Cynergise, the company I co-founded with Sol Shah, of effortless Expression, last week launched a inspirational-quotes-by-email service called Living Jain.

As Sol says:

” Each morning when you open your email, there is so much content that
battles for a share of your mind. People trying to sell you things,
friends forwarding you jokes, tonnes of spam hitting your inbox, and
the occasional important work-related email!

Decide NOW to let the first words you read each morning inspire you
to launch your day from a place of peace. Embrace life and take the
steady path towards universal love, appreciation of your immediate
environment, compassion towards all living beings, and the balance to
attend to anything that comes your way.

Sign up right away at www.LivingJain.com to start receiving your daily inspirational emails.

Where Our Quotes Come From…

The world is full of wisdom to guide us on the Jain path to freedom. We’re taking inspirational quotes that we happen to find, or quotes that are sent to us, from a variety of faiths, philosophies, and beliefs of the world, and selecting one to present to you each morning.

Walk along the Jain path to freedom with us. Work with us to get freedom from the restraint of karma, and take the right steps towards the state of Moksha - abundant, infinite, eternal bliss! Sign up right away at www.LivingJain.com to start receiving your daily inspirational emails.”

Kavit Haria, the UK’s #1 music coach interviewed me about marketing on the web for musicians.

Check it out at
http://kavit.wordpress.com/2007/03/26/chandesh-mik-parekh-interview/

The Internet can be a murky place especially where online business is concerned. Although online transactions are on the increase there is still a lack of confidence amongst consumers in using their credit cards online.

IBM has been working on a web-privacy tool in an attempt to raise consumer confidence. The tool, named ‘Identity Mixer’, encrypts a user’s details, like credit card information, during a transaction so that the middle-man, the online store, does not retain any information hackers would find interesting. The online store passes along the encrypted information to the bank for verification and payment. Once the transaction is complete the encrypted information, known as a ‘credential’, is destroyed. The next time the same consumer buys online a new credential is created.

A great tool, IBM has donated it to the Higgins Project, an open source initiative supported by IBM & Novell.

Last week China conducted a missile test where it used a MRBM (medium range ballistic missile) to destroy an old satellite. Of course, this got the West’s military machine all excited as it saw a new battlefield to play in.
Not a new concept, the US has already conducted similar tests in the 80’s, under the leadership of Ronald Reagan, in a program called Star Wars.

Back in the 80’s, when I was just a kid, that name and the concept behind it was exciting to me - after all, that was the era of Star Wars, the best sci-fi movie ever!
Now, as a grown up, I realize the madness the world is about to witness. Let’s not play about - the Western economies rely heavily on the arms trade with governments investing billions (that you or I will never know about) in new technology.

As can be expected, there are various lobby groups pushing the American government to respond by upping their budget in space-based military weapons research. I guess it’s not enough that billions are wasted in terrestrial wars (never mind the lives lost) when they could be used more effectively in health and education the world over.

Thankfully, there are level-headed people calling for dialog with China to diffuse the ‘threat’ rather than return to the concept of MAD (Mutually Assured Destruction).

A new ’spider’ is crawling the Internet looking for tax cheats. A ’spider’ is a small program that trawls through the internet, traveling from site to site using hyperlinks, gathering information about the pages/sites it visits.

Usually, the ’spiders’ you’re likely to see in your web-server logs are those used by search engines like Google (Googlebot) and Yahoo, however this new one is being used by the tax services of 5 different countries namely Austria, Britain, Canada, Denmark and the Netherlands with Sweden set to join later this year.

This is primarily to combat tax evasion by online businesses where it’s difficult to keep track of sales figures. So, all you eBayers out there not declaring your revenue, watch out!

Written by S:

As you probably know, Chandesh and I had a short break recently to Sharm El Sheikh, Egypt. With only 4 months left to the due date we decided now would be a good a time as any to take a trip to the Red Sea. We stayed at the Iberotel Palace, a wonderful hotel with it’s own private beach. Although this sounds like a given in Sharm a lot of the hotels are located on cliffs and access to the beach is through a long steep staircase. The hotel itself was extremely well kept, with beautiful gardens and clean, spacious rooms. We went for the B&B option, which we feel was the best option as it allowed us to try out the various restaurants in the area. We ate at the main hotel restaurant one night but were not completely satisfied with the variety on offer and it cost us far more than a meal out in the town. So we’d recommend B&B if you’re thinking of going.

Iberotel Palace is located a stone’s throw away from Old Sharm, which is also know as the Old Market Read the rest of this entry »

I received an email today with some information on cancer and how it thrives in the body. It’s from someone who works at the Consultative Group on International Agricultural Research (CGIAR). It’s a copy/paste job from my email so it doesn’t look very pretty, but it’s the info that counts!

Every person has cancer cells in their body. These cancer cells do not
>show up in the standard tests until they have multiplied to a few billion.

>When doctors tell cancer patients that there are no more cancer cells in
>their bodies after treatment, it just means the tests are unable to detect
>the cancer cells because they have not reached the detectable size.
>
>Cancer cells occur between 6 to more than 10 times in a person’s

lifetime Read the rest of this entry »

Last night Russell Peters rocked the house with laughter at his show in London.

The Hammersmith Apollo was packed out with 3,500 people coming to see him.

Lots of new material and an opening act by Junior Simpson, Read the rest of this entry »

I received an interesting email this morning. It’s about signing a petition to stop a London night club using Hindu iconography and symbolism as part of their decor. To quote from the online petition Read the rest of this entry »

If you’re a superstitious person this day can’t be great for you. After all, Friday the 13th is considered to be the worst possible day - some don’t go to work, don’t even leave their houses and certainly don’t hold any important functions on this day.

Ever considered why this day is considered ‘unlucky’?

Friday, the day itself, is considered unlucky in a number of different Read the rest of this entry »