Blog Refactoring and the October 2007 Report

Samir Bhardwaj dot Com monthly reportAnother month another milestone here on Samir Bharadwaj dot Com. This monthly report is a bit special because it makes this blog 6-months old. With milestones comes a natural process of looking back and planning forward. In the last six months I have made many mistakes and learnt a lot of new tricks, so it is natural for me to want to make some changes.

Refactoring

I have nothing drastic in mind, but I know of a lot of things that aren’t working well on this site, and many things that could be working better. In the coming months the plan is to do a comprehensive rethinking and refactoring of this site and blog, mainly on a coding and technical level. There are browser compatibility issues to be ironed out and cleaner SEO techniques to be employed. All of these things will make this site better, faster and more effective in the long run.

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A Postmodern Harry Potter Halloween [Comic]

... and my Mommy and Daddy are dressed as Queens - A Postmodern Harry Potter Halloween

My second day of Comic Konga is here, and since today is halloween, I thought I would do something appropriate.

Day 2. I have been hearing the buzz about J.K. Rowling recently declaring Albus Dumbledore‘s sexual persuasion, as a sort of post mortem to the series. I’ve also been hearing all the people complaining or lauding the gesture on her part. I think all of that is rubbish. She’s a writer of fiction, and a very good one at that. Let her do or say whatever she wants. It’s not supposed to have some great social significance. It’s a story, and the only real interest in this extra information is for other writers who enjoy this sort of world-building data. The rest of the human race needs to get a life. Considering all the noise, this little halloween gag came to mind, and I thought it was the perfect fodder for another comic.

I just finished reading the last of the Harry Potter books a couple of days ago. I enjoyed it thoroughly, and I can say categorically that no new revelations about anyone’s sexual orientation within the world of the books is going to change anything as far as the narrative goes. It’s a very rich world that Rowling has created and if she chooses to share some of her thought process in coming up with the various characters, I don’t see why it needs to be an issue. Some people are just waiting around to be incensed and shocked.

And so, speaking of shock, with this comic I wish you all a Happy Halloween.

Samir

The New Information Economy [Comic]

Will social bookmark you for spare change - The New Information Economy

Comic KongaWelcome to my first contribution to the first ever Comic Konga! What is Comic Konga? It is a little blog comic festival of sorts, thought up by Vishal. The idea is to post 5 days of original comic content to your blog. The official start was yesterday, but since I missed a day, I’ll just make up an extra day at the end.

I haven’t been drawing much recently, and I haven’t created a comic of any sort for years. Unfortunately I’ve also not got the opportunity in recent times to create much illustrated content for clients, so this is a great excuse to exercise my comic-ing muscles.

Day 1, my first attempt. I wanted to start simple, so after I got the initial gag into my head, I did a simple sketch with a ball-point pen in my sketch book. That was scanned in and taken into Inkscape. A vector tracing and some simple flat gray vector shapes later, it was complete.

Creating comic strips and even a single panel one such as this is a lot of fun. I love the combination of writing and art, and it’s something that can give you the satisfaction of completion fairly quickly. I am looking forward to doing more over the coming days. Hope you like it, and feel free to share it with others. I thing it is quite apt for the Web 2.0 and social bookmarking world we live in.

Samir

Body Doubles, Mug Shots & Rules of Thumb

The ever active Forest Parks has tagged me with a new meme of his making. This one is about displaying your mug and letting yourself be know — putting a face to the rubbish we force your poor unsuspecting readers to read, basically. šŸ˜‰

I think it’s a good idea, but I wonder how many people are a little attached to their online anonimity. On the other hand, someone like me doesn’t have any problems with it. In fact, my stunningly un-remarkable mug has always graced my about page. Not wanting to simply copy and paste the existing photo into this post, I decided to present a deep photographic insight into Samir Bharadwaj, with never before seen scenes, and up close and personal sights.

Body Double - Mug Shot - Rule of ThumbWe begin with me in my element … Aah! The great out doors. Of course, like all big stars of my stature, I let my lowly body double do this sort of thing. My time is precious, after all. I also have it on good authority that he’s much sexier than I am in that light. We all need a dramatically lit serene portrait of ourselves to show our distinguished side, so there’s that. And since I wanted to really open up to my readers more than most bloggers ever do, you also get a exclusive shot of my thumb. Really, it is very important to me. What would I vever do without my opposable thumb? It’s my favourite finger.

That’s my bit, and what follows is all the general meme stuff. Feel free to add yourself to the line of crazy faces by joining in on your blog.

This is me: >>

Blogging can become unpersonalized as we rarely see the author, so the idea of this meme is to let us all have a little peak at the person behind the blog.

Instructions:
– Copy this post and amend the text above ‘This is me’.
– Replace the image with a nice smiley, silly, serious picture of yourself.
– Make sure your name and link is added to the participant list.
– Tag and link some fellow bloggers in the ‘Show us yourself’ area
– Let them know they have been tagged.

See us here:
Forest Parks from The Random Forest
Samir Bharadwaj

Show us Yourself:
I was going to name a few people but then I realised that they all either had their faces prominently plastered on their About pages, or they were fairly generous with sharing shots of themselves in their posts. So, I leave this one open to all. If you read this, consider this an open invitation and a personal tag from me to join this mass face-pulling competition. And do leave a comment with a link here if you could, I would love to see what new faces join the blogosphere.

Samir

AJAX, Making Money, and Google Rankings – Fresh Finds

Fresh Finds is back in a new form. I was using a special plugin to create my link blog within WordPress, but I’m switching to plain old link posts in a special category. I will convert my older links into back-dated posts in time to make everything consistent. Now on to the links.

  • 43 Exceptionally Useful AJAX Applications
    Not just is this a great showcase of the variety of uses AJAX techniques can be put to, but also a very useful list of scripted applications that you might like to try out on your site.

  • Guide To Making Money Online With Blogging
    “Oh no! Not another one!” might be a valid response, but if you truly are interested in the monetization of websites and blogs, it is always useful to see yet another take on the subject from someone who has actually “made money online”. The links to articles and resources in this post at Connected Internet are a good reference too.
  • Google Ranking Factors – SEO Checklist
    Who doesn’t want to know how to rank well in Google? This is a very comprehensive resource on the subject.

If you have any favourite resource lists or comprehensive online guides that you swear by, I would love to hear about them. Please share them in a comment below.

Samir

How to Make a Website that is Hot, Cool & Green!

TheCowsMadeMeDoIt - Environmental Website

At long last it is here, and the waiting is over. Blog Action Day has been on the cards for a while now, and it has grown from strength to strength since it was first introduced to the world. This site has also grown from strength to strength through this event, because I chose to take on the daunting task of writing an entire series of articles on, what I felt were, the failings of the environmental movement, and more specifically, the communications that it engages in. Now I am finally at the end of my journey with this discussion, and I thought it was simply not right to critique without suggesting solutions to the issues I have brought up over the past eight articles. Considering this blog is meant to be a record of my activities in online enterprise, it was only fitting that I tackle what kind of online presence would solve some of the communication shortcomings that are facing the ecological movement.

These are general traits which could very easily be used in any medium, online or off, but the elements that would make for an effective ecological website are:

  1. Originality
  2. Irreverence
  3. Entertainment
  4. Recurrence

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I’m Not lazy, I have a Conservation Disability

Sleeping - Laziness thwarts the Environmental Movement

Human beings can be very lazy creatures. That fact bears repeating because it is ultimately the core influence behind many of the numerous, seemingly distinct, issues that plague our species and our culture. In fact, we are a strange bunch indeed, as we will often go to any lengths to fulfil our never-ending quest for in-action. So much so, that the things we choose to do to feed our laid-back nature often end up being more arduous and involved than the thing we try to avoid. We can get very serious and single-minded about it, this avoidance of work. And anything we take that seriously must have some significance in the world we build. In this world we build, a lot of the stumbling blocks the environmental movement has to put up with are a result of laziness.

This slothful nature does a lot of harm, and messes up a lot of situations in our world which could have been averted or rectified given a smidgen of attention and a modicum of effort at the right time. But alas, the misdeeds have been done and the monster is out of the bag. The best we can do is to understand this fundamental human behaviour and its causes. The major causes of human laziness are:

  1. Laziness
  2. Yet more laziness
  3. I’m too lazy to come up with a third bullet-point

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