I have no idea why I am spending this much time on twitter. When I have nothing else to do, I keep reloading my twitter page for new tweets ( I haven’t installed any twitter tool yet ..  may be I will, soon .. ). And even when I have something important to do, I keep coming back to twitter, for another reload.

I created twitter account a few months back and left it there and Twitter was not popular like this.  Even when I saw twitter’s popularity growing, I didn’t feel like using it because I had nothing to do with twitter, or I have no idea what the use was, for me.

Initially, like many others I was also thinking this, why should I tell the world “What I am doing” using a website, and 140 characters ? Then twitter changed in to something more … Obama started twittering .. CNN , Facebook, Google … and then Google started worrying about twitter launching search and then ads … people started  dreaming about their tweets being published in newspapers like their blog entries do.

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Plugins are something new that you are going to find on your dashboard while moving to self hosted wordpress blog. Plugins, as the name suggests, adds more features and addons to your blog.

Most Popular Plugins:

WordPress.com stats – so that you won’t miss your stats as you used ton wordpress.com blogs. This plugin needs a wordpress.com API code, which you fill find on your wordpress dashboard ( link )

All in One SEO – For SEO crazy bloggers. I have installed it, but not sure how to make the best out of it. Yep, I am not a SEO guy.

Auto Tager : Suggests and adds tags automatically when you write, edit and publish your blog posts. Very useful.

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CSS : This word keeps coming back to me these days. Every time I open google.com, I type something related to css there, and browse through result pages. Call it “mad about css” or “in love with css” or “crazy about css”, I am thinking about it all the time … I am dreaming about it throughout the day.

CSS is awesome.

CSS is really great, and it is awesome. It can do many wonders on your web page. It can make your blog look good or bad, or beautiful or even sexy. There are n number of beautiful things that you can do with CSS. Last week I spent hours looking at CSS wonders that other people have created, and finally decided to learn CSS, Continue reading →

Guys, we have a new design, but I did not change the theme, yes this is “copyblogger”.  Inspired by deigners and bloggers out there, I tried my css skills on the copyblogger theme and ended up here, with this design. ( header image needs a color change, agreed redesigned header : brilliant job again by Chirag !!)

So, what I need now is little feedback, good bad and the ugly. If you say, “really good”, I may not work hard enough to make this look even better, so be careful when you comment !!

PS: Thank You Gisele Jaquenod for helping me to fix the sidebar error & Thank You “she” for her valuable suggestions !!

I have started blogging in Malayalam too !!

I find reading Malayalam blogs more interesting than actually writing blogs in Malayalam…. may be because I am not used to writing Malayalam online using the transliteration and similar stuff, where we write words using English letters which will be changed to the desired language automatically.

When I started reading Malayalam blogs, I found that most of them use Blogger.com since they have the transliteration feature, a feature which makes blogging in Indic languages really easy. Why don’t they just use WordPress.org or WordPress.com ? We really need more people start using WordPress, to blog in Indic languages. Don’t you think so ?

Initially I started with Blogger itself, and then started copying the content to WordPress and it worked perfect. Just that I typed everything using Blogger.com and then published it using WordPress.org blog on this domain itself. ( sssh … secret .. I have another installation of WordPress on this domain where I play with themes and now Malayalam Blogging )

If you install certain softwares, which enables transliteration on your computer, you can directly blog in Indic languages, using WordPress platform. So I installed “Keyman” and started writing to WordPress blog directly, in Malayalam.

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Here is a news from the Malayalam blogging community, and it is no more an issue of Malayalam Bloggers alone. I am not writing a long post about the issue because you have a lot to read at the pages linked to.

See the first email from the blogger :

You have copied from malayalam blogs and
placed it on your website.

http://www.kerals.com/malayalam/kerala/malayalam.php?f=8

http://kerals.com/malayalam/kerala/malayalam.php?f=15

These links show the copied stories and poems from Malayalam blogs. You have no right to do so. You have ads all over your website. You cannot put ads on copied content. This issue will be reported to your hosting service and to google.

And the reply ? here is a sample.

May be I might dont know how to reply properly, however it’s none of your business since you are another malayali thinks world is under your neath.. Just get rid of all the ego’s and come down to earth.. may be your parents didnt teach you to respect other and get respect.. I am too nice based on your character.. You are Nothing, just another FOB.. So Do NOT think you are on top of me or us.. Rule your husband or familly.. DO NOT TRY TO RULE THE WORLD…

Read the entire Story in Malayalam or in English

I am not a theme designer. So, when I say Malayalam WordPress Themes, its not a new design that I am creating. But, I am trying to modify WordPress themes to add little Malayalam to it . I am testing this on my dummy wordpress installation where I play with themes. I should install a blog just for Malayalam WordPress Blogging.

Malayalam blogging community seems to have Ignored WordPress almost completely.I should try to bring at least some of them to WordPress platform ( let them bring the rest right ? ).

The reason for Malayalam Bloggers being attracted to Blogger, is the “Transliteration” feature it has. I do not know how to enable this feature for WordPress. But, there should be some solution . I should find someone who is good with PHP who can make a plugin ( may be ? ) . Please leave a comment if you are someone, or if you know someone.

I need to make a “to do list” of things that I am going to do. Planning makes things easy right ? hmm well planning alone won’t make things easy. Don’t you think so ?

I know I don’t have enough experience in Malayalam blogging to actually get in to writing a review about it. These are my random thoughts on writing in Malayalam or few notes on what I am doing there.

(1) I am still trying to learn to type in good Manglish that Blogger will understand, in order to transliterate it in to Malayalam words.

(2) I do not know how Google will index blogs in Mayalam or any language other than English. I am still at zero on SEO ( Search Engine Optimization ) in Indic languages including Malayalam.

(3) 99% of Malayalam blogs are on blogger.com ( or blogspot ) and there are only very few people who actually try it with WordPress.com or wordpress.org

(4) There is a good community of Malayalam bloggers.

(5) There is lot of serious blogging happening. They are discussing politics,history,international issues,poetry,culture.. and lot of serious topics.

(6) Malayalam blogging community is trying everything possible to get more people in to Malayalam blogging.

(7) Most of the Malayalam blogs are 100% in Malayalam.

(8) I am yet to see someone who is trying to make money through blogging.

(9) I need to personally ask Malayalam bloggers if they are satisfied with what they get on Blogger.com

(10) I will try to bring them to WordPress.