10 steps to cultivate a habit of positive thinking

The power of positive thinking is immense, the value of a positive mental attitude is priceless. It is a value everyone must have. It is the prelude to success, within and without.

To cultivate a habit of positive thinking with chains of less than perfect habits and thinking that we have picked up in the course of our lives, is an art that has to be acquired. Here are 10 tips for positive thinking and practical steps that enable positive thinking to be indelibly part of your life, that will leave living richer fuller and happier.

1. Learn. Read. Listen. Daily. To inspiring thoughts, audios, movies, battles conquered, adventures encountered, obstacles overcome. There are people who have distilled blood, sweat and tears of wisdom into books, tapes and courses. It is said that you become what you think about all day. Learn from and model. Associate yourself with people who think positively.


2. Optimism. Psychologist Martin Seligman mentions that those who are optimistic do not think like pessimists who tend to see problems as permanent, pervasive and personal. Rather than saying " I'm doomed", "Everything's finished." "I'm no good" Optimists see a way out, they confine the problem and do not take it personally. They do not indulge in catastrophic thinking. The glass if half full. There will be better days. Belief and hope is half the battle won.

3. Gratitude – whatever happens, there are worse situations. if you are breathing, be glad to be alive. If you have lost all possessions, be glad you have something to wear. There is always something to be grateful for. Gratitude unlocks beauty, calms and expands the mind. Gratitude gives joy. And has benefits beyond what you can see- physiological, mental, psychological, spiritual, and even social. Be grateful. And blessed.

4. Taking responsibility instead of blame. You will be able to take locus and control of your life again. The storms may rage around you. but you are responsible for getting out of it. You will swim out no matter what . you don't wait for the rain to stop before you move. You don't wait for the other person to react before you make the first move.

5. Not allowing negative emotions to overwhelm you. You may have been beaten sore. But there is still breath in you enough to fight another day. The world may have been unfair, but you are only going to cry in your closet for only a little while. It may be a blessings in disguise. Every experience learnt will lead more wisdom in the next, Every adversity has the seed of a greater benefit. You will be surprised sometimes things that seem adversities turn out to be opportunities in disguise



6. Persistence. Push. Beyond The Dip. Seth Godin explains that most people do not achieve what they want is because they give up before they cross The Dip. What is The Dip? It is the 10th job interview where they never even fall you back. It is the 100th time you fall on your butt while learning to snowboard. It is any rough patch you have to get through before achieving your big goal. Success is only a step away. Or maybe a few more steps. Never give up. Don't quit. Ask. And you will receive.


7. Believe- even if everything tells you otherwise. In your gut feeling. That there can be miracles. That things can be changed. Expectancy. Belief in yourself. In better days. In hope. In goodness. Trust in God to take you through.


8. Seek divine guidance. When you are overwhelmed. When bad things happen to good people like yourself. When you are stuck and find no way out. Or even before the start of an ordinary day. Og Mandino, in his book The Greatest Salesman in the World mentions: " I will pray.. in this manner: Oh Creator of all things, help me….for this day I go out into the world naked and alone, and without your hand to guide me, I will wander far from the path that leads to success and happiness. .… teach me how to hunt with words and prosper with love… Discipline me in the habit of trying and trying again.. bathe me in good habits that the bad ones may drown; yet grant me compassion for weaknesses in other. Suffer me to know that all things shall pass; yet help me count my blessings of today. Let me become all you planned for me when my seed was planted and selected by you to sprout in the vineyard of the world…"



8. Keep the big picture in mind. Distractions, pettiness, they can irritate you for the moment. Never lose sight of what you are here for and keep your eyes on your vision and goal. You can revise them now and again if you find it is not really. And if you really When you steer a ship, you look at a far point, not the waves in front of you. Search within. Follow your compass and stick to it.

9.Accepting your lot when you have to, while sticking to your dreams of better things to come. Adapting while being content in the midst of situations. Remember the serenity prayer- teach me to accept things that cannot be changed and change what you can, and knowing how to distinguish the two. There is a time for everything, and perhaps it is the time to wait and be patient. A time to reflect, change. Humility. Emptiness. Mourning. There is a time and place for this. It is refreshing time, an important time. Treasure it.


10. Bringing joy and hope in the lives of others. Adding value. Touching lives. After all, dreams for yourself, and self glory end in hollow emptiness at the end. The most meaningful moments are those when lives are touched, legacy left, personal battles won. We exist for each other. Meaningful moments often involve people- touching people, touching lives.


In short, positive thinking is more than looking at the bright side.

It is an entire lifestyle of thinking rightly, which will leave you more fulfilled, happy and satisfied than ever before.

Go for it!

Jump Start SilverLight 2

Today I was trying to get started with SilverLight. The necessary Installable is

1. VS 2008 with SP1

2. Silverlight Tools for Visual Studio 2008 SP1 . This can be installed from http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyId=c22d6a7b-546f-4407-8ef6-d60c8ee221ed&displaylang=en

3. SilverLight Toolkit . This can downloaded from http://silverlight.codeplex.com/Release/ProjectReleases.aspx?ReleaseId=20430

Additionally you can install

Microsoft Expression Blend 2 . This can be downloaded from http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyId=5FF08106-B9F4-43CD-ABAD-4CC9D9C208D7&displaylang=en

Deep Zoom Composer. This can be downloaded from http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyID=457B17B7-52BF-4BDA-87A3-FA8A4673F8BF&displaylang=en

Cheers!!!

MSBuild Vs Nant - equivalent tasks List

equivalent tasks
List

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MSBuild	NAnt	Description	Notes
AL	al	Wraps al.exe, the assembly linker for the .NET Framework.
AspNetCompiler
AssignCulture
Copy	copy	Copies a file or set of files to a new file or directory.
CreateItem		Populates item lists with the items passed in. This allows items to be copied from one list to another.
CreateProperty	property	Sets a property in the current project.
Csc	csc	Compiles C# programs.
Delete	delete	Deletes a file, fileset or directory.
Error	fail	Exits the current build by throwing a BuildException, optionally printing additional information.
Exec	exec	Executes a system command.
FindUnderPath
GenerateApplicationManifest		Generates an assembly manifest for a Win32 or ClickOnce application from project items and properties.
GenerateDeploymentManifest		Generates a ClickOnce deploy manifest from project items and properties.
GenerateBootstrapper
GetAssemblyIdentity
GetFrameworkPath
GetFrameworkSdkPath
GetLinkedFilesFromResX
LC
MakeDir	mkdir	Creates a directory and any non-existent parent directory if necessary.
Message	echo	Writes a message to the build log.
MSBuild		Build projects in an application using MSBuild. Note that this task can process not only project files but also Visual Studio solution files.
ReadLinesFromFile
RegisterAssembly		Reads the metadata within an assembly and add the necessary entries to the registry, which allows COM clients to create .NET Framework classes transparently.
RemoveDir		Removes directories from disk and all the files and directories they contain.
RemoveDuplicates
ResGen	resgen	Converts files from one resource format to another.
ResolveAssemblyReference
ResolveComReferences
ResolveKeySource
ResolveNativeReference
SGen
SignFile	delay-sign	Signs delay-signed .NET Assemblies, or re-signs existing assemblies.
Touch	touch	Touches a file or set of files
UnregisterAssembly		Performs the reverse of the RegisterAssembly task.
Vbc	vbc	Compiles Visual Basic.NET programs.
Vjc	vjc	Compiles Visual J# programs using vjc, Microsoft's J# compiler.	You must install the J# redist before you get this task. It is contained inside Microsoft.Build.VisualJSharp.dll
VCBuild		Runs vcbuild.exe, which builds Visual Studio Visual C++ projects.
Warning
WriteLinesToFile
	asminfo	Generates an AssemblyInfo file using the attributes given.
	attrib	Changes the file attributes of a file or set of files.
	available	Checks if a resource is available at runtime.
MSBuild	call	Call a target in the current project.
	cl	Compiles C/C++ programs using cl.exe, Microsoft's C/C++ compiler.
	cvs-checkout	Checks out a CVS module to the required directory.
	cvs-update	Updates a CVS module in a local working directory.
	description	An empty task that allows a build file to contain a description.
	foreach	Loops over a set of items.
	get	Gets a particular file from a URL source.
	if	Checks the conditional attributes and executes the children if true.
	ifnot	The opposite of the if task.
	include	Includes an external build file.	In MSBuild use Import
	jsc	Compiles JScript.NET programs.
	lib	Run lib.exe, Microsoft's Library Manager.
	license	Generates a .licence file from a .licx file.
	link	Links files using link.exe, Microsoft's Incremental Linker.
	loadtasks	Loads tasks form a given assembly or all assemblies in a given directory or fileset.	In MSBuild use UsingTask
	mail	Sends an SMTP message.
	mc	Compiles messages using mc.exe, Microsoft's Win32 message compiler.
	midl	This tasks allows you to run MIDL.exe.
	move ||Moves a file or set of files to a new file or directory.
	nant	Runs NAnt on a supplied build file. This can be used to build subprojects.
	nantschema	Creates an XSD File for all available tasks.
	ndoc	Runs NDoc to create documentation.
	nunit	Runs tests using the NUnit V1.0 framework.
	nunit2	Runs tests using the NUnit V2.1 framework.
	rc	Compiles resources using rc.exe, Microsoft's Win32 resource compiler.
	readregistry	Reads a value or set of values from the Windows Registry into one or more NAnt properties.
	regex	Sets project properties based on the evaluatuion of a regular expression.
	regsvcs	Installs or removes .NET Services.
	script	Executes the code contained within the task.
	servicecontroller	Allows a Windows service to be controlled.
	sleep	A task for sleeping a specified period of time
	solution	Compiles VS.NET solutions (or sets of projects)	Use MSBuild to compile VS2005 solutions
	style	Processes a document via XSLT.
	sysinfo	Sets properties with system information.	MSBuild exposes environment variables by default
	tlbexp	Exports a .NET assembly to a type library that can be used from unmanaged code
	tlbimp	Imports a type library to a .NET assembly (wraps Microsoft's tlbimp.exe)
	tstamp	Sets properties with the current date and time.
	unzip	Extracts files from a zip file.
	xmlpeek	Extracts text from an XML file at the location specified by an XPath expression.
	xmlpoke	Replaces text in an XML file at the location specified by an XPath expression.
	zip	Creates a zip file from a specified fileset.

Differences between NAnt एंड MSBuild Script

1. NAnt has functions. MSBuild really has no such thing. MSBuild is infinately extensible via Tasks, but there aren't that many tasks as compared with NAnt functions. I think this is a sign of maturity in NAnt. Since MSBuild's programmers had NAnt to look at, we do have to wonder why they excluded some things but we can guess that dev timelines ran out.

2. NAnt has a few fileset types with specialized attributes. All file references in MSBuild are contained in ItemGroup blocks. However, with ItemMetadata providing infinite extensibility to each Item in an ItemGroup, the specialized attributes are not required.

3. In the main, the NAnt schema tends to be attribute centric, while MSbuild favors elements with text content. The NAnt schema also favors lowercase names, while MSBuild favors an initial capital.

4. NAnt allows fileset groups to be included inside a target. MSBuild Targets may only reference ItemGroups specified as children of the Project element.

5. MSBuild seems to be missing the notion of a basedir. This basedir attribute is very helpful in NAnt. MSBuild only has the project root as basedir, and can use PATH variables. Again, I think the maturity of NAnt shows in this oversite. Obviously, you can define a Property with an appropriate base directory Uri and append it to every path in an ItemGroup. You could probably also make use of ItemMetaData if you were writing a custom Task.

6. Property references in NAnt are denoted by ${}, while MSBuild uses $(). What is this, C# versus VB? You also cannot use '.' characters in your property names in MSBuild, though it is legal in NAnt.

7. MSBuild references Items in an ItemGroup with the syntax @(ItemName). NAnt references filesets by id utilizing a refid attribute without decoration.

8. There are 72 built-in tasks in NAnt. There are 35 in MSBuild, however most of the common tasks related to .net use are in there. They both include an Exec(exec) task for calling out to the system. They both allow you to write your own to extend the functionality of the build. So, if it can be done in code, you can run it from either one.

9. Both allow conditions to be placed on nearly every element to determine if the build should include the enclosing item. However, NAnt uses both an 'if' and 'unless' approach, where MSBuild just simply has 'Condition' that supports '!' (not); 'And'; and 'Or'. Here the MSBuild approach seems more streamlined.

10. MSBuild Projects can have multiple default targets, and also has an InitialTarget which can be run before other targets for prepatory steps. Utilizing 'depends'/'DependsOnTargets' attributes you could craft your own workflow in either program. Similar to the Default, you can have multiple targets specified in the DependsOnTargets attribute which is an interesting enahancement over NAnt.

11. A subtle difference in the CSC Task is that in NAnt, the warnings to ignore are elements which each have a condition. In MSBuild, warnings are a single attribute which contains a semi-colon delimeted list. In NAnt, you could conditionally ignore some warnings on some builds based on criteria. No such thing would be possible in MSBuild.