About Me

   Bikram Agarwal
   Consultant Developer,
   T-Mobile USA,
   Seattle, WA

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Yeah, this is my play ground. Everything that comes to my mind - comes here as well. Issues that bother me, things that delight me, stories that move me; things that I've created - my views, my story. And of course, your opinion matters. So, read on.


 

G@P : Out of Beta | Thursday, August 23, 2007 |

It's been 50 days since I launched this blog G@P v4.0 in Beta version. Got some very useful tips from some techie visitors, specially Brett of Circle6 Design. Some visitors who faced any sort of difficulty in navigation here reported that to me, which helped me to fix it. Here I'd like to mention Melody, who closed my page 'coz it was taking 'too much time to load' - as per her standards. That prompted me to make some immediate changes in the code so that the page loading time was reduced by several factors. And mostly, everybody appreciated this new design. So, I guess I won't be making any big drastic changes here very soon.

Now that Beta version release is a success, I'm glad to announce that g@p is now out of Beta Version. So, the Beta badge is going now. And now G@P is promoted to v4.1 . And it comes with some more juicy sausage for your liking.

Changes in G@P v4.1

  • Page load time is hugely reduced
  • Widgets [navigation options] are now more efficiently placed. Moved them around a bit for ease of your use.
  • My Flickr / YouTube / Delicious / RSS link badges are now in the curtain. Click Pull on top right corner.
  • Site Hit Stats widget is moved to the bottom bar
  • "Most Read Posts" widget has been moved from curtain to the item page. It is now available on individual post pages. Click the title of any post to visit its item page
  • Selected text color is changed. Instead of the default blue text on white background [after text selection], now you get dark green text on banana leave background. This one looks so soothing.
  • The combined feed of all 5 of my blogs is available now. Any new post in any of my 5 blogs will be available in this feed. This feed can be subscribed to by clicking the RSS icon on the curtain. [click 'Pull' on top right corner]
  • Some new interesting categories [tags], including Download are added to the list. Check the full list at the bottom bar

Minor changes include
  • The description of the blog has been changed.
  • Notification of 'Hindi' posts have been removed.
and mayby some other little things. I'm constantly changing something or the other here. So, guess everyday there's something new that improves its performance.


[Click to see the top 50 cities' List]

Speaking of performance, this site has got some 8,344 visits and 14,588 pageviews from 1,452 cities across the globe. Click the map above to get the top 50 cities. Click image on the left for the top 25 traffic sources of my site. [both images open in new window].

That's a great great report for me, considering before the v4.0, very few people were aware of my site's presence. And now, I've got some little feathers in the cap of G@P; like being in the top 10 designs list, crossing '1000 visitors on a single day' barrier, then getting 1.5k+ visits per day for three consecutive days. And now my subscriber count is 27; low maybe - but that is within 50 days. So, I guess that's a good start. Hoping for a greater patronage from all of you. Keep a watch on this space. There's something for everyone here.
For previous version history and upgrade details check this post.

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1000+ Visitors a day | Friday, July 20, 2007 |


Started : 19th July




It's been just 2 weeks since I launched version 4.0 of my 1st blog G@P. I did some aggressive advertisement, in the sense manually posting this relaunch news to all bloggers I knew. Slowly, got some visits and opinions from them. Strangely and sadly, most people close to me didn't pay a visit. They didn't have the TIME. Anyways, G@P got featured in Top 10 Blog designs. Slowly the visitor count was increasing, but was still in 2digit values. Click the image on left to see the stat.

Then there was the Potter Week, at the end of which the much awaited final of book of Harry Potter series is slated to hit the shelves across the globe. 16th - 20 July. This is the week that saw my site sky rocketing to its current readership. It started with the first post of the series. It was about the HP7 getting leaked in web. Another round of aggressive advertisement. This time, I left my link as comment in most of other blog's Harry Potter related posts. Within an hour, results started pouring in. At the end of 17th July, total visitor count was 231. July 18 saw a three fold increase in the visit count.

[ Continued in Full Post ]

Then it was July 19th. Within midday, last day's record of 697 visits was broken. That was exciting. Every hour the count was increasing. When I left office at 1730 hrs, the count was somewhere near 870. And I knew that it's surely gonna cross the 1K mark today. And of course, when I checked my stats next day, the count was 1,123. Yayy. 1st day when my site got 1k+ visitor on a single day. Click image on the right to check the hourly visitor count of 19th July. And click image on left to see the Subscribers added on that day.




That's a cause of celebration, I guess. 'Coz my site didn't cross the 100 visit barrier before. And now, all of a sudden, it was attracting 1k+ visitors and growing. Today, yesterday's record is already broken, once again. It's already 1,213 by 1700 hrs. Crossing 1.5k will take another day, I guess. Check below the daily visit stat from 17th to 20th july 5 PM.



Thanks to all my visitors for taking so much interest in my site. The major factor here was surely Harry Potter. Visitors came here for HP, saw it and loved it. I guess, after this HP mania is over, my visitor count will plunge a bit. But I hope it won't dip too low. My next aspiration is to see my blog featured in Blogs of Note. Hope that day will also come soon.

Once again - thnx to all my visitors. Have a great time here every time U visit. Leave your comments and views. Lemme know if U want me to write about any specific issue. U can always drop me a mail or can directly chat with me using the chat box. I'm always there. Have a great day.

Update : 23rd July
As expected, My daily site hits has crossed the 1.5k mark, starting 21st July, at the end of which, the visitor count was 1,524. This count increased on Sunday, 22nd July - with a total count of 1,595. So, even after HP7 is released, people r 'luving it'.


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A week after G@P v4.0 | Thursday, July 12, 2007 |

It's been a week since I released the G@P v4.0 and what a week it has been...!! Got some beautiful comments and useful advices. And I guess my embedded 'chat box' is more useful than I thought. Instead of directly commenting on the page, most visitors directly chatted with me. Hence comment count is low - but who's complaining....!!? I got to interact with my readers and that's much MUCH more than a single comment.

Anyways, thanks to some critic reviews and advices, G@P v4.0 has seen a couple of changes in this one week. Most helpful of them was that of Brett of Circle6 Design. Inspite of his busy schedule, he helped me out with some bugs. The newly added features in last week are -
[ Continued in Full Post ]

  • The Beta badge on top left corner so that my visitors know that changes are still being made and shouldn't get worried if they happen to visit the page when it's being changed by me.

  • Scroll to Top button at the bottom right corner. It's position is fixed so that U can auto-scroll to top of page, no matter where U r currently on the page.

  • Comment Bubbleto let U know this is the link to read or leave a comment

  • Dateand ReaderIcons at Item page. Looks good.
These are apart from the bug fixes that I carried out.

The visitor opinion poll that I carried out showcased some mixed results. 1 user branded this site 'Copy Cat' 'coz I have written my name as Sub author for this site's code. Come on yaar, though this template was written by Derek, I did change a lot of stuff here which took me considerable amount of time. So, I guess I deserve a mention of that in blog template. And anyway, Derek's name is still mentioned as the Author.

17% visitors found it 'confusing' which in turn is confusing me. I tried to make this site as easy to navigate as possible, and yet it was confusing for some. So, I'm giving some guidelines here.
  • Click the 'Pull String' [top right corner] only after the page has loaded completely. If it is stuck somewhere, reload the page

  • Some posts on Home page or archive page are incomplete, i.e, they are just 1st few para of the post. This is indicated by [ Continued in Full Post ] at the end of post writing. To read the remaining part of such posts, click the 'Read Full Post" at the end of post. check the snapshot below -

  • All links to external pages open in a new tab [or new window in case of IE] upon clicking. And internal links [ links to other pages in G@P ] open in the same window.


  • To leave a comment, Click the '# comment' [# being any digit] link with comment bubble on the right on home-page or the 'leave a reply' link at end of post-writing on item page.

  • To subscribe to post feed, click the 'RSS Icon' at the bottom of page or 'Pull' the string and click 'subscribe' at the top of the page. U can get site feeds delivered to your mailbox by writing your mail id in the box below 'subscribe' link and hitting Enter on keyboard.

  • U won't get spam or flood of mails if U subscribe through mail. It will send U only a mail of my new post when I write one.

Lemme know if U need any other clarification. I'm always here to assist U.

Looking forward to a greater patronage from U. Keep visiting and do subscribe to the feeds if U link this blog. [ it's beautiful and it's FREE, U know ] And oh, I forgot to mention that this site got ranked in top 10 blog design. Read about it here.

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G@P v4.0 in Top 10 design | Tuesday, July 10, 2007 |

Wow, this Tuesday morning started in a better way than usual. I found two (not just one) of my blogs listed among Top 10 Blog Designs. genius @ play is ranked 2nd and iWizard is ranked 9th. Although, I am not sure whether the list is a rank list or a list of 10 sites, ranks not assigned. Another thing is, the list was posted on 9th June, when this blog was still in v3.2 So, I guess, the list is not for G@P v4.0. Well, as I guess G@P v4.0 is better than before, I should get a better ranking, what say? :)

Excerpts from the post :-
... sites that are that are original or striking in one way or another.
.... readability: clean clear layout, plenty of 'white space', no clutter or loud distracting backgrounds.

My Popularity (by popuri.us)
Maybe getting mentioned in just one blog is nothing, but it surely is a start. Anyways, the widget in left shows my Blog's current popularity. Hope to get better exposure in near future.

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Launching G@P v4.0 | Wednesday, July 04, 2007 |

OK. So, here's my all new look G @ P. Been working on it for whole of last week. And now that it's done (for the time being), I'm pretty much excited with the new look. First of all - it's awesomely colored and clutter free. Some nice ajax scripts makes it snazzy.

This is how G @ P looked before the update.


There was this 'sidebar' with all the navigation options, album and communication tools like - chat, msg board, votes etc. Lots of stuff. And frankly, though those were overloading the page, I couldn't drop them from that page. I ignored the urge to change the UI for a long time due to this reason.

But it was high time to listen to what my readers had to say. Same ol' look is quite boring. So, I finally decided to give it a overhaul make-up. And the result is here. The all new G@P.
Lemme show U around.
The first thing U'll notice here is undoubtedly - the 'Pull' string. Give it a click and see the 'Curtain' rolling down from above. Click it again and it'll roll back into its hive. :) That's the best part I like 'bout it. It has all the introductory part 'bout me and the site. It has -
  • My contact info
  • My Wishlist
  • Feed Subscription Options
  • Site Hit Stats
  • Link to my other Blogs etc.

And there's this bar at the bottom. It's got
  • A Chat window
  • Post Categories / Tags
  • Previous Items
  • Archive List
  • Post Search Box
  • Link to my Flickr, YouTube, Delicious a/c

In addition, there's a 'NavBar' link in 'Curtain' and 'Top' link in 'BottomBar'. Click on these and see another magic. The page automatically scrolls to the bottom and top of the screen, respectively.

Additionally, I've made changes on the Item Page. Layout of Item Page is slightly different than the Main (home) Page and the Archive Page. There's a sidebar here which holds the Post options like
  • Comment
  • Bookmark
  • Create a Link
  • Email the Post
  • Subscribe to post comment feed
  • Top Viewed Articles

At the end of post, there are links for
  • Leave a reply
  • Random Article
  • Link to exact previous article
  • Homepage


I guess that is all we need for a effortless site navigation. Now it's your turn to take part in it. I've taken all effort to make this site Easy to load and error free. But still there might be some problems and bugs. Therefor, I'm asking you to give it a try. Keep visiting this blog, subscribe to its feed, do all you wanna do and write to me whenever U encounter any problem with this site. (U can write to me even without any reasons. I like getting mails. ;) ) And also drop in any improvement ideas U'd like to share, anything else U'd like to see here. Just anything will do. Keep visiting and writing. Have a great day.

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Blog in Beta phase | Monday, July 02, 2007 |

Now that G@P has undergone overhaul UI modification, I'm releasing it for beta testing today. Go through it in detail and lemme know about any difficulty U faec, or any improvement idea U might like to share. I'll really appreciate your contributions.

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genius @ play | version 4.2 | Created and maintained by Bikram Agarwal

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