9th episode of TechBlogger’s Face-Off series and today we are going to meet someone who has not only created a buzz with his wordpress plugins like Better comment manager but also is Java and PHP programmer. He does a lot of free lance programming and his usual job. Lets talk to him and understand what he wants to say to us and about technology blogging

What did spark the idea of Tech blogging to you ?

Well to be frank I was a good writer all through school and college (blush) and always got more than 8 on my essays everytime, the fact was that I wanted to be a chef rather than come into technology. The fascination for technology started quite early at school when they introduced computers at our school.

It was somewhere down the 6th grade around 1993 in those days we only had DOS out there and I used to beat all my pals (at the computer period :D) at commands as simple as mkdir and rmdir and some fun stuff like creating nested directories et al, it was quite funny at that time. After getting attached to computers I spent most of my Thursday holidays playing games at my school computer labs.

It was 9 long years after that before which I got my first computer at home and explored into endless possibilities, then I learned programming which got me hooked, learned hardware by tearing apart my own system etc.

Technology always amazed me since I was young and it’s been 14 yrs now and I am still stuck to it, like writing, blogging came to me naturally with the power that I could change or enhance people’s views about technology with a article on my site. The idea to blog about technology never came it was already into my system before I started writing about it.

It’s been a long way but I have now embraced the word technology as being a part of my life as it’s not only my bread and butter but also my way of helping other’s who don’t know about it.

How your blog helps readers to understand technology ?

I try and help readers understand things about the thing they use. For instance I can write a quick tip about creating a custom menu with Firefox, though I can write a article on how Firefox works internally.

Firefox on its own is a Software, there is no way I can explain to non geeks how Firefox exactly works and I am unsure if my audiences would want to know how Firefox works beneath the sheets.

In its own technology is a rather big word, with example of browsers, Firefox itself being a browser uses technology that it did not invent to allow users to browse webpages. The technology Firefox uses to do this is not for end level users but for geeks so I make sure to keep my blog posts such that any level of users can understand it.

Which point you think is very crucial in Tech Blogging ?

Knowing what you are writing about is more crucial than blogging about it, what you are writing is conveyed to the end user and most of the users tend to ask questions about it.

I always make sure I study the software or website well before hand such that whatever message I have conveyed can be easily answerable.

For e.g. If I write a article about a hack then I have to make sure I know the different circumstances that it should work in and not work in be ready with the answers.

Before making a post how you analyze it ?

Most of my posts are from my personal experiences, annoyances with software, software customizations etc, so pre post I have already gone through what many of my readers have gone through and would want to improve on.

I tend to ignore things that have been written over and over again, there have been times where software’s like Launchy have made my life easier but then I have not written about it because of so many expert opinions have already been done.

Another formula I use is that whatever I am writing about I make sure it works the same way I have tried to convey it in on multiple systems .

What kind of readers you are targeting ?

Those readers who want to know more about the software they use, news they can use. Those who can utilize any software or website with much more ease then they are accustomed to or are unaware of things that would help them in a certain way either right away or in future.

How you upgrade yourself with technology ?

I am a Software Engineer with more than 6 years of experience and 8 years of hardware experience so I always try to use the latest software that makes my life easier.

I tend to download the latest software that is useful and utilize it to see if my system performs better than others and let others know about it. For that I follow the latest software news and read technology content in almost all major newspapers and top tech sites. This allows me to know what new technology is available and try and utilize it before I can make views.

I do not write about hardware on my blog including cell phones etc because I do not have much time out of my software world, even then most of my friends have used my expertise to create their dream machines based on my hardware recommendations.

How you measure that readers have grown with your blog in terms of knowledge?

There is no real way to determine this except for feedback from users, I have got feedbacks that my tips have helped users, many users do not respond even if something has helped them. So with regards to measuring user growth with the blog I would not be able to provide you with any appropriate or accurate response.

How you target new visitors to become a reader ?

I am always targeting new visitors to become readers, I mostly target users to solve their problems with some of tips. I do have quite a few readers who are regular but with technology it changes every time and, if you don’t change with them, they change who they read. It’s all about providing them with a useful utility which they can use to solve their common problems.

Also not all users have the same problems, most of my users come from Google searching for a problem for which my site has a solution so converting those users to regular users is a bit of a problem, but yes I have improved and have a regular reader base which reads what I write.

How you see you and your blog after 5 yrs ?

To be frank I am not sure about it, I blog when I get time I do a full time job, do open source, do free lancing and blog too. One day I have to quit some of these phase by phase, but I am as passionate about software as I am about writing so I won’t quit any of these soon but there is no certainly for anything 6 months down the line so I would rather not speak about 5 years down the line.

And so that was Keith , author of some of the best used wordpress plugins,and he believes in keeping your readers updated and change then as technology does. Visit his blog at Techie-Buzz and share some ideas and discuss things with him for sure. Do share your views and feel free to ask anything that hits your mind. Thanks a lot for your time and home you are enjoying the series.

Tags: face off, tech blogger