Some Useful Facts About Year and Calendar System

1 .  The Gregorian calendar, also known as the Western calendar, or Christian calendar, is the internationally accepted civil calander

2. The Gregorian calendar was proposed by Aloysius Lilius, a physician from Naples, and adopted by Pope Gregory XIII in accordance with the instructions from the Council of Trent (1545-1563) to correct for errors in the older Julian calendar

3. The Julian and later the Gregorian calendars were designed to reflect the motion of the earth around the sun.

4 . The Gregorian calendar has 97 leap years every 400 years

5 . Years before the birth of Christ are in English traditionally identified using the abbreviation BC

6 . Years after the birth of Christ are traditionally identified using the Latin abbreviation AD (“Anno Domini”, that is, “In the Year of the Lord”).

7. Origin   of each  month  in a Gregorian calendar January- Named after the god Janus February- Named after Februa, the purification festival. March- Named after the god Mars. April- It may come from the Latin word aperire (“to open”) May- Named after the goddess Maia or the god Maius. June- Named after the goddess Juno July- Named after Julius Caesar in 44 BC- Prior to that time its name wasQuintilis from the word quintus, fifth. August- Named after emperor Augustus in 8 BC. Prior to that time the name was Sextilis from the word sextus, sixth. September-  September. From the word septem means , seven October- From the word octo, means eight. November- From the word novem, means nine. December- From the word decem, means ten.

8. The International Organization for Standardi­zation, ISO, has published a standard on how to write dates, times, and time intervals. This standard is known as ISO 8601.

9. There are three basic formats: Calendar date, ordinal date, and week date A calendar date should be written as a 4-digit year number, followed by a 2-digit month number, followed by a 2-digit day number. Eg: 2012-01-01 An ordinal date should be written as a 4-digit year number, followed by a 3-digit number indicating the number of the day within the year 31st day of  December 2011  may be rewritten  as 2011-365

10. A week date should be written as a 4-digit year number, followed by a W, followed by a 2-digit 1953W317 or 1953-W31-7 2 August was the Sunday of week 31 of 1953.

11. Gregorian calendar, Method  400 years -------à  146,097 days------------à years of 365 or 366 days- counts days as the basic unit of time (400 years, 303 common years have 365 days and 97 leap years have 366 days) ,

12. From the 12th century until 1751 the legal year in England began on 25 March

13. England, Ireland and the British colonies changed the start of the year to 1 January in 1752

14. The calendar is strictly a solar calendar based on a 365-day common year divided into 12 months of irregular lengths

15.  The Gregorian calendar was first adopted in Italy, Poland, Portugal and Spain in 1582

16.   Following are  other calendars Mayan Calendars ,  The Julian  Calendar, The Roman  Calendar , The Chinese Calendar

17.   In the Julian calendar the relationship between the days of the week and the dates of the year is repeated in cycles of 28 years

18.   The Gregorian calendar this is still true for periods that do not cross years that are divisible by 100 but not by 400

19 In solar calendars such as the Gregorian, only days and years have physical significance: days are defined by the rotation of the Earth, and years by its orbit about the Sun. Months, decoupled from the phases of the Moon

20   In the Gregorian calendar, the tropical year is approximated as 365 97/400 days = 365.2425 days

Collected by  S Jayachandran  -  SA , Divisional office , Mavelikara-690101 Wish you  a happy  new  Year  to  All  readers .For Npfe mavelikara division

Shortcut Keys in Windows XP

Shortcut keyboard key in windows xp     CTRL+C - (Copy)

CTRL+X (Cut)

CTRL+V (Paste)

CTRL+Z (Undo)

DELETE (Delete by sending to recycle bin)

SHIFT+DELETE (Delete permanently without sending the files or folders to the Recycle Bin)

Press CTRL and drag an item with mouse to create a copy.

Press CTRL+shift and drag an item with mouse to create a shortcut.

F2 key (Rename)

CTRL+SHIFT with arrow keys (Highlight a block of text)

SHIFT with the arrow keys (Select more than one files or folders in a window or on the desktop, or       select text in a document)

CTRL+A (Select all)

F3 (Search )

ALT+ENTER (View the properties of the selected file or folder)

ALT+F4 (Close the active file or folder)

ALT+SPACEBAR (Open the shortcut menu for the active window)

ALT+TAB (Switch between the open items)     ALT+ESC (Cycle through files or folders in the order that they had been opened in      the task bar)

F4 (Shows the Address bar list in My Computer or Windows Explorer)

SHIFT+F10 (Display the 'right click tab' of selected item)

CTRL+ESC (Display the Start menu)

Windows key(Display the Start menu)

F10 (Activate the menu bar in the active program)

RIGHT ARROW (Open the next menu to the right, or open a submenu)

LEFT ARROW (Open the next menu to the left, or close a submenu)

F5 (Update the active window)

BACKSPACE (View the folder back in my computer or windows explorer)

ESC (Cancel )

SHIFT when you insert a CD-ROM into the CD-ROM drive (Prevent auto play)

CTRL+SHIFT+ESC (Open Task Manager)

CTRL+ALT+DELETE(Open Task Manager)

Change your computer window  into a black screen Steps 1.       Hold Shift, Alt and Print Screen keys together in key board 2    Click on OK when a message appears (this enables high contrast on Windows system). Now your screen should change to black. 3     To revert back screen to previous state press Shift, Alt and Print Screen again. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Collected by  S Jayachandran, SA , Divisional Office , Mavelikara -690101

Eighteen Interesting Facts

1   The average person who stops smoking requires one hour less sleep a night.

2   The reason honey is so easy to digest is that it’s already been digested by a bee

3    Every time you sneeze some of your brain cells die

4   The verb “cleave” is the only English word with two synonyms which Are antonyms of each other: adhere and separate.

5   It cost 7 million dollars to build the Titanic and 200 million to make a film about it.

6   Human hair and fingernails continue to grow after death

7   The only part of the body that has no blood supply is the cornea in the eye. It takes in oxygen directly from the air

8   The only 2 animals that can see behind itself without turning its head are the rabbit and the parrot.

9   The owl is the only bird to drop its upper eyelid to wink. All other birds raise their lower eyelids

10    The national fruit of India is the mango. The national bird is the peacock

11 I ndia experiences six seasons: summer, autumn, winter, spring, summer monsoon, and winter monsoon

12   Each year, about 500,000 detectable earthquakes occur in the world

13    There are 318,979,564,000 possible combinations of the first four moves in Chess

14    There are about 540,000 words in the English language and growing

15    Elephants are the only mammals that can't jump

16   Your thumb is the same length as your nose

17  Neil Armstrong stepped on the moon with his left foot first.

18   The shortest English word that contains the letters A, B, C, D, E, and F is "feedback

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How to rotate your computer screen

You can rotate  screen of  your computer by 90 or 180 or 360 angle through a simple action .         Steps 1.        Press Ctrl, Alt and then any of the four arrow keys . ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------                                Down arrow key rotate by 180 degree, invert screen.                                Left arrow key rotate by 90 degree.                                 Right arrow key rotate by 270 degree                                 Up arrow key make it normal again.

Fifteen Greatest Invention

1.       World First Digital Camera (1975): Created by Kodak's engineer Steve Sasson In December 1975, Kodak engineer Steve Sasson invented something that would, decades later, revolutionize photography: the world’s first digital camera. It was the size of a toaster, and captured black and white images at a resolution of 100×100 - or 0.01 megapixels in today’s marketing terminology. The images were stored on cassette tape, taking 23 seconds to write. The camera uses an ADC from Motorola, a bog-standard (for the 1970s) lens from a Kodak movie camera, and a CCD chip from Fairchild Semiconductor - the same technology that digital cameras still use today. To playback the images, a special computer and tape reader setup (pictured below) was built, outputting the grainy images on a standard TV. It took a further 23 seconds to read each image from tape

2. World's First Motel (1925): Motel Inn Motel Inn in San Luis Obispo, California, is the world’s first motel. It was built in 1925 by LA architect Arthur Heineman, who coined the term motel meaning "motor hotel." Motel Inn was originally called the Milestone Mo-Tel. Back then, one night stay was $1.25. Heineman couldn’t afford the trademark registration fee, so his competitors were able to use the word "motel." The motel is still in operation today.

3. World's First Album Cover (1938): Smash Song Hits by Rodgers and Hart Before Alex Steinweiss, then a 23-year-old designer, invented album covers in 1938 for Columbia Records, albums were sold in plain brown wrappers. The album "Smash Song Hits by Rodgers and Hart" was the very first album cover in the world.

4. World's First Novel (1007): Tale of Genji More than a thousend years ago, on 1007, a Japanese court lady put the finishing touches on what is considered the world's first novel. Spanning 75 years, more than 350 characters, and brimming with romantic poems, the "Tale of Genji" tells the story of an emperor's son, his quest for love, and the many women he meets along the way. It is attributed to the Japanese noblewoman Murasaki Shikibu

5. World's First Web Server and Web Site (1990): a NeXT computer at CERN Info.cern.ch was the address of the world's first-ever web site and web server, running on a NeXT computer at CERN. The first web page address was http://info. cern.ch/hypertex t/WWW/TheProject .html, made by Tim Berners-Lee.

6. World's First Motorcycle (1885): Daimler's "riding car" The First Motorcycle was designed and built by the German inventors Gottlieb Daimler and Wilhelm Maybach in Bad Cannstatt (Stuttgart) in 1885. It was essentially a motorised bicycle, although the inventors called their invention the Reitwagen ("riding car"). It was also the first petroleum-powered vehicle.

7. World's First X-Ray (1895): Röntgen's wife hand In 1895 Wilhelm Conrad Röntgen, professor of physics the University of Wurburg in Germany, was doing experiments with electrical discharges in evacuated glass tubes. Late in 1895 Wilhelm Röntgen was alone at night doing his experiments, this time in the dark and noticed a glow was produced on the wall, which he knew was not caused by fluorescence or visible light. He named these new, unidentified rays 'X' or if you prefer; X-rays. After several months of playing with his discovery he noticed that objects place in the path of the rays cast shadows and created images on the wall. Soon after he used a photographic plate and had his wife, Frau Röntgen, place her hand in the path of the X-rays, creating the world's first X-ray picture. In 1901 Wilhelm Röntgen was awarded the very first Nobel Prize in Physics for this discovery.

8. World's First Computer Mouse (1964): by Douglas Engelbart The world's first computer mouse was made by Douglas Engelbart in 1964, it consisted of two gear-wheels positioned perpendicular to each other -- allowing movement on one axis. Ergonomic shape, great button placement -- and it's made of wood.

9. World's First Skyscraper (1885): Home Insurance Building in Chicago Considered to be the first skyscraper in the world due to the building's unique architecture and unique weight bearing frame, the Home Insurance Building was built in 1885 in Chicago, Illinois and demolished in 1931 to make way for the Field Building (now the LaSalle National Bank Building). It was the first building to use structural steel in its frame, but the majority of its structure was composed of cast and wrought iron. It was the first tall building to be supported, both inside and outside, by a fireproof metal frame. It had 10 stories and rose to a height of 138 feet (42 m) high.

10. World's First Concept Car (1938): Buick Y-Job Designed in 1938 by the famous General Motors designer Harley Earl, the Buick Y-Job is considered by most to be the first concept car. The car had power-operated hidden headlamps, "gunsight" hood ornament, wraparound bumpers, flush door handles, and prefigured styling cues used by Buick until the 1950s.

11. World's First MP3 Player (1998): MPMan 32MB Released in 1998, the Eiger Labs MPMan was the world's first MP3 player, boasting 32MB of internal memory -- expandable to 64MB. Available in F10 or F20 models, the latter boasting SmartMedia compatibility, this player set you back a mere $69 + shipping. It measures a slim 91 x 70 x 16.5 mm

12. World's First Crossword (1913): Arthur Wynne's Invention In 1913, Arthur Wynne had the job of devising the weekly puzzle page for Fun, the eight-page comic section of the New York World, a major newspaper of the time. When he devised what he called a Word-cross for the Christmas edition, published on 21 December, he could have no idea that he would be starting a worldwide craze.

13. World's First Microprocessor (1971): Intel 4004 In November, 1971, a company called Intel publicly introduced the world's first single chip microprocessor, the Intel 4004 (U.S. Patent #3,821,715), invented by Intel engineers Federico Faggin, Ted Hoff, and Stan Mazor. After the invention of integrated circuits revolutionized computer design, the only place to go was down -- in size that is. The Intel 4004 chip took the integrated circuit down one step further by placing all the parts that made a computer think (i.e. central processing unit, memory, input and output controls) on one small chip. Programming intelligence into inanimate objects had now become possible.

14. World's First Magazine (1731): The Gentleman's Magazine The Gentleman's Magazine, first published in 1731, in London, is considered to have been the first magazine. Edward Cave, who edited The Gentleman's Magazine under the pen name "Sylvanus Urban", was the first to use the term "magazine", on the analogy of a military storehouse of varied materiel, originally derived from the Arabic makazin "storehouses" . It ceased publication in September, 1907.

15. World's First Photograph (1826): "View from the Window at Le Gras" Centuries of advances in chemistry and optics, including the invention of the camera obscura, set the stage for the world’s first photograph. In 1826, French scientist Joseph Nicéphore Niépce, took that photograph, titled View from the Window at Le Gras at his family’s country home. Niépce produced his photo—a view of a courtyard and outbuildings seen from the house’s upstairs window—by exposing a bitumen-coated plate in a camera  obscura  for several hours on his windowsill

Collected by  S Jayachandran , SA, Divisional Office , Mavelikara -690101

Some interesting facts about technology

Bill Gates house was designed using a Macintosh computer.

By the year 2012 there will be approximately 17 billion devices connected to the Internet.

Domain names are being registered at a rate of more than one million names every month.

E-mail has been around longer than the World Wide Web.

The average 21 year old has spent 5,000 hours playing video games,has exchanged 250,000 e-mails, instant and text messages and has spent 10,000 hours on the mobile phone.

Another name for a Microsoft Windows tutorial is 'Crash Course'!

One of every 8 married couples in the US last year met online.

The average computer user blinks 7 times a minute, less than half the normal rate of 20.

The first banner advertising was used in 1994.

The first computer mouse was invented by Doug Engelbart in around 1964 and was made of wood.

The world's first computer, called the Z1, was invented by Konrad Zuse in 1936. His next invention, the Z2 was finished in 1939 and was the first fully functioning electro-mechanical computer

There are approximately 1,319,872,109 people on the Internet.

While it took the radio 38 years, and the television a short 13 years, it took the World Wide Web only 4 years to reach 50 million users.

20.70% of virus writers work under contract for organized crime syndicates

The worst MS-DOS virus ever, Michelangelo (1991) attacked the boot sector of your hard drive and any floppy drive inserted into the computer, which caused the virus to spread rapidly.

A virus can not appear on your computer all by iself. You have to get it by sharing infected files or diskettes, or by downloading infected files from the Internet.

Country with the highest percentage of net users is Sweden (75%).

The first popular web browser was called Mosaic and was released in 1993.

There are approximately 1.06 billion instant messaging accounts worldwide.

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The History and starting Point of Postal Services in various Countries

Historical references to postal systems in Egypt date from about 2000 BC. The Persian Empire under Cyrus the Great (6th century BC) used a system of mounted relay messengers. The riders would stop at regularly placed posthouses to get a fresh horse or to pass on their packets of dispatches to another messenger for the remainder of the distance. On the other side of the world, in China, a posthouse service had been started early in the Chou Dynasty (ruled 1122-221 BC). It was used mostly to convey official documents. The far-reaching system consisted of relays of couriers who changed horses at relay posts 9 miles (14.5 kilometers) apart. The system was enlarged under the Han Empire (202 BC-AD 220), when the Chinese came in contact with the Romans and their postal system. The Roman Empire built the most advanced postal delivery system known until that time except for the service in China. Its area was the whole Mediterranean world. Reliable communication from Rome to governors and military officials in faraway provinces was a necessity. Rome met the need by developing the cursus publicusliterally, "public course" a state-sponsored series of post roads with relay stations at intervals. The speed with which government dispatches and other mail could be carried about the empire was not equaled again in Europe until the 19th century. Using the relay stations, riders could cover about 170 miles (270 kilometers) in a 24-hour period.

The first postal service in America arose in February  1692

The Indian Postal Services were established  In 1688

Official Canadian postal services began in 1775

The Royal Mail service ( British Postal Service) was first made available to the public on 31st July 1635

History of Australia Post was started  on 1809

The Argentina Postal service was established  in 1854

The Modern postal system of the people ‘s  Republic of China was established   in 1949

The old government-run German postal service, established in 1947, was known as the Deutsche Bundespost

The first use of postal system in China was under the chou  dynasty

Hisoka Maejima  the  Father of  Postal service of Japan  brought idea of Japan Postal service on  1870 and first postal service in Japan was established  on April 20 1871

The postal service in Germany  was established  on  16 June  1801

The Universal Postal  Union  was created   in 1874

The first telegraph station in Hungarian territory was opened in December 1847.

English educator and tax reformer Rowland Hill formulated proposals on reforming the postal system between 1835 and 1837

The use of privately made cards, which was permitted in 1894, opened the way to marketing the picture postcard.

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The Points to be remember related with changes in ruling in RD accounts

Main points related with  SB order for deposit in RD accounts are furnished below 

(1) In case of RD accounts opened between 1^st Day and 15^th Day of a calendar month, the each subsequent deposit in the account shall be made up to 15^th day of the next month and in case of RD accounts opened between 16^th day and last working day of the calendar month, the each subsequent deposit in the account shall be made up to the end of the next calendar month.

Procedure:-This change should be made applicable from 1.01.2012 to all old as well as new accounts. In the month of January 2012, as and when any depositor/MPKBY agent attends the post office for subsequent deposit, a rubber stamp should be fixed on the cover and first page of the Passbook informing the last date up to which the depositor can deposit his monthly installment in the next month. Following is the sample of stamps:-

Sample-1                                   

LAST DATE OF DEPOSIT IS

15^th DAY OF NEXT MONTH

    Sample-2

LAST DATE OF DEPOSIT IS LAST WORKING DAY OF NEXT MONTH

Sample-1 is to be fixed on the passbooks of the accounts opened between 1^st and 15^th Day of a month and Sample-2 is to be fixed on the passbooks of the accounts opened between 16^th day and the last day of a month. Till the software is amended, penalty should be charged as per old procedure i.e if the amount is not deposited up to the last working day of the month.

(2) In case maturity value of a discontinued RD account is retained after the date of maturity, the depositor shall be entitled to a simple interest at the rate applicable from time to time to post office savings account on the amount deposited from the date of maturity till date of payment.

Procedure:- At present, interest at the rate of 9.25% was being paid on such accounts. This amendment will be made applicable from 1.01.2012 to all old as well as new accounts. This calculation is to be made manually till the software is modified. Difference of interest calculated by the software and and interest calculated manually should be noted in the Register to be maintained in manuscript for future reference.

(3) In case of premature closure of RD accounts, simple interest at the rate applicable to post office savings account from time to time shall be payable.

Procedure:- Presently, interest is being calculated by the software by compounding the rate of savings account every year. This shall be applicable to the existing RD accounts also. This calculation shall be made manually from 1.01.2012 till the software is amended. Difference of interest calculated by the software and interest calculated manually should be noted in the Register to be maintained in manuscript for future reference.

(4) In case maturity value of RD Account is retained after 10 years, Post Maturity Interest shall be payable at simple rate of interest applicable from time to time to savings account from date of maturity to date of payment.

Procedure:- This is a new provision which does not exist in the software. This calculation shall be made manually from 1.01.2011 till the software is amended. This will be applicable for existing RD accounts also. Entry of such accounts in which PMI is paid should be made in a register to be maintained in manuscript for PMI for future reference.

(1)     Maximum limit of 2 years fixed for admissibility of Post Maturity Interest has been removed.

Procedure:- Now PMI should be paid from the date of maturity to date of payment at the simple interest rate applicable to savings account from time to time. The rate of interest shall be equal to the rate applicable from the date of maturity to the date of payment at different times. For example, if an account was matured on 26.8.2010 and the depositor attends the post office on 15.12.2011, he will be paid PMI at the rate 3.5% from 26.8.2010 to 30.11.2011 and at the rate 4% from 1.12.2011 to 14.12.2011. This shall be applicable to the existing as well as new investments in all schemes. Calculations’ are to be made manually till software is amended and recorded in the Register to be maintained in manuscript for future reference. Following formula should be adopted while calculating the Post Maturity Interest for the number of days:-

To calculate simple interest for number of days:-  MV×R÷100×N÷365

MV= Maturity Value

R= Rate of interest

N=Number of days the account stands

Note:- While calculating number of days, the day on which account matures shall be counted in number of days but the day on which payment is being taken shall not be counted.

To  view the  order   and get  more details    please click  

                                SB Order