I Have Moved

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Image Courtesy: http://mecaniquefairy.deviantart.com

I finally got my own domain and shifted my blog to Wordpress. 

I love Blogger, which is why my design blog: www.smartdesignsstudio.com is still here.

For my personal blog I wanted a site that will allow me to change the look as often as it fancies me.

So, now you can find me at...

***Tada!***

www.suryamurali.com

Graphic Designer / Animator Required (Preferably Freshers): Urgent

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Hi folks!

I have an urgent requirement for a Graphics Designer / Animator... preferably freshers.

Post: Graphic Designer / Animator

Qualification: Any Graduate (Fresher)

Location: Bombay / Mumbai



Job Requirements:

• Has excellent working knowledge of basic 3D modelling and animation.
• Excellent in Adobe Photoshop, Adobe Illustrator.
• Well versed with Adobe InDesign
• Has a working knowledge of video editing software.
• Good working knowledge of MS PowerPoint and MS Word
• Has a creative mind.
• Can take initiative to come up with ideas.
• Has the ability to execute ideas with speed.
• Has good communication skills.
• Can work well in a team.
• Can work with voice overs and basic voice software.

Compensation: Negotiable according to the calibre of the candidate.



Candidates who think they would fit this profile, please email their CVs with the following:

• CV

• Create a sample logo for an existing company or an imaginary/fake company with description of the logo. (Logo Image size: A5 - 148 mm x 210 mm)

• Animation clip on "Brick layer stacking bricks" (Video Duration: Maximum 10 seconds)

• A 3D model of man. (Rendered image of the model would do, but the candidate if chosen should be able to provide the 3D model)

Last date to sent in the entries is Monday, 25 August 2014
Email the above to ispat.iiipl@gmail.com

Bright Memories…

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It’s Diwali and I am in Kuwait, where it isn't even a holiday. Well, it is Saturday and that ain't a holiday either.

In spite of that, the large Indian population in Kuwait does celebrate Diwali with as much grandeur as they can muster without being hauled off to the police station for noise and /or air pollution. The North Indian crowd is especially eager and the areas where there is a majority of them such as Salmiya see very brightly lit up and noisy celebrations. My apartment towers too have their own celebrations which I have never yet attended in all these years I have been here.

I do miss the celebrations in Bombay, especially in Anushaktinagar. The colony is a delightful place to be whatever the festival. Being a melting pot of varied cultures from within India, every festival has a multitude of flavours and Diwali is no exception. There is the south Indian Deepavali with its Deepavali lehyam, the rambunctious Punjabi & Gujarati celebrations, the extended Maharashtrian celebrations and so much more. And then there is the Diwali we kids celebrated… Noise and fireworks, louder the better, and loads and loads of it. As we grew older, we grew wiser and more concerned about the environment and so the disturbingly loud celebrations were toned down but nothing dampened our enthusiasm.

The days before Diwali, which was vacation time in schools, would be stormy with cleaning and shopping and running around for fixing the lighting and torans and getting last minute spare diyas and rangoli colours. Me being a Keralite did not have too many culinary preparations for the festival, but that did not stop me from planting myself in the neighbours’ kitchens, helping with the sweets and helping myself to the sweets. In spite of being a Keralite… I used to get new clothes for Diwali instead of Onam… because October to December was the festive season (vacation time) and also rained discounts.

In the late evenings, the fireworks would start a couple of days before Diwali… tiny bursts at first and then the bigger, brighter, louder and more sparkly ones would come out on the day of Lakshmi pooja. I am absolutely fearful of burns, but lighting a little cracker off the ladi while holding it in the hand and then throwing it in the air before it burst never seemed dangerous to me. We pulled all sorts of crazy stunts involving crackers and the more sober fireworks, when we escaped adult supervision, which wasn't that hard to do… anyone would have thought we were all pyromaniacs and arsonists in the making. Now that I look back, I know it was extremely dangerous and I would not recommend it to kids.

School gave way to college and then to the workplace. Diwali was all grown up now… it was more about sweets, decoration and healthy competitions and less of fireworks. At my workplace, we had 4 different studios that catered to game development for different geographical areas of the world… the festival was a time for some competing. We had inter-studio bay decoration and rangoli competitions, dance and traditional wear competitions and more. There was tons of fun to be had… and lots of festive hogging.

I look back with nostalgia to those days, even as I enjoy my new life. I think celebrating festivals is important, not just from a cultural point of view but on a personal level too. Even when you are down and out, the diya of Deepavali, the splash of colour of Holi, the reluctant garba / dandiya performance you are dragged to for Navratri, the carol singing of Christmas… or just all that yummy food… they are all enough to give you a few moments to smile, forget your troubles and live it up.

Here’s wishing everyone a happy, safe, brilliant Deepavali…

May the flickers of a million diyas light up every corner of your heart and banish all shadows… and may it burst with joy like a sky filled with fireworks.

Ego Boost!

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Changed my profile pic to a painted version of me... Now I have both a caricature and a digital painting of moi!

Let me tell ya... it is quite the ego booster! :D

Digital painting of moi!

Caricature of a cartoon!

Sniffle...Cough... Aarrgh... World Record Update!

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I have the flu... or whatever viral attack that involves excessive coughing, a painful throat and bouts of fever.

Been over a week now, I haven't been able to work on any of my projects and that is really irking me. So, am not just unwell, I am highly irritable.

But, I just got a little surprise. I had taken part in the a Guinness World Record Attempt in November 2012, the record was made and for a while I hadn't heard anything about it other than some info on Malayalam newspapers which I unfortunately couldn't read.

Finally, someone got me the certificate and a little trophy that I can now flaunt and say "Hum bhi World Record holder hain".

The Certificate with a pic of the original Guinness Certificate!

The Trophy

Soon To Come...

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Working on a review of the phablet Galaxy Note II from Samsung...

I wouldn't go into the technical details... not too much... I promise! It would be more on the lines of my experience with it... as someone who loves to hold the pen in hand and write as opposed to typing or tapping on a keyboard. In this age when everything is digital, it is nice to have one of my issues with the tech-world addressed with the nifty S-pen. More on that later... for now I will leave you with this pic... :D

Guess which one is the Note 2...

Phonucopia

Those are all my phones... except the iPhone 3GS... I just couldn't find it. Can you recognize them all?

Here's my first little cutie of a phone...

The adorable Siemens A36 with all the right curves!

And this here was my first phone with a color display...

The Nokia 3100 - All aglow at night

Blog to Facebook / Twitter Integration

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Today, I spent a few hours creating Facebook pages for my blogs and then integrating them with the blogs so that I don’t have to update each post separately on Twitter and Facebook.

It may sound simple but was quite a monumental task. But, thanks to NetworkedBlogs, the task was made relatively easy. If anyone wants to integrate their blogs with Facebook and Twitter, here is a rough idea on how to do it.

You would need:

• A Facebook account – Create one here if you belong to the rare species without a FB account: www.facebook.com (eyes on you, Nawaab saheb!)
• A Twitter account (optional) – You can create one at www.twitter.com and tweet away all you can in 140 character glory.
• A NetworkedBlogs account – You can register at www.networkedblogs.com (you will need your FB account)
• A blog, obviously!

Once you have all of the above, you would at first need to create a page on Facebook for your blog.

Create Page link at bottom of your FB page

On the Create Page section. Select the Brand or Product option and from the dropdown list select Website. You could enter what kind of blog or the name of your blog in the area provided below.  

Here is a link that explains it all with screenshots: How to create a Facebook Page? Well, Facebook considers your blog to be a business.

After this comes the part of linking this page to your blog so that every time you update your blog, this Facebook page automatically updates itself. And that is where we require the help of our NetworkedBlogs account. This might be possible in other ways. Before Facebook got meaner and leaner, there was a way you could import your blog activity to the Notes section. But that no longer works. Because Facebook loves you!

My first impressions of NetworkedBlogs:

• Their posts on your FB timeline look pretty with a thumbnail preview of your blog or one of the pics in your post.
• You can find blogs of your Facebook friends and connect to them and they can find you.
• Their Directory has a good number of blogs which you can follow. These along with your registered blogs will appear in the Panorama section which is a neat feature that lets you view all the feeds at one place. You can even mark posts to be read later. Nifty!**
• There is a Quick Publisher which helps you re-post any of your blog posts to Facebook or Twitter or whatever other social network you have linked to.
• You can vote posts up to keep them in circulation. This works for your own posts as well as those of blogs you follow.

**If you are keen on increasing hits on your blog then it is better to middle-click or context-click / right-click and Open link in new tab on the post heading that shows up in the Panorama feed. This will open your post in the original blog. If you just left-click / normal-click on the post then it opens in an iFrame within NetworkedBlogs, which would mean no traffic gets generated in your blog.

One other con I have had to face is that for both my blogs it imported only the latest 25 posts. I do not know if it is a limitation set on a free account or you need to upgrade to premium to import all your posts dating back to when you started the blog. I am also not sure if it is a technical limitation. 

You can register any blog with them, even if it does not belong to you. Of course, every time you register a blog they will ask you if you are the author. There are two ways to verify if you are the blogs author… one involves adding their widget to your blog (which instantly verifies your blog) and the second method is getting five of your friends to verify you (this a bit tricky as they have to have Facebook accounts; also, this method obviously delays the registration unless you call up your friends and ask them to verify pronto!)

At NetworkedBlogs (click on the pics for a larger view):

Register Blog at Networked Blogs

After you register the blog it asks to verify if you are the blog author as I mentioned earlier.

Then it is time for syndication... this is how you link Facebook and/or Twitter with your blog.

Syndicating your blog on Facebook and Twitter

As I have already registered and syndicated both my blogs, I could not generate screenshots for later posts. But it is intuitive and you shouldn't have any issues.

When you add Facebook and Twitter for syndication, you will be asked to make a test post (by clicking a link). This test post is published temporarily on your blog and if the syndication has been successful it would result in the post showing up in your Facebook & Twitter timelines / feeds. So, you might want to delete the post from your FB and Twitter feeds manually... they are automatically deleted from your blog.

That is all there is to it.

You would find some videos around for the same, but I found most of them, if not all, use the old Facebook and NetworkedBlogs layout. Also, it seems older women are experts in the blogging business... most of the videos are by them.

On a different note, I downloaded Windows Live Writer for my PC. It is part of Windows Live Essentials. This program is a heaven-sent for bloggers. You have to try it out to know how wonderful it is. It is way better than posting directly from Blogger or Wordpress. It is a WYSIWYG platform with the intuitiveness of MS Office.  

Again, I am enjoying my first impressions... this is my first post with the program, totally written off the browser. 

Thanks, Nawaab saheb for letting me know about it. And I understand why you have installed Windows on a virtual machine on your Mac just for this program. It IS that good.

Happy blogging, everyone! :)

My Other Blog... It's Got Design!

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Let me get it straight away that this is an attempt at self-promotion. 

Now that I have gotten all such scruples out of my way, I can get on with the job.

Sometime back (in 2007) I came across the software known as Sketchup (which until now is owned by Google but soon would be heading to Trimble). It is a 3D modeling software, simple and delightful to use. I have always been everybody's (in my family) go-to girl whenever they wanted a lay-out of a new house or someone to knock on for ideas to design or renovate their houses. I have always done this with AutoCAD, a software that attaches to you early on if you are an engineer. Amazing as it was, the staid black-screen of then AutoCAD bored me and I easily switched to the real-time 3D of Sketchup.

I started with simple house designs... trying to incorporate one wacky design element in to each plan at a time. Most of them were plans for a proposed home for my folks in Kerala, India.

While looking for ways to get my models to be more presentable and eye-catching (Sketchup couldn't provide realistic models without a plugin) I came across SU Podium... it is an absolutely easy to use plugin for Sketchup.

These two software helped me a lot in my lazy quest to do simple design work without being an expert 3D artist or even a competent 3D modeler. I found I had a lot of spare time in my hands in those early years before I moved to Kuwait and I put them to some 'creative' use. I have ever since been addicted to creating both architectural and interior design. 

I have worked on free-lance projects as well (and earned a bit from the hours I put in)... so, this work has been satisfying in more ways than one.

I have this other design blog 'My World In Three Dimensions' which is where I display my designs and ideas. 

These are the first steps to what I hope is a satisfying (and lucrative) hobby which I might even consider as a career option in the near future. Fingers crossed. :)

Here is a sample of one of my earliest designs:

Color Quartet Lounge

Do visit my design blog and leave your comments on the designs there... that should help me improve or even get a new spin on ideas.

The Attack Of The Image Snatchers!

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There's been an alien invasion of my blog. And all the pictures in all my posts have been abducted. I am on a rescue mission to bring them all back.

Due to the above unforeseen situation my blog is shut-down until further notice.
Wish me luck, as I set out on my mission to regain the lost images.