Skip to main content

Some changes to my blog, front and back

This may be considered a meta-post. It's a post about the nuances of blogging.

One change that you may see very soon is the addition of ads to this blog. This means that I shall receive money if you click on the advertisements.

Why insert ads into a blog that was always meant to be a collection of frenzied, tangled and confused personal emotions related in a vacant or a pensive mood? Maybe it's because I hope that the advertisements shall be relevant to the content of my blog, and may help readers to enhance their experience. If I write about using an AVR micro-controller to make a line following robot, then maybe the ads should redirect you to sites where you may be able to buy the required materials to build a line following robot.

But that's just the face I would like to show. Fact is that I may want to clutch at any straw that comes my way. If I can get paid while writing a blog just because readers find the advertisements on the blog to be useful, I shall not deny that opportunity. However, I shall not in any way encourage you to click on the ads, nor shall I provide incentives for the same. This is a part of the agreement that I made with Google when I signed up for the adsense programme.

Speaking of the adsense programme, I just had my account approved today after many unsuccessful tries. I had my account disapproved earlier because Google thought that I used too many keywords in my blog, either in code or in content, though I am still not sure how I managed to do that.

My latest attempt at signing up for adsense was rejected with a verdict that the website was under construction, and hence could not be declared fit for displaying ads. I really wonder about the algorithm used by Google to detect the veracity of adsense applications.

The other side is at the back end. It's the end I see, and which you shall probably not see unless you have a blog of your own, and you are still foolish enough to be on blogger like me. It's a part of the change that all Google products are undergoing, and I have been awarded a sneak preview into the new look. Which is to say that I am using the new interface in Blogger. (I am also using the new interface in GMail, Documents, Adsense, Analytics and many more Google products). This reminds me of the good ol' days of Google Beta, wherein each and every product that Google offered was in a Beta, and all users were simply testing the products. Which is a nice way of seeking impunity. We messed up your account... Whoops, sorry, but that was a risk you accepted when you agreed to try out the beta. So, don't bother suing us.

However, I don't think I like the new blogger interface. Of course, it is really easy to post, the new themes are clean and nice, but the new interface does not allow for easy access to blog features. This is especially worrying, because I am not really in the mood for micro-blogging, or blogging at the drop of a hat (the fact that people hardly wear hats in India makes blogging at the drop of a hat a rather rare event, but we are stuck with the archaic idiom). I like to think my blog posts through, and when they are posted, I like to think that people have read them. So, most of the time I visit blogger is to check the visitor stats, or comments (or the lack of them).

Well, that's about all I may want to tell you in this post. I hope you have not been looking for any jnan (ज्ञान, that's the way I should transliterate it in English, instead of the crude and commonplace gyan), there is hardly any to be found in a blog post of this nature.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

On Harry Potter and why I dislike the series

There could not be a better time for this post. There could not have been a worse time for this post. Now that the penultimate movie of the series is out, and my facebook wall filled with people who loved the movie. But this is something I really wanted to say, and I shall say it anyway. Harry Potter is pathetic literature. Now, you must be wondering why I say that. There are many reasons. Firstly, the storyline itself is flawed. When a writer sits down to write anything, he/she must set up some essential rules about what is happening. These rules must remain constant irrespective of how many times he/she changes his/her mind. This is so that the readers are allowed to have some sensibility in what they are reading. In the fourth book, Rowling goes ahead and kills Cedric. Then, at the end of the book, the horseless carriages are there again. Nothing special. We all knew that they are horseless. But then comes the fifth book, and BAM, the horses are actually winged beasts that only thos...
18 comments
Read more

On the Dvorak Simplified Keyboard

This is a post that I have been meaning to write from quite some time. Long hours spent typing code on my computer left my hands fatigued, and left me with a lot of pain in my wrists and fingers. That is when I decided to use the Dvorak. But I have got the same bad habit as Dr. Watson, to tell a story backwards. Of course, you must be wondering what the Dvorak is. The story of keyboards starts with the invention of the typewriter. Christopher Sholes, the inventor of the typewriter, tried with a two row piano style keyboard. But then, he got into many difficulties with the design. Then he finally settled for a four row design. This was similar to the QWERTY layout that most computers and typewriters today possess. The engineers at Remington, to whom Sholes had presented his design modified the layout a little further, and then the QWERTY was born. As typewriters became popular, people got used to the layout, and started practising touch typing, i.e. typing without looking at the keys...
Post a Comment
Read more

Elements of a Story: The Whispers

I'm compelled to begin each post with a meta. That way, my blog posts seem less like essays or dissertations, and more like diary entries, or web logs. So here goes... I started this blog a little over a year ago. The main purpose of this blog was to experiment with styles of writing, and find an effective outlet for all the subjects I wish to rant about; saving my classmates the agony of having to listen to them. As I wrote this blog, I've experimented with so many styles, and have received comments claiming that my work is a shameless copy greatly inspired by so-and-so author/work. Fact is that I simply chanced upon that style. I read, so obviously, my work shall reflect the styles of those I admire, but I've worked out so many styles without even knowing that they exist, only to be informed of them later. Recently, I've been struck with the seeming absence of whispers as an element of a story. The more I've thought of the subject, the more I've been convince...
10 comments
Read more