New Blog, New Content, Same Old Me

Hey! I'm glad you found this blog, but I've stopped updating this blog for quite some time. (Oh wait, you already knew that, right?). So head over to my new blog: Design Notes by Rasagy Sharma - where I'll be sharing my thoughts on Design, experiments with programming and lots of sketchnotes!

Since you've been following this blog, I would really appreciate some feedback on the new blog! So feel free to comment/Tweet to @rasagy!

PS: If you're reading this via a Feed Reader, here's the link to the new blog's feed: http://feeds.feedburner.com/RSDNotes.

Have a great holiday! :)

Mysore Memories - Youth Hostel Sketch

"Change is Nature"

Over the past few days (months) without a constant (even occasional) internet connection, things have been pretty different. I completed my summer internship/Practise School - 1 (part of my Engineering degree at BITS-Pilani, Goa Campus) at CFTRI, Mysore. It's one of the many CSIR Research Institute in India (hence you haven't heard of it :P). And it's been a refreshing experience, to say the least!

Anyway here's a sketch I made of the Youth Hostel, where I was staying during my Summer Internship in Mysore. Oh & this is the first Youth Hostel in India (they recently celebrated 100 years of Youth Hostels across the world!). I was living in a dorm with 12 other BITSians, and considering we have single rooms in my college, it sure was a different (== fun!) experience.

More on the Mysore trip later! (This cyber cafe's making me sick :x)

PS: Gave this sketch as a gift to someone I met at Youth Hostel. Oh & for the record, this was the view from my favorite spot in the Youth Hostel - awesome place to play flute in the night! :)

Run Chef Run - My Game for CodeChef Contest!

Been a while eh? It's been more than two months since I last posted (Ironically about one year of blogging!). For those who're still following this blog hoping for a good post, well here it is!

Coming to the point, the past few days have been pretty different. A lot of things have changed, for example the fact that I've hardly been online lately (Can't help it, I don't have net access at my Institute in Mysore, where I'm doing a Summer Internship). So I've been spending a lot of time exploring things not in the World Wide Web.

And I finally succeeded in completing one of the "10 Things to do before I die" (Okay I don't really have such a list, but I guess now is a good time to come up with one!). So well, I made a game. Yup. Yes. Yeah. (Yoyo?) Sorry to disappoint you if you were expecting something greeattt. :P

CodeChef, a Directi Initiative, offers regular coding contests (aka codejams) apart from a huge collection of practise problems which you can solve in your free time. This May, they decided to do something different, and held a Browser Based Game Contest (Flash/JS Games). I was eager to take part in it, but couldn't take out much time from my summer internship. Anyway, I made a small flash game (1 Day of Photoshop + 2 Days of Flash) and came up with this:

CLICK TO PLAY!

The game is pretty simple. You are the Chef, you need to run all the way, jump over Binary Heaps and slide under Dangling Pointers (A little too geeky names eh?). And if you notice carefully (I'm sure you didn't :P), nearly all major objects are made using TEXT/KEYBOARD Characters ONLY (Like the Trees using "#" and Mountains using "&"). Sadly gif compression really (REALLY) screws up the detailing, so maybe you should wait for a while for better graphics (yes I'll make a new version soon!).

As for those who're thinking about the code, well basically everytime you play, the Environment objects (Trees/Clouds/Mountains/Bushes) are generated at random, and so are the Enemy (Or whatever you want to call that). So sometimes it'll be a little hard to play the game and sometime you'll just be plain lucky :P

Anyhoo comments about the game are most welcome. And please don't hesitate to criticise it! (Though a little description about what's not good will be better than the more common "This is $#!T" comment :P)

Oh & not to forget, I got an "Honorable Mention" for my game! You can check out all the Winning Games at the official blog post.

Thank you CodeChef for the mention! (I get a T-Shirt too! Yipee!)

PS: If you're a student at BITS Pilani, Goa Campus, gear up as CodeChef student Chapter will be up & running next sem! (You should know that by now! :P)

Lemme know how the game was! =) ;)

5 Beach Pics - Celebrating 1 year of Blogging!

Yay! It's been a year since this blog's been up! *dances madly*

From Sketches, to Tech posts, to Photos, it's surely been lot of fun to blog! (And I hope it was fun to read the blog too!) :D

I wanted to go the conventional way and list down the "most popular posts" and blah blah, but I'm sure you aren't so lazy that you won't click the above links. :D

So instead, I decided to pick a few of my favorite pics clicked on a recent Beach trip to Majorda (Goa).

So here are 5 Beach pics to celebrate 1 year of Blogging @ Irrashonally Urs! :D

Flying

It's hard to get someone to pose for you when you go for a fun trip ("Stop clicking Photos re.. Let's go in water!"). But I was lucky to spot one of my seniors jumping around and got this shot!

PS: Check the feet's reflection!

Sunset

A conventional Beach Pic, but I like the Sun's reflection, so decided to share it.

Let's take a walk till this world ends...

I love the straight coastline of this beach. And the trail left by a horse (I think) adds more meaning to the shot! :)

Score!

Random pic of the slippers we used for the "Goal posts" while playing football (or futsal?) on the beach. Loved the hue! :)

The Giant River!

Err.. well, it isn't a river. Nor is that edge of a huge mountain range or something. It's just a foot wide stream of water flowing into the sea and I held my cam just above the stream to get the effect :D

Hope you enjoyed this and all other posts on my blog! Don't forget to comment about what type of posts you like, so I can focus on them more!

Sketch: Thanks!

I found another sketch I made during the vacations which I had forgotten about. One of my friend's mother wanted a sketch done on "Interpersonal Relationships", mainly related to Child-Parent relationship. So after looking online for a few references, I made this:

"Thanks" - To all the lovely parents out there!

First time I sketched for someone I didn't know personally! :D

My friend later called up and told that his mom really liked it. Yay!

So how's it? Any comments/suggestions? Would love to hear from you!

PS: As always, you can check out my other sketches here! And don't forget to subscribe!

PPS: Sorry for the sudden lack of Tech posts. It's going to be worth the wait! ;)

Photo: Bright start to CSI IT Idol

Here's a pic that I took a while back, around 8 in the morning just outside my college. I was luckily carrying my camera, and quickly took a snap before sitting in the cab!

[Click for large view]

This was clicked when I was on my way for the Programming Round of "CSI IT Idol of Goa" (C.S.I. = Computer Society of India. I'm one of the co-founders of its chapter in our college!). Basically the contest has a written round, followed by a programming round (which I cleared last week).

Now the 10 shortlisted BE/ME/MTech students from Goa will compete in a presentation round, followed by an interview. I'm the youngest amongst the 10 I guess (other 2 selected from my college are 3rd yearites) so I'm glad I made it till this stage! I'll try my best to atleast clear the presentation round. :)

Wish me luck! :D

PS: Yes, I do have my tests going on right now. But I can blog, can't I? :D

PSS: Must I request you to comment everytime? :P

Sketch: Anime Girls for my sister

It's been a while since I posted a pencil sketch. I found these 2 rough sketches I made for my sister during the vacations that I forgot to post. :)

Both of them have been inspired by Anime/Manga wallpapers, which is pretty evident from the drawing style.

Oh & if you're wondering what in the world is Manga or Anime, basically it's Japanese style of comics/animation (or cartoons). Heard of DragonBallZ, Naruto, Pokemon, Bleach (I've been obsessed with Bleach lately!) etc? They're some of the popular Anime (Most Anime are made after a Manga is released). You can check one of my old post which had more about Manga/Anime & a few typical Manga Expressions! :)

So which Anime/Manga do you watch/read? Suggest me some good ones for sketching!

And don't forget to comment on the sketch. Any suggestions on how to improve? :)

Oh & do check out a recent post by Bing on "Pokemon" (and Pokemon Parody comics too!)

PS: As always, you can check out my other sketches here! And don't forget to subscribe!

PPS: I forgot that "girl" in the url is blocked in my campus. So well, sorry guys. :P

Photo: Waves Summer 2009 in 5 Pics!

It's been a week. A week since WAVES Summer 2009, the cul-fest of BITS Pilani Goa Campus got over. And wasn't it worth all the effort we put in!!

Being a core member of Controls & Event Management for Waves, I was running around most of the time. But during the little time I got, I tried to click a few pics (& ofcourse enjoy the performances!). So here are 5 pics I'll always relate with Waves Summer 2009!

The Waves Summer 2009 logo - Kudos to Arts & Deco Deptt!

Dance performance by students from PEC (Punjab) - Hats off to you guys!

The Winners of Dance competition - Jeppiar College, for 2 consecutive years!

Guest performance by the judges - Amazing Couple Dance!

I'm in love with Motion blurs! Too bad I dont have a SLR :(

The final Special Night - Performance by Rainbow Bridge. What a show!

Want more? Catch me on Facebook to see loads of photos of Waves (& Rainbow Bridge!)

Oh & any comments on the pics are greatly appreciated! :)

PS: Enjoyed Holi? If you are one of those who doesn't play holi, check this and don't miss it next time!

5 Superpowers your Gmail should have!

Here it is! The recipe to make the best Mailing service even better! With the Gmail team working hard to add more & more features to Gmail, it’s easy to miss out a few amazing ones. Make sure you try these out!

So here are the 5 new Gmail features that’ll surely boost your Gmail!

1. Arrange & Access your mails better using Multiple Inboxes!

So you’ve been adding loads of filters, organizing mails in labels (No? Then you better read my earlier post about 10 Gmail features you should know!). How about dividing your inbox so that some important labels are visible separately? At Gmail, if you ask for it, you get it! Just enable"Multiple Inbox" and start playing around! Here’s more in the Official post! Oh & you can view mails from multiple accounts arranged nicely like this! 

I’m currently using it do show my Facebook/Orkut/LinkedIn updates (Add me!) & MSP related mails next to my inbox. Sweet eh?

2. Labelling is now so much fun!

As you know, you can keep your mails in different labels (Everyone's doing it!). So the Gmail team was kind enough to give us to buttons on the top bar to help us easily add, remove labels from mails. So now it’s easy to apply a label and remove the mail from the inbox using the “Move To” option, or use the “Labels” menu to just add/remove a label (will not archive the mail). And yes, there’s an auto-complete too (No more scrolling through 30 labels!)
Here’s more on the Gmail blog! 
Oh & for those geeks out there, you can press “v” for “Move To” & “l” for “Labels” menu. Yey!

3. Offline Gmail – No more worries about your slow connection!

Ever since Gmail became a part of our life, we’ve been screaming at our internet connection for not behaving nicely. Don’t worry, just enable “Offline Gmail” from the Labs and easily use Gmail even when you’re disconnected/have a slow connection. You need to go online once a while though to refresh your inbox (Mails won’t fly to your computer you know!) :P

Check out how to use Google Gears to enable Offline Gmail! 

4. Be in contact with your contacts!

Finally, the Gmail Contact Section has improved. Do you have different mail ids of the same person? Add both the emails under one! Just select the email ids & choose “Merge”! You can also easily add people to your “frequently mailed” list & delete contacts from “My Contacts”. Not to forget, it’s now possible to search through the contacts details too (Looking for someone who lives in Bangalore? Look for Bangalore then and it’ll search for all contacts with “Bangalore” in their address!). Here’s more on the changes.

Being in touch with others was never so easy! :D

5. Small features add up to form a more powerful service!

There are plenty of new additions to Gmail since I last posted. You can now add your location to your signature,  attach multiple files at once (and there’s a sweet progress bar too!),  choose your own color scheme for Gmail,  and tweak the title to show “Inbox (21) - Gmail” instead of “Gmail – Inbox (21)”.

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Of course, I’ve been talking about new features in Gmail lab for a while now. Do check out the following posts if you haven’t!!

• 11 GMail Tips you'll love! 
  
• 10 GMail Features you MUST know! 
  

Don't forget to subscribe to get instant updates! :)

So how are you using Gmail’s new features? What all superpowers does YOUR gmail have, eh? :D
Do try these out & let me know your experience!

PS: Just added a "Share" Button so you can share these tips with other. Or Digg/Stumble it! :D

Photo: Let there be light!

I was thinking of writing something philosophical about "Light" and moods and emotions, but I guess I should instead study for my test! :D

So here are 2 pics I wanted to share:

Another variation to the 2nd one! (Spot the difference :P)

Somehow, I've become obsessed with the sun, and it seems to reflect a lot in my pics (Remember the Republic Day Flag's pic?). These 2 pics are of my campus street lights, with the sun in the background (Not hard to figure that out eh?) Took me a couple of days to decide at which time I should click the first one :D

So how's it? Any suggestions on how to play with Sun in pics? (I'm already done with eating it or blasting it like they do in DragonBallZ) :P

Comments welcome!

PS: Sorry for the delay for the upcoming GMail post. Will complete the draft after my test! Don't forget to subscribe! :)

Sketch: Meet the Kala members - WAVES Prelude

Good news: Net's improved a lot in the past one week (compared to the day I last posted about the pathetic Internet, the net speeds have nearly doubled!). Anyway I thought maybe I should post about the other side of my campus too! Since everyone's busy working for WAVES (You don't know WAVES? Read on!), here's a sketch from my side as a "Prelude to Waves" :D

Kala, the fine-arts club of BITS Pilani Goa Campus, organizes events that aim to help others learn art, and mainly have fun while they do so (Check the sketches I made for Origami & Caricature workshop Notices!). This sem, we've increased our strength (Unlike all other clubs, Kala was an open club till now, ie. it comprised of only 6-7 core members who organized events open for all). 

Anyway this isn't meant to be a intro post to Kala. So coming straight to the point, here's a sketch/caricature collection I did of all the Kala members: 

Coordinator: Shipra; Sub Coordi: Soumya 

Core Committee: Nikhil, Sakshi, Aishwarya, Rasagy (Me! me!), Deepika 

New members: Divesh, Sutirth, Akhil, Madhu, Srishti, Suchismita, Yash, Kaushal

Special thanks to my friend Bing (Also known as Abhijeet :P), who let me play with his tablet for this weekend. He's been doing some kickass artwork (Check his blog!), so I just had to do something too! :D

Not to forget, we've WAVES Summer 2009, Cultural Fest of BITS Pilani Goa Campus, coming up this March. Everyone's busy trying to make the fest a big hit, and I'm sure it's going to be awesome this time (too)! Head on to the website to know about the events, special nites and more! :)

Sadly, being a part of the Controls & Event Management for Waves, I won't get a chance to take part. But then organizing the fest is a thrilling experience too! :)

Anyway how was the sketch? Any comment/suggestions on how to improve? Do let me know by leaving a comment!! :)

PS: Check out my other sketches here!

Internet in BITS Pilani Goa Campus? What's that?

Long time eh? Well it’s been a hectic month already… Apart from the tests that just got over, I finally got the SPICMACAY chapter started in my campus & organized the inaugural performance by Pandit Hariprasad Chaurasia (Spent some time with him too… He’s amazing! _/\_) and then had Quark’09 – Technical festival of BITS Pilani Goa Campus. (Yeah that’s my college :|)

Anyway reason why I’ve been away isn’t either of the above. It’s because BLOGSPOT had been banned in my campus for apparently no reason. Our network admins are known for blocking random keywords (Design, Firefox, Game, Girl, Manchester, Analysis….) , but banning blogspot was just too much. After trying for some 10 days, I finally got a few of these unblocked. So now we can read blogs (Go read about the changes to Gmail Contacts!), surf Designer sites (Saw the Photoblogs@Smashing?), go to the FireFox homepage, and look for websites with Analysis in it.

Sounds too good to be true eh?

Here’s what the net admins did now: They’ve set a limit to the maximum size of the webpage you can load. Great!! So the Wikipedia entry on "BITS Pilani", greets me by the message: “The request or reply is too large.” Ditto with the official BITS Pilani Goa Campus website, or the BITSAA website (That's maybe the only reason why our Campus can survive - The BITS Pilani Alumni). Oh & don’t even dream of opening something like DesignShard (This time, it's not because it has ‘Desi’ in it :X)

That’s not it. Pages now load without half the images (Like AlexBuga's Site or Tutorial9). Formatting of some sites is completely screwed (Smashing Mag & Our very own Waves site for example). And Sourceforge.net, Orkut, Facebook, Picasaweb, Newsgator, Youtube, Metacafe & Game Development websites (XNA related) are a few of those hundred other websites that are still blocked.

Sad part is, people in the campus don’t really care about this. I’m tired of getting things changed for those who just sit and play CS/Dota in their rooms and abuse Net admins but can’t go upto the authorities to complain. What's the point? I guess I’ll just go & sit in CSD and surf net unrestricted instead of going around getting keywords unbanned. :-/

PS: My mood changed from “I hate this campus” to “Yey my blog’s unbanned” and back to “Great. So now half of Wikipedia is banned. I still hate this campus” in a span of an hour.

PPS: For those who care, Webpage size of Google is 11606 bytes; My blog is 342357 bytes; BITSAA Website is 365549 bytes; BITS Website is 595399 bytes. Check it out yourself!

PPPS: Now that I can post, I have a few sketches & (Yet another) BIG Gmail Tips compilation (New ones!) coming up very soon, so do subscribe to my blog if you haven’t. :D

Photo: Life keeps getting better!

After a hectic week (and a pleasant weekend), I sat down thinking about the upcoming week. The things to be done, the deadlines to be met...

This weekend was amazing. I spent a day at Palolem beach with my friends and on Sunday I watched the BITSal (Futsal Championship in BITS Pilani, Goa Campus) Semi & Finals (My friend(s) Anuj & JD's Team won! Yoyo!)

One of the thoughts that hasn't left my mind has been of the way something more & more interesting keeps happening. Be it a Kala workshop (Remember the sketches I made for Origami & Caricature Workshops?) or a visit to a beach (Goa \m/). There's so much to this life that you can't just say that you've had enough.

Anyway, here are two pics that I clicked on my way to the Palolem beach:

Don't Stop!

I don't know why, but I really liked this pic. The cycle-wala was driving slowly, in a care free manner. I just got a moment to click him, as we sped past him. He just moved to the side and continued driving slowly...

It's a long way to go...

I've always loved the view you get while you travel in Goa. Unlike Delhi, the roads here are empty (and greener!). I feel like keeping this as my wallpaper :)

Anyway next week is going to be fun... There's Pandit Hariprasad Chaurasia's performance and then 3 days of QUARK'09 - Technical fest of BITS Pilani, Goa Campus.

As I said, life keeps getting better!

PS: Expect more pics (Remember 'India Shining?') from now on! Don't forget to subscribe to get instant updates!

Sketch: Origami Workshop by Kala

Kala is the Fine-arts club of BITS Pilani, Goa Campus. A lot of workshops, competitions etc. are held by Kala to promote art in the campus. Apart from the traditional Sketching Workshops & Painting Competitions, Kala also organizes different (& fun!) events like Blind Art & Caricature Workshop.

This Friday, Kala's organizing an Origami Workshop, which is being taken by Akhil Oswal. Even though he's a student of our own college, he has been teaching Origami for a few years and it'll be fun to rediscover our childhood again!

I enjoy sketching notices for such workshops (Last time I made a caricature of Barack Obama for the Caricature Workshop). So here's a part of the notice I made for the Origami Workshop!

Pen Sketch for Origami Workshop

PS: Akhil actually showed us a 1-foot tall Origami Dragon, hence I sketched that too!

So how's the sketch? And have you tried Origami before?

Oh & if you're a BITSian, do pre-register for the workshop. It'll be fun!! ;)

Photo: India's Shining...

Happy Republic Day!!

Thanks to Angad Singh Gill, one of my seniors, I've started clicking photos in my free time! He's been teaching me some new tricks & I'm trying to make the best use of my Digicam (Finally convinced my parents to get it to campus!).

Here's a pic I took today evening. Taken using a simple Sony DSC-W35 at 5MP & cropped using Picasa (No editing done otherwise) :)

How's it?? Any suggestions on different styles I could try & click (For example, I'm trying out Smoke Photography inspired by Smashing Mag!)

Oh & yes, Happy Republic Day again!

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!

Sketch: Lights, Camera, Action: The Winners!

First of all, apologies for being so late. The net in my hostel is still not letting me create a new post, so I finally gave up and came to the Computer Center.

So I was glad to see the response to my first contest that I started on New Year's eve :)
Here are the winners:
* Drum Roll *

1. Madhan aka Darwinci (Blogs here)
2. Ankit
3. Avinash
4. Nidhi aka Keeper of Keys (Blogs here)
5. Prateek (Blogs here)

(Other 2 don't blog often :P)

I'll make the sketches as soon as I get a reference image from everyone!

PS: For those who're left out, start bugging Abhijeet. He just got a new tablet ;)

Oh & I went to one of the TV studios I used to act at and made a sketch of one of the cameras (Never got a chance to be behind a camera before!). They've been using the same ones for the past 10 years, which is weird because the Video Editing rooms now have amazing Macs (Each with 3 LCDs and really high end config.. Awesome!). Anyway here's the sketch:


How's it? Would love to hear your comments!

PS: Any other ideas for a contest? Do let me know!

PPS: Check out all my sketches here!

Sketch: Happy New Year + Contest!

Here's the official post wishing you a 

Happy New Year!!

PS: Like the sketch/caricature? Read on to know how to get one for you! :D

2008 was a great year, but I'm guessing you've already seen/read a lot about "10 Best blah blah of 2008". (Or what to do this holiday @ Google Blog :D) And everyone's busy sending greeting messages (& I'm in a hurry too!), so I'll keep this short. 

I wanted to do something for my blog readers, so I thought of having a small contest (Inspired by some popular Design Blogs!). But since I can't offer much, I decided to make use of the pen tablet I have for a few days and make a sketch/caricature (or whatever you like to call it :D) of   4  5 of my Blog Readers! (Like the one above!) All you have to do, is a leave a comment, about "Your 5 Goals for 2009".

The  4  5 lucky people will be decided as following:

• The First two people who leave a comment on this post.
• Two Three people selected at random (Yes i'll draw lots) from the rest of the people who comment.

Every person is counted only once :P and please leave a comment using your Gmail id so I can contact you for a reference pic (Or leave your email id.. though I prefer the former).

So well, the rules are simple. Leave a comment about "Your goals for 2009" before 6:00 PM, 2nd January 2009 3:00 PM, 4th January 2009 (Indian Standard Time) and you'll have a chance to get a nice (I'll try my best :D) sketch/caricature :)

And well, here are my 5 goals for 2009:

1. Have a great time during Quark (Tech Fest) & Waves (Cultural Fest) at BITS Pilani, Goa Campus.
2. Try and learn Designing (hopefully get the Creative Multimedia Course).
3. Explore Silverlight (Heard it?) & C#.
4. Sketch regularly (Once a week).
5. Manage decent grades (Now that's a tough one!)

Tell me your 5 goals for 2009, and get a chance to have your own sketch as a New year gift! :D

Oh & don't forget to subscribe to my blog to recieve instant updates of my posts (I'll announce the results in the next post!)

PS: This is my first try at having a contest. If it goes well, I'll try and take out more time for such contests! :)

PPS: Oh & if you like the idea of the contest, let your own blog readers also know about this contest by linking to this post! ;)

Update: I'm leaving for Goa, so I decided to shift the deadline a little further (and as pointed in the comments, now I'll make 5 sketches). I felt like making the best use of the tablet till I have it :D

6 Ways to keep up with Blog Updates using RSS

If you've been reading blogs for a while now, then you must've heard about RSS. Wiki defines RSS as "a family of Web feed formats used to publish frequently updated works - such as blog entries, news headlines, audio, and video—in a standardized format." In simple words, it allows you to keep up with changes on Blogs, News sites, Photo Galleries, Video Streams etc. 

RSS is pretty popular now with nearly every Blog offering a RSS Feed. After exploring a few options, I've updated the Subscribe Box for my Blog too!

So here are 6 (Tried & Tested!) ways of using RSS to keep track of your favorite Blogs:

1. Online Feed Reader

They are in plenty, and I've already reviewed Google Reader before. These "Web Apps" allow you to easily add blogs that you read and keeps you updated with their new posts. You can even arrange blogs in folders/labels to organize your collection better (Say one for Tech Blogs, one for Music Blogs etc). 

One major advantage is that they can be accessed anywhere and work just like your email account. The disadvantage is that you need to be connected to net, and a slow net connection won't be very helpful!

Two of my favorite Online Feed Readers are Google Reader (Used earlier) & Newsgator (Popular thanks to FeedDemon). Here's the complete list.

2. Offline Feed Reader

For those who don't have 24x7 internet, or a slow internet connection (BITSians reading?), this is one of the best way to read blogs. Offline Feed Readers allow you to keep a list of blogs you like to read and fetch the posts whenever you connect to the net. The content is saved locally, so you can read/refer to the content later without the net. Some of them even let you download images in the post (Though it'll take more time).

This is helpful for those who read a lot of blogs (Like Tech-News Blogs/Tutorial Blogs etc). Also for those where internet is available for a short time/at a high charge (Blog Feeds don't include the template design, so they are 'lighter'). One major disadvantage is that Blog Readers tend to just read the post and not comment (Just a word about the post helps a Blogger understand what to write & how to write!)

Two of my favorite Offline Feed Readers are FeedDemon (Currently using - It's great!) & RSS Bandit (Pretty similar, but still lacks some features). Here's the complete list. 

PS: Google Reader also let's you read feeds offline, but you'll need to install Google Gears (Didn't work very well for me) 

3. Through Email Subscription

This one's for those who check their mail regularly and prefer everything to be available at one place. If the blog you're reading offers Email subscription (Mine does now! Yay!), just fill in the form and you're done. Otherwise you can switch to a web service (I found FeedBlitz the best) and it'll send you the updates directly to your inbox.

This works great for a few blogs (Ones with low frequency of posts), but who would like to see an Inbox filled with only Blog Updates? If that's the case, don't forget to make a Filter/Label for them (If you're using GMail, check Filters & other features I posted about!)

4. Blog Roll aka Blog Lists

Do you have a blog? Then I'm sure you have added a Blog List (You've added me haven't you?) which was launched in June'08.  You can tweak it to display sort blogs according to last post date, display the latest post title etc. A must-have for all bloggers! Here're the official post(s)!

5. 'Follow' Blogs using Blogger's Follower Feature!

This is one of the less popular feature, but it helps bring all your Blog related stuff to your Blogger Dashboard. Below the list of your blogs, there's a section in which you can add Blogs that you read. 

Try it out! Head to your Dashboard ( You may have to sign in) and scroll down. Click on Add, and enter my blog's url: http://irrashonallyurs.blogspot.com/. And you're done! 

The main advantage of this is that once you start "following" a blog, it is visible in your Blogger Profile, thus allowing others to know what Blogs you read (You can turn this off too). Also, you can show-off your Blog's Followers by using a neat Widget. Read The Official Post(s) to know more!

6. Use Live Bookmarks in Firefox!

Surely you've noticed the RSS button that is displayed next to the address bar when you're viewing my blog (Or any website with RSS Support). Click on that and subscribe to the blog. This will make a Folder for the Blog with Links to each post. And it keeps updating the list with new posts!

I used this feature, but it was too basic (Unread Posts? Search? Save/Export Blog List?). And it doesn't support OPML format. (It's used to export the list of blogs you are reading. Leave a comment if you want to know more!)

So which method do you use the most? Have you subscribed to my blog? (If yes, then what are you using?) Not sure what to use/how to switch? Do let me know!

Sketch: Goodbye seniors!

Another sem passed, and what followed was something I always hate doing - Saying Good bye. Half of the 4th year batch, said good bye to the campus, and will be now heading for PS (PS=Practise School, ie. Internship).

This batch has been the most talented one till now, responsible for starting nearly every big club/deptt (and making other things BIG!) I got a chance to work with some of the best people I've ever met, and they'll always continue to inspire me.

Anyway switching from the "senti" mood, here's a sketch of the two seniors I'll miss the most, Vandith Bhaiya & Manasa Di. (I had to settle for a digital version after ruining a pen sketch :X) Both were members of the Waves Organizing Committee, and have taught me much more than just organizing a fest.

A few other seniors who are leaving are Piyush (Waves), Abhinav Lakhotia (Waves), Upneet (Drama), Parsani aka Chief (Spons) and Aditya Rao (Spons).

A formal Farewell was given last year to the whole batch (And I wrote about a few of them in my Farewell post), and now they'll be off to different parts of India (And abroad) for their PS.

Best of luck to all of you! Will miss you!