The Akal Takhat Jathedar Joginder Singh Vedanti Ji along with the Head Granthi of the Golden Temple, SS Gurbachan Singh Ji and a few others came to visit the SikhNet office today. They are in Espanola, New Mexico for a few days. After visiting the Gurdwara they came to the SikhNet office and I took a few minutes to tell them about SikhNet and the various services that are available online, as well as how many people it reaches. Their visit reminded me of my days in boarding school in India when the "Chief Guest" would come to visit the school and we had to clean everything up and be ready to greet them. I would clean up for any guest….but it reminded me of those old days. (Below are a couple pictures)
Lots going on this week and next with so many people coming in town from all over the world for the Summer Solstice Camp! It was great meeting up with one of the groups of Sikh youth that came in from England. I went up the hill at 6AM this morning and setup my tent, and I’ll move up the mountain on Saturday for the week. I have a verizon broadband card so I might have internet access and am going to test out a casual live webcam/broadcast (though don’t expect to get the solstice experience from a webcam!). Let’s see how things go. Will post updates so check daily just in case.
Below: Me and Gurujot Singh (White Turbans) along with the Jathedhar and Head Granthi.
Well, we now have the "SikhNet Video Studio" setup! A generous Sikh donated funds to pay for new video/lighting equipment. Someone in our local community had a small storage room that they were not using so we turned it into our "studio". The room is a bit narrow but it’s much better than jumping through hoops filming in the SikhNet office (which is even smaller).
In 2007 SikhNet produced quite a few different media products which include the, "Inspiration Series" of short videos (many with Guruka Singh) that we have shown on SikhNet over the past few years, as well as 2006 and 2007 SikhNet Youth Online Film Festival DVDs, and the "SikhNet Gurbani Collection" Audio CD of some of our favorite Gurbani. These are really great products and I highly recommend them all :)
These items were previously only available to SikhNet donors, and are now available for general purchase online. These are great gift items and allow you to enjoy high quality content in the comfort of your home. Plus, all profits from the purchase go to support SikhNet. So, don’t wait, by one….or buy the whole set for your collection, and enjoy!
For those of you who have been procrastinating about supporting SikhNet, Here is another short video (1 min. long) highlighting the many services that SikhNet offers (with an introduction by Guruka Singh). After you watch the video…the question is "what choice are YOU going to make?" In case you missed the last video you’ll know what I mean when you watch the funny "SikhNet Choices" video.
I know some of you might be tired of all this fundraising-shmun-raising stuff, but as a non-profit organization we do rely on your financial contributions to grow and provide the many services that SikhNet does. So, at this time of year from Nov-Jan we ask for your help. I hope you will consider supporting SikhNet with a recurring monthly donation (in any amount) instead of a one time donation too. This ensures that SikhNet gets regular ongoing support and we are able to spend less time fund raising and more time working on SikhNet services. (Plus, if you make a monthly donation of $20 or higher you can choose one of the donor gifts!
Ps. In case you don’t see the mysteriously missing button that Guruka Singh pointed to in the video, then don’t worry, you haven’t lost your mind. The button is currently MIA…so till we find it… you can click on the above link to donate to SikhNet.
Pps. Oh yeah… and THANK YOU to all of you who have made contributions to SikhNet! It is greatly appreciated and will only return back to serve you more!
Many of you have been browsing SikhNet.com and seeing the different messages throughout the website asking for your support. This video plays upon the story of an "every day Sikh" browsing SikhNet and a few choices that he has when he comes to the website and see the fundraiser messages.
We had fun making the video, and hope that it brings a smile to your face (and of course encourages you to support SikhNet!)
Guess what?! It’s that time of the year! Yes….I’m sure you guessed it; the time to show your support to SikhNet. I know most of you enjoy the content on MrSikhNet.com along with the many services that SikhNet offers, however your support is crucial for us to continue. SikhNet does not receive regular funding from any other for-profit or non-profit business. It is supported almost entirely through your generous donations. Your ongoing support is what keeps SikhNet alive and growing. Every donation, no matter how large or small is deeply appreciated.
Since its debut on the Web in 1995, SikhNet has grown and been able to offer new services and resources very year. Although our work has increased each year, our staff has not. In 2008 we want to take SikhNet to the next level of service and reach an ever wider audience. This will require new staffing and new infrastructure. Along with many other things, our plans for 2008 include regularly produced SikhNet programs for television broadcast in both the USA and India along with the production of new inspirational and educational DVDs related to spirituality, consciousness and Sikhi. We need your generous support to enable us to make this leap.
Here at SikhNet, we’ve had many requests to make the "Inspirations" series of videos on Sikhi available on DVD. Although a lot of work is involved in editing and production, we have finally gone ahead and done the work required to make them available to you. The DVD series is currently under production and will be available to SikhNet Supporters soon. There are five volumes (5 DVDs) containing over sixty (60) high-quality videos. Find out more about the DVD series and how you can get one or all of the DVD volumes!
We have also put together a new SikhNet Gurbani Audio CD Album. This is an Audio CD collection of Gurbani recordings from musicians all over the world. The tracks featured on this CD are a collection of the SikhNet staff favorites. The CD is great to meditate with, listen to at work, or just about any other time!
Ps. You can also really help SikhNet also by emailing and talking to your friends/family about SikhNet. We need all the support we can get! Everyone can help raise funds for SikhNet by encouraging those that you know to give support.
It’s been a rough week or so. It seems that everything (Especially computers) are crashing in my world. The main SikhNet server crashed last week from hard drive data corruption. 24 hours of work and we got it back up again. My home computer had a crucial system file that just disappeared monday morning all of a sudden after I rebooted the computer and it wouldn’t start up. Luckily I was able to resolve this problem without too much pain. Yesterday the second SikhNet (linux) server crashed and I’ve been working on getting it back up since last night. It’s not like I’m installing weird stuff or even doing anything.
11 Years of running SikhNet and I have never had this many issues all at once . We used to have hosting with Rackspace.com which is an awesome hosting company. They are so on top of things and so professional. Like they advertise everywhere….they have "Fanatical support". This level of service and support comes at a premium price though (It cost us around $3,000/month for our two dedicated services, firewall, backup, and loads of bandwidth needed to host sikhnet). We hosted with them for over three years (happily), but had to move our servers to discount hosting companies to cut costs as a result of declining revenue for SikhNet. In the past most of our funding came from the SikhMatrimonials.com service. With all the shaadi competition in the market, slowly the major competitors have pinched SikhNet’s funding. Our focus changed from providing and creating commercial fee type services, to serving more and helping inspire people. Our hope was that we would transition to community support in a larger way (ie: donations from sangat like you who use SikhNet). Anways, this is still in transition….and we have been trying to kick of our annual fundraiser for SikhNet, but some issue or the other keeps popping up.
Well, I should get off the computer. My eyes are getting glazed and it’s time to rest a bit. Pray for a smooth sailing from now on for the SikhNet servers and SikhNet in general!
During my recent visit to Vancouver, I had the opportunity to be interviewed for the Channel M News and talk a bit about SikhNet and the Youth Online Film Festival. Roma Kaur (Channel M Punjabi News Producer and Kaurs Magazine editor) wanted me to talk in Hindi/Punjabi, so I did my best to squeeze some in. My vocabulary isn’t that extensive so I couldn’t really express myself properly without using english. When I was in boarding school in India (1983-1993) our school was located in Uttar Pradesh (Dehradun/Mussoorie) so most people only spoke hindi. We did learn how to read punjabi….but our teacher wasn’t that great so we hardly learnt much conversational Punjabi. After my visit to Vancouver I felt that I really do want to continue to learn Punjabi and Hindi. There are not really any people here to talk with in Espanola, but I figured I could find a Skype buddy and we could have conversations in Punjabi/Hindi to get practice.
Todays video pick from the SikhNet Youth Online Film Festival.
Brief Video Summary "Guru Nanak - Please Come Back" features a young Sikh boy named Bikram who although a reluctant believer in god has to finally seek his refuge to deal with the frustrations pent up within him owing to the ever increasing human suffering and miseries all around him. A revelation dawns upon him that the age old teachings of Guru Nanak which withstood the test of time are still relevant and perhaps the only solution to all the problems in the world today. Film by Arpan Singh Jolly Smriti Sharma Udit Mendiratta
In case you missed the last video you’ll know what I mean when you watch the funny "
to your face (and of course encourages you to support SikhNet!) 
