Palakkad is a district in Kerala, which is green green and green. It’s 135km away from where I am now ( Cochin ). I visited my roomie’s village last Sunday. It was a fun drive on the bike and yea…… in the heavy rain.

I don’t have a digi cam yet. These pics are from my roomie’ 2.0 MP Cell Phone Cam. Is it really worth to spend few thousands on a digicam with little photographic skills ?.

PS: Thanks to Ruhii.

Happy Independence Day

After falling in love with iPod shuffle, my new girl friend, I decided to ask iPhone, if she is ready to marry me.

Yes’ I know, that sounds weird. But, my parents told me that it is ok with them as long as the girl is from the Apple family. Actually they will be happy to have iPhone as her daughter in law, because apple has offered 8GB as dowry compared to 2GB from iPod shuffle.

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Thanks for your feedback on my previous post, about backing up your wordpress blog. Most of them, were extra tips. Here they are….

1 Niyaz “The problem is that we cannot backup other files like images using this method.”

2 xylene was trying to remember something… “there was some site which will convert our blog into pdf. Any idea which one?”

( I think its this one http://www.expresspdf.com/ConvertHtmlToPdf.aspx )

3 Suda “Good for newbies, but I think when I read WP FAQ first, they ha warned us that its not the way to backup everything and it puts too much load on server if people start using it madly

Suda, and his tip : Backup your Blogroll.

I found a way to backup and import *blogroll* from one blog to another or just backup. May be you already know this.
go to http://yourblog.wordpress.com/wp-links-opml.php where *yourblog* is your own blog URL.

For example in dinu’s case, his blogroll can be exported as OPML file using link http://www.offlineblog.net/wp-links-opml.php

P.S> Dinu, if you think this is a useful tip and people are gonna miss this comment being on old post, you can add it in your TIPS as usual, all people eagerly read them

I am using HTTRACK Website Copier from ages and its really effective. I think I will write a post/tutorial for it soon. It won’t help in moving data to new site but its the best way we can backup a website i.e. downloading it as it is to local machine.

Also that PDF conversion site is superb, it converts page with all images included. Not the page as it looks though, it takes just content in PDF but its worth the trouble.

Do you remember this post ?. Yes, a few days ago, I was asking you guys about possibility of introducing blogging in schools. Now, go ahead and read this article. If you are too lazy to click on that link, well, read this …

If the recommendations made in the national policy on use of technology in Indian schools go through, blogging could become huge in India.

This draft policy, still under discussion, says – “Blogs are powerful tools to support creative writing that can be published and shared not only with the teacher but also with peers and the world, alike.”

When I wrote that post, I got a comment from Kenney, asking me if I can join him in something similar. The idea is to help colleges to build blogs for their students. They can have students’ blogs, take newsletters to an online blog version, and publish announcements etc … there are lot of possibilities.

I know a professor who is interested in blogging and some web 2.0, in my college ( College Website is not opening on firefox for unknown reasons ). So, I called him up and discussed this and we ( Kenny and me ) will have a meeting with him soon. I am planning to contact our principal, and another professor also, who manages college newsletters ( both are my friends … lucky me )

I am not sure yet, if they are going to agree with the plan and give a green signal. I will update you all for sure.

PS: I did not receive any questions in response to my post about self hosted blogs.   I was planning to write a single post with answers. Now, I  have decided to write a series of posts about the same. First one will be, about registering a domain name. Stay tuned.

I got an email from Poonam last month “Tell me how should I take backup of my wordpress blog, in case wordpress blocks my blog or something?” she asked.

Yes, what if something happens to your blog ? You need a backup right ? Okay, just three steps, let us generate and download a backup of your wordpress.com blog.

1 On you dashboard, click “Tools”
2 Now, “Export”
3 Now, “Download Export file”

You will get an xml file.  You can save it on your computer or attach it to an email and keep it on your email account …. hmmm what is your choice ? Remember: Always keep more than one copy.

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Oh Yes !!  I have a new girl friend ………………………… surprise …. surprise …..

Here she is …..

Apple iPode Shuffle 2 GB.

she comes to office with me … sleeps with me ( sssh !! ) but the sweetest of all  that she does… she can sing for hours !!!

Hey, is this word new to you ? then read on …… I will tell you what a splog and what they do…..
Have you ever seen trackbacks ( links to your posts ) saying “Wrote an interesting post” or “talked today about” or similar words? They do not have their own content but links to lot of other blogs.. and you thought that someone liked your post and linked there ? Yes, they are splogs.

Splog is What ?

Let’s start with Wikipedia

Spam blogs, sometimes referred to by the neologism splogs^{[citation needed]}, are artificially created weblog sites which the author uses to promote affiliated websites or to increase the search engine rankings of associated sites. The purpose of a splog can be to increase the PageRank or backlink portfolio of affiliate websites, to artificially inflate paid ad impressions from visitors, and/or use the blog as a link outlet to get new sites indexed. Spam blogs are usually a type of scraper site, where content is often either inauthentic text or merely stolen (see blog scraping) from other websites. These blogs usually contain a high number of links to sites associated with the splog creator which are often disreputable or otherwise useless websites.

Why a Splog ?

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Thesis ? ….. Ok, I know… that is what you are going to ask me…. right ? Okay, it is a WordPress theme … or rather,    a premium ( paid ) wordpress theme. If it was a free theme …. you know me very well right ? ( if you do not know … I keep changing my themes .. I change whenever I find a good theme ).

See what it’s author says

I built the Thesis Theme because I wanted a framework that had it all—killer typography, a dynamically resizable layout, intelligent code, airtight optimization, and tons of flexibility. Now, after months of field testing, I’m confident enough to offer it to those of you who have come to expect nothing but the finest themes from me.

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