Why [is this post written] ?

1. After so many comments here, I had to read this book and I did !
2. Now, I’m going try and review this book
3. I’ll look forward you your views as this is the first time I’m going to try and review a book.

Who [are the main leads] ?

1. Govind, Ishaan and Omi - three best friends
2. Ali - born with a gift, Vidya - a heroin..
3. Bitto Mama - the villon

Where [is the story based..locations] ?

1. Ahmedabad - Gujarat
2. Australia
3. Mumbai, London et. al

What [does the story revolve around] ?

1. 3 best Friends start a business - a Cricket shop..yeah, they are die heart cricket fans
2. A boy called Ali who is a born genius in Cricket..change their life
3. Political rivalry, Earth Quake, WTO, Godhra riots …and ya, a love story too … all packed in one!

When [does the story take U-Turns] ?

1. Earth Quake
2. a love story..not really a U-turn but no story ends without a romantic angle !
3. Godhra riots

How [is the book] ?

1. A film story .. written solely for mad indian crowd .. I mean it !
2. Full of all masala [Read: Drama, Action, Thrill, Romance et. al] that you find in a block buster Bollywood movie .. and I’ll not be surprised if a movie gets released based on this book !
3. Lastly, narration is packed with twists and turns .. You won’t leave the book until you finish reading it !

Oops..looks like even I ended up writing all in 3 points

All have been asking me the same question..

Well, I m very much here but have been very busy with my new job.
Yes, I have a new job now and quite an interesting one where I’m doing lots of new things and looking forward to learn a lot of things.

Upcoming

• As promised, a review of this book as I’v finished reading it
• Some more tech posts
• any topic you recommend .. so do let me know any topic you want to read on this blog

Thanks to

1. all the readers of this blog
2. all those who have commented on this blog and
3. all those who have been lazy to comment but have written to me

At the end..

As usual, I’ll wait for your comments

I started reading this book yesterday. Interestingly, the title of chapter two is “Who, What, Where, Why, When and How (Much)”. These are famously known as “Five Ws” (and one H) and were memorialized by Rudyard Kipling in a poem accompanying the tale of “The Elephant’s Child” which opens with:

I keep six honest serving-men:
(They taught me all I knew)
Their names are What and Where and When
And How and Why and Who.

I’v tried to answer them here with reference to “search”.

Who: We all

What: anything and everything

Where: Google…need more?, here is the full list just for you!

Why: find information / ego surfing / learn new things / tutorials / definitions …..

When: As per the need..[want to know how it began?]

How (Much): fully dependent on it..aren’t we?

I am a Googler [Read: A person who uses Google's features very efficiently and Fan of Google], What about you? Do you agree on the answers given above? It would be interesting if you could try to answer “Who, What, Where, Why, When and How (Much) ?”

1. just joined Twitter
2. This blog has been added to FeedBurner so now you can Subscribe to this blog by Email or Subscribe in a feed reader of your choice
3. uploaded few pictures on my flickr stream
   
4. This blog just crossed 2000+ visits which was 1000+ just a few days back

Thats all for now, more later

While surfing today, I happen to visit Chetan Bhagat’s Website. Yeah, you guessed it right, he is the famous author of two bestsellers “Five point someone - What not to do at IIT!” and “One night @ call Center - The story of the night there was a phone call..from God“.

I have read them both, in fact these were the first two books I read and Five point someone is one of my favourite books!

His third book, titled, ” The 3 Mistakes of my Life - A story of three boys who start a business in Ahmedabad” is out. As I visited his new website, I also read the excerpt of this book. And the interesting part was at the end when it says,

“Want to know what happens next? Get a secret, bonus excerpt, just invite 3 people you are close to in your life to visit this site.”

Just out of curiosity, I did fill that up and got an email with the link to the bonus excerpt which said

“Bonus Excerpt of “The 3 mistakes of my life”

P.S.: Do not refresh this page or close this window. You have to read this bonus excerpt in one session within half an hour.”

I must say, cool way to market and get more people on the site to visit and read

Interestingly, even Chetan Bhagat has started blogging and no points for guessing, just like Amitabh Bachchan’s blog, his blog is also done using wordpress! Looks like every body is getting hooked on to blogging and wordpress!

I am definitely going to read this book soon, have you read it?

Update : I’v finished reading this book and have posted the review of this book here..

bbPress is forum software with a twist from the creators of WordPress.

I had to do bbPress and WordPress integration and was looking for quick steps or quick tips but at the end when I started with the install, I was surprised to note that I didnot actually need any help to install and integrate them both!

bbPress integrates with wordpress very easily, and with bbPress 0.9, you really don’t need to do much to integrate them both. These are just a few easy steps I had to follow:

1. Download bbpress-0.9.0.2, Unzip the downloaded directory and Copy the directory named “bbpress” in to the root folder of your wordpress installer. [you can rename the directory to whatever you want, like "forum", "community" et. al]
2. Now open your browser and go to URL of your bbpress directory [something like http://www.example.com/bbpress] and Follow the installation steps

• Step 1 - Database configuration

you will need to give your mysql database connection details, i.e. Database name, user name and password [which could be same as your wordpress database]

• Step 2 - WordPress integration (optional)

This is the step to integrate to wordpress. There are two important integrations

a) Add cookie integration settings

you need to provide WordPress address (URL), Blog address (URL), cookie integration settings, WordPress cookie secret key and WordPress database secret.

WordPress cookie secret key: This value must match the value of the constant named “SECRET_KEY” in your WordPress wp-config.php file.

If your WordPress wp-config.php file does not have this key, visit WordPress secret key generation site to get your SECRET_KEY and then copy that into your “wp-config.php” file [define('SECRET_KEY',"your secret key");] and to your bbpress install.

However, If you are using wordpress 2.3 or lower, you will need some more steps to integrate your wordpress cookies with your bbpress install which are given here.
Essentially, you will need to install two plugins, MD5 Insecurity for bbPress and Mouldy Old Cookies for bbPress to your bbpress install.

WordPress database secret: installer picks this up automatically from your wordpress install

b) Add user database integration settings:

Just tick mark ” Add user database integration settings”, you will not need to do anything more here and then click “Save WordPress Integration Settings”

• Step 3 - Site settings

This is a simple step again, just fill in Site name, Site address (URL) and “Key master” account [this is like super admin with all the controls]

That is it, if your server does not have write permission, you will be asked to create bb-config.php file and copy the configuration to that file and save it in your bbpress root.

You are ready to login to your bbpress forum that you just installed!

Did you found these steps useful or had any problem in the installation ?

A Cartooning Experiment….cool cartoons, I must say!

In continuation to my previous post, here are the Top 10 plugins you may need [depending on the requirements] to customize wordpress into a full fledged CMS website.

Essential

Search Everything - By default, WordPress search is limited to only posts, with this plugin, pages as well as posts both will be searchable.

Google Sitemap Generator - creates XML sitemap for search engines

All in One SEO Pack - Optimizes your site for Search Engines (Search Engine Optimization)

WP Super Cache - A very fast caching engine that produces static html files and loads them quickly.

WP-DB-Backup - Easily backup your core WordPress database tables. You can also schedule automated backups.

Add - on Features

Cforms II - can be used to create custom forms for contact, quotation, feedback etc.

WordPress Navigation List Plugin NAVT - Create, organize and manage custom menus and navigation lists by logically grouping your pages, categories, users via a drag’n drop interface.

Newsletter Plugin - Send periodic newsletters to keep the visitors updated with all the latest happenings.

NextGen Gallery - A picture gallery plugin which can be used as a photo gallery or can be easily customized into a product catelogue or a portfolio.

FAQ-Tastic - To add FAQ section on your website.

Did I miss any?

1. Now a days, many are using wordpress as a blog and are quite familiar with it, this is the first reason for choosing WordPress as a CMS as well.
2. It has “Pages” which makes it easy to create static pages and assemble them on a main navigation menu similar to normal websites.
3. The “posts” can either be used as news section or blog or any other section that you want to update on a regular basis.
4. Lots of “Themes” are available which give a CMS kinda look rather than a blog, and it is also very easy to create your own theme in wordpress.
5. With a very few Plugins, it is very easy to extend the functionality of wordpress as a CMS.

Have you used wordpress as a CMS [Content Management System] ?

20+ random posts over 2 months with some 1000+ visitors

and a Page Rank of 4