Can the new version of Orkut beat Facebook? This question boggles the minds of a lot of Facebookers.  Doubts and questions apart, Google’s new version is sleek, trendy and upbeat enough to end the solo-party of Facebook in the social networking domain. If you’re an Internet geek, you will definitely know the influence and impact Orkut had over other social networking sites. With the arduous efforts of the Orkut team, Google has finally come up with the new clean and sensational version of Orkut,  a version vibrant enough to make people look up to Orkut once again.

Besides the new layout which is easy-to-use, the Orkut team has introduced several other new features into the social networking site. If you are up for a thrilling ride, come on, let’s have a look at the exciting new features. Before that, one important reminder. The new version of Orkut can be accessed only through invites.

Fewer Pages, Easy navigation – The Home Page has become all-important. You can catch up with all the actions in the homepage. Be it a chat, video, status message or comment for your photo or status update, everything is right there on your homepage.

Faster  Page loads -  No longer will you have to wait minutes for pages to load. Now Orkut brings you faster browsing experience. The GWT interface helps you wait less and interact more.

Clean interface – When it comes to the interface, the new version has got a rich look. Yes, easy-to-access notifications, friend suggestions, tab concept, one-touch menu access. In brief, everything is user-friendly.

All new scrap – Orkut has got a feature similar to status update in Facebook. If you want to comment on an update made by your friend, you no longer need to jump to friend’s profile to leave a scrap. You can directly post messages from your homepage. When you see your friends post a message, you can leave your comments then and there.

Flexible personalization – It’s your thing. When it comes to personalization, the new version has got options to change the colors of your homepage and profile page. You can now customize the ‘about me’ section which exhibits the true you.

Photos and Videos – Bulk uploads. Now it’s possible on Orkut. Now it’s three times faster uploads. Photo sharing and editing can be done in no time. Face-to-face video conversation is easy in the new version. Facebook lags in this feature. ‘Actions’ help you with audio, video and group chats.

Promote –  A new way of promotion. Orkut Promote allows you to create online flyers to  market any of your services to your friends. Content sharing is encouraged and made easy through this Promote feature. Also you can track the performance of your promotion with the help of the metrics tab.

With this new version, Orkut is back with a bang to compete with other social networking sites. From now on, it’s going to be a tough social networking war between Orkut and its competitors, especially Facebook.

Here are eight great ways to be happy even if you are assigned to handle a stressful project:

8 Great ways to be happy while handling a stressful project

1. Stay focused – Focus on every single work you do. If you can focus more on a single task then you can reduce the friction in your work. Having too many tasks is fine but focusing on too many things is overwhelming. Sometimes our attention gets distracted when there is no deadline. So, you can even create a small stress, like a deadline, when you need to stay in focus.

2. Prioritize your tasks – What are you going to do right now matters. Push back relatively less important tasks. When you start a day with a stressful project, don’t ever think you are stressed. This thought will ruin the day. Start making a list of tasks for the day and work at the the most important task.

3. One task at a time – Multitasking is a gift. But you need not always be a person with multiple tasks. Take one task at a time. There is nothing wrong in doing a single task with full concentration. This will help you to stay productive as well.

4. Break the big project into modules – Breaking a big project into modules is not a new idea in the IT field. But here I mean the length of the task.  Start your day with regular high priority work. Never expect too much to be done and never feel dissatisfied! You should always remember to break your big task into smaller chunks so that you could really feel happy on completing them. Make the tasks really small and achievable.

5. Prioritize your “To-Do” list – If you are a busy person handling multiple projects or tasks, then you definitely need “To-Do” list with tasks prioritized. You can be overwhelmed of your greater expectations. When you have a huge “To-Do” list, don’t get furious. You can very well split the list.

For example, if you have got six pending tasks with four working hours in hand, then you can split it in such a way to accomplish three tasks in two hours. You will experience a joy in yourself on completing these three tasks. This will be a booster for the next set of tasks.

6. Take a small and energetic break – It is not as simple as take a break, have a kit-kat. When you are piled up with tasks you don’t find time to take a break. When you are mentally locked up, you need to refresh yourself and take breaks. Breaks can vary from 5 minutes to 30 minutes. There are so many ways to pull out yourself. Try any one simple way which will help you relax.

7. Let your needs and goals be closely attached – What is your goal in life? You will definitely have an answer for this question. In the same question if you replace ‘goal’ with ‘need’, still you will have an answer. If these two answers go well together then, you can handle work stress. This shows that you have chosen the goal which satisfies your needs.

For an instance, you start a project with great enthusiasm and you get half way through it. But you run out of momentum towards the end. If you lose the project, it is very painful. On the other hand, if you are associated with your goal then, you can find momentum and join the party again.

8. Recollect the good things – At the end of the day you need to recollect how well you managed the day. It will really help you learn a a lot. Never feel that your job pushes you out of your comfort zone. Be positive. You are getting paid to learn the lesson of managing a stressful project and becoming a better person. Just realign your thoughts with positive things first and trash the negatives.

Anything achieved in a short period of time demands great respect. Twitter has indeed grown from a startup which was about status updates to a medium that has revolutionized the way social networking is done. But instant success in social networking brings with it the threat of bots. When you try hard to increase your followers you can be scammed by bots. Don’t be deceived by bots. The simple ways listed below can help you increase your twitter followers steadily:

11 Proven Ways to Increase Twitter Followers

1. Focus on your niche and start tweeting. – You maybe a blogger, entrepreneur, service provider or a developer. Be focused. Choose your niche and start tweeting about it. You can earn a lot of followers with similar interests.

2. Be more professional than personal. – Twitter was once a space to express what you were doing. Now, being a powerful social medium, Twitter is known for knowledge-sharing, connecting to people of similar interest and a lot more. To increase your followers be informative and professional.

3. Use simple Push and Pull.– When it comes to increasing your followers, you can use the simple Push and Pull techniques. Pushing is all about spreading your Twitter profile. It can be via blogs, forums, profile links and other social media. Pulling is something related to attracting people to follow you with your content. One fine example of pulling is the RSS feed.

4. Keep the conversation going. – To increase your followers, it is always necessary to keep in touch with your current followers. That way you let your followers share their ideas with you and retweet your content. So it is important to keep the conversation going with people who reply to your messages.

5. Read the minds of your target audience. – Hit your target audience straight with information. You have to make them look for your ideas and the information you share. To catch the pulse of your followers, Just make sure what they talk about and tweet about. This will help you to gel with your target audience.

6. Don’t Self-Pamper. Be Neutral. – Don’t keep on tweeting about your blog or your own stuff. Be neutral and share new ideas in your niche. You can be a perfect blend of personal and professional tweets. But do not forget to tweet the breaking news and the latest happening in your industry to gain more followers.

7. Be one among the recommended list of followers. – Popular bloggers sometimes publish the Twitter IDs of their readers and if you get into the list, you can get a lot of followers from that particular post.

8. Just ask a question. – To have interaction through your Twitter account and to start communication with fellow tweeters, just ask a question. This will open the doors to convert a stranger into your follower. You can easily pick up a conversation by asking a question.

9. If you ask, why not reply? – Also to be popular among your group of tweeters, try to answer as many as questions as possible. But be sure that you are confident with the answer. People will start following you for your answers.

10. Cross Promotion – Many a time this works. Don’t just think of online promotion to spread your Twitter profile. Why can’t it be word of mouth? When you are a pro and you help your followers with their queries, you can gain a lot of followers through word of mouth promotion itself.

11. Use Twitter directory services.– You can list your Twitter ID in any of the Twitter directory services. You need to choose the right category in such directories so as to get followers of similar interest.

11-simple-twitter-secrets-revealed

1. Be simple to identify yourself – Your profile should be easy to remember. It is better if you have your company name or the name of the product/service as your username. Branding becomes easier when the username is easy to remember.

2. Make use of the ‘bio’ option to the fullest – The place where you can make things clear and get close to your target tweeters. Use it efficiently. The 160 characters should speak about the brand.

3. Start using smart applications – You should be wise enough to use Twitter applications which help you to stay connected to your audience. Irrespective of the platform, you have got a wide range of desktop applications, web applications and mobile applications. Get the one convenient for your use and start tweeting.

4. Build your credibility – Building credibility doesn’t mean only the number of followers, tweets or retweets. It is all about the information you share and the credibility it has. Followers should see you as a trusted source of information – as an expert’s voice.

5. Be in constant touch with your followers – In the process of branding, followers are the customers and it is your responsibility to constantly stay in touch with them. It is necessary to learn using Twitter replies either via web or through applications.

6. Follow as many target audience as possible – In terms of branding there are two different strategies. If you want followers, you need to follow. It is considered to be the best strategy, but it depends on the type of service / product you are branding and the followers you have in Twitter.

7. Understand the preference of your followers – When it comes to branding, you will be keen in promoting stuff and tweeting some ideas and concepts. But it is really necessary to understand the preference of your followers. It is better to find what they are tweeting and re-tweeting. It is again related to networking with your followers. Following your target audience will always keep you in line with their preferences.

8. You can ask for retweets. Nothing wrong in it – When it comes to viral or really important stuff about your brand, you can always ask for retweets. There is nothing wrong in it. Your aim is to reach as many followers as possible. If the information is really useful and your followers are interested in, then you can always ask for retweets.

9. Always KISS – It is best to Keep It Simple Stupid. When it comes to tweeting, it is limited to 140 characters and you have to be good in vocabulary for keyword rich tweets. Both for branding and information sharing, it is always best to be simple and to the point.

10. Don’t promote. Just share – Tweeting is all about sharing. Not promoting. Even if you use Twitter for branding, don’t just use it as a means to promote. Instead use it as a medium to share information about your brand.

11. Spread your Twitter URL – Twitter URL is something which can help your followers identify you easily. Spread your Twitter URL by having it in your blogs and through RSS.

World Health Organization (WHO) has a more remarkable way of putting things when it comes to health issues. It says, If someone has a broken arm, you feel sorry for them. But when the problem is psychiatric, people don’t know how to react because they can’t see anything. But just because you can’t see someone’s pain, it does not mean they don’t need care and support.

But throwing away all crooked thoughts and barriers, we planned reach out to people suffering from mental illness.

Just a formal announcement, contributions started flowing in from office staff. Each and every staff in DCI contributed their best towards the initiative. We visited RETREAT, a long term care center run by M S Chellamuthu Trust for people suffering from mental illness.

DCI Staff serving food to residents

M S Chellamuthu Trust and Research Foundation is one of the largest providers of mental health services. Their services range from early identification to treatment, care and rehabilitation of mentally ill patients. Run by committed social workers, the Trust is supported by the who’s who of the region.

Lead by our CEO, we,15 staff members, accompanied him to the RETREAT. After a 45 minute-drive from office we reached the care center which is near Boys Town. The residents of RETREAT welcomed us happily. Most of the residents even remembered our CEO’s previous visit and greeted him. Then, we had a small introductory session to know the daily routines of the residents, followed by an interactive session with them.

Residents presenting a memento our CEO & Staff

It was time for lunch. We contributed towards the afternoon lunch of the residents and also served them food. Too happy, every resident had a cheeky smile on their faces, while we had a glow in our hearts.

With the natural surroundings, the center is a place where mentally challenged people have space to enhance their life. With this visit, we believe we have shown and given the C.A.R.E. (Concern, Appreciation, Respect and Empathy) for people who require help.