All these past years I have read in many blogs and articles that freelancers and web workers choose various coffee shops as their makeshift offices. Starbucks is kind of a rage among designers in the US for this reason. I have been thinking how would it feel to work in such a bustling and busy environment. Ok writing a blog post or creating a document is one thing but creating layouts/logos etc. in such environments. Is it possible?

Couple of weeks back I had an opportunity to find out. I had a meeting scheduled with a friend of mine to talk about his personal website in a Coffee shop. I of course had my laptop and all my stuff with me but when I reached there my friend called up and said he would be delayed by an hour or so. So here I was, with almost an hour at my disposal with nothing to do. I was not carrying my data card with me and the coffee shop had no Wi-Fi, so I was without internet (To think of now it was a good I had no internet).  

So I though why not catch up on some of my backlog of work. So I ordered a Café latte and popped open my laptop. Since a past few days I had been stuck on this layout which I was unable to focus and complete. So I started working on that layout. The first thing I did was to crank up the volume on the iPod and I was able to block out all the noise around me. With a regular intake of caffeine and music I was able to finish the layout before my friend came (although he took around 90 minutes to reach there).

I was really surprised by the outcome of this experiment. I was in new place with lot of people and noise around me but still I was able to focus on what I had to complete (and without the internet).  I guess I would try to do this more often

Somewhere down the long path of the career of an IT professional, is a milestone which is called an all nighter. Almost every other IT professional has spent some nights in front of his computer or laptop to catch up to meet impossible or difficult deadlines. I have had a share of All Nighters myself and I have somehow started to get through them without much difficulty. Tonight is again one of the nights when I have to be up the whole night to meet some deadlines.

So I thought it would be somewhat a different experience to document the current all nighter. First of all here some tips which have been helping me in pulling through the nights.

Motivate yourself - if your brains know its important for you then the body will follow. If you are not mentally prepared to not sleep, believe not even the best energy drink can help you do it. So make up your mind that you have to do it no matter what.

Plan and Focus - Make a plan for the whole night and follow it to the very detail. It is easy to get distracted if you do not have a plan it place. Avoid distractions like chatting, Net surfing and visiting your favorite social networking websites. You will get nothing done if you get entangled in all these distractions.

Preparation - A little preparation will help you a lot. Generally a shower before sitting down and a light dinner helps me stay awake longer without any help of caffeine.

No Power naps - This has never worked for me. These power naps turn into monsters that eat away all the time you wanted for work. The next think you find out that you have slept through the whole night with the task at hand unfinished.

Eat and Drink - Generally on the night that I have to stay awake, I eat a light dinner which keeps me awake. But that also results in hunger pangs during the night. So the best thing is to have a light snack, like munching on a apple or couple of cookies to cope with this. Also do not keep the food items close to you, as it always a good idea to get up, walk to the kitchen to get them. This way you also get the much needed respite from the back breaking work posture.

Also keep ice cold water with you. This tip was given to me by pixel master Shane Mielke (A.k.a. Pixelranger) and has help me all these years. If you feel sleepy drink a couple of glasses of ice cold water and watch yourself shiver off the sleep.

Music and Entertainment- I just cannot work without music and this surely helps through the nights . My iPod touch (generously gifted by my kid bro) is always with me to dish out all the fast paced trance numbers to keep me pumped up. Also avoid slow songs, they would work as a lullaby and make you miss your sleep. So its either rock or trance for me.

Sometimes I hook up my favorite movie on my second machine which somehow helps me cope up with the pressure and helps me loosen up a bit.

If all else fails its time to get some caffiene in your system - I am a caffiene junkie so I need small excuses to get it in my system. In times of crisis a cup of coffee or a Red Bull can help me stay awake for hours. There is a downside to this though, too much of it and I turn into a energised muti tasker who tries to do a lot of things at once, which of course takes away my focus and i waste lot of time. So 1 generally pace myself in such a way that I get the right amount of caffiene in me.

So this is how I pull off an all nighter, hope this helps somebody out there who has to catch up with his backlog of work in a single night ;).

I would ofcourse update this post throughout the night to report in my progress. Keep watching this space.

UPDATE I @ 3:15 AM
Status : Feeling fine till now. No signs of sleep.
Listening to : Linkin Park / Minutes to Midnight
Caffeine counter : 1 Red bull consumed
Tasks status : 80% of task one. two tasks queued.

UPDATE II @ 5:00 AM
Status : Feeling a little sleepy but still able to focus on the task at hand
Listening to : Paul Van Dyk / Politics of Dance (Disc II)
Caffeine counter : 1 Red bull consumed + 1 coffee
Tasks status : Task 1 completed. Task 2 40% Done. Task 3 queued.

UPDATE III @ 6:30 AM
Status : All Nighter Success !!! Surprisingly now I don’t feel sleepy at all but ill try to catch some ZZZ’s
Listening to : Above & Beyond / Anjunabeats (Volume III)
Caffeine counter : 1 Red bull consumed + 1 coffee
Tasks status : Task 1 completed. Task 2 completed. Task 3 abandoned.

Ok ! its still a big maybe. Since the past couple of years i have been thinking of getting some ink on my skin and have been saving umpteen designs from the net. I have dragons, hearts, pinups, skulls and of course Japanese Kanji. I have also been tinkering of getting my own design on my skin but have not been bal eto get something good.

Couple of months back i was in training and while in one of the lectures I pencilled some tattoos (of course not at the expense of the lecture). So here is plan of action.

• Convert the most liked pencil art into vector format.
• Improve/ modify the vector creations
• Think, Think and Rethink
• Decide which design to get inked
• Think, Think, Think and Think a little more
• Get it Done !

So here is the start of the process. I have finally taken pictures and captured the pencil art. Here they are. BTW this is my first time so you are free to laugh at the designs.

Now all i have to do is get the designs I like into vector format and then IM GETTING A TATTOO !

BTW did i add this before its still a big maybe.

I love music, it is omni present around me. The first thing I do when I enter my car is to get the music system started. When I work to create a design, I have my headphones on at high volume. Music has also been a source of inspiration for lot of my work.

I listen to all Genres of music. It all depends on my mood. My CD collection ranges from Paul van Dyk to Linkin park an di have lended my ear to almost every Genre. Recently I had the opportunity to meet the brains behind the DNB mega site DogsOnAcid. I had heard a little bit of DNB but have never been able to get latest stuff on it. Through DOA I was able to listen to the latest mixes produced y different DJ’s. So if you want to listen to the latest DNB tunes head on to DOA to get a dose.

These days i am of course listening to a lot of Pendulum. Thank you Sacha !!

I would like to wish everybody a very Happy New Year and i hope it ushers in a world of love, peace & prosperity.

2008 has arrived with new dreams and aspirations for everybody and January is the time of the year when a lot of people make resolutions. I have actually never had a list of my own but i think this year I would like to try. I do have some things which I have been procrastinating about since a long time.

So here are my resolutions for the year 2008.

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Imagine spending 3 hours daily in your car and covering almost 70 kms. daily to commute to work and back. Now add traffic snarls almost after every 5 kms. which convert your normal 45 mins drive to a 90 mins. drive. What do you get? a really stressed out person behind the wheel.

This is a common scenario for anyone who lives in New Delhi/NCR region and drives to work. I am one of those unlucky people who do not have the comfort of an office cab picking and dropping me but now with time have now tuned myself to be stress free during my daily drive. Below are 10 tips which I want share with you to help reduce stress while driving.

Music
#1 tip on my list. Invest in a decent MP3 player and a good set of speakers. Burn your favorite MP3’s onto couple of CD’s and you are set for the road. Sing along with your favorite songs or rock your head to the latest trance track and it will surely help you to take your mind off the traffic.
Recommendation: If you are a Trance/Techno fan visit the official audio blog of Eric Jordan. He updates hi blog with a new track every month.

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Today i have finally upgraded to version 3.0 of my life. I have heard its big step and sometimes people get jittery. I also had a same feeling but then I think it got drowned when i got back to the daily grind of my life. But yes one does look back when you turn 30 (or upgrade to 3.0). I basically look back to remember (as much as i can) about these three decades. So heres a review of the two previous versions I have been through

Version 1.0

The first version in the series was energetic as it could, was all eye candy and did nothing ground breaking. I think this was the time when i acted like a sponge. I was a avid reader of Comic Books and my dad really didn’t my stock exhaust. I guess this was the time when i started sketching the various characters which i saw in the books. My major time pass was to do this, as then I really didn’t had any worries.

Pros - Drew inspiration from almost everything around me, energetic, willing to learn (other things than studies), active and of course damn creative :D.

Cons - Spent too much time with myself, Networking skills almost non - existing,

Version 2.0

The road to version 2.0 was really buggy. I had too many upgrades and Bad sectors throughout my hard drive. The first 6 years of these ten years didn’t have any focus whatsoever, I was doing things which I never had the desire for. At that time in India, creative stuff was frowned upon and of course you didn’t have any secure future. So I followed the done to death goat path to prepare myself for almost every industry. Tried my hand in Hotel management, CA and other crazy industry streams. I also looked into avenues leading to Advertising but the options were almost non-existent. You had to Fine arts etc. Unfortunately by that time I had almost given up on studies, I was an above average student but somehow I had my fill of studies I guess. Thank god one of my peer connections hooked me up to a multimedia link. Thankfully with time in the end version 2.0 became a robust and well oiled creative machine.

Pros - Still able to draw inspiration from a lot of stuff around me, still energetic, willing to learn from mistakes, networking skills improving

Cons - Didnt have focus, lost too much time to find it, angry and frustrated

Road to version 3

I have been able to make a mark with my work (amongst my clients and peers that is), Been able to partially reach my goal of being a good designer. I am now stable in the professional and personal life and i hope i continue to do that in the coming times, but I still am far from the target i had set for myself and have to do a lot work to achieve that.

Pros - started to think from the head a lot, became proficient in what did.

Cons - Still have not achieved the target i had set for, hav eto look for inspiration around me.

So here was a shabbily written short essay stating the brief history of my life of 30 years. What does the future hold ? Who Knows ?