3 Golden Rules For Effective Communication

1. Improve pronunciation and diction

There are a few tricks to making a vernacular accent more globally understandable.

~ Try making sure that ‘air’ comes out of your mouth when saying the letters, ‘T, P, K’ and the sound ‘Ch’.

~ Focus on elongating your vowel sounds. This will also automatically slow down your rate of speech.

~ Sing English songs out loud!

~ Watch news shows on channels like CNN and BBC.

~ The web site www.m-w.com is great for pronunciation help.

~ I would also suggest buying books on pronunciation and language that come with audio cassettes.

A good book that I found really useful was Better English Pronunciation by J D O’Connor. It is part of the Cambridge series, and some of those books come with cassettes.

2. Spruce up your writing skills

~ Believe it or not, you have to Read More!

~ Well-written magazines, like The Economist and India Today, are great to read not only to improve language skills but also to learn more about the world.

~ In terms of books, read what interests you. The basic goal is to read as much as you can.

There are a plethora of good authors who are popular today. Some good writers whose language is easy to follow include Vikram Seth, Jhumpa Lahiri, Paulo Coelho, J D Salinger, Albert Camus and Roald Dahl.

~ People tend to forget basic grammar when writing e-mails. An e-mail is nothing more than a letter which is sent electronically.

Make sure salutations and content are professional. Use special phrases when attaching documents. For example, “Please find attached with this e-mail a report on…” This helps you sound professional.

3. Five exercises to practise every day!

i. Pretend you are a newscaster and read out the newspaper to your mirror.

ii. Do not read local newspapers. Focus on national newspapers.

iii. While reading a book, underline all the words you do not know. Look them up in the dictionary.

iv. Make a list of these words, and make sure you use at least five of them in a conversation during the day.

v. Most important, make an effort to speak in English to your friends and family.

Things To Do Everyday

Follow these ten golden rules and enjoy every moment of living.

~ Greet your family members first thing in the morning. If you are not used to this, they will be surprised with your sudden and nice gesture.

~ Greet your peers, subordinates and boss once you enter the office. Smile at even the ’security’ personnel standing at the gate, who takes care of your safety.

~ Greet your friends along the way and do not ignore them.

~ Continously reciprocate to breed communication. If you do not reciprocate at least with a ‘thanks’ when you get information or a source on your online network or your offline network, you will not be remembered for a long time.  If you are not remembered, you are out of your network.

~ Be a proactive listener and empathise with others to command respect.

~ While talking to others, your voice, tone and tenor must be audible and soothing. It should not be aggressive or in a shouting mode.

~ Dress well to suit your profession and to create positive vibes in your workplace.  If you are a sales representative, do not go out with printed shirts and jeans, which may turn down your customer.

~ Political and religious comments must be avoided at all costs in the workplace, when you are in a group.

~ Your communication should not provoke others. 

~ Do not speak ill of others if you can help it.

Corporate Skills

These are generally CEO level skills, but if you are familiar with them you will be in a position to guide your boss towards success ie working together for a common goal as a team. You can become a courageous follower as mentioned by Ira Chaleff in his award-winning book Courageous Follower: Standing Up To and For Our Leaders. 

These skills include:

~ Political sensitivity.
~ Business and commercial awareness.
~ Strategic awareness.
~ Understanding funding streams and mechanisms.
~ Information management.
~ Organisation and control.
~ Team building.
~ Communication and persuasion.
~ Networking and public relations.
~ Leading change.

Targeting Life Skills

The Targeting Life Skills (TLS) Model

These skills are related to the head, heart, hands and health ie highly personal and behavioural skills which reflects our personality and naturally helps in personality development.

We manage and think with our head. Resilience, keeping records, making wise use of resources, planning/organising and goal setting are ‘head’ related managerial functions. Service learning, Critical thinking, problem solving, decision making and learning to learn were related to our thinking processes, which we manage with our head.

Functions of the heart are relating to people and caring. How do we relate to people? We relate to people by accepting differences, conflict resolutions, social skills, cooperation and communication. The second function we do through our heart is caring. We care through nurturing relationships, sharing, empathy and concern for others.

We give and work through our hands. Community service, volunteering, leadership, responsible citizenship and contributions to group effort — are our way giving back to society. We work through our marketable skills, teamwork and self-motivation to get the things done.

Living and being comes under the functions of health. Healthy lifestyle choices, stress management, disease prevention and personal safety are our prime concerns for better living. Self-esteem, self-responsibility, character, managing feelings and self-discipline must be practiced without fail for our well-being. In a nutshell, the essence of life skills is share well, care well and fare well.

AnyDVD (HD) 6.1.6.5

AnyDVD works in the background to automatically remove the copy protection of a DVD movie as soon as it’s inserted into the drive, allowing you then to backup the movie using a DVD backup tool such as CloneDVD and CloneDVD mobile. You can also remove the RPC region code, thereby making the movie region free and viewable on any DVD player and with any DVD player software. AnyDVD is capable of removing unwanted movie features, including subtitles and prohibition messages such as copyright and FBI warnings. It also allows you to launch an external application whenever you insert or remove a disc, or prevent ‘PC-friendly’ software from automatically launching when you insert a video DVD.

Changelog:

• New (DVD): Added support for a new copy protection to the option to remove “Protection based on unreadable Sectors”, e.g. “Free Zone”, R1, US or “Waiting for Happiness”, R1, US
• Change (DVD): Because of popular demand, the “bad sector count numbers” of versions before 6.1.6.0 are back
• Change: Shows correct disc size with virtual drives
• Change: Because of undesired side effects, the Sonic DLA behaviour before version 6.1.5.4 is back
• Change (Blu-ray): Ripper now copies the CERTIFICATE directory
• Fix (DVD): Because of an internal overflow, some Sony Arccos protections were not removed correctly (e.g., “UFC65″, R2, UK)
• Fix (DVD): Possible hang if heavily scratched or damaged Video DVD was inserted
• Fix (HD DVD & Blu-ray): In a rare situation, renaming the AACS directory could fail (e.g., “The Hulk”, HD DVD, US)
• Fix (HD DVD & Blu-ray): Problem with Windows Vista UDF file system
• Fix (Blu-ray): Problem with .jar files
• Some minor fixes and improvements
• Updated languages

Download: AnyDVD (HD) 6.1.6.5 (Shareware, AnyDVD = $49.00, AnyDVD HD = $79.00)
View: What’s New
Link: Home Page

Apple Patches More Holes

Apple has updates out for security problems in WebCore (Mac OS X’s HTML layout engine) and WebKit, the application framework that serves as an underpinning for many Mac applications. The issue concerning Apple’s WebKit browser engine, could make a Mac OS X application user vulnerable to attack if he or she were to visit a maliciously crafted site. Security Update 2007-006 takes care of an HTTP injection bug that occurs in WebCore’s XMLHttpRequest when it’s serializing headers into an HTTP request. The vulnerability can lead to cross-site scripting attacks if a victim is be lured to a maliciously crafted site. The WebCore issue affects Mac OS X v10.3.9, Mac OS X Server v10.3.9, Mac OS X v10.4.9 or later and Mac OS X Server v10.4.9 or later.

WebKit serves as an engine for the Safari browser as well as many other Mac OS X applications, including Dashboard and Mail. The problem with WebKit is an invalid type conversion when rendering frame sets, which can lead to memory corruption. Results range from the application quitting on up to a targeted system getting hijacked with arbitrary code execution. Apple’s update for the WebKit glitch is available for Mac OS X v10.3.9, Mac OS X Server v10.3.9, Mac OS X v10.4.9 or later and Mac OS X Server v10.4.9 or later.

Download: Security Update 2007-006
News source: eWeek

Microsoft security group makes ‘worst jobs’ list

Popular Science magazine’s 2007 list of the absolute worst jobs in science include whale-feces researchers, hazmat divers, and employees of Microsoft’s Security Response Center. Popular Science has been compiling the list since 2003 and according to Michael Moyer, the magazine’s executive editor, Microsoft’s Security Response Center made the grade this year because the job is just so hard and thankless. “It’s one of those classic jobs, which isn’t gross or dangerous in any way, but the overwhelmingness of the task at hand makes it so daunting that only the most intrepid would venture there.”

The MSRC ranked near the middle as the sixth-worst job in this year’s list, published in the July issue of the magazine. The absolute worst job is the hazmat diver: “These are highly trained individuals who strap on scuba dear and dive into toxic sludge,” Moyer explained. Microsoft’s Mark Griesi, a program manager with the MSRC, says working at the response center “is one of the toughest jobs to have. But with tough challenges come great reward. The article does call out the dedication that the people in all of these jobs have, and I have never worked with a more dedicated group then the MSRC.”

Thought of the day

Thinking should become your capital asset, no matter whatever ups and downs you come across in your life.

The Quick and Easy Way to Effective Speaking

Fundamentals of Effective Speaking

1. Acquiring the Basic Skills

• Take heart from the experience of others
• Keep your goal before you
• Predetermine your mind to success
• Seize every opportunity to practice

2. Developing Confidence

• Get the facts about fear of speaking in public
• Prepare in the proper way
• Predetermine your mind to success
• Act confident

3. Speaking Effectively the Quick and Easy Way

• Speaking about something you have earned the right to talk about through experience or study
• Be sure you are excited about your subject
• Be eager to share your talk with your listeners

Speech, Speaker, and Audience

1. Earning the Right to Talk

• Limit your subject
• Develop reserve power
• Fill your talk with illustrations and examples
• Use concrete, familiar words that create pictures

2. Vitalizing the Talk

• Choose subjects you are earnest about
• Relive the Feelings you have about your topic
• Act in earnest

3. Sharing the Talk with the Audience

• Talk in terms of your listeners' interests
• Give honest, sincere appreciation
• Identify yourself with the audience
• Make your audience a partner in your talk
• Play yourself down

The Purpose of Prepared and Impromptu Talks

1. Making the Short Talk to Get Action

• Give your example, an incident from your life
• State your point, what you want the audience to do
• Give the reason or benefit the audience may expect

2. Making the Talk to Inform

• Restrict your subject to fit the time at your disposal
• Arrange your ideas in sequence
• Enumerate your points as you make them
• Compare the strange with the familiar
• Use visual aids

3. Making the Talk to Convince

• Win confidence by deserving it
• Get a Yes-response
• Speakin with contagious enthusiasm
• Show respect and affection for your audience
• Begin in a friendly way

4. Making Impromptu Talks

• Practice impromptu speaking
• Be mentally ready to speak impromptu
• Get into an example immediately
• Speak with animation and force
• Use the principle of the Here and the Now
• Don't talk impromptu--Give an impromptu talk

The Art of Communicating

1. Delivering the Talk

• Crash through your shell of self-consciousness
• Don't try to imitate others--Be yourself
• Converse with your audience
• Put your heart into your speaking
• Practice making your voice strong and flexible

The Challenge of Effective Speaking

1. Introducing Speakers, Presenting and Accepting Awards

• Thoroughly prepare what you are going to say
• Follow the T-I-S Formula
• Be enthusiastic
• Thoroughly prepare the talk of presentation
• Express your sincere feelings in the talk of acceptance

2. Organizing the Longer Talk

• Get attention immediately
• Avoid getting unfavorable attention
• Support your main ideas
• Appeal for action

3. Applying What You Have Learned

• Use specific detail in everyday conversation
• Use effective speaking techniques in your job
• Seek Opportunities to speak in public
• You must persist
• Keep the certainty of reward before you

Ad-Aware 2007 7.0.1.4

Ad-Aware 2007 Free remains the most popular anti-spyware product for computer users around the world, with nearly one million downloads every week. Ad-Aware 2007 Free version provides you with advanced protection against spyware that secretly attaches and takes control of your computer, resulting in aggressive advertising pop-ups, sluggish computer activity, even identity theft through stolen bank details, passwords, and credit card account numbers. If you want real-time scanning capabilities, consider upgrading to Ad-Aware 2007 Plus for real-time protection against spyware, all the time!

What’s New in Ad-Aware 2007 Free?

* Redesigned Engine – Benefit from superior program flexibility and more accurate scanning methods with all-new program architecture.
* Improved Code Sequence Identification (CSI) Technology – Boost your privacy protection with precise detection of embedded malware, including known and emerging threats.
* Incremental Definition File Updates – Save precious time and resources with smaller update files resulting in faster download times.
* TrackSweep – Control privacy by erasing tracks left behind while surfing the Web on Internet Explorer, Firefox, and Opera, with one easy click.
* Multiple Browser Support – Choose Internet Explorer, Firefox, or Opera with expanded browser support.
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More Key Features

* User-Controlled Spyware Removal – Decide for yourself what to delete from your system and what to keep.
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Download: Ad-Aware 2007 Free 7.0.1.4 freeware
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News source: SoftPedia
Link: Lavasoft Home Page