Hari's Corner

I had mentioned in this article that the latest update to phpBB was a whopper, especially to those who had heavily modified boards. Well, earlier this week, I managed to successfully apply the upgrade to 2.0.18 and though there was a little niggle with the Last Visit Mod, it wasn't anything serious and there was a patch to fix it as well.

To those who are deferring their upgrades from 2.0.17, I must say that this update wasn't as bad as it looks. Certainly the sheer number of files to edit makes this a lot more tedious than previous upgrades, but in reality, I found that a lot of those files had just one or two lines of changes to the code. I'll share a few general tips on how to make the code changes manually.

First of all, phpBB has released a very good guide in HTML describing the code changes. I suggest you download it first and go through the changes carefully before you start modifying the forum. It is important that you first upload the install/update_to_latest.php file and run it on your forum before you apply the upgrade.

Now on how to start. Firstly I would recommend creating a test forum offline. If you have a local web server running, it's ideal. You can download your forum and actually replicate it offline. This requires a bit of tweaking with your configuration files, but it's not a big deal. I did it on my Debian server. It's quite easy if you know the stuff. On the other hand, if you cannot have a test server, it's fine. Just go ahead and make the changes, but be sure to keep a back up of all the changed files in a separate folder offline. In any case, take a full forum backup and a database backup for double safety. I cannot stress the importance of this vital step enough.

The actual code changes can be quite tedious and in some places a little tricky. It's a chore. Take plenty of time over it. You can even do it over a couple of days if you wish. I made a mistakes in the first attempt - a small typo. Never apply your changes live before cross-checking first. It might take a little bit of extra effort, but it should save you a lot of work later if something goes wrong. If you have the luxury of testing it on a test forum like me, do it. It's a great way to make sure that nothing is obviously wrong and you've not made any typos. Finally upload your changed files, take a coffee break and hope for the best! It should work fine if you had done all the changes correctly.

If you have a very heavily modded board, the hardest part would be to find out whether any of them have been broken by the upgrade. In some cases, it might not even be obvious that there's something wrong. Through phpBBHacks I found out that a few mods are known to be broken with this update. Luckily most of them can be fixed quite easily. I suggest that if you have any problems with the upgrade, you ask at the very helpful community there. Help will certainly be forthcoming. Happy upgrading!

It's amusing how Ten Sports insists on dragging up old India-Pakistan encounters in Sharjah, going more than a decade into the past. Incidentally they invariably tend to show matches which India lost. And while I can understand that Ten Sports has limited footage of Cricket from the past in comparison to some of its competitors and is not a particularly India-friendly channel in this regard (take ESPN-Star in contrast - they actually have a regular series called India Glorious!), still, I don't think we need to keep seeing those old matches over and over again. It was even more amusing when they showed some matches of the more recent India's tour of Pakistan and insisted on showing the matches where India lost, for instance the ODI played at Peshawar! It is another matter that India drubbed Pakistan 3-2 in the ODIs and 2-1 in the Test Series - such a historic series it was and yet they can only pick on those games where Pakistan won. Oh, well!

Anyway, going back to Sharjah, it brought back memories of some of the lowest points in Indian cricket at that time. The infamous Aaqib Javed hat trick was one (I think I remember seeing that match). The Javed Miandad last ball six was another (I didn't watch this one, however). Watching those matches are depressing, in a sense because we can almost smell the Indian batsmen's fear of the Pakistan quickies, particularly Wasim and Waqar. Actually things weren't so bad for India going even back. But again, you wouldn't expect Ten Sports to show those games.

Whatever it was, it's an interesting exercise to compare the past with the present. To see where India went wrong in those days (of course, some might insist India agreeing to play at Sharjah might have been the biggest mistake). It was a very strong pro-Pakistani crowd back then and the umpiring was more than dubious. Some of the leg-before decisions that I recall were pathetic. And of course, Wasim and Waqar, not to mention Aaqib Javed were at the peak of their careers. Pakistan also seemed to have such a strong batting line-up and India seemed just mentally unprepared to challenge their hosts. We had a few bright spots now and then, but they were few, indeed.

Later on in the 90s, Sharjah became a more neutral venue, thanks mostly to the expatriate Indian population and the crowds were almost always 50-50. In spite of this, Pakistan continued to be successful there and India continued to have a bad time. And of course, other opponents like Sri Lanka began to emerge and they tormented the Indians on the slow pitches. Venkatesh Prasad and Srinath used to get clobbered mercilessly at the hands of Jayasuriya and Saeed Anwar and we didn't have too strong an attack to back them up either. Indian bowlers never could get used to the conditions there and the toss always seemed to be against India. And you had just a couple of fielders in Azharuddin and Jadeja who could lift the spirit of the team. Sachin Tendulkar carried the whole team on his shoulders in those days. Which reminds me, the only bright spot which remains in my memory for India at Sharjah is the glorious back-to-back centuries of Sachin against Australia in 1997-98 which helped India lift the Coca-Cola cup.

Of late, we rarely see any Cricket at Sharjah. The match-fixing and betting scandal ensured that India wouldn't play there any more. And Sharjah depends heavily on sub-continent participation to make a real success of a tournament. And Pakistan-Sri Lanka encounters, absorbing as they are, rarely reach the heights of an India-Pakistan classic. On the whole, maybe it is a good thing that India stopped playing at Sharjah some years back and allowed the team to shrug off the ghosts of the past. Having said that, maybe this present Indian team could go there without fear of failure. Pakistan sure isn't the same team that mentally dominated a beaten India ten years ago and the script could probably be rewritten today. It would be interesting indeed. I don't know when India would go back to Sharjah or whether they would at all, but who knows? Time will tell.

Picture Courtesy: in.sports.yahoo.com

Of late the trend seems to be blogging about blogging. You know, the buzz words: blogosphere, del.icio.us, tagging, social bookmarking, technorati, web 2.0, blogroll, live bookmarks, Flock... it just goes on and on and I am sure I have missed a quite a lot here. Many bloggers have commented on the importance of these tools to bloggers and how utilizing these web resources are critical to successful blogging.

I don't have a problem with embracing technology even though I find many of them quite bewildering. As a matter of fact, I have tried to understand what "blogroll" really is and to be frank I have only a vague idea of what many of all these new terms mean. I am just getting started as I only recently signed up with Technorati and I still have no idea why it's important to get "tagged." What I do know is that these people who talk about blogging success seem to emphasize a lot on getting yourself a higher search-engine rank, getting more hits on your blog and making more money through ads. They also tell you how you should blog, what you should blog about and how much you should blog to become successful.

I do have a problem with people who try to tell me I have to do certain things and blog in a certain way to be successful: you know, the "10 ways to blogging success" type. They miss the point. What exactly would you define as success? It is so subjective that it's hard to even find any reference point, let alone describe it.

Would you define success as getting more number of hits on your website? Sure, there are plenty of ways to do this. Exchange links with every Tom, Dick and Harry's blog and get a higher rank on google and Technorati. Load up your sidebar with links to hundreds of blogs who link back to you. Or even spend some money to get listed on AdWords. Just want to get more comments? Find any crap blog, post a vague, hypocritical comment praising the author and leave behind your link with your name. At least three out of five will reciprocate by leaving vague, hypocritical comments on yours - you know, the "you scratch my back and I'll scratch yours" routine. Or do you define success as just enjoying what you're doing, period? Lucky you! You don't need to do a thing. Just be yourself.

Well, whatever be your definition of success, I guess many of us just want a fair combination of all: site traffic, community interaction and popularity. There's nothing inherently wrong with wanting all this. However, each blogger has to define how much they're willing to sacrifice just to become popular. I want more traffic, but am I willing to link to any random crap that I find just so that I can get a reciprocal link and improve my SEO rating? Or do I want to plaster my links on several other blogs with useless messages just so that the author will check out mine? Do I want to hypocritically praise just about anybody to get a praise in return? I want popularity, but do I want to write in a certain way just to get popular? Should I "play" to my audience by writing on topics which I don't a crap about? Do I have to write only on particular issues just so that my blog appears to be more focussed? Or do I write anything I want to irrespective of whether my readers will like it or not?

I think every blogger has to answer these questions in his/her own way. I don't condemn other ways, but personally I would care about whom I link to. In fact, if I like a blog or a website, I would link to it regardless or whether I get a link back or not. I would care about community building without necessarily wanting to be the most popular. I would care about how whose blogs I hang out on and do so whole-heartedly by either commenting usefully or not commenting at all. (On that note, I would add that one of the most challenging things for bloggers looking to build a community is finding other blogs which actually interest them. In spite of so many search engines and tools, it's exceedingly difficult finding bloggers with whom you can actually relate to among all those thousands out there).

I would write about what I want to without worrying whether my audience will like it or find it relevant or not. I generally tend to write serious articles, but occasionally I do post an "intermission" type entry just to add a little spice. I'm a great believer that if you have something to say, the right audience will ultimately find their way to you. On the other hand, if you want to "play" to your audience, I have no problem with that either: it's just that I wouldn't do it. Many people think that focus is important, but I don't think it is such a critical thing. I just define success in the quality of my writing in my own eyes. So I have scripted my own formula. Have you?

Ultimately it's about finding your level of comfort. Whether you agree with my point of view or not depends entirely on your definition of success and the reason you blog in the first place. If popularity at any cost is your way, by all means go ahead and do the things which will make you popular. As I said no way is better or worse. But that means there is no "cookbook" or "recipe" to success either and that is my point: it's up to each of us to find our own formula and be happy with it.

Ever wondered how you would sound if you spoke in a different accent? Well, the dialectizer solves the problem, at least with regard to the written word. Check out The Dialectizer. A hilarious time killer! :mrgreen:

Here I am "speaking" in Cockney.

I had also linked it in my side menu under humour, but thought I would make a post about it anyway.

When people, including the expert cricket commentators, euphorically start singing praises to the attitude, professionalism and aggression of the current Indian team and shower plaudits on the selectors for the infusion of young blood into the team as though all these are something totally new, I think they miss a point. While all their enthusiasm has a solid basis, the point is that, these things haven't cropped up all of a sudden out of thin air. After all, what we're seeing now is the result of quality hard work, fundamental changes in attitude and selection policy: all of which began some years ago. It's difficult to find an exact point where things started changing, but I think the era of true professionalism began when John Wright took over as coach of the Indian team. And it was under Ganguly that we found that edge of aggression that was missing in Indian cricket for a long time. It has been slow but steady progress and while attitudes have been changing, they haven't changed in a day. The process has to go on till we can challenge the best teams in the world.

In analysing the recent successes of Indian cricket, let me begin with the selectors. I think they showed great courage in infusing young, untested players into the Indian team in this series. They might seem like gambles which have paid off in a big way, but I guess we shouldn't really be surprised at the success of these moves. After all, the selectors haven't really gambled in the dark. On the contrary, the players who've made it into the current team have been part of this changing system. This can be best seen in their attitude, professionalism and aggression which the system has brought about.

Secondly, I think we need to put all these successes into the correct perspective. The signs are indeed encouraging that we have so many young players jostling for places in the team with seniors. True, we have won five out of six matches now with these new players contributing, but India has always been a strong side at home in One Day cricket with the exception of the last couple of years. Besides we've always been good at bilateral series, while triangular tournaments have been our biggest problem. And, as Geoffrey Boycott recently commented on Star Sports, we have yet to see how well these young players adapt to the longer variety of the game, stronger opposition and playing overseas under different, sometimes difficult conditions. So there are still a lot of things left to prove for this new bunch.

On the positive side, I think that the key difference between Indian teams of the past and the current team has not been just the young blood in the Indian team, but the number of players now fighting to make the team. There seems to be an endless crop of young fast bowlers emerging from the ranks. While there have always been "youngsters waiting in the wings", the difference now is that the talent pool seems to be much larger as well as richer. Today these players no longer seem afraid of International cricket. They want to belong there. They do not go by reputation and they are more assertive and aggressive. Eight or ten years ago, it was hard to look beyond Javagal Srinath for a quality fast bowler. Today we have plenty of young fast bowlers and many of them can bowl in the 140 km/hr range to boot. Fielding has hit another high point in Indian cricket and it's no longer just one or two of them who're carrying the team. The situation now is that we have eleven decent fielders and three or four who are outstanding. And last, but not least, wicket-keeping standards have improved tremendously in the last few years. No longer do we have to look at make-shift arrangements and compromise on the quality of wicket-keeping just to include another batsman. Sure, Dhoni and Dinesh Karthik aren't perfect, but they are miles ahead of the likes of Deep Dasgupta and Parthiv Patel (who started well, but really deteriorated alarmingly before he was dropped) and their batting is better too.

So Indian Cricket indeed is indeed the land of opportunity. What's really different now is that the current players are grabbing their opportunities with both hands. They understand that the price of opportunity is performance and can be nothing else. The new trend I see is that the selectors are willing to give more players more opportunities, but they aren't going to wait for ten or fifteen matches for a particular player to prove himself. And this doesn't go just for the "new" players - it goes for the senior players as well. The new mantra is - or should be - "five or six chances at most - and then you're out if you don't show any signs of performance." And that, in my mind, is really the biggest difference in Indian cricket today.

Picture courtesy: uk.sports.yahoo.com

I have finally designed my own WordPress theme from scratch. I would sure like some feedback on the theme, including errors found if any. There are a few problems rendering with IE 6 (arghh!) mainly due to IE's CSS limitations, with a few tweaks I am sure I can fix those.