Roaming in Blogosphere

How would I know that you visited my blog... and that you have a blog too!? And how would I be able to diplay an advertisement of my blog on someone else's blog, thereby attracting more readers to my blog?

These questions are answered by Entrecard. Once you are part of Entrecard community, surfing on blogosphere becomes easy and you get to know good blogs, and your blog becomes known to many people. Here is how to get started. Let's say you have read the previous article on blogging and got the Feed burner installed on your blog, and your blog looks something like this:

Visit Entrecard.com.

Entre card is similar to a visiting card. And more colorful, picturelike a visiting card, more people will it invite. Entrecard site requires you to have a logo of your page of the size exactly 125pixels by 125 pixels. To do this, I found a nice image in google image search, and re-sized it to 125x125 pixels using paint. It has an option to stretch and skew an image. If you don't get a suitable image right now, you can come back later to it, and have a text EntreCard to begin with.
Fill in various details, if you have an image ready, upload it, else select Text only entry card option.

Once you are in, go to Get Code. Select any size shape of your Entre Card you would like to have. I like the Vertical ones. They save space on your website, and kind of trendy!

Copy the highlighted code. Goto your blog, sign in, goto customize, Edit Html. Look for the place where you put your Feed burner code. Next to the place where "About Me" is located.

Paste your code above (or below if you wish), and click on preview. Ooops! If you have done everything correctly so far, then you should be getting this message:

I spent my few precious night hours on this bug, a week ago. Then I gave up and typed in google, " The reference to entity "type" must end with the ';' delimiter." Google was helpful, and gave me this answer: http://base.google.com/support/bin/answer.py?hl=en&answer=63199

In XML files, the ampersand will cause an error, unless it's part of a valid entity reference, such as ""." Please use "&" instead of "&" to indicate an ampersand. Aah, what a relief!

So go back to your Edit Html window. find out the "&" symbols, and replace them with "& amp;". And click on preview. Wow! Your Ecard should be on your website! Don't forget to save the template before exiting... :)

With your EntreCard ready, you can start roaming on Blogosphere. Find someone's blog with an EntreCard first. You can visit mine! Click on the "drop" and notice the window changing to "Thanks!" :) Follow some more blogs through the clicking on the image on the EntreCard.

Having done this, come back to your EntreCard Dashboard. You would see some stats there. For each visit and drop, you get one E-credit. For advertising the widget on your site(which you just did) you get 8 ec. And so on. Soon people would advertise on your website(get a picturesque entre card) and by sanctioning their advertise on your website for 24 hours, you earn more ec s.E.g. The owner of the site the peanut butter blog sent advertise to my dashboard. I liked the blog, so I approved his ECard Advertise. Now, the logo on my site changes to his logo, and his site will be advertised on my page for next 24 hours:

When you have sufficient ecredits in your account, you can go publicize your blog by advertising it on other pages.
Further info on EntreCard website should tell you how to earn money from EntreCard usage!

Happy roaming on blogosphere!

ps. This is my second article entry for Bawa's Blog Competition!

Troubleshooting in html

Ok. So, being a reader of Blogsutras I am sure you would have opened a gmail/ blogger account, got a blog template, and started blogging! So let's say you have got these basic things done, and your blog looks something like this:

Now those who happen to visit your fresh blog may not visit again, but if they like the first post, they might want to be able to get updates automatically. Utilities like Google reader get the new info on any sites and give it to the reader. To make it easy for your readers to subscribe to any such utilities, you need to have a feed on your site. Go to feedburner.com. Give the url of your blogpage, and click next. Choose RSS and click next. Give username password and email address, and Activate your feed. Click next until you get a page like this:

Go to Publicize your feed, and click on friendly graphic link. Choose standard feed icon. Now comes the tricky part... Go to the box where you see the html text to be copied to your template. It will be something like this:

Copy that html... Dont need to understand much, though its not much difficult! To put it in your template, open a new browser window, sign into the blogpage, goto manage layout and Edit Html. There will be a jungle of html syntax and instructions! Don't get baffled. Click on the editing window, and with Ctrl+F or from Edit-> Find, search for `About me'. You are likely to get a result like this:

Check the enlarged view of above image for better clarity. Insert your html as shown below:



Click on preview, and hurray! You will see the Feed icon on your blog page:



Don't worry if you don't see the icon at the expected location below "About me", just change the location of your feedburner text so that it doesn't come in way of <> pairs.

p.s. This is my article entry to Bawa's competition on Blogging tutorial!

night sky of the World

Above picture shows how much city light is emitted in different parts of the world at night... recorded by some satellites. More info is here:- night sky in the World. interesting, isn't it!

Guru Poornima

Guru element is that which guides our lives. Mother is the first Guru. All the teachers who have taught us something, carry that Guru element within. Guru Poornima is the day to revere all of them, the entire tradition of teachers, masters of wisdom that gives right direction to life. They are our Beacons of light.
Guru Poornima is also a day of the devotee... to feel grateful for what he/she has received, how the life has changed. Its a day to recollect last one year and see how much progress one has made in the journey of life.
Today, on the occasion of Guru Poornima, sleep with a feeling of being taken care of, with a blanket of grace!

… in love …

(I am ) in love (with you).
(You are ) in love (with him).
(They are ) in love (with each other).

In all these expressions, what is common is being “in love”! And that is what makes a big difference. People take so much pride in saying “I love you”, to the person they love. Of course it is needed to be said, but know that you are not doing any favor to that person by loving him or her! When you are in love, what is happening inside you… A certain consolidation of life force energy, certain sensations that are very pleasing, a certain pain of longing also, a certain feeling of oneness or belongingness…
Of course the other person may have been responsible or a cause for this to happen inside you, but what we forget in the process of being in love is what is this happening inside us. We label it to the other person, and when next time that if the presence of that person doesn’t cause that experience we have within, then our love for that person weakens…Observing what’s happening inside us, gives strength to the love we have for others. Then it can’t be taken away by events or circumstances, people and emotional outbursts.

Whether you know... or don’t know!

This article is merely an obvious restatement of the fact that “Jane tu …” simply rocks!

Its such a good make... got me back to my college days… A cool group of boys and girls who share the days of college, which pass by so fast, that one doesn’t know how it passed. When Aditi asks Jai‘s mother,"How did so many days pass!?", she says, ‘on phone, beta!’

A fantastic way of telling a story inside a story is so nice… the girl listening the story exemplifies the audience, that is you.

I wasn’t understanding what I liked about the hero, and as Mahesh pointed out, its simply that he doesn’t do any heroism! He is simply there, playing his character naturally.

I would love to make such kind of a movie!

In fact more of such movies are needed, where I can feel it’s just me there, not some director moving the characters fancied by some whimsical script writer!

And there is so much talent available in all youth in India. It needs to be rightly portrayed.

Lightness to live life, fragrance of love, emotional depth and bellyful laughter make “Jane Tu” a fantastic watch! Especially at PVR Forum on weekdays 10 am!

Rising up

The road from Forum to Koramangala Water Tank Circle, in front of Saint John’s Hospital, is very wide now. 4 trucks can go side by side. And its one way. So you can drive at 60 if your breaks are alright. I was returning after a late night movie and I was driving at 60, because my breaks are alright. I wondered, “How life has changed. I used to struggle for Autos at such times, few months ago. Now I have bike.” Its amusing how life flourishes when you are doing simple good things. I recalled following words of wisdom by His Holiness Sri Sri Ravishankar.

~*~

Negativity needs an Anchor.

Negativity cannot remain without a support.

Positivity, happiness can be without any reason.

The mind goes on trying to find support for its negativity. It looks for a hook to hang its negativity on - if not this person, then that thing or that person and so on.

This perpetuates the maya!

The creeper of negativity needs a support in order to grow. But negativity or aversion for even one person can guarantee a one-way ticket to hell - you need nothing else!

All negativity is a pointer to move to the centre and broaden the vision to the cosmic intelligence.

Instead of focussing your attention on support for your negativity, look at the seed of negativity.

With meditation, silence, kriya, the source of negativity is nipped at the root.

~*~

Nature of life is like a flame, to move up. All you have to do is give some space for yourself, and let go off the anchors that you yourself have put in the ocean called world.

Skyview!

True to my religion, Physics, I thought an article on Astronomy and Astrophysics is a must! What you see above is how the sky looks like in a less than a degree field of view in a region of Large Magellanic Cloud, our next door galaxy. The image is taken by Ultraviolet Imaging Telescope.
Isn't it unbelievable that in that small part of the sky there are so many stars! And its so very beautiful. As if there is a Diwali in that galaxy, and all those are houses with diyas lit up on their doors.
And another amazing thing about sky-view is that, when you look in different directions, you are actually seeing light that originated in different times from those stars, so there is a temporal information encoded in the picture! What you see is a spatial collage of different pasts in various directions..

Prof. M. Prakash

It was first week of first year in the college, a post lunch class and a boring lecture going on. Suddenly one nice young and matured person in jeans and t-shirt walked in and took permission from the teacher to tell us a few things. He went to the board and drew a triangle and two vertices of the triangle, drew a perpendicular to the next side. then he said, that if I draw the third one also, they will all pass through this common point!

It was quite amusing to me! He said same is true for angle bisectors and medians. You can learn more such interesting things about Geometry, Algebra, Number Theory and Combinatorics, in our classes for Regional Mathematics Olympiad in Bhaskaracharya Pratishthan.
That was my first meet with Prof. M. Prakash. That very evening I joined the classes in Bhaskaracharya Pratishthan, and my visits to this Maths institute continued for next two years.
I learnt lot of interesting Maths from Prakash Sir. After his MSc in Maths from IIT Kanpur, he has been teaching Olympiad Maths to all young students. Several of his students went on to win Gold Medals in International Mathematical Olympiads!
He tought us so many techniques of problem solving, and one day he said to me,"Abhay, mind works faster than hand." And he showed a way to find a solution by just thinking, rather than doing elaborate analysis.
I was selected in Regional Maths Olympiad and then joined the classes with Prakash Sir for Indian National Maths Olympiad. It was an amazing two month training that I underwent. A box of unknown things was opened. Unimaginable things were revealed and understood.
I expressed my interest in pursuing Physics to Prakash Sir. He immediately recommended me Feynman Lecture Series.
He opened a door for amazingly incredible thing called Science to me!

The Ultimate Hitchhikers Guide to Galaxy

"This is a humanoid from Planet Earth speaking...
All Planet Earth members are hereby informed of the Ultimate Hitchhikers Guide to Galaxy, in case they want to go for shopping and such stuff in other planets, and want to do it in a hitchhiker's way!"

Ha ha ha!
Much more fun to read this book by Douglas Adams... Its giving me a laughing time for last one week!

The Wiki entry speaks lot about it, which I will leave on to you to explore! Also check Bawa's blog entry.

Enjoy!

Tasty Bytes, Nature Fresh and Cool Joint

Tasty bytes
A hotel which gives you what its name promises! Tasty bytes is a very nice homely like food joint in JPNagar. You get hot parathas, chapattis, various vegetables and variety of desserts. If you are couple or quadruple, you can sit there and enjoy the food, for more people take a quick parcel! They have two outlets.
Nature Fresh
This is a Juice and Sandwich junction in the same lane as Tasty Bytes... Good news is that its one of those rare joints in Bangalore that is open even till 11:30... Awesome juices, fruitsalads and sandwiches!
Cool Joint
Who in Bangalore’s central area Jayanagar won’t know Cool Joint! My favorite for sandwiches, juices and ice creams… Check out their “Jungle book” combo! Decorated delicious delight!

YES!+

Youth Empowerment and Skills Workshop:-

This is a one week program that has changed my outlook to life. It turned me inwards, brought out the hidden potential in me. YES!+ gave me tools and techniques to manage my emotions, enhance my fitness, improve my concentration and sharpen my awareness.

It gave me strength to influence the environment, instead of getting influenced by it. I developed new talents, like dancing! I started taking more keen interest in various aspects of life. My observation became quick and minute detailed. My perception became clear and confusions disappeared. My expression became natural and authentic. Life became a stress free game!

For more details about YES!+, visit www.yesplus.org

Berkeley physics course is now available!

I love Tata McGraw Hill Publications... they bring out the best of the books in the world to Asian students in an affordable price!
Now they have revived the Classic Physics textbooks:- the Berkeley Physics Course:

Vol 1 Mechanics
Vol 2 Electricity and Magnetism
Vol 3 Waves
Vol 4 Quantum Physics
Vol 5 Statistical Physics

These books will tell you the Graduate Physics in the most precise form! They give you the scope and limitations of the theory presented. The third volume Waves is filled with ample illustrations and experiments. The exercises given will sharpen your skills.
Second volume on Electricity and Magnetism, the Nobel Laureate Purcell has described in a diagramatic and a very illustrative manner, how accelerated motion of a charge gives rise to electromangetic radiation...
Learn Physics from the Best!

Checkmate!

1. b3 b5 2. Bb2 Bb7 3. Nf3 Bxf3 4. exf3 b4 5. d4 d5 6. Nd2 f5 7. Bd3 g6 8. O-O Nf6 9. Re1 Bg7 10. c4 bxc3 11. Bxc3 O-O 12. Nf1 a5 13. Rc1 Nbd7 14. Bb5 Nb6 15. Bc6 Ra6 16. Qd3 Ra7 17. Ne3 Qd6 18. Bb2 a4 19. Qb5 axb3 20. axb3 Ra2 21. Rc2 f4 22. Nd1 g5 23. Nc3 Ra7 24. Rce2 g4 !!

25. Rxe7 g3 26. fxg3 fxg3
27. hxg3 Qxg3 28. Nxd5 Ra2 !!


29. Nxf6+ Bxf6 30. R7e2 Rxb2 31. Rd1 Rxe2 32. Qxe2
Rd8 33. d5 Be5 34. Qd3 Rd6 35. Rd2 Rh6 36. Kf1 Rh1+ 37. Ke2 Re1#
{White checkmated} 0-1

Favourites!

Pal Pal Pal Pal har Pal, Kaise katega har pal, har pal !?


An intense longing for the beloved expressed in a playful manner! She is so beautiful and He is so dedicated!

Piya Bole, Piya Bole, Kya ye bole, Janu na...

Lovely! Flowing lyrics and sweet melodious music.

Maine Socha Na Tha



An unbelievable phenomenon on this planet... His Holiness Sri Sri Ravishankar.
So fortunate I am to have met him.

Tu Bin Bataye



Leap of faith in the unknown, with a torch of love in one's hand...

Gali Mein Aaj Chaand Nikla

Doctors are Angels!

God sent them on earth to remove all pain...! You just think of them, and sometimes the disease goes away... And if things go worse, just visit them, and they have a specialised skill to simply heal you...!
I had few minor operations in childhood. A gentle caring voice and a swift skillful surgeon:- made my body from hell to heaven!
I had a cavity in my teeth, and food used to get stuck, and it would pain. But I was bit fearful of an injection in the teeth base, so I kept postponing the treatment. One day it grew so much, I couldn't bear it at all.. I took help of the rescue team : Dentist Hema, Supriya and their friend ! A small injection which didn't hurt at all and a 10 min surgery procedure... Rootcanal was over and out! Pain was nowhere to be found. Subsequent days I was totally relieved of any teeth problems whatsover!
One day during driving on two wheeler something went into my right eye. I saw myself in mirror, showed my eye to my friends... The eye was normal when open, and it would pain when closed... two nights I postponed. Then Dr. Preethi in Devi Eye Hospital viewed it under microscope, and noticed a white foreign body below my eyelid. In a gentle flash of cotton she removed it! All pain was gone again!
The technology is also so advanced now... When I underwent the Root Canal treatment, the Surgeon had the finest rotating drillbits. When I tested my eye, the doctor had a well positioned microscope, a well positioned torch, and when I couldn't tolerate the twisting of eyelid-to check if something was beneath it- she even put a few anasthetic drops in the eye!
I like to combine Naturopathy and Allopathy for my health. Ayurveda is my favourite for Natural health. It heals the body from the root cause of disease- so that the disease doesn't take bigger form. Simple medicines, few simple techniques of Ayurveda have brought so much comfort in my life.
Ayurvedic doctors are like magicians... you don't have to tell them what is your health concern! They will tell you your medical history! Just by checking your pulse for few seconds...! Its simply amazing.

Making Physics Popular at college level

Making Physics Popular at college level
Abhay Karnataki,MSc Physics,IIT Bombay,2nd Year student,February 19, 2003

... the power of instruction is seldom of much efficacy, except in those happy dispositions where it is almost superuous."
This apt remark is a telling comment on the state of instruction and remains as true today as when it was rst quoted by Edward Gibbon. There is a natural inclination in every child, starting from vastness of astronomical objects, as to know how this world works, what laws govern the nature around us. Since this is the subject matter of Physics, there is so much a need to
us to recognize and implement the best possible and natural methodology of imparting physics. Conventional education bombards the students with a gamut of equations which leaves the student grasping for breath. What is needed is a literature that complements this maths with a lucid physical description of phenomena, so as to bring out its natural properties, and
sustain interest and motivation of students.
To this end the books play a very important roll, since the students can spend most of their time with these. Following monumental books form the best foundation in Physics one can have:
Resnick and Halliday.
Berkeley Physics Course, 5 Volumes.
Feynman lecture series, 3 Volumes.
Surely there would be some other combinations, but these are time tested.
Resnick and Halliday develops a curiosity about the methods of Physics and gives a visa to the generalizations of theories, gives glimpses of frontiers, relates the concepts to the real world surrounding us through numerous daily life examples.
Berkeley course endures the student with a rigorous and complete background of future studies. It gives precise limitations and scope of the theory being presented. The problems are very interesting and give an insight in understanding almost all essential basics of physics. Both of the above give excellent order of magnitude calculations, something which is very important to give a feel of the subject.
Feynman lectures are universally acknowledged as being the best lecture series we ever had on Physics. With his endearing charm and uncharacteristically disarming style of an engaging Physics Teacher, Feynman covers most of Physics in a manner that could be understood by a dedicated beginner. However, no Physics course is complete without the tutorials and recitation
sessions, in which the students are grilled in the concepts told. This is where above books and educators come in. They are in a position to complement the course by giving due emphasis to the appropriate nuances of the subject and clarify the perspectives.
Apart from the books, the next important thing that brings students close to Physics is the experiments. I strongly feel that there is a need of setting up of the experiments rather than doing just observations of already setup experiments. The students must learn how to play with the apparatus, rather than just number crunching. Certainly, the current group of experiments should be retained, but alongside the students should be encouraged to set up some, possibly without grading them on the basis of those setups.
Following areas are very easy to explore:
 Electronics: let them make some simple ligingcircuits! ! Even without understanding how a diode works... BSc students could be encouraged to setting up some Power Supplies, Digital counters. And at the final year some experiments that might involve microprocessors.
 Simple mechanical experiments: using gears, batteries, motors, levers, bearings... the aim of these experiments need not be something directly useful, but something which conveys the essential Physics behind actual real life working systems. Third Volume of Berkeley Physics Course, Waves, provides an excellent set of home experiments.
 Computer programming: Computers should be brought into the work experience of students at an earlier stage. Without bothering too much about the details of programming languages, they should be given a first hand experience of the softwares available. Internet education plays an important role in fast and up to date knowledge of the subject. It has broadened the capacity of the individual to access the vast amount of data. Following activities would be of interest:
-function plotting using softwares.
-plotting trajectories of charged particles in various combinations of E and B fields.
-generation of fractals.
-viewing 3 D images of solids.
Study of classic experiments: some of the classic experiments like Millikan's oil drop experiment, J.J. Thomson's e/m measurement, Michelson's interferometer which are possibly available to undergraduates, should be studied in very much greater detail. The constraints of time should be uplifted
from the students, so should be the burdens of being evaluated for doing the experiment, and its completion. For, the spirit of scientific adventure ( so essential for the joy of doing Physics) can be experienced only in a liberal academic atmosphere free from such mundane constraints.
The courses should be designed so that there is maximum correlation of theory taught and experiments performed. The idea should not necessarily be to cover the entire syllabus, but to convey the essential physics in the subject and to inspire the student by conveying the personal excitement of learning the subject. An inspired student will learn much more on his/ her
own, than what can be taught in the class rooms. A certain care about delicate balance of students' psychological, emotional
inclinations is to be taken by the teachers. I believe that there are no bad students, there are only fast and slow students. Some people grasp some things fast and some do it slowly. There should be both, freedom and care, on the part of the teacher. Teachers can give freedom to self progress and go much ahead in the subject to the fast students, and they have to pay
more attention to those who grasp it slowly.Only a good work culture in the class can impel simultaneous growth of all. To help this grow, assignments can be given by clubbing fast and slow students, where slow students present the conclusions of the work. Such group discussions and seminars of students
would be very helpful.
"Problems for toffies" - this is something which works very well! The idea is to have healthy competition with excitement of prize.
Another activity that can be encouraged is reading of simple, early original papers. These are the landmark papers, which mark the history of science, and milestones in scienti c progress. Since the facts discovered then, are now firmly established and have became accessible to the novice, the
concepts in the papers are easily understandable. On the other hand, the joy of discovery presented in the original papers is unmatched by any later substitute on the same topic.
Often we can celebrate the birth anniversery of a Physicist, with a series of discussions of his/her best works. A wonderful course on Classical Physics through work of Sir G. I. Taylor is being oered in MIT and Harvard. It is an excellent example demonstrating how a single scientist's work can be so
beneficial and illustrating with a wide variety of research areas.
I thank all my teachers who guided me and introduced to the fascinating world of science and in particular Physics.
Let's make learning Physics a celebration.


PS. This article won first prize in a Science essay competition. It was briefly edited by my then friend and now scientist, Ashutosh Jogalekar. You can visit his blog .

500 feet above the ground!

Imagine floating mid-air, with no support of anything, being swung by great wind blowing on your face, and nearest point on earth is 500 feet below you! --- That's para sailing...!

My friend Milind and I have this zeal for adventure sports. And when we get a chance, we don't look back or keep thinking, we just do it! And so was our adventure of Para sailing. It was arranged by Nisarga group in the dry Lake bed near Hosakote. Its a huge (few km in radius) lake bed. Totally flat and lot of wind. So at the beginning of flight, your parachute is blown up with lot of air:-

You are tied to a jeep at the other end. And as soon as the jeep moves, you get a gentle lift in the air... And there you are...! As the jeep picks up the speed, your parachute gets filled in with more and more air, and you rise up in sky!!

Very soon, you can see the horizon in all directions! And the air current makes you float. A small imbalance and you will tend to 'feel' as if you are falling that side! But you don't...! And you feel so weightless, as if you are like a feather.. A fear of falling down rises in you, but you keep floating without support! You can't even grab on something for support anyways!Two minutes of this ride, its a thrill!

As the jeep slows down, you slowly come down, and there is a person to catch you! Its so systematic and well practised, that its as if you are parcelled through air!

Hogenekkal Falls

On the way back from our "Workshop on Interestellar Dust", in Kavalur, we visited the Hogenekkal Falls. Hoge nekkal means milk in rocks! Who says scientists don't have fun!? Here are few snaps:-

The small dot you see in the valley... those are my friends in a circular boat!



~Milk in Rocks!~

The circular boat is a fun! Its an amazing experience when the boatman just rotates the boat very fast!

After a shower in falls...

Is it Love? Really?

Some people discuss whether love at first sight exists, some wonder about it, some wait for it, some wish it never happened!

Love is effortless. To read this blog needs an effort, to love someone needs no effort!



Then there are those who wonder if is it Love? Really?

Ok, let me ask you something. When its dawn, there is some light, and some part of the room is still not lit. Do you question, is this light? Do you question in the totally dark room, is this darkness? Same here. No point in questioning love! When you are questioning something, it means it is already there...



Give me 5 kg of love please.

Sounds ridiculous? Yes it is! Because Love can't be measured! Still, people keep saying, I love this more, that more, they compare - as if it came in dozens or meters. 3 meter of love for person A is more than 2 meter of love for person B! So ridiculous to compare your love for someone with love for someone else!

What can be measured, is an illusion. e.g. 5 kg rice would "feel" to be of some "weight" on earth, and it would be "feel" to be of less "weight" on moon. Its relative.

What is absolute is that it is rice, 5 kg or not.