So now we can read the magazine here itself. :-) Thanks to scribd.
Please leave comments below to help us improve. Thanks in advance.

TheKnol 2.0 March

Letters to the Editor

(& praise)

"KNOL is truly Knowledgeable. Best thing is that it is for everybody, means people having interests in different fields from serious, intellectual types to gossip mongers. Plus, its interactive.. with those arrow marked comments. So, overall it's really very very cool... Great work... :-)"

- Sonakshi, IT- 2^nd year

"There wasn't even a single thing stereotyped. I mean everything was so fresh and pleasure to read. Keep on taking feedbacks and get set for the The KNOL – December issue. At least I'll be looking forward to it."

- Mukul Saxena, IT-3^rd year

"Good work man. KNOL rocks!! Waiting for the next edition."

- Bhashkar Naithani, ME-4^th year

"Incredible work! Bata kya chahiye.....? :D Ismein humara naam to hai hi nahin. Lol"

- Manu & Vitika (Editor Nikunj Lahoti's brother n sister-in-law. Working for software firms in UK) [this ain't Uttarakhand]

Editor:

Thanks a lot for the valuable words of praise. We are glad that you liked it. We'll try to make KNOL delightful experience for the contributors, for the readers and for the volunteers themselves.

"Comment: Awesome work!!...Enticing Creativity!!..Spell bounding graphics!!...who says COER lacks Talent...KUDOS!! ( IT COULD NOT HAVE BEEN BETTER )

Criticism: The hazardous material data sheet appeared to me a bit out of league( like odd man out stuff a bit immature thought for such a creative stuff)...but again thats my thinking.

Suggestion: Avoid Committees Stuff(make it purely an autonomous body)."

- Gaurav Khantwal (COER Batch '07 ET / Admin Assistant, College of Science, GeorgeMason University)

Editor:

hello Sir.
thanks a lot for giving us your valuable feedback.
it really has been a pleasure to receive your mail.
We are Sorry because we couldn't reply to it earlier because of some petty issues.
We are Glad because you liked the KNOL.
In future we surely would try to improve and make it more crispy & relevant.

The first edition was targeted for those who couldn't understand the meaning of "Knol" and for the other few who couldn't buy our credibility. So we even tried to show efforts (though crappy as it looks) thru our notices too.
you can check our archive @ http://theknol.blogspot.com

One thing that we think is a hindrance to the effort, is the size of the team. We need people who actually want to work & you know how difficult it is to find such creative people.
But soon we'll do something for that. We'll be in touch with you for guidance.. et al.
Thanks again.

Before you get your hands, rather eyes, on what I've written, I'd very much like to make it clear that after reading it you might land on some conclusions such as this- this text was meant for a different group of readers initially, but slowly the focus drifted to the KNOL guys. Hope you wudn't mind that. Other than that, after reading it, do tell me wateva u feel like. Keepin u busy no more, here's the deal:

You guys might be wondering what's with this surge of enlightenment amongst the final years that's been keeping them on their toes working so hard to bring out a mag such as this. Well, the excitement of being a creator, that's known to all of us, constitutes one of the prime reasons for the same. Yet it's not all, far from being the heart and soul of the matter.
Well, as the legend goes, our dearest friend Nix (this being the Linux version for Nikunj; derived from good old buddy Tux, the Linux mascot penguin – courtesy me, although his pet names like 'Niks' (mark the difference!)or 'Lambu' already were in existence) came up with the stupendously superb idea of publishing an e-mag that'd carry the informal as well as formal stuff pertaining to college happenings and activities. An e-mag was a good choice due to many a reasons quoting all of which is neither necessary nor required here. A few of the many would be the easy distribution, the almost priceless (either way!) creation and best of all- on-the-fly readability. That's really brilliant, my friend.

Well, being an avid reader (interested in the details? Check out my Orkut profile) I considered penning something down for the mag, first edition, but sadly, lazy as I am, could do little to bring my thoughts into action. Nothing new in it, I've achieved flawless perfection in postponing things with official deadlines to the last possible extent. But the summary of it all was that I was pretty much unable to be able to be featuring my name in the volume 1 of KNOL (MUCUR's been missing me so much for all the same reasons all this while). I finally figured out that it's time to be up-n-running or it's a now-or-never situation for me. And this is the first write-up that I'm composing. As I couldn't figure out what to write, so here I am.

Congrats to the KNOL team for all the good work. And hey guys, could u try making it more informal? After all, it's OUR mag pals. And to Nikunj, hats off dude. Keep up the good work.
Take care. Hoping to be able to extract all the more fun from the upcoming issues, yours truly.

- Bhashkar Sharma, IT-4^th year

Editor:

hey... that's one thing we'd like to include in KNOL... its full of humor.. and is catty...
Hats off to you too for coming up with something of that measure.
I really enjoyed every ounce of it... (who'd not!!!? It was a prise to either the idea.. or to us... Lol)
Thanks a lot for appreciating... & I want you to know that I seriously want at least one write-up from you....in the next issue. Well we'll try to make it more catchy... more informal & full of fun... together we'll make it a place for the KT (knowledge transfer)... the platform..we all ever wanted :D tkcr.......(thanks again)

CRAPpy IDEAS

In this tough time.. when getting out of the quilt is one big morning struggle (read: ordeal)... & keeping eyes positioned on the book is a distant affair (we all day dream.. Right?), our (crappy) creative team is always trying hard to come up with something... Something to prove their might right...!!

We personally believe that in such difficult times some of the best ideas are conceived. We've now made a resolution, to take out a day every week staring at a course book ('ideating' in short).

Some of this month's potential candidates are:

BAND-BAJAAO

YEAR-BOOK

RE-UNION

Year-Book

Watching people look back to their high school and college yearbooks in all these movies and TV Series, we some how developed this craving to have one for our own.
Lets get a quick (not brief) overview of the whole thing & later jot down some important stuff.

Wikipedia Says:
“A yearbook, also known as an annual, is a book to record, highlight, and commemorate the past year of a school or a book published annually. Virtually all American, Australian and Canadian high schools, most colleges and many elementary and middle schools publish yearbooks.”

Compilation
Yearbooks are generally compiled by a student committee, which may or may not be advised by members of the faculty. The committee usually has one or more editors who are responsible for collecting and compiling all of the information to be contained within the book, also deciding the layout and allocation of space for each contributor.

Layout
Refers to the appearance of the pages, and it may include the following elements:

• The Headline: This is a theme that ties the page into the story and draws attention to the reader.

• The Story/Copy: Consists of several paragraphs, capturing the highlights of a specific department, sports season, organization, etc., from the past year. Often, yearbook staff members will either send out surveys/interview students, teachers and others for comments.

• Photographs: Candid shots of students, suitable to the page's topic and theme. Often, editors seek to include a cross-section of the student body (e.g., classes, races, school involvement, etc.). Included with the photographs are one or more captions, which describe each picture; these often begin with a lead-in.

Normally each student will have an individual photo of them accompanied by their name and perhaps one or two lines of text. Student's photographs are often accompanied by text about their accomplishments throughout the college, and their future plans (if known). Frequently, seniors are polled to nominate their classmates for "superlatives" or "class celebrities" (such as "most likely to succeed," "most athletic," "most spirited" and "class clown"), are often published in the senior section. Some private schools and smaller high schools set aside an entire page for each senior. These pages are sometimes designed by the seniors themselves, with each senior submitting a digital or physical version of the page he or she would like featured in the book.

Student Life
Several pages are often used for pages chronicling activities undertaken by students, such as trips abroad (eh!! what's that?), activity trips, sporting and other special events. These pages often consist of photo-journals displayed with or without captions.
Sometimes members of a yearbook write editorial and journalistic content about life as a student, current events (local, national and international) and other matters of interest to the peer group.

Advertising pages
Many yearbooks gain revenue by including a section of ads from local businesses.
Some schools sell advertisements for seniors. Parents, other family members and friends use these ads to congratulate a senior — or group of seniors — for their accomplishments.

Distribution
Often, yearbooks are distributed at the end of a school year to allow members to obtain the books and signatures/personal messages from classmates.

Digital yearbooks
A digital yearbook is a yearbook holding memories of a given time with a given group of people. A digital yearbook contains text, images, audio, and video. While a traditional paper yearbook may contain a few dozen pages, a digital yearbook can contain hundreds or even thousands of pages. The end product of a digital yearbook is either a CD-ROM or a DVD.

SNAPSHOTS (University of Michigan)

pp222-223 & pp26-27

(Index & Advertisements) pp372-373 & pp16-17

Q. So? [silence] What's the catch??
A. Lets see how many of us need such a book to show it to their siblings or kids, later in their life. Well a couple of decades down the line, who wouldn't want to look back?? How about bringing peace to your mind [after looking at it] when one day, talking to an old friend, you weren't been able to recollect a face or remember a name [of a batch mate or a faculty]? Or just to see the change(s) happened to you.

Q. How is that any different from the college's official annual magazine?
A. Come on! You really need an answer to that? It doesn't have a snap of each one of us. Well seriously it'll have loads of pictures of the students, our lush green campus, and what not. All in a fashion we ever thought (or even if didn't).

Q. Who'll do this job?
A. Well as suggested, a group or a committee informally or otherwise would be made with or without a convener. If the “one”-publishing-the-annual-magazine finds the idea a) 'worth it' & then b) feasible & then c) is willing to (& can [well you can say... 'the administration', 'R&D' and 'spare-time' required]) do it...... YAHOO! This couldn't have been better (with all their experience & finesse). Its gonna be incredible.

Q. Okay if the “one”-p-t-a-m turns their back. How are we going to proceed?
A. Well in that (unfortunate) case, we are on our own.

Things we'll Need:

• People to take pictures and help produce the book (called Volunteers)

• Technical Know-how with some of the finest pagemaker tools (think Adobe)

• Cameras, computers, software for page layout (called Symbiosis)

• Lots of time and patience (called Persistence)

• Candid Photographs & Written articles having relevance to us (We the Living)

• Advertisers (in case we need to get the book published even for the final year alone) – Would people be willing to pay?

• Publishers (ours is a small town. Right?)

• Portraits (passport sized maybe) of the multitude of students.

Q. Great! So we need pictures of everyone in the campus?
A. Not really. Just the final year graduating (or maybe more than that. As in M.B.A. and M.C.A.). It'll be an every year (annual) affair. Each time for the current final year.

Q. How is KNOL related to any of it?
A. KNOL is a platform where ideas merge and beauty is CREATED. Its just a random thought occurred to one of our (CRAPpy) creative leads. If you can see the very obvious... KNOL is, in a way, very flexible & can take any part...from playing the role of an online college-forum(like Orkut-Community)... surveying machine....to an online college-magazine. Lets shape out something good. & make it (!world) a better place to Live-in.

Update: 20080128

• KNOL is not going to work with any committee “officially”. Its not that we didn't try.

  KNOL is autonomous... Its informal & thats why is so flexible.. that no one knows where did the December edition go!!! Of course there are lovely people who have agreed to assist us.

• For doing all the work successfully we need more people in our Team. If you are interested, then please write to us or contact via phone numbers.

• As of now this YearBook, once made, will be available online in our very favorite PDF format. Lets call it DY-KNOL (Digital Yearbook KNOL) [Pronounced: Dai-KNOL] henceforth.

• This PDF can be printed out (we can make arrangements of that later if possible).

  Efforts are being made to make a hard-copy of the Book available to everyone FREE OF COST. If not, then at least to those who contributed well.

• The Plan is.. that once the email-ids are collected (How & What comes later). We'll send people the questionnaires & online links to be filled in.

• Questionnaires will have things like 'confessions', 'crush-list', 'things-I'll-miss', 'experiences-earned' and 'testimonials' etc. Online we'll run polls to Elect (& give titles to) 'the Cutest Guy in the batch' & 'the Fart-o-phile'.. et al.

• The Current Friend Circles(groups) in the final year batch can share with the world about their little heaven. The pet-names for everyone. The Story behind the group. Lingos.. Jargons.. & what not [The beauty of a Digital YearBook lies in its ability - “Size NO-Bar”. A separate page can be given to each member of the group]

• What we need people for:

  • Section Representatives:

    One guy & one gal (Mechanical department can be an exception here) would be collecting passport sized photographs, permanent email-ids, phone-nos (girls can give their work-phone or dad's number) of the students in the section in the final year.

  • CONTENT COLLECTORS:

    These people know the art of nagging well and so can do the very dangerous and tedious job of getting something beautiful (think: articulation) out of “We the People”.

  • FUND RAISER: (optionally)

    To get this thing printed out (published), we need money & the highly coveted skill to negotiate. So a little influence is required. Socialites to pay heed.

  • Photographers:

    Candids, and pictures of the campus and of any incidents. Please share with us.. all your amazing collections if you want that to be part of the issue.

  • Story Tellers & Elephants:

    Its said that Elephants have a sharp memory. We need these guys to narrate to the lesser mortals (like us) & make us recollect the Incidents (like The MESS Strike.. the Audi Wall.. or the Wedding(s) in the campus. et al) and of course the individual Achievements of the students of the batch (think: IIT-R.. GRE.. Google SOC). We'd really appreciate if such photographs come & the knowledge is shared with us.

  • Creative Leads:

    People who'll give ideas for the content in the DY-KNOL... stuff like we talked about and assistance to the designers for the colors-combinations and the graphics.

  • DY-KNOL designers:

    We'll train people how we work at KNOL and how we create the document every month. On top of this knowledge & technical guidance the development will commence (parallel-processing is the word).

  • Editors:

    These editors decide upon the content that comes and finally takes out the best & make it better keeping the morality alive.

  • Copy-Desk:

    Speedy typists to copy the handwritten stuff (if any) to the electronic archives for later use & persistence.

Post a comment if you could make a perception.

Re-UNION

It is going to be the 8^th graduating batch of B.Tech this year from COER. Wouldn't it be nice to come back and meet the batch-mates. Totally worth it I guess. Almost all of the colleges of a stature have this common thing (lets not talk about CGPA here), even some of the schools call alumni for a get together after certain years.

I don't kinda appreciate him (or his ideas) much but I really liked one of his saying

“Be the change you want to see in this world” - MDKCG

So if we really want some things like that to happen for us, we've got to make things come in action right now, as “The Change comes with Time!”.

Hope you get the point. But what can we do? Well.. there is something we can surely do. We can nag committees to arrange (& propose) something like that to the top-brass in such a fashion that they pay heed.

Random cynical thought: Don't know whether an “inter-college festival” is a possibility in 'our' campus.

Band-Bajaao!!

The mobile phones emerged and so did the vella people who had all the time (& energy... [include 18-Rs-free-SMS-vouchers to be bought]) in the world to waste (caution: use euphemism).. calling.. swearing.. & irritating the ones having the fairer skin. Making them feel.... hmm... lets say 'important'. Okay lets not digress any more and save ourself from getting an earful (a fretting feminist should know that we are in the same team).

Lets see how the protocol functions.... :D

(At least) Two girls (we'll check that) would have to testify (we'll ensure that repudiation won't be a possibility) that a number is responsible for severe brain(s) damage.

In short, they'll (we won't disclose the names of the victims) tell us the number which causes trouble & related agony, and in return we'll float this number here in the upcoming issues with a potential Threat-Level.

It serves us in two possible ways......

a) Seeing this number we'd fish out our mobile phones and would try to attach a name against the number. If we get successful... the guy's public image gets mutated for sure (if not occurred a metamorphosis). How about a 'total-social-boycott'?

b) we know another unknown 10 digits we can miss calls from.

In case we spot a guy, we surely can send “get-well-soon” wishes through The Knol as well.

Some issues surrounding that:

1. If you get into a caller's head, you'll find a list of numbers (as his potential victims), now seeing his number afloat here, wouldn't he get berserk & would go after one with vengeance? – Would that be making the problem even worse?

2. What if the guy has a separate mobile number for this job (which comes alive at the dead of the night) – Do you really think someone can be THAaaaaaT Despo??

3. What if this guy delegates this sadistic role to a local friend who is not in our college!! - Well its nothing we can do about it. But nonetheless we'd know a number we'd not have to even care to pick up... ever... ever.

If you appreciate the idea (even when you don't) or suggest a change in the same (or maybe have a similar yet different & exciting one)... do post back. Post comment

Updates and advancements

[this month]

• blogspot.com (blogger.com) is no longer blocked by the college's proxy server listening at 192.168.0.2:3128. Kudos!! Its freedom to all the Blogger's.

• OpenOffice.org just got a version older. We've switched to OpenOffice.org 3.0.1. Its so much the better :D [Opensource rocks].

• 1624 fonts with us are all ready to show their worth. But finally our team has got unanimous over a font (this same font) named “Teen,sans-serif” [Guess they just could not forget theirs.....]

• हिन्दी support fixed in OpenOffice.org using CTL (Complex Text Layout). Using SCIM (Smart Common Input Method) & useful translations, “hai” became 'है'। Insert → Special-Character (using Lohit Hindi) has been useful to find key strokes. We also can write in other Indic languages, to name a few, Telugu.. Tamil.. Kannada.. Oriya.. Malayalam.. Punjabi.. Gujarati.. Bengali.. Assamese etc but reckon... who'd understand or translate 'em?

• Monthly Archives in text format (without our KNOL touch) would now on be accessible every month on our new blog knolthismonth.blogspot.com.

• Commenting (posting feedback) on all of the articles is now possible. Even anonymously!

• This month owing to the typos in the first issue The KNOL team decided to let the articles undergo a rigorous testing & checking procedure. We manually tried to check for structural errors or misleading sentences but lets face it.. after all we are humans. We're determined to improve, & hope such errors would be minimized in the future.

• New sections have been added. Like this one (change-log) & 'CRAPpy ideas' & Launch-Pad & SuperKnol (Collaborative Effort).

• iPaper
  Scribd.com converts the uploaded pdf documents into iPaper. iPaper can be very easily embedded inside any html page using the scribd's flash support. It offers a variety of modes like book-view, single-page-view etc. We have the November'08 issue available at knolthismonth.blogspot.com.

• SIZE
  We do the basic designing in OOo and then export it as PDF (Portable Document Format). Last time the whole document became 9.6MB large in size, all because of the Digital-Camera pictures in the Big-Story as well as the Committee-updates. We finally have been able to find a work around. Now while exporting the document we can reduce the DPI of images & the quality of the images. It'll help those who had trouble downloading it the last month.

• Owing to the viewer's interests, demands and feedbacks, we've discontinued the committee-updates section, making it totally autonomous.

• Pictures (snaps) of the contributors have also been added. Now you can even spot your favorite writer at the grocery shop (or maybe taking a stroll around café).
  

• Index page has agreed to show up this time.