2011: A Year in Books

Before I get into the reading challenges I’m taking up this year I thought I’d take a look at the books I read last year.

So I did, and found some interesting stats and patterns from my reading last year. Here’s some of them –

Top Rated Books
Crooked House by Agatha Christie
Mockingjay by Suzanne Collins
Lessons in French by Laura Kinsale
Slave to Sensation by Nalini Singh
The Secret Dreamworld of a Shopaholic by Sophie Kinsella
Shopaholic Takes Manhattan by Sophie Kinsella
Shopaholic Ties the Knot by Sophie Kinsella
Shopaholic and Sister by Sophie Kinsella
The Far Pavilions by M.M. Kaye


My Favourites for 2011

Books –
Crooked House by Agatha Christie
Black Sheep by Georgette Heyer
The Help by Kathryn Stockett
Fall of Giants by Ken Follett
Lessons in French by Laura Kinsale
The Far Pavilions by M.M. Kaye
The Host by Stephenie Meyer

Series –
The Belgariad by David Eddings
Bridgertons Series by Julia Quinn
Percy Jackson and the Olympians by Rick Riordan
Kane Chronicles by Rick Riordan
Shopaholic Series by Sophie Kinsella
The Hunger Games Series by Suzanne Collins

Most Read Authors
Nora Roberts – 9
Rick Riordan - 7
Sophie Kinsella - 6
David Eddings – 4
Eoin Colfer – 4

Most Read Month
February – 11
April – 9
May - 8
August – 8
March – 7
July – 6

Its interesting that the shortest month in the year has the most number of books read!

Most Read Genres
Romance – 29
YA – 29
Fantasy – 26
Paranormal - 13
Historical – 10
Chick-lit – 6

Looking back my choice of books says so much about the year. When I started out I wanted to read more Romance books. Not just the sappy romance but all the new genres I seemed to be seeing – Fantasy, Paranormal, Historical, Regency, etc. I think I accomplished that. I now know the difference between a fantasy romance and a paranormal one.

I found some exceptional books by chance. Don’t miss out on The Help and The Host. And not to forget my all time favourite that I now have parked permanently on my Kindle – The Far Pavillions.

I got the Kindle on June and since then I’ve read 17 books on it. I think that’s a good number. The Kindle has definitely increase the number of books I’m reading by making it easier to carry and access them.

What have you noticed in your reading in 2011? What were your favourite books? What would you recommend I should not miss reading in 2012?

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My 2011 GoodReads Challenge

My favourite book site is GoodReads for many reasons – here’s one.

I took up the Goodreads Challenge last year and aimed to read 50 books in the year. And yippee… I exceeded it. I read 66 books in the year and I’m trilled to have read so many books. 66 books less to read in the world :D

2011 was one the years in which I have read a lot of books and GoodReads has been a huge contributor. The reading challenge was motivating and the groups and members have been such fun to interact with. Growing up only a few of my friends were voracious readers but on GoodReads I’ve met so many more who made reading so much more fun. If you’re a reader you should be on GoodReads.

Here’s some interesting stats Goodreads has about the books I read last year.



Most of the books I read had been published after 1995.
7 books had be published before 1984.
And one was published in 1932!!!



I read 26,148 pages in the year!



I gave 10 books 5 stars!!
And 32 books got 4 stars.
Fall of Giants by Ken Follett was the longest book I read with 985 pages.
And there was only one book I did not finish!

How many books did you read in 2011? Are you on GoodReads?
Send me a friend request – Lets Connect! :)

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Project Facebook Timeline: Why & How To Get Timeline for your Facebook Profile

A friend moved his Facebook profile to the new Timeline and I liked what I saw and thought why not? So, what’s so great about Timeline and why should you switch.

Timeline offers you a way to navigate though someone’s life. You can go back to when they were born, went to college, dated, married, had kids, etc. It’s a great way to skim though the highlights of friend’s life.

Imagine you found a friend from college 10 years after passing out. It’s a thrill to find old friends on Facebook and I’m always on the lookout but when I do find them it seems like there has been such a gap in who they are now and whom I knew. Timeline’s great for that. I can scroll back in time and see the highlights of what my friend has been up to in the last 10 years; I like that idea.

Like a lot of Facebook ideas, Timeline will take sometime to get used to but after a while you’d be wondering how you lived without it. Its one of those things I like and don’t like about Facebook. Mark seems to know what I need better than I do – that’s a bit rattling.

You should get Timeline if you’d like friends to be able to see the highlights of you life. It’s a nice way to tell the story of your life and share those high points.
So how do you get Timeline and what do you need to do to set it up?

Timeline is still a choice but soon it will be rolled out for everyone whether you want it or not. I recommend getting it early, that way you have more time to play with it and set it up.

When you choose to use Timeline, note that there is no going back. You cannot disable it, so think before you hit the Get Timeline button.

To get Timeline for your Facebook account click here.

Aside: If you want to remember what your Facebook profile looked like before Timeline, remember to take screenshots before clicking the button. Here’s how my Profile looked before Timeline. :)



Now that you’ve enabled Timeline, you need to know that it is visible only to you for the next 7 days. Facebook gives you 7 days to set up Timeline the way you want it to look before its published and visible to friends and everyone else (based on your Privacy Settings).

Here’s are things to do in the next 7 days.

1. Add a Cover Image to your profile. This is different from your profile picture and is a great way to say something about yourself. This image can be changed and edited over time as your life story progresses.



My husband and 3 dogs are a big part of my life and say so much about me.

2. Update your profile information. Add in work details, school details, etc. It makes finding you easier (assuming you want to be found :D)

3. Now the most important job to be done; also the one that takes the most amount of time. Go though your Timeline and remove the posts and status messages you don’t want shown in the Timeline. You don’t need to delete them, just hide them.

At the top-right-hand corner of each post you will find a little settings button when you mouse-over the post. Click the button and choose your option.

You can either scroll down the Timeline to go through posts or go to the Activity Log from your Profile page (the button shows just below your Cover image) to do your house keeping.

4. If you’ve cleared up your Timeline before the 7-day deadline, you can go ahead and publish it to make it public or just wait for it to be published after 7 days.

5. Last but not the least – remember that the house keeping you did isn’t a one-time activity. It’s an ongoing job. You should come back from time to time and clear up posts you don’t want seen.

Here’s what my Timeline looks like.



Have you got Timeline for your Facebook Profile? What do you think about it? Like it?

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New Year Resolutions: A Guide to 2012

First up - Happy New Year! Hope this year exceeds all your expectations :-)

For me this year started on a great note. After a very long time (or maybe never) I slept before midnight on 31st and woke up early morning on the 1st. It's my first new year without a hangover in many many years :-D

The 1st was a packed day with family, friends, movies and planning - a good day and good start to the year. There are a lot of things I'd like to do this year and that's where resolutions come in.

New Year Resolutions, I've made them every year and broken them too. Like I've been saying for years resolutions are meant to be broken. But are they really? What if they weren't hard and fast and were just a guideline for the year.

I'd like to plan what I would like to do in the year and at the end look back to see if it worked out to plan.

So here's a few things I plan to do.

Learn to use the Mac well
My Christmas, New Year and a lot of other days combined present was a Mac Book Air. I've been a Linux and Windows user until now and the Mac is an all-new ball game. This year I want to spend time learning to use the Mac effectively and productively. I hope to learn tips and tricks to using the Mac and hope to be comfortable with the system by the end of the year.

Learn a new craft
I love to learn new things and haven’t learned something new in a while. This year a want to learn to do something new. I haven’t made up my mind yet on what it will be but I intend to learn something new. Maybe woodwork, gardening, or a new paper craft. I know a few things like knitting, crochet, quilling, glass painting, etc. Do you have any recommendations?

Blog regularly
I intend to make this blog more regular. There is so much I’d like to talk about and share. This year I hope to do that, I want to review the books I read, the movies I watch, share new things I have learned and of course voice my opinions and rants.

Mission Cuckoo
I have three dogs and they are a handful. This year I hope to spend time with Cuckoo (my first). Give her a lot of exercise both in mind and body. Spend time understanding her and teaching her new tricks. My two small boys need a lot of exercise and love. They don’t like playing so much so the challenge is to see if I can find a game they like to play.

Read 50 books and watch 50 movies
2011 saw me read 65 books. I hadn’t planned to read so many and I’m thrilled that I did. This years target is to read at least 50 books through the year and share them my views about them on the blog. I also want to catch up on movies (I have a huge backlog) and watch at least 50 that I really enjoy.

G Reader subscriptions
I followed a lot of blogs in 2011, so many that I’ve got overwhelmed by the sheer number of them I have to read. This year I’d like to start again from starch. Find blogs that I love to read and redo my Google Reader subscriptions.

Calendars
Calendars have helped me remember and get work done but these again over time have multiplied and just got very clogged. This year I intend to spend time sorting them out and making them productive and useful.

Get more tech savvy
I have a lot of technology around me and use it too but my knowledge is quite limited. This year I will spend time learning to use all electronic devices in my life more effectively. Like this post – I started writing it on the Android phone and now I’m finishing it on the Mac :)

There’s a lot more I’d like to do and I’d like to see what the year looks like in review in 2013. This but just a start…

What are your resolutions for the year? Do you have a to-do list too?

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How to Comment With Your Personal Profile on Your Facebook Page

There are times when you want to comment on your Facebook page as yourself but usually as an admin the comment will show up with the page photo and name. This isn’t great when you want to start or create a conversation. (Of course this also depends on the settings you have selected for the page.) Here’s an example of two ways to comment on a page.

However you can swap between settings to make comments on a page both as a page and as yourself. Here’s a quick tutorial on how to comment with your personal profile on a Facebook page.

1. Click on the 'Edit Page' option (top right corner).


2. Click on the 'Your Settings' option (left column).


3. Remove the check mark from the 'Posting Preferences' option.


4. Click on the 'Save Changes' option.


5. Return to the page by clicking on 'View Page'.

After you have made your comment as yourself, follow the above steps again, only this time add a check mark to the 'Posting Preferences' option and Save Changes.

You can now create a conversation on your page - something like this :)

Special Note: Thank you to Tarunjeet of Nucleus India for asking me about this at the HEN India Social Media Strategy session. Hope you find this helpful Tarunjeet :)

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My Pick of the Week: Kolkata :)

I've been to Calcutta a few years ago and I loved the city even though mustard oil doesn't suit my tummy :D Che's first ever wedding video collage reminded me so much of the place. This one's for you Calcutta :)

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Why Small Businesses and Entrepreneurs Must Use Social Media

A couple of days back I received some Marketing Charts from HubSpot. Here are some stats I found very useful for small businesses and entrepreneurs to know. Keep in mind that most of these numbers are from U.S. web users but with the internet aren’t you selling/offering services to the world? :) (and India is headed here in the future so better start early!)

• Social media site users spend an average of 5.4 hours a month engaged in networking sites.


• 53.5 billion minutes per month spent on Facebook


• The average Facebook user spent seven hours, 46 minutes on the site monthly


• 734.2 million unique visitors to Facebook.com globally in June 2011, an increase of 33% from the previous year. Twitter.com comes second reaching 144.4 million visitors (up 56%). LinkedIn.com is fourth with more than 84 million visitors


• Facebook, has an average monthly audience of more than 140 million vs its nearest competitor Blogger with 50 million. That means Facebook reaches 70% of active internet users.


• From 9% of US market share of visits, Facebook has now reached about 65%. YouTube has gone from 9% to 20% and is steadily climbing. Twitter and LinkedIn seem to be staying constant at 2 to 3%.


• Globally Europe leads in the average hours spent on social networking sites by 38.1%. N. America has 21.4% and Asia-Pacific has 16.5%.


• According to the 2011 American Customer Satisfaction Index Facebook scores the lowest satisfaction score. Google on the other-hand was one of the highest scoring companies.


• In just one week, Google+ went from ranking as 54th most visited site to 8th place.


• Women make up majority of visitors to social networks, and people aged between 18-34 have the highest concentration of visitors among age groups.


• Mobile users accessing social networks on the phone in the older generation (+55) have doubled since last year.


• 41% of both video and search ad viewers have taken some type of action from an, while only 28% of social media ad viewers were inspired to act.


• 63% of Facebook users what something in return when ‘Like’ing a page.


• 80% of social network users prefer to connect to brands via Facebook.


• 6 in 10 online shoppers say user-generated customer product reviews have a good impact on their buying behavior


• An average of 29%, that's 3 of 10 consumers seek buying advice.

That’s a lot of numbers but it’s clear that for now Facebook cannot be ignored. Customers are talking and connecting on Facebook and companies need to be there engaging with them or they will be missing out! YouTube and videos are a great way to engage with your audience and its steadily growing in usage. Not to be left out is Google+. I’d like to see how it fares a year from now; instinct says it’s just gonna keep climbing the usage charts – so get your Google+ Corporate Page Now!

You can download the entire report at Hubspot.

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