The writeKA Blog

Tracing the spike... its on Mumbai Mirror!

2009-04-30T19:44:00.007+05:30

Earlier this month, on 7th April precisely, visits on writeKA went up 400%. It has tapered down now though there are more visits on average now. It was strange because the increase was proportional across organic searches and direct visits. Now I know the reason. :D writeKA was featured on the Mumbai Mirror newspaper (in print). I don't know if coolsitetoday came first or that (the content is the same), but here's a link to the newspaper's online edition. Now I am all enthusiastic to put out more features again... :-) If anyone has a copy of the print, could you save it and give it to me?

writeKA is the cool site of the day

2009-04-08T07:32:00.004+05:30

writeKA has been featured as the cool site of the day on CoolSiteToday - heres the direct link - http://www.coolsitetoday.com/?coolid=1239042600.

writeKA on Twitter

2009-03-01T21:37:00.002+05:30

Like everyone else these days, writeka has joined the twitter bandwagon. Follow the latest updates here - http://twitter.com/writeka.

Out of the dark....

2009-03-01T21:11:00.005+05:30

Boy, this was such a long week! My regular job sapped up all my time, and I messed up my new server so badly trying to get things customised/upgraded that I had to spend more than a couple of days just getting it into working condition. So yes... my latest feedback was: "You need to choose a better server!" :D Regular users of writeKA - sorry for the inconvenience! I promise this sort of an outage won't happen again unless its beyond my control. I'll plan well in advance before I do something as major as moving to a new server.

Ok, so finally everything is working again, the news is online and so are the scripton services and directory.

A second look....

2009-02-25T18:38:00.003+05:30

Its been a long time since I've updated anything on writeKA technologically. I guess the time I devoted to this little hobby project of mine has been realloted to many things including my family, work which has gotten more interesting recently and other projects. Recently I've had to evaluate the amount of money I've been spending on my personal projects and I realized that its way too much. I've been paying out of my pocket to keep writeKA up the last couple of months. I don't think I can afford to continue doing that. I wish I could, because I've really enjoyed working on this website - and the hosting provider is really good. I've decided to move it to something a little less expensive, so the services of writeKA could be down for some time. Considering that I did make changes to improve responsiveness, I don't expect the move to really have any negative impact.

Services Restored

2008-11-22T20:19:00.002+05:30

WriteKA Scripton - Hindi and Malayalam transliteration, and the WriteKa Indian Language News portal are back up again. The service server have been upgraded and you can expect a lot more improvements soon.

WriteKA services are down! :-(

2008-11-20T10:36:00.002+05:30

My server is down, I've outgrown shared hosting and my account has been suspended. I'm hunting for a new home for writeKA. It'll be back up in a couple of days...

Top Gadget Developer #53

2008-04-20T10:54:00.005+05:30

Hey - I'm on the top Google Gadget Developer list at number 53... By the time you look - http://www.google.com/ig/authors?hl=en&gl=us&rl=en_us&start=52&sa=N, it is possible that my rank has changed or I'm not on the list at all! The ranking is very dynamic and is dependant on the number of active users of a developer's gadgets when the ranking is done. Anyway, I'm happy to be on it even for a short time! :-)

News in Gujarati and Punjabi

2008-04-04T21:57:00.003+05:30

I've added two more languages to the Indian Language News portal - Punjabi and Gujarati. Check them out:
Punjabi News
Gujarati News
You can also add the corresponding Google Gadgets to your website or iGoogle.
Add Punjabi News to iGoogle
Add Gujarati News to iGoogle
I'll be adding more news sources as I make the news engine better. Do give me your feedback.

Indian Language News Gadgets for Google

2008-03-09T21:27:00.009+05:30

I know its been a long time since my last post. I've been busy with stuff other than writeKA. This weekend, however, I just sat and did some changes to writeKA's Indian Language News portal and also made some new Google Gadgets that display news in English, Hindi, Malayalam, Tamil, Telugu and Kannada. Google Gadgets can be added to your iGoogle page or your website.

Add English News to iGoogle
Add Hindi News to iGoogle
Add Malayalam News to iGoogle
Add Tamil News to iGoogle
Add Telugu News to iGoogle
Add Kannada News to iGoogle

This is how it looked when I was testing the widgets today:

The widgets allow you to change the number of news items you want to see and also the font size. You can change these parameters in the Widget Settings as shown in the image below.

Each news item can be expanded to see the source of the news and also a short description of the news. As always, please do send me your feedback.

News is back, fresher and faster

2007-12-10T22:11:00.000+05:30

Just a short post to let you know that writeKA news is back online, fresher and faster than before. Take a look - http://news.writeka.net.

Service disruptions

2007-12-05T10:57:00.000+05:30

For more than a month or so now, the site has been experiencing service disruptions. I'm trying to fix these issues right now. For the time being however, I'm bringing the news site down as it uses up a lot of resources on the server.

Newly Launched - writeKA News!

2007-11-11T17:24:00.000+05:30

I've just launched the latest addition to writeKA - writeKA News. Here, you can read the latest news from multiple news sources. The content is dynamically created and refreshed constantly. As of now, news is available in English and Hindi. The number of supported languages will be increased as the application becomes more stable.

Hope you will like it, as always, please let me know your views via Feedback.

writeKA - now on Google's सबसे लोकप्रिय सामग्री

2007-10-24T22:11:00.000+05:30

Yes! The writeKA Hindi Transliterator gadget made it to the blue list, the list of most popular Google Gadgets on the Hindi version of iGoogle. Its a volatile virtual world out there, so I'm going to enjoy my moment of glory. :-) When you read this, if I'm lucky, it'll still be there. Go to http://www.google.co.in/ig/hi and if you are NOT logged in, iGoogle will show you a list of most popular utilities.

Apart from this great news, I've updated writeKA's transliteration gadgets to use the new intelligent Scripton engine.

You can add them to your Google home page -
writeKA Hindi Transliterator for iGoogle
writeKA Malayalam Transliterator for iGoogle

You can also also add them to your website -
writeKA Hindi Transliterator for your website
writeKA Malayalam Transliterator for your website

Who moved my blog?

2007-10-22T19:15:00.000+05:30

I did.... :-) This is the new link - http://blog.writeka.com/.

I've also made small updates to Scripton. In the editor area, you'll notice that inputted words do not "disappear" until the system finds the correct transliteration any more. They stay on the editor and convert from English to Hindi (or Malayalam) as soon as the transliteration is available. I know its a bit slow, but I can't help it, I'm just an individual player here. If you're an entrepreneur, invest in me and I can make this better. ;-) Apart from this, I've updated the email functionality on Scripton so that emails are now accepted by Yahoo and AOL as well.

Its been a while . . .

2007-10-20T01:15:00.000+05:30

Its been a while since I posted on the blog now... I've been busy with work and haven't been able to do many updates on writeKA of late. I thought I needed to change that and so I sat down and managed to figure out what I need to do to resolve some issues which had been pending for a long time now. This includes the email delivery issue on Scripton. I also have a few new ideas, so hoping to bring the updates online soon.

I'm planning on moving the blog to the main website in the next couple of days.

Malayalam, now on Scripton!

2007-07-17T22:57:00.000+05:30

I've recently added intelligent online transliteration for Malayalam using the new Scripton transliteration engine. Scripton tries to predict what word you are trying to in without using any fixed transliteration map. For example, if you type in malayalam ezhuthan eluppam, then you'll get മലയാളം എഴുതാന്‍ എളുപ്പം.

Go ahead and give it a try - writeKA Scripton - English to Malayalam.

Screenshots of Scripto

2007-07-05T00:36:00.000+05:30

Just thought I'll post some screenshots of Scripto here so you can take a peek before you download...

Scripto with the names of the default languages in version 0.2.0...

The dialog box for downloading new languages or updating existing ones...

The Blog Account setup, Adding a new account by just providing the blog URL.

And Scripto does the config for you.... (except user name and password of course!)
Publishing to a blog is simple - select your blog URL and enter password, then click Publish...

So go on, download and give it a try now...

Introducing Scripton . . .

2007-07-02T23:45:00.000+05:30

I just realised I never formally introduced Scripton, the new intelligent online transliteration engine on writeKA (and a distant cousin of Scripto from the previous post)! OK, now I did. :-)

Right now, only the Hindi version of Scripton is publicly available. Other languages will follow soon. (as soon as I get to work on it!) Why do call Scripton intelligent? Because, it does a moderately good job of trying to guess the words correctly when you write in Hindi. For example, if you write tamatar aur kabutar, it will give the correct output as टमाटर और कबूतर. This wouldn't be possible in a fixed map engine like the ones used earlier. The engine will only improve with time as more people use it and correct presently incorrect outputs.

Give it a shot - writeKA Scripton.

writeKA Scripto 0.2.0 Beta version released

2007-07-01T21:58:00.000+05:30

I've just released the second beta version of writeKA Scripto.
Download Scripto.

It has a new look and feel and a lot more features, though the core transliteration mechanism has remained the same. I'll spend some more time on the core functionality in the newer releases.

The new features include:
1. Email using SendEmail
2. Publishing to all blog engines that support MetaWeblog API. This means you can now post directly to blogs running on Wordpress, MSN Live Spaces etc.
3. Auto configuration of blog accounts by making use of RSD.
4. A cool new icon set called Silk
5. Easy selection of (and shifting between) languages. Its also easier to add new languages.
6. Direct download of language maps from within the client - If you did not find your language and you would like to contribute to getting it included, please contact me or just post a comment here.

I also did a lot of clean up under the hood. I hope you all like it... please let me know!

Still here!

2007-05-29T22:14:00.000+05:30

Its been a long while since my last post and I've still not published a new version of Scripto. So I thought I'll put a note out that I'm still working on stuff. The last few months, I was busy with things other than writeKA, BUT NOW I'm giving the final touches to a brand new service from writeKA, which I think will be the best yet. It will be releasing in a few days. As for Scritpto, I'll try my best to publish the next update soon!

Scripto Update #1

2007-03-13T21:06:00.000+05:30

This is a small update to tell you what to expect in the next version of Scripto:
1. More languages - YES! But I need help with this as I don't speak all languages! Please let me know if you want to see your language (script) on Scripto.
2. More Blog platforms - Yup, I'm testing this right now. Scripto will support a whole range of other Blog platforms including Wordpress.
3. Some additional features - This is not finalised yet, so I'm not going to talk about it now.

Please do tell me what you would like to see in the coming versions . . .

റയിറ്റ്കാ സ്ക്രിപ്റ്റൊ - മലയാളം ബ്ലോഗ് പോസ്റ്റ്

2007-03-10T01:30:00.001+05:30

ഈ പൊസ്റ്റ് റയിറ്റ്കാ സ്ക്രിപ്റ്റൊയില്‍ നിന്ന് എഴുതി, ഡയരക്ട് പോസ്റ്റ് ചെയ്തതാണ്. സ്ക്രിപ്റ്റൊ ഉപയോഗിച്ചു പല ഭാഷകളില്‍ എഴുതാന്‍ കഴിയും.

राइट-क स्क्रिप्टो - हिंदी ब्लोग पोस्ट

2007-03-07T00:11:00.001+05:30

यह पोस्ट राइट-क स्क्रिप्टो से किया गया है। स्क्रिप्टो से आप कई भाषाओं में लिख सकोगे और ब्लोग भी कर सकोगे।

writeKA Scripto 0.1.0 Beta version released

2007-03-07T00:06:00.000+05:30

The first beta version of writeKA Script was released yesterday. You can download Scripto from http://www.writeka.com/scripto/ Scripto is a Transliterator and Blog Publisher. It has two features at the moment:
1. Configurable Transliteration Map - You can create your own map file - this means that you can create a map for almost any language you want - or even any font you want.
2. Direct Publishing - Scripto supports direct publishing to blogs hosted on Blogspot - for those using the NEW VERSION OF BLOGGER..

There are still many features missing that you find on the online version of Blogger, they will be added in steps in the coming releases. Please do not test Scripto on your main blogs, there is a test blog available and access will be provided on request - or of course you can create your own test blog.