how to

How to build a gaming PC for 2020, part two: choosing a mouse, keyboard and monitor

You’ve bought the perfect PC – now you need to complete your setup to get the best from your games. Here are our suggestions

When you’re buying a new gaming PC from scratch, the machine itself is only part of the picture. To get the very best out of the most demanding modern games, you’ll need the rest of your setup to be working hard too – especially if you ever want to win at Call of Duty: Warzone.

Here then, are our picks for the best gaming monitors, keyboards and mice. Helping me to make the selection are Alan Dexter, senior hardware editor at PC Gamer, Chris Wilson, design director at Cardboard Sword, Al Bickham, communications manager at Creative Assembly, and Nic Claassen, head of product business at Acer UK.

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Trading Nation: Financials and energy lead the S&P, here's how to play the move

Craig Johnson of Piper Sandler and Quint Tatro of Joule Financial discuss the financial sector with Seema Mody.




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Unemployment benefits taxed as ordinary income—How to avoid the tax hit

Even though you may have seen a drop in income this year due to Covid-19, you could face a tax bill next year if you're receiving unemployment benefits. CNBC's Sharon Epperson reports on how to avoid the hit.




how to

How to Understand Aliens.

Last night, having just watched a documentary on the Connecticut River flood of 1936, my wife and I discovered that our basement had flooded — apparently the sump pump had failed. So this morning we called the Barstows (it’s great to have contractors you can rely on in emergencies) and they sent a crew over […]




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How To Tuesday – Halloween Party Toothpicks

I’m having a Halloween crafternoon this weekend, and I wanted to make some toothpicks for spearing finger food that would be easy to make, but still have a great spooky vibe. Even if you are not having a Halloween party this year I think these picks would be great for … Continue reading




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How To Tuesday – Spooky Halloween Hand treat bags

Today’s DIY is not really a set of instructions (because it’s super easy) but more of a few helpful hints! I found the idea for these amazing hand treat bags at The Queen’s Card Castle. I decided to make the bags for my son’s class party treat bags, they were … Continue reading




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How To Become A Centaur

Nicky Case (of Explorable Explanations and Parable of the Polygons internet fame) has a fantastic essay which picks up on the theme of my last Cyberselves post – technology as companion, not competitor. In How To Become A Centaur Case gives blitz history of AI, and of its lesser known cousin IA – Intelligence Augmentation. … Continue reading "How To Become A Centaur"









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how to tell clean

Today on Toothpaste For Dinner: how to tell clean


WE NEED YOUR HELP: Please chip in $1 or more on Patreon so I can continue to update Toothpaste For Dinner, Married To The Sea & The Worst Things For Sale online and updating daily. I can not do this without your support on Patreon.




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how to keep avocados from turning brown

Today on Toothpaste For Dinner: how to keep avocados from turning brown


WE NEED YOUR HELP: Please chip in $1 or more on Patreon so I can continue to update Toothpaste For Dinner, Married To The Sea & The Worst Things For Sale online and updating daily. I can not do this without your support on Patreon.









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how to diet

Today on Toothpaste For Dinner: how to diet


WE NEED YOUR HELP: Please chip in $1 or more on Patreon so I can continue to update Toothpaste For Dinner, Married To The Sea & The Worst Things For Sale online and updating daily. I can not do this without your support on Patreon.




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how to wake up

Today on Toothpaste For Dinner: how to wake up


















how to

How To Be Friends

I struggle with this stuff!




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How To Party

Party responsibly




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How to support the best British nail brands | Sali Hughes

We can lend a shaky hand to the struggling salon sector as we file and paint during lockdown

Sales of nail polish are up 24% since lockdown began, mostly because no one can visit salons for the long-lasting UV-cured lacquers that dominate the modern industry but also, I’m convinced, because we suddenly have way more time and inclination to bother.

It may be one minuscule piece of good fortune in this crisis, but we can also lend a shaky hand to the struggling salon sector as we file and paint.

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Life in lockdown: how to keep a city alive – video

Six weeks into Britain's Covid-19 crisis, Anywhere but Westminster asks how a city keeps going when everything has ground to a halt. The team virtually visits Plymouth, population 250,000, to see how the services that are vital to a city and its inhabitants are scrabbling to stay afloat. The fishing industry is in meltdown, temporary housing is oversubscribed and nurses facilitate goodbyes over Zoom. Most of all, people are asking: what on earth happens after this?



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How to understand Covid-19 antibody testing in 10 steps

Inaccuracies in the testing, such as false negatives and false positives, are potentially harmful

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How to Prevent Your Pet From Developing Separation Anxiety Post Quarantine

During this crazy time many of us have been confined to our homes and for some that means to be home 24/7 with our best friends. Our pets. However, because of this, many pets have become accustomed to having us home with them. 

But then the question is... will they be okay once bans are lifted and people are able to slowly go back to their daily routines?

Will they be able to handle their best friends not being by their side 24/7?

It is expected that many dogs (even cats!) can suffer from separation anxiety, and pet experts are saying that it's a good idea to get your pet ready and used to post-quarantine separation now, to minimize their stress later. 

Here are some useful tips for both dog and cat owners.

More videos on Cheezburger's Youtube Channel 





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How to pet a bison




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How to sniff out the good coronavirus studies from the bad

With social media, newspapers and politicians all espousing unverified covid-19 findings, use these seven signs to tell if a study should be treated with caution




how to

Friday Polynews Roundup — When this isolation ends, good long-distance sex, how to open a relationship, and more.




how to

You Touch Public Surfaces All Day. Here's How to Stay Safe From Coronavirus.

From the moment COVID-19 started spreading in the U.S., you probably heard recommendations to wash your hands after contact with what are called high-touch surfaces: elevator buttons, public fauc...





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How to Make Your React Apps 15x Faster

Without any modifications, React is really fast as-is. There are, however, a few things that you can do to improve performance. While working at HelloSign, I discovered some quick fixes that made our apps incredibly snappy. With these simple changes, I was able to reduce render time from over 3000 milliseconds to less than 200 milliseconds.

Without any modifications, React is really fast as-is. There are, however, a few things that you can do to improve performance. While working at HelloSign, I discovered some quick fixes that made our apps incredibly snappy. With these simple changes, I was able to reduce render time from over 3000 milliseconds to less than 200 milliseconds.

Editor’s Note:

Check out our upcoming React University Workshops. Our next workshop, React 2016, will be held on April 23 at Microsoft Reactor in San Francisco and will offer a deep dive into creating modern Single-Page Applications (SPA) using React, Redux, React Router, Immutable.js, and Webpack. Also, if you’re interested in learning the basics about what it takes to be a Data Visualization Engineer, check out React and D3.

Introduction

HelloSign is a cloud-based electronic signature tool founded in 2010. As you can imagine, HelloSign is a very JavaScript-heavy codebase. A lot of client-side behavior is necessary to create a rich signing experience. Lately, we’ve moved much of our codebase toward React. In fact, in many places we’ve broken up our codebase into several single-page applications written in React.

Although the HelloSign team was happy with React’s performance before I initially joined the project, I quickly found some low-hanging fruit that could improve runtime speed. Here are the steps you should take to see similar improvements in your own applications.

Create a Baseline Performance Measurement

Before you begin, you should take a baseline measurement. Optimizations are meaningless if you can’t verify the results of your modifications.

Thankfully, Chrome has excellent developer tools to help. One, little-used feature of Chrome’s DevTools is the “Timeline” tool. It allows you to record and analyze all activity in your application. You can record interactions on the page, locate potential memory leaks, measure the total time it takes to perform a task, and identify areas of potential jank. Best of all, the results can be recorded for comparison with your final benchmark.

There’s actually a really awesome video on Chrome’s DevTools that goes into detail about the “Timeline” feature. You can view it here.

We chose to measure the time elapsed between the initial paint of our signer page to the final rendering of the entire page. The initial download of our bundles still needs some optimization, but we’re neither going to mess with nor measure this parameter. It’s fairly easy and consistent to test render time rather than trying to click areas around the page and trying to measure its performance in a repeatable way. Then, all we needed to do was to go to the signer page, open Chrome’s DevTools “Timeline” tab, and refresh the page.

As a side note, make sure that when performing this test, the “Paint” and “Screenshots” boxes are checked so that you can see what the user sees as the page is being rendered.

After all that, we determined that our rendering time from initial paint was a little over 3 seconds. Much too long. Luckily, there was little we had to do to make this quite a bit faster.

Set NODE_ENV to Production

This step is easy to get wrong, even if you are well-informed. React’s documentation provides an overview, but doesn’t provide many specifics. React has great developer warnings and error checking, but these are only intended for development; if you take a look at React’s source code, you’ll see a lot of if (process.env.NODE_ENV != 'production') checks. This is running extra code that is not needed by the end user, not to mention that calling process.env.NODE_ENV is extremely slow. For production environments, we can remove all this unnecessary code. Just keep in mind that you don’t want to do this in development because it will remove all those helpful developer warnings.

If you’re using Webpack, you can use DefinePlugin to replace all instances of process.env.NODE_ENV with 'production', and then use the UglifyJsPlugin to remove all the dead code that no longer runs. Here’s a sample setup that you might use:

// webpack.config.js
  ...
  plugins: [
    new webpack.DefinePlugin({
      // A common mistake is not stringifying the "production" string.
      'process.env.NODE_ENV': JSON.stringify('production')
    }),
    new webpack.optimize.UglifyJsPlugin({
      compress: {
        warnings: false
      }
    })
  ]
  ...

React Constant and Inline Elements Transforms

React 0.14 introduced support for certain transpile time optimizations with Constant and Inline Element Babel Transforms. React Constant Elements treats JSX elements as values and hoists them to a higher scope. In other words, it hoists static elements and thereby reduces calls to React.createClass. React Inline Elements converts JSX elements into the object literals that they eventually return. Again, this minimizes the runtime calls to React.createClass.

The implementation is rather simple. We added our Babel configuration in our package.json file:

// package.json
  ...
  "babel": {
    "env": {
      "production": {
        "plugins": [
          "transform-react-constant-elements",
          "transform-react-inline-elements"
        ]
      }
    }
  },
  ...

Final Measurement / Conclusion

Lastly, you’ll want to run the benchmark again and compare it with that saved benchmark from before these optimizations. As you can see, the total runtime profile ends 200ms after initial paint! That’s 15 times faster!




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How to care for a girl during her period? Ileana D'Cruz has just the answer!

Since we all are locked indoors for over a month now and cannot do anything about it, all we can do is stalk Instagram and Twitter profiles of Bollywood celebrities and chat with them when they are online. Right from Shah Rukh Khan to Shahid Kapoor, all of them have chatted with fans and now was the turn of Ileana D'Cruz. The one question that stood out was by a fan who asked the actress how to take care of his girlfriend during her period.

It was a tricky question but the actor's reply was in the form of a meme that rightly captured the many moods of a woman during this time. And the conversation didn't end here but proceeded a little further.

The fan then wrote to the actress - "Help me to handle such situations all with my fiancé.... I don't want to hurt her in this times." (sic) D'Cruz replied - "Approach with caution. Be prepared to either be giving her an insane amount of cuddles or to not be anywhere near her vicinity. If she starts to growl, throw chocolate at her. And run away." (sic)

Have a look right here:

All the men, take notes, please!

On the work front, D'Cruz was last seen in Pagalpanti and now will be seen with Abhishek Bachchan in the drama, The Big Bull, that's out for release on October 25.

Catch up on all the latest entertainment news and gossip here. Also, download the new mid-day Android and iOS apps.

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How to check Facebook or call while flying, a complete lowdown

New Delhi: Fasten your seat-belts - and log on. You may soon be able to call people up, send office emails, check Facebook as well as watch instant videos while air-borne, according to a proposal approved by the Telecom Commission allowing air travellers in India to access in-flight mobile and internet services.

Passengers, used to being told by the crew to switch of all electronic devices, have been wondering how the system would work. PTI answers some frequently asked questions.

What is in-flight internet technology?
In-flight connectivity systems primarily use two kinds of technology. In the first, an onboard antenna picks up signals from the nearest tower on the ground. The connection will remain seamless up to a certain altitude unless the plane passes over an area without ground towers.

In the second scenario, satellites beam signals directly to antennas installed on the airline. This is more effective when the airline is passing over a water body compared with ATG (air-to-ground)-based networks which use satellites to beam the signal first to a transmitter on the ground and then to the antennas on the airline.

What happens next?
The data is transmitted to a personal electronic device such as a smartphone or a laptop through an onboard router, which is connected to the plane's antenna. The antenna transmits the signals, through satellites, to a ground station, which redirects the traffic to a billing server that calculates the data consumption.

In case the internet services through onboard WiFi are permitted to be used only in flight/airplane mode, the plane's antenna will link to terrestrial Internet services provided by telecom service providers. When the aircraft has climbed to 3,000 metres, normally five minutes after take-off, the antenna will switch to satellite-based services. This will ensure continuity in the Internet services to passengers and prevent cross-interference between terrestrial and satellite networks. The airlines may depend on the services of either foreign satellites or ISRO's indigenous GPS-aided geo-augmented navigation system (GAGAN) for the purpose.

GAGAN was jointly developed by ISRO and the Airports Authority of India (AAI) with a view to assisting aircraft in accurate landing. The GAGAN signal is being broadcast through two Geostationary Earth Orbit (GEO) satellites - GSAT8 and GSAT10.

What are the challenges?
For the technology to function, airlines and service providers will have to put a server on the flight along with the equipment to convert satellite signals into data packets. They will also have to add the equipment to re-orient the antenna to face the satellite so the reception quality is not affected.

Interruptions, when the airline moves from the range of one satellite to another, are bound to happen. In general, in-flight WiFi is expected to be slower than on the ground. However, latest technologies may change that scenario.

Will users have to pay more?
Airline passengers may have to bear the initial cost of installing antennae on aircraft. It would be easier for airlines to have the equipment installed on the new aircraft rather than taking planes out of service for retrofitting. The additional costs could find a way into ticket fares, unless the airlines, despite rising jet fuel prices, decide to bear the costs themselves.The high cost of installing equipment for full-service carriers could discourage low-cost carriers.  Foreign airlines that service Indian airports or use Indian airspace may offer in-flight connectivity much before domestic carriers do so because some of them are already providing such services globally.

Catch up on all the latest Crime, National, International and Hatke news here. Also download the new mid-day Android and iOS apps to get latest updates

This story has been sourced from a third party syndicated feed, agencies. Mid-day accepts no responsibility or liability for its dependability, trustworthiness, reliability and data of the text. Mid-day management/mid-day.com reserves the sole right to alter, delete or remove (without notice) the content in its absolute discretion for any reason whatsoever





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Here's how to build a relationship with yourself, before looking for a partner


Illustration/Uday Mohite

Several years ago, when Dr Karanvir Singh was pursuing his doctorate in the field of applied psychology, he stumbled upon an interesting find. The focus of his PhD was relationships. What he surmised from those years of research and interviews was that "if people enjoyed good relationships with their partner, it also positively influenced and affected other areas of their lives too." But Singh, who now works as a relationship empowerment coach, believes that romantic utopia isn't possible, until one develops a perfect relationship with themselves.


Karanvir Singh

Having conducted over 55 workshops on relationship management across the globe, Singh is conducting a session for singles - My Perfect Welationship - that will equip participants with the right tools to create their happily ever after. The two-hour-long session, which will involve games apart from examination of case studies, will walk you through three main topics.

"First, it's important to define what is a right relationship," says Singh. While there is no ideal relationship, having false notions about love can be detrimental, he adds. Singh will also reflect on the need for "creating an inventory" of the kind of behaviour one is looking for, from their potential partners. "Top on this list is the non-negotiable ones," he says, adding that he will also discuss ways where one can spot the red flag in romance. Lastly, he will suggest ways of breaking the communication barrier. "When communication between two people is more aligned, half the conflicts can be gotten rid of," he says.

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Catch up on all the latest Mumbai news, crime news, current affairs, and also a complete guide on Mumbai from food to things to do and events across the city here. Also download the new mid-day Android and iOS apps to get latest updates





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Experts explain how to deal with post-partum blues for new mothers


Kylie Jenner on vacation with her daughter Stormi. pic courtesy/ instagram.com/kylie jenner

Last month, social media star Kylie Jenner was severely mom-shamed by keyboard warriors for heading to a music festival without her infant daughter, Stormi. While Internet trolls are no experts, what exactly does it take to form a bond with your baby?

“Fundamental human nature includes adapting to changes. For a woman to transition into motherhood is common, nevertheless, it’s not a cakewalk. Many women experience post-partum blues for about two weeks after delivery. Should it extend beyond this period, it could be a sign of a post-partum disorder. Therefore, we need to build a society that accepts and understands the plethora of emotions that a new mother experiences,” says Maithili Thanawala Kanabar, counselling psychologist.


Dr. Bindu KS

Here’s our primer on how to face up to it, and move on.

1. Return to working out
“The body needs six weeks to heal — whether it’s a natural birth, caesarean or an episiotomy [which involves a vaginal cut]. The body’s physiology gets back to normal in six weeks, the uterus comes back to shape and body fluids return to normalcy. Whether a housewife or a working woman, it is advisable that she resumes her fitness regime in six weeks,” says Dr Ranjana Dhanu, consultant, gynaecology and obstetrics, Hinduja Healthcare Surgical. But if you have been regular with your fitness routine before and during your pregnancy, you can even go back to working out within a week if you have had a normal delivery. “Start with light exercises such as stretches and walks,” says Dr Bindhu KS, consultant, gynaecology, Apollo Hospitals, Navi Mumbai. The body, especially the spine, kidneys, heart and lungs and not just the reproductive organs, undergo changes, says Dr Bindhu.

2. Get back to the office
Kanabar explains that there is no “mother manual” that defines the best time for a new mother to dive into a competitive workspace. “Try being around the baby for the first few months. Talk to your baby about beginning work and scaffold it for him/her. If your baby is used to co-sleeping, breastfeeding, and you are finding it difficult to wean him/her off, they may take some time to get used to your absence,” says Kanabar. Unfortunately, not many companies in India have a full-time crèche facility. “Indian companies must make it mandatory to have a full-time crèche at the workplace. This will increase the overall efficiency of working women, especially when it comes to the corporate workplace,”
believes Dr Dhanu.


Dr Ranjana Dhanu

“Almost all companies have a six-month maternity leave policy. The key is to strike a balance between motherhood and work,” says Dr Bindhu. If it gets overwhelming, Kanabar suggests reaching out to your support system. However, she warns that it is imperative for mothers to remember to not board the overcompensating train, which might drive one to overdo things and become more lenient.

3. Take a break
“Any wound takes six weeks to heal and it heals well in this period for any kind of birth. Hardcore physical or adventure activities are absolutely safe after six weeks. All the medical textbooks say that the body needs to resume some kind of exercise or physical activity post six weeks of delivery. If you can afford it, take a nanny along,” suggests Dr Dhanu.

4. Slip into a chic mode
Be it exercising or getting your glam on, pursuing something that makes you look and feel good is a good way to boost your morale. “Me-time is viewed as a selfish concept while in reality, it is a safe space that every human needs to visit to rejuvenate,” says Kanabar. It is the quality of time spent with the baby that matters.
Dr Bindhu adds that people also spend only two to three hours with their child but that does not mean there is no bonding.


Maithili Thanawala Kanabar

Mother, baby and attachment

Some studies suggest that the first three months are the most crucial. Infants develop representations of attachments based on the bond with the primary caregiver. Pioneering British psychiatrist John Bowlby suggested that this attachment acts as a prototype for their future relationships and psychological health.

An infant communicates in rudimental ways and attending to those needs reinforces the infant’s sense of security. It is essential that the mother is attentive and spends quality time with the infant, but there is no need to spend every breathing moment with them. Comforting, breastfeeding on time (or feeding the baby yourself), and communicating with the baby leads to a secure attachment.

Usually, securely attached babies cry when the mother leaves and allow the mother to comfort them when she returns. Every baby responds differently. Remain receptive to the baby’s needs and spend quality time without distractions.

Watch for signs like how the baby responds when you return after a brief absence. Most would allow you to comfort them and look at you when they are inching towards exploring something new. And lastly, mum knows best. So look out for every sign.

Mandira Bedi with her son Veer, who is six today. pic courtesy/jitu savlani

I was fit when I was pregnant. After birth, I had to wait for 40 days before I could exercise again. On the 41st day, I stepped out for my first walk. It was pouring at the time but I had decided that come rain or storm, I will go for it. Later, I started jogging, moved to gymming and lifting weights. I had gained 22kg and was able to return to my pre-pregnancy weight in six months. I had serious post-partum depression that lasted for those 40 days. My depression disappeared after I started exercising. I had a baby pretty late in my life [at 39]. I didn’t fall in love with him at first sight. I wondered, ‘This is the end of my freedom. Will I get work after this?’. It was overwhelming. It’s important to be aware that what’s going on with you is normal and okay. But in that period of 40 days I eventually fell in love with him. Giving birth to him is the best thing I have done. But motherhood is not the only thing that defines me. I am hands-on, but I think you can be a better mother if you are not thinking about it 24/7. That little time for you is crucial. The rule in our house is either parent has to be there at home, always. Working out has less to do for me physically than what it does for me mentally.

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How to manage your expenses so you are never broke

Representational picture

Are you someone that likes living life on the edge, from salary to salary, buying something as and when you set eyes on it, without worrying about your savings, and a "dekha jayega" attitude? That may seem cool -- but it's also a short cut to financial disaster. Walnut App CEO and Co-Founder Patanjali Somayaji lists five ways to ensure you don't go broke. Ever.

Download a money management app to track your expenses
If you have never been the type to track your expenses, now is a good time to start. You can download an app that tracks your spends and set a budget, keep a watch on your upcoming credit card and utility bill payments, as well as see how much you owe or have to get from others. This is the first step to getting your finances streamlined.

Make a plan and set goals for yourself
Set short-term (a few months ahead) and long-term (a year and beyond) goals. It could be anything from taking up a new hobby like learning the guitar, to buying a new phone/laptop/camera, getting married, buying a new house or being debt-free by a certain date, and so on. Based on the plan, break it down into quarterly and monthly goals so you know how much to save, how much is safe to spend and so on. Having a plan will give you an overview and much better control of your finances.

Set up an emergency fund
Once you're tracking your spends and have set goals, you know how much money you need to allocate to each of them. You would also get an estimate of your spending pattern and expenses for each month. Based on this, have an emergency fund in place that will take care of at least 6-8 months' worth of living expenses so that in case of a mishap or a loss of job, you don't go broke, and have something to fall back on. You can set it up so that a certain percentage of your salary/income each month is automatically transferred to this fund. It could be in a different bank account, a fixed deposit, or even a liquid fund -- and most importantly, it should be accessible easily and quickly when needed urgently.

Set limits for your spend categories
Take a look at your spends in greater detail to understand where the money goes each month. Assign limits to each of these categories for the month and see how you're doing at the end of the month. This will give you an idea of your lifestyle and if you're spending more than you earn, as well as where you can cut down on unnecessary spends.

Stay debt-free
Credit cards can be extremely useful -- for regular spends as well as during emergencies, and over time, with a good payment history, can boost your credit score too. However, if you're the type of person who cannot pay off credit card bills in full each month or who just pays the minimum amount due, stick to using your debit card or cash, or even a Line of Credit, which has a lower interest rate. Revolving credit on a credit card can be dangerous for your finances, and it can take you several years to repay the entire outstanding amount.

There will always be changes in situations, your current needs and requirements as well as your cash flow, so every 3-6 months, you should re-look at your plan and goals, and modify as needed to stay on top of your finances.

Catch up on all the latest Crime, National, International and Hatke news here. Also download the new mid-day Android and iOS apps to get latest updates

This story has been sourced from a third party syndicated feed, agencies. Mid-day accepts no responsibility or liability for its dependability, trustworthiness, reliability and data of the text. Mid-day management/mid-day.com reserves the sole right to alter, delete or remove (without notice) the content in its absolute discretion for any reason whatsoever





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How to Train Your Dragon 3 Review - The Mesmeric CGI will draw you in

How to Train Your Dragon: The Hidden World
U/A: Animation, Action, Adventure
Director: Dean DeBlois
Cast: Jay Baruchel, Gerard Butler, America Ferrera, Jonah Hill, Christopher Mintz-Plasse
Rating: 

The much-awaited Hiccup and Toothless' return to the big screen may not be as scintillating and effortless as the first two editions but it's certainly no slouch in terms of form and technique. The cutesy appeal of the ameliorating animation craft adds to the poignancy developed on the unlikely pairing of a rare Night Fury dragon with a brave young Viking. This CG animated feature that finds its inspiration in Cressida Cowell's children's books, is as vividly artistic as its predecessors and culminates in an emotionally resonant finale that apparently puts the cap on any further sequels in the offing.

The storyline finds Hiccup (Jay Baruchel), Chieftain of the tribe, having taken over the title from his late father, Stoick (Gerard Butler) - alongside the fearless Astrid (America Ferrera) and his newly found mother Vulcan (Cate Blanchett), engaged in the noble pursuit of freeing caged dragons and bringing them to the Isle of Berk. But the villainous Grimmel (F, Murray Abraham) is hell-bent on destroying their new-found tranquillity – so the tribe agree to leave in search of their Hidden kingdom, with Grimmel hot-on-their-heels, in pursuit. Amidst this hullabaloo, enters a new pure white lioness known as the Light Fury and she catches Toothless eye, and they engage in a hide-n-seek courtship that forces Hiccup to reassess his own abilities and his relationship with his favourite dragon.

Check out the trailer of How To Train Your Dragon:

Returning director-screenwriter Dean DeBlois, with able help from visual consultant Roger Deakins, presents an opulent harvest of computer-generated visuals – exquisite in details, bathed in a light and shadow so dramatic as to look almost heavenly. The eye-pleasing look of the Light Fury, the mating dance sequence between Toothless and his new love, the flickering flames, the resplendent panoramic and scenic views from the skies are all rendered with an unerring artfulness that is simply splendid to behold. Forget the ennui borne from a repetitive and familiar plotting. This one has the power to give flight to your imagination!

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Style tips: Here's how to ooze style in sweaters and jumpers this winter


Sonam Kapoor in a bulky sweater over a dainty dress by Prabal Gurung. Pic/AFP

Style book
* Don't pick a jumper that is too thick as it might make you look bulky and uncool.
* Embrace anti-fit. It goes with all body types. Too tight a sweater dress and you might look like Kim Kardashian from her non-fashionista years.
* Belt a sweater dress if you want to look sleek but skip if you are top heavy.


Pick a pleated skirt (metallic for your evening out) to pair with a long or a short jumper, at seen on Christian Dior's show

* Pair a cropped jumper with wide-legged pants that are cut above the ankle. You can even wear cropped jeans and pair them with embellished flip flops or pool slides for a relaxed day look.
* Contrast is the key — wear an oversized sweater over a pleated or a lace skirt. You can also wear it over a dainty dress.
* For your evening out, wear a metallic or sparkly sweater with a pair of strappy heels. If the temperature drops, add a pair of colourful stockings or above-the-knee preppy socks.


Take a cue from Tommy Hilfiger and wear a glittery jumper as a dress, with stockings or long socks. Pic/Getty images

* To go from baggy to sexy, add a lace peek-out bralet.
* A sweater layered over a buttoned down shirt is a classic pairing; take it to the next level by wearing it over a shirt dress instead. You can wear it with stockings or even ankle length boots. Add a sling bag or a neckpiece to make the look bohemian.
* Wear a chunky neckpiece over a solid coloured jumper and jeans for a hip day look.
Inputs by stylists Shaleena Nathani and Neha Tham





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Eight tips for women on how to style plus size clothing

If you are someone who is struggling to get your plus size clothing right and be fashionable than try wearing statement jewellery and opt for empire line dresses, suggest experts.

Ritika Taneja, Senior Director-Categories at ShopClues lists some tips to style up your plus size clothing.

1. Wear statement jewellery: Highlight your strengths and hide your flaws, by taking the attention away. Wear statement jewellery like a choker neckpiece with your outfits. It will make you look effortlessly stylish.

2. Make black your best friend: Fall in love with darker shades and ditch the pastel shades, as best is the black shade. Black-hued clothes will add a glam, style and of course make you slimmer.

3. Wear shapewear: Invest in a good quality tummy tucker. It will flatten your body and elegantly accentuate the curves.

4. Empire Line dress will look flattering: Be it western or ethnic wear, choose tops, kurta designed in an empire line way. It will put your flaws out of sight and highlight your strengths.

Natascha Tate, in-house stylist at LimeRoad too has some inputs to share.

5. Brace yourself for the sheer and summery bodysuits: Pick plunging neck numbers to make sure you give your figure the accentuation it deserves. Pair them up with a rugged blue denim and classic white sneakers to take on the streets in style.

6. Look out for metallic shift dresses: Look out for dresses that are all set to spruce up your sundown scenes this season. They're high on shine and high on style, plus, the shift silhouette falls perfectly along your vivacious waistline. Make sure you have a stock of those good ol' party pumps to go with these.

Tanvi Malik, Co-founder of FabAlley doles out tips to look glamorous in plus size clothing

7. Asymmetrical stripes: Stripes have received a bad name in the past, but these days brands and designers have figured out how to use stripes' optical illusion power for good. Asymmetrical stripes make curvy women look more svelte and taller. Just look for stripes that angle inward towards your waistline, for a flattering silhouette.

8. Monochrome dressing: A monochromatic outfit can create wonders with a linear, long, continued line which is universally flattering. Just ensure that you pick a color that complements your skin-tone and add a colorful accessory to your outfit to keep the look from being boring.