Monthly Archives: August 2014

Reaching your potential – be yourself

Published August 28, 2014 3:24 pm

Do you want to be happy, productive, reach your potential, be your best self? Answer is astounding yes.

How often do you deny yourself to be yourself? answer is — quite often.

Be yourselfReaching your potential starts with being yourself. That is when your interests and what you do – are aligned. That is when your emotions and you – embrace. It is what feels like aha or the eureka moment! What if more minutes of your daily life are eureka moments? It is certainly possible since it does not take much — to loose up and – be just yourself.

Well – if all of us – allow ourselves to be – just ourselves. Hell might loose open. Isn’t it? Well – the answer is no. Being yourself does not mean – react & do whatever you think. It simply mean – you “facing” instead of “denying” – all your likes & dislikes (emotions). That gesture alone is enough to unlock your deep innate potential. It is enough – to connect at deeper level – with your unspoken inner voice – your emotions. Don’t we see people pleading in tough negotiations & in heated discussion – “hear me out”? That deep inner voice – also require face time/acceptance and that is enough – to let it out – to get pass the emotion. You then clearly see the emotion & yourself as two separate things and connect with your self – the unbounded awareness, smile and power – that is your untapped potential.

Being yourself also means being mindful and also referred as being emotionally intelligent. That is your Ah moment when things can’t be more clearer. You are face to face with the solution and working like an orchestra! It takes little bit time and patience – to get there.

Why not to deny?

  1. No matter how much we deny – it exists within.
  2. Accepting/facing will not do any harm to us – because what you are – nobody has power to change – even worst of your thoughts – can’t !
  3. Facing them will help separate you and your likes/dislikes and get over them!

No – What if – Just do it

Published August 27, 2014 10:34 am

How many minutes have you spent thinking what if it may go wrong? or

  1. What if I take the wrong direction?
  2. what if I spent more time on this than desired?
  3. what if it is worth taking up?
  4. what if something else is better thing to do than this?
  5. what if it shows me in poor light?

What if – is one of biggest time sink, reason to procrastinate & not act — and road block to personal productivity. Just do it – is the reverse. It helps you move and possibly fail. If I don’t move – I have anyway failed.

Woman standing in yoga position, meditating in mountainsHaving said that – thoughtless action vs thoughtful paralysis – are two extremes. I need to be careful and take the middle road. Typically in my personal experience, I have seen more of later than of the former. Given more time – analysis & procrastination takes the excess of the available time. Parkinson Law applies – work expands to fill the time available.

There is need to push ourselves – to action. After thinking, it’s time to go with the natural flow of action and keep the gut check active – to not fall in trap of thoughtless action.

That is it. Just do it.

ps. The due credit for the trigger point about ‘what if’ started when I first read this article and ever since it has been growing on me on how much harm this can do.

How much social networking is enough?

Published August 22, 2014 11:17 am

Social Networking Buzzwords SignSocial networking is the buzzword for long time now. but How much of social networking is enough? I had heard opinions that range from — social networking is the THING to connect, share, learn, remain abreast — to — social networking is meant for people having ample amount of time  (aka not meant for people who mean business). I am getting active on few social networks – like facebook, twitter, linked in.

I am starting to think about social networking (on computer/internet) world on lines with socializing in society. It is like how much of socializing is ENOUGH? The right question are then

  1. How much socializing is enough?
  2. How much of gossiping is enough?
  3. How much conversations around your hobby is enough?
  4. How much conversations with team member on project (vs getting my assigned work done) is enough?
  5. How much conversation with people – outside my project – is enough?
  6. How much conversation with new (not known in past) is enough?
  7. How much of adda  with friends is enough?

You probably get where I am coming from. I can be anywhere on a spectrum from one end – where I am a loner in my world — to other end — I just hang out with people be it from team, outside team, friends or acquaintances or yet another being. Each one of us is unique and his own socializing limits in various settings (work, friends etc.)  and for that matter, I have seen my limits changing over time.

Before deciding how much to socialize, I ask myself – Why do I like being with people?

  1. Simply – because he / she is my genuine friend. We connect well and unconditionally outside our social makeup and titles. You know that feeling when you converse without any boundaries or compulsion in your head.
  2. He is another human with a mind and his ideas. Some of his Ideas trigger something in me. Some of his findings / experiences gives me free wisdom.
  3. As human – we support each other out of self interest or otherwise – especially we know each other.
  4. It helps to approach – to get something done – if you know the person a prior.
  5. He is my role model or if not, way ahead on the road I am starting my journey.
  6. To know the current trends.
  7. Just for fun
  8. To share my Ideas

From this angle, social networking brings immense benefits

  1. I get to have coffee with “anybody”. You decide which channel you want to tune to – and you start hearing his/her commentary. Earlier – it needed a privilege to get to converse with celebrities. Not any more.
  2. You have the feed available anytime, anywhere and you can read it, rewind it, reread it, reference it later.
  3. Physical barrier is broken. You get to remain connected – no matter where the person is.
  4. You get to share your Ideas — to audience you like. Earlier – it was a privilege to speak to an audience.
  5. In short, internet based social networking – democratizes social interactions – like internet had democratized access to information and knowledge. It is one of the best thing that could happen to mankind.

Like every invention – it also has its flip side.

  1. If I take social interaction – to gossiping and that too – make it mainstream — of my day – it does not help. Similarly, social networking can become main reason to be unproductive – it now even empowers me – to gossip with a “larger audience”.
  2. Social networking like internet invention – bring information overload. So many people, organizations – with their individual intent – are trying to capture your “attention” and flooding you with their “Ideas”. On top of that, they have “higher access” to you. Earlier – it required you to be in front of TV or newspaper or in a conference. Now, it can be anywhere anytime – as long as you are on a social networking site or app!

I like to talk about social networking in one another way. As per mythology, whatever anybody has ever said – it is out there in the universe as “pudgal”. If one reaches a level of spiritual practice, he can tune to the pudgal (knowledge) and know it all as clear & vivid as it happened then. With the social networking and cloud services – it is like all – everyone is sharing – is out their in the cloud and one can tune to that knowledge. really powerful!

Now the flipside. In spiritual practice – that knowledge is not accessible unless you have reached to a level of equanimity & ability to “just know” but not connect with everything whereas in social networking gives you power without any premise. It is up to me – to set my filters and limits.

At the end of the day, what you do with “what you know” is important. While social networking empowers me – to tune to any channel to know/experience more – what “I do” with that knowledge – is still important. And to do – I need to set – How much social networking is enough?

It will be nice to know your personal experiences about this.

Converting key and certificate files to .pfx file

Published August 20, 2014 5:33 pm

A quick search on net will give you openssl pkcs12 command to achieve this.

steps:

  1. download openssl if you don’t have already.
  2. inputs – private rsa key. If you have encoded text from the webhost, save it in a text file. I put it in a private.key
  3. inputs – domain key – I received a .crt file for this.
  4. inputs – I received 2 intermediate certificates and one root certificates – all .crt files
  5. command line – openssl pkcs12 -export -out a.pfx -inkey private.key -in domainkey.crt -certfile f1.crt -certfile f2.crt -certfile root.crt
    1. updated 2023-04-20 command line – openssl pkcs12 -export -out a.pfx -inkey private.key -in domainkey.crt -certfile cacertfiles.ca-bundle
    2. recently re-issued cert from namecheap and received ca (intermediate/root) cert files in a file with .ca-bundle extension
  6. this did the trick to get the .pfx file.
  7. openssl asked for password to protect the pfx file

Purchasing a SSL certificate for nodejs rest api server

Published August 20, 2014 5:20 pm

I had written about this here when I purchased last time a SSL certificate from godaddy and did not renew it. With the expired certificate, client does not connect to the production server. Hence, I have to look into and purchase a new certificate today.

I found namecheap.com to provide competitive pricing. I could get 1 year certificate for USD 9. Without further analysis, I went ahead and purchased it from them. Few notes below:

  1. I used paypal account to pay instead of directing giving them my credit card details.
  2. Activating the SSL certificate is a separate process than purchasing it. It has to be done after purchase is completed.
  3. I had purchased COMODO positivessl domain certificate
  4. paypal let me pay in INR currency on visa card. It cost INR 570.

Steps for activation of the SSL certificate on namecheap.com

  1. login
  2. menu->manage SSL certificates
  3. click activate link on the dashboard
  4. prior to (3) – I have to have CSR (certificate signing request) ready.  Refer below for my steps with bluehost. You may have to use your webhost or own server like IIS admin to get a CSR which in turn requires a private key generation.
  5. paste the CSR text into the wizard
  6. select the approver email id. I had created an email admin@domainname.com and selected that option.
  7. It gave some error saying — server details could not be verified for the approver email. do you want to continue? — I opted to continue.
  8. submit on next page
  9. After submit – the SSL certificate process kicks off and status on the namecheap.com dashboard keeps getting updated. be patient.
  10. on approver email id – u receive an email and need to click the link for verification.
  11. after few minutes – u receive on your registered email (with namecheap.com) – your SSL as a .zip attachment.

Steps for generating CSR on bluehost

  1. on control panel, search cert – you will find security-> SSL/TLS manager
  2. follow generate key link.
  3. I used 2048 bit and a friendly name – to identify the key later.  generate the key.
  4. follow generate CSR link using the key generated earlier. fill all the fields in the form; they are self explanatory.
  5. finally – it gives CSR as encoded text.