RTGS VS NEFT

There has been a lot questions about the differences between a RTGS and a NEFT money transfer, get all your doubts clarified here.

Employee Provident Fund

Your ever elusive Employee Provident fund balance can now be checked online, here's how...

A lot of us do not have even an idea on how much money we have in our Employee Providend fund account (EPF) . So in this post we will see how one can check his EPF balance online and get the details back through sms . Earlier I used to search a lot on checking EPF balance online and I came across some links , but most of them never worked. But few months back I successfully got sms with my EPF balance. Let me show you that.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Gc2FyJo6g9I&feature=player_embedded

How to check your EPF balance status online

• Go to this EPFO website link
• There will be a link below the page to check your status online , click on that (direct link)
• You will see a drop down there to select the PF Office State ( like Maharashtra, Karnataka , Delhi etc) . Select your PF office .
• Once you select the State , you will see a list of different cities office, like for Karnataka , you can see one of the options as “Bangalore” along with the “data available upto” date , so you can get your EPF balance till that date only .
• Choose the city office
• You will be taken to the page where you will have to fill in EPF account number , Your Name and mobile number and Submit.

How to enter your EPF account detail ?

For an example lets say Manish Chauhan worked in Bangalore and had a  EPF account with number KN/62345/876 . This name “Manish Chauhan” is the name appearing in EPF slip .

In that case 62345 will be the Establishment Code (which will be first blank column) and 876 will be the account number (third column) . The second column will be blank in most of the cases , it’s actually the sub code or extension of the establishment code.

Important Points

• Note that the name should be exactly same as it appears in EPF slip
• The office and state have to be selected properly , In a single start there can be many offices , make sure you choose the right one.
• The SMS can come a little late , so please be patient
• The amount can be only upto a certain date which will be mentioned in the SMS

Can you share if you have are waiting for your EPF money from long time ? Are you facing problem in getting right information on why your EPF money has not reached you ?

PAN explained

PAN is a 10 digit alpha numeric number, where the first 5 characters are letters, the next 4 numbers and the last one a letter again. 

These 10 characters can be divided in five parts as can be seen below. 

The meaning of each number has been explained further.

1.        First three characters are alphabetic series running from AAA to ZZZ

2.        Fourth character of PAN represents the status of the PAN holder.
•          C — Company
•          P — Person
•          H — HUF (Hindu Undivided Family)
•          F — Firm
•          A — Association of Persons (AOP)
•          T — AOP (Trust)
•          B — Body of Individuals (BOI)
•          L — Local Authority
•          J — Artificial Juridical Person
•          G — Government

3.       Fifth character represents first character of the PAN holder’s last name/surname.

4.        Next four characters are sequential number running from 0001 to 9999.

5.        Last character in the PAN is an alphabetic check digit.

Nowadays, the DOI (Date of Issue) of PAN card is mentioned at the right (vertical) hand side of the photo on the PAN card.

Register your Complaints to IRDA regarding Insurance related matters

• Do you face issues while dealing with your Insurance Companies?
• Do they don’t answer you on time or don’t entertain your genuine concerns on time?
• Are you having a problem with Claims or other issues with an insurance company?

Should you complain?

In case you are facing issues like unsatisfactory answers, no replies on time , delay in replies, taking matters for granted and not treating you properly, any misselling in Insurance, you can complain to IRDA about all this , it’s just a call away, hence better use the facility and don’t feel like you are not powerful enough.

You can also mail Insurance companies and cc the IRDA email id for complaints for faster and better reply, but only in case you are facing issues, don’t spam them 

 .

Call centre

IRDA (Insurance Regulatory and Development Authority) has started a new service where you can approach by phone or E-mail and complain against your Insurer.

There is a call centre started by IRDA for registering grievances on policy-related matters. The call centre will provide an easy and convenient way to bring complaints to the notice of the IRDA.

The Toll Free Number is 155255 and Email for complaints is complaints@irda.gov.in. 

Before the complain, you can approach the Insurance Ombudsman where the dispute involves amount lower than Rs 20 lakh. You can find the contact mail address of the Insurance Ombudsman of your region from IRDA’s Web site http://www.irda.gov.in

Public health investment has substantially increased: Economic Survey

Union Finance Minister Pranab Mukherjee, who presented the Economic Survey 2011-12 in the Lok Sabha on Thursday, said that there has been an increase in public health investment in the country.

The combined revenue and capital expenditure of the Centre and States on medical and public health, water supply and sanitation and family welfare has increased from Rs.53,057.80 crore in 2006-07 to Rs. 96,672.79 crore in 2010-11.

"In addition to increasing resource allocation for the health sector the government is also playing a critical role in facilitating access to health care delivery channels, public and private through subsidized health, insurance schemes like the Rasthriya Swasthaya Bima Yojana(RSBY) for providing basic health care to poor and marginal workers. 

The RSBY is being extended to cover MGNREGA beneficiaries and beedi workers," said Mukherjee.

"A sum of Rs. 1437 crore has been allocated to the states during 2011-12 under the Janani Shishu Suraksha Karyakram (JSSK). In order to reach out to difficult, inaccessible, backward and under-served areas with poor health indicators, 264 high focus districts in 21 states have been identified based on concentration of SC/ST population and presence of left wing extremism for focused attention," he added.

Mukherjee also pointed out that the Janani Suraksha Yojana (JSY), which targets lowering of Maternal Mortality Ratio by ensuring that deliveries are conducted by skilled birth attendants, has shown rapid growth in last three years, with number of beneficiaries rising to 106.96 lakh in 2010-11 from 90.37 lakh in 2008-09, with the issue of governance, transparency, and grievance redressal mechanisms being the thrust areas for the JSY.

Courtsey: ANI

Goodbye Internet

Come March 8, the Internet could stop working for millions of users because of a virus, DNS Changer, which has corrupted millions of computers in more than 100 countries.

Though the US Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) has shut down the rogue DNSChanger network and put up surrogate servers following a US court order, it has the mandate to run the temporary network only till March 8.

Unless the FBI obtains a fresh order, the network will be turned off, resulting in millions of computers worldwide no longer having Internet access.

In November 2011, six Estonian nationals were arrested for running a sophisticated Internet fraud ring that infected millions of computers worldwide with the DNS Changer which enabled them manipulate the multibillion dollar Internet advertising industry.

This virus also made computers vulnerable to a host of other viruses. The criminals are said to have siphoned off $14 million, but the amount could be much larger because banks are typically reluctant to reveal how much they have lost. The two-year FBI investigation was code-named Operation Ghost Click.

What is DNS?

DNS stands for Domain Name System. It is an Internet service that converts user-friendly domain names into the numerical Internet protocol (IP) addresses that computers use to talk to each other.

DNS and DNS Servers are a critical component of your computer’s operating environment. 

Without them, you would not be able to access websites, send e-mails or use any other Internet service.

When you enter a domain name, such as www.abc.com, in your web browser’s address bar, your computer contacts DNS servers to determine the site’s IP address. Your computer then uses this IP address to connect to the website.

DNS servers are operated by your Internet service provider (ISP) and are included in your computer’s network configuration.

What is DNSChanger?

A small file about 1.5 kilobytes, DNSChanger is a Trojan that changes the infected system’s DNS settings, in order to divert traffic to unsolicited and potentially illegal sites.

This Trojan is designed to change the “NameServer” Registry key value to a custom IP address, which is usually encrypted in the body of the Trojan.

By controlling DNS, a criminal can get an unsuspecting user to connect to a fraudulent website or interfere with that user’s online web browsing.

DNSChanger malware causes a computer to use rogue DNS servers in one of two ways.

 First, it changes the computer’s DNS server settings to replace the ISP’s good DNS settings with rogue DNS IP addresses operated by the criminal.

Second, it attempts to access devices on the victim’s office or home network that run a dynamic host configuration protocol (DHCP) server (for example, a router). 

The malware attempts to access your router using common default user names and passwords. This is usually “admin” and “admin” respectively.

It converts the genuine DNS settings these devices use to rogue DNS settings operated by the criminals. This is a change that impacts all computers on the corporate network, even if individual computers are not infected.

One consequence of the FBI disabling the rogue DNS network is that victims who unknowingly access the Internet through rogue servers could lose access to the Internet altogether.

So the FBI got a court order allowing them to replace the rogue servers with legitimate stand-ins. The FBI was told to educate the public and Internet Service Providers about the DNSChanger malware.

If your ISP’s DNS server is infected, you, too, will be affected. How do you know if your computer is infected? It is best to have it evaluated by a professional.

You can also check it yourself in Windows 7 by going to the Start menu, typing Run and then cmd. At the command prompt, enter: ipconfig /all. Look for the entry that reads “DNS Servers……….”

The DNS numbers are in the format of nnn.nnn.nnn.nnn, where nnn is a number from 0 to 255. Make note of the IP addresses for the DNS servers and compare them to the table of known rogue DNS servers.

If you are using a Mac, click on the Apple symbol in the top left corner and choose System Preferences, then Network and click on the Advanced button. Choose the DNS tab on top to show the DNS servers you are using.

There is a special website to check if your ISP’s DNS requests are made to the right places: http://www.dns-ok.de. 

This site will tell you if you are affected by the DNS Changer malware or not.

What will happen after March 8?

According to the FBI, it will shut down the surrogate DNS servers over a period of four months, affecting millions of users who are still using rogue DNS addresses.

If your PC is infected by rouge DNS, you can use Avira DNSRepair tool. Download it from: www. avira.com/files/support/FAQ_KB_Download_Files/EN/AviraDNSRepairEN.exe.

Mac users just make sure you are using the correct DNS. And check your computer thoroughly for other malware.

Courtesy: The Telegraph, Kolkata.

RBI hints at another CRR cut also rules out SLR reduction

The Reserve Bank on Monday hinted at another reduction in the Cash Reserve Ratio (CRR) of banks to ease the severe liquidity in the system but ruled out a cut in the Statutory Liquidity Ratio (SLR), saying that such a move will not create any additional cash flow. ”Space for (more) CRR cut still exists as we need to see significant fall in aggregate deficit,” RBI Deputy Governor Subir Gokarn told reporters on the sidelines of a function.He did not indicate any timeline for the cut. Gokarn, however, ruled out any cut in the SLR saying,”Reducing SRL will not create any additional capacity in the system at this point of time, because of there is surplus. If SLR is close to the limit, then a reduction is possible, and may have created capacity. But given the situation all instruments are on the table.” On January 24, RBI had cut CRR by 0.5 percentage points to 5.5 per cent, releasing Rs 32,000 crore into the system. Since then, the fund crunch has only worsened. Last Thursday, the strain on the system rose to high of Rs 1.02 lakh crore. And going forward it will only increase as by March 15 companies will have to make advance tax payments, which will drive out Rs 60,000 crore from the system. Another Rs 12,000 crore is likely to go out of banks due to the ONGC auction last week and companies will drain a similar amount out on account of excise duty payment. Stating that liquidity deficit is partly structural and partly temporary, Gokarn said, “Current call rates suggest that things are relatively stable (since) there is arbitrage in the market. ”Banks which have surplus SLR can borrow at the LAF (liquidity adjustment facility) and lend through call (money) market to banks which do not have excess SLR. So, the fact that SLR is skewed is not a cause of concern.”

Small savings rates fixed till maturity

The government today said interest rates on post office savings schemes, except PPF, would remain fixed throughout the term of the scheme.

It clarified that interest rates for such small savings would be declared on April 1 every year and would remain valid till the maturity of the scheme.

However, in case of Public Provident Fund (PPF), which is a 15-year scheme, interest rates would not remain fixed for the entire period. The annual interest accruals in the PPF account will depend upon the rate for that particular year, the finance ministry said.

“The rate of interest on small savings schemes will be aligned every year with rates of government securities of similar maturity... the rates are fixed and not floating as far as individual investments, except PPF, are concerned,” it said, while responding to media reports that interest rates on all small savings schemes were floating.

With effect from December 1, the government has increased interest rates on PPF to 8.6 per cent from 8 per cent, and also raised ceilings on annual contributions to the fund to Rs 1 lakh from Rs 70,000.

Interest rates on savings account in post offices also rose to 4 per cent from 3.5 per cent. Similarly, interest rates on deposits of other maturities were raised from December.

“The rate prevailing at the time of investments will remain fixed and unchanged till the maturity of the investment. Any revisions in interest rates in subsequent years will only be applicable to the investments made in the relevant period,” it said.

Stage set for life insurance floats

Private life insurers planning maiden issues can submit their proposals from Friday. However, the Life Insurance Corporation of India, the country’s largest insurer set up under an Act of 1956, will have to wait till Parliament ratifies the Life Insurance Corporation (Amendment) Bill.

According to the IRDA notification on regulations governing the issue of capital by life insurers, only those having a track record of 10 years can go for an initial public offering but before that they will have to seek approvals from two regulators — the insurance regulator and then Sebi.

Only after obtaining a written approval from the IRDA can an insurer file its initial public offer document with the Securities and Exchange Board of India (Sebi).

On its part, the Insurance Regulatory and Development Authority will first evaluate the applicants on certain parameters such as the period for which it has been in business, the company’s history of compliance with regulatory requirements and corporate governance, solvency margin and financial strength.

Besides a 10-year business history, the IPO aspirant should have an embedded value twice its paid-up equity capital, including the share premium. Embedded value is measured by the present value of the company’s future profits plus adjusted net asset value.

Though the IRDA regulations have not specified a uniform threshold below which domestic promoters of an insurer cannot dilute its stake, the regulator retained its discretionary powers to decide which promoters can dilute how much of their shareholding.

At present, foreign direct investment is allowed up to 26 per cent in a life insurance company. A domestic promoter thus can hold up to 74 per cent stake in a life insurance venture. To prevent any such situation from arising wherein such a domestic promoter can dilute its stake below 51 per cent, the insurance regulator has made its approval for an IPO application conditional.

“While granting its approval, the authority may prescribe the extent to which the promoters shall dilute their respective shareholding, the maximum subscription which could be allotted to any class of foreign investors, and the minimum lock-in period for the promoters from the date of allotment of shares,” the regulations said.

In its draft regulations for IPOs for life insurance companies in June, the IRDA had spelt out the way companies should compute future profits from the current block of assets, or the embedded value, which would set the benchmark for share pricing.

All insurance companies will have to follow a uniform formula set by the Institute of Actuaries of India for embedded value calculation.

Under the regulations as notified today, all life insurance companies planning an IPO will have to prepare an embedded value report by an independent actuarial expert and that report has to be reviewed by another independent actuary.

The rules specify that the insurer should disclose the embedded value on the valuation date and also one year before the valuation date. This, IRDA officials said, would help investors compare the change in the embedded value.

Though a number of private life insurance companies have evinced interest in coming out with their maiden IPOs, they may not be in a hurry to do so now.

At the company’s annual general meeting this year, HDFC chairman Deepak Parekh had said, “We are planning to come up with an IPO for insurance in two years.”

A recent research report by HSBC noted that “only a brave Indian insurer” will come out with an IPO now, given the impact of the new regulations on unit-linked insurance plans (Ulips) and the pending direct tax code (DTC) bill.

“Besides declining sales, new business margins are also under pressure given the burden of fee and surrender penalty caps in Ulips,” the report said.

Courtesy- http://www.telegraphindia.com/1111202/jsp/business/story_14827638.jsp

Cheer for savers in December

Public provident fund (PPF), small deposits and post office schemes will fetch a higher rate of return from December.

The government today notified an increase in interest rates on PPF to 8.6 per cent from 8 per cent, and raised the ceiling on annual contributions to the fund to Rs 1 lakh from Rs 70,000.

Interest rates on savings accounts in post offices will go up to 4 per cent from 3.5 per cent. Rates on deposits of other maturities, too, will be raised from next month.

The sale of Kisan Vikas Patras (KVP) will be discontinued from November 30.

The maturity period of monthly investment schemes (MIS) and National Savings Certificates will be reduced to five from six years.

MIS will earn an interest of 8.2 per cent, but accounts opened on/after December 1 will not be entitled for bonus.

Further, every Rs 100 invested in an NSC will fetch Rs 150.90 at the end of five years.

Besides, loans taken from PPFs will attract an interest of 2 per cent per annum from December.

The government has done away with the commission paid to the agents for opening PPF accounts and Senior Citizens Savings Schemes, while the commission for Mahila Pradhan Kshetriya Bachat Yojana has been fixed at 4 per cent. The commission for all other schemes has been halved to 0.5 per cent.

The Centre has also notified an increase in the interest rate on recurring deposit schemes of post office. According to the calculation, a recurring deposit of Rs 10 every month will fetch Rs 738.62 after five years.

Insurance ruling

An insured person can be denied a claim if he has concealed relevant facts such as existing ailments, the National Consumer Disputes Redressal Commission has ruled.

The commission gave the ruling while setting aside a judgment of the Kerala consumer commission that had directed the LIC to pay Rs 50,000 as insurance claim to Shakuntala Devi, wife of a policy holder who died of tuberculosis in 2001.

The panel said there was credible evidence that the policy holder was suffering from tuberculosis and he had concealed it from the company, thus entitling the company to deny him the claim.

“Since, an insurance is a contract entered between the parties in utmost good faith, suppression of any material facts by the insuree, as was done in this case, entitled the insurance company to repudiate the claim,” the bench headed by Justice Ashok Bhan said.

Mukesh Ambani richest Indian, Anil biggest loser

India’s richest are getting poorer, according to Forbes, as falling stock prices, corruption scandals in Asia's third-largest economy and a global slowdown wiped 20 percent off the total value of the country's 100 wealthiest in the last year.

Mukesh Ambani, head of Reliance Industries, India's most valuable company, retained the top spot with a value of $22.6 billion, despite seeing his net worth drop by $4.4 billion.

In the same period, Ambani completed construction of a 27-storey house in Mumbai, costing an estimated $1 billion.

The biggest loser in the list was Ambani's younger brother, Anil, whose net worth stood at $5.9 billion, down from $13.3 billion. His Reliance Group companies have been some of the worst performers on the Mumbai bourse this year.

A major drag for Ambani has been telecom firm Reliance Communications, which has $7.5 billion in debt and has so far failed in efforts to ease debt and raise money.

The combined wealth of India's richest 100 people fell to $241 billion in 2011, according to the Forbes India Rich List, which includes 57 dollar billionaires, a dozen less than a year earlier.

"This has been a turbulent year for India's richest," Naazneen Karmali, India Editor of Forbes Asia, said in a statement.

"Despite the economy growing at close to 8 percent, a spate of corruption scandals and rising inflation have taken a toll."

The world's second-fastest growing major economy after China grew only 7.7 percent in the three months to June, its weakest in 18 months, and Mumbai's benchmark stock index is down 16 percent since January.

India has raised its interest rates 13 times in 19 months, hurting demand for big-ticket items and making it more expensive for businesses to raise capital.

Of the 85 alumni from last year's list, 66 saw their worth drop this year. A net worth of $370 million was enough to make the 2011 list, down from $500 million a year ago.

BIG TEN

Mukesh Ambani led a top ten dominated by industrial tycoons, including ArcelorMittal chairman Lakshmi Mittal, who came in second with a net worth of $19.2 billion.

Energy and metal barons Shashi and Ravi Ruia lie fourth with a combined worth of $10.2 billion.

Kumar Birla, head of the fabrics-to-cement Aditya Birla conglomerate, Adi Godrej of the Godrej Group and construction tycoon Pallonji Mistry -- the largest individual shareholder of the Tata Group and father-in-law to Noel Tata, touted as a likely successor to Ratan Tata -- are also in the top ten.

Many of those companies are benefiting from India's plans to spend $1 trillion in the five years to 2017 to overhaul its creaking infrastructure, seen as a barrier to continued economic growth.

Only one name from India's showpiece IT sector made the top ten: Azim Premji, chairman of Wipro, India's No. 3 software services provider, ranked third with a net worth of $13 billion.

Savitri Jindal, head of Jindal Steel and Power Ltd, was India's richest woman, sitting fifth on the list with a net worth of $9.5 billion. Jindal was one of only five women on the list of one hundred.

A $39 billion telecom scandal, likely India's largest ever graft scam, made its mark on the list, with two accused in the case, Vinod Goenka and Shahid Balwa, falling out of the top 100. Both deny any wrongdoing.

Debutants on the annual list include Kapil Bhatia and his son Rahul, founders of budget airline IndiGo, and V.G. Siddhartha, whose coffee shop chain Cafe Coffee Day gave him a net worth of $595 million.

India's biggest gainer in percentage terms was Brijmohan Lall Munjal, head of two-wheeler HeroMoto Corp, whose net worth rose to $2.7 billion in the year his firm ended a 26-year partnership with Japan 's Honda Motor .

India's auto industry has seen car sales declining on high interest rates while families of four continue to buy two-wheelers, most of which can be bought without relying on loans.

http://in.finance.yahoo.com/news/Forbes-list-Mukesh-Ambani-reuters-1288442712.html

LIC’s tobacco stain shows

The Life Insurance Corporation (LIC) invested more than Rs 3,600 crore last year in the tobacco industry, anti-tobacco activists and cancer specialists said today, describing the investments as ironical and unethical.

Figures obtained through the right to information route by a consortium of activists and doctors show that in 2010-11, LIC had invested in shares of ITC and VST Industries and in debentures of Dharampal Satyapal Ltd, which makes chewable tobacco products.

The LIC investment in ITC had a book value of more than Rs 3,561 crore, while its investment in VST Industries was about Rs 15 lakh, according to information released by the company. It also invested Rs 50 crore in Dharampal Satyapal.

“It’s ironic that LIC is investing in an industry that contributes to ill-health and death, and an industry that some arms of the government are trying to discourage,” said Pankaj Chaturvedi, associate professor at the Tata Memorial Hospital, Mumbai.

“The public should know where LIC is investing its funds,” Chaturvedi told The Telegraph. “The government has enforced the ban on public smoking and it has also outlined steps to phase out tobacco cultivation in the coming years.”

The RTI application had been filed by a consortium called Voice of Tobacco Victims, mainly representing patients with cancer. LIC officials were not immediately available to explain its policy of investing in the tobacco industry.

The number of shares held by LIC in ITC jumped from about 522,089,903 on March 31, 2010, to 995,891,658 on March 31, 2011, according to the company’s response to the RTI query.

Tata Memorial doctors said the RTI response from LIC suggested it was not charging extra premium on all tobacco users. “It is ridiculous.… LIC invests in tobacco, it doesn’t charge higher premium from addicts, but they may reject the claims of addicts,” Surendra Shastri, head of preventive oncology at Tata Memorial, said in a statement.

In response to the RTI query on LIC’s policy on insurance for tobacco users, the company said the risk assessment for consumption of tobacco would take into consideration multiple health factors ranging from quantity and type of tobacco to health conditions of the applicant.

“The adverse health effects of tobacco consumption is dependent on (the) quantity of consumption, type of tobacco consumed, duration of consumption and any other associated health condition of the insurance applicant,” LIC said. “Depending on these factors, while large numbers of customers are accepted without any extra premium, some of the applicants may be charged higher premium.”

Public health specialists campaigning against tobacco said the investment was unethical because it was against the principle that governments should not invest in tobacco, enshrined in an international convention to which India is a signatory.

“On the one hand, India incurs a cost of nearly Rs 10,000 crore each year from tobacco-related health expenses, on the other, LIC invests Rs 3,600 crore in tobacco,” Prakash Gupta, director of the Sekhsaria Institute of Public Health, Mumbai, said in a statement.

Courtesy: http://telegraphindia.com/1111013/jsp/frontpage/story_14618444.jsp

Steve Jobs at Stanford University Commencement on June 12, 2005

I am honored to be with you today at your commencement from one of the finest universities in the world. Truth be told, I never graduated from college.

This is the closest I have ever gotten to a college graduation. Today I want to tell you three stories from my life.

That's it. No big deal. Just three stories.

The first story is about connecting the dots.

I dropped out of Reed College after the first 6 months, but then stayed around as a drop-in for another 18 months or so before I really quit. So why did I drop out?

It started before I was born. My biological mother was a young, unwed college graduate student, and she decided to put me up for adoption.

She felt very strongly that I should be adopted by college graduates, so everything was all set for me to be adopted at birth by a lawyer and his wife. Except that when I popped out they decided at the last minute that they really wanted a girl.

So my parents, who were on a waiting list, got a call in the middle of the night asking: "We have an unexpected baby boy; do you want him?"

They said: "Of course." My biological mother later found out that my mother had never graduated from college and that my father had never graduated from high school. She refused to sign the final adoption papers.

She only relented a few months later when my parents promised that I would someday go to college.

And 17 years later, I did go to college. But I naively chose a college that was almost as expensive as Stanford, and all of my working-class parents' savings were being spent on my college tuition. After six months, I couldn't see the value in it.

I had no idea what I wanted to do with my life and no idea how college was going to help me figure it out. And here I was spending all of the money my parents had saved their entire life.

So I decided to drop out and trust that it would all work out OK. It was pretty scary at the time, but looking back it was one of the best decisions I ever made.

The minute I dropped out I could stop taking the required classes that didn't interest me, and begin dropping in on the ones that looked interesting.

It wasn't all romantic. I didn't have a dorm room, so I slept on the floor in friends' rooms, I returned coke bottles for the 5¢ deposits to buy food with, and I would walk the 7 miles across town every Sunday night to get one good meal a week at the Hare Krishna temple. I loved it. And much of what I stumbled into by following my curiosity and intuition turned out to be priceless later on. Let me give you one example:

Reed College at that time offered perhaps the best calligraphy instruction in the country. Throughout the campus every poster, every label on every drawer, was beautifully hand calligraphed.

Because I had dropped out and didn't have to take the normal classes, I decided to take a calligraphy class to learn how to do this. I learned about serif and san serif typefaces, about varying the amount of space between different letter combinations, about what makes great typography great.

It was beautiful, historical, artistically subtle in a way that science can't capture, and I found it fascinating.

None of this had even a hope of any practical application in my life. But ten years later, when we were designing the first Macintosh computer, it all came back to me. And we designed it all into the Mac. It was the first computer with beautiful typography.

If I had never dropped in on that single course in college, the Mac would have never had multiple typefaces or proportionally spaced fonts. And since Windows just copied the Mac, it's likely that no personal computer would have them.

If I had never dropped out, I would have never dropped in on this calligraphy class, and personal computers might not have the wonderful typography that they do. Of course, it was impossible to connect the dots looking forward when I was in college. But it was very, very clear looking backwards ten years later.

Again, you can't connect the dots looking forward; you can only connect them looking backwards.

So you have to trust that the dots will somehow connect in your future. You have to trust in something — your gut, destiny, life, karma, whatever.

This approach has never let me down, and it has made all the difference in my life.

My second story is about love and loss.

I was lucky — I found what I loved to do early in life. Woz and I started Apple in my parents garage when I was 20. We worked hard, and in 10 years Apple had grown from just the two of us in a garage into a $2 billion company with over 4000 employees. We had just released our finest creation — the Macintosh — a year earlier, and I had just turned 30. And then I got fired.

How can you get fired from a company you started? Well, as Apple grew we hired someone who I thought was very talented to run the company with me, and for the first year or so things went well.

But then our visions of the future began to diverge and eventually we had a falling out. When we did, our Board of Directors sided with him.

So at 30 I was out. And very publicly out. What had been the focus of my entire adult life was gone, and it was devastating.

I really didn't know what to do for a few months. I felt that I had let the previous generation of entrepreneurs down - that I had dropped the baton as it was being passed to me. I met with David Packard and Bob Noyce and tried to apologize for screwing up so badly.

I was a very public failure, and I even thought about running away from the valley. But something slowly began to dawn on me — I still loved what I did. The turn of events at Apple had not changed that one bit.

I had been rejected, but I was still in love. And so I decided to start over.

I didn't see it then, but it turned out that getting fired from Apple was the best thing that could have ever happened to me.

The heaviness of being successful was replaced by the lightness of being a beginner again, less sure about everything. It freed me to enter one of the most creative periods of my life.

During the next five years, I started a company named NeXT, another company named Pixar, and fell in love with an amazing woman who would become my wife. Pixar went on to create the world’s first computer animated feature film, Toy Story, and is now the most successful animation studio in the world.

In a remarkable turn of events, Apple bought NeXT, I returned to Apple, and the technology we developed at NeXT is at the heart of Apple's current renaissance. And Laurene and I have a wonderful family together.

I'm pretty sure none of this would have happened if I hadn't been fired from Apple. It was awful tasting medicine, but I guess the patient needed it. Sometimes life hits you in the head with a brick. Don't lose faith.

I'm convinced that the only thing that kept me going was that I loved what I did. You've got to find what you love. And that is as true for your work as it is for your lovers.

Your work is going to fill a large part of your life, and the only way to be truly satisfied is to do what you believe is great work. And the only way to do great work is to love what you do.

If you haven't found it yet, keep looking. Don't settle. As with all matters of the heart, you'll know when you find it. And, like any great relationship, it just gets better and better as the years roll on. So keep looking until you find it. Don't settle.

My third story is about death.

When I was 17, I read a quote that went something like: "If you live each day as if it was your last, someday you'll most certainly be right." It made an impression on me, and since then, for the past 33 years, I have looked in the mirror every morning and asked myself: "If today were the last day of my life, would I want to do what I am about to do today?" And whenever the answer has been "No" for too many days in a row, I know I need to change something.

Remembering that I'll be dead soon is the most important tool I've ever encountered to help me make the big choices in life. Because almost everything — all external expectations, all pride, all fear of embarrassment or failure - these things just fall away in the face of death, leaving only what is truly important.

Remembering that you are going to die is the best way I know to avoid the trap of thinking you have something to lose. You are already naked. There is no reason not to follow your heart.

About a year ago I was diagnosed with cancer. I had a scan at 7:30 in the morning, and it clearly showed a tumor on my pancreas. I didn't even know what a pancreas was.

The doctors told me this was almost certainly a type of cancer that is incurable, and that I should expect to live no longer than three to six months. My doctor advised me to go home and get my affairs in order, which is doctor's code for prepare to die.

It means to try to tell your kids everything you thought you'd have the next 10 years to tell them in just a few months. It means to make sure everything is buttoned up so that it will be as easy as possible for your family. It means to say your goodbyes.

I lived with that diagnosis all day. Later that evening I had a biopsy, where they stuck an endoscope down my throat, through my stomach and into my intestines, put a needle into my pancreas and got a few cells from the tumor.

I was sedated, but my wife, who was there, told me that when they viewed the cells under a microscope the doctors started crying because it turned out to be a very rare form of pancreatic cancer that is curable with surgery. I had the surgery and I'm fine now.

This was the closest I've been to facing death, and I hope it's the closest I get for a few more decades. Having lived through it, I can now say this to you with a bit more certainty than when death was a useful but purely intellectual concept:

No one wants to die. Even people who want to go to heaven don't want to die to get there. And yet death is the destination we all share. No one has ever escaped it. And that is as it should be, because Death is very likely the single best invention of Life. It is Life's change agent. It clears out the old to make way for the new.

Right now the new is you, but someday not too long from now, you will gradually become the old and be cleared away. Sorry to be so dramatic, but it is quite true.

Your time is limited, so don't waste it living someone else's life. Don't be trapped by dogma — which is living with the results of other people's thinking. Don't let the noise of others' opinions drown out your own inner voice.

 And most important, have the courage to follow your heart and intuition.They somehow already know what you truly want to become. Everything else is secondary.

When I was young, there was an amazing publication called The Whole Earth Catalog, which was one of the bibles of my generation.

 It was created by a fellow named Stewart Brand not far from here in Menlo Park, and he brought it to life with his poetic touch. This was in the late 1960's, before personal computers and desktop publishing, so it was all made with typewriters, scissors, and polaroid cameras.

It was sort of like Google in paperback form, 35 years before Google came along: it was idealistic, and overflowing with neat tools and great notions.

Stewart and his team put out several issues of The Whole Earth Catalog, and then when it had run its course, they put out a final issue. It was the mid-1970s, and I was your age.

On the back cover of their final issue was a photograph of an early morning country road, the kind you might find yourself hitchhiking on if you were so adventurous. Beneath it were the words: "Stay Hungry. Stay Foolish." It was their farewell message as they signed off. Stay Hungry. Stay Foolish. And I have always wished that for myself. And now, as you graduate to begin anew, I wish that for you.

Stay Hungry. Stay Foolish.

Thank you all very much.