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Looking Back at the Blog

mario — Thu, 24 Sep 2009 09:02:35 +0000

I just realized that it’s been almost a year since I started this blog. 469 posts in the last year and I managed to stick to my target of a minimum of one post everyday!

Here are some interesting stats I pulled off Google analytics.

Over the last 6 months, page views have doubled. This is good since the content I put up is actually being read!

Of all my blog visitors, 154 visit almost everyday, 931 visit at least once a week and 477 once a month. This is good in terms of visitors, but its bad caz very few of them leave comments! 272 comments to be precise including a lot of mine! 1,364 comments posted were spam but they don’t count!

The most popular posts have been those on hacking MySabre to do the things Sabre said it couldn’t do!

I guess its time for an upgrade of the blog both in terms of the software and design as well as the content!

Bloggers, Family and Friends Meet!

mario — Sun, 16 Aug 2009 07:23:26 +0000

Mathai and Grey have already posted about the meet on their blogs!

I wasn’t sure if I would be able to make it for this meet but I did. It was real nice to put a face to all these online aliases. There was Grey with wife and AJ, Mathai with no wife and no SLR, Purple with a big smile, Rayboy with an even bigger smile and then there was me with my laptop which stayed in the bag.

We talked a lot, drank coffee and got to know each other a little better. It was a nice break and I got to escape from my husbandly duties of moving furniture around the flat. BTW, I will post on my experience with moving soon!

The next meet blogger meet would most likely be a beach BBQ! Hope there are even more people then.

10 Worst Countries to be a Blogger

mario — Sun, 10 May 2009 22:00:13 +0000

“Bloggers are at the vanguard of the information revolution and their numbers are expanding rapidly,” said CPJ Executive Director Joel Simon. “But governments are quickly learning how to turn technology against bloggers by censoring and filtering the Internet, restricting online access and mining personal data. When all else fails, the authorities simply jail a few bloggers to intimidate the rest of the online community into silence or self-censorship.” [link]

Burma
Iran
Syria
Cuba
Saudi Arabia
Vietnam
Tunisia
China
Turkmenistan
Egypt

Of the above, I did not expect to see Syria or Egypt in there.

More from the CPJ website on how this list was compiled…

“In consultation with Internet experts, CPJ developed eight questions to assess blogging conditions worldwide. The questions:

Does a country jail bloggers?
Do bloggers face harassment, cyber-attacks, threats, assaults, or other reprisals?
Do bloggers self-censor to protect themselves?
Does the government limit connectivity or restrict access to the Internet?
Are bloggers required to register with the government or an ISP and give a verifiable name and address before blogging?
Does a country have regulations or laws that can be used to censor bloggers?
Does the government monitor citizens who use the Internet?
Does the government use filtering technology to block or censor the Internet?

Based on these criteria, CPJ regional experts nominated countries for this list. The final ranking was determined by a poll of CPJ staff and outside experts.”

KOC Blocking Blogs in Kuwait

mario — Fri, 01 May 2009 07:42:08 +0000

It has come to my attention that KOC has blocked my blog! How rude.

The rascals have blocked most of the other blogs too. There must be some law against this in-human employee torture. How do they expect their employees to progress in life if they deny them basic necessities like acess to our blogs!

When Bloggers Meet

mario — Tue, 21 Apr 2009 18:58:57 +0000

Met up with Mathai and Rayboy on Saturday at the Coffee Bean and Tea Leaf near Rashid hospital in Salmiya.

It was a great meeting. Exchanged some “files” and discussed topics ranging from tech stuff to education to cars. Most important was feedback on our blogs.

For starters, I lacked the “comment subscription” option. Never thought of it before.

The other thing was content. Although I manage to get in at least one post a day on the blog, seems people are more interested in detailed text. Sorry, that isn’t me . Man of few words and all that! But I do intend to start a series of reviews on various topics.

The last bit was a “time-out” issue. Ray keeps getting a “time-out” error while posting comments. I need to look into that.

Oh well, hope we have a few more bloggers, commentors and silent readers for the next meet.

Let’s hear it for the blog

mario — Sat, 01 Nov 2008 07:14:11 +0000

This is pretty inspiring for anyone who wants to start a blog. Those who have one should watch it anyway. [Link]

SAGE – Blog Tool for FireFox

mario — Wed, 01 Oct 2008 18:09:21 +0000

Found this real nice RSS (and Atom) reader for FireFox. I’ve been using it for a week now and its very simple to use. Click the Magnify icon to search for feeds. Cick the Refresh icon to find out whats updated. It shows a summary within the browser. But mind you it will use the currently open tab.