Shifting to WordPress

Yesterday amit invited to his new blog at WordPress and suddenly I thought to give WP a try. I created a blog with WP and I enjoyed its many features. I only feature presently I miss in WP is lack of tweaking in templates which is allowed at blogger.com. However WP has promised more cusomisation in future so I am looking forward for it.

Here is my new blog

TrueFresco Rreferrer Feed Service has become paid service

If you are one of the blogger who have been using TrueFresco's free referrer service to keep the track of the referrer, than you have might noticed that the service is stopped for last couple of days. Today I saw the notification about updating the fees service and I visited the site to see that they have made the service paid.

It was really good and useful service. I used to enjoy to see from where the visitors are coming I will miss it so much. Please suggest if you have any idea of such free service.

New 3 column blog template :)

I have been thinking for quite some time to change the two column layout of the original blogger.com to three column. Because I have more goodies in sidebar then content in my posts :)

After checking many sites , finally I have taken the 3 column layout from thur's template showroom for free! Thanks thur.

This template resizes as per the viewrs screen so no white space or scrolling , it will always fit on everybody's screen.

There is still some glitches like certain images are having border and others not, blogrolling fonts differs from the rest of the links etc.

At one point I was planning to add background image to the blog , but I dropped the idea, I want my blog and life clutter free.

Please leave your feed back and suggestions if you can spare some time for that.

Thanks

Take these tests for complete waste of your online time!!

I am 53% Internet Addict.

I am pretty addicted, but there is hope. I think I'm just well connected to the internet and technology, but it's really a start of a drug-like addiction. I must act now! Unplug this computer!

Take the
Internet Addict Test
@ FualiDotCom

I am 23% Idiot.

I am not annoying at all. In fact most people come to me for advice. Of course they annoy the hell out of me. But what can I do? I am smarter than most people.

Take the
Idiot Test
@ FualiDotCom

I am 18% Geek.

I wanna be a geek. But I'm not. Why would I even want to be one. Do I think it's fun? I should try writting an online test application at 1 am in my underwear

Take the
Geek Test
@ FualiDotCom

I am 50% Video Game Addict.

Video games are a big portion of my life, maybe too big of a portion. They are not a means of social interaction, despite what I might think. I should just go outside.

Take the
Video Game Addict Test
@ FualiDotCom

Crossing 5000 hits!!

My site meter shows 5000+ hits to my blog since Jan'05. Nearly 50% (I thought it was more than 70%, but I when checked the stats it seemed less) hits are from the various blogexchange programs. Remaining are from search engines and my regular blog friends. Thanks all of you. I enjoy blogging.

Wish you Happy Diwali and New Year!!!

Wish all of you a very Happy Diwali and Propsperous New Year!!

I have been going through very significant phase of my life. (That is what I believe looking to the what is happening with me at present)

Très peu progrès en Français. Very little progress in French. I have ordered Collins French-English Dictionary. I am looking for some interesting french book for reading.

Bye for now.

Now I know how we feel when we are about to loss someone we depend on!!

For last three days I was under tremendous pressure. I had almost lost my all data at office. I have been using LAN based on Novell Netware on DOS platform since 1996. The networking system has never given trouble. But three days ago suddenly the server PC stopped working due to SMPS failure. I called engineer to have look, he took the PC with him for checking, and at the noon he declared that my system has lost its soul and heart, i.e. motherboard and SMPS.

I griefed for a moment for the PC, it served me loyally nearly for 8 years, and then I decided to buy new system. So HDD was removed from the old PC and fitted in a standby PC for short period. But I was aghast when I looked to the data on HDD on the system. My old and trusty SeaGate HDD was of 1GB and more then 50% was full, but it was showing only 10 MB of data on the entire HDD. I checked again and again without any success. On other hand no engineer at the service centre was also able to understand the problem with HDD. When they installed HDD in the system with Windows XP, in system management of XP recognised only one portion of HDD as FAT16 and labelled the remaining chunk as unrecognised partition. Surprisingly it was showing only data upto Dec'99, so after much reckoning we came to conclusion that my HDD was suffering with some kind of Y2K problem.

Then it was decided to have second opinion of expert of Novell Netware. As the Novell Netware was age old system only one person in entire town had knowledge, the person who originally installed the LAN at my office. So the case was referred to him, he checked the HDD and gave me some consolation that I should try HDD in some old PC like 386 or 486. Now, again it was difficult to find a 486 system in the era of Pentium 4. So I went for PC hunting looking for the matching configuration as my demised PC. For next two days I went to all the computer shop which may have old PC , called everyone whom I believed still living happily with his/her old PC and I brought all the PC to the service centre, some time I took HDD to someone to shop where there were many matching PC could be found.

Ultimately yesterday I found a PC which matched the exact configuration I was looking for. When we installed HDD in the system , the system grinned for some moment then I saw booting process and mounting of all the Novell partition created in the HDD. But still it did not show all the data, hurriedly I called the expert , he simply suggested that original LAN card in the system, so I brought everything to his place and fitted everything together and lo! it was working as usual.

Then he advised me to update the entire networking system, and get it updated to window as he warned my that next time if same thing happens you won't be find matching PC. So I have decided update my networking system.

As I required new system in place of the old , first decided to buy a laptop, but then I decided against it and have purchased a desktop PC with latest motherboard and all the gizmo.

I am what?

You Are 60% Weird

You're so weird, you think you're *totally* normal. Right? But you wig out even the biggest of circus freaks!

How Weird Are You?

The Keys to Your Heart

You are attracted to those who are unbridled, untrammeled, and free. In love, you feel the most alive when your lover is creative and never lets you feel bored. You'd like to your lover to think you are optimistic and happy. You would be forced to break up with someone who was ruthless, cold-blooded, and sarcastic. Your ideal relationship is lasting. You want a relationship that looks to the future... one you can grow with. Your risk of cheating is zero. You care about society and morality. You would never break a commitment. You think of marriage something you've always wanted... though you haven't really thought about it. In this moment, you think of love as something you thirst for. You'll do anything for love, but you won't fall for it easily.

What Are The Keys To Your Heart?

You are a Believer

You believe in God and your chosen religion. Whether you're Christian, Muslim, Jewish, or Hindu.. Your convictions are strong and unwavering. You think your religion is the one true way, for everyone.

What's Your Religious Philosophy?

Your Blogging Type is Confident and Insightful

You've got a ton of brain power, and you leverage it into brilliant blog. Both creative and logical, you come up with amazing ideas and insights. A total perfectionist, you find yourself revising and rewriting posts a lot of the time. You blog for yourself - and you don't care how popular (or unpopular) your blog is!

What's Your Blogging Personality?

You Should Learn French

C'est super! You appreciate the finer things in life... wine, art, cheese, love affairs. You are definitely a Parisian at heart. You just need your tongue to catch up...

What Language Should You Learn?

Your Inner Child Is Sad

You're a very sensitive soul. You haven't grown that thick skin that most adults have. Easily hurt, you tend to retreat to your comfort zone. You don't let many people in - unless you've trusted them for a long time.

How Is Your Inner Child?

Your Hidden Talent

You have the power to persuade and influence others. You're the type of person who can turn a whole room around. The potential for great leadership is there, as long as you don't abuse it. Always remember, you have a lot more power over people than you might think!

What's Your Hidden Talent?

Your Personality Profile

You are nurturing, kind, and lucky. Like mother nature, you want to help everyone. You are good at keeping secrets and tend to be secretive. A seeker of harmony, you are a natural peacemaker. You are good natured and people enjoy your company. You put people at ease and make them feel at home with you.

The World's Shortest Personality Test

Help me learning the French - Aide m'apprenant le Français

Some days ago I have decided to learn French. I am known for making big plans and not sticking to them. Therefore, I need your help, suggestions , corrections, advise, push-ups to keep me on the track. So I am making this post sticky in the sidebar and if you are having any suggestions for me or want to have look at my progress (?) you can look at that post and of course your comments will keep me boosted.

If you happen to be French or know the lanuguage you can help me by commenting on my blog in French and English (please) so I can try to reciprocate in the same way.

For the starter I have downloaded this Free French Tutorial to help me understand the basics of the language. Further I have borrowed a couple of books which teach basic grammar and short phrases, unfortuantely they are entirley in French so I can't make head or tail of it.

Status as on 10/09/2005 : At this moment I know nothing about the language :(

What you do when you feel rejected?

I sometime feel rejected by the people surrounding me. After reading Jay's rage I cannot disagree with him on that point. Why I feel rejected without any apparent reasons. I suddenly find change in attitude of a person who was good with me. Is there something wrong with me?

Tell me, have you ever been feel rejected? if yes what you did or do to over come that feeling. What could be the root/cause of this problem?

Please dont laugh at me

For last few weeks I am unusually calm. I have been trying to overcome my three particular problems which I am able to recognize. Two of them are minor and I am not worried about them much. But the last one is occupying my mind all the time. I cannot throw it out of my mind. I know the root of this problem but cant help with it.

Anyway it was not the above paragraph why I entitled the post. Infact I have decided to learn the French language (now this is the moment when you are not to laugh at me:) I don't recall that what has made me to do this. I believe when I first read "Beneath The Pyramid" by Christian Jacq, which is originally written in French, I thought something about French language. And again Da Vinci Code re-affirmed the decision.

I have downloaded a free French Tutorial which provides basic knowledge about the language.

Exploring BookSheleved Wiki

I have been exploring and trying to understand BookSheleved for last two days. It is one of the Wiki sites which provides free-to-edit book reviews by users. The site is completely editable. User can give/edit reviews of books. You can create your own webpage with just a few keystrokes (No HTML at all) , where you can list your current-recent-proposed-incomplete readings , about yourself or anything you want. Here is my page. If you have used editing function in wikipedia you will understand the method to edit the pages.

My BookShelf

I am still existing

I have been too lazy to write anything recently. Meanwhile I visited Mumbai during the last week of the 'rainy' August. I was confined to my Hotel at Powai for 6 days due to road closure.

I had never seen so much rain with high velocity of wind in my life. It was nearly 950 mm in first two days . In begining I enjoyed but after seeing news footages of the vast devasation in Mumbai on TV I understood its seriousness.

Upload image to blogger.com

Finally blogger.com has allowed its users to upload image to its server. It will make blogging experience much better and expressive.

CustomizeGoogle Search for Firefox

This seems to be the best and most useful extension released recently. With CustomizeGoogle you can customise Google search page where you will find links to other 10 search engines using the search keyword, and interestingly you can remove GoogleAd from the Google Search page.

Great Writers of The World : Part 2

Charles Dickens [1812-1870] (Oliver Twist)

One of the most famous English writer of all times. I have read (or half-read) a few novels during my college years. I remember to read "Great Expections" many time over ,ah to just get more marks, failing to appreciate the master piece truly.

Critics appreciate one of his novel , which is in my reading list, "Oliver Twist"as under:

"Relatively to the other works of Dickens Oliver Twist is not of great value, but it is of great importance. Some parts of it are so crude and of so clumsy a mlodrama, that one is almost tempted to say that Dickens would have been greater without it. But even if he had been greater without it he would still have been incomplete without it."

A good many of his work available on-line

Contd...

Great Writers of The World : Part 1

Hello everybody, this hot summer has made me lazier.

I recently placed an order for a pocket book titled "Great Writers of The World" providing brief introduction to the some great writers of the world and their literary works. Following is the list of the writers along with a book of each respective writer , which I intend to read, as it is said to be his/her greatest work. I am publishingthe list to remember my goals for extra reading.

1. Arthur Canon Doyle. (THE SIGN OF FOUR)
Famous for his legendry detective character Sherlock Holmes, and the story narrator Dr. Watson who is believed to be resemblance of the author himself.

I have purchased the entire work of Doyle a couple of years back very cheaply. I believe copy rights on the works of the author have expired and are available to public domain. (UPDATE : Stories of Sherlock Holmes available here)

SIDE NOTE : I have read somewhere that the so called famous statement of the detective "Elementary, my dear Watson" has actually never appeared in the stories. (I will need to check this)

Contd....

CRY : Child Relief and You

CRY stands for Child Relief and You. CRY is an Indian non-government organisation (NGO) that works towards restoring basic rights to underprivileged Indian children.

CRY was started by seven young people in December 1978. One of them, an airline purser called Rippan Kapur, was the moving spirit behind the whole thing. Their objective - to do what they could to improve the situation of underprivileged Indian children. Their first office - Rippan's mother's dining table.

Unusually, the founders of CRY chose not to found a grassroots-level implementing organisation working directly with and for underprivileged children. Instead, they opted to make CRY a link between the millions of Indians who could provide resources and the thousands of dedicated fieldworkers struggling to function for lack of them. They saw their role as enablers and in so doing created an institution that is a unique model of a community movement that takes responsibility for its weakest and most vulnerable members and motivates and catalyses change on their behalf.

CRY focuses on the 4 basic rights of children. These were defined in 1989, by the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child, an international human rights treaty to which 191 countries, including India, are signatories.

the right to survival - to life, health, nutrition, name and nationality
the right to development - to education, care, leisure, recreation
the right to protection - from exploitation, abuse, neglect
the right to participation - to expression, information, thought and religion

CRY works to ensure that these rights are available to all categories of underprivileged children, including street children, girl children, children bonded in labor, children of commercial sex workers, physically and mentally challenged children and children in juvenile institutions. 26 years after it began work, CRY has made a profound difference to the lives of more than 1.37 million Indian children, by channelising the resources of over 125,000 individuals and organisations. In doing so, it has shown that lasting change happens when individuals believe it can happen and do what they can to make it happen.

Holidaying

No I haven't taken holiday at my pleasure but forced to spend mini vacation on this weekend. This month has nearly 12 holidays, it is lot of fun, isn't it?

But really we ,in India , are having too many holidays, isn't it simply criminal waste of billions of human hours.

I was looking for list of public holidays to see how many public holidays we, Indians, have every year. Then I saw this messgae where participants were fighting about why Gujarat Govt. Cancelled holiday of Good Friday. There was a flow of criticism on CM of Gujarat about aggression and intolerance towards minorities like Muslim and Christians, for canceling the holiday on Good Friday.

Then the thread went to chaos when someone promptly wrote , from USA, that even USA is not having holiday on Good Friday or Easter.

We have holiday on Sunday and there are public holidays. Again High Courts and supreme Court relaxes on every Saturday also. Lower courts and revenue departments are also closed on 2nd and 4th Saturday.

We poor India loose few of our great politician every year and entire nation mourn for them for a day or two, depending on their greatness.

Hi

I have dropped here to just say Hi!

Last week of the March was quite depressing for me at work and home too. Now I feel somewhat relaxed. For last few days I played C&C and SIMS most of time to recover from depression.

Bye