Celebrating Love...now..and Forever

To celebrate togetherness...

To celebrate you...

To celebrate me...

above all To celebrate love....

Happy Valentine's Day... No, its not the day for just celebrating the couple love... but its the day to celebrate love... Just love... I mean... there is nothing wrong in loving yourself as well... it is often said that if you dont love yourself...you cant see the love around you. To experience love..you need to feel it in your soul.

Can you believe it... in an article that I recently read in the supplement of a tabloid called Mail Today, it was said that in India..and all over the world, Valentines' Day's shopping and gifts are surpassing sales of Diwali... but I dont think that this should come as a surprise because when we celebrate Diwali, we celebrate love- between Lord Ram n Goddess Sita, Love between two brothers Ram n Laxman n Bharat... So if we are specifically dedicating a day to celebrate love amonst the mortals... I dont think that there is anything wrong in that.

Ok here are some funny,weird...cute customs related with St. Valentines' Day...I hope you have fun reading them...

- Think of five or six names of boys or girls you might marry. As you twist the stem of an apple, recite the names until the stem comes off. You will marry the person whose name you were saying when the stem fell off.

- In the Middle Ages, young men and women drew names from a bowl to see who their valentines would be. They would wear these names on their sleeves for one week.

- Hundreds of years ago in England, many children dressed up as adults on St. Valentine's Day. They went singing from home to home. One verse they sang was:Good morning to you, valentine;Curl your locks as I do mine,Two before and three behind.Good morning to you, valentine.

- The first man an unmarried woman saw on 14th February would be her future husband;
- If the names of all a girl's suitors were written on paper and wrapped in clay and the clay put into water, the piece that rose to the surface first would contain the name of her husband-to-be.

- If a woman saw a robin flying overhead on Valentine’s Day, it meant she would marry a sailor. If she saw a sparrow, she would marry a poor man and be very happy. If she saw a goldfinch, she would marry a rich person.

- In Wales wooden love spoons were carved and given as gifts on 14 February. Hearts, keys and keyholes were favourite decorations on the spoons. The decoration meant, ‘You unlock my heart!’.

- To wear your heart on your sleeve now means that it is easy for other people to know how you are feeling.

Yeah.. we all know that St. Valentine was executed coz he believed in love and defied the king. So I left that part out...

Today, there is hardly any love...and there are some skeptics who say that celebrating Valentine's Day is aginst the Indian Culture... last I heard was that Mahtma Gandhi is the Father of our Nation..and he believed in Love...and peace...and I believe that you cant spread peace without spreading love in the hearts of people...and Love knows no boundries...its present in everybody...

So this Valentines' Day just let the skeptics be... and just Celebrate Love...

Happy Valentine's Day...!!!

"I in India is Me"

India is slowly awakening to a new sunrise... a common man in India knows that here in Indai, living is not a bed of roses but then he is learning to find roses even in the thorny bushes... this is where I left off in We the People....

And this is where I start I in India is me... In India the highest power is vested in the people... though that power is utilised once in five years for the election... its still a power... and this power can make and break politicians and political parties.

At the start of 2007, India was hailed as a power that is rising slowly but steadly... at the first dawn of 2007, the Times of India carried an article that said that now that India is in the 60th year of its Independance, let even the common Indian play a part in the building of the nation that is so big and that is so diverse. The campaign got such a huge response, because never before had the common man be included or encouraged to do his part as an Indian... not that the people dont do it... its just that whatever small part a person plays was being highlighted here. And like I had said earlier, in India, we find role models in film stars... Amtabh Bachchan was made the brand ambassador of this campaign.

In continuation of the same, A Lead India campaign was started. This initiative by the Times of India aimed at finding a Leader of India. The campaign kickstarted with yet another Super Star Shah Rukh Khan telling people that its time to 'DO' something... and that the leader that we are looking for is not a politician, but someone who cares about our country... and who would take the whole of India forward...along with him...!!!

India does not need politicians... that she has many... India needs a leader... who would motivate the already motivated Indians to move forward with a Zeal... that is an integral part of us all...

The I in India...is truely for me...for you... and for every Indian...who believes in his country... India.

Subscribers' Count For Any Website - A GreseMonkey Script

Google Operating System reported a real neat GreaseMonkey Script that you could use with your FireFox browser. This certain script allows you to view the number of Google subscribers who have subscribed to any certian site's feed. This information, kind of, gives you an idea about the popularity of that page and if you too happen to like it, all you need to do is click on the link and subscribe to its feeds.

For more detailed information and an accompanying screenshot, check out this post titled "Counter for a Site's Google Subscribers".

By the way, I am really sorry for not being able to post the second installment of "What They Taught Me" series because of the internet connection outage in Jamshedpur (that's the city in India where I blog from). Since I take an off on Sundays, I shall surely come up with the next installment by Monday. Sorry again.

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.