I am the First among Zo Bloggers?

Maybe, maybe not. I think I am, or eh, rather, I should claim to be the first of the many Zo kindred bloggers we come across today on the Internet. I don’t want to make a hue and cry over claims but I thought I would share some of the experiences that are more or less related with it. And thanks to the addicted blogger – Sandman – for his Mizo Bloggers Directory, I could finally claim my other ‘official’ blog(s) where two of them have my name on it and the others keywords I was interested during those times of blogging. To say a word on Sandman - he is wasting his time in blogging. An advice for you Sandman, get lost and waste your time somewhere else. You a loser or something? But I still think you need to be more polished in respect to ‘Mizo’. ;-)

And also thanks to Benjamin of Misual.com for mentioning that Sandman may probably be the earliest registered Blogger registered Zo/Mizo [Mizo as in Mizo and not as Mizoram-based Mizo(s)] bloggers [rephrased and edited due to misinterpretation]. If not for him, I would not have looked back for my earlier blogs. Now, I can finally claim to be that First with sort of a genuine proof and no image editors’ retouching. (Oh damn! The saved profile screenshot of yesterday before the reclamation got corrupted.) The reclamation screenshot is below:



I have been a member of Blogger.com since May 2003. Google bought the Prya Labs’ Blogger.com in February 2003. No hard feelings to others for my being the first. ;-) If some other Zo bloggers can claim over my claim, do not hesitate to argue that in your comments! I can always hand this ‘priceless’ title over to you.

Back to blogging, I had forgotten all the emails I used and the passwords for those ‘lost’ blogs (I had so many emails with different passwords for each of them that I don’t keep track of them anymore though I used to, before). Those were the days when you were too hypersensitive about someone knowing your passwords and you had some ugly and negative perspective of the Internet (It is of course if you don't take some needed precautions). I often try to reclaim them lost blogs (most of them in Blogger.com) but always failed to. The reason being that I am and wasn’t not very familiar with Blogger.com’s password retrieval system and its overall services. But trying it out again yesterday, it was so smooth I now wonder how I could have failed to retrieve them before.

Fortunately, all my accounts (blogs) were registered in my now often and ‘officially’ used Gmail account. And the password and blog reclamation needed just three steps. But sorry to say, I had to delete almost all of them except one where I claimed to be the “Official User of the Internet”. I love that part. I had all forgotten about being my claimed title! I know and you should know, I am! I was and am still the “Official User of the Internet”. That claim was made on May 05, 2004. No one before me had claimed the title. Whoa! That kind of feels great. I know you are jealous and racking your graymatter to claim on something too. Bah! What a many-layered second-hand thoughts you do have! I pity you. :-D

Saying that, I may or may not, be even the first amongst the Zo kindred people to be have a Gmail account. That was not so long after Google.com offered its Gmail preview version only to invited users in April 2004. I still remember the time when I requested one of the mIRC scripters in the #helpdesk channel at Dalnet IRC Network. I forgot his nickname but he was kind enough to send me a request form to open up a Gmail account. His Gmail ID might still be in my now huge Gmail contact address-book as Gmail automatically add the inviter’s email address to the contact’s list. However, as my contact book grew, it would now be difficult to know who is who. Anyway, thanks to whoever is him. I have been using Gmail since June or July 2004. Any genuine counter-claims to that?

Blogging in those days, when I first registered, was still at its infant stage. The word didn’t even catch up with most. But then like every other thing popular, it started slowly and steadily. And in India? Every one of us, and many still are illiterate on what actually is a blog. It didn’t yet catch on the trend as we see today. I knew it would, but in a year or two later only. I was right about it. But then in those days, having your own personal websites was even more popular. The term ‘blog’ doesn’t even mean anything to many others, and me at all. It is disheartening to see and hear of all the hypes that have been concentrated on the ‘blog’. Of course, the popularity does push the blog coders to beautifully enrich their blog softwares with powerful features that we are using it now.

My perspective on blogs when I first registered for a blog, and even now in some way (inclusive for developer hosted blogs and exclusive for user hosted blog softwares), is not so geeky (if you know what I mean?). I wasn’t that much interested for the simple reason that it does not let you completely ‘own’ your ‘website’. I saw it something like free website providers’ ads for the newbies which claims – design your websites with readymade templates! I hate readymade templates. It stops the challenges. It makes you lame. It steals your talent and creativity – you tend to loose what you are born with. You are not in control. Instead you are in the cold and freezing to death.

I prefer much using those free website hosting – coding and designing my own website and stuffs – learning slowly but steadily rather than be tempted by the free blog hosting providers or using some of those designed templates. But even during those times, blog service was growing – redirection services were supported, and I did use them for easily integrating the services of Blogger.com with the Shillong EFCI Christian Youth Weekly – PALAI, which was originally hosted at Spunge.org. Mentioning that, at Spunge.org too, I was the first again. All the other Zo users got it after my referral of their service. Their service was great then, and I think it is also now. You don’t easily get hold of a free service where a SSH account with Apache, PHP, MySQL, PHPMyAdmin, etc [LAMP] are provided then and also now. However, it is not easy to get an account anymore at Spunge.org. Though I no longer have an account over there for being inactive, some of my friends [valtea and oznial] still do.

Might sort of seem like I am blowing my own trumpets. But I think, it doesn’t hurt to blow some once in a while. One do get irritated when some self-centric individuals who are in their own self-centred worlds claim to flaunt about their who they are and what they have done and stuffs. Oh again, I may even be the first to get a Google Adsense advertisement approval in India (maybe, maybe not). Google launched its Adsense program for website publishers in June 2003. I had to argue with those in Google when they said that they are (Adsense program) not yet open to those based in India. I had applied it for Hmar.org [the site is not maintained anymore] that later become Hmar.net of today. They (Google) rejected me at first, but then they approved my application within a week. That was between September and October 2003. Any counterclaim challenges again from other India-based websites on that? *grins*

I was fortunate enough that even when friends were rejected again and again by Google.com and banned for one or the other reasons in their Adsense program, they were never been that rude to me. Maybe they pity me because my Adsense earning is never much? Maybe they love me? Haha. I like it when my name was up for a discussion in Misual.com where it was posted with true surprise when Google suggested my name instead of the queried name – Lalremlien instead of Jenny R. Lalremliani, the Mizoram Boxing Champion (Google Speaks Hmar?). Well, I saw the coming of this sort of event already in the past, and I had been working on it, baby. Just kidding. LMAO. I don’t dare Jenny in the ring though. She might beat me up black and blue.

Maybe Google loves me and maybe that’s why it fortunately ranks Hmar.net at 6 out of 10. It currently topped the Northeast India based websites in Google PageRanking (Of course the PageRank system does fluctuate up and down many times). And what about in India itself? You know, there are not that many of the tens of thousands who ranked that high. Don’t ask me why. I prefer not to cheat or try to be popular. Well, that’s the one and only rule to be the top amongst other dogs. Some bite harder and bitterly and silently than the loud barkers. ;-)

That was one of the many reasons I made my blogs to be kind of ‘invisible’. And one of the thing being, I am too much of a privy individual. If somebody asks me the truth, I would say, the Internet is an Open Book. I won’t claim it, but it would take me just a day or some to know everything I want to know of an individual(s) from what they write – their would-be behaviour, perspectives, fears, likes and dislikes, hates and loves, what and what nots – their complete inner-self. I may be exaggerating, but there is only one way to define the Internet – it is dangerous if you want to be ‘invisible’. When you think about it, it chills you down to the bone. That is the same with email ‘conversations’. And these were the reasons for my irregularity in updating my supposedly blogs. Also then, I consider myself naive – in the stage where I was learning how the Internet really functions. I am still learning now, but experiences has taught me more than I knew those times and I learn what is to be kept privy and what not to. All those out for the readings are useless stuffs that I don’t really care whether the readers know. They are stuffs that do not give me out even one third of myself. The more you read my stuffs, the more you go round and round where you reach the same point where you started. The reason? I am a confused, weird and unpredictable psycho.

Argh. That’s quite enough for now.