Redoable Lite Review

Finally, a new theme to test out. I’ve just installed it and I feel it’s a little heavy. Looked better in the thumbnail. But that’s just the first impression. I’ll be trying it out further here and putting more thoughts later.

First impressions

As soon as I installed it, I didn’t like it. I was using Ocean Mist earlier, and in contrast to the soft feel earlier, this was too jarring. At least we can give this full points for striking impact!

Header

I usually look for themes that allow me to change the header. But somehow I didn’t like the “font” being used as the blog title. As a result, I simply removed the title. Also, when I changed the header, notice that the edges still have some of the previous header colour left over. A little tacky.

(to be continued).

Confused with Ocean Mist: WordPress theme preview

I tried the Ocean Mist theme immediately as I saw it on this experimental review site that I run, however I was surprised to see that it only has two columns unlike the three columns in the screenshot. I guess I may have done something wrong??? Maybe the theme has more power to configure than I can see??? But I’ll have to get this to work like the screenshot before reviewing it.

Neo-Sapien Review: A hit with four columns

Thank you, thank you… for giving me a reason to get out of cricket. I was using this site to talk about the Cricket World Cup, but after India lost to Bangladesh, I couldn’t bear to say another word. The problem was that I didn’t have anything else to say. But now, with the Neo-Sapien theme… I finally do. Below are my reflections.

First impressions:

The wow-factor of this theme is amazing. Of course it’s dark theme may put some “happy” bloggers off… but it certainly has it’s appeal. At the risk of stereotyping, I have a feeling that “guys” will like this theme more than “girls”… not that girls have anything against dark colours… but I think, even with the default header… the goal is the “man”.

I like the reader as well. It shows the full text, not a sample. For an impact theme, however, maybe only a bit would be good, but I like it this way. However, I somehow don’t like the space between the header and the text. It’s a little too far… and thus a little disjointed. Not too bad though, just a little disconcerting.

Advantages… Using Side-bar widgets to the max!

But most importantly, I think Neo-Sapien offers the best use of side-bar widgets even more than Fjords (which was four-columns, but more like a newspaper). These four columns give the text primary importance, and yet offer a lot of flexibility to the user.

Of course it forces the ‘writer’ to put in a lot more in the side-bar widgets and if you haven’t done so already, you’ll have to try all the works… like text, rss… just to make it look interesting.

I must say that the text in the side-bar, especially the first column is not that (immediately) readable. I don’t like the underlines as well… they are too “noisy”. For a theme whose main goal seems to be to make an impact… I would think that underlining should have been avoided.

Header size, 480/250… This header size is not bad… not the biggest… but still quite good. However, I guess the white border around the picture has it’s uses… but I find it a little distracting… especially because we can’t get rid of it. However, I must say, that the header size is quite big once you use it.

Editing

Not all themes allow you to edit from the post itself. This one does, and believe me, that’s a blessing. Excellent. I think the “edit post” link at the end is too far for people with long posts. A beginning edit is helpful for writers… who know the context of the site and thus want to make a quick edit.

Quotes…For quotations, I’ve pasted a sample from Shakespeare’s Much Ado About Nothing. Again, I would say that it is ok… there are better quotations in some other themes.

All the world’s a stage,
And all the men and women merely players:
They have their exits and their entrances;
And one man in his time plays many parts,

Summary

High in impact, and flexibility (FOUR COLUMNS!!!), this theme is excellent to make a strong statement. For a reader oriented blog though, many elements may be distracting and even frustrating. I would recommend this for anyone who has a lot of content in the side-bar… and likes to make a splash each and every time.

More of this review to follow as I continue work with this Neo-Sapien theme for a while (ps. while the theme is called Neo-Sapien… in the actual theme it’s called Neo-Sapian. Spelling error?)

Choosing Hemingway: black (good) mourning

I chose the “black”-theme to mourn India’s departure from the world cup 2007. And I was intrigued to find the Hemingway theme that is quite different from anything I’ve seen. Of course it displays only the two blogs at a time… but maybe, that’s ok. I wish it had more options in the bottom bar… like having recent comments or something like that. But even that is ok.  For now I’ll probably be taking a break from this site, so this minimalistic look is enough.

No more cricket! And I mean it (after India’s world cup exit)

Well… that’s it. I had said that I would retire from cricket writing if India did not make it to the Super8s… well India didn’t. So that’s it. From now on, this blogsite will talk about anything BUT cricket. All worldcup related tags (except cricket and worldcup) are being removed… and the entire look of this site is being changed.

I must say that I enjoyed Fjords theme for this site. Since my site was a more newsy theme, the four columns worked. But not anymore.

Now it’s time for happier things… maybe a story about a little elf, perhaps?

Oh the horror! India lose and face possible early exit!!

I didn’t think it was possible. But it happened. And now… India is paying for it’s cautious defensive mindset… by losing to Bangladesh! And facing the prospect of an early exit. Because of Sri Lanka’s demolishing of Bermuda… the chances for India making it are not that easy.

Anyway, I am so upset… that I am retiring from cricket-oriented blogging until… only until India makes it to the second round. If not, then good bye cricket writing! This blog will then talk about better, happier things!

Never say Never: 6-sixes in one over

Just yesterday I said to myself… that it would never happen. I really believed that no one would hit 6-sixes in a one-day international… at least not this world cup. And in 24-hours I was proved wrong. This is how it happened… according to cricinfo.

Herschelle Gibbs’s six sixes off Dan van Bunge’s fourth over was a record for international matches. Below is the ball-by-ball description of the mauling
29.1 van Bunge to Gibbs, SIX, Violence! Gibbs charged down the track and hoicked it over long on.
29.2 van Bunge to Gibbs, SIX, Murder! Floated on the leg and middle stump line and Gibbs sends it soaring over long-off.
29.3 van Bunge to Gibbs, SIX, Carnage! Flatter one this time but it makes no difference to Gibbs. He just stands there and delivers. This one also has been sucked over long off
29.4 van Bunge to Gibbs, SIX, Wah Wah! Low full toss and guess where this went Yep. A slap slog and it went over deep midwicket! He is going to go for 6 sixes in this over!
29.5 van Bunge to Gibbs, SIX, Short in length, on the off stump line and Gibbs rocks back and swat-pulls it over wide long off. SImply amazing. What a batsman. This is pure violence!
29.6 van Bunge to Gibbs, SIX, He has done it! One-day record. No one has hit six sixes in a row. GIbbs stands alone in that zone. And the minnow bashing continues! Full and outside off and bludgeoned over long off

Well there this company that owes 1milliondollars to some charity now… since that was the prize for the first person who hit 6-sixes. Wow, south africa have a knack of doing the unbelievable!

Gavaskar-Ponting verbal duel: another opinion

Here’s an interesting link to the ‘other’ side of the Ponting-Gavaskar debate.

http://i3j3cricket.wordpress.com/2007/03/15/gavaskar-ponting-war-of-words-aussie-views/

My own take is that Gavaskar is a TV commentator and Ponting a player. Two different sets of rules apply. A commentor can stay some stupid things and get away with it more easily than a captain of the premiere cricket team.

Regardless, now even commentators have to be careful, especially when racism and bigotry is involved and now, commentators need to understand that viewing the ‘australian’ team as a bad-behaviour team is also racism. Meannig, is Gavaskar saying that every single Australian has bad behaviour? What about Gilchrist’s unpopular decision to ‘walk’ every time he nicked a catch.

Such universal statements however are equally serious as Ponting’s verbal ill-informed joust against the Indian cricket team… and so, Ponting too is wrong.

Best response… would be to keep the issue between players… like one-two Australian players, and Gavaskar. Rather than bring the whole Australian cricket team (and the nation) or the Indian Cricket team (and the nation) into this.

Let Indians talk about Indians, and Australians about Australians. And when opinions to cross=over, don’t generalise!!!

AA-and a guide to get featured?

(latest update: So I sent a mail to Matt… (from WordPress) and he said the list has changed, but cannot influence the list further. So the history of the cricket tag so far is as follows… a [Ashes] Harmison fit post. Then an “Add-on” post. And now some old news about Ganguly and Dalmiya. I find it strange that the cricket featured tag is  taking such strange articles/p0sts… but at least this latest change looks better!)

We all love cricket, here. And we all love wordpress. However, as all ‘cricket’ taggers know… the cricket featured site rarely features the ‘best’ or ‘most appropriate’ cricket related tag. As a result, I am conducted an experiment to ‘get featured’ simply to see if my theory of alphabetised featuring in WordPress is correct. If it is… then I think it is a bug in the system.

I would much rather see other sites, that talk about cricket, especially currently, word cup cricket, to get featured (in the cricket tag)! Like http://i3j3cricket.wordpress.com/ for instance. I like what these guys are doing… they spend quite a lot of effort writing articles/opinions… and at least sometimes it would make sense that they are featured. (NO! I am not associated with them in any way!!!)

So I’m not making this post to get featured, but to test whether alphabetisation in the title affects “featuring”. If so, then I can report it to wordpress support.

(next update: so far, there has been no ‘featuring’ so I guess that theory is bunked!)

Indian Cricket Team Batting Weaknesses… and suggestions

I know, I know… we all want India to win the world cup, and like millions others… I will NEVER bet against India. However, being a strong team doesn’t mean that we can’t be aware of our weaknesses. (Of course our assessment makes no difference… but when did that stop the common Indian fan from speaking!) See also Cricinfo’s much better (though later) analysis of batting/bowling strength/weaknesses of the Indian cricket team here.

We are currently familiar with this story of the batting performance of the Indian cricket team…

Opening Pair partnership…20-30 (in three/four overs)

Score at 15 overs about 80/2 (Uthappa is already out after making 20-30 quick runs)

Partnership between Ganguly-Tendulkar-Dravid: 120 (all three make 50s)

Score at 40 overs… 200-210 for 5 wickets

All down to Yuvraj and Dhoni… to bring the score up to 300!

Our tail (read Agarkar, Zak, Bhajji and Patel)… are probably worthy of a collective 20-30 runs.

And so, heavens forbid, if Dhoni fails… regardless of how good Tendulkar, Dravid batted… we may not even make it to 250!

*******

Thus, as I see it, our weakness are as follows:

Lack of stable opening partner to Ganguly.
Sehwag, Sehwag, whereforth are thou Sewhag? If Sehwag can guarantee about 35-40 runs per innings (not 10-20) then that is stable enough.

Lack of stable (read Ponting) number three
Uthappa is a strike batsman, not a pinch hitter. If we want a pinch hitter, we can recall Pathan and he might just bowl out 5 overs with a wicket! Uthappa has to plan to make a 100 at least twice this world cup…

Over-reliance on Dhoni
Let’s face it… if we were to choose between the batsman Dhoni and the batsman Yuvraj, Dhoni would clearly walk away the favourite. He has been more destructive and yet more consistent than the ’senior’ partner… and we look to Dhoni, not Yuvraj, to finish well. If only Yuvraj can compete with Hussey, aim at high-score consistency… the pressure on Dhoni would be less, and the lower order a little more stable. Right now… Yuvraj is still a little too unpredictable.

Weak tail
Without Pathan, our bowlers are just not consistent with the willow. On average, my feeling is that our tail is worth 20-30 runs tops… if someone is with them… without guidance and time… they may just collapse. As always… we need Agarkar… to shake things up… become the batsman who is worth 25-30 runs consistently by himself.

Summary:

Ganguly… keep up the good work… hopefully you will stay in the middle overs to hit the spinners around…

Sewhag… get to 40 Runs!!! (not total World Cup score but in EACH INNINGS!)

Uthappa… you are not a pinch hitter! Remember you are batting in the same position as Ponting!

Tendulkar… please be the highest scorer in the tournament… please, please, please!!!

Dravid… don’t get bogged down in the middle overs… try to keep the run rate around 6 when you bat.

Yuvraj… more consistency please… be not-out… strike rate 100!

Dhoni… you are our big cricket’ hope… DON’T GET INJURED!!!

Agarkar… 30 runs please

Zak… 18runs… 2 sixes…

Harbhajan… 15 runs…

Patel… don’t get injured… and learn to take singles fast!!! give the strike to the other batsman.