I’m Jacob Thomas

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.

Halycon theme of Opdyne has served us well and now it is time to redesign the design wing homepage.The process is currently being completed.Opdyne V2, code named ‘Klusita’ will be all set for launch soon.We were so impressed that we are giving away the color theme,text styles etc in this sneak peek.The theme is very simple focuses on less images and more usability. Halcyon was unique and couldn’t be very easy navigating that. Enjoy the small peeks.The date of release is fast approching.

It was my first independent wordpress theme,V2 of ‘the upward autodidact‘. Since i have my new theme it would be unfair if i did not release this theme as a public release instead of leaving to rust in any folder.

Here i present my first wordpress theme blog release.’Orangee‘.

It presents a notebook interface for the posts,pretty simple and yes..a typical wordpress site.

Download and Enjoy .

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.

And yes the lunacy in a different color.

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.

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

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.

Vestec CMS still needs a good logo.A very immature developer,myself, had been experimenting on different kinds of styles and shapes.This one came out very well

But the problem is it turned out to be quite similar to the ‘famous’ blogging software,Wordpress.Now that may lead to some concerns.

But still i thought the logo was worth displaying.

Here is another of my creations!A very warm,welcoming blog design!I don’t know about the back end coding,but maybe i will release this as a wordpress theme later.

Well i have been wrestling through a hell lot of PHP,CSS,HTML recently to come up with a decent version of opdyne wordpress theme called ‘halcyon‘.It is not finished yet,but some local testing found it to be good looking and efficient.

Yep,That’s the index page.No scrolling.I have used moo.fx to apply some distinct classification to various sections of the blog thanks to Will’s suggestion.Whether it is a user friendly approach to the site..hmm..I will only know that once i release the official site.Apart from that we adopted a Black-Gold(to be more precise,orange #FFCC33) color code.Duh!That was quite a challenge.

The graphics look cool?.My friend Arun produced such spectacular banners for us in 3 hours.I guess it is not about the time taken but the brilliance of such an art that is to be emphasized here.I don’t know when the theme will be finished but for now enjoy the screenshot.