't believe that I actually did all the new things on the computer that my kids tell me about. Flickr was my favorite one. It was fun downloading pictures. I liked facebook too, and looking at my daughter's pictures. I had fun playing around with Avator also. It surprised me that after doing a few assignments, I was feeling comfortable with technology. Technology is amazing, and how much stuff you can do on the internet is beyond my imagination. I don't think that I am going to use everything I learned because I won't have that much time. Even if I use a few things, I think going through this training is worth it.

Week 9 - Post 22 -Downable Media

2007-11-16T15:23:00.001-08:00

I took a digital media training class in the library. Our Branch Librarian gave us this class. I practiced it at that time, and it seems pretty easy. Downloading information from the library and other sources is pretty interesting. You can download ebooks,audio books, music and video from the hcpl website. LibriWox explain how to download items. Wowio gives book suggestions which include summaries of the books. It is so neat to see how things have changed over the years, and how everything is now available online at any time of the day.

Week 9 - Post 21 - Podcasts

2007-11-14T19:04:00.000-08:00

Podcast is just like any other site to communicate with a group of people. You can put your information out on the computer and any one can listen or watch. I don't think that I can keep up with all this informaiton because I don't have time for it. I added a RSS feed to my blogline for a podcast of Indian music. I listened to some of the music, but it was mostly commentary.

I find podcasts pretty interesting, and it seems like the possibilities are endless. There are always new podcasts coming out, and many of them are very helpful. One good one that I looked at was a podcast on how to speak Spanish. I think this is a useful thing for people who do not have time to take Spanish classes. Podcasts are making new things easily accessible to many people around the world.

Week 9 - Post 20 YouTube

2007-11-12T09:27:00.000-08:00

Here is the link to my YouTube video.

YouTube is a great site that I really enjoyed browsing. I was already a little familiar with YouTube because my kids always show me videos on it. I did not realize how many different types of videos were available on the site. It is amazing how many videos are uploaded to this one site. I searched several Indian music videos, and YouTube had a huge collection of them.

I think it's neat that anyone can upload videos to YouTube, and everyone can watch them. People should be careful about what they post though because everyone can watch. It's a good way to connect people who live far away from each other too. Someone could post a video of some sort of performance, and then relatives in another state or another country could watch that video. YouTube is a good site, but it is too easy to waste time browsing random videos!

Zoho - Week 8 - Post 19

2007-11-05T13:16:00.001-08:00

This is picture of Tajmahal. It's looks so beautiful. I really love it.

Week 8/Post 18- Social Networking

2007-10-31T10:54:00.000-07:00

Today, I set up an account for Facebook. I know lots of young people are using this site, so I want to try and see what it is. Yesterday I play around, and it was fun. My daughter and lots of her friends whom I know have this account. It's nice to look at their pictures. Earlier when my daughter used to talk about Facebook, I always thought that this was some hard technology but I am pleased that I am at least getting familiar with these terms. I think it is a good way to keep in touch with people when they live far away, especially for college students. Although I know that I will never use this site, it's still good to have knowledge.

Week 7/Post 17 - Technology

2007-10-24T15:53:00.000-07:00

Technology is great, but it's going too fast for me! Still email and economical long distance phone service is my favorite one. Through email I can communicate with my family in India on regular basis. Earlier we used to communicate mostly with sending letters to each other or making three minute phone calls, but it used to take 10 to 15 days before we received a letter. Through email though, you get the news right away. Another thing I really appreciate, is the wounderful long distance phone service. Now when I make a phone call to India, I don't have to look at the clock for how many minutes I am talking for.

Week 7/Post 16 - Wiki

2007-10-22T09:45:00.000-07:00

I setup an account for wiki for myself. I believe wikis are wonderful. I like the idea that if you have materials that would be helpful to other librarians, you add them to wiki. It is great way to share information with the people who care about a certain topics and live in another part of the country. I like the idea of using wikis to create online coummunication. You can create your own website and share other peoples valuable ideas.

Week 6/Post 15 Library 2.0

2007-10-18T11:34:00.000-07:00

I spent some time and read 2.0 articles. It's intresting and informative. I think a lot of things we are doing are moving us into the right direction, and this training is among them. Library 2.0 to me means constantly offering new services to users. Library's now have such a strong presence on the internet, an hcpl customer can now live in the any part of the country and still use our services. As we, a library community, try to move forward- the links at ihcpl are very helpful. The idea that people will no longer come to the library has proven wrong. I liked the author that said the library is human. No matter how technoligically advanced libraries become, you will always have patrons that are looking for a human touch.

Week 6/Post 14 - Technorati

2007-10-17T13:01:00.000-07:00

I can now see how to use Technorati to search for topics of interest I have. Technorati offers an amazing amount of information, but with a full time job and taking care of the family, I don't think that I will have to go through all this information. I did take a look at the favorite and most linked to blogs. I did find some topics that interest me. Whenever I have time, I will play around with this more.

Week 6/Post 13 Tagging

2007-10-16T11:04:00.000-07:00

I have learned quite a bit from these unfamiliar websites. Now I am getting a little more familiar with them. I set myself a delicious account. It was fun playing around with. I added seven book marks so far to my account. My favorite ones are recipes, gaming, and shopping. I see the benefit of tagging for people with lots of books marks in their account. These website have lots of valuable information.

Week 5/Post 12/Library Elf

2007-10-10T13:36:00.000-07:00

Library Elf is very easy to set up. I really like the fact that all my library information is on one page. This makes it easy to keep track of everything. This might be even more useful for those with multiple accounts.

Week 5/Post 11/Library thing

2007-10-09T15:32:00.000-07:00

http://www.librarything.com/catalog/agupta

Library Thing is a very useful site. I have been meaning to keep a track of the books I read, but I have never done it. Now I can start a list. I really had a good time creating my own catalog on Library Thing. I am looking forward to adding many more books in my catalog.

week 5/post 10 - avatars

2007-10-08T09:38:00.000-07:00

Indian Princess
This is fun. This is first Avatar that i have ever try to create and I really enjoyed it.
http://avatars.yahoo.com

week 4 post 9/Finding Feed

2007-10-04T09:35:00.000-07:00

I have searched Feedster and I was able to add gaming to my account. It was a lot of fun. I can't believe that I did it. As I mentioned earlier in my previous post, I am not good with technology, but I am getting a little better every time. I still have to learn more but I am sure by the time we will finish this training, I will be feeling comfortable with using different tools.

week 4/post 8 - RSS

2007-10-01T15:09:00.000-07:00

Every week is a new challenge, and this week I subscribed to 10 feeds to my account. It's exciting because I am not good at all with technology. Thanks to Naomi who is helping us, I picked a CNN, Comedy central video, Fast company, whether, NYI movies, Quotes of the day, Yahoo top stories, Astrology and My 23 things. It is very convenient to have access to all this information directly from my blog page.

week 3 post 7/trading cards

2007-09-27T11:24:00.000-07:00

Look at all these cute kids.

WEEK 3 POST 7/photo editing

2007-09-27T08:44:00.001-07:00

Look I was able to crop and resize this picture with the help of my teacher Naomi.

practice

2007-09-26T15:03:00.000-07:00

I am still practicing.

WEEK 3 POST 6/Mashups

2007-09-25T17:32:00.000-07:00

AFTER DOING THIS, I REALLY FEEL CREATIVE. I HAD FUN PLAYING AROUND WITH THE LETTERS.
I AM LOOKING FORWARD TO LEARNING MORE.

.Practice

2007-09-24T14:56:00.000-07:00

I am still practicing

2007-09-24T09:59:00.000-07:00

Allison shows off her diyas.

week 3 post 5/Discover flickr

2007-09-24T09:35:00.000-07:00

Bonsai Tree

Wow!

With the help of Naomi I did it.

Internet Safety

2007-09-21T09:00:00.000-07:00

I try to be careful about posting personal information on the internet. I never use my social security number online. I don't feel comfortable sharing my perosnal information on internet. I will be very careful about what I post. There have so many problems about theft of identity. I have ordered items from the internet or bought my airline ticket on line, but I make sure the site is secure before giving out any card information. We all must be careful with what we post online the whole world can see.

Think Positive

2007-09-21T08:28:00.000-07:00

My biggest weakness, I believe is that I don't think positive. I need to set a goal to think
positive. My family is always on my case about being a pessimist and they they even make fun at me when I'm being negative and coming up with very unlikely outcomes in different situations. I am going to make a strong effort to change the way I think. My husband is the complete opposite of me and constantly tells me (and everyone else in the world), "Don't worry, be happy!!" I am hoping that one day our extreme opposite attitudes will combine to form a good balance.

My goal is to think rationally from now on and always hope for the best. I know I can do this as long as I don't jump to conclusions and think optimistically.