I want a new WordPress theme for my blog! Regulus is nice, but I want something better. 
I am greedy. I have seen so many themes and googled up so many times. But haven’t still found one that I like more than the one that I am using. And I don’t like the one that I use 
I will keep searching!! I want a lighter theme with a decent function set. 
I’ve been bitten by the tech bug since last 15 years. 
So I am not talking about myself, but about my dad!! He is 69 and used to have a strong aversion for computers! He still has one for mobiles.
Some days back, he told me he needs a PC in his cabin at office!! For a second, I thought “WOW“! Even my 7 years old nephew was surprised at this news (“Nana, I heard you are learning computers. Is it true?”).
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I rencetly came across a list of 345 FREE online programming books!! Its a long list covering lots of things from basics of programming to language specific links. The best part about it is that the list is still growing. Originally, it contained 195 links, but now contains 345!
However there one thing that I missed in the list. There was nothing for CSS enthusists like me!! But I am hopeful because, as I said, the list is still growing! I have frantically searched at various places (online and offline) for a good book on CSS. I got 2-3 things online. But didn’t find anything worth mentioning offline. I wonder why is this topic neglected by authors and publishers in India?
Anyway for the others, here is the link. 345 Free Online Programming Books
Pramod Mahajan expired finally!! His brother shot him from point blank range! Quite unbelievable! The irony is that he himself had helped his brother in procuring the licence for the gun which finally became instrumental in his death!
After Rajiv Gandhi and Madhavrao Scindia, India lost one more promising and capable leader. He was a capable politician and had affected Maharashtra’s politics since quite some time.
My sympathies with his family.
We a bunch of few friends have started and launched a new Indian technology forum. Its called TechSpot. It has many sections and very active member set.
I am glad and proud to be a part of team techspot. Registration is for free. See you there.
CSS 2.1 Specification, W3C Working Draft was released on 11 April 2006.
CSS2 was released on 12th May 1998 and after almost 8 years, browsers (mainly IE) don’t comply with the standards. Even IE7 won’t comply with CSS2. 
Here’s an interesting reading from one blog – The Real Reason Microsoft Won’t Support CSS2 in IE7. I wonder when will browsers comply with CSS 2.1.
Here’s something from the draft specifications.
CSS 2.1 builds on CSS2 [CSS2] which builds on CSS1 [CSS1]. It supports media-specific style sheets so that authors may tailor the presentation of their documents to visual browsers, aural devices, printers, braille devices, handheld devices, etc. It also supports content positioning, table layout, features for internationalization and some properties related to user interface.
CSS 2.1 corrects a few errors in CSS2 (the most important being a new definition of the height/width of absolutely positioned elements, more influence for HTML’s “style” attribute and a new calculation of the ‘clip’ property), and adds a few highly requested features which have already been widely implemented. But most of all CSS 2.1 represents a “snapshot” of CSS usage: it consists of all CSS features that are implemented interoperably at the date of publication of the Recommendation.
CSS stands for Cascading Style Sheets. About a year ago all that I knew was HTML. I knew that something like CSS exists. But never paid much attention to it and never realised how wonderful it is!! There are so many things that can be done with CSS and that too so easily! My initial impression was that CSS can at best reduce the size of my code by replacing all the attributes in the < font > tag or may be helpful if I need to change the colour scheme of the site. But realised later that its much more than that!! CSS can do things which plain HTML simply cannot!!
Here’s a description of CSS from Eric Meyer, one of the well know experts on CSS:
Cascading Style Sheets is a standard way to separate a document’s structure from its presentation. This sounds very abstract, but the benefits are quite surprising and profound. In theory, CSS makes one’s life easier by creating a centralized description of Web document appearance. Any Web designer will likely come up against a situation where he or she really should use them, and many will no doubt use CSS to do things they never could do before.
People, including me, have been using tables for desired layout of pages. It was so easy and so convenient! But it had its own drawbacks. Tables are not search engine friendly and bloat the sizes of the page! But CSS is far more powerful and capable of doing lots of things in a lot better way. The CSS Zen Garden is a great site that showcases the power of CSS. On that site the HTML code remains the same, but simply by changing the underlying CSS file, the entire looks are changed drastically!
In my opinion, CSS is a must learn thing for those who are even a little serious about designing web-pages. Whether a person designes pages as a profession or as a hobby, he simply can’t ignore CSS! W3C (World Wide Web Consortium) also recommends it. Here is W3C’s CSS section and here is its CSS Code Validator. CSS is too good to be missed and the first place to start learning it is W3Schools! See you there!
A freak accident later, now I am very much worried for my data.
I have (or may be had) a Samsung DVD-ROM. I put in a CD and started installing a software from it. In the middle of installation, I heard a shattering sound and installation stopped responding. I was wondering what happened and clicked on open tray button!
It was then that I realised that the sound was of breaking of the CD-ROM!! It got shatterred to pieces!! I removed as many pieces as I could. Later even opened the drive and removed more pieces. But some of the pieces are still stuck in there. I will have to give it to a service center.
However, the point here is – how safe is the data backed up on a CD/DVD? Fortunately, the CD-ROM that broke had come with a magazine and was only carrying installation files of some softwares. But if CD-ROMs or DVD-ROMs can break this way in drives how unsafe the data really is!! This has happened for the first time with me. Till now, I used to think that if I take proper care of my CDs/DVDs, they will last a life time. But how wrong I was! Even if I have 3 copies, all can break! This freak accident has changed my outlook towards digital backup of data. I now realise the importance of keeping multiple copies of important data and have started fearing putting in important single copy CDs in the drives!
My 13 year old nephew – Manan – has his birthday coming up soon. He is a topper in his school and has stood first in his class all throughout. As with all 13 year olds, he is very fond of emailing, computer games, etc. We were wondering what to gift him this year! He wanted Counter Strike. But we were not too keen on gifting a computer game. He will waste time one it. Additionally, we have already gifted him Need for Speed, Brian Lara Cricket and a USB Wheel on his previous birthdays.
One idea was a guitar. He has mentioned it many times over that he wants to start learning it in the coming summer vacation. He already plays keyboards, although he is still a newbie. But a guitar wasn’t sufficient! After all its a gift from so many of us! We needed to give him something more. Something that will excite him.
After much thinking, I came up with an different gift idea and all of us agreed it will excite him. The new gift is a website!! A blog!! I will soon register a domain for him and install Word Press for him. I am pretty sure he will enjoy blogging and the sheer idea of having his own website will make him proud. He will flaunt it in front of his friends and feel really good! He has won prizes for his writings earlier at inter-class and inter-school events so he should be a good blogger and a blog of an intelligent 13 year old will make for a good reading! I am now looking forward to it.
