A new blog from a bunch of guys from this community

What happens when a bunch of guys, who share the same passion for something, come together and work hard on creating something? The outcome is legendary. Microsoft, Google, Apple, Twitter - they all did it.

Similarly, a bunch of us from this community, who shared the same passion for a particular company, got together and worked hard to create something. What's the outcome, you ask? Well, why don't you tell us?

Presenting, Smoking Apples - The premier source of Apple news, views and reviews with an Indian perspective.

Even though we sorta had a soft launch a few weeks back, so as to iron out any bugs that we encounter. Today, we officially launch the site. Here's what we have to say.

Welcome, my dear friends, to Smoking Apples, the premier source of Apple news, views and reviews in the neighbourhood! As you should have by now guessed, we intend to cover all the interesting (and sometimes not so much) happenings revolving around our favourite fruity company. From the Mac to the iPod and the iPhone to the Apple TV, you’ll find it all here, information from a cacophony of sources that has been distilled into pure, readable form and lovingly handcrafted for you. (Wow, we could be artists!)

This site is run by a group of five talented youngsters located in various parts of India including Chennai, Goa, Mumbai and Siliguri (in West Bengal). Milind and I were the ones who originally came up with the idea of starting an Apple related website but one that was distinguished from the thousands of others in the same category by its characteristic Indian charm. However, the lazy procrastinating bums that we are, the idea never really took to flight. It took Ashwin’s determination, and his confidence and experience from already running a successful blog, to get us all into gear and register the domain name. Once the engines had been fired up, there was no stopping us.

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So why don't you head over to the site, take a look at it and the awesome posts that we have written so far and then tell us how have we fared? Remember, we're open to whatever feedback you may have and we'll only improve. Seriously, any thoughts/suggestions/words/views, please let us know.

Smoking Apples

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Preshit,
Administrator and Contributor

Stop smoking Apples, grow up. Smoke weed. Losers.

Awright! So good to finally launch it. This blog is going to be awesome I tell you. Freakinshpeels awesome. And we're going to have world class quality writing, largely due to our Grammar Nazi making all posts go through him

Boys and girls. If you do not visit and subscribe to the RSS feed, you will be banned

(and Preshit has got some super RSS feed which links to your digit ID so I will know)

Seriously though, I won't ban users, only miserable them for a couple of months.

Professional ! reminds me of Godfather

Good luck !

Good luck with your venture

My tingling 7th sense tells me that it will become a very popular and highly followed blog in a short period of time

A good intiative, I must add

wud be like freeme, but hopefully more actively updated

slugger said:
Good luck with your venture

My tingling 7th sense tells me that it will become a very popular and highly followed blog in a short period of time

A good intiative, I must add

wud be like freeme, but hopefully more actively updated

Thank you! Those are the kindest and most optimistic words I’ve heard yet about our site.

M

slugger said:
wud be like freeme, but hopefully more actively updated

IMO, this is a separate topic and kept out of here. There's already a thread on this where it can be discussed.

Best of luck to you guys with the blog, with people like preshit, aayush and milind(sorry others I don't know you) involved I am sure it will do well.

^^ You don't know Ashwin aka former formidable mod on the forums, DrGrudge?

Nice endeavour ppl!

M

goobimama said:
^^ You don't know Ashwin aka former formidable mod on the forums, DrGrudge?

Not as much as to say anything about him. I have met you guys so I do actually know how dangerous you people are

All the best guys..Looks like a good start..Will keep a watch on it

P.S: The design could have been better than the current one.

Wow! Best of Luck people! Content posted till now is good.
Site design is simple and *cute* MAC-ish but can be improved a little more!
As other says.. A bunch of MacBoys together.. Its gonna be a sure success!

Don't worry about the design. We wanted to launch it with a perfect design, but since that day was never coming close we decided, what the hey, content is what matters. So while the current design is good, its just going to get better.

K

liked the clean interface, though the sides were pretty ugly.

Nice people

Like the minimalistic look; My best wishes to you guys !

H

oh hell the machism is here. lol *s269.photobucket.com/albums/jj44/visio159/Unismilies/19large.png

Guys, use a complete CMS with blog, forum and with a better theme

We intend to add a forum later on, when we have a wider and more dedicated reader base.

this reminds me of www.smokinglinux.com

Good luck to everyone associated with the website. Just a small suggestion if it can be called that -- constantly review how the website is doing and what content your visitors are interested in. And work on them more than anything else. Such startups don't always go as planned but generally it's a good thing. Plus, you should make it simpler and include a lot of mainstream articles which a wider audience would be interested in. Obviously, the editorial team should have a few general guidelines among yourselves and stick to it. This is just to ensure there's consistency among different editors (kind of hard to explain but I think you get the idea). Plan it out and kick some serious ass. We need better blogs

I wouldn't recommend starting a forum. Just have a weekly roundup of 'Ask SA' on blog and answer the better questions. That would be all. Good luck once again and don't let the team fall apart.

Thanks! Means a lot to us. After all what would we be without the loving support of Team Digit?!

God damn you people you started this site in my absence!! I got unlucky and wasn't online for the last few days.. Good luck guys

Do comment on the blog to be eligible in the Tshirt draw

^^^I just did. Now why do we have this on a new thread. Gosh!! I am poor at managing threads...

aryayush said:
We intend to add a forum later on, when we have a wider and more dedicated reader base.

When you do.. make me a Mod. God I wanna be a Mod one day, I wanna ban atleast one guy before I die!!

jamesbond007 said:
God I wanna be a Mod one day, I wanna ban atleast one guy before I die!!

Aim high, lad!! Some wanna be GOD, you just wanna be MOD??

^^lolz

Congratulations folks.

I've posted about SA on my website:
*techiesrealm.com/blog/2008/08/smoking-apples-apple-with-indian-flavour/

Congratulations guys. The theme is very nice and looks pro. I wish you all the best guys.

narangz said:
Congratulations folks.

I've posted about SA on my website:
*techiesrealm.com/blog/2008/08/smoking-apples-apple-with-indian-flavour/

Thank you!

Thanks to everyone for the kind words of support and encouragement. We’re actively working to implement the things that have been suggested in this thread and in the comments for the welcome post. Please reply to that post to be eligible for the T-shirt. Thanks again.

What's with the T-shirt? You're promoting it like you're giving away free iPods. I wonder whether Preshit didn't like the T-shirt he got from Apple.

I hope that T-shirt doesn't have the faces of the 5 MacBoys, like Din's mug!!