Eternal Thinker: September 2011

ET Smileys no-wait-for-load version : The end of all JavaScript Conflicts!

Even when things are going good and fine, there's nothing wrong in making them.. better. Here is a hack on the et Smiley script for Blogger (and all other blogs) which brings in more smiles.

This update is mainly aimed at users experiencing JavaScript conflicts while using the et Smiley set with other scripts, resulting in any of the scripts not working properly.

The hack is to initialize the script manually. This can also result in a faster loading of the smiley script.
The smiley script waits until the entire page loads before it makes the smileys appear. But sometimes it has to wait until some small missing element in the page is loaded. This new method loads the script as soon as it is safe for it to load. No extra waiting!

So, the users who are currently happy with the script can just move on. Anyhow, if they find the improvisation discussed above interesting, feel free to try out the new method.

Let us see how it works:

Step #0 (old users)

Users who are already using the smiley script and changing to the new method, make sure to remove the script currently in use.
Refer to the post from which you added the smiley script (Smileys for Blogger or Smileys for any blog/website) and remove the added lines of code.
Note: This update doesn't concern the smiley panel over comment form in anyway

Step #1

In your Blogger Dashboard, click the More Options down arrow next to your blog and select Template. In Template page, click the Edit HTML button.
Find the portion </head> in your blog's HTML code

Now just before </head>, add the following code

For Blogger blogs:

<script src="https://et-smileys.googlecode.com/svn/trunk/etSmileys_blogger_control.js" type="text/javascript"/>

For other blogs/websites:

<script 
src="https://et-smileys.googlecode.com/svn/trunk/etSmileys_control.js" 
type="text/javascript"/>

Step #2

Again, in the HTML code find the portion </body>
Yet again, add the following code just before this part

<script  
type="text/javascript"> etSmileys(); </script>

And you're done! This should solve any JavaScript conflicts caused by the smiley script :)

Note: If you're not using a Blogger blog, and adding the smiley script for the first time, also follow the additional Step #2 in this post for the smileys to work

The Smell of Pasta

Several conventional recipes (and a few embarrassing disasters) later, last day I tried a pretty long recipe. This time the aroma comes all the way in Italian style.
It's pasta time!

So we gather round the raw materials..

Macaroni, Chicken, Onions, Tomatoes, Pepper and lots of Sauce. AND Butter.

Shed ~~some~~ a lot of tears on the onions. Don't mess up too much with the sauce.
And make a quantum leap (for me ;)) to the final dish

Wow! Delicious and fantastic. Who's the cook? :P

Here we have the amazing Buttered Chicken Macaroni.
Le macaroni au poulet au beurre.

Try some Italian flavors in your kitchen too :)
Au revoir!

And the blog has been redesigned

The good ol' Eternal Thoughts template has retired to make way for the fresh new Mindblast template.

Speaking of freshness, this design idea or at least many of it's features has been sketched down and/or implemented within the last 2 years. In the end time wins, procrastination surrenders, because time is essentially infinite ;).

The old template was much loved by many readers. But after all, the old one was my first attempt at a blog design and so the code badly needed some total makeover.

There are a few extra features thrown in the new design, and a new Portfolio page. Discover as you get acquainted with it ^_^

My aim in the new design was simplicity and each part of the design having its own importance, thus no element being superfluous. Anyways, eagerly looking forward to your comments and suggestions <3

God took my wish seriously

For a moment, nothing happened. Then, after a second or so, nothing continued to happen.
Douglas Adams

Right after weeks and months of bragging about hectic college life, suddenly I am given all the free time I ever wanted. It is a sweet contradiction :). Following this all my previous blog posts were about creating something and publishing it. The list of ideas is being ticked off one by one and I must say that it is a wonderful feeling.

Two of my recent works

The Perfect to-do List

article published in The Viewspaper

Word Quiz
for CrazyEngineers

(worked on design and programming)

Frying pans

A parallel plan was to catch up on some life skills - like cooking. Cooking went well, mastering only those recipes which I like to eat ;). But as it turns out, these are to be learned the hard way. Gone will be the days when we return from early morning facebooking to the smoking hot breakfast made by mom waiting for us on the dining table. What awaits us will be wheat flour, cooking oil, and frying pan, in the kitchen :P.

My suggestion to young people is that, learn cooking if you're really passionate about it or if you really want to. Otherwise, your time is better off spent watching all those movies you downloaded illegally ^_^.

Me too! Sometimes.

They were busy machine gunning the crowd

What contributed part of the fun was spending time with my little cousins on their vacation. And then we were playing games. Computer games that is. We better accept the fact that the next generation is officially on. The kids now have access to all those violent video games which we ideally met around or after 18.

So they were playing as Hitman - strangling people, poisoning their food, neatly putting bullets through their brain with a silenced rifle; they were in Grand Theft Auto world - recklessly driving into innocent old people, blasting heads off with a shotgun.

Every generation starts off with the latest resources of the present. Then they move onto things incomprehensible to the present. Of course, all the primary school kids know how to get 125% health in GTA. Accept it.

Not entirely fictional

Lighter moments

There seems to be millions of interesting things to do in this world. And counting.
To learn, to discover, to create, to contribute. To live. Not a moment need to be spent in boredom.
Rather, you're supposed to be astonished at the number of ways in which you can spend the time.

Like Chetan Bhagat?

French sounds beautiful as I get started with it. Smiles or chuckles or laughs never stop as I *still* work my way through the Hitchhiker's series.
It's nice to have a pen friend from across the country even in this digital age. Your handwriting stays nice ;). And this is ensured when you have a pen friend who comes online and threatens you to send her letters :D.

Sometimes there is constant positivity, optimism, and fullfillment. But happiness needs to balance itself out.
And so, just for a change, I spent a day in sulking mode :P.