PathikShah.Com is now a PR3 blog. My Alexa Rank is currently fluctuating around 420,000 which is pretty decent. The growth, while not spectacular, has been quite steady. My next aim is to become a PR4 by 2010.

Thanks to all my readers for making this possible.

Check out my Blog’s Archives

There are many plugins / hacks available to create a simple archive on your WordPress blog but none as simple and clean as this one.

To Create an Archives Page for your Blog,

1. Download the Clean Archives Reloaded Plugin

2. Extract the files in the ZIP file using WinZIP or WINRAR and upload them to your wordpress_directory/wp-content/plugins using a FTP client or through the web interface of your hosting provider, just as you would any other plugin.

3. Next, log in to the WordPress Admin Panel (WP-ADMIN) of your blog and go to the Plugins tab.

Activate the Clean Archives Reloaded Plugin.

4. Create a New Page and add the code
[ cleanarchivesreloaded ] (without spaces)
wherever you want the Archive list to appear.

Set the Page Title to Archives and the page slug to /archives.

Publish that page. You should see the Archives page in your blog now.

To publish your blog on the Amazon Kindle, you will first need to register on the Amazon website (you will have to create a new account, existing ones won’t work).

To register, follow this link – Kindle Publishing – Amazon, and enter your details.

Next, sign in to your account and click on the Add Blog link. Enter the RSS Feed address, the Blog title, tagline, description, website address, search keywords and other details. You can also upload your blog banner or screenshot. You can also see a preview of your blog on the Kindle using the Blog Preview Generator tool.

When you have finished entering the details, just click on the Publish Blog link to Kindle. Your blog should be available to Kindle users in about 1-2 hrs.

Note: Amazon currently doesn’t have any verification process in place to confirm if you are the owner of the blog.

When I first started this blog, it was mainly because of 3 reasons -

1. I wanted to be the top search result when anyone googled my name
2. Everyone I knew had a blog
3. I was bored

Unlike most other bloggers, I wasn’t trying to satisfy my creative urge to write, nor did I want to make the world a better place by writing the best tech blog around. . I was just plain bored (I still am), and wanted to do something to keep me occupied (which this blog failed at).

I wasn’t hoping to earn much from it (I wasn’t even thinking about it, though I did write about it in the About Me page. ), I didn’t even publish any ads in the first 1-2 months of the blog. And anyways, technology / personal blogs never earn much because techies – your target audience – rarely click on ads, and you don’t get much traffic on the personal posts when no one is interested in reading about your rather boring life (like mine). I was even contemplating removing ads totally, but my ad placement was mostly unobtrusive so I decided to let them remain. Besides, I wanted to recover atleast the initial capital involved – the hosting and domain costs.

I started getting decent traffic on some posts (which was a bit surprising as I never tried any serious SEO, just the basic organic stuff), and clicks followed. I never was one to check my Adsense earnings every day and fret over low earnings, I am trying hard to resist that urge. My CTR and CPM are still abysmally low though. I don’t think my blog earnings are going to improve much as I hardly blog these days – its too boring. I must be the first blogger to have stumbled upon the famed writer’s block so fast. I’ll try to post as frequently as I can. Keep visiting the best blog of all times.

BTW, I accomplished my first objective way back in 2008, in case you were wondering. – Me@Google

In the words of the great Borat Sagdiyev, Great Success!!!

This will make use of Google’s new SMS Channels features which is free in India.

To use this, you just need to have a working RSS feed on your blog, which is available by default if you are on Blogger or WordPress. To have customized RSS Feeds, use FeedBurner.

Just login to Google using your Google account and go to: http://labs.google.co.in/smschannels/browse

You will need to register with your mobile number and verify it if you are a first time user.

Next, click on Create Your Own Channel.

Enter the Channel name, Description etc and in the source, select RSS / Atom Feed and enter your Blog’s RSS feed URL.

Tick the ‘Allow Publishing by – only ME’ and ‘Who can subscribe – Any user’ options. You can set the content to the Title or the Title with Body.

Click Create Channel and start inviting users to your Blog’s SMS channel.

Users can now get SMS updates for your blog by SMSing ON <channelname> to 9870807070.

To get SMS updates for my blog, SMS ON PathikShahDotCom to 9870807070

Using Google’s SMS Channels, you can receive any RSS Feed on your mobile through SMS. Just create a new channel for a feed you want and subscribe to it.