Monthly Summary & updates: September 2008

Travelled to Kerala and Karnataka this month. Travelogue is yet to be published.

“Why should we take off shirts while entering temples?” was the most commented post this month, which also triggered detailed debate among readers. Sandesh and NR Bhat wrote detailed comments. Those who read this post on day 1 might wish to have a second look, as I’ve added some more possible reasons based on readers’ contribution and comments are also worth a read.

Book review of Raga Chintamani was also well received by the readers, though initially I though a music related topic may not fetch much comments. Laddoo Madam even enquired about purchase and this post has facilitated an actual sale (I believe). Besides this, one reader commented that he is able to sell of his club Mahindra membership though one of my posts. I take these two success stories as a proof of effectiveness of this blog.

While everything else was good, only major disappointment was Times of India indulging in plagiarism, lifting one of my photographs from internet and publishing without credit. This post has full details. Subsequently Sudipta gave a call for a blogathon on Plagiarism that would help creating awareness [details]

Added some relevant photos to an old post on Indian Railways adding additional berth in second class coaches. Almost everyone who commented on this post felt it is a bad move by Indian railways.

Buying a ticket inside a crowded MTC bus is an art. This post narrates a related experience and lists pros and cons of this system, vis a vis the traditional system where conductor moves all around to issue tickets

What not to do while buying domain name for annual events was another post.

Trouble I went through while finding a self drive car rental in Bangalore and review of Mahindra Scorpio mHawk 2.2 Vls were the two posts associated with my Wayanad trip, about which I am yet to write in detail. Fortunately or unfortunately 2008 has been an year of immense travel for me-before I finish blogging about previous trip, next trip is coming up. Have a north India trip scheduled for next week. Looking forward to it.

We conducted a spot blogging contest and I gave a talk related to blogging-at M S Ramaiah Institute of Technology (MSRIT) on the occasion of one web day. This was my public activity after a gap of few months.

Contributed an article to EvanCarmichael (it’s about reasons why companies should encourage their staff to blog)

Trek to Tada Hills, executed last month was a trekking expedition after a long time. 

How modern restaurants focus more on extracting money from customers than providing stomach full of meals also received a satisfactory number of comments.

Bhupesh has created a MSN group for Club Mahindra members so that CM members can interact better- it can be found here

Harishankar is in the process of developing his own customized blogging platform- he has already made some good progress. Blogger and wordpress can expect serious competition in the days to come…

Trying to revamp about me page. Any feedback/suggestions welcome.

My uncle is not feeling well and taking bed rest after being injured in a road accident. Wishing him a very speedy recovery.