Bhopal, Sept 16: Under its weeklong celebration of Engineers' Day with an exhibition of books on IT and Computer Science, which began here from September 15, the British Library on Sunday organised an interactive session on 'Security in the Virtual World". Pranav Pareek, a budding author shared his ideas and the experiences while writing his first book titled, 'Hacking - an untold story'. Pranav is an Electronics Engineering student in Bhopal.


more info at:http://www.centralchronicle.com/20070917/1709029.htm

I was knocking this idea around my noggin for a long time. I really wanted to learn 'a programming language' in as short a time as possible. I have alot of ideas for cool programs I could write and possibly sell, and I wanted to bring those ideas to fruition, but I had no idea how to get started, I could have learned a language on my time off, but I figured it couldn't hurt to ask my parents for time on my school schedule. They were more than generous. They gave me a month break from normal schoolwork and told me to get learning.

I had absolutely no idea what language to learn, though I knew the basic differences between C++ and Python, application languages, and PHP and Javascript, web-based languages. I did want to go with an application language, but I asked for my dad's advice anyways, and he said that PHP/MySQL programmers are in demand right now, and if I wanted, I would have no problems getting freelance jobs online. (http://www.project4hire.com/coding/freelance-coder.h... more

It's over, it's over, and I'm rejoicing in my newfound freedom! I can play video games, I can watch TV, I can eat sweets, I can be somebody!

I did make one big mistake. I accidentally (yes, it was an accident) shaved three days off of my challenge. On Wednesday I counted up the days I'd already done on the calendar (for the first time), and I was extremely surprised to see that I'd already finished the forty days! I counted again to make sure, and the results were the same! Perhaps, I thought, I had lost track of time during my prolonged bout of the flu. I was wrong. The forty days didn't magically end three days early. I counted the days wrong, and I'm still not sure how.

So, my forty days were really just thirty-seven days, and I'm ashamed of my slip-up, but I think I've done okay anyway.

It's still hard to determine the end results so far, but, in my opinion, I have successfully gained discipline. I did my (almost) absolute best to stay on schedule and g... more

It's been over a month since I started this little challenge, and the results are awesome so far! but I feel that I'm slipping further and further away from the spirit of the challenge. I'm forgetting to do some thing alot more, and I have the mindset of trying to make myself as comfortable as possible until the forty days are over. Still, I'm doing okay, and I think this is only natural.

Also, I might just be thinking this because I have ridiculously high standards, and it HAS become MUCH easier for me to do alot of the things on the list, so I'm not torturing myself as much as I used to, and the point of the forty days was to torture myself... I'm not quite sure, and it's hard to put my exact thoughts into words, so I'll just smoothly segue into the little sub-posts as usual.

No caffeine or sugar
I'm extremely happy and surprised to announce that almost all of my sugar and caffeine cravings are gone! I look at a swiss cake roll, and instead of lusting after it, ... more

For anyone not 'in the know', this blog post is a continuation of posts about my self-imposed '40 days of hell' self improvement challenge. In which I drop all of my bad habits, and pick up numerous new ones in forty days of torture.

The past week or so, I've done an 'OK' job of keeping up my discipline routine, but as I get more and more used to it, I think more and more that my '40 days of hell' are really just '40 days of minor inconvenience'. I've lost my beginning mindset of torturing myself, and I've gained one wherein I try to make myself as comfortable as possible, while still following the technical rules set down by myself. You'll see examples of this in each section.

No caffeine or sugar
This has probably been the easiest part of the challenger, and the one I've stuck most too. I haven't eaten any dessert, candy, soda, or anything else containing sugar. A couple exceptions to this have been fruit juices and Nutri Grain Bars, but I've decided to drop the... more

These past few days have been hard, and not necessarily because they've been filled with schoolwork, on the contrary, there were several days that I didn't do school, but because of several reasons. I've been falling in and out of sickness, I've had to temporarily 'drop' alot of the things on my self-improvement list, and I'm having guilt issues.

On Tuesday, day 14 (the 19th), I didn't do any school at all. I had done school on President's day, a school holiday, and I took Tuesday off to make up for it. I went to the mall and hung out, but I was still recovering from the flu, and I didn't think this sped it up any. In fact, I had a relapse the next day, so I took another full day to recover.

Now, on to the rest of the post:

No caffeine or sugar
This is huge for me now, not particularly because it's hard, but because it's a big issue. I am beset by periods of extreme exhaustion and tiredness throughout the day, and I think this might be contributing to the... more

First thing, there is a reason I didn't blog! Everything was going fine for day nine. Then, the stomach flu hit, and I was infected JUST as Saturday rolled around, and I'm cured, mostly, on the closing of President's Day. I wonder if bad luck is stalking me... This isn't a good omen.

No caffeine or sugar
Believe me, I wasn't even tempted. For Saturday and Sunday I ingested nothing but copious amounts of water, and most of that came back up anyway.

Eight hours of schoolwork
This was impossible! I was puking up my guts, so I didn't even try. I'm sure the universe understands. I did, however, manage to almost a whole day's worth of schoolwork done today (President's Day) because I was in the 'recovery phase' of the flu. I'm not quite sure what motivated me to do it other than the fact of having nothing else to do.

No TV, video games, or excessive computer
During the past few days, this has been the big one. It's hard to keep oneself from committing s... more

I'm extremely angry at my computer now. It deleted my half-done post, so I'm reposting. The past two days have been hard, and they've been filled with little '10 minute breaks' that quickly evolved into little 'half hour breaks'. I don't think I said that I couldn't take breaks, but it's interfereing with my schoolwork, so I'm banning them henceforth. Any breaks longer than ten minutes shalt not exist until schoolwork is finished.

I'm also starting to 'slip up' a little bit more. I forget some of the things I'm supposed to do during the day. When I remember them, I do them right away.

No caffeine or sugar
I've never really been addicted to caffeine, but I'm just realizing now that I've probably been addicted to sugar for years. I crave sweet things, any sweet things. It's been hard not inhaling the donuts and pies and chocolate that my mom tends to fill the house with...just to taunt me. My one offense against this law is eating a delicious cough drop, just for th... more

Let me sum up, it was a pain to start work again after the weekend, but I do feel better now that I've started to get used to the workload. I'll follow the format for the last post and elaborate on each portion of the challengeagain. There are these crazy moments where I actually enjoy schoolwork. GASP, even math!

No caffeine or sugar
This is starting to get just a wee bit easier. The past two days have still been filled with cravings, especially for sugar, but it hasn't been that hard to resist. My main fear is that I'll slip up accidentally.

No TV, video games, or excessive computer
The TV hasn't been hard to give up, but it's hard to find things to do when I'm actually taking a break. I read, but that gets boring after a while. I suppose I should spend my time doing constructive things like sprucing up the look of the blog (Yeah, it IS bland :)) ) and working on my drawing skills. The same issues exist with the lack of video games.

The computer is ... more

Days three and four are otherwise known as the 'lazy days'. I was so looking forward to Saturday and Sunday, because I could drastically cut down my work load on both days! I still had to get up early, etc, but it was still nice not having to do eight hours of school for both. I've decided to format my post a little differently than usual, with a paragraph or two for each portion of the challenge.

No caffeine or sugar
This part is really hard to keep up, because the word 'sugar' is very broad and wide-ranging, so I'm never quite sure what is 'sugar-y' and what is not. I've decided to draw the line right after natural fruit juices, and I'm considering them to be safe to drink. Anything else is 'sugar'. Candy, syrup, cakes, donuts, pastries, pie, unnecessarily sweetened cereals, and anything else of that nature is 'sugar-y'. The list makes my mouth water.

There are times when I couldn't care less about the sugar situation, and then there are times when I would die... more