Mumbai Bloggers' Meet

It was great to know that IndiBlogger had planned to organize a bloggers' meet in Mumbai on the 20th of March, 2008. I've been trying to attend one of these meets for a long time now but unfortunately I've always been away. This time, I actually rushed over to Mumbai attend the meet but however, it seems, it's not gonna materialize this time. They still haven't put up the venue on the site. Just my luck, I guess! I was really very eager to attend this one meet up. :-(

WHAT THEY TAUGHT ME (#1) - Saphrym, Sam Freedom & Rashmi Bansal

They tell me that I am a great story teller. They also ask me to come up with an autobiography one day. And I wonder. I wonder why. I wonder why would someone ever wish to read about me. I wonder why would someone ever wish to know me. I wonder, unless I have a story to tell. And again, they tell me that I am a great story teller.

I have been a part of the blogosphere for almost 3 years. 3 years is a long time, I know. In these 3 years, there have been a hell lot many people who taught me the art of blogging, both actively and passively. This "What They Taught Me" series is a tribute to all my "teachers" who've shaped me as a blogger and more importantly, as a writer. I am sharing my "lessons" from 10 of my best teachers in the field so that it helps you too to learn & flourish.

What Saphrym (Michael White) Taught Me -

• I have always been hearing people about writing on a certain genre, never to falter out of the niche that you carve for yourself. This always made my gray cells function at full speed, trying to decide on a "niche" for myself, but always unsuccessful. Then, I suddenly stumbled on to Saphrym where Mr. White maintains an online weight loss diary.
  
  I used to wonder why would someone ever wish to follow Mr. White's weight loss program? But then when I learnt about his popularity, realization hit me like a brick! I realized that there are a lot many people out there who could identify themselves with Saphrym & would share their concerns, tips & tricks with him. Thus, Saphrym had carved a unique "niche" for itself.
  
  Lesson Learnt : "Niche" Markets Do Exist.
  
  
• With the exclusive genre that he writes in, it is amazing to find the detail and passion with which Mr. White expresses out. Although I am just a tad overweight, I'd never felt the urge to actively start losing it. But 5 minutes in Saphrym that he actually makes you want to get lean, mean & live healthy. Such is his aura!
  
  Lesson Learnt : Content Is King.
  
  
• Mr. White writes a section in his blog titled "The Daily Read" where he spreads the link love and reviews posts around the blogosphere that are worthy enough. All one needs to do is be a member of EntreCard and shoot him an email with a link to the post that Mr. White is expected to review
  
  Lesson Learnt : Reach Out To Your Peers.
  

What Sam Freedom Taught Me -

• The very title of his blog "Sam freedom's Internet Marketing Controversy Blog" speaks out volume of his character. Here's this man who definitely writes well and also provides pretty thoughtful insights into posts and ideas. But the blood in his vein is, plain & simple, controversy. Yes, Sam Freedom thrives on controversies. Check out almost any post where he's commented and you shall know what I am talking about. I'm afraid to admit that probably Sam Freedom has actually built up a "controversy niche" for himself and his followers. But never the less, as they say, "All's Well That Ends Well". If that kinda marketing makes his blog and popularity (or should I call it notoriety?) tick, then why not?
  
  Lesson Learnt : Dare To Be Different & There's A Whole New World Waiting To Embrace You.
  
  
• These days, especially after the advent of EntreCard and Project Wonderful, I can hardly see any block of advertising that has not been already occupied by Sam Freedom. Look around and the very characteristic old man in the American flag is everywhere. He's probably buying his way out to popularity, but then again, what the heck if that makes his blog tick?
  
  Lesson Learnt : Never lose focus and exposure.
  
  
• If you check out Sam's blog, you shall find ample pictures of wannabe women trying to woo your eyeballs. First time, I kind of doubled back. But then onwards, I rather enjoyed the attention. Who cares even if it was from just pretty images?
  
  Lesson Learnt : Even If You Don't Have Great Content, Wrapping It Up In A Pretty Looking Paper Just Might Be Able To Sell It.
  

What Rashmi Bansal Taught Me -

• I am an engineering student and it is customary in India to get into a job or pursue higher studies after you complete your undergraduate degree. Unfortunately, I am not cut out for a normal 9-5 job and neither am I interested to pursue my GMAT in the next 2 years, at the minimum. I had been worrying like hell of what to do in future when I read these entrepreneurship stories of 4 young Indian men, Prakash Mundhra, Vibhor Agarwal, Ashwini Rathod & Vinamra Pandiya. These stories helped in reinstating the belief in myself and now, here I am, daring the world.
  
  Lesson Learnt : Entrepreneurship Is The Need Of The Hour. All One Needs Is Zeal & Guts.
  
  
• Rashmi has always been helping out people, be it for writing in JAM, a youth magazine she edits; be it running a Job Board; or be it running for a cause.
  
  Lesson Learnt : There's Always Someone Out There To Support You. All You Need To Do Is Ask For A Hand.
  

Well, I hope you liked my theses and if you still haven't subscribed to my RSS feeds, do so immediately as tomorrow, I plan to write about Madhur Kapoor, Sakshi & RamKarthik.

Shayon's Labyrinth - Number Games For January '08

Are you a publisher / blogger yourself? Do you fret over the visitors' statistics on your website? How often do you check up the statistics? Once in a year? Once in a month, a week or is it once in an hour? Yes, such obsessed was I, even a month or so back. Those days, the only place where I would play my number crunching games were on FeedBurner. But then, on January 14th, 2006 I finally decided to embrace Google Analytics. Man, ain't I thankful to Google for overwhelming me with all those charts, tables and graphs! So immense is their weight that after a week, I almost stopped following the numbers. It did help me in the end, though, since that made me stop bask in the glory of every 100 new pageviews and start putting in more effort in the content creation for this blog.

Anyways, it's the last day of the month now and starting today, I plan to post traffic details of my blog on the last day of every month. Although the data is just for 14 days, I hope I can quadruple them by the time February passes by.

I know it's a sin to end this post here and that I must also write an analysis over these figures. Unfortunately, I am currently too saturated and tired to do the same. I've started with giving out the monthly figures, this time. I promise I shall also start with the analysis, next time onwards. In the mean time, if you wish to write a guest post on my blog, while dissecting these figures, I shall be more than happy to accommodate you. And yes, if you wish to have some more data for the same, all you need to do is drop in a comment.

Labyrinth's Images Exceed PhotoBucket Monthly BandWidth Limit

A large number of blog surfers are bloggers themselves and most of them have used free templates, free domains and free web hosting at the start of their blogging careers. What more, even you could be one of them! Had it been so, then whose template did you use for your blog? Was it a default template or a template downloaded from another site and customized to meet your own taste?

Well, the template that I used right now is called "Minyx" and was developed by B-Themes. However, unfortunately, B-Themes had hosted all the photos on Photobucket free account which allows the bandwidth of 10GB per month. As and when this template kept on getting popular, the load on the Photobucket servers kept on increasing and one the limit got cracked. If you've been a regular visitor of my blog then I'm sure you must have noticed the screw up. I had images all over my blog saying "Bandwidth Limit Exceeded". It was a huge mess.

"All's well that ends well." I must appreciate B-Themes for their efforts since as soon as I contacted them of my misfortune, I got each and every image, used on my blog, emailed and uploaded to my personal Google Pages account. Now, it's true that even Google Pages have a bandwidth limit but they simply refuse to disclose the amount. Now all I can do is keep my fingers crossed that I don't shoot the roof there too, in near future.

Moreover, if you wish to know more about this particular problem, why don't you head over to eBlogTemplates' post titled "Are your Blogger images not showing up"?

How To Advertise For Your Blog Effectively? - The Solutions

If you are a regular at Shayon's Labyrinth, you shall remember that I'd written a post yesterday on how to advertise for your blog effectively where I had debated on the issue of whether one should put up advertisements that link to separate blog posts or to the whole site in itself. I had also promised to come out with the final solution today. Hence, here's the final verdict of the debate.

The Verdict

• Always make provisions for navigating to important pages of your website from any other page.
• If possible, put up excerpts of recent comments at the sidebar so that a reader can always learn about the current buzz on your blog.
• Set up a "related posts" section below every post so that a reader can navigate to other pages that might interest him.
• Ditto about the above for your feeds as well.
• Also, set up a "most popular posts" widget at the sidebar. Showcasing those posts just might help you in developing a loyal reader. Remember, those posts had become popular because they were good and your readers appreciated them.
• If possible, post your RSS link in every article that gets popular.
• Keep linking to other articles in your site, frequently.
• Keep rotating the graphic you use for advertisements, link to the best of your posts.
• There must be provision for your readers to contact you. Contact forms are very official-looking & turn quite a few readers away. Email addresses are so much nicer. It shows that you trust your readers.
• Last, but never the least, always advertise on the sites of your own genre / niche.

I hope these posts helped you a bit in deciding on which route to take while advertising. Do let me know your take on the issue or if there are more points that you can come up with.

How To Advertise For Your Blog Effectively?

Almost every blogger in the cosmos has advertised for his website at least once in his lifetime and I am sure you are one of them. Today, there are a lot of avenues where one can advertise. Some of them happen to be Google Adwords, EntreCard, Project Wonderful or by directly inking deals with other bloggers. My question here is, what do you allow these ads to link to?

Did you even undergo any internal conflict regarding the link? If you link to your website itself, did you ever publish an awesome post & then wished to advertise that very article, since it was your best creation? If you normally link to various contests in your blog, did you ever feel that your visitors never browsed through your whole blog because you'd linked to just one post? Well, I don't know about you, but I certainly have.

I have always been juggling between this concept of "blog url" & "post url". Hence, I thought I would share my dilemma & its solutions to you, here in my blog.

Advantage of linking to the main website / blog :

• The main web page is almost always optimally designed. You can always decide how to make your visitors navigate through the pages once they land up on your website.
• The basic design of the homepage is usually constant, unlike separate blog posts. This helps in brand recognition among repeat visitors.
• The website can be divided into various sections and all be served at the same time to the readers. This allows the reader to choose where he'd wish to navigate to.
• If a blog is running contests, all of them can be viewed at the same time on the main page.

Advantage of linking to separate blog posts :

• Since the posts, you link to, are some of your best pieces, they create huge impact on the incoming visitors, increasing your band value.
• If a stumbler is too impressed with your post, he shall, most certainly, dig into the archives in search of more gold. If you are capable of churning out quality posts frequently, that certain visitor is bound to become a loyal reader.
• Sometimes, a reader might land up onto a certain post because he wanted to get a certain job done. Now, if your article succeeds in helping him and since he's in a hurry, he'd just sunscribe to your blog so that he could follow you in future. Thus, you earn yourself a very precious subscriber.
• There are times when, even if your post fails to solve a visitor's problem, your comments just might. This again results in subscription. However, the comments are almost never visible on a blog's homepage.
• Again, landing up on the posts' page increases the chance of visitors' commenting to a large extent. Then, you can interact with your readers and hence form a community for yourself.

So, what do you think? What way do you advertise for your blog? Do you normally link to the main page or separate articles? How are your experiences with advertising , in general?

Just in case you still haven't subscribed to my RSS feeds yet, do so immediately because tomorrow I plan to publish the final verdict on this perennial dilemma of advertising, combining my views and those of yours.

Blogger For Hire

Who Am I?

My name is Sayantan Pal (full profile) & I reside in Mumbai, India. I got into blogging about 3 years back and this blog is approximately 2 & a half years old. It is this blog where I've learnt and been learning the secrets of the trade. Although currently, I am pursuing a course in Electrical Engineering, I also happen to be a technological self-proclaimed geek and a freelance writer.

Why Am I In This Profession?

While writing on Shayon's Labyrinth, I realized that blog is a powerful medium to reach the masses & that every brand must maintain one. After I looked around, I realized that not many people have the time and energy to spare in maintaining a blog. It is then that I decided to make myself available for the job.

Why Would You Need A Blog?

I'd already written a post on 8 Reasons Why Today's Companies & Firms Need A Blog Or Freelance Writers. Kindly refer that for the same.

Why Should I Be Hired?

• Knowledge can always be acquired, not passion. Passion needs to announce its presence from within. I blog with passion and it is this zeal that helped me in keeping this page alive for so long. Ask around. A very few percentage of blogs has survived 2 years of patience & persistence.
• "Survival of the fittest" is the rule that I follow. I know that being adaptive is the best way to survive in the market. This blog itself is a living proof.
• With the given managerial acumen, acquired technical background (I'm a to-be Electrical Engineer) and the zeal to write, I'm confident I can keep up to any expectation, be it promoting a cause, writing about technology or simply working up a biography.
• I write in simple clear English (as evident from my tutorials), unlike some who defeat the understanding of the reader in an effort to be extra eloquent.
• The power of persuasion is my forte and I know how to handle customers and reply to their queries. I understand that public relations is one of the major parts of any companies' functioning.
• For any blog, regular posting is a must. This is something not always possible for the people on the company payroll. This is where outsourcing a freelance writer pays off.
• Without trying to sound boastful, just to prove my credibility, this blog got rewiewed by a leading Indian newspaper, The Telegraph, on their issue of January 30, 2007.
• To add to it all, I write at a lot cheaper price than many leading bloggers. This way, you could give the idea of blogging a shot without losing out a lot of moolah. But given a chance, I'm confident you shall never discontinue the blog.

However, I'm also available as a writer for other bloggers and blogging services. You are requested to shoot me an email at shayon.pal@gmail.com or just leave a comment if you are interested.

21 Free Blogger Templates WebSites

I was just browsing through my RSS reader when suddenly this certain post by Madhur Kapoor crossed my view, titled The Digs’em wordpress theme by Garry Conn. I have been using blogger for a long time now. It's been many times that I wished to shift to WordPress because of many features of theirs, like the "Top Commentators" widget, huge amount of free templates being available, wonderful comment management & the ability to use the platform on your own domain. However, my love for blogger just kept on and hence, today, I decided to scourge the web and find out as many sites as I can manage that provides free blogger templates.

• Free Templates
• Pyzam
• Final Sense
• Gecko & Fly
• Blogger Templates
• Suck My Lolly
• Free Blogger Templates
• Template Panic
• Blog Templates
• Eye For Beauty
• Blog Skins
• Point Of Focus
• Planet Of Free Blog Templates
• eBlog Templates
• Isnaini
• ID Web Template
• All About Blogger
• B-Themes
• AdSense Blog Themes
• Blog Fashions
• Blogger Free Templates

Phew! That was almost all that I could conjure up. I hope they help you enough. If you have a blogger template design site yourself, kindly submit your site in the comments and i shall update it soon. Moreover, if you know of any more sites that offer good Blogger Templates, do drop in a comment.

By the way, I am also posting these links in the sidebar so that they are always available for this blog's visitors.

Shayon's Labyrinth Has Moved - Update Your BlogRoll And BookMarks

Yes, Shayon's Labyrinth has moved. It's been a long journey, from Rediff to Yahoo 360 to Blogger and finally Shayon's Labyrinth. I've finally moved to a domain of my own. I've been planning the shift for almost a month now but haven't been able to because of heavy schedule. The domain registrar from whom I bought the domain is ResellerBrand. As of now, I'm pretty impressed with the service. Although the transition was a little rough but thankfully I could finally make it. Soon, I plan to post a tutorial on how to shift your blog from Blogger to a domain of your own. I think, if I share my experience of the shift, it'll be much easier for other bloggers to follow suit. The new URL to Shayon's Labyrinth is http://www.shayonslabyrinth.com/ but don't you worry, even if you use the previous URL http://my-labyrinth.blogspot.com/ you shall be automatically redirected to this blog. However, since I later plan to shift to WordPress platform, it'd be good for you to bookmark this link at the earliest. And yeah, our RSS feed link still remains the same.

Above is the picture on the new visiting card that I'm planning to print up soon, now that I plan to take up writing as a full time profession. Do give it a look and tell me what you think about it. I'd love it if you too have a visiting card and share it with me. That way, I too can get an idea of how my fellow bloggers design their own cards.

Happy Blogging!

EntreCards - Latest Wave On Blogosphere

It's been 3 days now that I've gotten myself registered on EntreCard (to know more about EntreCard, you can refer to this interview with Graham Langdon by Darren Rowse of the Problogger fame). I absolutely loved the service. What intrigued me the most is the idea of a "visiting card" for your blog. While I was browsing through the endless list of blogs listed out there, I was kind of impressed with the beautiful 125x125 cards that people had designed for themselves. In contrast, i had the one above which hardly looks snazzy. Yet, Transparent Hypnotist, another member, messaged me pointing out that there is a certain romance in my card too. It is the very simplicity of the same that pulls viewers' attention towards it. However, I still decided to go on with a revamped design that I could use as a logo too, for Labyrinth. This is where EntreCard helped me a lot. It is via Entrecard that I got connected to Chemist2dio who is a graphic designer and has promised me to design me a lovely card. I just had the privilege to check out the initial design and i must say, I am impressed! I'll unveil the logo as soon as it gets built up, which shouldn't be more than 4-5 days, I assume.

Oh, by the way, I have currently been vacationing for the past 2 days and it is because of this that I haven't been able to post as frequently as I'd have liked. I promise to get more regular the day I reach back home. After that, i do plan to write a few pretty little pieces on EntreCard, my experiences as a member and my analysis of the usefulness of the system.

If you are new around here and would not wish to miss those posts, you can subscribe to my RSS feed and keep reading!

Blogging Tip - Blog Less, Blog Frequently

I was just keeping myself updated with all my subscriptions on Google Reader, last night, when a certain thought suddenly struck me. I realized a pattern in which I read my subscriptions. It just so happens that I don't get the time to reduce the unread items' count to zero everyday. Hence, there always comes a time when I fall behind by about 300 posts at the end of every week. I'm hoping that I am not alone here. What do you do, in such a case? Do you just click on the "Mark all as read" button or do you prioritize your readings?

As far as I am concerned, I don't really like the idea of keeping my subscribed feeds unread & hence I end up prioritizing the feeds. I find myself drawn towards the feeds that have lesser number of unread posts. Somehow, it gives me satisfaction to see the number of unread feeds reducing even though I know, at the back of my mind, that the effective number of unread posts are the same as it would have been if I had read them chronologically.

This certain behavior of my sub-conscious forced me to put on my thinking cap. I wondered, blogs like Problogger, Killer Startups & Quick Online Tips generate awesome content & that too at an astounding rate. Yet, they fail to get read regularly by bloggers like me (hoping there are other bloggers out there, following the similar pattern of behavior) just because their posting frequencies are very high.

Such an incident taught me a lesson that one should not post too many articles a day; two, probably maximum three. Although it is highly commendable if you are able to come up with more than 3 quality posts a day, it just might hurt your blog in the long run. How, you might ask. Well, a user not being able to read your posts in time shall mean lesser comments for your individual posts and lesser interaction with your readers. Moreover, you can, rather, schedule your posts to be published later on. Who knows? After a while, you just might be able to keep your blog on auto-pilot and earn yourself a blogging holiday!

So, what do you say? Do you agree with my theory? Or do you have some more interpretation of my observation?

Blogging Tip - Write Notes On Sundays

Did you ever have a concept called "Reading Day" when you were a kid? Did your parents or even your teachers ever ask you to keep aside one day out of the busy week to do reading practices? It is unarguably true that any self-respecting & successful blogger needs to follow a lot of other blogs, social media websites & other sources of information. I'm sure you take rest from the pressures of blogging for at least one day of the week. Why don't you reserve that one day for reading only? I'm not asking you to visit and comment on the blogs too. Your job should be just to keep a pen & paper at hand to take some notes as and when necessary.

I don't own a personal computer. I blog from my college. However, on Sundays, I just carry a pen & a piece of paper around and make it a point to read all the new posts that I've subscribed to, using the GPRS connection in my phone. All the while, I keep a lookout for a few essential ideas that keep me occupied for almost the whole of next week. This practice helps me learn various tips & tricks suggested by well known bloggers like Problogger, Madhur Kapoor & Blogging Tune. In the process, it also helps me to get new ideas for posts and advertising. For the taste, here's what I learnt last Sunday -

• I really need to structure the way I post, according to the days of the week. For example, video tutorials on Mondays, how-tos on Tuesdays, Advice columns on Saturdays etc.
• Got a lot of new ideas to write on, an example is this very post.
• It's high time I hire a pro graphics designer to personalize this blog.
• I need to make visiting cards for myself.
• Need to create a section in my blog for guest blogging.
• Shall need to organize the meta description of this blog.

Now, almost all the tips are indispensable in running a successful blog. Every Sunday, arrange for a whiteboard & get yourself a personal blog optimization tutor, free of charge.

So, I told you about my method of getting new ideas? What are yours?

Video Tutorial - How To Start Blogging On Blogspot?

I was video hopping on YouTube this morning when I suddenly stumbled upon this pretty little video by chrisabraham on "How To Start Blogging On Blogger". Although he'd been working on a version of Blogger that's at least 1 year, it's still pretty good for the current one too. It was hilarious when he tried to show how to upload an image on Blogger but was unsuccessful because of low bandwidth. Also, he'd been accidentally canceling the blockquote while trying to go to a new line. Do watch the video if you want a showdown on how to start blogging and if you're a veteran, still watch it for the kick of it. It's good fun, really.

Labyrinth Spammed!!

Huh? The very first time I think of posting something this year and this is how Blogger greets me, with a word verification setup that I need to type to be able to post on my own blog! This is preposterous! I have been maintaining this blog for almost 3 years now and finally, one fine day, Blogger dismisses me off as a spammer. After I clicked the little question mark (that's so characteristic of Blogger), the following is what I get to read.

Although I did fill out the form and asked the Blogger guys to review my blog, I got curious and checked out their page on spam protection. It says they consider blogs that keep referring to the same page everywhere (link spamming) as spam and that is it! That is the only category they've specified. I still just can't understand how could they classify Shayon's Labyrinth as a spam blog. Do you have any suggestions?

Dare The Dream!

Do you dream? Do you have a passion that you might want to fulfill with all your heart? Do you have any hobby that some day becomes your ambition, your obsession? Did you ever try giving everything else in your life a second priority just so that you can spend one whole day doing what you love to do the best? Well, if you happen to reply a "yes" to any of the above questions, then I'm sure you shall surely understand the amount of passion I possess for the things and people I love.

Incidentally, even I happen to possess a little dream of my own. It's been over 3 years now that I've been on the blogosphere. First it was Rediff, then Yahoo & now Blogger. Yet, I still can't call myself a pro in blogging. Yes, I've been a very slow learner as far as blogging is concerned. But I would also like to speak a few words in my defense. I'm not a born writer. I've been imbibing the art of writing into myself from the time I first started to blog. Moreover, I happen to study in a college where regular and active internet connection is almost non-existent (yeah I know, I've been putting up this particular reason for a long long time now. Unfortunately the course of engineering takes a minimum of 4 years, which is a long time in itself). The fact that I don't own a personal computer, at the hostel I stay in, only adds up to my woes.

I'm sorry, I guess I got deflected from the topic. I was talking about my dream, wasn't I? Well, I love blogging and I feel the time has finally come for me to start giving a makeover to my blog page. I've been using free templates all this while. It's a shame that I still couldn't muster the CSS and Photoshop. Now, I feel, it's high time I got a custom blog page built for myself. I have been scourging for web designers who could help me out with the same, for quite some time now. I have a good friend named Ashwin George who'd helped me a lot in the design part but unfortunately, it seems, he's too busy maintaining his own affairs. So, I thought, I need to start looking elsewhere. After much ado, I finally happened to come across "MoonArts.com" who seem to be great and are ready to get my web page revamped for $70 USD. I've decided to go for it. After all, first impressions do matter, don't they?

Unfortunately, I've got just $11.79 USD in my PayPal account and I shall have to depend on donations for the rest of it. Hence, if you feel that my blog page is worth a pinch of salt and that I have the power to attract more readers to my page, then kindly donate some amount (minimum $1 USD) to my PayPal account (id: shayon.pal@gmail.com). If you don't have an account on PayPal, you can still donate money by clicking on the "PayPal Donate" button on this page and transferring the dollar using your credit card. And yeah, it's absolutely safe. Kindly help me out in my quest. If you wish, I'm even ready to host a button or banner on my page linking to your establishment.

Lastly, but never the least, I'd like to thank my dear friend Sally for donating the first dollar. Thanks a lot.

An Afterthought : Just realized that this was the 100th post I this year. It's the highest me and Sakshi have ever posted. I hope this shows that we are on the right track.

A Letter From "The Alter Ego"

Dear Reader,

How do you do? First & foremost, I'd like to thank you for visiting my blog.

So, before we move on, do I have the liberty to ask you what you do for a living? Are you a journalist? Or is it that you're a doctor? Or probably an architect slogging your ass off for a multi national firm. Uhh...kindly pardon me if I've already started to bore you. You know, today, I've decided I'll keep a clear mind and write a letter to you asking about your health, your life and your feelings about this beloved blogpage of mine. I've been blogging for over 3 years now and yet, all I happen to manage is a meagre 22 subscribers and around 40 visitors to my page. I am not too sure exactly what is it that makes me crazy about blogging but here I am, trying to post something or the other, at every opportunity I can conjure up. Of course, I can blame the non-popularity of my page to my irregularity which in turn is because of the lack of a personal computer and an active internet connection in my college, where I live most of the time.

Okay, I'm sorry. This letter is not exactly about my problems and complaints in life. It's more about a decision that I need to take, a decision that needs to be sorted out soon. And for this, I shall desperately need your help. It is you who has been visiting and reading this page for a while now and it is you who can tell me if I'm good enough to be able to take it up as a career option. I know, I can always join up some company and then carry out blogging simultaenously, just like so many of the rest out there. But here comes the problem. I just don't think I'm the kind of material who would be happy and content working for some one else. I need my own decision making and creative independence. It's not that I've never tried a 9-5 job. I'd been with M/s Crompton Greaves for 2 months and I realized that it's just not for me. Yes, I'm good in programming and I love it too. Yet, I still find it weird to be coding for someone else. As for blogging, it's not just trying to earn by running adsense on my page. I have a much grander plan. Unfortunately, I shall need to be a little discreet about it out here. But yeah, if you think you shall be able to advise me on this, kindly leave your email address in the comments section and I shall be more than happy to get back to you. And well, it just so happens that I've been doing a few things in my life that I hardly loved. This apathy ended up with dire consequences and here I am, trying to figure out what I want outta my life.

I know I can write decent enough, I know I have enough interest in this field and I also know that I have good enough entrepreunal skills. What more, I am even eager to learn new things. And yes, I shall need to regiment my life and be regular. What else does a man need to be successful in his life? Do I really need outstanding academic records to be able to feed myself and raise a family happily? Or is it that I'm day-dreaming?

I shall sincerely hope that you've realized the kind of indecisiveness I'm struggling with and am very grateful that you felt this letter's worth the time you've sacrificed to read it. Thanks again.

Yours Truly,
The Alter Ego.

SpeedLinking For The Month Of September, '07

Here are the links for this month:

• Radiohead says to hell with it, lets listeners set price for new album
• 9 Blog Hacks to Help Show Readers Your Best Stuff
• Nokia N800 Internet Tablet: $232.99
• Blogging Ethics and Sponsored Reviews
• QUID: New Currency for Space Travellers
• The Blogger’s Guide to Google Webmaster Tools
• How to Get Repeat Visitors for Your Website
• Counterpoints to “7 Blogging Beginner Mistakes”
• Five Skills Every Technical Writer Needs
• Confessions of an all-nighter
• Bunty Aur Babli in the Corporation
• Disable that Annoying Windows Logon Warning Message
• View Last Modified Files on Windows Vista
• What is ctfmon.exe And Why Is It Running?
• Add Simple POP3 Mail Client and Notifier to Firefox
• Gmail 2.0
• Gmail Mobile Improves the Interface

Hope to be back in the Blogosphere soon!

Recommended Articles In The Past Fortnight

So very sorry for not being able to write a single word for about a week. It's a misfortune that electricity is such a rare commodity in my college. Anyways, thanks to Google Reader and my mobile phone, I have been reading a lot of great articles and a lot of interesting tech news, lately. Thought I'd share a few of them with you too. At least, that'll keep you busy till I come back to the blogosphere. Thanks a lot for bearing with me.

1. Preview: NOKIA N81 Phone
2. Use These 5 SureFire Headline Formulae At Your Own Risk
3. Blogging To Get a Job
4. The Ultimate EMail Search
5. 9 Things You Can Learn About Blogging By Watching Me Sell My House - Problogger
6. NFS ProStreet - Rule The Street
7. The Right Width For Your Blog
8. EMail A Blogger That Linked To You To Say Thanks
9. 10 Ways to Hurt Your Blog’s Brand by Commenting on Other Blogs
10. The Best Website Taglines Around the Internet
11. Microsoft Sidewinder Mouse : A beauty
12. Case Study of a Teenage Millionaire: Ashley Qualls and WhateverLife.com
13. Find a Sponsor for Your Blog
14. If Your Blog Disappeared, Who Would Miss It?
15. Do You Use American English, British English or do you Swing like the Canadians?

Well, that is it, for now. Hope you have a good time and enjoy reading the above articles as much as I do. They are a combination of latest tech news, blogging tips and some more miscellaneous tips. As for me, I'll try to be back as soon as possible.

Why Do You Blog?

Blogs have been mushrooming on the internet at the rate of thousands a day, these days. Thanks to free blog services like Blogger, Wordpress, LiveJournal, Rediff Blogs and the likes, there are about 70 million blogs on the internet, today. There are blogs that tell you about health care, there are ones that teach you things like repairing a computer, learning JAVA and other computer languages, gardening and even having great sex with your partner. There are people who log their daily lives, converting their blogs into an online journal, of sorts. There are budding poets who love to make poems and showcase them to the world. There are businesses that thrive on the community they create, thanks to their blogs. What more? There are even blogs that teach you how to blog effectively. Blogs have become almost synonymous to social networks, these days. The relationships you garner with you readers is considered to be a blogger's greatest asset. Blogs are also created to earn moolah with advertising!

As for me, I had started this page as an insight towards my thoughts, as a log on my daily life. But now, I' write about what I love the most - gadgets, latest internet technology, websites and entrepreneurs. So, what's your story? Why do you blog?

RSS Feeds: Should You? Shouldn't You?

I have been using Google Reader as my feed reader for quite some time now. I must have got almost 40-50 feeds that I read daily on my mobile phone. One of those blogs is "A Public Galaxy of My Thoughts", which is maintained by my dear friend Rathz, who normally prefers to write about the north-eastern sector of India, mostly Assam. I had noticed quite some time ago that he had not allowed his readers to read the posts on their feed readers. They are just supposed to receive notifications every time he makes an update. Well, I did visit him everytime I got a notification 'coz, after all, he's a dear chum. However, it finally got onto my nerves one day and finally commented about it on his last post. When asked for explanation, he says :

....regarding the feeds, i hav the settings as such..
i want to bring ppl to my page so tht they xplore into the previous posts.

I used to debate on whether I should let my readers taste just a whisker and lure them to my blog page or just allow them to read the whole post on their readers. Well, the very fact that Rathz simply refuses to allow his readers to read his works until they reach his page, actually jarred that old conflict of mine. I thought, why not try a market research on this topic? I myself am a newbie on the blogosphere. I felt, it's much better if I sought the answers from the gurus themselves. After quite a bit of scourging the net and overusing the Yahoo search bar, I did end up with some interesting points. While it was clear that majority of the population prefers full feeds, there are still a few who feel partial contents are the way to go. So, here I put forward all the advantages and disadvantages of full feeds at your perusal. It's upto you to decide, now, which way would you prefer.

Why shouldn't you broadcast complete content via RSS feeds?

1. Most of the people feel that if they offer full feeds then no one shall ever bother to visit their pages, thus reducing their revenues from AdSense and other similar advertising programs.
2. There are many bloggers who take every pain possible to make their sites look state of the art. Some of them feel discouraged if their designs and hard work go unnoticed.
3. Actually, there are only above two (credible anough) points that I could figure out. :-P

Why should you broadcast complete content via RSS feeds?

1. As far as advertisements are concerned, most people use AdBlock (with FireFox) or some other similar plug ins that enable the browsers not to load the advertisements at all. So, even if readers do happen to visit your page, they won't be checking out your ad links at all.
2. If you are still keen to earn , you can always put up advertisements on your feeds.
3. Since you allow bots and feed readers from various other sites to crawl into your content, you get more exposure and it even improves your rankings among the search engines.
4. There are a lot of times when blog service providers are down due to maintenance. Well, feed readers are still able to download your posts and cater toy our readers.
5. Most readers find it a PITA (pain in the ***) to have to click on an external link to be able to read your post, if you don't have your full feeds switched on.
6. This one decides it all at the end of the day, I feel. Despite belonging to a developed society, continuous connectivity is still not a reality for a lot of us. Especially in cases of dial ups, where you need to pay by the minute, your readers would rather prefer to download all your updates at once and then read them offline, at their own leisure.

So, what do you say? Do you have your RSS feeds turned on to broadcast full content or partial?

Sources:

• Do Full Feeds Increase Your RSS Subscriber Count? by ProBlogger
• Do You Publish Full Text Feeds Or Partial RSS Feeds? on Digital Inspiration
• Should I Offer Full Text RSS Feeds Or Not? on Mike's Quarter