I wonder if I have been shying away from success. I know I fear the unknown. What happens after completing a task or project is probably “new and unknown”, and I subconsciously avoid it just so that I don’t have to face unknowns.
21 Oct 2012
15 Oct 2012
No parentheses
I think the next improvement I should make to my writing is to drastically reduce the number of times I include notes in parentheses. They make reading unnecessarily hard without adding much value.
7 Oct 2012
Bad writing
I was chatting with a friend and remembered something I had blogged about. Naturally, I shared the link to the post. That post was written two years ago, and it wasn’t the best of my writing. After reading, she said I had come a long way from that point and I write much better these days.
I didn’t start writing because I wanted to become better at writing; I have always been a person who likes to write... it’s a way of self-expression for me. English isn’t my first language, but my primary blog (this blog) is in English. God only knows why. My posts from years ago are nothing to be bragged about. They are childish thoughts expressed in an awkward way. Not that I have become a great writer now, but I have improved over time.
The way to improve writing is to exercise bad writing. You know your writing is horrible, and yet you keep on writing. Some day you’ll find yourself writing like a good writer. I don’t know about others, but my takeaway from this is that there isn’t anything inherently good or bad. Everything is equally good and bad.
Going back to writing well. As I said, I like writing. I think good writing should feel like the writer wrote it effortlessly... like words dancing together to make the text, and not like odd components stacked together. If I were to wish, I’d say I want to write like Rob Pike or Bruce Eckel. Those are two authors I loved reading... people from whom I have learned many things.
If you have been trying to become better at something, I think you’d like watching this video. (Source: Daring Fireball)
I didn’t start writing because I wanted to become better at writing; I have always been a person who likes to write... it’s a way of self-expression for me. English isn’t my first language, but my primary blog (this blog) is in English. God only knows why. My posts from years ago are nothing to be bragged about. They are childish thoughts expressed in an awkward way. Not that I have become a great writer now, but I have improved over time.
The way to improve writing is to exercise bad writing. You know your writing is horrible, and yet you keep on writing. Some day you’ll find yourself writing like a good writer. I don’t know about others, but my takeaway from this is that there isn’t anything inherently good or bad. Everything is equally good and bad.
Going back to writing well. As I said, I like writing. I think good writing should feel like the writer wrote it effortlessly... like words dancing together to make the text, and not like odd components stacked together. If I were to wish, I’d say I want to write like Rob Pike or Bruce Eckel. Those are two authors I loved reading... people from whom I have learned many things.
If you have been trying to become better at something, I think you’d like watching this video. (Source: Daring Fireball)
Winning and losing
If you’re not willing to lose, you have a rather slim chance of winning.
29 Sept 2012
Don’t pay for web hosting if you don’t have to
A few months ago, I moved all my websites, including my personal homepage www.manki.in to Google hosting. (That is, some Google product running on my own domain.) However, there was one piece in the puzzle that was still with my web hosting provider: redirecting any requests to the naked domain manki.in to www.manki.in. Once the request reaches www.manki.in, Google would take care of it from there on.
This was the setup of my site for several months, until yesterday. Only yesterday I found out an awesome feature Google Apps has. It can redirect requests to your naked domain to any subdomain you specify. Precisely the one thing I was paying my web hosting provider for! And Google would do this for free because I am on their free Google Apps plan. That amounts to saving more than $50 a year. Very cool!
Essentially, I had to set up DNS A records to point my domain name to Google’s IP addresses and tell Google Apps which subdomain I wanted the requests to go to. Check Google’s help page for detailed step-by-step instructions.
One last thing you need to do is disconnect your domain name from your hosting provider’s IPs so your users are always sent to the right place. Once you have added the A records to map your domain to Google’s IPs, delete all original A records so your domain is not pointing to your hosting provider anymore. When your hosting contract runs out next year, you can simply not renew it :)
This was the setup of my site for several months, until yesterday. Only yesterday I found out an awesome feature Google Apps has. It can redirect requests to your naked domain to any subdomain you specify. Precisely the one thing I was paying my web hosting provider for! And Google would do this for free because I am on their free Google Apps plan. That amounts to saving more than $50 a year. Very cool!
Essentially, I had to set up DNS A records to point my domain name to Google’s IP addresses and tell Google Apps which subdomain I wanted the requests to go to. Check Google’s help page for detailed step-by-step instructions.
One last thing you need to do is disconnect your domain name from your hosting provider’s IPs so your users are always sent to the right place. Once you have added the A records to map your domain to Google’s IPs, delete all original A records so your domain is not pointing to your hosting provider anymore. When your hosting contract runs out next year, you can simply not renew it :)
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