New Look…!!!New Author….!!!

Atlast here is my new template. Sorry I couldn't add the header for which I asked your suggestions. And this template for sure cannot replace the looks of my old one. The glitzy sliders, which attracts everyone at their first sight is no more available. But there are other issues to be dealt with too. There has to be a compromise and balance between looks and performance.So this time I tried to concentrate in decreasing the loading time of my blog neglecting the looks. I don't know how many of you like this template. So you can pour in your suggestions. But please don't say to change the entire template. It has consumed all my time.

Further this is not a single persons work. However I invite minor suggestions like fonts,size etc. I have to thank some of my friends who were really helped me and suggested me about the good and bad at each step. I sincerely thank my friends Venky, Shruthi, Karthi for being a part in successfully creating this template.

 

I sincerely thank EVO, a very good designer who helped me with SEO and page elements column. He prepared the page elements as I wanted and imagined. I just mailed him about the changes I need and within 2 hours the design was ready.

 

Once again I invite suggestions regarding fonts and its sizes and possibly whatever change that can be made within layout. I still have to add some widgets.

 

And I am happy to announce a new author to my blog.  You all know her probably. I think everyone in my network follows her blog too. So again I am happy to announce that Shruthi one of my very close friends will be the guest author of my blog and I am very happy to announce that in future you all can see 55 fictions in my blog too. A person cannot be good in everything and cannot satisfy everyone. I tried writing 55’s. But every attempt ended in failure. So I recruited shruthi to write 55 fictions for my blog. I asked her to write a 55 fiction each month,starting from OCT 1.  My friendship with Shruthi is a very weird one. We both studied at same school. She is put up at a place which is hardly 5 mins from my home. But till date I haven't seen her. And also Venky.. His place is hardly 2-3 mins from my home. Till now I haven't met him in person. But I am very happy to say that I got some great friends through this blog.Some too close… Some too far…. and this blog has given me a greater exposure to outside world. Last but not least, this blog has done things which I wouldn't have imagined in my life time.

 

And sorry for those intensedebate comment form. I had problems with the blogger comment form especially the picture display.So I have added this intense debate comment form. Please let me know if you genuinely have any problem with the comment form. After confirmation from venky and after trying it in all browsers, I think this comment form is compatible with all browsers. Do let me know if any problem exists.

 

So thank you all again. Waiting for your valuable suggestions.

Technorati Tags: templates,friends,SEO,new template,author

Issues

Recently there are lots of issues with my blog and some of my FB’s are complaining about the page load time of my blog. I know that my blog takes a long time to load and its mainly due to the css of sliders and other stuffs. I tried editing the template and removing some of the widgets. I removed some unwanted widgets too. But still it takes a long time to load.

 

So after searching for a new template and after trying out some,I am fed up. There is no good template which matches our expectation. I searched lots of websites,lots of templates and Finally I gave up the Hunt for a new template.

 

But now I started working on creating my new template. Its lot tougher than I expected. I have worked on it for past 4 to 5 days.But till now I have been successful in giving a 3 column layout for my new template.

 

I am very bad in choosing colour combinations. So i asked for help from my few friends to choose the colour for headers. Some of my friends helped me with their Ideas but I still don't know whether they are good and which one to select. So I leave it to you friends for choosing the header. Photoshop is really cool and interesting. But it often makes me to scratch my head. Its more complex for a rookie like me.

 

Some headers have title.But Others don't have.So you guys have to help me out. Help me out in choosing the headers, so that I can successfully create a template. Select the one which you like the most from the above headers. If you are not satisfied with anything,give me your own colour combination. I need two colours. The top one and for the bottom links colour. Please suggest the colour combination in the comment box in case if you feel none of the above is good.

 

Which Header Is Good?

So probably considering the rate at which I am working on creating a template,  I think it will take another month to complete the entire template. Fell free to give your own suggestions about What a good template should have?Is the read more hack necessary? Do you like the sliders? or you think sliders are not important? Thanks a lot in advance.

Blogging Prohibited!!

Oh..my god…. Atlast my happy days are over… I had mixed emotions last month. From one point of view I was happy that I was staying at home happily..very relaxed, away from my engineering books,records everything. On the other hand I was little bit worried that I didn't have nice time,party’s with my friends as I used to have before..

Now the time has come. There is a change. The change from irresponsible boy to responsible man. The week ahead is really going to be very interesting and thrilling. I have a Interview next week in Noida. I have not yet prepared anything. I have no hopes of getting through the Interview.Yet its going to be a great trip.I have to travel alone there. All my friends applied there but only I got the call letter.The irony is that I don't know Hindi other than “ Ek gawn may ek kissan rahuta tha”. I don't know how I am going to manage. So I might not be blogging for next week. 

However Microsoft windows live writer has provided one great option. We can set the publish date and the post will be posted on the respected date as specified even though we are away from the blogs.

But I could not write much.Just written a single post and It will be published on the following week when I am away from this blog..

So meet you soon….. after 26th July….

Till then bye from

–Its me Shankar…

Image Courtesy: http://images.wikia.com/

Another reason to celebrate!!!

So,Its been 2 months and 2 days since I started blogging. In these few days I got some small, small achievements which is very worthy of celebrating. And today there is another reason for me to celebrate.

If you want to know the reason just take a look at the sidebar section.. Can you notice the number of Hits?

Yes..It crossed 1000 today. Not a big achievement, but according to me small achievements cumulatively make it a bigger one in future.

My celebrations started when I saw a small dot appearing over India in cluster maps.

Then there were few comments which encouraged me to stick on to blogging.

Then few members joined my network, some followers, repeated comments,tags etc..etc..

This blog also gave me an opportunity to meet some great personalities too.. Which would have never been possible without this blog.(http://ballat.blogspot.com/2009/07/my-day-at-raj-bhavan.html)

I also would like to thank IndiBlogger as many of my followers and networks are from IndiBlogger only.

And ofcourse I had few problems in the past week regarding comments and was not in a position to celebrate my 50th post of this blog.But I am sure to celebrate my 100th one.

Image Courtesy: http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v260/the_breaks/1000.jpg

Feed Backs Invited!!!

Yesterday I read one of the post titled “Disgruntled” from one of my good friends in this Blogosphere. I was shocked to see my blog being mentioned in the last paragraph. I wondered what for? Was it to appreciate about my blog? or was it to criticize? the answer for both the question is no… then what for? When I continued reading I found that my fellow friend was disappointed as he was not able to comment for my blog and to his another friends blog…

Oh..my god!!! I said to myself… I am working on my comments for past one week.. Did a lot of things.. changed comment forms, changed java scripts, changed templates…

Everything started last week when one of my friends and top commenter of the blog Lavanya raised a issue stating that she is trying to post a comment in my blog..but she couldn't.I thought she might have not submitted the comment and might be her fault as everyone else was posting comments. Then came another complaint… Pawan commented..” Shankar, i commented in your blog..but was not able to see my comment now… Did you delete my comment?”. After hearing this I understood there is some problem with my comment form. While searching for a method to delete the present comment form and to embed a new comment form I found a new,modern “Intense Debate” comment form with various features. But after I installed I found all my earlier comments were deleted. And my blog is left out with zero comments. I apologized to everyone for this. But I thought everything was alright now.

But the next day Lavanya once again mailed me that she cannot see the comment box itself. I enquired about this two other friends..Shilpa and Venky about the issues. Shilpa said she was able to post her comment only after four unsuccessful tries. Ofcourse I realised everyone cannot be as generous and patient as shilpa to wait and comment even after three unsuccessful tries. So,I decided to change my favourite template.It was a good template and my favourite one.Everyone liked the template and it was so welcoming to my visitors.

So I sat back the whole night before the system and searched for few templates whole night. Added java scripts,Images etc..etc..to give a good look to the template.But still menu work is pending.I thought everything was fine and comments started coming slowly once again.I was relieved until yesterday.

I became extremely sad and felt bad when shubhayan expressed about the new word verification problem while commenting. And once again lavanya was the first one to complain about this. So,once again I thought of changing template. But this time little bit lucky to sort out the issue quickly.Just now while writing this post I received a mail from lavanya stating that she was able to comment now. Huh.I was relieved after one week struggle.But still waiting for a positive reply from subhayan

So…If somebody is having a problem in commenting.. How can they convey to me? If they don't know my id,what do they do? this question ran through my mind and I decided to add a feedback form through which everyone can contact me..about the issues of my blog.. You can find the Feedback form in top menu after Home,posts rss and comments rss.. Please feel free to utilise it and state the issues of my blog. It can be a positive or negative feedback.I would try my level best to settle the issue.

And once again I thank shubhayan,lavanya,shilpaa, pawan and venki for mentioning the issues and help me sort out the issues.

Image Courtesy: http://sagacityinfotech.co.in/images/feedback.jpg

Technorati Tags: feedback,comments

HarDum!!!

Social networking is not new to us. We have seen a lot of networking websites such as Orkut,Facebook,Tagged,MySpace etc. I read today’s Hindu Newspaper. I found a new social networking website. You might think what's new in that. Everything is same. I felt the same way when I read the paper.

The website was created and designed by Harshavardan and Laksmi Parkavi of Chennai..So I entered the site and registered my account.Let me furnish the unique advantages of that site.

First advantage is that Signing up is so easy.It takes only a few seconds to sign up for that site.

We say first impression is the best impression and this easy sign up process created the first and best impression.

Profile creation is simple without asking much details and unnecessary things.

Some features of facebook like wall and twitter has been combined in this site. So we can enjoy the advantages of orkut,facebook,twitter at same place.

We can post our talents like, we can post our good photos, post our blog links,post anything creative and points are awarded for your unique talent. There is also a vote system through which you can vote to others talents.

There is a column called power ideas were you can post your unique ideas. The ideas may be about cookery,science,projects etc..

The most amazing thing which differentiates Hardum from other websites is that you can buy products for free.You can donate free products,You can sell your products and you can even exchange your books and other products from others in your locality.

There are lots of free vouchers too. Do you think its over not all. Here you can search for latest job openings.Apply for the job and post your resume too. This site directly bridges Employers and job seekers.This site also provides the latest news from your Tinsel Town.

I am new to this site and still there is a lot more to explore. The website has just been started and it looks cool.So don't wait.Register Immediately.

http://www.hardum.com

Image Courtesy:http://www.hardum.com

Technorati Tags: hardum,social networking,buy,sell products,vouchers,freebies,job search,resume

Top Commenters Of My blog For The Month Of May 2009

The following persons are the top commenters of my blog during the Month of May-june 2009.

Internet Explorer!!!

Sorry friends it seems my blog is not compatible with Internet explorer. I heard a complaint that my blog is not opening in IE. Dont know the problem.Will soon sort out. So for the mean time please view in Google chrome,opera and mozilla firefox.Sorry for the inconvenience.