That is when I realized that while getting the site up from the server error, I had deleted most of the plugins because one of them had been causing the problem I didn’t know which one. And at that time, I had also deleted the Akismet plugin. It was the one, which was protecting me from thousands of spam comments all these days. It had come preinstalled with all versions of WordPress shipped after 2.0. I didn’t actually realize its importance until it was gone. Akismet has premium plans as well as free plans. If you are running a small business blog or something that doesn’t run on WordPress, Akismet is a definitely a service worth paying for.

Google, in their attempt to integrate Reader with their infant social network Google+, have killed that. They have totally removed the entire setup of following others and the Reader specific ‘share’ button. If I find something interesting, I can only share it on Google+, which I rarely use. Moreover, there is a big difference between sharing on Reader and Google+. When I am in a mood to read, I wouldn’t want to wade through zillions of crappy status updates.

And it seems Google just doesn’t care. Reader is going to stay like this and it wants people-who-don’t-like-it to move on.

In all, the new redesigned Google Reader is a big #Fail. It is now just a plain feed reader but a good one at that. Despite all this, I don’t think I’ll move on because I don’t think there is a better feed reader in the market yet.

Like every year, last year too I made a decision to write frequent posts on this blog. And as it always happens, I wrote just over 20 posts in the entire year. The pattern was something like 5 in Jan, 4 in Feb, 3 in Mar and the frequency kept decreasing. Not that am busy. Just that am lazy. Can’t do much about it now though. (But there is indeed the option of making new posts appear as if they were publish in the past).

I even ambitiously set off to create a new blog in a couple of specific niches. Both have been temporarily shelved due to lack of initiative on my part. Both are in fact great opportunities that I need to utilize. My resolution for 2011 would in fact be to make the best out of everything in the year ahead and to snatch opportunities as they come.

I’d like to keep this ‘fire’ burning and would like to see the idea grow. It would be great to see the idea widely accepted and embraced by fellow alumni. It will add a significant web presence to RECAL, NIT Trichy’s Alumni Association.

Why Twitter?

Twitter is a medium using which one can gain access to new people, new information and new networks. Unlike Facebook, Twitter is an open medium, and hence helps you reach ‘far beyond your circle of friends’.. But there is a huge barrier to entry for those who aren’t familiar with Twitter, since it is a bit harder to get your arms around at first.

The usefulness of Twitter is not readily as obvious to some people as Facebook; although it may be more addictive once you get the hang of Tweeting; you get more immediate responses and it seems to live somewhere between the worlds of email, instant messaging and blogging.

Though I would love to see alumni from the 45 odd batches of NIT Trichy, this would be better applicable to younger alumni.

Alumni can post their networking need to twitter, the same way they might use LinkedIn, but in a broader, more casual way. Tweets are search-able, and can be tagged for others’ benefit.It is open for all and hence would be an awesome tool to connect with other alumni.

How it Works?

It is as simple as it can get.

Join Twitter and start tweeting about NITTrichy with #NITTrichy hashtag. Listen to the conversation that is already happening. Give your inputs. DOT

• Any discussion about NIT Trichy and things happening there would be tagged with the hashtag #NITTrichy by users
• Anyone can ‘listen’ to the twitter chatter by searching for #NITTrichy on Twitter search or Google Updates.
• ‘Spread the Word’ -Get more alumni aware of the existence of such a hashtag and the benefits of a virtual meet up. Get more people to join the chatter on twitter. This can be done by the word-of-mouth approach, giving information at Alumni meetings.
• As Prakash Murty suggested, we can use additional or modified hashtags for specific events. For eg, the hashtag #NITTConvo was used for Live-Tweeting during NIT Trichy’s Convocation on 9th Oct 2010.

Benefits?

‘It is not what you know, but who you know.’ This twitter network would accentuate the strength of RECAL. It helps you connect with alumni of NITT who passed out long before you entered college. Being active on Twitter #NITTrichy, gives you easy access to a good range of alumni info, wherever you are in the world, and continuing support with career and personal development.

This Twitter network would also be beneficial for non-NITTians who would like to know more about the institute. Taking advantage of an alumni network should start before you join the institute. School students can interact with current students and alumni of the institute to know more about AIEEE, admissions and so on.

How to take it forward?

We need some active volunteers who can take the initiative to bring awareness about the virtual meet to alumni groups. There are quite a few people who have twitter accounts but aren’t active. The first step would be to bring them back and get them involved in #NITTrichy.

Another step that would be simultaneously be started off is creating a flutter on facebook. Since quite a few of the recent alumni are active on it, we can get the news out on facebook and create some hype about the meet on twitter.

Then, we can contact the various alumni chapters of RECAL and send them details about the meet and seek their help in getting us connected with other alumni. We can have a mailer campaign to send information about the meet to reach alumni.

For now, you can give me links to some twitter lists with a bunch of alumni. (Like this one for eg – http://twitter.com/a4arvind/nitt2006-2010 )

What do you think?

What are your expectations from such a alumni network on twitter? How to you suggest we promote the network to other alumni? If you have any suggestions feel free to leave a comment.

Whenever I used Firefox, it didn’t take more than 15-20 minutes for the CPU usage to peak, eventually hanging the browser, making me reload the page again. Believe me, with painfully slow internet connections its an awful experience. Gradually the browser began to consume more and more memory and became slower and slower. About a year ago I didn’t have much of a choice other than venting out my feelings, because Chrome was at its infant stages and I surely didn’t want to return to IE.

After a few months, Chrome came along as a light, super-fast and powerful browser with all its extensions and features. The choice was simple. Here are some reasons why I chose Chrome-

Startup time – Chrome is much much faster wrt to the startup time. While it takes about 7-8 seconds on Firefox, its just a fraction of the time on Chrome. Its blazing fast.

Each Tab is a different Process – Some sites contain a lot of JavaScript, CSS and AJAX. In Firefox, when such sites open, it freezes all the other tabs. For a user like me who has lots of tabs open simulatneously it could be really troublesome. Chrome resolves this making making each tab run as a separate process.  This ensures that one tab doesn’t hang the others. Chrome even has its own Task Manager which you can access by Shift+Esc. Also see some stats by typing about:memory on the Omnibox.

Clean and Simple with the Omnibox – The Address bar at the top often called as the Omnibox doubles up as a search box. This conserves much real estate and makes the browser look cooler and convenient.

No Status Bar – Until Chrome, I had been used to the status bar. But just by it not being present in Chrome I realized that it was just an useless addition which I never really needed. This too conserves much real estate.

Application shortcuts – Google Chrome enables me to create shortcuts for most of my frequently used web applications. This too helped me in conserving precious loading time.

I have been using Firefox for so long that I won’t hate it. My loyalties might have changed but I still have feelings and the desire to use Firefox. I would love to see some overhauls and expect the browser to bounce back. I’d be willing to shift to Firefox if they are able to attract me with powerful features.

PS : I’ve just started using Firefox 4 beta 3. I’m yet to reach my conclusion of the latest version. Hoping that it turns out to be good.

Any social network starts becoming interesting and useful only after it has gained a significant user base.  And twitter started gaining traction in 2008. A few of college buddies like @a4arvind and @sathyaphoenix joined twitter. Even in 2008 I just used the site for chatting with my friends about random stuff. It was like a substitute for IM clients. But I felt the features like tagging someone using @ very useful in linking to others’  profiles. I felt it could also be pretty useful for sending info to a group of friends. But the harder part was convincing friends to join twitter. I tried a bit but failed badly. Still I occasionally used twitter for updating my status during vacation and other holidays.

Around mid-2009, Twitter started becoming more interesting due to its explosive growth. It got a lot of media coverage and a lot of celebrities started using the service. And hence general public too started adopting it. A lot of my college buddies too started using it. Eventually I migrated from the old handle to the present one that is @alagappanr. Then I got the opportunity to interact with interesting people and follow them. I started using the service more often. Though I sticked to the web interface most of the time I also experimented with a few twitter clients.

Gradually twitter was being used for different purposes than what it was originally intended for. It began to be used a major real-time news source. As a influential PR/Marketing tool. As a tool to track events. As a major knowledge source. As a way to stay connected with friends 24×7. As a tool for fun. It was so overwhelming that Twitter changed its standard question from ‘What are you doing?’ to ‘What’s Happening?’.

In the month of June in 2009 I attended Twitter Unconference in Chennai – Buzz140. It has some interesting presentations on what twitter could be used for etc etc. It was wonderfully hosted by Kiruba and Co. I got hooked to the service ever since. I have been tweeting regularly and have connected with quite a few people.

As far as the interface used is concerned I have been using the web interface predominantly. I find it simple and easy to use. Apart from that I use/used a number of services like Echofon, TweetDeck, HootSuite, SMSTweets, TwitterSMS etc. Twitter through SMS is one feature that I guess is the most useful.

As I was writing this post I found a site called MyTweet16 where you can get your first 16 tweets. It was nostalgic. My first tweet was about Orkut. Orkut is now dead for me.

Though I am still a small user with a small following, I guess I am more connected with the internet than ever before. I guess just existing on a service is not a big achievement. There is a long way to go for me to extract the maximum out of twitter.

[Find out When you joined twitter at www.whendidyoujointwitter.com] [Follow me at www.twitter.com/alagappanr]

Update: Already there have been quite a few accusations that this image is a fake one. And I want to make it crystal clear that this image is not a fake and is just a screenshot of what I experienced a few minutes back in Ubuntu.

1. Drag the image to a new tab.

This is the simplest way to save an image. All you have to do is to drag the image to a new tab. The image which you get in the new tab can be easily saved by using Ctrl+S.

2. Image Fetcher Add-on

If you are a Firefox user, then you can install the Image Fetcher Add-on for Firefox. On installing this add-on you get a small save button at the nottom left corner of each image. Here you can select the destination folder and then save the image.

3. Firefox Tools

This is also applicable only for Firefox users. You have to click on the Tools menu and select Page Info. (Keyboard Shorcut – Ctrl+I). Here you got to the media tab and then locate the image which you want to save and then click on the Save As button to save it.

4. Print Screen

This is a crude way of saving images. You can capture the screen by cliucking on Print Screen key on your keyboard. This would capture the screen onto your clipboard. Now you can open MS Paint and paste it. Then you can crop the image to get the picture you want and save it.

There are many other ways to save the images which are avaiable. Thats one of the main reasons why you need to think twice before posting content online.