Thanks to the awesomeness of the interwebs, that we have managed to get hold of this amazing piece of sheer genius in motion. First of all, have a look at the image itself.

I call it – Trigonometry in Motion. [ Courtesy: Reddit ]

The idea here is that in the circle, if you look at the special angles i.e. 0, 30, 45, 60, 90 degrees etc. for the first positive quadrant, all these angles are some combination of 1/2 , sqrt (3)/2 and sqrt(2)/2. And these keep oscillating amongst the special angles.

Or the easy way to remember this back in the days was SOH-CAH-TOA. As in, Sin = Opposite / Hypotenuse, Cos = Angle / Hypotenuse, Tan = Opposite / Anlge.

And now let’s go for a geek nitro booster after the jump.

I call it – Harmonic motion Hyper-drive. [ Courtesy: Reddit.com]

The circular 2d figure on the bottom is Uniform Circular Motion, and the top figure is its projection into 1d space (otherwise known as Simple Harmonic Motion aka SHM). This is a great application calculus and trigonometry – note that the derivative of a sine wave is another sine wave (with the same frequency but a different phase and amplitude).

Deep stuff! Go get some beer for me now!

While many social networking Gurus and Blog aggregators do not get tired discussing about the Big Blogs, we at Techkeyla feel the need to appreciate the wave of change. And I know, that not only the top notch bloggers deserve a mention. How about the ones who are new to the field, but are still making their presence felt. Don’t we bloody deserve a nudge or two – Hell, we deserve to be called AWESOME. So here I am, making my list of the top 20 Newbie tech blogs who will be called the Awesome 20 – Emerging Force of Tech Bloggers. Beat that you elite lot. Entries are now open, and closes Christmas eve. And the winner will be announced on the 31st of Dec, 2009.

And just for a little motivation, Premium WordPress Themes are up for grabs worth 120$.

For the rules, hit the jump!!

1. To enter this competition, you will need to provide a link to this post, by copying the URL below and promoting it in your blog post.

[URL: Techkeyla Awesome 20 -Emerging Force of Tech Bloggers ]

2. Only English blogs please.

3.Only blogs related to technology, Social Media, Gadgets etc. We will scrutinise it thoroughly. Blogs catering to irrelevant categories will not be entertained.

4. Send in your nomination in the comments section with your blog URL, author’s twitter ID, and links to what you think your best 3 posts are. Also include the major categories of technology that your blog caters to – eg iPhone Apps, Android, facebook, WordPress, Web tricks etc.

5. All blogs who want to nominate themselves should have at least 50 posts.

6. You can definitely ask your blog followers to vote for your blog by commenting in the comments section mentioning your blog name, and why they want it to be in the list.

7. If you have more than one blog, you can still enter, provided it is not a sub-domain. I guess you should know what I mean by that.

8. If it is a multi-author tech blog, please give details of all authors.

9. The final poll list will be thrown out for open vote during the last week. And the best 20 with the greatest votes win.[ All previous votes will also be considered in this poll] In case, we are not able to find enough votes, the judgement of Tech Gurus @Techkeyla HQ will be final and binding.

10. Finally, in case of any clarification required, or should you have any questions, drop your comment below, or tweet us @techkeyla 

Also, we will be contacting potential nominees over the next couple of weeks informing them about this competition. So if you do receive a comment from us about this, spring into action and promote this competition to your readers so that they can vote for you!!

Also to be fair, we are not including ourselves in the Awesome 20 list. As sad as that sounds, you can show us your love by linking to us, and/or becoming a fan of techkeyla on Facebook [ Link: http://facebook.com/techkeyla]

And what is there to win?
GLORY, FAME and PRIDE.
Not only will your blog be mentioned and scrutinished thoroughly by the tech gurus at Techkeyla HQ, we will be offering our take on what is good, what is great and what is awesome about your blog. And not only that, we will also do a feature on what your blog should possibly change and what can it do to improve.

Finally, a Premium WordPress Theme also awaits you worth 100$. More details on that later.
With so much to win, the stakes are definitely high.
So what are you waiting for? Nominate your tech blog now.

Special tips:
Publicize and Promote this Father of a Blog competition on your Blog, on Twitter, Facebook and each and every social network you can think of. Digg it baby!! Digg it!! The race has begun!

In the past couple of months of working on Excel and VBA Macros, I have been exposed to a few challenges which in the course of time, I have overcome. So, I thought I would share them with my beloved readers. This section: Excel Tips aims at sharing the small tips and tricks that I have come across which makes life easier for anyone working with Excel or VBA Macros. Cheers!

Here we’ll be focussing on how to select a range dynamically and perform further operations to it etc.
For e.g. If we have a Sheet “Input” of which one cell is required say column B, and we need to perform some kind of mathematical operation on them – viz. average, sum, etc. we need to do that by selecting the entire range of non-empty values of those two cells.

The problem here is that the number of entries in column A will vary from time to time, but we want a command button which automatically knows the amount of non-empty values and accordingly runs the mathematical operation. This is known as Dynamic Range Selection.

In other words, in case 1, if Cell B has values from B2 to B300, The Average formula should read: =AVERAGE(B2:B300), and in case the number of entries increases, the second input parameter in the average formula should change. The way to overcome this is a simple VBA code which records the number of entries in a particular cell and stores in a variable defined as a Long. This is:

mlngRange = CLng(Sheets("Input").Range("B2", Range("B2").End(xlDown)).Count)

Here, mlngRange is the Long variable in which the number of values in cell B from B2 onwards is recorded. Please remember if the declaration of mlngRange is done as a Long, include CLng as VBA by default, processes output as a String.

If the start point of selection is to be changed from B2 to say B4, this needs to be edited in the above code.

Limitation: The limitation of this code is that it recognises the first empty value in a cell, and considers it as the end-point. In case of column B having a few empty values in between, the remaining cell values will not be counted in mlngRange.

Hence, the next code is necessary. This code is unlike the previous one, which counts in a downward direction from the top columns to the bottom ones. Instead, this code counts in an upward direction, from the last non-empty cell onwards. The code is:
mlngRange = CLng(Worksheets("Input").Cells(Rows.Count, 2).End(xlUp).Row) - 1

Here, the ’2′ denotes the Column. As in A=1, B=2, etc. The (-1) in the end denotes that the first value in Column B should not be considered as in this case, Cell B1 is a label. If the count is to be considered from B2, this should be replaced by (-2)  and so on.

So what after storing the value of the range in a range variable?

Performing mathematical operations:

The output formula can be:

ActiveCell.Formula = "=AVERAGE(B2:B" & mlngRange + 1 & ")"

Please let me know if you face any issues with this. Cheerio!

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

This is my first Tablet. I am still convincing myself that it was worth spending 90 quid over it. I know it is not a good sign to be struggling right at the beginning of buying a product. I mean, you’re supposed to love and adore your newly bought stuff. But I am already having second thoughts; not because it is a bad product, but because I am questioning my own ability to use it to the fullest extent. But what the heck! I have it, and I will keep on trying until I churn out my Monalisa. Here’s my first attempt (an Anime girl sketch nonetheless !)

But just because it is so cool to unbox your new gadgets, (blogs like Gizmodo and Engadget have done zillions of such posts), I decided to do the same when my box arrived last evening. So just enjoy the pics below.

The Box is so bigger than the actual Tablet.

*****More pics after the Jump*****

Lotsa Air Bags. Just in case it needed water landing.

There it is! My Trust Tablet TB-7300

Got a bit carried away. Damn Meerkats. So funny!

I know, lotsa booze. No one’s paying any attention now.

It is indeed widescreen.

Covered in Plastic…It’s fantastic!

Final level of unboxing.

Unboxing done.!!

Front-View -ish!

Sexy side-view!!

The digital pen..is mightier than the …whatever!!

Morgan Stanley’s report ” How Teenagers Consume Media ” talks about the impact, reach and relevance of different forms of media on the target section of the population – the teens. The importance of this paper is the very fact that today’s teenagers will be evolving into tomorrow’s workforce and the ones who will be shaping tomorrow’s consumer market. This in itself means that the behaviour of the teenagers and their reaction towards media cannot be overlooked.

However, the report is written by a teenager, 15 year old Matthew Robson. The report reflects how a normal teenager perceives media of the current world spanning across traditional media like TV, radio and print, to new-age media like social networking websites, cellphones, game consoles etc. Although the discussion provided in the report does reflect teenage behaviour in a lot of sections, it has its shortcomings.

The basic problem with the report is that it is not a wide study on teenage behaviour and hence, market research figures are not reflected at all. Rather, the behaviours noted and reflected in this report are a biased sampling of the close friends and family of the writer. This certainly would not entirely represent the true behaviour of teenagers. Besides, the facts stated in the report should be quite obvious to market researchers who deal with actual facts and figures and carry out surveys based on age-groups or regions or income groups. The footnote of the report introduction states: While these trends will not necessarily surprise, their influence on TMT stocks cannot be underestimated. Now, if it takes a 15 year old for market researchers to realise such trends, I believe, we can see a lot more positions being made redundant.

Re-Analysing the Media analysis.
Radio: The popularity of traditional Radio or FM is still relevant inspite of internet radio stations and sites like Last.FM. The peak periods of radio listening are early morning – more so as a wake-up alarm, as a baathroom accomplice etc, in the car or bus to work, and in the evening on the way back home. Distribution of radio over FM transmitters have been reduced, and portable media devices such as a mobile phone or PMPs are where radio is being listened to. And in a country where Radio DJ are national celebrities and have shows running on National TV, can we discard the popularity of traditional radio?

Television: In the UK, due to services such as BBC iPlayer, Sky Plus and Virgin Record, and similar services offered by ITV, Channel 4 etc, prime-time is quite non-existent. BBC has no system of advertising based revenue. Whereas Channels like ITV and Channel 4 are freeview channels and completely rely on advertising based revenue system. With On-Demand viewing which enables users to skip advertisements, ad revenues are set to decline.
For teenagers, the trend of watching their favourite shows depend on
a) no. of televisions in their respective house
b) Availability of a computer with broadband. As most channels offer online catch-up facilities.
c)The channels subscribed for by the earning members of the family.
Since more than often, teens are not the earning members of the family,the final decision of what channels their TV is subscribed to is decided not by them, but by their parents or elders.

The choice of Virgin Media over Sky on the price criteria is another example of sample bias.
Sep 2008 figures: Sky has 9 million customers, which is almost thrice the size of Virgin Media, which holds the second place. Television viewing hours are again dependent on the demographic of teenagers selected.

Internet:
The popularity of social networking websites is evident amongst teenagers. While Facebook remains a favourite, Twitter seems to be not so popular amongst the teens. Even when Twitter occupies much of the attention in the internet buzz-zone, it is absent from the buzz-words amongst the teenagers, primarily because of lack of connectivity, or the cost of it. More of this will be discussed in a later post.

Much of the other information shared in the report regarding Newspaper, Viral Marketing, Cinema and Music is basic common sense stuff. Print media is struggling to get revenues; Viral Marketing works; Cinema has to look for other avenues to compete with Home Entertainment – hence 3d films, Movie experiences etc and Music industry keeps struggling with Piracy.

Please comment below and let me know your thoughts on the observations stated in this post. Thanks!

Image Courtesy: Service-Now’s Flickr Photostream

Google celebrates the birthday of Samuel Morse, the father of “Morse code”. The homepage on Google.com page has been changed and looks like the screenshot below.

To know more on Samuel Morse, please visit the Wikipedia page here.

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!!!