Samir Bharadwaj dot Com Reveals the Full Monty

Samir Bharadwaj dot Com Reveals the Full Monty

A web site is never done. While this blog and site have been up for almost 3 months now, there are still plenty of improvements and tweaks to be made to the functionality of the site, and I’ve just done some of the ones on my list.

The most important one is the full monty referred to in the title. I have always planned to make the feed for this site a full text feed. While I have never really gotten into the the habit of using a feed reader regularly, I know that is the way many prefer to do their blog reading. I would like to make sure they get the best and most click-free experience possible, so the Samir Bharadwaj dot Com blog now has a full RSS feed that you can subscribe to. This way you can keep track of the goings-on here, and also read the full text of articles from the comfort of your favourite feed reader. In keeping with this new development, I also added some chicklets on the top of the righ side bar that will make adding this site to various popular feed readers a snap. Also there a new fancy feed icon announcing the fact that this is a full feed. Marvel at the flashiness!

The other change which has been in the works for a while is the change in the Fresh Finds feature on this site. That is where I post any interesting links I come across during my sojurns online. The latest fresh finds used to be listed in the sidebar, but after plenty of template hacking, they are now integrated into the main blog listing. I think this avoids repetition and puts the links into the context of the date when they were added, which is better to keep track of.

Enjoy the new changes and don’t forget to subcribe to the new full feed to get your reading home delivered.

How to Start a Conversation with an Urban Indian

How to start a conversation with an urban Indian

After a lifetime of observation, study, and first-hand sociological research, I have finally distilled the complex art of conversation in urban India down to a simple formula. I am very proud of my achievement.

How to start a conversation with an urban Indian is a matter of paramount importance in the current world economic climate. Along with being one of the quickest growing economies, India has the largest English speaking population this side of Neptune. This makes English conversations, which is what I assume most readers of this blog would be interested in, more of a viable option. It’s not all for the betterment of the world through the rampant spread of the ideal free market economy though. These conversation skills have a more basic and human utility.

In the age old quest for universal brotherhood, cross cultural understanding, and getting your IT staff to fix your computer quickly during an emergency, you really need to figure out how to start a conversation with the Indians that you are bound to find around you. After all, there are a lot of us — every sixth person in the world or something like that.

These new-found conversation techniques should also come in handy should you choose to make small talk with that strange sounding individual you always speak to when you call your ISP help line. He insists his name is Bob, but you’re pretty sure he’s actually Andy, which is what he calls himself when you call your credit card help line. Maybe this mysterious cloak and dagger story of schizophrenia intrigues you and you really would like to get to know this loveable psycho better. If this is your situation, these tips are just the thing you need.

But, in case all this talk of striking up conversations with those crazy Indians is alienating the 1/6th of you who are my cohorts in the great Indian experiment, fear not. I just realised that the people most in need of instructions for talking to Indians are other Indians. In case you haven’t picked up on these tricks yet over many family get-togethers and festival celebrations, my step-by-step formula will allow you to become an Instant hit at any Indian party.

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Carnivale! July 18, 2007

Blog CarnivalI’ve been quite active with submitting posts to blog carnivals recently, and since the last monthly report, the links have really started to build up. So much so, that I figured a once-in-a-month mention would simply not be enough to cover all the links coming in. Hence this post. Here is the latest list of blog carnivals and their organisers who were kind enough to link to this site:

And that is the complete roundup thus far. I’m glad the Pop up card post was linked in multiple places because I think it is a worthy read. A big thank you to all the carnival organizers for the flattering attention and for all the bloggers who provided the wonderful links that stood besides mine.

Until next time, viva carnivale!

Google Writes a Cheque, Hilarity Ensues

The cheque that broke the bank

The story so far …
Debi (Mobile) Jones had a problem with her Adsense payment due to a changed address. Matt Cutts from Google stepped in and eventually the problem was solved. When she went into the bank to cash her cheque, however, she was told that there were not enough funds in the account. Needless to say when the account in question belongs to Google, this piece of news from the bank teller can lead to anything from utter outrage to rolling laughter on the part of the recipient. I am happy to say Debi saw the humour of the situation and her report on her banking experience makes for a very entertaining read. Her new problem hasn’t been solved yet at the time of this writing and she posted a follow up to say as much. I found out about all this through Problogger, and now the story will obviously be Dugg to death. People love being incensed.

Personally I think it is an unfortunate story, but it’s more a story of neglect rather than of malice, as some would like to paint it. Google isn’t really out to get you or anything that sinister. They’re just too big and monolithic to notice sometimes. Not that that is an excuse in anyway from our end-user point of view, but it is the sad truth of most large organisations.

I’m surprised by the fact that the main Google inbound number still leads to a simple recorded message system (as mentioned by Debi). I would have thought they would have moved on to a falsely personalised anonymous call-centre a few thousand miles away by now. The fact that they haven’t done that actually impresses me, because I’m not quite sure which is better, the non-communicative recorded message lady, or the below average intelligence and resourcefullness of a call centre employee.

On the original blog, there were actually concerns by readers about commenting on this topic for fear of it negatively affecting their Adsense accounts. That, I think is a much worse thing to be happening than the actual bounced cheque. If I was Google I would be much more worried by the fact that my publishers seem to be living in so much mortal fear of retribution, than one wrong cheque.

Google has changed the internet and has pretty much single-handedly started the revolution of the monetisation of personal sites and content. They are a company that does a lot of positive things, and I admire them for it. Projects like the Summer of Code are absolutely brilliant ideas which produce positive results for a large community of people and are truly praiseworthy. Like all large organisations, however, I think Google does need to re-boot and re-think their basics on a regular basis. Sure, a lot of people are always going to hate them for no particular reason, that comes with the territory. But to continue being the dominant and moving force that they have come to become, they need to make sure their position is one of respect and not of fear. Unlike what some people think, those are not the same thing.

5+1 Simple Ideas For Brainstorming With A Dictionary

Brain storm techniques using a dictionary

brainstorming n. intensive discussion to solve problems or generate ideas

That’s what my dictionary says, and it is absolutely right. Brainstorming is always a discussion, but what gets most people confused is that they often need to generate ideas on their own, without the benefit of discussion with another human being. Creative pursuits can be very solitary activities. In fact, they often have to be for best results, especially in the early stages. So how do you generate ideas and discuss these ideas with yourself? In case you are convinced that your creativity requires a healthy helping of multiple personality disorder to survive, fear not, because there are healthier ways to light those creative sparks. One method I always like to use when brainstorming for new ideas is flipping through a dictionary.

To most people a dictionary is a dry and boring book. It has a lot of interesting words in it, but no gripping plot or characters to speak of. How can you possibly be inspired to create by such a regimental piece of literature? To answer that question, here a few dictionary techniques I use when I am looking for solution to a creative problem:

  1. Seek Knowledge
  2. Divide and Rule
  3. Be A Good Neighbour
  4. Take A Leap Of Faith
  5. Respect History
  6. Take Action

If all that sounded mysterious and cryptic, lets move on to the specifics of each of these techniques. To help make things clearer, let me take on the hypothetical challenge of braistorming for an image or illustration idea for the word brainstorm. Using these very techniques that I am about to describe, lets see what ideas we can come up with.

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The June 2007 Report

SamirBhardwaj.com monthly reportTime for another monthly report on the fortunes of this site. It is now two months since I set up shop, and things are as interesting as ever.

Traffic

This month the Photo Tips party continued. After a lull towards the end of May, traffic once again soared at the beginning of June, largely driven by social bookmarking activity on Stumbleupon. It did die down later in the month leaving me with a relatively low daily traffic figure, which Google Adsense claims is somewhere around the 500 page views per day range.

SamirBharadwaj.com June 2007 traffic stats

This is not really a bad place to be at the end of two months. But it has to be increased to former glories if I’m serious about making something of this site. Traffic figures for SamirBharadwaj.com in June 2007 were:
Total Pages — 256751
Total Visits — 65465
That is slight decrease of page views and a slight increase of visits as compared to last month.

Once again I can’t complain about all the free publicity, but I do need to be carefull not let this blog become a one trick horse. After some networking two other posts are starting to get some traffic from links and search engines, which is a positive sign. The two most popular posts besides the photo tips are currently How to assemble a Feedburner alternative using WordPress plugins and The BEST Action Movie Ever.

Blog Carnivals

More blog carnivals happened in June and more kind people chose to include various posts from my blog. Here is a list below:

ToDo

The need to diversify my traffic still exists. And while I have been continuously making improvements, many more technical tweaks remain to be made.

One thing I need to look into specifically is getting more search engine traffic. I also need to see if I can package the blog towards more of a focused topic. While this is my personal blog and it will always be a bit all over the place, one central topic of discussion might give it a more solid back bone. Meanwhile keep coming back for more and commenting here. All your feedback and thoughts are always appreciated. To keep in touch with happenings here, please subscribe to my RSS feed. There is much more to come as another month dawns.

Ending Happily Without The Ever After

Happy endings and ever after

Fairy Tales have had a profound effect on all human cultures. Not just old fashioned mythology, but rather the archetype of the fairy tale as we have come to know it in the last century or so. Before then tales and myths were often dark and foreboding, showing life in all its shades and complexities. Good was not always good, bad was not always bad and the hero didn’t always get the girl in the end with no harm done. Then somewhere along the way, our stories were sanitised. They became sweet and one dimensional. Good always triumphed, and people always lived happily ever after. This aspect of ultimate romantic triumph has particularly had a straight-jacketing effect on what a writer or story teller can consider acceptable narrative closure.

Recently I watched two pieces of film making on TV. A rare occurrence because I rarely watch TV any more. But these happened to catch me during a lull in my otherwise busy mental schedule, and they held my attention enough for me to sit through them, ugly commercial breaks and all. One was a Sci-Fi disaster extravaganza and the other was yet another 3D Computer Graphic funny flick, but I liked them both to varying degrees. What made me think of them as a cohesive pair to write about together is that both movies didn’t fare very well at the box office, and neither of them ended with a passionate kiss.

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