Wednesday, February 16, 2011

2 years of Wordpress Blogging

Two years ago,I had a brief exchange about blogging on Wordpress with one of my friends.Before that I was experimenting with Live spaces.Blogspot was already on my radar on that time but I was never really using it except when I had to test  it for Google's Adsense and Analytics tools.I did not have any target audience in mind,nor any specific topic to blog on.Only some random thoughts which I started pouring over when ever I had free time.

The theme which I started and still use is the misty theme by sadish.I found  wordpress to be simple and professional  when compared to the other two which I mentioned.I wondered what could be put into my first blog post. Obviously my schooling days were the best thing of which I could write about!As days passed by,I started adding widgets and began tinkering with the dashboard,learning all the fundas of a blog and how to manage it.As and when I had some free time,I was trying out various cosmetic changes to the blog in terms of fonts and headers used.

I was on orkut one day when I came across an interesting application called crazy fonts.



The idea worked very well and I used these fonts for the main heading(Blog name). As my blogging increased in frequency over the months,I was interested to know if  It was really getting any views in the Blogosphere.I could not use Google Analytics since Wordpress.com would not support Java script snippets. Buying a separate domain was out of question since Wordpress.com provided most of what a blogger could ask for. And then I came across a wonderful website(In my opinion) which provided the basic insights of your blog's exposure on the Information Super Highway.Thus I started to use Goingup.com for the past one year to learn about the basic analytics and SEO stuff which one can learn and implement on their own blog/website.



Another thing which I wanted was to connect with my fellow bloggers in India, therefore I joined the Indiblogger community which has one of the largest number of active members.It was also a very good platform to learn from their own blogging experiences.The header image which came with the theme was too simple in my opinion,so I started to change to a new header for every4 months,I even added when the save your tigers campgain was being launced in India.I wanted to use something which was close to my heart.That paved the way for using the "Save your tiger" and the Indian Railways header.Few months down the line, my side bar had a lot of additions inlcluding a twitter stream of mine.I now wanted to have a blogroll,so I choose some of the best blogs and some more which I believed would help me to understand the human nature. I also started adding and changing captions under the Blog's name.

I only choose those captions which reflect my identity and that of my blog.

I has been an interesting ride till now,only time will tell if I am using this platform to the fullest of my abilities.

Thursday, February 3, 2011

Thinkpad Active Protection System - Train Test

Two days ago,I was returning to my native place along with my friend.I got into the Intercity Express,the usual train which I take every week to come back home during my week off's. Some time into the journey I was showing  pictures and videos  of my travels to my friend. As the train left Hyderabad it picked up speed and was travelling at an excess of 100 kmph.The train was swaying from side to side(A common sight in the Indian railways during high speed)

And then I saw the APS jump into action,never seen that before because this was also the first time I used it outside.The travel video's which we were watching were getting freezed(The APS was doing its job!)My friend who did not know what this was all about was curious to know the reason,and then I though why not see how the sensors work in such a scenario? This was indeed exciting to me







The moment of the APS display synchronized exactly with the trains moments.......Super cool technology...