My Blog’s Old Look →

That’s how this blog used to look back in December 2008. I’m not sure why I went ahead with that color, maybe it was my un-color-calibrated monitor that made me do it, but I liked that look back then. Now, not so much.

Which one do you prefer?

It has been a long time that I’ve spoken to you. How have you been all this while?

Me? I’ve been great managing all the daily hectic tasks that I do.

Changes to the site

As you may have noticed (You! Yeah, you, reading in your RSS Feed Reader. Head over to http://preshit.net right away, because), the theme has undergone a major makeover by me. I’ve implemented a completely new color scheme and the blocks have been moved around a bit. The biggest change comes in the form of Asides. Most of you might be aware that I used to maintain a tumblelog at http://presh.it . However, now I’ve integrated both my Tumblelog and my blog into one. All the linked posts, photos, tid-bits will now be posted as Asides into this blog. I spent a few hours hacking the CSS to change the look of Asides, so they show up differently on the homepage and are easy to make out. I also cleaned up the Sidebar by removing the Skribit widget and moving my Flickr Photostream down to the Footer.

On the other hand, http://presh.it, which previously housed the tumblelog has now been converted into a static, imageless site powered completely by CSS. The site showcases some of my online activities.

Changes to the Backend

Thanks to all the traffic, the site is now powered by a (dv) from Media Temple. I’ve been planning to move my sites onto their (gs) for quite a while now, but I was able to manage to pay a few extra dollars and got the (dv) at a nice discount. It will be a great learning exercise for me, managing my own server and at the same time, will be a relied to the site. I didn’t want to put extra load on ExperTrio‘s Servers, considering the fact that I don’t pay a penny to host there.

Also, I’d become a terrific fan of Shaun Inman‘s Mint Stats, so much so, that the analytics of my sites are now Minted. Sure, Google Analytics may be free (maybe even better), but ever since my move to Apple products, I’ve realized the importance of three things.

• Design
• Ease of Use
• Elegance

And mint satisfies all of the above with a high margin.

Changes to the RSS feeds

With all these changes, I’ve made a few changes to my RSS feeds too. Kindly make note of the changes as follows.

• Blog’s Main RSS feed is now: http://feeds.preshit.net/preshit/blog
• Blog’s Comments feed is now: http://feeds.preshit.net/preshit/blog/comments
• My Flickr Photostream has a feed now: http://feeds.preshit.net/preshit/flickr
• My Twitter updates have a feed now: http://feeds.preshit.net/preshit/twitter

I am aware that I may have lost a bunch of subscribers here, but I believe I can build up more along the way.

Smoking Apples

I’ve been having a great time working on/with Smoking Apples. Having launched on August 15th, 2008, the site has evolved into a popular Apple blog and “the” source of information for quite a few. Here’s some info from out ‘About‘ page.

Smoking Apples is a website and blog dedicated to all things Apple and with a special something for our Indian readers. From Macs and iPods to the iPhone and Apple TV, we strive to be your one-stop solution for any and everything related to Apple Inc. and its products. Throw in a podcast, few great authors, regular blog posts and reviews, some screencasts, and various other extra-curricular activities and you’ve got yourself a full fledged website. Yeah, even we were surprised. 

Check out who’s behind the site here.

In these three moths, we’ve managed to pull a daily average of over 10,000 pageviews and counting. Everyone on the team has now taken on a dedicated role and yours truly is officially the ‘Advertising and PR Manager‘ of the site. Of course, writing still remains the core duty.

We launched a monthly magazine a few days back, the response for which has been terrific. It managed to gather over 2400 downloads and many of the readers appreciated the design and content. I’d like to specially mention the efforts of dear friend Milind here. Splendid job, my friend.

The blog now has two new authors and we’re even more psyched. We’ll be reviewing some Apple products and some exclusive accessories in the coming days. You can subscribe to the blog or follow us on twitter.

Miscellaneous

There’s a ton of work left EWS and with just one more paper left, I’m confident I’ll take care of that in a week’s time. I need to announce the winners of the Hosting Account Giveaway, which I’ll be announcing on the 21st of November, just three days away.

Thank You

Regards,
Preshit

Yes, I’ve become a little to generous today and have decided to give out 5 free web-hosting accounts to 5 lucky winners. The accounts will be hosted with ExperTrio Web Services, and you are entitled to get full support from them for your accounts. Of course, you need to follow their TOS and AUP.

The 5 winners will receive a web-hosting account each, the specifications of which are as follows:

Space: 500 MB
Bandwidth: 10 GB
Email/FTP/Database features: As many as you want
Hosted Sites: Again, as many as you want.

Here’s how you can win yourself a hosting account absolutely free. You need to do complete of the following set of pre-requisites for the giveaway.

Set One:
1. Follow me on Twitter
2. Send me an @reply and re-tweet about this competition.
3. Post the link to the tweet in the comments.

Set Two:
1. Record a video of yourself and put it on YouTube, Vimoe or Viddler justifying why you’d want to win the account. It doesn’t have to be a genuine reason, make it as hilarious as you wish to.
2. Post the link here in the comments.

Set Three:
1. Blog about this competition on your site/blog or simply link to this post.
2. Post a link to that in the comments.

As usual, there are certain conditions that apply:

1. You need to have your own domain to host.
2. You need to have at least 50 tweets on twitter before you start following me.

Who chooses the winners ?
Well, YOU do. I’ll leave it for my readers to decide who gets to win this, although I do not think there’ll be many.

Good luck.

If you’ve been a subscriber of my blog for over a year now, my long absence from the blog might not be anything new for you. to others, however, I owe an apology. 

You see, usually when I’m away from the blog, it’s neither because ‘God has come calling‘ nor because the ‘Bubble Burst‘. It’s neither because I’ve grown fed up of writing long posts nor is it because I’m just too bored. Believe it or not, I’m just too occupied in other things, that writing something here finds no place in my weekly schedule (not that it exists anyway)

Wait. Occupied? In What?

Umm…. lot’s of things. They may seem less enough for you to count them on your fingers, but when you’re actually working on them, each one seems like a monumental task. These days, I hardly even find time to tweet. Yes, I’ve scored over 10,000 tweets so far and I may just be one of the most popular Indian kid member on twitter. Here’s what’s keeping me busy these days.

1. College:

Sucks. I hate the Indian Education System. We spend over 4-6 hours in college everyday learning nothing but BS. Yes, I agree that what we’re being taught are the basics and we need to know them. But why oh why do they have to limit it there? Are frames or tables in HTML really going to help us in our day-to-day activities or our career? I don’t think so. 

I usually find myself staring at the blackboard with a blank look on my face either because my personal knowledge about that subject is either far better than what’s being taught or the subject is so far off from my interest that there seems to be no connection that links us together.

I’m really hoping that I get to pursue further studies abroad.

2. WATBlog.com

For those still living in the dark ages, WAT stands for Web, Advertising and Technology and WATBlog covers the happenings of the Indian and International WAT space. So far, I’ve been staying away from the ‘Advertising’ space, focussing mainly on the Web and Technology. 

It has been a great experience so far, working with all the fabulous and experienced people there. No matter how much you think you know, there’s always a lot left to learn and getting a job usually completes what’s missing.

Here’s what I’ve authored all these days.

3. Mobile Industry Review (formerly SMSTextNews)

MobileIndustryReview covers all the latest happenings in the international mobile space. I’ve just started contributing my articles there. These are some really cool guys and their video podcast is something one mustn’t miss.

Here’s what I’ve authored all these days.

4. ExperTrio Web Services

Yes, there’s a lot happening at ExperTrio too. Although the Duo from the Trio is mostly lost in the cyber space, I’ve managed to gather a team of some awesome people in this field and they’re each doing a splendid job. We’re trying to come up with a few promotions in the coming days and will be giving out FREE hosting, domains and even T-Shirts. 

5. SmokingApples

*Music from Star Wars plays in the background*

This is the baby of 5 Macboys viz. Aayush, Aditya, Ashwin, Milind and Myself and the love for all things Apple is what binds us together. We launched on the August 15th, 2008 and it’s been great so far. I’m managing the ‘behind-the-scenes’ stuff for the site. Even if you’re not a Macboy, I’d request you to check out the site. We’ve got enough content to have you hooked to the site. Oh, we have a competition going on where all you need to do is leave a comment and you could win a FREE T-Shirt for yourself. Simple, no?

Right. Okay. I get it. But what did we miss?

Oh, lots of things. So much has been happening around me. Although I’ve been tweeting about it, there’s a lot more to say.

1. Health

I’ve haven’t been keeping well lately. Period.

2. The Mystery Package

Remember the mystery package that arrived last month? It’s the Nokia E90. I’ve been using all this while and it’s a great phone on the inside, but totally wasted on the outside. I’ve been wanting to write a detailed review of the same, but…

3. New Camera

I bought the Canon PowerShot S5 IS. Two words – Awesome Camera

The photos have been uploaded to my Flickr stream here:

http://flickr.com/photos/preshit

The days ahead are going to be really exciting. 

Today evening, I bid farewell to the best buddy I’ve had for the past nine years months. 

As you can see, the friend is clearly not happy. He’s been a great friend ever since I welcomed him into the house back in November 2007. I’ve learnt so many new things, made so many new friends, all thanks to him.

It was really hard for me to break the news to him. At first, he didn’t believe me. Then when he did, he became a little aggressive and furious at me. The photo was taken when he spurted out the ‘F’ word to me. However, I still do not understand how he got information about the actual reason for his departure. I specifically made sure he did not know the reason. We have a traitor in the house. The security has been breached. Anyway…

So, here I am, pale and weak. Here I lay, without a Mac. I’ll be forced to use my Windows Machine, which, thanks to Santo.sh, no longer bears the default ugly Windows theme. Though theming it does not  change anything, it does provide a little relief.

What happens to him now?

Well, I’m pretty confident that the boys down there will make him drink stuff that he’s never even heard of. Tonight, it heads down to Goa, as one of the (in)famous ‘Popats’ joins the Macboys. 

I was recently pulled into the tag wave by Sathya, and so here I am trying to pull others onto the bandwagon.

4 Jobs I’ve Had (in chronological order)

Well, I’m still studying, so I haven’t yet had a full fledged job yet. But, I’ve done some part time stints at a few places which have taught me a lot. They include:
1. Server-Logix.com
2. Startups.in
3. Burrp.com
4. IndiaGSM.com

4 Movies I Could Watch Over and Over

Seriously, there are quite a few of these.

4 Places I’ve Lived (in order)

Just Mumbai, India.

4 TV Shows I Like

Friends
How I met your mother
The Big Bang Theory
CSI ( All 3 )

4 Favorite Foods

Chicken dishes
Prawns
Chocolates
Coffee

4 Places I’d Rather Be

Cupertino
New Zealand
An island
Space

4 People I’m Tagging

goobimama
Aayush
Sumeet
Omkarnath

As you, my dear readers, may have already noticed, your favorite blog (!!!) has undergone a major overhaul over the past four days. The fantastic theme that you see has been designed and coded by [xubz], with help from yours truly. We began working on the theme almost 5 months back, but as it has been with every other project, it got delayed for various (obvious) reasons.

Well, the theme is finally out of the pipeline and as you can see, it has turned out great. I know, I know, I went around asking for feedback and some of you absolutely hate it. However, you gotta praise [xubz] for his fantastic work.

I now have a logo, a sort of a unique identity which I’m gonna use across the forums / communities I am a member of.

There have been several changes made to the structure of the blog. The theme is uniform across the main blog, my tumblog and my twitter profile page‘s background is somewhat similar to the theme too. Although the prime focus will be the blog itself, I will post random short stuff that is too large for twitter and too small for a blog entry. You get the idea.

Also, as you may have seen, the sidebar carries the Skribit widget now. I’d really appreciate it, if you left some suggestions for me :)

I’ve also added and enabled the Wphone plugin, which gives me the possibility to access and manage my blog’s Dashboard from my iPhone through a fantastic iPhone interface. Some screenshots below.

Apart from that, I particularly love the metabar below, just above the footer.

I am trying to make sure you flush out all the post ideas that I had stored all this while because the theme wasn’t flushed out. So watch out :)