20 Blogs you can't live without!!

Ever since my blog crossed 20,000 hits (Yay!), I've been trying to come up with the best post I could think of. The best compilation I could write. And so after 2 days of net surfing, (Slow campus net wasn't helping :X) here's a list of 20 (Design+Tech+Blogging Tips) Blogs, that you MUST check out!

I've choosen blogs that I've been reading regularly, and I'm sure you would love to read to! Also, I've listed 3 posts that I think you should check for each blog (and then I'm sure you'll be looking around for more!)

Oh & maybe this would be a good time to start using a Blog Reader (Or maybe switch to a better one?). Check out my post on 6 Ways to keep up with Blog Updates (Using RSS) to make sure you don't miss any new post on these blogs! (And mine too!)

So gear up for the 20 Blogs that you MUST check out!

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10 Design Blogs

It's been only a couple of months since I started reading up about Designing, and now that comprises of most of the blogs that I read! The content of each blog is so great, that it took me quite some time to short list 10 Design Blogs I'm sure you'll love! There are a lot more, so I'll keep others for the next time!

10Steps.SG : It has a really nice collection of Photoshop Tutorials (& Some nice posts for ideas!)

• Create a Retro Pop Art in Photoshop
• 22 Self Portraits of Great Artists
• 40 Sets of Photoshop Custom Shapes

Abduzeedo : Weird name, but this is a blog you would fall in love with! Even if you aren't remotely interested in Designing, the Photos & Artwork here are splendid!

• 20 Fantastic Deviant Wallpapers
• Great Graphic Design Online Courses
• 60 Great Abduzeedo Articles from 2008
• Oh & don't forget to check their Daily Inspiration Series for some excellent Designs & Photos everyday!

DesignShard : Great Design, Even better Blog. Very popular for it's top quality content. Worth bookmarking!

• Get more traffic with good web design
• 10 Inspiring sites to gain Photoshop Inspiration
• Design Vocabulary - Typography Terms

Just Creative Design : Remember Jacob Cass? (He gave a video lecture on "Logo Design" in our campus!). Young, but awesome at what he does! (Did you check his Logo Of The Day site?)

• Logo Design Trends for 2009
• The Ultimate List of The Best Logo Design Resources
• 23 More Truly Awesome Custom Designer T-Shirts

NETTUTS : From the creators of PSDTUTS (Below), here's another great site! From CSS to PHP, it covers a lot!

• 10 Most Bizarre Programming Languages Ever Created
• 5 Techniques to Acquaint You With CSS 3
• 25 Resources to Get You Started with PHP from Scratch

Noupe : Another impressive Design Blog. Oh & this covers a lot topics, so has a nice variety of posts!

• 60 Most Wanted Photoshop Tutorials, Brushes, .PSDs and Resources
• Typographic Madness: 30 Brilliant Piece of Work
• Flex Developer’s Toolbox : Free Components, Themes and Tutorials

PSDFan : Just when you thought you can never learn Photoshop, you stumble upon something like this. Next day, your friends are all around you asking you to show more of your designs!

• Design a Cool Football Wallpaper
• Awesome Grunge Text Effect
• Replicate Justin Timberlake’s Lovestoned Music Video

PSDTUTS : THE Site to go for Photoshop Tutorials. You'll die playing around but their tutorials won't end. I would download their whole site for referring to if I could! :D

• 6 Interface Design Principles and Tips Every Web Designer Should Know
• 30+ Useful Resources for Improving Your Photoshop Efficiency
• 40 Brilliantly Photoshopped Print Ads

Smashing Magazine : Pretty cool design, and amazing content. What more can we ask for!

• 50 Excellent Adobe Illustrator Video Tutorials
• 15 Beautiful High-Quality Free Fonts
• The World From Above: The Beauty Of Aerial Photography

Web Designer Wall : I hate them. Such people shouldn't be allowed to be designers. Once you look at their site, you'll, well, just keep staring at it. NEVER seen a site with a better design! One day, I'll get them to design my blog. One day.... :D (For those who're confused, just go check their site. It's great!)

• How to: CSS Large Background
• 80 Large Background Websites
• 2008 Design Trends

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6 Tech Blogs

I love staying updated with Tech news, but there are some blog that are different. Blogs where authors put effort into each post. So here are 6 Tech Blogs I think you must subscribe to!

LifeHacker : A MUST for everyone who is slightly interested in Technology. The posts are very simple and well explained, and cover a wide range of topics. Really amazing team of writers too!

• Five Best Desktop Customization Tools
• Battle of the Best Beta Releases of 2008
• Everything You Need to Know How to Do in Windows

TechCrunch : One of the most quoted Tech Blogs, this will surely help you keep updated with what's new. And unlike other Tech Blogs which mostly link to the latest news (like Techmeme), TechCrunch Team puts a lot of effort in each post. Check it out!

• 2009: Products I Can’t Live Without
• Steve sends a Steve-note: I’m just thin
• Google’s Top Ten Products (More Or Less)

The Google Blog : This is something that every Google fan must read. Frequent updates of nearly everything big that's related to Google, from their April Fool Pranks to the Search Trends!

• Google's New Favicon
• New search-by-style options for Google Image Search
• Google blogging in 2008

The GMail Blog : I've quoted them in a lot of my posts, simply because this will keep you updated about your favorite email service - GMail! :)

• A holiday break to play with all the new stuff
• New in Labs: Tasks
• Fast PDF viewing right in your browser

Digital Inspiration : This one gets a special mention not just because Amit Agarwal is an Indian, but because the writing style is very easy to understand, with minimum jargon in it! Superb blog!

• Most Useful Web Applications for 2008
• The Essential Guide to Internet & Software for First-Time Computer Users
• Windows Live Sync vs. Live Mesh vs. SkyDrive: Which is Right for You?

MS/Web : Now we can't forget Microsoft so easily, can we? MS/Web is a really useful blog which keeps you updated with some popular posts around the web (And no, it isn't just Microsoft related posts). And you can also narrow down and choose a particular category of posts to read!

• Five Tech Trends to Watch in 2009
• Seven Predictions for Open Source in 2009
• Deep Earth: When Virtual Earth Meets Silverlight 2 and Open Source

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4 Blogging Tips Blogs

I know there are loads of such blogs everywhere, but these are some of the special ones, that I've been reading for a long time. I give full credit to these blogs for making my blog what it is today!

Must-read for all Bloggers/Going-to-be-Bloggers!

BloggerBuster : This one by Amanda is the best collection of the Blogger tips you'll ever find. And ofcourse, there are plenty of free Blogger Templates there too!

• Easy Peasy Recent Comments Widget for Blogger Layouts
• 125 More Excellent Blogger Templates (The Best Yet!)
• Create a three column Blogger template

Blog University : Another amazing blog for Blogger Tips. One of the scripts that I used was inspired by this blog!

• A Round-Up Of Free Blogging Icons!
• Related Posts
• A Cool CSS Navigation menu

Problogger : Starting a new blog? Not happy with the way your readers are reacting? Problogger helps you become, well, a Pro Blogger! :D

• 5 Reasons to Start a New Blog
• 13 Ways to Add New Dimensions to Your Next Post
• 7 Types of Blog Posts Which Always Seem to Get Links and Traffic

DailyBlogTips : Another nice Blog. What's unique in this blog is that a lot of posts are Ques & Ans based posts, which one can easily relate to. Do check it out!

• 10 Things That Bloggers Tend to Forget, But Shouldn’t!
• Q&A: Why My Blog Gets No Comments?
• Generating Traffic to Your Blog

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Those were some of the blogs from my huge Subscription list. Hope you'll enjoy reading them!

So which of these Blogs did you like? Any other blog(s) you think are as good as (or better than) the ones I mentioned? 

Do let me know!

So you want to be Microsoft Student Partner??

First of all: Good news! I've been selected as a Microsoft Student Partner!! and I just received the official letter (Ofcourse the results were out in the start of this month!). To know about how my MSP exam was, check my eariler blog post!

For those wondering what this Microsoft Student Partner is all about, read on!

[Logo modified by me :) ]

Microsoft Student Partners is a Global program that aims to find college students passionate about technology and willing to learn and share their knowledge.

MSPs get a chance to interact with other MSPs all over the world, as well as Microsoft Professionals. Apart from this, they get to attend Exclusive MSP Boot-Camps by Microsoft and much more!

Not to forget, they also get Internship & Recruitment opportunities at Microsoft & partners.

You can register (Last chance for this year!) latest by 16^th November, ’08. 

Time's Up!! Anyway go check http://student-partners.com/ for more info!

When you'll apply for MSP, you have to also take part in Imagine Cup. Open to students around the world, Imagine Cup involves using Technology to make a difference to the world. It aims at finding solutions to real world issues and has come a long way in the past 6 years.

From Short Film Making to Game Development, Photography to Software Designing, Imagine Cup has something for everyone!

To Register, Head on to: http://imaginecup.com/ 

PS: While registering, please give the Referral Code as “Rasagy” J

PPS: You can apply for Imagine Cup 2009 (In Egypt this time) without applying for MSP too! Check it out!

All the best!

Who'll be the next Microsoft Student Partner?

Update: I've been selected as a Microsoft Student Partner!! Check out the new post to know more :)

How many times have you glanced at a Google Product and said, "Oh it's by Google. Let's check it out!” How many times have you turned away from an application just because it's from Microsoft? Today, there's a growing trend of "Anti-Microsoft" feeling amongst most of the tech-enthusiasts. They'll blindly buy an Apple product, but ask them anything about Microsoft and they'll start making faces. And to an extent, Google & Apple have managed to draw attention thanks to their revolutionary products, but somehow a lot of amazing Microsoft application are not even known to people (Take MS Office OneNote for example. I never cared to look at it till now, but once I did, I realized what an awesome product I'd been missing!)

I guess this gave a hint to the smart minds running Microsoft that something needs to be done. There wasn't anything wrong with their products, what was needed was to make sure people atleast try it out once before checking some other vendor. And here comes the concept of Microsoft Student Partner.

MSP are selected from different colleges, mainly to try and make their college peers aware about different MS products. Products which are better than the ones they are currently using, but never cared to try out, maybe just because of the common notion to under-estimate Microsoft. And the selection test was held this Sunday (19th Oct) in 8 cities across India to choose the next MSPs.

I and few of my friends were shortlisted for the test, and I went to the Delhi center (As I was leaving for Pilani to participate in Oasis). And nearly half of those in the Delhi center (More than 75 students) were from BITS Pilani! A short introductory session made us more familiar with what MSPs are, what benefits they get by being one and what they are expected to do. And then we went for the written eliminations.

The written test was of 4 parts (of nearly equal questions). First one was on Logical Reasoning, with simple puzzles like in any IQ test, and a section having excerpts from a technical article/news items and questions based on it. This was followed by a test to judge Analytical Ability, in which you had to use the statistics provided (Bar graph of Sales, Details of Bus timings etc.) to answer the questions.

Next, we had to technical papers. One was on C Programming, which was pretty simple (except for some questions based on syntax and header files which you need to mug up to answer). The last paper was the weirdest of all, as it had high level technical questions (some about how data is sent in a network, memory architecture and what not!). Thank god there was no negative marking!! :D

Some 40-50 students were shortlisted from the 200-300 present, and were grouped for GDs. Sadly, I had a couple of 3rd years in my group, and they turned out to be pretty good at GDs. We got the topic as "Relevance of Internet in Rural Areas in India" and the ten of us started thinking about what to speak. But what was disappointing in the GD was the contrast in experience of the participants. One of them was very dominating, where as some 1st yearites were actually quarrelling, instead of letting others speak. Unable to understand what's going on in this fish market, the Observer finally asked everyone to speak one by one, and then asked the dominant participant to conclude (Sadly, she didn't conclude the GD. She just concluded what she was saying). And well, that was it.

The results are expected around 28th Oct 1st Nov, and I'm a bit doubtful about my selection, thanks to the chaotic GD. In the other center, Rahil & Sudipt from BITS Pilani Goa Campus got through for the GDs. Let's see if we get a MSP in our college!

Anyway, I took this opportunity to talk about getting some Microsoft guys to do a presentation/guest lecture etc in our campus, under CSI (Computer Society of India, BPGC Chapter). Hopefully, you'll see a notice soon with the Microsoft logo \m/. Oh & if there's any particular topic you would like to have a lecture/workshop on, do tell me!

So what do you feel about this whole Microsoft Student Partner idea? Do you feel it'll be able to reduce the "Anti-Microsoft" feeling which is there among a lot of students today? Do leave a comment!