Now my blog is black. I dunno how long it will last, so far I am liking it. Plus, clicking on photos takes you to our photo site, which is black background too. Sort of wanted to give it a black consistent feel. Nonetheless, regular readers will know things can change very quickly on my blog :p
General
Subtle Theme Changes
After much experimentation I am back to my old theme. I love this minimalist look, but taking feedback from readers I have decided to re-introduce the “recent posts” block. The single biggest feedback I got was that it was cumbersome to go through my previous posts one by one, which I think makes sense. I didn’t want to clutter this page, but a simple list should suffice. I think I like the balance right now – now, readers can go back to my last 10 posts from home page itself.
In other changes, I have added text to the icons above. I didn’t think it would look nice with text and images, but I am surprised – it does look good to me 😉
So there – I think these changes should last me a while now hehe!
Good Riddance
ROFL. So Lenovo has finally killed its entire 3000 series of Laptops and Desktops.
Good riddance.
Classic Yosemite
More photos at usual Flickr page. The absolutely gorgeous tunnel view of Yosemite.
From Pragati
“There is a case for an inclusive, non-elitist cultural nationalism that transcends, but does not displace other cultures.” (May 2008)
“The secular right must strengthen the wheels of political and personal freedoms. A Buckleyian purge of peddlers of anachronistic and destructive economic ideology, may be inevitable, necessitated by history.” (May 2008)
— OK, who the hell writes such crap? Can’t make head or tails of this!
On a day like today
I’d rather be there.
Napa Valley / Lake Tahoe
We went to Napa Valley / Lake Tahoe over the last weekend. Napa Valley disappointed us, but Lake Tahoe was simply beautiful! I wish we could spend a few more days, which I am sure we will in near future.
Here are some pictures from the trip.
The sterling vineyards, one of the few which has trolley system to go up their vineyard. We were not sure if paying 20$ worth all the effort. And add to it we actually bought some too, so I guess we should have got some discount hehe!
The highlight of this trip for us was the wide angle Canon 10-22 lens that I had rented out. I was quite amazed by this lens and the amount of coverage it got. However the lens was not very sharp at many places, and at many places we felt zoom would have been better. The end result: We think the wide lens is amazing, but its clearly not enough for a trip.
Shot above is the place where they store barrels of wine.
View from the vineyard. The picture also shows the power of 10-22 wide angle as well!
This was taken by Anu while driving towards Lake Tahoe. I am very impressed here because this was taken while in motion and I thought 10-22 wouldn’t hold up. But the colors came through excellent with very little or no distortion!
The wide angle in all its glory. This was right in front of the lodge we stayed. The views of Lake Tahoe from anywhere are quite breathtaking!
My favorite shot from the trip – this photo has a sense of magnitude and I am sure only a wide angle lens could convey this.
View from a vista point overlooking snow clad mountains. It was surprising, but there was quite a bit of snow scattered around… and this is late May!
Wouldn’t be nice to be sitting on a beach overlooking a snow clad mountain?
And Anu’s favorite shot from the trip. Obviously it has me in it, that’s why!
The water in the lake was very very clear. In fact when we were boating, we ventured quite some distance and we were able to see the floor. Apparently you can see up to 60 feet in water – its that clear!
This was at a sister lake called Fallen lake which is at a higher elevation than Lake Tahoe. Now there was a point in our drive up the hill when the road curved and all you could see was just water all around. It almost gave a feeling of our van heading into water -it was scary and absolutely thrilling at the same time. I wonder how would a view from top look like – a Lake on top followed by a lake below. Might be some sight!
Needless to say this lake had its own breathtaking views. The drive up this lake is treacherous but was worth it.
That’s about it for now. Regular readers will know where to find more pictures from the trip ;). Needless to say we had a great time, and we’ll definitely be heading back to Lake Tahoe again!
Theme Change!
Yet another theme change, with my intention to moving towards minimalism. Here is the gist of this theme change:
~ I wanted to move to really minimal design. I am tired of information clobbering up pages. Web 2.0 is great and all, but I am almost annoyed these days whenever I visit websites to see them so full of information and blocks all around. I want to go back to old days, where the page is simple, fast to load and clean. I think I am ready to look beyond today’s web designs.
~ The theme change itself isn’t that dramatic. I just modified my old theme a bit and made it a 1 post theme only. Now, this is as bare minimum as I want to keep (Notice, there is still a category drop down. I am in half a mind that to pull it too!).
~ I am done with Adsense / Textlink or any other forms of advertising. I have reached a stage in my life where I don’t want Google or any other company to dictate how I put my information on which page. This is my webpage, and I will put stuff the way I deem fit. I am done with page ranks, SEO, adsense and all that jazz. If anything I will use my other web playgrounds to test with those technologies. This website is purely going to by personal web stop.
~ Care for the user. I am not a popular blogger and nobody realistically goes back to read my archives. I have no desire in knowing how many people follow me anymore, nor do I care about which areas of my website do they click. All things said and done, majority of my users read only latest posts, which is what they will get on front page from now on. My regular and faithful readers who do wish to go back in time will definitely know how to do it 😉
~ Readying for a photoblog. Eventually I want this theme to extend itself as a photoblog + blog framework. Hence the desire to move towards single post / nothing else look.
This theme may change over a period of time in the next few weeks. For now, the basic layout of this will remain. Lets see how far in minimalism can I get without just vanishing content of my web page hehe!
I love my day
My average day at work.