Six years later, I know where I stand. Many, many thanks to those of you who have helped me to keep it going. Among them, Speedy stands out, because without his help and encouragement, I would not have been able to keep doing this. Some innovative features like "Creative Spot" were his ideas, not mine. ND has been prolific with his own brand of writings. I have not forgotten Sriani, Srianee (Bunter), Indra, Zita, Sanath Lama, Kumar, Pram and Rohini Ana who have been of immense help right along. Unfortunately, Razaque is unable to contribute much these days. My own suggestion of a feature titled "Then and Now", never got off the ground. It would have been interesting to see how appearances have changed from the time we all entered the Colombo Medical Faculty.
Some time in the near future, we might top the millionth mark with recorded "hits" (at the time of writing, it was 979,934. I am pleased to share with you this all time breakdown of page views. At any given moment, I see that someone in Sri Lanka is looking at the blog.
Pageviews by Countries
Let's keep this going at least till then.
Thanks Lucky- point taken--- loud and clear.
ReplyDeleteJust emerged from my "hibernation"!!
Shall now contribute as "regular"......& that will be with a "VENNGEANCE"!!!!!
Razaque
Oh it's lovely to see you back, Razaque! I have been praying for you to recover and I am so happy now and I can see that we are about to have our Old Razaque back! Yippeee! Zita
DeleteGreat to see you Razaque, the Prince from Penang.
DeleteLucky, Be assured- Your untiring efforts have not gone unappreciated. Personally, Iam thankful for the opportunity the blog has given me in becoming acquainted with some of my batchmates whom I would never have come to know otherwise.
ReplyDeleteThanks to Mahen too for the part he has played, and to all the "regulars" who have kept me informed, educated, and amused all these years!
Cheers
I can say, hear hear to that Rohini. I totally agree with you. Regardless of the number of contributors, the Blog is an immense success. I, like you, find the Blog a great boon, as I am able to voice my thoughts, opinions and reminiscences. Well done Lucky. You have done a fantastic job and all who helped you, like Mahendra, can share in that glory. Zita
DeleteRazaque, So good to see you back-Hope you are feeling as good as new ! cheers
ReplyDeleteHello Bloggers! I am back after a golf weekend in Spain. First of all, nice to see you back Razaque. "Nice to see you,to see you nice!" in the worss of the famous Bruce Forsythe. You always add a substantial amount of humour and interest.
ReplyDeleteSecondly, thanks to Lucky who started this and keeps it going, spending a lot of his precious time on it.
As for the utility of our Blog, the only way to look at it is that it has proved to be a very useful forum for us to keep in touch and share so many ideas and experiences. How do we judge whether it is serving a purpose or not? Persoanlly I am of the opinion that the number of hits is a very useful indictor. People would not keep visitinhg it if it was otherwise. It would be nice if more of us actively contributed by commenting or sending articles to be published but we just have to accept that is not going to happen; and it is not for the want of trying.
Those of us who attended the recent reunion were surprised (and delighted) by the number of batchmates who told us that they visit the Blog and enjoy reading its contents.They are just not into the "culture" of using computers other than in a very basic way. They are not exactly luddites but just "not into it". One idea I have is for us to pursue something done by one of our frineds in the Batch (personal knowledge) and contact them by phone. letter or email and get their persmissoon to publish something they have done or published, by doing some internet searches ourselves. I can thnk of a few who have distiingushed themselves in not just academic fields but in areas such as sport, drama etc. I am going to start this process in the next few days and hopefully come up with something.
Next, I wish to say "well done and keep going " to Zita,ND, Rohini Ana, Indra Ana, Razaque, Sriani and Srianee, Kumar G,Santh Lama,(Pram.Lucky Weerasuriya)and any others I have forgooten to acknowledge.
Our Blog is quite amazing and is definitely worth keeping alive. I know the day will come when it will become an useful Archive but this day is not with us yet!
Apologies for "typos"! I should have checked before publishing.
DeleteTo all those in our Forum
ReplyDeleteThis a great place to meet and greet and has been for many years now. Thanks to Lucky and Mahen for the hard work, dedication and enthusiasm. To all the others my appreciation for continuing the friendship we started in the faculty. You all have made this Forum great.
Hi Everyone, I fully endorse the comments made,especially those thanking Lucky for his efforts. So nice to know that Razaque is fit and "rearing to go"! Even though I'm not that talented like those "regulars", I still visit the blog every day, and keep up with all your doings. What a woderful forum this is......just to keep in touch, among other benefits.
ReplyDeleteSriani Basnayake.
Sriani, you are a star. it is so gratifying to know that the Blog (what a name by the way!) has many regular visitors. You have given us your own input from time to time. How about a fresh one? And may be some new ideas to rejuvenate the Bog, sorry Blog!
DeleteSriani, from what I have seen of your contributions to the batch, sport, professional work, meetings, get togethers, and now on our blog, you are indeed a STAR as Mahendra say. I look forward to 'reading you'! Zita
DeleteThis comment has been removed by the author.
ReplyDeleteI observed with interest that as far as PAGE VIEWS go, France with fewer Sri Lankans & still fewer doctors from the island has more page views than either the UK or Sri Lanka itself.It is also of interest that there are 20,000 page views from Russia.
ReplyDeleteI agree with you, Indra, that the page views break down is intriguing and interesting. The popularity of this Blog is truly international. The wide readership could be because of our batch mates recommending the Blog to their friends in other countries. I know I have recommended it to our juniors, and our seniors in other countries. And they too have passed it on to their friends. This happens only if what they read is interesting. So let's take it as that. and more than ever congratulate Lucky on his efforts and willingness to continue this hard work. Zita
DeleteI am not an expert on Blogs but it is important to understand that the number of Page views (which is the statistic referred to here) is not the same as the number of people who have visited the blog over the period of time analysed. A Page view happens everytime your browser (Firefox or Google Chrome or Safari or Internet Expoerer) accesses the Blog page. If you access the Blog 10 times yourself in one session or one day, it will go as 10 views for example). Blogs are also accessed by little automated programs known as BOTS or SPIDERS. These could be legititmate such as Google analysing your Blog for keywords for indeximg search engines or could be unscrupulous people searching blogs for sensitive information such as emails.
ReplyDeleteAll this boils down to the fact that Page View number generated exceeds actual visits to the blog by a significant margin.Google has improved this in the last few years in terms of BOTS, but is still not perfect.
You will always see surprsing visits by countries such as Russia, Ukraine and these are highly unlikely to be genuine visits to your blog.
Nevertheless, our Page View Count is an indication, although not the most accurate, of the popularity of our Blog.
Just try this. Note the page vew number (appears at bottom of Blog).Now access comments on any post. Now note that the count has gone up by 1. Now refresh your Browser (by pointing and clicking on the refresh sysmbol on yout Browser - a clockwise circular arrow symbol on the Inforrmation Bar top left) and the count goes up by one more. Now click the Home button on the Blog and the Blog will refresh The count goes up by one. You can see that every time you do anything with the Blog, the count increases. I could move around the Blog in one visit and easily push up the Page View count by 10!
ReplyDeleteMahendra, thanks for putting some 'flesh on the bones' of our analysis of page views. Bots or Spiders! What things we have to contend with! But a visit by google, or a bot or a spider is better than none. 'Better dead than unread'? If a blog name comes up in search results, OK! There is a good chance somebody new will be fixated by 'colombomedgrads', who are they? What do they do? Let's find out! So, Bots, Spiders and stealthy visitors, you are welcome, and please spread the word for us! Zita
DeleteMahen,thanks for the explanation- there is always something to learn, but also for puncturing our balloon that we will reach a million soon. I hope i got that right.
ReplyDeleteIndra, At the rate we are going with Page Views, we shoukd hit the Millionmark before the end of August. My updated predictionis that Page Views will be 1 Million by mid-August. In spite of its limitations, this is still quite an achievement
ReplyDeleteI have read all your comments here. In spite of the BOTS and Spiders it is a great way to catch up with each other. It is like our own private Facebook. Lucky, thank you for your dedication to keep this going for so long. Speedy, thank you for your enthusiasm. ND and others, for your wonderful contributions. In addition, Razaque, Zita, Rohini Ana, Sriani, Kumar G, Indra A, Pram, Lucky W, Sanath Lama, it is lovely to be able to visit the blog and exchange comments with all of you. There are several visitors from our own batch who are uncomfortable about making public comments. I hope they get over their bashfulness! Let's keep this going.
ReplyDeleteSrianee, you struck the nail on the head.: The Blog is a medium to catch up with one another. For the dear Departed Ones, it is too late. But we can 'catch up' with the walking, thinking, reminiscing ones. So, how about iT? Let's forgive and forget any reservations we have with anyone in the Batch. During the hardworking five years we were practically oblivious of others, our attention principally on our studies. Now we have free time. Let's talk, let's laugh, let's share interesting bits of our lives with one another.
ReplyDeletec stands for courage,confidence,criticism,confusion,conflict,children,circumstances,challenge and caution
ReplyDeleteRazors pain you;Rivers are damp,Acids stain you;and drugs cause cramps.Guns are n't lawful;Nooses give suffocation;Gases smell awful.
ReplyDeleteYou might as well live.Author unknown.