Anand Nataraj

Posts Tagged ‘blog’

Yesterday I got an email from an ex-cogzian & it was really motivating to get such email & only makes me more responsible to be constant and responsible in blogging…

Dear sir. . .
This is bismil razik here, how are you sir? Hope you fine. I am very
glad to send mail you. There is a lot of reasons. First i tell about
my self. My native is nagercoil. I am a B.E graduate. I think there is
no chance to know about me.  I have worked two months in cogzidel
chennai. That is a great chance for me to know about you. You also saw
me once time sir. That was a unforgettable moment. Can you guess? Yes
it was your last birth day celebration in cogziel chennai.can you
remember? I am also a one of the person in that group but
unfortunately im not working there sir. I really attracted by your
birthday speech sir. It was nice moments. I taught to tell you much
more. But now no words coming. K i tell shortly sir. I truely
attracted by your blog. You said to us about blog that time onwards i
also tried to make a blog but no ideas there that time but now i done
it. I wish  you to visit my blog  sir i want some more ideas, tips
from u sir. I need ur comments You are one of my role model. I also
wish to learn something new from you. I watched ur blog several
topics, all was amazing, nice postings, really interesting sir. Am
also a great thala fan sir. . .Me too want to improve my self also
give me some technical ideas. I wish you all success, may god wish to
fulfil ur all wishes, waiting for you reply sir. . Take care. . Kindly
invite you to my new blog. . . www.bismilrazik.co.cc

Itz been a while since I blogged consistently. Finally I started getting enquries from readers. So, I think it is my responsibility to make things straight. Let me list some reasons;

- Struck by loads of work at a time. Unable to prioritize tasks effectively.
- Too many personal things good & bad which can’t be made public.
- Over a point blogging became a responsibility than hobby. I don’t know how this happened.
- Too much of blogging & work led to fatigue.
- Fatigue stopped my brain working. So, was unable to grab an opportunity to blog.
- Again fatigue made me loose interest on movies, photography, drive, travel which use to be my topics.

So, I wanted a healthy break to come back strong. I thank you all for your wonderful support.

I can’t believe my eyes. I don’t know if I had this much discipline. Let me list down the list of events; 

• Reached office by 11:45 PM from alumni meet to see Rooban.
• Checked emails, had some word with Rooban and went back home.
• Directly went to Lu along with my notebook. Only to notice there is no net connectivity.
• Get upset with BSNL. But had some small grub, made some calls & settled by 1:30.
• Then thought I can run on treadmill but was upset because of BSNL & was in no mood to workout.
• Then tried to crash. Felt like mad without laptop next to me.
• Also not blogging my experience made me even mad.
• Felt tired & sleepy but was unable to sleep.
• Was awake until 3:45 AM and that is when I noticed I must blog.
• Then I woke my mom & proceeded straight to office and reached here by 4 AM. 

Only now I can realize how addictive blogging has become to me and I’ve no regrets for this habit. 

So I made couple of blog post and time to go back home and crash =;.

In tamil there is a saying “Patta Kal-liyae Padum Sutta Kai-liae Sudum” (meaning “Hit legs gets re-hittem & Burned hands gets Burned again”). Like that saying lot of challenging things happened to me at the same time. Last week i went out on two day spiritual vacation where in i visited 6 temples in 2 days. After reaching home i wanted to blog the experience and sadly;

• Internet was not working & in spite of giving repeated complaint’s nothing is happening.
• When i thought of using Data Card it didn’t work. Reason “Payment not paid” & thanks to my memory power.
• I settle all my bills online because there was no net i as unable to make payments and i delayed couple of payments from card to data card to insurance policy payment.
• I was unable to come to office as it was Christmas Holiday and also i was tired of driving continuously for 2 days.

The worst is not over. For christmas i got an invitation from a celebrity friend to attend a charity function at Green Park Hotel, Vadapalani. Everything went well until i met someone who is a pain in my a$$ and things turned topsy turvy that night and i fell ill on saturday and unable to reach office on Saturday.

Then Sunday there was a surprise birthday party of my friend organized by her fiancee. Again i was unable to blog the experience because of internet problem at home. Finally i checked all my mails today after a gap of 6 days. I think this must be the longest gap for not using internet in my entrepreneurial life.

Now i feel relaxed to post this blog and i’ve got to post couple of more pending blogs to be posted.

Last year I developed hobbies like; 

• Photography
• Blogging
• Tweeting
• Travelling
• Physical workout. 

That is because I was back from a big depression and I had lot of time and I wanted to divert my mind from all bad experiences. It was these hobbies which helped me to overcome strongly. 

For last 3 months my concentration on all these hobbies are slowly coming down. I don’t know if I must take it positively as; 

• I’m getting busy because of business commitments.
• I’m back from memories of all bad experience. 

Or should I blame myself for cutting down on my hobbies which have helped me in bad times. 

Though there is every genuine reason like; 

• System problem to download pictures shot from camera has diminished my interest in photography. In fact I stopped taking camera now-a-days.
• Blogging has taken a beating because I’m taking care of Sales for CCS where I travel to client places. So, I’m not sitting online like before.
• Same applies to twitter.
• I stopped travelling because of the long summer this year and still I didn’t get back to loop.
• Again this is because of my laziness because of travelling. 

But personally speaking I want to balance things and want to accommodate all the special things which were my companion during my lonely times. So from now I plan to be more professional and get back to loop.

I’ve been blogging from 2002 but I’ve become a consistent blogger only for last one year. So that made me a avid blogger? 

• I want to express my thoughts & experience to as much as possible.
• Want to document my experience and I can refer back to my good and challenging times and cherish them.
• After blogging my perception of looking at things got changed. I look for experience in every moment in life. When I come across traffic jams, corrupt bureaucrats I’m able to flush out my frustration by Blogging out.
• When I feel lonely I can engage myself because of Blogging.
• Blog is wonderful tool to market my company & thoughts.
• When I post a blog about any problem / challenge I get lots of help / solutions from my kind readers.
• After blogging I reduced on doing crap things that has saved lot of time & money for me.

There are more benefits I’m reaping because of blogging. I started blogging casually but I was taken by things I was able to gain and became a serious blogger.

It’s been a long break from active blogging. The reason is not that I was busy but it was because of technical issues which took time to get sorted… 

• My blog and company websites are all hosted in a single host and we have reached a point that we have to move to different host because of support issues.
• We were unable to transfer the files to new host because of Iframe malware which affected our web server.
• So we had to clean all the systems in the organization and then we had to clean the web server.
• Cleaning 30 systems which is used by developers and web server which is also actively hosting all websites is not a small task.
• Finally after all hard work for last 20 days we finally changed to a new host.

Now I’m happily started blogging. I must thank Kannan & Co for their efforts to make this happen amid all challenges.

I was forced out of blogging for almost 5 days & Courtesy to the mess created by our web server. I was not even given an opportunity to say the famous Terminator punch line I’ll be Back. Initially I was upset with the web server and after investigation we came to know a part of mistake is because of us. Most of Cogzidel’s website were down and were restored quickly and anandnataraj.com was the last to get fixed. Anyway I’m happy it is up and running and thanks to Kannan & Bala Krishnan for their efforts to bring it back.

So it has been like living in a hell without expressing my thoughts and after making blogging as habit you can imagine how it frustrates. There were lots to blog like; 

• How ICICI and agony continues….
• Visit to Balaji’s village in Mahabalipuram.
• My new one sided love story.
• Review of LUCK.

Now let me take some rest and start posting them one by one from tomorrow.

I’m a WordPress Bhoy boy looking for a WordPress girl yes for last 2 days I’m using WordPress… Not it is not a fools day prank… You can check this blog is on WordPress… I’ve been using Drupal CMS for my blog for last 4 years and I’ve great love for Drupal… There were lot criticism and cry from Drupal world… Even I got a shout from a buddy in twitter…

tronathan@anandnataraj Why on earth would you go from drupal TO wordpress? please enlighten me…6:19 AM Mar 29th from TweetDeck in reply to anandnataraj

For Drupal lovers or WordPress lovers let me confess I’m still a Drupalian by heart and WordPress is just a mask… I still challenge everyone that Drupal is the best CMS in the world than any other CMS… So, you can ask me why I converted from Drupal to WordPress… Here are my justifications

•  
  • WordPress is quick in giving updates and more happening now-a-days
  • WordPress has all the tools for running a blog, which drupal must improve
  • WordPress admin interface is very simple to use
  • WordPress has more plugins and themes compared to drupal
  • Last but not least I get lot of enquries on wordpress customization… So using the system will help me understand client’s challenges and expectation…

I decided to convert to WordPress a month back, but I researched a lot on reading other blogs on lessons as I didn’t want to take a change… But itz all done within an hour and the process was very simple… This is what I did;

1.)    Installed WordPress in a folder /blog…

2.)    Make sure both wordpress and drupal tables are in same database…

Please use below SQL queries to export the posts and comments from drupal to wordpress 2.7.1. I used phpmyadmin to write queries

This sql will export all posts from drupal to wordpress 2.7.1

# Use the Drupal database

use db261070012;

# Remove all current posts from WordPress

TRUNCATE TABLE wp_posts;

# Insert posts from Drupal into WordPress

INSERT INTO wp_posts (id, post_date, post_content, post_title, post_excerpt, post_name, post_modified, post_type, `post_status`)

SELECT DISTINCT

n.nid `id`,

FROM_UNIXTIME(n.created) `post_date`,

r.body `post_content`,

n.title `post_title`,

r.teaser `post_excerpt`,

IF(SUBSTR(a.dst, 11, 1) = ‘/’, SUBSTR(a.dst, 12), a.dst) `post_name`,

FROM_UNIXTIME(n.changed) `post_modified`,

‘post’ `post_type`,

IF(n.status = 1, ‘publish’, ‘private’) `post_status`

FROM cms_node n

INNER JOIN cms_node_revisions r

USING(vid)

LEFT OUTER JOIN cms_url_alias a

ON a.src = CONCAT(‘node/’, n.nid)

;

            This sql will export all comments from drupal to wordpress 2.7.1

TRUNCATE TABLE wp_comments;INSERT INTO wp_comments (comment_post_ID, comment_date, comment_date_gmt, comment_content, comment_parent, comment_author, comment_author_email, comment_author_url, comment_author_ip, comment_approved)SELECTnid,FROM_UNIXTIME(timestamp),FROM_UNIXTIME(timestamp),comment,0,name,IF(mail=”, CONCAT(REPLACE(LOWER(name),’ ‘, ”), ‘@’, hostname, ‘.localhost’), mail),homepage,hostname,1FROM cms_comments;

This sql will update the number of counts in wordpress posts table

 

# update comments count on wp_posts tableUPDATE wp_posts SET comment_count = (SELECT COUNT(comment_post_id) FROM wp_comments WHERE wp_posts.id = wp_comments.comment_post_id);

3.)    In Drupal, I used url alies which was like /my_post_title_name and I wanted to have the same url alies.
To do this I updated the WordPress Permalink settings:
Custom Structure : %postname%    

4.)    120 posts and 98 comments were successfully imported from drupal to wordpress…

5.)    Finally pointed my site’s destination from /anandnataraj (location where drupal files reside) to /anandnataraj/blog (wordpress files)…

6.)    Changed rewritebase in /anandnataraj/blog/.htaccess from “/blog” to “/”…

7.)    Changed the site URL and blog URL in wp_options table to http://www.anandnataraj.com

It took 30 minutes to migrate from drupal to wordpress 2.7.1… So far, everything seems to be working just fine…

Yesterday I designed my own WordPress, brought a coffee mug and printed it there, also shot some snaps with it …

When I talk to anyone about blogging, they keep telling they wish they have there own blog but unable to do so because of lack of time… Then there is another set of people who have a blog but don’t have any topic or time to write something… Then there is another set of people who write blogs because of compulsion example employees forced by their employers or their reporting boss to write personal or official blogs…

What ever the case may be my answer for people who fall under the above mentioned segment is writing a blog is simple… You need not think out of the box to write something, it is as simple as writing a daily dairy… Most of my blogs are my own experience and even I run short of topic’s, when I fall short of good topic I just write my experience of the day…

Here are some tips

Be consistent: There is nothing great in having a blog, consistency matters. Your readers expect some news from you on regular intervals and for that you need to be consistent not only to gain traffic but also to hold the traffic…

Never worry about grammar: Believe me blogs are meant to improve our communication, reading and writing skills… I’ve followed and following many bloggers for long time… Most of the bloggers communication and grammar was poor, but only because of their consistency they were able to improve… So, never stop/hold blogging because of your language command…

Never stop for lack of topic: Blogs are place to share experience… In a day we all come across many things… It is more than enough if you share your days experience… After all humans are eager to know what others do and for sure someone from some part of the world would have benefitted by your experience…

Never think you are silly: Never think your thoughts are silly… Most of the blogs which I thought were silly has got me huge appreciations and blogs which gave me self contention and satisfaction never inspired readers… What is silly for you will be of great interest to someone…

Evolve with reader comments: Readers are best people to help you evolve… Pay attention to their feedback in terms of your mistakes, take their suggestion… For example my friend who happens to be a great reader of my blog Swaminathan, posts comments on my blog suggesting to improve my site design, he asked me to remove the ads inside content, which was disturbing and many times he gives me topics and asks me to write on that… That was great motivation and I evolve my site and writing based on those comments…

Never bow down to negative comments: There are people who keep giving negative comments and at times there might be genuine criticism or comments… Most of the times we fall prey to those criticism… Never get demotivated by it those comments… First learn to handle criticism… I got a suggestion from Mr.Gopal Ramanan to do proof reading before making a post… I’d have been happy if he had posted it in pubic, thought he didn’t want to criticize and hurt me… I’m a person who welcomes open criticism so that others can all take a cue from it… From today I’ve taken a resolution to proof read at least twice before posting a blog…

This is what I can think to the max and I request readers to post their points as comments… I must thank Mr.Gopal Ramanan to consider my request in twitter to share their points and for sparing his valuable time… Here are his point of views…

My thoughts on good blog:

• Precise & Brief about the person writing the blog
• Need to be neatly arranged
• Ease of viewing (fonts – colour & size)
• Goodies (not ads…hmm…like i have added timezones, NSE live prices, thesaurus etc.,) which will be of use to those who read a blog.
• Before posting, do a spell check & preview it.

Softer side:

• Blogger should clearly state what can be expected out of his blog
• Contents should be of use to others
• Regular writing
• Before starting to blog, visit some good blogs and understand the layouts, know about the features available (archiving, gadgets etc.,)…