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Wildlife Photography Tips ( Part 2)
July 29th, 2009 in Lifestyle, Today
Wildlife Photography Tips ( Part 2) 
Click here to read part 1 of this article
In the first part of this article , we saw some wildlife photography tips that experience has taught me. In “wildlife Photography tips -part 1″, we studied the key element called Observation , understood the nuances of choosing a good frame & learned the importance of anticipating & predicting the behavior of animals & birds.
Lets look at some advanced tricks today:
Wildlife Photography Tips
July 28th, 2009 in Lifestyle, Today
Wildlife Photography Tips
“A great photograph is one that fully expresses what one feels, in the deepest sense, about what is being photographed”, remarked Ansel Adams, the renowned American photographer famous for his landscape frames. I do believe in it and when my good buddy asked me to write an informal article about my view about photography, especially bordering on wildlife photography , I thought of it as a medium to reach out to each one of you who appreciate photography as an art. Before beginning, let me tell you that I am not a photographer but to put it in simple terms, I am addicted to life and the world around me and I tend to copy the best among the whole lot into my camera.
Having worked in Stock Photography firms both international and Indian, I have had the opportunity of interacting via email or in person, with more than a thousand photographers. It was my job but it paved the way for me to understand the mindset of some of the best in the business. People generally make two big misinterpretations when it comes to photography. First of all, a lot of people give too much emphasis on the technical aspect of photography. Now, please do understand the fact that it is not photography which has the technical side to it but the camera. So, when photographers say about the technical aspect of photography, they are more or less referring to the technical understanding of the equipment. The second more common misinterpretation is that a professional photographer automatically classifies as an individual who clicks perfect pictures.
Thank you
July 26th, 2009 in Today
Dear friends,
A big thank you for all of you who made the site crash on Saturday. Your overwhelming support to this site ensured that the site received unprecedented number of hits & ran out of bandwidth.
We are back again with increased bandwidth & web space. I guess the site is on its way to becoming the most popular lifestyle blog. This cannot happen without your inputs & support. Looking forward to lot more comments form your end.
Starting from today, Friendly-tips is incorporating the readers tips into its articles. All efforts will even be made to publish an article around your tip.
The best tip will be recognized as the “Contribution of the week”. Starting the process right away: the contributor of the Week is Bharathi from the beautiful south Indian town of Vizag.
Sleep Secrets # 2
July 26th, 2009 in Health, Today
5 Tips for better sleep:
The article by Prewit on sleep was a real eye opener for me. Thanks to that article; now I go to bed much earlier. The article invoked my curiosity into the subject of sleep, which in turn led me to do an extensive research on the topic. Many of my perceptions on sleep were shattered & many doubts cleared too. I love all my blog readers & want you to benefit from these findings.
A good sleep is caused by the hormone Melatonin. Besides being a sleep hormone, Melatonin is also an anti-aging agent, immune regulator, anti depressant & an extremely powerful antioxidant. This explains all the benefits of sleep, which includes; longer life, weight loss & better health. The good news here is that Melatonin is primarily produced in the pineal gland present in our brain. Here are friendly tips which will help us to release this hormone naturally.
Tips for better sleep:
- Make your bedroom as dark as possible: Even a small amount of light can disrupt the production of melatonin by the pineal gland. Even a night lamp is discouraged. If this cannot be avoided, I recommend that you use eye mask. If you are someone who needs to use the bathroom in the night, make sure that the bathroom is fitted with a zero watt dim light. Exposure to bright light will immediately stop all production of melatonin & one will find it difficult to sleep again.
- Ease into your sleep: When our body relaxes gradually, the production of melatonin is encouraged. Here are certain tips that will help us to ease into sleep.
- Remove television from the bedroom. It is also recommended that one stops watching television at least 30 minutes before sleep time. Watching TV is a stimulating activity to the brain & thus does not aid in relaxing.
- Bath in lukewarm water is also a great relaxer.
- Consider massaging your legs & arms, partners can do this for each other. This is even better than reading bedtime story to kids. Kids are generally more active than adults & this leg & arm massage will be like an instant sleeping pill for them.
- Read book that are light on content, books with beautiful scenery or holistic content get my top billing.
- Eat right: Eat at least 100 minutes before sleep time. This is to ensure that our body is done with the process of breaking down food by the time we go to bed.
Drinking milk before bedtime has been a tradition in most Indian homes. Ayurvedic practitioners knew long back that dairy products help induce sleep. Today, science has proven that dairy products & banana contain an essential amino acid called tryptophan which helps in secretion of melatonin. Chocolate also has tryptophan, but is not recommended before sleep since chocolate contains caffeine too. Foods that take long to digest viz., spicy & oily foods have the potential to cause stomach upset. Thus these food items are to be avoided for dinner.
- Fixed Sleep pattern: It is advised that we have fixed sleep timings so that our brain recognizes this & automatically starts producing melatonin at that time period. Our internal biological clock also regulates our energy levels during the day, so this probably become the most important tip of the day. Fixed sleep patterns also ensure that we get up without the help of alarm clock. Being rudely jolted out of the sleep by a loud alarm clock is certainly not good for health. Alarm set at lower volume, allowing sunlight into the bedroom or using Sun Alarm is recommended.
- Cheat into sleep: Personally, I have been blessed with sound sleep since the days I can remember. But there are many who keep turning & tossing in bed for sleep to set in. Here are some tips to chest sleep to come to you faster.
- Exercising 4-5 hours before sleep time will ensure that sleep comes naturally to you.
- Eating a mixture of chopped onions & curd 15 minutes before sleep time will ensure that the body is in the right temperature to fall asleep.
- Visualize the numbers backwards from 100 (99…98…97….96….). If you forget in between start from 99 again, I promise that you will not even reach 50 before sleep engulfs you.
After reading Sleep secrets (part 1), I have started sleeping by 11 pm instead of 1 am. But I need to work even more on my lifestyle to bring the time ahead by 1 hour. With the modern lifestyle, I guess 10 pm would be an ideal time to sleep. These 2 hours of sleep before midnight is equal to 4 hours of sleep after 00:00 Hrs.
Looking forward to some inspiration from the readers for the next article on “Sleep myths”.
Read other health realated artiles here
Read all other articles of friendly-tips here
Gmail Tips & Tricks
July 23rd, 2009 in Today, Useful Sites
TOP 5 Gmail Tricks
“If you are not using Gmail, you must be living in stone age” – This is what I say to my friends who are still reluctant to switch over to this wonderful web mail service. Most still believe that this is just another mailing service. It could be just that if one does not use the extensive features of this free Gmail account service.
Let’s looks at some of Gmail tricks today. By the way, all these tricks are legal. The post should have been appropriately titled “Getting the most out of your Gmail” But then I decided to go for a catchy phrase to grab your attention. 
Now that I have your attention, let’s get down to business.
Since this blog is looking for more viewership from youngsters, most of the tips are to entice that age group.
Gmail trick # 1: To impress a new acquaintance, you may give them an altered Gmail id which will still work. Let’s say my Gmail id is sri.jshm@gmail.com & I am giving this id to my new friend “Deepika”. I can give my id to her as sri.jshm+deepika@gmail.com. This is sure to take her by surprise & acts as a great conversation starter. What if the acquaintance tries this Gmail address? Relax, you will still get the mail because Gmail does not recognize any characters after ‘+’. This new Gmail address will work just fine. However your trick will be exposed when you reply from your Gmail account. Read More…
Eating Healthy Tip # 12
July 21st, 2009 in Health, Today
RIGHT FOOD FOR YOUR BLOOD TYPE
Some time back when I moved to a different place for some new venture, my parents visited us for few days. During the dinner they were surprised to see too many dishes on the table and they thought it was just a luxurious meal just to pamper them. Then they noticed that my wife and I were having totally different foods. I love meat and yet I did not touch meat and my wife who used to shy away from meat was indulging on meat. I was content with my vegetarian food and brown rice for staple which was again a surprise for them as I always used to avoid rice and instead have chapattis/ wheat bread as part of my weight loss plan (which actually never worked though!!). The reason; we made a total change in our food pattern was to suit our blood groups. Her blood group is “O” and mine is “A”.
Dr. Peter D’ Adamo, a naturopathic Physician from Stanford, who is also author of the book “Eat Right For Your Type” states that “your blood type is the key to your body’s entire immune system”. According to him, one reason is, each blood group has different levels of stomach acids and body enzymes. Hence, one must eat according to their digesting capacity. Secondly, proteins like lectins and glutens which are found in grains like wheat, barley, rye etc. are not compatible with all blood groups. When consumed by wrong blood group, the bodies’ natural defense system (immune system) attacks the gluten/ lectins thinking they are invaders and causes damage to the intestines, kidney, liver etc.
Sleep Secrets
July 19th, 2009 in Health, Lifestyle
ARE YOU GETTING ENOUGH SLEEP ? 
Endless TV channels, Animated Video Games, Internet facilities like surfing, blogging has virtually taken away our sleep from us. To add to this misery, technological advancement never lets us disconnect from our office and we bring home all the stress with us. Ah! that reminds me, my friend & owner of this blog Mr. Srinath Achar sleeps only 3-4 hours a day! His wife is worried about his health but that hasn’t brought any changes in him. With all due respect Mr. Srinath, even we are proud and happy to see the way people responding to your blog but, that should never be the reason to jeopardize your health, quality of life and even length of your life! When we are young, the body tolerates the effects but later stages shows up physically and mentally. So, this article is purely dedicated to you and to all those “night owls” who doesn’t realize the importance of sleep.
Lets looks at 5 benefits of sleep
Great Photography Tips # 2
July 16th, 2009 in Lifestyle, Today
How to click like a Pro:
The much awaited article on photography tips for beginners/ armatures is here !
Today lets look at simple tips for for those who have just started with photography or have a niche but are clueless on getting the professional touch to the pics.
My first tip is – Think that “I am a Photographer” & believe in it. This will help to think out of the box.
Hey ! photography addicts, it is not important to go for a digital SLR to begin with because jaw dropping images can be clicked with a good digital camera or a cyber shot too. The trick is in the hands of the Photographer i.e “YOU”
O.K here I go with my friendly tips :-
1. Try to be different :-
Divide the screen/viewfinder (for SLRs) into 9 part grid. The usual tendency is to have the subject of the photo in the center of the grid. Try keeping the subject in different grids parts of the imaginary grid and you will create wonders. In the two sample of grids given below, spots are the subjects.
The left one is the traditional one, where the subject always stays in the center while clicking. Try to have the subjects in different grids and check out like illustrated in the right grid.
Weight Loss Truths
July 14th, 2009 in Health, Today
Know your body
On February 10th 2009, I weighed 81 Kgs. Well…. for a lot of you it is not that high. But for my height, (I am 5 foot 7 inches tall) it is an excess of about 16 kgs. Don’t misunderstand me. I was not someone who was always over weight.
Balu (85 Kilos)
About a year back I weighed just around 65 kgs. Give or take one or two kilos. What made me put on weight was the fact that I was traveling for a long time and when I returned home I wanted to just feast on the local delicacies that I missed for a long time. And feast I did…!! Without thinking of the after effects such unhealthy food consumption would have on my body. It had made glutton and a sloth out of me.
These habits over a period of time gave me high cholesterol and uric acid problems which actually along with other reasons made me resign my job. Then it actually dawned on me that I needed to take care of my body for my own sake. For that I had to know my body well. I did that and took on to a specific diet and got myself back to exercising REGULARLY…
Today the July 9th 2009 I weigh 65kgs. My cholesterol levels are normal and very healthy. My uric acid levels are under control. Feel lively and agile…!!!!!!!!!!
I am just going to share with you how I reduced my weight….
Eating Healthy Tip # 11
July 12th, 2009 in Health, Today
How to preserve nutrients while cooking.
Most of us eat only thrice a day & work for 24 hrs because our body works even when we are asleep. This means that these three meals should give us all the nutrients required to run, nourish, repair & maintain our body. Dietitians will tell you that 75% of our food should be raw. Both you and I know that this prescription is difficult to follow & even more difficult to enforce on our family members. Today, let’s take a middle path and see how to preserve maximum nutrients while cooking food.
The three enemies of food are heat, air & water. If we have to choose the biggest stealer of nutrients, it has to be water. Any cooking method that uses the least of the above three is preferred.
The first choice that comes to mind is microwave. Even when you Google for best cooking methods, the top articles will point to microwave. However, internet can be a great source of misinformation too. Microwaving food destroys all most all antioxidants & thus does not get my recommendation as a preferred cooking method. Microwave might still be an economical, fuel efficient & a convenient way to reheat food but is not advisable for preparing food. The powerful convenience food lobby is responsible for gagging all negative studies of microwave from being published.
Let’s look at tips to preserve nutrients while cooking.
