Tag: Site

Version V: “rize”

June 12th, 2009 · Jacob · The Site One comment - Tags: , , , , , ,

My website has entered its fifth incarnation. Its been a long time since I have neglected this space. Earlier the content used be just a blog at a different location. I have transferred all of the blog, portfolio and other content to this domain.

Platform

I did stick around with good ‘ol wordpress, entrusting it with a weak database structure that was inherited from old vestec modules. A few tweaks and it was good to go. The portfolio entries too followed suite and collapsed into the wordpress structure.

Archives

The depository containing the entries will sport a new look. I based the design on the beautiful typographical poster of Mike Geisser, called Weapons of Mass destruction.

Journal

The journal is about 3 years old. The styling is particularly inspired from Jonathan snook’s website, adapting his three-column goodness in a healthy way. Ofcourse! Nowadays, It simply wouldn’t do with your latest tweet basking in top-sidebar. The usual link-love, delicious crumbles and other connections are tucked neat into the elegant sidebars.

Compatibility

The biggest news for IE6 is that it no longer has any privilage for accessing my regular stylesheets. Earlier I had plans to just disable content for the imcompetent browser. I’ll go easy on it this time thanks to Andy Clarke’s Universal Style sheet for IE6.

So, What do you think about the new theme?

Back in a Jiffy, The tale and the irony.

August 15th, 2008 · Jacob · The Site Comments Off - Tags: ,

Its been a long time since I have blogged. Infact, a very long one. I haven’t been a serious blogger. The only reason why I use one is to share with people something new, striking facts and my views and experiences about life. As expected, the philosophical posts get very low clicks. but the popular ones include design, code and maybe open accusations. So let me start off another season by the usual words.

I’m extremely sorry for inactiveness of this blog and will strive towards a better maintained personal log. Duh! I feel kinda weird after that line. Maybe this post will become the last one in the next 3-4 months. The suscribers to this blog must be of some really patient species branched from apes some 5-8 millions of years ago and from humans some one and a half years ago. You didn’t get it? My blog is nearing its second birthday. yay! hmm. What do I give my tolerant readers as a gift for bearing with me?  Maybe a free WordPress theme. Maybe some screencast series. Blah! If you could have wasted precious mbs of bandwidth of stupid ‘geek’ pastimes like screencasts, then you surely would have seen a steamy youtube clip by then.(or maybe something that steams even more.)

So I will speak about about a few things I learned in the past few months while I was away from my blog. After Tejasvi, I found Vestec CMS didn’t have an edge in todays market if it were to based on just a bunch of functions and methods. MVC is the buzzword. So I may implement this either with a standard MVC platform like Cake PHP or Codeigniter or even try to model one myself. As for new changes, I added a new, improved interface to the admin section.

Drop Admin of Vestec

Moving away from code, I designed a few web interfaces for some companies and found out some bare truths. The most prominent among these is the fact that designs with more white in it are guaranteed to be a sell. According to my experience, a blue-white color scheme is the most liked scheme. A dark design is the riskiest thing you might want to do. Unless it is exceptional, clients are sure to have some second thoughts.

My N73 and its wide possibilities made me Google about S60 application development. After some persistent use of the ‘submit’ button, I found out it that it needs some time and dedication. Maybe a bit extra than the usual. Some newer version of the platform is due to change the level of knowledge so it is better to go into mobile development until I get used to the terms and jargon of their codex.

Well then, I seem to be in pretty good form right now! Calculating this spirit, I think you guys can expect some more posts before the blog nerve gets blocked. Yes! Do expect some goodies from me soon.:-)

What my blog did for me in 2007?

December 28th, 2007 · Jacob · The Site Comments Off - Tags: , , ,

2007 was a very good year for me, if blogging is concerned. I had some great events which revolved around this blog. Last year i switched from wordpress.com to an independent blog at dynz.net. It was part of the ‘togetherness initiative‘ by the dynz. My co-workers blogs got attached to our company website and rest was the same.

Recognitions: 

In August, Smashing magazine selected my 404 page design for their ’404 pages’ inspirational post.

site_analytics2.jpg

That’s what does when you get listed in some popular blogging directories. Almost half of my traffic have come via Smashing magazine. Thats an incredible jump in Alexa rankings, link backs, back urls etc.

One Down!
In September, I celebrated my first year of blogging (a blog post..so much for the celebration.) . It listed down some of my prominent milestones in the last year.

Redesign: Only one redesign was applied to this blog, Sed.  As I said earlier its 404 page gained massive recognition. However i had released a lot of concept blog themes which ultimately had to be scrapped off!

sed-theme.jpg

Functions: As a medium to convey my ideas , my blog has helped me a lot. It made me reassert some facts in life. It made me think and review. Some of my common incertitudes were clarified with some excellent discussion.

Well, I wish 2008 would be even better.

2007: Review

December 26th, 2007 · Jacob · The Site 2 comments - Tags: , ,

2007 was a year of reassertion for me. The year gave me new perspectives, new dimensions of thought and identification of some unique skills. Now when i look back, like every human being, i feel an element of regret saddening my heart. “I could have done better”. Be it my decisions or be it my outlook towards life, every single line i spoke could have been rephrased to a much more sinless speech. I feel. Below are some of my inferences about the events that happened to me this year. Opdyne: My ‘zero rupee’ Opdyne showed little or less signs of competitiveness in the vast and talented web designer’s world. The positives i got were the improvement factor. We have come way better than the day when we dressed up as designers ourselves. We had problems working together in a group. We had problems related to communication during constructive phases of projects. It were all sorted out so that we could welcome the new year with renewed energy , a new belief and some surprise plans. Sometimes its best if you take the lead of your group and preach new ideologies. Sometimes its best if you stay back and receive suggestions for improvement. New initiatives are demanding. It can consume a lot of time, energy and precious social time. New initiatives, new domains of involvement… a new stage of recognition. Still there is something lacking in my deeds. What is it? The very human side of me is refusing to allow the very perfect me. Ironically our mind wants to strive for the perfect 10/10 when in reality the end result halts before that mark. “To err is to human, to forgive is divine”. I will use this as an excuse to relieve me of all punishments. Oh wait! Asti warned me to stop writing ‘senseless crap’ but in another world this maybe great work. Someone please tell him! Promising you more sensible blog posts in 2008. Bye.

The autodidactic report

November 7th, 2007 · Jacob · Personal, The Site 2 comments - Tags: , , ,

It has been a long break away from my role as an apprentice in the large world of design freaks. Here i am waiting again to start my new stage in my designer career. ‘Writers’ block’…well I’m not sure what got me away from the PC and my cute lil’ blog for a month or so but i am pretty sure about the return. The recent distractions included participation in some exaggerated reality shows, unexampled college activities and some personal issues (which i don’t care even now).

Stage 1: Ignition

Sounds a bit lame! Still, the influences of Japanese anime titles like ‘Stratos 4′ and ‘Sky Girls’ have made this post look straight out of a PSLV User’s Manual. Stage 1 in the life of ‘the upward autodidact’ was all about ignition. The initial inspiration, the novice student entering into unfamiliar provinces of design…It was always a challenge. Time was very little. I had to grasp the most quickest of changes, imbibe from the most controversial of incidents and feel from the rest of the professional clan, the ethics of design and code. The autodidactic mission was begun with the sole purpose of learning the art of expressing one’s creativity in a splendid flavor.

Stage 2: Launch

Now its time for me to create a base to launch myself, project myself as a professional enterprise. Having acquired some tricks, tips and tutorials need not mean i am ready to take on the big stage by absolute confidence. For whatever i  do not have a  clue about, the autodidactic run continues. But for others, i plan to mix and blend the things i have learnt with some personal style and elegance.

Firstly, I have decided to get done with my award winning blog theme. It served me well and needs a good rest. Secondly, my new theme is due in one month time and is a glorious coalesce of WordPress and Vestec.

blockblog.jpg

The latter is quite unfamiliar to all of you as it is my first CMS venture. It includes a personal portfolio integrated right into the Opdyne’s site.

One year of blogging.

September 1st, 2007 · Jacob · The Site, Writing One comment - Tags: , ,

Yay! So i complete my first year of blogging.

48 posts , 31 comments, (hundreds of spam!!), 1153 visits, 2160 pageviews.

That summarizes my maiden year in terms of figures. There are lots more than figure can say. This posts attempts to bring them out of the autodidact’s heart, sincerely.

First i started blogging through ‘theupwardautodidact.wordpress.com’, the public blog at wordpress.com. After that i moved to Opdyne server to setup a independent wordpress system.

Things i learnt:

POPULARITY

1) Rather than posting daily, a sensible post in a periodic interval would be more effective in terms of popularity and effort.

2)Blogging requires time…lots of it. I still don’t know a lot of things being discussed in the blogosphere. As a result i tend to take up many hours reading, researching on things i need to blog about. Checking comments, stats can be also very time-consuming.

3)Participation is important. If people need to know that you exist in some lousy corner of the immense gigantic blogosphere go get you ‘comment guns’ ready and discuss the latest sensational topics other bloggers write about.

PRESENTATION

1)The blog interface is never a necessary criterion for your blog popularity (except all those ones with beautiful blog themes and sensible posts.) A clean readable blog is preferred to a dark, dull theme. But then as always “Content is King!”.

2) This can go down to the posts while discussing design ethics of a blog but the most recent entry must be highlighted even if you title it “Don’t read this section“.

3)Typography: Your fonts need to be very precise and easy to read. People won’t strain a lot to make out your “a” and “z”. Font size is also important. A considerably large font may be labeled immature or childish. A tiny size would also be uncomfortable as it leads to user clicking the “Close tab” soon.

PERSONAL

1) Connecting my thoughts, musings to other people can have a no better portal.

2)<devlish>A blog is your weapon in crisis. If I have to make any point clear to anyone, I blog with all points stated clear ans straight forward and link back to the person in the article. Then follows the @#$%&&^$….. </devilish>

Blogmarks:

These are the different scars that this blog left of me since i launched it on August 30,2006 and now i proudly display them as tattoos.

1) Goodbye V2: Version 3 doesn’t signify a blog theme but it marks my change from http://upwardautodidact.wordpress.com/ to http://jacob.opdyne.com/ on July 3rd.I see this moment as one of one landmark event in the life of upward autodidact’s life this year.

2)Best Post:The best post to me was Topping the desktop on September 3rd, 2006.

3)Best Recognition:Smashing magazine’s 404 page recognition got me 222 visits and by far my best ‘traffic fattener’.

4)Best Comment:Asti’s comment on Inspiration-Rip.

Blog Redesign-V3

July 28th, 2007 · Jacob · The Site 3 comments - Tags: , ,

Welcome to ‘The Upward Autodidact‘ with a new style, renewed vigor and … and err.. well..


Thats it.

Version 3 of my blog.

I have  been long thinking of a redesign for this blog which is going to complete its maiden year in service coming August. Apart from a brief dormant period, I have tried my best to keep it alive. Version 3 features a distinct wordpress blog with orange-yellow hues blended to present a soothing portal. (Can’t you see it?). I have borrowed a lot of style classes from the Halcyon theme of Opdyne including the huge meta section. It is a unique presentation of the common ‘sidebar section’ of wordpress blogs. I liked it very much so i decided to add it my personal blog.

Previous Concepts

I did work on certain other themes too.

The first one was inspired from a screenshot i had in a folder called ‘Web Inspiration’. A unique block like theme with shredded down elements. I tried to model on that but in the end it turned out weird.

Phusician 1 thumb

And yes the lunacy in a different color.

Phusician 2 thumb

Deperate and tired the autodidact searched for more inspiration. Clicks after Clicks…after lots of CRT radiation and sleepless nights(I’m exaggerating here!). I messaged my friend Dio about my tale. He emphasized on simple, readable and usable design. Replenished with some good advice, I made another one.

Factoria thumb

but then it felt too simple. I promised this theme i would return back someday and made the theme what you see now.

Final_thumb

The first comment on it was that it looked ‘gay’ ish (The wildest sense of the word) .maybe.. but then i love this theme. Its quite a feat for me.

Hello world again!

July 3rd, 2007 · Jacob · General, The Site Comments Off - Tags: ,

I have moved from

http://upwardautodidact.wordpress.com/

to my independent blog at

http://jacob.opdyne.com/

The change?.I may attribute it to many reasons..The most sensible one would be the advanced networking available from the dynz.net.All the members may soon get an own blog as we are working on a multiblog support module for Vestec CMS.Besides I like to do my experimenting too with a lot of PHP applications,frameworks and sorta…

Well lets see where the ‘revolution‘ takes us…Later…

2 Busy!!

October 1st, 2006 · Jacob · Personal, The Site 3 comments - Tags: , ,

Naah,I haven’t done the official ‘closing down my blog’ post yet.And i do not plan to do so.The reason for the long break are 2 reasons.One is my college admission and the other is concerned with dear old wordpress again..I was building a wordpress theme.Well i don’t plan it for any public release as it is for ‘Opdyne‘,a community i planned with my friends.The answer to “Whether it is finished?” is hesitant ‘no’.

I am no master at PHP and the contents of the wordpress 2. folder are still pretty much greek to me.I tried my best to learn about making themes and integrating to own websites.But yes,I haven’t given up.I just feel it requires more than 20 days.Hehe.

Reflexive form of “me”,Myself

August 30th, 2006 · Jacob · Personal, The Site Comments Off - Tags: , ,

Greetings to all the netizens out there.I am JaKe UP…The Upward Autodidact…Let me start with a  little about myself.I am definitely not too ordinary.Maybe you can find elements of great interests in me (..Though i don’t vouch that).

Speaking about the Title..The upward autodidact.I am a kind of person who wants to keep the past,safe in the past and move on never looking down.Well… to move forward and to look upward..U got it..An optimistic person to a large extent.Autodidact?.Well in this sphere,i am person who learns by myself.