This post should not be considered as just a mere rant. This actually works for job interviews and in my experience of the few that I have attended, it has certainly got the positive attention of the recruiter. So, how does it work? By definition, blogging can be at different levels – personal – which is focussed on personal likes/dislikes etc and hence, is already driven by some niche. The other end of blogging is – professional blogging – which is primarily done by people who earn their bread and butter by means of blogging. Such are writers who majorly write about specific areas – such as  Technology, Blogging, Making Money Online, Entertainment, Television, Pop culture etc. They are the next generation of press reporting, and arguably pose a threat to the traditional news reporting. Such is the impact that News reporters and the likes have resorted to Blogging online. So, coming back to the question is how does Blogging add value to one’s resume?

Let’s deal the sections separately. First up – personal blogging.

Personal blogging is about finding individuality and one’s own personal interests and chronicling them. It can be a mere note about a day’s random event or a personal comment on a political event. A recruiter is interested in the specific skillset that a candidate brings to the table. But in addition to that, recruiters are also interested to see the all-round personality of a candidate. Blogging as a hobby infers a person’s ease at expressing oneself, command over language and written communication skills. If he/she is a podcaster or a vlogger, the communication skill goes beyond just the writing board. A keen interest over a particular topic also reflects personality and knowledge. These are indeed plus points which go in favour of the candidate.

Next up - Professional Blogging.

Pro-Bloggers, as we like to call ‘em, are often well connected in their niche networks via social network groups and hence, know more of their business closely. For e.g. tech bloggers participate in various events, expos and discussions online and offline to interact with their peers and seniors. Also, they market and advertise their own small venture and have a crystal clear view of their business model.

The question is: Where and why would a Pro-Blogger go for a job?

Most pro-bloggers, because of the fact that they earn their living via blogging, are offered jobs in publications or their online versions because of their body of work and also because of their contacts, and the audience that the blogging medium targets which traditional media cannot.

I hope this post has been helpful and has inspired you to churn out some good posts, and in case you still do not have a blog, seriously, go start one. Let us know when you do.

Cheerio!

Image courtesy: JustinBess

Just a couple of Images to set the mood right for the WWDC 2009. The geeks are in the room, and Phil is just about to begin the Keynote [coz, it's just 5 minutes to 6pm, London Time, that's why!]. But here we are still sharing some good pics from WWDC, before we go for the Liveblogs of the Event.

First up: A Graphical Roundup of all the iPhone Rumors in one image [via TGRBlog]

For the High Resolution picture, click here.

The following images are courtesy: CrunchGear’s Liveblog of WWDC on Scribble

Moscone West

iPhone OS 3.0 at WWDC

WWDC Mac OS X Snow Leopard

Geeks Galore inside Moscone West at WWDC

Waiting for Phil's Keynote at WWDC

More images to come after the Keynote, and the Link for the WWDC 2009 Keynote Video from Apple’s website.

In the latest post at the Twitter Blog [titled: Hello New Zealand], twitter has announced of the new-two way SMS service on Vodafone in New Zealand. So to all the Kiwis out there, here’s some Tweet Tweet Love!!!

Here is what they have to say about this.

The shortcode for Twitter in NZ is 8987 or TWTR. As always, Twittering over SMS is a standard rate message or deducted from your bundle and receiving notifications is free. If you’re not a Vodafone customer, don’t worry—we’re working on it.

Also, Twitter seems to be having their eyes now on to Australia. Happy Tweeting in the South!!

Choosing the Right WordPress Theme

I hope you people might have noticed that I have two blogs, one is this- Techkeyla, and the other one is OneKnightStands or as most of my mates call it- OKS. It was launched alongside Techkeyla, last year when I joined the independently blogging band-wagon and left the Blogger camp. Things have been great since. Visitors multiplied, my posts got linked and I got readers from all across the world. But unfortunately I haven’t been able to write as much. So to break the hibernation, I thought of redesigning the theme. I was happy with the previous theme for it supporting my long posts and clarity of font. But I needed change. After all it was a year old. So I began my hunt for the perfect wordpress theme to work on.

Sources of Free WordPress Themes.

My search began with a google search, but it was just not quite adequate. So, the search led me to multiple other blogs and other sources which I am sharing with you.

1. Smashing Magazine

Just love this blog and the exhaustive amount of sources these guys have. Check the following posts e.g.

100 Excellent Free WordPress Themes

83 Beautiful WordPress Themes You (Probably) Haven’t Seen

2.The next huge resource for anything wordpress is Mashable. For themes, I seeked help from the following posts.

30+ WordPress 3-Column Themes

30+ WordPress 2-Column Themes

And then there are numerous other blogs providing lists of numerous WordPress Themes. Some of them are listed below (after the jump).

49 Most Downloaded WordPress Themes Of All Time

45+ Free Premium WordPress Themes with Magazine or Grid Layouts

45+ Must See WordPress themes

20 Free Corporate WordPress Themes

50 Beautiful Free WordPress Themes

21 Mindblowing Premium-Like Free WordPress Themes

92 Unique WordPress Themes

24 High Quality Free WordPress Themes

Top 50 free WordPress themes

50 Beautiful Free WordPress Themes

15 High Quality Premium-Like Free WordPress Themes

That’s more or less like 700 plus WordPress themes at your disposal. Not necessarily, you often find some repetitions. But even after that, that’s a lot of Themes. And if you are still hungry, eat this.

413 BEST FREE WORDPRESS THEMES OF 2008

So the total now has reached 1113 plus. All of them are free and for yours to download. And now the task begins of choosing the right one for you. The criteria for selection of a particular theme may be manifold, but I tried considering the following factors.

a: Background Colour : Dark vs. White :- This is a never ending debate, but for me White is the colour. Because the blog is one with long posts and one which should be soothing to the eyes, so have tried avoiding bright colours.

b: 2 columns vs. 3 colums vs. 4 colums :- 3 colums always for me as it gives me more space to have my widgets and other contents.Also, my 3 column theme is one which has a left and right sidebar with text in the middle. This gives the blog a more arranged look and are proved to be more Adsense friendly.

c: Text Space: This matters a lot as the blog has a lot of text and also images which it should accommodate.

d: Magazine vs. Grid : Magazine layouts are good, but they shorten up the texts in the homepage, which is not acceptable. Grids are good.

e: Flexible Width vs. Fixed Width : My previous theme was a flexible width, but I chose to have a fixed width this time. There are various advantages for fixed width like uniform layout for all screensizes, which means header images will always remain symmetric, any change in side widget images, or posts text would not affect theme lay-out, which is a problem with flexible width.

f. Lastly, your will to incorporate change. If you find interesting design and portions in different themes, you can always mix and match, provided you credit the source.

Of all the wordpress themes I previewed and tested the demos, I tried quite a few of them which I will mention in the next post. I finally opted for Velocity theme (Source: BlogOhBlog) designed by Jai Nischal Verma. I have done quite a bit of tweaking on the theme and shall talk about that in part -II and also let you know of the continuous changes that I plan to make on the blog theme of Techkeyla as well OKS.

See you in Part -II. Cheers!!!

If everywhere, everyone has been flooded with this image showing an article on INSOMNIA, it is so because KNOL is out for the public now. KNOL is Google’s knowledge base ( a way to tackle Wikipedia) of articles written by people ranging from specialised ones to bloggers to anyone stung by the writer’s bug. As if your blogger/wordpress account wasn’t enough. Google wants to centralise it all. But yeah, no one here would be interested a status update of you at 2 am. Articles here aren’t anonymous. There are personally written posts (quite long ones) on topics by people who are specialized enough to know the ins and outs.

Firstly, do NOT go to Knol.com. That is a Dutch website offering Steam machines. The business for them is so gonna break through the roof. At least they should include Adsense!! Anyway coming back, the official website of Knol is http://knol.google.com. And the homepage has a few past articles featured written by authors who are Neurologists, Proffessors at renowned Universities, and highly qualified physicians. Most of the written posts featured on the homepage are on health topics viz. Heart Diseases, Cancer, Fighting Obesity etc. But there are other topics as well. As this one, written by a certain Chewy (Geeky Geekington) who has written a post on Devil May Cry 4. And from his anonymous profile, (here known as biography of the author) we still don’t know much about Mr.Chewy. So that brings us what Knol is all about. I shall point it out in the points below.

• It’s a repository where many specialised/verified(by Google) authors contribute their knowledge on specialised topics.
• Topics contain author’s links and hence an author’s profile can be tracked. Unlike wiki, which is a general page and a single page can be updated by multiple authors, and there is no tracking back of authors.
• An article can be rated.
• Just too many health articles on homepage. A bit scary.
• Collaboration of author’s work here.
• No editing of Knols. It is considered as a unit of knowledge, so a single topic can have multiple Knols.

Compared to Wiki’s database, Knol has a long long way to go. And I personally believe that Knol would NEVER be able to compete against Wiki. Knol is more like a centralised blogger platform (may be yet another). How much will it be accepted as a knowledge repository or an encyclopedia is a bit questionable. Yes, there will be some articles who will be read more , just because of the fact that these are being written by specialists and not by uncle_benny_543 from Zoolanderland.But having said that, compared to what Wiki offers, and the amount of pages that it has now, in the number of languages in which it offers its services, ahem ahem!!! Let’s talk about something else.

Of course by now, the entire blogosphere is going gaga over another Google service. I have a few links myself which I think should be read if you felt my post on Knol didn’t quench your thirst enough.

Google’s Blog on Knol

Google Launches Knol for All (Just Don’t Call It a Wikipedia Killer)

Google Knol Launches; More Like Squidoo than Wikipedia

Screw Facebook, I’m learning how to unclog toilets from Knol (Google’s “Wikipedia”)

Google unveils Knol, its accountable take on Wikipedia — with ads

Google launches Knol Beta to all !

Google’s Knol Launches: Like Wikipedia, With Moderation

Share Your Expertise in Google’s Knol

Knol, Google’s Version of Wikipedia, Goes Public

Google Launches Knol, The Monetizable Wikipedia

Google Launches Wikipedia Killer “Knol”

Wikipedia, Meet Knol

It seems like a moment of triumph. Seems like what started as a silly hobby, and having fought many obstructions and other temptations and having not given up after almost 3 years of blogging, has finally paid off. I got my first interview published on an e-mag called Pakspectator.

It is an online magazine encompassing different topics and they feature interviews of writers, passionate bloggers, webmasters et al. I believe that I belong to the second kind. They contacted me and I couldn’t help say anything but yes. Very soon, they replied me with a long list of questionnaire which included questions on my blogging experience etc.

An excerpt:-

Is there anyone from your past that once told you you couldn’t write?

Oh yes many, including my English teacher back at school. I never gave standard answers which were marks friendly.

If you could pick a travel destination, anywhere in the world, with no worries about how it’s paid for – what would your top 3 choices be?

New York- Big Apple

Cupertino – Home of Apple

Tokyo – Home of Jap-Anime

How bloggers can benefit from blogs financially?

There are ways to generate income through blogs. Though I do not blog professionally, and haven’t made a reasonable income from my blogs, there are bloggers who make their entire living from it, and even make a killing. I am still searching for the answer to this question myself.

Is it true that who has a successful blog has an awful lot of time on their hands?

It might be true, and might not be as well. I blog whenever I can. It does not come across as a hindrance to my work (may be the other way around is true). But I do know of people who have very tight schedules but also regularly maintain their blogs which are successful as well.

Leaving aside the bandwagon of celebs (read Bollywood celebs) who cash in on their celeb status to catapult their online presence, there are in fact people with demanding careers who also blog and do a commendable job at it too.

You can read the full interview here. I feel so elated and a bit like a snob as well. Good going Sujoy!!!

Cheers!!

See the cute little sun shining on my WordPress page address bar above? Or the very familiar ‘g’ on the address bar when you go to any Google page . That’s the Favicon. (So sorry, IE 6 users can’t see it ).And why is that minute design detail necessary. Well, it works more like a brand logo of your website/blog rather than just another design feature. You of course want to project your blog as a brand , a service which is recognisable. Labnol.org has the favicon of ‘D i’ as in Digital Inspiration. Now it is just a piece of little code to be included in your WordPress package and we’ll get to that in a while.

For those who host it on Blogger, by default the Blogger favicon should appear, but then, that can also be done away with. Now back to WordPress. Go to the Theme Editor page in your Admin console. Now if you don’t know how to reach there, once you LOGIN to your WordPress Admin page, click on the Design tab, and then click Theme Editor. GO to the Header php file titled header.php (surpisingly).

Now typically, this is where you include the code for the favicon. First and foremost, upload your desired Icon ( a .ico file) on any image hosting service ( photobucket, flickr..you know the names) or you can host it on your own server where you have hosted your wordpress. This is more advisable so that whenever you change your theme, your favicon would change as well. Anyway, typically, the icon goes in the theme folder itself. Now if it is included within the template folder itself, this is how the code will read.

<link rel=”shortcut icon” type=”image/ico” href=”<?php bloginfo(‘template_url’); ?>/favicon.ico” />

You have to include this code in the header.php. Almost anywhere, but I prefer to keep the code a bit clean by including below the code for the navbar:- the bar which has the link to the pages. And once you are done with it, click update and voila, your WordPress blog is now Favicon Branded. Flaunt It.

It has been a good 6 months since the launch of Techkeyla. And well, I was very happy with the O2-20 Theme that I had for this one. But it has been here since day one. And well, the itch for a change in the theme had been troubling me for quite some time. It actually began when I saw the Underscore theme of Upstart Blogger. I loved the simplicity of the Theme, the Underscore in the Title, and the clean white background. But then, I had issues with its Post Width and its sidebar size. And then, I saw Chris Pearson’s Cutline 1.3 -3 Column Split. Instantly liked the whole simple layout, white blackground and well, the rotating header image. The theme is widget ready.But needed some changes to be done. The original theme can be downloaded here. ( Download Link ) And well, did the following changes.

Edited the Header Images. Created a few customised ones with GIMP. Front Page: Kept the theme of my previous Techkeyla intact for the Front Page header. It shows the 3 pillars of what TECHNOLOGY is today. Apple – Google -Microsoft. Moving on to the Single Post page, I included the gadgets that rule the web space today. From the iPhone to the 360, PS3, Wii, Guitar Hero et al. Now if you were to browse through a category, archive or a tag page,  the header would then show a mix and mash of images ranging from the Safari Browser to Mac OS X Leopard, to Ubuntu, Firefox, Opera Browser and well, the Android (I couldn’t find the picture of the logo) and finally the GIMP logo (through which I made all the images).

Changed the 404 page. Check it out by going to

http://techkeyla.com/<anything gibberish>.

You are in for a nice drink on the house. . Made some more changes with addition of Adsense, the MyBlogLog widget, and now I have a few more things to figure out. Firstly, the archive page as I have had a lot of articles by now (not many by the normal blogger standard) and well I am yet to figure out what’s the deal with Sitemap. Have to include the RSS (although I believe there are still not enuff people who subscribe to my site, but then the RSS icon is a mandatory thing these days). Apart from that I am pretty much ready with the version 2.0 of Techkeyla.

Tell me if you like it. Next post: Things to consider while choosing a theme and how you make it suit your needs. And there are a lot of sites which can actually help you with a lot of resources. From widgets, plugins, themes and simple code changes which can make your blog go from being a normal plain jane to a Marilyn Monroe (not Manson). Shall include the links, till then, lets drink to the new Techkeyla. CHEERS!!