I would like to show a very interesting statistics which re-affirms my belief that the traffic of this blog depends a lot upon the happenings in Bollywood.

I posted the song Give Me Some Sunshine from the movie 3 Idiots more than a month before the scheduled release of the movie. 19th November to be precise. If you will notice the graph below, the page views leading up to the release date are marginal and pretty constant averaging about 150 views a day.

On 25th December, 2009 when the movie released, the page views for the song rose to 420. It kept on increasing and is currently averaging over 1000 page views a day except on new year eve when people would of course be celebrating instead of checking out guitar chords!

There is a very obvious conclusion that can be drawn from this statistics that the movie release brought a lot of attention to that song which was earlier not heard by many.

I hope you enjoyed the movie and the song as much as I did! Happy Guitarin’ !

You can read the chords in correct formatting on the website. Click the link below to view the post on the blog.

How A Movie Release Affects The Page Views!

More Guitar Songs

• Guitar Chords: Give Me Some Sunshine, 3 Idiots
• Guitar Chords: Zara Si Dil Mein De Jagah, Jannat

Webneetech.com, a Website Development and Research Firm based in Mumbai, recently interviewed me by sending some questions over email.

Here is a small extract:

Q. What motivated you to start blogging?

My love for writing led me to start a blog. In early 2007, blogging was not as common a term in India as it is today. But in the World Wide Web, blogging was very much active. I followed Problogger Darren Rowse’s blog religiously and read almost all the 5k posts there. I realized that blogging can be a great medium to express our views as well as share our expertise.

The full interview can be read at Interview with blogger Abhinav Sonkar

You can read the chords in correct formatting on the website. Click the link below to view the post on the blog.

Webneetech.com’s Interview with Me

More Guitar Songs

• Welcome to Abhinav Sonkar dot Com Version 2 – Refurnished and Redesigned!
• IIM-Bangalore GD-PI Experience

The success of a blog is usually judged by the number of feed subscribers it has. And a blog is said to be quite successful when it has at least 1000 subscribers. Yesterday, this blog surpassed that amount. So, finally after almost 2 years, I can happily say that my blog has not been a failure!

Though it has taken quite a considerable amount of time to reach this figure, I am still glad because I know I have not been as active on this blog as I should have been.

I would like to thank all you readers who have been regularly visiting my blog. Not just visits, your comments and appreciations which have been showered in a huge number inspire me to keep it going. I assure you, I will continue to post more and more songs and help anyone who wants to learn guitar in every way possible (just keep encouraging me!).

By the way, the Suggest a Song feature, which I introduced few days back has been tremendously successful and useful to me. Within 3 days of its start, I got about 50 different songs in my inbox. Thanks to this, I no longer have to worry about keeping myself updated with new songs around the block. All because of you, my beloved readers. Thank you!

You can read the chords in correct formatting on the website. Click the link below to view the post on the blog.

The Blog now has 1000 Feed Subscribers!

More Guitar Songs

• Wordpress 2.3.2 Released. Urgent Security Update!

Google updated the PageRank once again yesterday. Considering the talk about it in blogosphere, these PageRank updates are becoming more frequent.

But there is some good news! With the latest update, this guitar blog has a PageRank of 3 out of 10. Earlier it was at two. SEO is an important aspect of blogging, and I guess this blog is doing well on the SEO side, thanks to the wonderful theme and an excellent All in One SEO plugin which takes care of everything regarding SEO. Hope the PageRank of this Guitar Blog keeps climbing up the ladder.

You can read the chords in correct formatting on the website. Click the link below to view the post on the blog.

PageRank Update By Google Brings Good News!

More Guitar Songs

• Wordpress 2.3.2 Released. Urgent Security Update!

BlogCamp – An (un)conference of bloggers all over India, is having it’s second flavor in Pune this weekend on 27th June. It is expected to be a big and exciting event for all the bloggers. I believe it would be a great place to network with other bloggers on a more physical level than just over the net.

This is the first time I would be attending the BlogCamp event, so I am pretty excited about it. I have been blogging for over an year now. Through this meet, I hope to know more about other fellow Indian bloggers and interact with them.

This does not mean that only bloggers are allowed to attend the event. If you are interested in blogging / web publishing and want guidance from experts in starting your blog, there can be no better way than to attend this event. It would clear lots of doubts that people have regarding blogging and will inspire you to jump the bandwagon and be a part of the next revolution!

I would recommend you to come to the event to experience the world of blogging. Sign up here for the event. It’s absolutely free!

What is BarCamp Pune 2 ?

BlogCampPune is a FREE unconference focusing exclusively on blogging, organized by bloggers for bloggers. It‘s built upon the principles of the famous BarCamp (ad-hoc unconference) focused on sharing, learning and new ideas.

This is going to be an intense event with discussions, demos and interaction between attendees. Any blogger who wants to contribute is welcome and invited to join.

In the spirit of BarCamp, if you attend, be prepared to present something (even if it’s just 10 minutes).

Event Details

Date: 27th June 2009

Time: 10:00AM to 5:00PM

Venue: SICSR (Symbiosis) 7th Floor Atur Center, Gokhale Cross Road, Model Colony Pune Near the OM Super Market

Bike Pool Update: I would be reaching the venue above with my bike. I would be starting from Dahanukar Circle, Karvenagar. If anybody wants to come with me, write in the comments below or send a direct message over to me on twitter.

You can read the chords in correct formatting on the website. Click the link below to view the post on the blog.

BlogCamp Pune 2 is on 27th June, 2009 – Will you be there?

Browse Related Posts

Some of the most active and initiative-taking tweeter’s from Pune (those active on Tweeter) came together to organize TweetUp 2 Meet. It was held yesterday on 6th June. Unfortunately, I could not attend the event as I was stuck up at my office till late night.

The event was covered by Pune Mirror as well. Pune Mirror journalist, Vishal Gangawane was kind enough to send me some of the photographs he took. Check out the snaps below.

Hoping to attend the next meet, whenever it happens!

Are you on Twitter yet? Follow me on Twitter! @AbhinavSonkar

You can read the chords in correct formatting on the website. Click the link below to view the post on the blog.

Pune Tweeter’s TweetUp 2 Meet Held, Damn I Missed It!

Browse Related Posts

Google India launched a new service where users can subscribe to various channels and get updated through SMS automatically without any cost. You can get notified about any blogs, latest news, weather updates etc.

If you want to keep track of updates on this blog and are based in India then subscribe to Abhinav Sonkar’s Guitar Blog Channel. It is absolutely free!

Don’t worry, you will only receive updates of new posts and important notices. You will not be spammed! So go ahead and get a mobile subscription!

For other subscription methods refer to the subscription page.

You can read the chords in correct formatting on the website. Click the link below to view the post on the blog.

Get Updates on Your Mobile Via SMS for Free!

More Guitar Songs

• Guitar Chords: Senorita, Zindagi Na Milegi Dobara [2011]
• Guitar Chords/Tabs: O Mama (Acoustic), 7 Khoon Maaf
• Guitar Chords: Tere Bin (Reprise), Dil To Baccha Hai Ji [2011]
• Guitar Chords: Zindagi Do Pal Ki, Kites [2010]
• Guitar Chords/Tabs: Aye Khuda, Paathshaala [2010]
• Guitar Chords: Noor E Khuda, My Name Is Khan (MNIK)

Finally I shifted AbhinavSonkar.com to her third web host. Actually, it should have been second but a bad experience with web hosting company called Fused Network forced me to look for a third one. Read on for details.

Why I changed my Web Host?

Since the birth of this blog, I had been hosting on FutureQuest. I think it is an excellent web hosting company and would recommend FutureQuest to anyone who is looking for hosting a new website. Though a bit pricey, the best thing about this host is it provides you a dedicated IP address so you are not on a shared server. Yes, starting at $9.95, you get a dedicated IP address for the lifetime of your blog at no extra cost!

Then why did I leave them? Firstly, they have a very high cost to features ratio. They told me it was necessary to maintain high reliability and no doubt, they were very reliable. Only a single downtime in the eight months that I was with them. But the bandwidth limit of 5GB became a hindrance to the blog’s growth and penalties were being levied. In the last month, the projected bandwidth usage was to such a level that I would have had to pay more than monthly hosting charges as over-bandwidth fee! The other plans offered by them were too costly for me.

Secondly, some features were missing in their package. They didn’t provide subdomains with any of their package. No raw logs analyzer. Their control panel reminded me of my dad’s MS-DOS based system. Considering all these factors and to avoid the heavy over-bandwidth fee, I decided to look for a new web host. I signed up with Fused Network.

Why Fused Network Web Hosting sucks

I only stayed with Fused Network for a week. It turned out to be a bad choice but I guess, you got to have such experiences too!

The signing up was normal though the email carrying account setup details took a long time to come. The email was very short and the inadequacy of all the details made me realize how exhaustive FutureQuest was with its account details. Let me give an example. The email said that SFTP was available for use but when I tried to login, it failed. I created a ticket to address the issue. I had all my interactions with a guy called David McKendrick. He told me he had to request SSH access beforehand to use SFTP. If that was the case, then they should have mentioned it previously in the email itself.

The features provided by Fused Network were fine and the server worked fine for the few days that I was with them though it is too short a time to pass any judgement. But I rate Support very highly in my book and that is where they suffered. What stoked the fire was another query that I put forward to them regarding redirecting a subdomain which involved wordpress software. Mr. David used a very interesting phrase, “…asking that question to us is like asking your landlord to do your laundry for you…”. Wow! An interesting thing to say to your new customer! From there, one thing let to another and they fired me by giving 24 hours before the account would cease to exist. How convenient of them as a web hosting company, knowing that a website requires more than that time to settle with a new hosting company.

They returned me my money immediately and I quickly signed up with another hosting company which I had considered while shifting originally. And I am glad I did. Searching for a good web host takes time and in such crisis you have to have some idea beforehand to avoid downtime. I signed up with Doreo Web Hosting and had all my queries solved the way I expected.

Few Tips for changing web hosts from my twin experience!

I would like to include a small guide to changing web hosts so that you do not have to face any downtime during the process. Its not very difficult if you know what exactly needs to be done. I will try to highlight it as lucidly as possible.

Firstly, you need to find a good web host. Now there are way too many resources and web hosting companies. To have some basic idea, I would suggest you to read this article: How to Choose a Web Host. You will get to know all the features that needs to be considered while making a decision. Searching for a good web host can be a pain. I used this reference list to look for established web hosts. It made my job much easier. Hopefully it will help you in coming to a decision quickly as well.

• Make sure you have all the backup of your website files on your local hard disk. You should have a backup irrespective of whether you want to change web hosts or not.
• Sign up with your new web hosts and wait for your account to be setup. Upload all your files via FTP or any other way you prefer.
• Ensure that your website is looking perfect with the new web host. Only when you are completely satisfied should you change your nameservers.
• The effect of changing nameservers take some time to propagate through the internet. You might be able to see your new website with your domain name but a visitor from some other country (different DNS) might still be seeing the old website (the website on the old host). So don’t rush to delete the old website yet. No need to inform your previous web host about your plans at this point.
• After about a week you can be sure that everyone is seeing your website on the new host. Now’s the time to cancel your account with the previous web host. If you can time your web hosts changing schedule, you can avoid paying both the web host. Though you will have to pay twice for the common month.
• This way you can ensure minimal downtime for your website.
• If you use wordpress blogging software and use WP-stats plugin as well, then remember to reinstall the plugin for tracking to continue.
• Lastly, make sure you have chosen 2-3 web hosts so that if an unexpected occurrence occurs, you are ready for it!

I think that should help you a little bit if you ever decide to change your web host. For a detailed explanation, you can read this: Changing Web Hosts – Tips on Moving Your Website.

You can read the chords in correct formatting on the website. Click the link below to view the post on the blog.

Shifted to Doreo Web Hosting, Fused Network Sucks

Browse Related Posts

Regular readers would have already noticed the renovation of this blog which had kept me busy for quite some time in the past week. There were other things that had arrested my attention but I would allude to it in a different post.

The previous design had been in use since the start of this blog nine months ago. It was one of my favorites but the design and the space it provided were constricting the growth of the blog and hence I decided to look for a new design.

Now I am not yet financially sound enough to look for a unique premium design or hire a designer, so I started my search for a good free design that would meet the purpose of advertising as well.

Daniel Scocco from Daily Blog Tips has a nice collection of simple and SEO ready themes that seemed to be the perfect choice for my needs. I went ahead with Daily32 WordPress Theme and modified it to my heart’s content. I would like to thank my co-blogger and friend Shanker Bakshi for a wonderful header image which was earlier, the only low-point of the theme. He was kind enough to honour every whims and fancies of mine until I was satisfied!

To coincide with the release of the new design, I launched the mobile version of the site as well. Just visit m.abhinavsonkar.com on your mobile browser to get all the stuff. It is specially formatted for mobile devices.

Do pitch in with your comments and suggestions.

This is how the design should look to you. If you find any problems in your browser, please inform me below in the comments section.

AbhinavSonkar.com Version 2 - Refurnished and Redesigned

You can read the chords in correct formatting on the website. Click the link below to view the post on the blog.

Welcome to Abhinav Sonkar dot Com Version 2 – Refurnished and Redesigned!

Browse Related Posts

Daniel Scocco of DailyBlogTips.com fame, recently launched an ebook for finding domain names for your website or blog. He kindly sent me a copy of it and I think it is an excellent resource for all the bloggers who are starting out with their blog.

From my experience, not many bloggers realize the importance of a good and important domain names and simply buy the first name that strikes them, provided its available that is. Daniel vividly explains how domain names are as important as the website itself.

He has divided the content of his ebook in the following chapters:

• Introduction
• The 7 Characteristics Of Good Domain Names
• The Process Of Researching Domain Names
• Keyword Research
• Prefixes And Suffixes
• Tools And Resources
• Registering And Managing Domain Names

The Process Of Researching Domain Names and Keyword Research are the most informative chapters according to me as bloggers don’t have much idea about it. Good keywords in the domain name go a long way towards SEO.

Another interesting aspect of this ebook is the list of prefixes and suffixes and other such words. You would be hard put to find such a huge collection at one place! Daniel is known for his excellent English and he has used this knowledge to good use in coming up with this exhaustive list which will definitely help you get more ideas for your domain name.

Together with the above list is a collection of websites for researching domain names and some tools to help you with keyword research.

Overall, what I like about this ebook is that it brings together all the relevant information you need to know to go the right way in laying a foundation for your website.

Buy the ebook here for $17.

You can read the chords in correct formatting on the website. Click the link below to view the post on the blog.

Killer Domains – Great Resource for Researching Perfect Domain Names

Browse Related Posts