1. front page loading speed.
2. size of the front page in KB.
3. Limit calls to external url’s
4. and a lot more suggestion’s given by Yslow

After week’s of efforts i think now my front page is considerably faster.

Note : need comments from visitors if my assumption is right or wrong.

Now i am listing my speed up attempts.

1. After looking at the whole theme that i am using now its a modified glossy blue by N Design Studio for 3 columns and as i am using this theme exclusively for my blog and in not any mood to change it sooner. so i went ahead and actually made a lot of PHP calls to static mainly call’s looking for blog name and link location as well as path’s (mark my words this means i am reducing dbase connection in turn reducing load on server)
2. Then i went on and reduced a lot of plugin’s like one plugin i was using exclusively to add my twitter feed in the feed’s list i removed it and add static reference in header.php
3. Next i went to one aspect of by blog i.e. widget’s, earler i used to have a large array of liked images from lot many blogcolelctions but now i have reduced them down (currently 1) which also i am thinking of removing.
4. but in case you do need those then atleast make sure that imge is on your server so that external server call can be reduced.
5. Next stop was my sociable plugin, in those early days of socializing i was not satisfied with all those icons also, but now as the focus is now one content so off goes my long list of sociable icon’s currently reduced to 6 only and that too not being displayed on cover page.
6. now working on how to reduce JS call’s and CSS by tying to combine then in minimum possible files.

working on more to speed it up even more will be back with more updates on it soon.

After my initial post there were a lot of blogger typing down there thoughts on the event.

Started with Tarun chandel’s “Post BlogCamp Pune Self-Analysis kit”,  enhanced by Dhananjay Nene’s word in Why I was disappointed with Pune Blog Camp 2, more thoughts added to it by Mahendra Palsule @ Pune Blog Camp 2: Reflections. and a lot more to it by blog’s listed here

1. sandeep @ mousetrap
2. BlogCamp Pune 2 – Overview : By rahul Bansal
3. aniket shaed his feeling here
4. deep ganatra raising a concern shared by a lot of people
5. nikhil verma shared his Experiance here
6. and a contrast thoughts of a personal blogger by henna achhpal here asking What’s in it for personal blogger.

All these has a lot of different reaction on me while on one side i was thinking it went all right coz i had no expectations earlier as i already said but then it could have a been a lot of fun just by adding some more to it. and then a fundamental question struck to me, its not just work of un- conference un-organizers to deal with this what was your contribution to it. And then i was dumb-stuck for sometime but then came up with list of topics i can contribute to or discuss about

• Peek into wordpress plugin development (basic intro) based on  My profiles plugin(still under development)
  
• Wordpress customization tips including (speed enhancement)
• Changing world of internet with web 2.0 / 3.0 and its importance to us. (intro to web 2.0 for those new to this concept)
• A peek into the world of blogging clients. I am talking about clients not servers. (ex scribefire or bleezer or flock)
• Why i still blog even though i am also lot more then just active @ twitter, orkut, facebook or what not.

And as a headstart i will try posting some material related to these on my blog also
So how are you going to contribute to the camp next time??

1. “Law of Two Feet”, using your two feet you move to place where you can learn, share or enjoy. If you are not in such a place move to it or start a discussion of your and others would gather around you
2. What has happened is what was suppose to happen

After his words It was introduction time and all of a sudden people were back in bussiness and i was amazed to see a large number of blogger with personal blogging or technology as its key focus area.

While the introductions were on we found people ranging from 15 yrs old Farhad to scientist named Puskaraj apte who also happen to find his long time lost pal Anupam Saraph then came introduction from sneha gore who has just completed her thesis on urban blogger’s. Then the most surprising for me were the people from Lokayat they were out there for a mission details on the blog. but was even more surprised (and not so surprised also) to see a large crowd who

claim befoehand only that they don’t blog but are here for there marketting firm.

Then as the introduction ended Wall wiki was on its place for sesssion details to be filled up.

After filling up it looked like.

wall wiki 1

wall wiki - 2

Along with all the talks going on my attention shifted to sahil Khan (@sahilk) flaunting his twttier id on his T-shirt. – that’s a cool way to know people about you.

Then as people were all drifting towards different direction i came in touch with Gaurav Pant a.k.a. DEXTER (@gauravggs) from PLUG (Pune linux user group) and nikhil Kumar Verma (@gryphusnick) and then we three shared a long chat about stuff’s ranging from Geek talk, geek life, How for geek’s its fun while in front of the screen, and then about freelancing to Cryosleep and then topic drifting to demolition man as example of cryosleep concept to andriod cell phones and google lattitude and then shifting to stolen laptops and recovery methods.

Then i went for my first session and that was How to migrate from blogger to wordpress by Rahul Bansal (@rahul286) Slideshow here, his session was good and it showed all the hardwork they have done in creating the plugin. But could not stop myself from chipping in (advantage of unconferance) and adding some cautions about keeping wordpress installs uptodate, overall a nice and properly worked presentation.

Next i went on to attend the session by lokayat people they started with talks on social political topics which to be very frank are not my cup of tea but when it came to the topic of Free Softwares that was were I waw all ears for it. This ended on a good note. Then lunch and after that i was a bit off track with sessions mainly focused on SEO and how to make money. and then suddenly it looked as if camp will end @3:30 only.

But the day just was not ready to end yet and there we were listening to the standup comedy act by Abhishek thakkar and his finding nimmo talk

Some of the most funniest ones were

1. I want my nimmo to understand my word in formats like (ftp kitchen; mget food)
2. A matrimonial profile reading “I an looking for a panther”
3. A matrimonial Profile reading “I want someone to help me in my BED Situation” – by a guju girl (try speaking in gujrati accent and you will get what she want)
4. There can never be a love triangle (only love angles)

But still a lot of ground remained untouched or rather soft touched only

but as in the begining tarul said “What has happened is what was suppose to happen” so no regrets about the event.

On the other Hand would like to see following thing’s in next camp

1. Talk on Legal issues involved with blogging in india.
2. Have a presentation on urban blogger’s and blogging – sneha gore (may be the right person for this)
3. How to write quality content.
4. Talks on blog platforms other then wordpress and blogger / blogs.

What is BlogCampPune?

BlogCampPune is a FREE unconference focusing exclusively on blogging, organized by bloggers for bloggers. It‘s built upon the principles of the famousBarCamp (ad-hoc unconference) focussed on sharing, learning and new ideas. This is going to be an intense event with discussions, demos and interaction between attendees. Any blogger who wants to contribute is welcome and invited to join. In the spirit of BarCamp, if you attend, be prepared to present something (even if it’s just 10 minutes).

When : 27th June 2009

Where: SICSR (Symbiosis) 7th Floor Atur Center, Gokhale Cross Road, Model Colony Pune Near the OM Super Market

Google Map

Tickets

The Registrations for the Blogcamp Pune 2 has started. Grab yourself a ticket right away. http://blogcamppune.eventbrite.com

Speak at the Blogcamp Pune

If you want to speak on a topic or run a session/discussion at the Blogcamp Pune please mention your idea while you are buying the ticket. http://blogcamppune.eventbrite.com

More Info : http://barcamp.org/BlogCampPune2

I have registered for the even already.

I have been working on Unix Shell scripts for standalone work and came across the need for various types of input validation.

The basic need of Input validation comes when we have some other program’s depending on the input and those programs being sensitive to type of data  being send to them.

so i have compiled some neat hacks for this specific purpose….

You can check at the bottom for a detailed usage of the functions that i have created.

A direct download is also available here

function num_check()

{

read -p "$1" as

until expr $as - 1 >>/dev/null 2>/dev/null

do

read -p "$2 should be numeric please enter again" as

done

echo $as

}

function char_check()

{

read -p "$1" as

while expr $as - 1 >>/dev/null 2>/dev/null

do

read -p "$2 should not be numeric please enter again" as

done

echo $as

}

function null_check()

{

read -p "$1" as

while [ -z $as ]

do

read -p "$2 should not be null " as

done

echo $as

}

function alphacheck()

{

read -p "$1" as

while echo $as | grep [0-9!@#$%^&*()-_|] 2>>/dev/null >>/dev/null

do

read -p "$2 should be alphabet only" as

done

echo $as

}

#

#       sample calling for the script

#

#

#z=`num_check "Please enter the no" "Customer no" `

#echo $z

#echo `expr $z + 1`

#y=`char_check "Please enter the name" "Customer name"`

#echo $y

#echo $y | wc -c

#x=`null_check "Please enter enrollment no" "enrollment no"`

#q=`alphacheck "Please enter the name" "Customer name"`

#echo $q

I hope this helps someone

Waiting for comments and corrections……….

Recently i have upgraded my internet connection from 64Kbps to huge 256Kbps (although it doesn’t sounds too much but guess what for a person working on 64Kbps for 2yrs this is a 400% increment. )

with this change in my side i thought ok lets download the net-install disk and start the magic….

The start was a surprise for me with option selection menu with option for GUI installation..

but the surprise went of the hook when my motherboard(intel 865 chipset ) onboard Graphics was not auto detected and fail back text installer was started

but anyways i can live up with CLI interface too..

so i moved ahead and a simple installation for debian took less then 20 minutes to fiish..

now i can say that besides the minor glitch in hardware detection it was a breeze..

Note : i am not covering much on installation as that is not my prime concern …

Now as the installation got over logged in to the system and went to aptitude for some softwares

Here i would like to point out the best thing i like about aptitude or any package manager in debian TASK’s

simple links to get the a perticular setup done

So i head to aptitude ans task panel a quick “+” over desktop, Laptop, Gnome, Localization Hindi) and Webserver.

two taps on “g” and i am ready to go for a good night sleep in the mean time all the packages will be downloaded and installed automatically……. (size of over 972MB)

Been hell lot busy on my work… but guess what as soon as i got some time i get this simply superb news…

Debian 5.0 lenny is out i have been eying for this distro for a long time using the unstable repos to get the taste of lenny and now finally lenny is here..

so today onewards atleast one post on how i am setting up ebian lenny on my desktop..

my configuration is as followes..

Celeron 2.6 GHz processor

256 + 512 = 768MB RAM

160 GB PATA HDD

Samsung Studiowork 700S 17″

thats the basic setup but the main part will be to configure and use

BlueSoliel IVT bluetooth dongle..

Nokia 3120 Classic or USB cable as well as BlueTooth

With This i might also be able to workout on my long lasting ambition to document wine configuration and electronics workbench configuration.

So Stay Tuned …

Next post on Installation

vi or vim

for redhat based systems this doesn’t in any ways pose a difference as both vi and vim are on and the same thing (for more technical vi is aliased to vim).

but if you go to the other variants like debian or slackware these two software do show a difference in terms of evolution vi is what vi was and vim is what we always wanted vi to be.

so here I am presenting some more tips and tricks for better working inside vim

NOTE : most of these option work only in the command mode of vim until and unless explicitly specified

1) :sp <file_name>

split window splits the active vim window into two parts ….. if <file_name> is specified then in that case that particular file is being opened in the other half otherwise the same file is opened…….

2) this split windows can be easily managed by use of CTRL+W

3) :! <command>

this is a very useful option if you don’t want to leave the vi window and yet wish to work on command line for some help or other thing.

4) :set nu

this option can be a real timesaver when looking for errors

this gives number to each other.

5) :set ai

real timesaver for the programmers ai stands for auto indentation and not artificial intelligence

6) :set tabstop=x

this yet is a programmers help ,

let you specify the  tab stopping which is by default 8 spaces

which can now be changed to x spaces

7) .vimrc The default config for your regular sessions.

if you wish to keep some options as constants what you can do is that you can just put all your general commands in a script file at ~/.vimrc………….

8 )  / for forward searching and ? for reverse searching….

9) most of us who are familiar with vi learned dd yy p and the basic commands

but P is also a paste facility with just one difference…..

when you use p you paste below the current line while P paste above the current line……..

10) sometimes you don’t want to change the binary data in a file or you have to work on binary files try

vim -b <file_name>

11)

we usually go on undoing stuff with “u” but what for redo….

CTRL + R is for the rescue…….

besides these if you are a programmer then you can leave aside the conventional “no file extension also works philosophy” asides just because this gives you a upper edge in vim with a proper syntax highlighting.

I HOPE THESE TIPS HELP YOU SOMEDAY

]]> http://blog.anantshri.info/2008/12/02/working-efficiently-with-vi-vim/feed/ 2 http://blog.anantshri.info/2008/10/05/fakeid-looks-a-lot-real-to-me/ http://blog.anantshri.info/2008/10/05/fakeid-looks-a-lot-real-to-me/#comments Sun, 05 Oct 2008 16:11:07 +0000 Anant Shrivastava http://blog.anantshri.info/?p=110 Well after a long time i am back at blogging this time with some good news for all my fellow bloggers.

check this link

Fake ID

They claim to provide a free card on a PVC printed sheet as a thanks for linking to their site.
This same service they offer for around 5pounds

Lets see i am linking to them here,

Hoping to get the card soon.

For those willing to have a taste here are screenshots of my possible card.

front site

Back side

so finally i decided to create a plugin of my own, so her it is

WORDPRESS : My Profiles

Plugin currenty hosted at my site, will add it to wordpress plugin repository in a day or two as well as trying tomake it available at sourceforge.

Plugin is released under GPL Scheme.

INSTALLATION : its quite straight forward,

download the zip here,

extract it in your wp-content/plugins folder and enable it in your admin panel,

to show your profiles just enable my-profiles widget,

setting’s are available in setting’s panel.

you just have to enter your nicknames in the list and your profile url along with site’s favicon will get placed in your widget.

Hope this help’s some one else like it is helping me.