Web design tips for bloggers

Font color

Keep the font color black in a white background. Any other color combination can be painful for the reader’s eyes and challenge those who are color blind. If you still wish to have colored fonts, choose a dark font in a light background with sufficient contrast and ask some of your friends for opinion. Do not use blue color for font as it may be confused with a link. Do not write the post using multiple colored fonts. If you want to highlight a point, use quotes, bold, italic formats.

Text Formatting

Use Bold, Italic styles only when needed and not very often. Do not underline unless it is a link.

Scripts, Gadgets

Do not fill your blog with too many gadgets, scripts. Your readers may not die if you remove some but it will help load the page faster for them. If an external site serving script for your blog goes down, it will cripple your blog too. So keep only the most important scripts.

Browser, OS, Resolution compatibility

Check your site in popular browsers and operating systems and in all screen resolutions. Your check list should have Firefox, Safari, Linux for sure. Your main post content should be completely visible in 800×600 screen resolution.

Self-hosted Tamil blogs

Self-hosted Tamil blogs of individuals:

பொன்ஸ்~~Poorna
* தமிழ் சசி
* மயூரேசன்
* விக்கி
* வெங்கட்
* அருட்பெருங்கோ
* ரவி
* எஸ். கே
* பாலசந்தர் முருகானந்தம்.
* ஆமாச்சு
* நந்தா
* ப்ரியன்
* ஊரோடி
* பத்மா அரவிந்த்
* செல்வராஜ்
* DISPASSIONATED DJ
* சுப்புடு
* காசி ஆறுமுகம்
* அருண்
* குரல்வலை
* அருட்பெருங்கோ
* சயந்தன்

This post is for documentation purposes, so that newbies can refer their sites for design inspirations and consult them for help.

Hindi Blogosphere

It was interesting to read this article on Hindi Blogosphere.

1. They have identified the first Hindi blogger 🙂 and say he started it all 😉
2. They have two aggregators. And one is accused of promoting Hindutva blogs.
3. The primary aggregator expelled a blogger as he wrote bad things about a fellow Hindi blogger present in the same aggregator. It was against the rules and regulations of the aggregator!!
4. They have lot of small blogger meets and had one big blogger meet on July 2007.

Feeling Deja vu 😉 The issues, happenings are quite similar to those in Tamil Blogosphere 2 years back. But they are a bit behind us in institutionalizing, I guess 🙂 The above article itself is like ???????, ????????? ?????????? or ?????????.

FAQ about Living, studying in The Netherlands

Every one month someone scraps me about living, studying in The Netherlands. So here goes the answers for the FAQ

1. You don’t need to learn, speak Dutch in University or in the street. You can study, write your thesis in English. Most of the people understand English. However, if you intend to stay here for a longer time, after you reach here, it is advisable to start learning spoken Dutch at least. It will help you socialize better.

2. You would need at least 500 Euro to survive a month including house rent, transport and food. You could earn this by doing part time job in restaurants, shops which you can find with relative ease. If you are coming for PhD please try to secure a scholarship from your University. You may not have much time for part time work if you are in research. Also, by the time you do PhD you deserve earning more than the amount you get in part time work. So, don’t land here just for the craze of a foreign degree.

3. Bicycle is the primary mode of transport within a city. To travel to next city, you would take the trains or bus. If you didn’t know biking yet, please learn it before you land here. You don’t really need a car here.

4. The people are friendly and helpful. I haven’t felt racism so far anywhere. I have walked the streets of the city alone anytime in the night and I haven’t felt afraid. It’s one of the safest places I had been.

5. It doesn’t snow much. But the weather can be said dull, windy, rainy for most of the year except summer.

6. You can buy all Indian groceries, movie CDs here. You can also watch Hindi, Tamil movie screenings.

7. If you have a Netherlands visa, you can travel to 16 other European countries like Germany, France without restrictions. You would need a visa for UK, though. Before you come here your University will ask you some documents including birth certificate and they will arrange to send the visa invitation. This would take 1-3 months. After the invitation arrives you have to fix an appointment at The Netherlands Embassy in India. South Indians should attend it in the embassy in Mumbai. Others at New Delhi. Before you apply for the interview, you should legalize your birth certificate. For this you have to get attestation from local corporation / municipality, foreign affairs division in State secretariat and at a special office in New Delhi. If you have financial assistance from the university you don’t need to prepare a financial status document. Once you have all the documents ready, the interview is just a formality and will go through smoothly.

8. You can send money to India by Internet Banking services from any Local bank here.

9. Job opportunities for people who did their studies here are better than who did the studies outside Netherlands / Europe. Still, European Union citizens will be given first preference for a job by Law. Do not come to study here with an expectation to land in a Job here.

Google reader tips

1. Rename your subscriptions.

More than one blog can have the same blog title. For example, some Tamil blogs have the same title – ????? ??????????. No quick way of knowing which person’s blog is updated. Also, some blog names are strange / unclear that we don’t remember. And some names are lengthy. So what am i suggesting? It is easier to remember and identify people’s name than the blog’s name as blogs are essentially personal space. Use feed settings – rename subscription

2. Trim your subscription list.

If you have more than 100+ subscriptions, then something is definitely wrong. At least, you will lose your job soon as you will be spending too much time reading, organizing these subscriptions. I had 230 subscriptions once but read only very few regularly and much of my time was wasted in marking all as read. Go to Manage subscriptions and view your subscriptions.

Unsubscribe any blog IF

– You don’t recognize the blog name.
– You don’t read all posts in the blog.
– You don’t read them as soon as it is posted.

After I followed these rules, my list came down to 69 subscriptions from 230 subscriptions. I don’t feel that I miss anything now. You save your time, But.

3. Tag, star your favorite posts.

Also put blogs in folders like news, technology, poetry etc., It is easier to reach them when you want them later.

4. View All Items in Expanded View.

This is the best time saving mode for reading. You can set the All items page as start page at Manage subscriptions->Preferences.

5. Use Keyboard shortcuts.

Use the shortcuts g t for tags, g u for subscriptions. if you had renamed the subscriptions based on people’s name then searching will be very easy. Know more shortcuts by pressing g ?

Tidbits:

In your All items page – View settings, if you set it as Sort by Auto, it will analyze your reading pattern and automatically show you the most interesting items for you at the top.

In Manage subscriptions page, at the top right side you have a filter. Use that locate your subscription quicly. I missed to note this facility for a long time.