Home Watch Services Contract Form

My favorite Apple Watch apps are the following:Email:In fact, one reason I love smartwatches generally is it saves me a lot of time because I can immediately see which emails are coming in on my wrist and therefore need only open email on my phone/laptop when it’s necessary. This is huge for me with my work.Calendar:I really like the Apple S2 calendar interface with 3 viewing options. It’s very user friendly and I can quickly determine what events/meetings I have for the day without opening my calendar.Step tracking:This is more for interest sake than anything, although I’ve noticed occasions where I’ll walk more just because it helps hit my steps goal. While not a big deal per day, it’s very good in the long run.Maps:Apple S2 knocked it out of the park with its map app. It’s a full blown GPS system which I can use to find nearby shopping, restaurants, coffee shops and much more. It’s super easy to use, relatively fast and when needed, a real bonus.FYI, 3 of the 4 apps I like and use the most are on most smartwatches so it’s not unique with exception of the maps app. Apple’s map app is the best I’ve used (although I have yet to try the Garmin fenix 3 and soon-to-be-released fenix 5).

My favorite hotel service experience was the one where the hotel staff actually turned a negative experience into an incredible positive.I was staying 2 nights at the Aloft Downtown Chicago on business. On the first morning, I went to iron a dress for my meetings. The minute I put the iron on the dress, I realized the protective coating on the iron was melting and it immediately put a sticky stain on a beautiful silk Theory dress.I brought the dress to the front desk and told them what happened. They apologized and told me they’d have it cleaned while I was at work that day.When I returned to the hotel, they had indeed had it cleaned but sadly the iron had left burn marks that couldn’t be removed. The staff had checked the dress on return and, realizing this, had found already found an identical replacement. To take it a step further, Theory was no longer selling the dress, but they had found one online in my size and color at a department store. It was not in the Chicago so they had it express delivered to my apartment in New York City - it was waiting for me when I got home from my trip.That dress cost more than my 2 night stay at that hotel.Perhaps the iron WAS the hotel’s fault and they WERE liable, but they went out of their way without so much as a complaint from me and it absolutely made my day. I’ve told so many people this story and recommend that Aloft every time someone tells me they are headed to Chicago. Doesn’t hurt that it is also home to my all-time favorite hotel cafe and restaurant (Beatrix).

I have wrote this answer on Quora before and I'm going to put this here. Though this is not my idea.HOW TO STUDY BASED ON HOW MEMORY WORKSMemory works (to put it simply) in 3 stages: attention, encoding (storing/associating with other info), and retrieval(remembering)To optimize the final stage, you have to optimize the first two stages. This means you have to pay attention to the material, and you have to encode it well. (Which I'll explain below.) Additionally, if you repeat the process, you reinforce it. By retrieving something, you start to pay attention to it again, and then you are able to re-encode it better than before.To optimize encoding, remember GOAT ME.G is generate and test. i.e., quiz yourself, or otherwise come up with the answers on your own without just reading them. Even if you get it wrong, it helps more than if you just read the answer off the bat, because you're forcing yourself to think more about it (why was it wrong?). Test yourself in a way that will resemble what you'll actually have to do during the real test. (e.g., if you have to write essays on the test, instead of just writing and memorizing bullet points, actually write an essay multiple times without cheating, review it, and repeat until you can write it without forgetting any important points.) Other effective ways of testing yourself are teaching the material to someone else and talking about it out loud to yourself.O is organize. This reduces the load on your brain and helps create reminders just by coloring, position, or associations with nearby material. For instance, a time line helps remember that event A came before event B in history, not necessarily because you memorized the dates but because you organized the info so that event A was written earlier and you happen to remember that it was written earlier. The position of the information becomes meaningful. You can organize with outlines, pictures, color coding, related material, etc. My use of "GOAT ME" can be thought of as organization. Another fun example (chunking) is as follows. Which of these seems easier to memorize: "CIAFBIKGBCNNUSABBCUK" or "CIA FBI KGB CNN USA BBC UK"?A is for avoid illusions of learning. There are two kinds of memory: familiarity/recognition and recall. Recall is what you want. That's where you can remember the information on your own, as you might be expected to do on a test. Recognition is where you can't think of it on your own but if you see it you suddenly remember it. That's not good. You won't necessarily see it on your test, so you won't get a blatant reminder of it. Avoid study methods that rely on recognition. Similarly, a major problem with rereading material is "fluency". The more you read it, the easier reading it becomes, and when it feels easier to read, you assume you have learned it. You have not. You've just become more skilled at reading it. Don't bother highlighting your textbook in the first go either. You feel like you're picking out the important parts of the chapter but you can't know what's really important until you've read the whole thing. And then all you're gonna do anyway is go back and reread all the highlights, and as we've established, rereading is useless. If instead you actually organize the highlights and quiz yourself on them, highlighting may be useful. For a similar reason, rewriting information is also not very helpful unless you use it as a method of quizzing.T is take breaks. This is HUGE. If nothing else, walk away with just this tip. Your memory works best if you study in frequent, short sessions rather than one long cram session. You don't give your brain a chance to store the earlier info you studied, so it just slips out of your mind, and you'll have wasted your time studying it. So study for awhile, go do something else for a bit, and come back to it, and repeat. One of my students said she taped information in front of her toilet so whenever she went to pee or something she could study for just a couple minutes. It sounds strange but it's actually a great idea (I'd advise, in line with G and A that you tape questions in front of the toilet and tape answers elsewhere so you can quiz yourself.) Another important part of this is that you need to sleep to keep that info in your head. Even if you take regular breaks, an all nighter will do more harm than good. Your memories are stored more permanently after sleep. This is just how the brain works. You can even try to work naps into your study sessions. It's a break + sleep! [EDIT: I do not know how long breaks SHOULD be, but I believe this varies from person to person. Just try to study over the course of days instead of hours.]M is match learning and testing conditions. This is based off the principle ofencoding specificity[1] , which states that, if you want to optimize memory, then the conditions surrounding encoding (e.g., where you are when you study, how tired you are when you study, etc.) should be the same as those surrounding retrieval (e.g., where you are when you're tested, how tired you are when you're tested, etc.). This is because the conditions themselves serve as reminders. (Have you ever walked into the kitchen for something, forgotten why you were there, and as soon as you return to the other room you suddenly remember why you went to the kitchen?) This includes your environment and your physiology, serving as reminders. Think about noise level, size of room, lighting, types of furniture, mood, intoxication, sitting position, and even the way you work with the material (remember G and A). Studies show that learning while drunk is best remembered while drunk again. Learning after exercising, also best remembered after exercising. The alternative to this is that you should study under MANY different conditions. This way, the information comes easily to you regardless of your surrounding conditions. Otherwise, the information will unfortunately be associated with the specific circumstances you studied under and will be difficult to remember in any other situation. If you want to remember this stuff outside of being tested in class, STUDY UNDER MANY CONDITIONS. Study in a noisy place AND a quiet place, with and without coffee, etc.E is elaborate. Think deeply about the material and make other associations with it. At the most extreme, this can mean truly understanding the concept, why it works, how it relates to other concepts, and how it's applied. But on a simpler level, it can be the following: Does it remind you of something else? Can you make a song out of it? Can you visually imagine it? How does it apply to you or your life? Instead of taking the material at face value, do something with it. The reason this is important is because of reminders. Memory works by having a network of associations. One thing reminds you of another. If you've thought deeply about it, you've probably associated it with something else in memory, which can then serve as a reminder. You can think, "Oh yeah, this is the term that inspired me to draw that silly stick figure to represent it. And I remember what the drawing looked like so now I remember what the term means." Additionally, the quality of the memory will be better if you have elaborated on it. Elaboration allows for a lot of creativity and individuality among studiers. Choose whichever method of elaboration works for you. Maybe you enjoy making up songs, drawing doodles, creating stories, visually imagining it, relating it to yourself, or just pondering about it. If you're studying history, you might try to think about it visually, imagine what people would have said or looked like, watch them in your head doing their historical stuff, or maybe you'd like to draw a quick doodly comic about a particular event, or maybe you wanna think about why this even was signNow, or how it relates to another historical event.If I had to summarize this in fewer points:Keep similar conditions during studying and testing. This includes environmental surroundings, mental and physiological state, the way you think about the material, and so on. But if you want to remember this outside of class, study in a VARIETY of conditions, so that you don't associate the material with any particular condition.Study briefly and frequently, and sleep.But one other good point I would add is this:Take notes BEFORE class if possible, and add to them whenever necessary. Do this by reading the textbook chapters ahead of time (and take notes; refer to your syllabus to find out which chapter is next, if applicable) or see if your teacher posts Powerpoints online ahead of time. This way, you're not just frantically writing notes in class and you'll actually be able to more fully pay attention to what the teacher is saying (remember: attention is the first step of the memory process!). You may think you can pay attention to the professor as you're writing, but you are actually dividing your attention and hurting your memory.Props to Salticido in https://www.reddit.com/r/AskRedd...

Detailed Application Form (DAF) is filled after clearing preliminary stage of Civil Services Exam.I was clueless about how to go around filling it, and had effectively no one to turn to. Thankfully there were tons of pointers and actual DAFs available on Quora. Hope this helps anyone else stumbling their way through the process :)This is two page summary that is usually with the board. The service preferences were asked for after mains result, as an addendum.These major subheadings that you need to fill in can possibly determine your interview in entirety. If you read my interview transcript here, 90% of my questions originated from DAF. I could have anticipated and prepared for most of such questions.These are broadly what is important in DAF:Prizes, Medals, ScholarshipsSports/NCCPositions of LeadershipExtracurricular activities, interests and hobbiesEducational detailsEmployment detailsAll of these holistically come together to define you for the board. It is therefore important to put the best version of yourself you can, on paper. Some pointers:Do not to lie on the DAF. It’s easier to figure out than you think.Prizes, sports and leadership positions are to be filled in for college/university level only. Do not put class 10th chess championship here :)Leave the space blank if you didn’t do anything in that particular field (prizes, sports, leadership). Have a reasonable answer to why you did that. The board might not even care to ask.Important: write things in a way that the board WANTS to question you on them. Give them SOMETHING to go on. Leave out a trail of crumbs and hope they follow it. You will then pre-empt a large part of your interview.Re: interests and hobbies. Do not put open-ended ones. Be specific and prepare them thoroughly. For example, one of the interests I had put in was swimming. I was prepared to answer how many individual gold medals Michael Phelps had won in Olympics or 100m freestyle record held by an Indian.Everyone has something that they like doing, if not studying. Drill down to it and write it in way that attracts some questioning. If I were out of ideas, I might have just put - watching animated movies/tv - and then justified as a form of art with an ode to John Lasseter, if questioned.Do not put too much information (I felt I did, after clearing mains and re-looking at my DAF). Put 3 interests max. Try to have a common thread running through your DAF that can define you as a person (I couldn’t as I have done diverse things, smh).Prepare well for every word you have written on the DAF. Obviously, home state, meaning of name, graduation subjects, work experience, et al HAVE to be prepared thoroughly. The board might or might not ask these fairly obvious questions.Double check, then triple check what you have written. You won’t get to make changes if you make a mistake.Circulate it to your friends (non-CSE aspirants will be even better) and ask if they find anything odd. Do this over 3–4 times before you lock down your DAF.Go to the interview with an open mind. Despite what UPSC says, the board can and will judge you on knowledge, especially if it should be something you should have known based on what you have written in DAF (not on bouncer questions, do not be afraid of them).Finally, the personality test is a conversation, at the end of which you will be judged for what you spoke and how you spoke it. Be confident, be polite, be considerate, and above all, be rational.

Spend less time using your blocked Internet to ask questions on Quora, andTravel back in time to when there was no curfew and you were playing Super Mario Kart, and instead, fill out your exam form.

1) Things to keep in mind while filling your DAF1. DAF is not like your resume, the more achievements the more you will score.Here DAF is only a way to know about you so that they can ask questions.2. Please do not try to fake or write for the sake of writing. If there is no achievement, then don’t create one, no hobby then don’t write fake one .3. Be specific. For you music might be a hobby (listening in free time), but they will expect you to know about music in detail. . You might like cooking but they will ask you anything related to cooking ( about preservatives, masalas, cooking recepies, types of cuisines etc).So better to avoid writing such open ended things. Write specific things which you know you can prepare.a4. Writing something and not able to answer basic questions related to those things sends a very wrong impression. When you are filling DAF ensure you write less but meaningful things you are confident about.2) Service Preference ListImportant : These are my personal views which can be biased. Detail about each service, growth opportunities can be found here http://persmin.gov.in/AIS1/Welco...Brief about Services1. IASGood work, Good Infrastructure and highly respectable. Issue is interference and work pressure. If you want a very peaceful life and tension free life then think about it.2. IFSWork as diplomats. Good services, especially for people who like to travel, pursue intellectual hobbies. You will have alternate terms in foreign country and India. Yes do give a consideration from family perspective and secondly from perspective that if you want paraphernalia you will not get it.3. IPSMostly work is in law and order domain. Lot of power, infra and Paraphernalia. However IPS is a very tough job and not everyone is made for it. It needs lot of patience, sacrifice in personal life and has maximum interference. So choose accordingly.4. IRS IT and CustomsMy personal advice would be to choose IT over customs ( stable cadre, timely promotions , decent infra and good places of postings) However work can appear to be boring due to a desk job restricted to taxation. Customs on the other hand is having more variety.5. IRTS vs IAASIRTS is IAS of railways. Lot of manpower under you. Good infra and facilities. However issue is very hectic life especially if you are in operations side as you have to manage timely running of trains. So don't opt it if you want a peaceful and tension free life.IAAS on the other hand is a totally different service. It audits almost everything in government. Remember it is not just auditing of accounts here but a larger purview. Also stable posting, normal working hours, postings in state capital and Delhi plus lot of foreign visits and yes timely promotions. Plus everyone fears an auditor. However you won't enjoy executive powers and perks like IRTS. So decide what kind of life you want.6. Accounting ServicesIRASBest among accounting services. Total financial power in railways. Good infrastructure, work life balance and good postings. Plus lot of opportunities for deputation due to finance.IDASThis is also a good service. Lot of financial power in defence sector. Good infrastructure, work life balance and good postings. Plus lot of opportunities for deputation due to financeICASThis is more of an accounting service. It has the responsibility to consolidate accounts of all the Dept except few. Posting in Delhi. However housing, car can be an issue.IPTAFSThis service has lost lot of ground due to BSNL and MTNL separating from DoT. So major work is collecting spectrum allocation and licence fee. Infrastructure issues are also there.7. Railway servicesRailway services have good infrastructure and facilities. Housing, car and manpower is not an issue.IRTS - IRAS - IRPSIRPSNot much work, dealing with unions and personnel management .RPFI would suggest to fill it among the bottom 5 services. Its like paramilitary force (Railway Protection Force)8. IPoSGood service. Administration of all post offices. Good infra and facilities. Plus post office's are getting modernized so new work is coming up.9. IDeSThis is a service where you work as CEO of cantonments/defence estates. There is huge infrastructure at your disposal, very good facilities. However growth is stagnant, work is not dynamic. Also you will not always be working in cantonments, HQ postings and other postings are there as well.10. ICLS and ITSBoth are new age services with postings in Capital cities and Delhi. ICLS are regulators of corporate sector. They implement company law and are involved in Registration, M&A, and Liquidation etc. Service seems to have a promising future but as of now it is not much preferred. Reasons include Infrastructure problem, desk work and stagnation as the top level.IT on the other hand deals with trade policy implementation. Officers working closely with traders and exporters. Also working in SEZ, policy work and some International exposure. So work is interesting and promising.Issue with both the services is similar. These are comparatively new service & do not have a huge infrastructure compared to postal, defence and railways. So Car, housing, other facilities might be a little problem. Also at senior level stagnation issue.11. IoFSNot much of an idea but their scope is more or less related to management of ordinance factories. Infra won’t be much of an issue. But usually filled among bottom few services12. Danics & DanipsThese are like State civil services(UT civil service) with a difference that promotions are better compared to most of the states. Many people prefer them at the bottom due to Group B. However in terms of power, work, infra these are better than many group A central services.13. Indian Information ServiceThis is like a PR Job. Most IIS officers work in various media units which are under Ministry of Information and Broadcasting such as DD News, All India Radio, Press Information Bureau etc. Even posted with various Ministries as spokespersons to handle the Ministry's information and communication needs and help in policy formulation. So work wise this is a nice service, plus majorly you stay in Delhi. Infrastructure, car housing is again an issue.14. AFHQ + Pondicherry civil serviceBottom services to be filled.Now how to fill service preference listSee this is a totally personal choice depending on what you want from your life. What matters to you : balanced life ? Quality work ? Power & Infrastructure? Delhi Posting? Decide accordingly. Here are some hints based on common choice1. Most preferred services (IAS – IFS –IPS – IRS IT –IRS Customs – IRTS /IAAS) .2. Less preffered services ( AFHQ , Pondicherry civil services , RPF, IoFS, IPTAFS ,ICLS )3. Middle Category ( IRAS, IDAS, ICAS, IPOS,IDES,ITS,IIS,IRPS)As per meIRTS >IRAS>IRPSIRAS>IDAS>ICASIPOS>IDESIDAS>IDESICAS, IIS, ITS (one is accounts, other is media/PR and one relates to Trade. Usual preference is ICAS – IIS-ITS)4. Adjust DANICS & DANIPS as per your convenience. Some people prefer them after Railway, Defence and Postal while majority put it at the end. Decide as per your own choice.Delhi Posting : ICAS , IISServices where Infrastructure won’t be an issue (Apart from Most preferred services ): IRAS,IRPS,IPOS,IDES,IDAS . I think infra will not be an issue even in IOFS and RPF.3) CADRE PreferenceP.S : Totally personal views. For details you can refer here http://www.iascoachingindelhi.or...UP: great work opportunities and infrastructure. But if you don't want an exciting and challenging life, it should not be high on your list.Bihar: Mostly like UP but more backward.MP, Rajasthan, Haryana: Good cadres. Balanced ones. Usually preferred by people.Punjab: Mixed reviews about the cadre.Jharkhand and Chattisgarh, Odisha: People carry lot of misconceptions. These are nice cadres to work plus good infra. Naxal problem is prevalent only in certain areas. Other issue is these are little backward areas. But I think these are highly underrated cadres .Uttarakhand and Himachal : Decent cadres to work but terrain issues. Not everyone likes hill posting so keep that in mind.Northeast cadres : Mostly people fill them lower in their preference due to factors like distance, culture, hills, personal life etc. Assam-Megahalya is the most preferred choice among north east cadres.J&K : considered a tough posting. Hills + security concerns etc.West Bengal and Kerala : Work wise normal but their political setup is different so many people don't prefer these cadres. So decide accordingly .Andra and Telangana : Good cadres to work. North Indians prefer them most among southern states.Karnataka: fineTamil Nadu : state services is very strong here so at times they hold important posts in the district .Maharashtra : Good cadreGujarat : Mixed reviews.Agmut: mixed reviews. Good thing is you get to stay for long in Delhi.Making choicesI can’t tell you what to opt. But I can share what people preferably fill at lower preference. Again as per my knowledge.- North eastern States- J&K- Kerala and WB ( some people prefer to fill them low)Also sharing some favoured cadres due to different reasons:- Rajasthan, Haryana, MP (Delhi proximity and balanced cadres )- UP & Bihar (Strong power centres for IAS)- AGMUT (Delhi posting, but not for those who like UP , Bihar work culture )- Sorry but I am not able to comment on south Indian cadres due to lack of in depth knowledgeCadres considered bad but are actually not- Chhattisgarh and JharkhandThat is all from my side. Hopefully this post can help you to some extent. All the best