Internet Freedom, SharePoint Tips And People - Popular Blog Posts In March

March gave me many different kinds of blog ideas. Some were read by many, while a few seem to have gone by fairly un-noticed. Let’s concentrate on the positive and have a look at what has been popular!

kalmstrom.com Tips
Peter Kalmstrom, our CEO and creator of the kalmstrom.com products, has made a number of video demonstrations on various topics, and month after month the blog articles about them are among the most visited.

Peter is a Microsoft certified SharePoint Specialist and Trainer, and in March two of his SharePoint tips were the most popular: How to add Javascript to SharePoint and How to Archive SharePoint list items. Many more find their way to the Tips section of the kalmstrom.com website, and we are glad our tips are found useful!
  
Kanban Task Manager
The interest for our new Outlook application for Tasks is still high, and January post about the Kanban board for Outlook is still read by many. This is a good omen for the reception of Kanban Task Manager, when it is released in May.   


Important women and men
Articles about people always get many visits, and in March we had Peter’s post on the International Women’s Day on women who had meant much to him. I wrote about our new Developer Anshul Takalkar and of baby Rimza – son of the kalmstrom.com Lead Developer. And the February story about the engagement of kalmstrom.com Developer Kanak Joshi was much read also in March.


Skype and Internet freedom
I try to cover general subjects within the kalmstrom business area, and in March the post about the incredible growth of Skype after the Microsoft requisition arouse interest.

I also wrote two articles about the UNHRC panel discussion on internet freedom on the last day of February. It was so popular that I wrote a follow up where I reported about the results of the meeting. This article was not as much read as the first one, maybe because I was early with the news the day the discussion was held. Probably people read about the discussion more in detail in news media after seeing my article and were not as interested the second time.

  
German and Swedish growth
In February I told you that the kalmstrom.com Blog was most read in the US and UK, and it was the same in March. But then there is a change: where we earlier had India and China on the second position we now have those two plus Germany and my home country Sweden.

In February the third group of countries with many blog readers were mostly European, but in March we find Brazil and Canada here also. I am not surprised at Canada, because we have several Members of kalmstrom.com Community there, but Brazil is a happy surprise. Maybe we soon may welcome our first Brazilian Community Member?

New kalmstrom.com Developer With A Flare For The Dramatic

kalmstrom.com Business Solutions has a new developer at the Indian office. His name is Anshul Takalkar, and he has been with us since February.

Master of Computer Applications
After his Bachelor of Computer Science exam Anshul went for the Master of Computer Applications degree, and two years ago he begun working as a software developer specialized on web and Windows applications. His education and experience qualified him for a position in the kalmstrom.com team, and we were all glad when he agreed to join us.

Kanban Task Manager
After the first introduction period Anshul has done a great job with the JQuery-based User Interface of our new project, Kanban Task Manager for Outlook. With this application a workgroup can co-operate on tasks and projects inside Outlook, and Anshul is making sure that we can sort, filter and of course drag & drop the tasks in a user-friendly and snappy way.

Mahabharat actor
Anshul is interested in drama and performed in several plays during his school time. One of them was the great Indian epic Mahabharat, where Anshul played the warrior Bheema.

Mahabharat is one of the world's most influencial texts, on the same level as the Bible and the Koran or the works of Shakespeare and Homer. It is about the war between the Pandavas and the Kauravas but it also has a strong philosophical content. Anshul's drawing below shows the victorious Lord Krishna (in the middle) and the rest of the Pandavas: Bheema, Arjun, Nakul, Yudhishthir and Sahdev.

Common interests
Anshul shares his interest in drama with the kalmstrom.com CEO, Peter, who both directed and acted before his fascination for software development took over. Anshul and I also have interests in common – to write and sing.

Anshul Takalkar has already shown that he is a skilled developer and a good team worker, so we all wish him a warm welcome to kalmstrom.com!

Congratulations To Newly Engaged kalmstrom.com Developer

Our clever developer Kanak Joshi has recently become engaged to IBM R & D Engineer Rugved Ambekar, and the whole kalmstrom.com team wishes them a happy future.

To the left the happy couple is standing in front of a Lord Ganesha's painting created by Kanak's future mother-in-law.
  
Around 30 people, family and close relatives, were present at the ceremony. It started with a Hindu ritual for God’s blessing, a pooja, and after that the couple exchanged rings in presence of the priest.   


On the photo below you see the engagement rings and the mehndi on Kanak’s hands. Mehndi is a temporary henna decoration that has been used in India at special occasions for more than 3000 years. It is described even in the earliest Vedas.   


I asked Kanak what was so special about Rugved, and she revealed that she loved that he is so full of fun and joy. “His personality was the first thing that impressed me,” she said. She also told me that her fiancée plays the guitar and is a very good singer. It sounds as if this man will be a good partner for our gem of a girl!

A lot of presents were given after the ring ceremony. Both families gave clothes to each other, which is common in India at important occasions. Apart from the ring Kanak also received other gold and silver jewelry from her future in-laws.   
  
Kanak enjoys gardening and flowers very much, so she is happy that her new family owns nurseries. I imagine the wedding ceremony in December will be fantastic when they have such decorating possibilities!