Wordpress plugins you should install

Few months back I have shifted my blog to self hosted wordpress blog at this location. I have passed few months trying new things on this blog like themes, plugins and its been fun playing with it. During this time I have tried several plugins, so wanted to share some of the plugins that I liked the most:

Aksimet: filters spam comments and tracksbacks. You don’t want your post to be filled with useless comments.
Wordpress.com Stats: Its a light weight plugin but still provides detailed representation of important statistics
Google Sitemap Generator: Generates sitemap for your wordpress blog which is by Ask.com, Google, YAHOO and MSN Search.
Get Recent Comments: Display the most recent comments or trackbacks with your own formatting in the sidebar.
FeedBurner FeedSmith: It redirects your wordpress feeds to feedburner so that you can easily track your subscribers.
Plugin Central: Automatically installs and updates WordPress plugins.
Wordpress Data backup: Its a necessary plugin to backup your blog. I still haven’t restoring posts from backup though.

For some specific users plugins like wp-latex, are also useful. It generates PNG images from inline $\LaTeX$ code in your posts and comments. I have installed latex on my hosting service( hostmonster) and still working on making simliar plugins(LatexRender) to work.

You can find many more such list on web if you do a google search. But Lorelle has a nice compilation of list of favorite wordpress plugins.

May 22, 2008 | Filed Under blog, listing | 2 Comments

Evolution of a blogger

It has been almost 3 year, When I started blogging. Looking back to see how my blogging style has changed, change in content of blog post or change in my motivation for blogging to sum up how I am evolved as a blogger. First I’ll tell you how my reasoning behind blogging has changed:

Why do I Blog ?

Because I wanted to blog, seeing so many on internet.
Then as catalog of stuff I’m doing, for me and may be for others to know.
And with time it changed to showcasing what I like, what I’m doing, sharing tips and then taking readers opinion, discussing with them. (at leasts thats the aim)

In all above cases common things can be to pass time and share experience plus along with we are (I am) also always looking for recognition and admiration.

And about change in my blog content:

May 2005, Posted some pictures, wanted to avoid much writing.
June 2005, Just write about your projects, so that you don’t have to dwell for blog content.
November 2005, You try to write some good posts(Solving Rubik’s Cube, Speed up firefox) but you end with posts like Unnatural laws whose content is generally a email forward or similar.
February 2006, You try your best looking for good content to post but most of post were result of “submit to blog” button on digg.
July 2006, Most of blog post consists of linking to stories of others blogs or quoting parts of posts from other blogs.
September 2006, Now blog posts are mixture of posts from above categories.
January 2007, Now You are improving with some good posts (sharing knowledge firefox: about pages). Also tried covering some events in IITB (Techfest 2007: Feeding the Fish, Creative Commons, India launched on 26th Jan at IIT Bombay)
Then there is also a time when you stop blogging for some time (for me this hibernation period was from May 2007 to Nov 2007)
Decemeber 2008, January 2008: You are trying to get back in form and you want to write good posts now)
February 2008, Some good posts which includes what new you tried Adobe AIR: Web to Desktop, Trying hands on Google gadgets) or tips you want to share(Google movie search tricks).
Now I feel, I have a good enough blog which people (atleast some) want to read. And I’m always ready to try, explore new things and share with my viewers and always waiting for there feedback. (Check my posts for this month)

In all these time periods you will always have some good posts and some just blog posts.

Share with your motivation behind blogging and how you pick up content for your blog. I’m not a good writer (I try to share mostly technical, geeky stuff through my blog) so any suggestion/feedback to writing style are always welcome.

May 20, 2008 | Filed Under blog, listing | 3 Comments

Google movie search tricks

I found this interesting article about search tricks for movie lovers. Try some sample searches:

Movie Reviews: movie:American Gangster
Discover movies: http://www.google.com/movies
http://www.google.co.in/movies (for India)
director: The Incredibles

Interesting thing is country specific google movie domains are also tracking movie theaters, multiplexes in each city for listing of movies and their timings. And you can sort them according to movie popularity and theater distance from your address. that’s pretty cool.. !!
Read more for more search tricks: 5 Most Fantastic Movie Search Tricks With Google

February 25, 2008 | Filed Under entertainment, listing | 1 Comment

Double century of posts : A comic break

I found this Best of Blaugh through webyantra. So enjoy…

Here are the other webcomics that i love:

My collection of dilbert comics: Dilbert, IIT and Linux
Related Posts:
Great Amul Ads !
Damned funny Unix humor

April 24, 2007 | Filed Under blog, humor, listing, web | Leave a Comment

Paint Online

These days i’m getting so many websites which allows you to draw online..here is a list of some
Flash Based:

Imagination Cubed
Wetpaint Please Touch - Create Your Own Masterpiece!
Artpad
FlashPaint
Sketchr (also available at http://www.queeky.com)
Scratchpad
Online Paint Brush

HTML < canvas > Based:

Paint Chat [designed by me :)]
Canvas Painter
Canvas Paint (resembles to MS paint)

Java Based:

Related Post :
Paint Chat !!
Web2.0 Applications

April 18, 2007 | Filed Under listing, web | 1 Comment

India leads Asia billionaire club

“India has the most number of billionaires in Asia with a total wealth of $191bn between them, according to Forbes magazine. With 36 billionaires, India has overtaken Japan’s 24 billionaires, after two decades of Japan topping the Asian rich list.”

Forbes’ 2007 ranking of worlds richest.

Lakshmi Mittal, 56, is the fifth richest person in the world, according to the magazine. The other Indians in the list include Mukesh and Anil Ambani of Reliance, Wipro chief Azim Premji, Bharti Group chairman Sunil Mittal and Aditya Birla Group chairman Kumar Mangalam Birla.

Check who made it to list from India (Asia)

Also check The World’s Billionaires

March 10, 2007 | Filed Under india, listing, news | Leave a Comment

Top 10 Web Tools For College Students

“I have been in college almost three years now and have been using many different Web tools that saved me time, helped me learn more and, most importantly, did not cost a penny. Here are 10 tools that I recommend for every college student…”

Great list of websites by NextPath to help you in college life…site has also linked to review of these wesites by famous websites such as PC magazine, Techcrunch, Lifehack…
List includes Wikipedia , Del.icio.us, Google Docs, Tada List

read more

February 16, 2007 | Filed Under listing, web | Leave a Comment

9 Things The Non-Tech Savvy Do That Annoy Geeks

Earlier also i made a similar post :I’m A Programmer, Not A Computer Guy, Now its the time again

When you ’re a tech nerd working or living with the not so tech savvy, there are a few things they tend to do that make you bite your tongue, and resist the urge to take over what they’re doing and get it done yourself. They may be trivial, but they are all oh so wrong.

Online Music & Photo Editing

Techcrunch covered web2.0 startups relating to photo editing and Social music. Some of them really cool like pandora, last-fm for music which i use very often. I also have used picnik. So here are links for more such web applications.

Social Music Overview
Online Photo Editing Overview

February 7, 2007 | Filed Under image, listing, music, web2.0 | Leave a Comment

Some useful command line tricks

SEOmoz.org has listing of linux commnad that may be useful in web development but they are uerful otherwise too.
Some of them are here:

ln -s /some/destination name_of_link
ctrl+z and bg
scp : scp user@example.com:~/dir /destination

Read More : Web Developers: 13 Command Line Tricks
Some other Miscellaneous Tricks:

ls -lSr List files (sorted by size)

df -h Show available disk space in human-readable format

du -sh /some/dir Show how much space /some/dir is taking up