A New Beginning

Yes, we are finally back.
New blog, new template, on a fresh new domain. And boy am I excited.
So let’s get started right away.

Firstly, you’ll notice that this isn’t Random Thoughts anymore. To be honest, coming up with a new name and domain is the part that took the longest time because I was so comfortable with Random Thoughts.

But then I realized it wasn’t very original – there must be like a hundred sites out there with the exact same name; just try the words “random thoughts” (with the quotes) on Google, you’ll see what I mean. In fact, it took me over a week, after the design template was completed to finalize on the name to use.

Now why “The Square Circle”?
For the same reason Steve Jobs ended up with “Apple” – one week of domain hunting later I was so frustrated (did you know ALL the good domains are taken; most of which are just stupidly parked) that I started looking for something random, pretty much anything I could find and so, here we are.

Getting down to the technical side of things; my old blog (http://rahmannoor.blogspot.com/) still redirects to here. And I’m yet to import all my previous posts and setup my widgets, but I promise I’ll do this soon.

Coming to credits, this design is an adaptation of Blogy-illacrimo for BlogandWeb from DesignDisease, and I truly thank them for the wonderful template.
I say ‘adaptation’ because the original template had three columns which I didn’t like, so I changed it to just two and rewamped some of the original artwork.
There was also a whole mess of broken image links in the original template file which I had to find and upload to my own image-server; not to mention invalid xml and missing script references which I had to fix.


Btw, I’d prefer to think of this as “still in beta” (now don’t give me that look) because I tested this on a few browsers like Mozilla Firefox, Apple Safari, Google Chrome and good old IE but I guess there are still a few glitches to it.

Oh, and in case this is the first time you’ve landed on this blog, here’s a snapshot of how my original blog looked like.
(I know, lame wasn’t it?)

Do let me know what you think, and how I can take this further. After all, in the end, it’s only the readers that count!
:D

14 comments:

Anonymous said...

good one ... finally !!!

Anonymous said...

Salaam Alaykum !

I have been on a blog vacation myself - keeping away from writing reading and commenting - and I am glad I did.

But I kept in touch with all my blogging friends on Twitter.

I like the new name and the template is very cool !
Now I am only looking forward to what you will be posting because you did mention you wanted to blog better !

Good Luck with it all !

Anonymous said...

Nice beginning, at last!

Hope you'll now publish all your posts that were withheld due to this revamp!!!

Anonymous said...

As'salaamu alaikum!
Good Luck with your 'square-circles'.

Anonymous said...

Gr8 to have u back...

Anonymous said...

@Haze
Thx...and for being my first beta-tester too :)

@Jaffer
Wa alikum as salaam!
I'd hate to break this to you, but I kinda quit twitter...full post on why, coming soon.
And thx for dropping by!

@Prasanna
Yeah, I'm actually waiting for this to settle in, and import my content before embarking on this.

@Imti
Hi da! thx...never seen your blog before.

@ela
Yo, thx! What you been upto lately?

Anonymous said...

@A.R.N: see i wasnt wrong.. you were planning for a renovation. guess what I too renovated my blog and that too yesterday.
your blog looks cool :) the hardwork has paid off.. waiting to see you back with an amazing post soon :)

Anonymous said...

i can sense freshness in ur blogspot
nice template:)

Anonymous said...

@thepinkorchid

thx...I'll do my posts as soon as i get back from my trip

@ROFLOL
hey dude...thx for your comments.
And welcome to The Square Circle!
:)

Anonymous said...

you have been awarded ARN... visit my blog.

Anonymous said...

This design is great, blue and white make a cool combination!

-=A.R.N.=- said...

@Saurabh

Thx! :)

Mohammed Musthafa said...

hey...
i came across this template myself..but since im not a programmer like u...didnt have the luxury of editing and fixing it up..

still...kool look...btw...is this a custom domain? cuz i dont see the .blogspot.com...

-=A.R.N.=- said...

@Mohammed Musthafa
(I guess more and more ppl are starting to believe I can actually program :)

Yup, this is a custom domain; can't believe how cheap they come actually. The only problem is finding one that isn't already taken