After a long sleep…

… it’s time for me to get up and get involved in blogging once again. So, I’ll go ahead and say hello to all the people who have ever read this blog (& found something interesting/useful here).

How have you been? It was a long break for me (from blogging). I spent all this time away from the Internet trying new things, getting real and you know, ‘having a life’. :-) Although I haven’t returned back with a plan to do serious blogging, you may still expect 1-2 posts every week.

Now you’ll mostly find new articles of technical nature (programming, etc.) because I’ve done a lot of coding while being away from Blogosphere. I discovered that the backend side of the Web is much more fun to write about than just posting random lists & such stuffs. I’ll be writing about 4-5 things that I’m currently interested into: WordPress, Mobile Development, Google App Engine & Semantic Web.

That’s all for now. Hope to see you guys soon in the upcoming posts.

– Avinash

Miniblog

§ Need a smooth programming language to start writing your applications? Choose Python. I was reading Steve Holden’s blog where I found this humorous peace on Python vs C++. (0)

§ What’s the use of spending tons of money in building such a site that’s completely useless for mobile users?

I used to love Streamy since the day I received an invite to try it. Its developers are very intelligent for what they’ve come up with – a really powerful platform for power bloggers. But Streamy is attractive and all that only if you’re using it from your desktop/laptop/tablet pcs. I don’t know how does it work on iPhone & similar gadgets but I never got it to work on my Nokia Eseries phones.

The reason? – It’s too AJAXY. While all other web feed readers (including full web versions of Google Reader, Bloglines, etc.) work perfectly well on my Eseries devices, Streamy won’t even load.

You’ll face two problems while trying to use Streamy from your mobile phones. First problem is that Streamy doesn’t have an interface for mobile users (like Google Reader Mobile, Bloglines Mobile, etc.) and second, even the full web version doesn’t work.

I had stopped using all other feed readers since I became a Streamy member but their poorly built design (from the accessibility point of view) leaves me no choice but to switch back to my ex-feedreader.

Note: I still recommend Streamy over other web feed readers, if your only device to access the Internet is a computer. (0)

§ Raw HTML is a WordPress plugin that allows you to put any code or script in your posts and display it to the visitor unmodified. Note: The plugin is new and I’ve not tested it on any of my blogs so use it at your own risk. (0)

§ Money For Nothing is Seth Godin’s new ebook for people who have more talent than cash.

It turns out that the new playing field enforced by the search engines is eliminating many of the shortcuts that used to be effective. In other words, the best way is the long way. The long way is to create content that is updated, unique and useful. Again and again we see that sites that do all three manage to get more than their fair share of traffic. So, I guess the title of the ebook is a bit misleading. The clicks don’t cost money, but they do take effort. That’s good news for people who have more talent than cash.

(0)

§ � using Shorty. From the page:

Shorty is a simple tool for creating shorter, human- readable links from long URLs. You install Shorty on your server, so the links you create with it never go away. You can also manage your links and see how often people click on them.

Check out the live demo.

(0)

§ Question: What is an SSB (Site Specific Browser)? Answer: An SSB is not your usual browser. It lacks navigation, menus, tabs, and even the address bar! These browsers are designed to work exclusively with a single web application. In other words, you can think of an SSB as a stripped-down version of Firefox. I won’t go in detail about Site Specific Browsers and the idea behind ‘em ’cause this topic has already been discussed by too many awesome people. I’ve been playing with SSBs ever since I created the first SSB bundle for Streamy. The Streamy bundle is meant to work only with WebRunner (now Prism) ’cause currently, WebRunner is the only SSB application that can be installed on Linux, Mac and Windows platforms. Mac also has Fluid, a free SSB application available only for Mac OS X. If you’re a Web 2.0 startup, you should try one of these applications to create a desktop version of your Web application. Since SSBs like WebRunner are open source apps, you can easily modify the code to add additional functionalities. (0)

§ So many people blog about new Web 2.0 startups. People take inspirations from these startups and come up with their own unique ideas to launch new Web 2.0 companies. Many people like being copy-cats. They not only take inspirations from big players, e.g. Digg, but also try to copy the whole concept. No matter if you’re a copy-cat startup or someone with an unique Web 2.0 business concept, once you launch a company, there’s always risk involved. A small mistake in the idea-execution-process and you end up biting the dust. What can you do to save your company from getting lost in history? Learn from the deads. Yup. That’s the answer. Try to catch the weak points that sent so many companies to the TC deadpool and learn from their mistakes. (0)

Recommended

Episode 134: Dynamic Range Therrory

Download the Video! (37.8 MB, 19:53) Download the Torrent! (Mobile version tomorrow) The German word “Therrorie” was coined by a kid in a Physics lesson of my late colleague Helmut Mohr in Hamburg...

Giving Your Pictures HDR Look Using GIMP

Before I start writing this article, I’ve to admit that I’m a big fan of HDR photography. HDR photographs are so full of magic but all this magical goodness comes with a price. Not everybody is eq...

Improve your portfolio with pro bono design

Photo by Tudinh Duong You’re a graphic design student with a portfolio full of fictitious projects. You want to work with clients to build your experience, but you need a more developed portfolio t...

Google Undergoes Global Growing Pains

International operations are under fire on an increasing number of fronts. As the list grows, so do investor concerns

Man Appears Free of HIV After Stem Cell Transplant

Jacquelyne Froeber writes on CNN: A 42-year-old HIV patient with leukemia appears to have no detectable HIV in his blood and no symptoms after a stem cell transplant from a donor carrying a gene mutat...

AVINASH 2.0

on design & development

You are reading