Blogging – Sampath Kumar A

Celebrating a Milestone : My 100th Blog Post

mail2sampath — Mon, 25 Mar 2024 11:07:10 +0000

Though this is my 100th blog post, I did not have any specific target when I started blogging about 6 years back. It is a good feeling to come this far. 100 blogs in nearly 6 years may seem achievable, but to maintain consistency for such a long time is what I can highlight as my one more achievement. My last milestone blog was more than a couple of years back on completing 3 years of blogging.

I would like to thank all the readers who have gone through my blog posts till now. It is one of the reasons for me to keep publishing my monthly blogs.

Lessons learnt

Now, blogging has become a habit for me. Blogging has taught me so much over the years. I advise everyone to start blogging because it will help us become better versions of ourselves. The following are some of the most important lessons learnt.

Consistency compounds

It is a known fact that consistency can have a profound effect in the long run. Some people start an activity and give up midway owing to multiple reasons like lack of motivation and other challenges. After completing the first year, I too contemplated discontinuing my blogging journey due to limited traffic and no financial gains. However, as I entered the second year, despite seeing no improvement in both the aspects, I decided to persist solely for the sake of enhancing my knowledge. To this day, the pursuit of knowledge remains my sole motivation for continuing my blogging. The consistency of showing up can lead to a snowball effect, where your skills and creativity compound over time.

Enjoy the process

Though I have put in focused effort on building a blogging site, the outcomes are not directly proportional to the effort. The point is that some blog posts may come out really good but the traffic to such blogs are not as expected. Hence expecting monetization too is not practical. Adopting a mindset of putting in your best efforts or enjoying the process rather than focusing on the result has kept me going.

Self-Promotion helps

Self-promotion is often seen as an uncomfortable topic, particularly in a professional setting for many. However, it is an essential skill to master if you want to succeed in your career. Being confident, being visible and being authentic are some important points to keep in mind when promoting self on the blogging journey too. Authenticity is key to building trust and credibility with your readers.

Continuous learning

Continuous learning is an ongoing journey of acquiring new knowledge and skills throughout one’s life, both personally and professionally. Blogging can be a tool to aid this process. Personally I feel that after taking up blogging seriously I have learnt a lot on various topics and the process is still going on.

Develops a structured thought process

A lot of work goes into preparing a blog for publication. First, a topic must be chosen, investigated, and understood. Once the topic has been understood, it must be outlined in a form that will appeal to the readers. After the structuring is complete, the understanding must be presented in a language that is both simple and interesting. The process of formatting the font size, ensuring adequate subheading distribution, trimming lengthy phrases, and so on must be completed before the final draft is ready.

Now that I’ve reached the 100th blog post milestone, I aim to continue blogging and score many more hundreds.

Further Reading :

Maximize Your Potential : The AI Tools You Need to Know About

mail2sampath — Sat, 25 Feb 2023 13:27:11 +0000

These days, businesses are actively involved in the development of new platforms and solutions powered by AI. Marketing, finance, healthcare, and entertainment are just a few of the industries that use artificial intelligence (AI) techniques. AI solutions can maximize your potential by automating repetitive tasks, providing insights and recommendations, and streamlining processes. They can also aid in the reduction of errors and in the improvement of accuracy, resulting in improved outcomes.

In this article, I’ve tried to highlight a few of the AI tools that can help you enhance your productivity.

ChatGPT

ChatGPT (Generative Pre-trained Transformer) is an AI chatbot. It is an advanced natural language processing (NLP) model developed and released by OpenAI. This bot works by simulating human conversation, answers questions, and generates text.

ChatGPT is capable of analyzing the context of a conversation and creating responses that fit naturally with history or previously accessed items. This makes it a valuable tool for a wide range of conversational tasks, such as customer service, language translation, text summarization, and sentiment analysis.

ChatGPT’s expertise is broad, and its ability to follow a conversation is notable. It can be used to generate content ideas for keywords and subjects, create marketing content such as blog posts or social media updates, and recap long papers to provide a concise summary.

ChatGPT, despite being a strong AI-based chatbot system, has significant limitations. It can only deliver answers depending on the data it has been trained on. It is not a search engine so it does not have the ability to search the internet for answers.

AIPRM is a chrome extension for ChatGPT. You can use AIPRM with ChatGPT to design the perfect prompts for blog articles, SEO optimization, and more!

Quillbot

QuillBot‘s AI-powered Paraphraser will assist you in rephrasing information to boost comprehension and provide you with a different perspective on the information being presented. Irrespective of whether you are a good writer or not you can use Quillbot to help you improve the readability analysis score and SEO analysis score of your article.

The free version of Quillbot can paraphrase up to a maximum of 125 words at a time. Quillbot also has a free grammar checker and summarizing tool that content authors may utilize to produce better articles. A free extension for chrome and MS word is also available.

Canva

Canva is a platform that allows users to easily create visually stunning images using artificial intelligence. One of its most notable features is the recently introduced artificial intelligence (AI) text to image capability.

The free AI Text to image generator app is capable of generating photo realistic images for whatever you want to create a picture of. This feature allows users to input a block of text and generate an image based on its contents. The point to note is that it might not turn out the way you want always. Just play with the wording to get the right result. You can access this app by going to Home > Discover apps after signing into your Canva account.

As a content writer, you can use this tool to produce an image that describes your article’s content and then set it as the featured image.

Balabolka

Balabolka is a Russian word that roughly translates to “chatterer”. This is a free text-to-speech(TTS) software based on Speech API (SAPI), which is Microsoft’s native SAPI. Balabolka TTS app can use all computer voices on your system to read the on-screen text and save it as an audio file. It is a highly customizable text to speech program, where you can alter the voice’s rate and pitch and improve the quality of the voice. It supports many languages such as English, Portuguese, Russian, and more.

This app can read text from the file formats, such as AZW, AZW3, CHM, DjVu, DOC, DOCX, EML, EPUB, FB2, FB3, HTML, LIT, MOBI, ODP, ODS, ODT, PDB, PRC, PDF, PPT, PPTX, RTF, TCR, WPD, XLS and XLSX. It can save the files as WAV, MP3, MP4 Audio, OGG, OPUS or WMA formats.

There is a provision to select some of the AI generated voices that requires you to connect to the internet. After that, select the option Tools > Use Online TTS Service on the app to select any voice of your choice.

Export Word to PPT presentation

This AI based feature for Word (web version) allows users to convert text documents into PowerPoint presentations, which makes collaboration and presentations much easier. This is a great new feature, as PowerPoint slides can now be created from the user’s section headers in their selected Word document, so if you’re going to use this feature – make sure the Word document is organized accordingly for optimal suggestions. Also you need to have the Microsoft 365 account in order to use this feature.

For content writers, this can be particularly helpful when they want to convert any article to video. However, before converting the article to video, you must first convert it to PowerPoint. To optimize the PowerPoint slides, you should copy the text of the article to a Word document and format it properly. After that, you can create the PowerPoint presentation by selecting Export to PowerPoint Presentation from the File > Export menu on Microsoft Word.

There is one more method to convert Word to PowerPoint but without the AI feature. Navigate to Word options > Customize ribbon and select the “Send to Powerpoint” command. This feature can convert the earlier word document to powerpoint but the images in the slides need to be added manually.

Further Reading :

Blogging : My 3 Year Milestone

mail2sampath — Fri, 24 Dec 2021 15:27:46 +0000

When i started my first blog 3 years ago, i never ever thought that i would come this far. Be it blogging or anything else, a periodic lookback helps to realign our focus that may have diverted from the goal. It also provides you with a boost to achieve more. I started out on a free platform initially and was not serious about blogging. As months rolled by, my thinking changed and i wanted to continue blogging for atleast a year. But when i crossed the one year milestone, i stopped thinking about discontinuing the practice of blogging. I was learning new things at a fast pace and my way of seeing things had changed drastically.

Purpose

Any task that we take up needs to have a purpose, otherwise it will be the same as driving without a destination. To be frank my first intention of starting a blog was to have a side hustle, but later on it got changed as a self improvement activity. Currently, it has become a habit and i can say that it is my vocation.

Lessons learnt

There were numerous learnings on my blogging journey. I will name a few here.

If i see my first blog now, i can clearly say that i have become a better blogger.
Since i need to study in order to blog on any topic, the pace of my new learnings increased drastically.
Gradually i got the idea to include book reviews, that is when i restarted my practice of reading books. This led to reading more & more books.
In a way, blogging pushed me into learning more about the mind and exploring its capabilities.
When i started blogging, i had no clarity on where i was headed. The answer to this is just keep moving on and don’t procrastinate. Now i have a better clarity on my blogging topics and categories.

Statistics

In three years i have written a total of 72 blog posts, though not a huge count but satisfying. Since the initial 1 year was on a free platform the reach wasn’t measurable on google analytics. Below is a simple graph of the number of visits to my blogs, starting Jan 2020 till date. The PV is increasing gradually from 2020.

As i publish a blog a month, the PV is not huge. In order to have a huge PV it a must to publish blogs frequently, i.e, atleast one or two blogs a week. As i blog only during my free time and only after thorough study, i am able to publish one blog per month as of now. One more point to mention is, i am not blogging for any monetary benefit.

There is an amazing amount of insight in the below simple tag cloud, and it highlights what my blogging site stands out for.

Thanks to tagxedo for the above tagcloud, due to which i could present my 3 years of effort in a really innovative way.

My Favorite Blogs

Since i have put in a lot of effort on each of my blog posts, it is difficult to pick one or two. However, going by the most visited blog posts i will name a few. Find the list as follows.

I am highly motivated to put in more efforts in the coming years to celebrate endless blog anniversaries.

Last but not the least, i would like to thank all for your attention. Looking forward to your continued engagement to my blog.

Further Reading :

Useful Podcasts and Blogs for Personal growth and Well-being

mail2sampath — Sun, 24 May 2020 20:28:46 +0000

The word podcast is derived from a combination of two words, iPod and Broadcast. When the term was coined most people were using Apple iPod to listen to podcasts, essentially talk programs you can listen to at your leisure. The rise of the podcast brought unprecedented democratization of programs. Unlike traditional radio, podcast hosts can produce shows in their living room on any topic they choose. Today, there are hundreds of thousands of options flitting about on the web, covering every topic imaginable. So, focusing on the right digital content ,i.e, either podcasts or blogs will make a huge difference to your personal growth and well-being.

Podcasts

I would like to list a few podcasts that i listen to frequently. I usually use youtube to listen to the episodes. These podcasts cover a range of topics from personal development, health and happiness, to productivity, forming new habits, and financial success.

To get a better idea of the content of the podcasts, grab a set of headphones or look up on youtube, and get ready to conquer the day and your life.

Blogs

The most popular choice for creating and putting out content is to start a blog or journal. All you need is internet access, and some writing skill. Web site editors are as easy to use as tweeting or posting on Facebook. However, it can be difficult to keep people’s attention, once you’ve gotten it. But compared to podcasts that consume 30 minutes or more, blogs take less time of your target audience, typically three to 10 minutes. The power of blogs is that they allow anyone to publish and share ideas, and anyone can read and respond to these. They have given consumers and companies a voice, and blogging has opened up a world of information-sharing possibilities.

There are millions of blog posts updated each day. Hence, similar to podcasts focusing on the right ones can bring about an improvement of self. Below is a list of Information Technology, Personal growth and Japan related blogs that i read frequently.

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Ideas to Inspire Your Next Professional Blog Post

mail2sampath — Fri, 24 May 2019 22:25:24 +0000

I’ll be frank: Blogging is tough work. And a lot of times, it’s not the actual writing that’ll get you; instead, you’ll find yourself stuck figuring out what topic you even want to write about. If you are currently feeling short of ideas for your next professional blog post (i.e, for your own site or for your company), the ideas presented here will be helpful in choosing your next blog post topic.

Advice to People Just Getting Started
Give your advice to recent grads or people just entering your field on things or a new market, you wish you’d known about the industry when you were getting started.

A “How To” Guide for Something You Have Expertise In
Do you rock at writing really great emails? Do you know how to create excellent dashboards? Share your experience with your readers and help them get great at that those skills, too.

Your Favorite Apps
What computer applications do you use on a daily basis at work? Let your readers know your top five or 10!

Relevant Current Events
If a current event is going to affect your industry, it’s a great idea to alert your readers and explain your point of view. For example, if you work as an outsourced resource, discuss all the updates w.r.t outsourcing rules and regulations. They’re relevant, and they’re definitely something other professionals would want to know about.

A Great Article
In the same vein, have you read an article that’s incredibly relevant to your industry? Feel free to write your own personal response to it. Just make sure to give proper citation, especially if you quote the article, and add your own spin or thoughts on it so you aren’t just copying and pasting others’ work.

An Industry-Specific Book Review
Talk about your favorite industry-specific books you’ve ever read. Include some of your favorite passages or quotes, and tell readers what to expect from the book. Also keep reading and updating your knowledge with any new book of interest.

Industry/Market Terminology
Give your readers a beginner’s guide to your industry’s/market’s terminology. For example, when I first started to work for the Japanese IT market, i went on the hunt on internet looking for the meaning of typical japanese business words.

Course Outlines
This can be a great method for generating blog post ideas. Nowadays online courses have been incredibly popular and one thing they usually have in common is a course outline, that tells you what to expect and what’s covered in the course. This is treasure! If you’re an expert in the subject, you should have no problem using the ideas from the course as a jumping off point.

Your Favorite Career/Business Quotes
Talk about your favorite career quotes—meaning, usage example/s at workplace, what we can learn from them.

Get Ideas From Competitors
The content marketing tool “buzzsumo.com” can be used to find the most shared content based on the keyword. One more website “Quora.com“, basically a Q&A site, can be used to search topics based on keyword and also the comments of users can used to pick up ideas.

The great thing about all of these ideas is that there are many different variations for you to choose from. So, pick your idea and start blogging.

Creating a blog on your hosting platform

mail2sampath — Wed, 04 Apr 2018 06:01:43 +0000

Hi everyone! I am very much excited about writing my first blog on wordpress using a free hosting platform. All the credits go to Mr.John Sonmez, the man behind www.simpleprogrammer.com. Along with his mail guide, i did some extra study which i will be listing out in this blog.

This being my first blog, chose a free hosting platform. Once i reach a certain level of consistency in blogging, plan to change over to a paid service which obviously would provide better features compared to the free one. So, let’s start for now!

First thing would be the purpose behind blogging. Have started as a hobby, later would like to get noticed – increase traffic which would finally result in good opportunities. So, when i started to look out for a hosting platform to host a blog i had a lot of options on the web but decided to go with a free hosting service, the one mentioned in the mail guide https://simpleprogrammer.com/blog-course is a platform with some initial cost. I searched the net to finalize this particular one https://byet.host/

The next step would be to configure the platform in order to host your blogs.Under ‘Sign up for a plan’, enter the domain name, password and email to generate the address of your free domain.Once activated by clicking the email link, we will be getting the login details for the host platform/vista panel/the control panel(http://cpanel.byethost.com/) on the screen. Make a note of the same to logon to the host platform.

So we are ready with the host platform login credentials. The next step would be to do the necessary settings in order to setup wordpress – the content management editor/software on the host platform.

Create a new database for your WordPress blog.To do that simply click on “MySQL Databases” on your vista panel.You can give any name to your database.Now click to create Database to finish this task.
Now download latest version WordPress from https://wordpress.org, and unzip it on your computer.Rename wp-config-sample.php file to wp-config.php and after that open it in notepad.Put your database name, database user, database password, and MySQL host name in that wp-config.php file and save it.
If you are using windows then I will recommend you to Download Winscp FTP client from https://forest.watch.impress.co.jp/library/software/winscp, and install it to your PC.
Now sign in to your ByetHost control panel and see “Account Information”. There you will get ftp host name and user name.The FTP password is same as your ByetHost control panel Password.Put these information in your Winscp and click on connect.
Once connected, upload all the WordPress files to htdocs folder using Winscp. The next step would be to open http://www.domainname.com/ or http://www.domainname.com/wp-admin/ to start installation of your WordPress.Now follow the steps as directed during installation to complete your WordPress installation in ByetHost Free Host.

One another easy way to install wordpress is login to ByetHost control panel and click on “Softaculous Apps Installer“, you will be diverted to another page wherein you will find a list of apps, out of which you can see wordpress as well. Just click on install and follow the steps, wherein you can choose to enter the admin user name and password as well or leave it at the default one. Click on install and your wordpress site is ready to blog!

Once wordpress site is ready, login using your admin credentials and under the themes options you can select your suitable theme. Also there will be a plugin section which can be used to install must have and useful plugins as follows;

Enlighter – Syntax highlighting tool with a build-in theme editor.
Yoast SEO – All-in-one SEO solution for WordPress, including on-page content analysis, XML sitemaps, site redirection(paid) and much more. Here ‘Redirection’ plugin can be used for the site redirection part as well.
Jet pack – Jetpack enables you to connect your blog to a WordPress.com account to use the powerful features normally only available to WordPress users. Here ‘Google Analytics’ plugin can be used for the analytics part as well.
SumoMe – Free Tools to automate your site growth from Sumo.com.
WordPress Importer – Easily export content(post,pages etc) into another website through XML file.
Export Media Library – Allows users to export media library files as a compressed zip archive.
Really Simple SSL – Automatically detects your settings and configures your website to run over https. Images in your blogs may not be visible sometimes since they are not secure. Installing this plugin will resolve the issue.