Archive for November, 2007
Friday, November 30th, 2007
Before I proceed, if you are not aware,what Google Experiments are, let me tell you about it briefly. Google has a wonderful concept called as Google labs,which is basically a playground for all the “Beta” web applications that Google is currently developing. I am sure you must have heard about Google labs. “The Google experimental” is a part of Google Labs, where the latest ideas that Google is working on are displayed. Google has always preferred participation and feedback from the users for improvement of the services. All the latest projects in which users can participate are listed in Google Experimental.
Some of the Projects that are included and are under development in Google Labs are:
There is special note that tells us these Apps are under development can work erratically at times. It says:
Please note: These technologies are still in the beginning stages of development, so they may disappear without warning or perform erratically. If something’s not working on this page, please come back and try it again later.
On the right we see a list named as Google Graduates. These are projects started in Google Labs and now are fully operational. A few projects that have been completed are listed below.
Some Mega Google Web Applications which were developed by Google labs and are fully functional:
- Web Alerts
Find out about new web pages on a topic of interest
- Google Desktop
Find all your information, whether it’s on the web or stored on your computer, from one convenient location
- Google Scholar
Search through journal articles, abstracts and other scholarly literature
- Google Maps
View maps, get driving directions, and search for local businesses and services.
- iGoogle
Add information you care about to your Google homepage
- Google Docs & Spreadsheets
Create, store and share documents and spreadsheets on the web
- Google Reader
Use Google’s web-based feed reader to keep track of your favorite web sites
The Google Experimental Section:
As I have said above Google Experimental are the latest ideas in Google Labs and allow user participation. Most of these experiments are aimed at, you guess it, making Google search even better. The participation is optional. Guys who are really interested in checking these features should join in, and check them out. Also only one experiment can be joined at one time.Some of the latest projects in Google Experimental are:
1) Alternate views for search results
This is an interesting concept. If you join this experiment, you can alter the view of your search results. In this, you can view search results as a time-line or even on Maps. Also the third parameter is viewing additional information.
Time-line & map view works best for searches related to people, companies, events and places. Info view shows all the data found for each result, to help you select the best choice.
2) Keyword suggestions
If you sign on with this experiment Google displays different keywords to improve your search results. As you type your search query, Google’s technology provides alternative suggestions to your queries in real time. Other application that provide this feature are Google suggest and Google Labs itself.
I have tried this and it helps in using the keywords in different and also helps one understand what other related keywords are popular.
3) Keyboard shortcuts
If you join this experiment you can navigate through the search results quickly and easily, minimizing the use of your mouse. Current keyboard shortcuts include:
| Key |
Action |
| J |
Selects the next result. |
| K |
Selects the previous result. |
| O |
Opens the selected result. |
| <Enter> |
Opens the selected result. |
| / |
Puts the cursor in the search box. |
| <Esc> |
Removes the cursor from the search box. |
4) Left-hand search navigation/ Right-hand contextual search navigation
As the names suggest, we have additional search options for any searches that we make once we join any of the two experiment. You can search deeper in a particular type of content—patents, products or news, for example. Google searches across all kinds of content, then ranks results by relevance.
These are a few new concepts that are being developed by Google for making the search even better and are good to join if you want first hand understanding about how the Google search is changing. Also I think every guy interested in SEO should join and try these out.
I would be joining these experiments and would provide a review of any of these on this blog. If you want to stay updated you can subscribe to the blogs feed.
Link for Google Labs is here. Link for Google Experimental is here.
So now that you know what the Google experiments are, which one interests you? Would you be willing to participate and know more about them?
If you like this post then please consider subscribing to my Full RSS feed. Join the Discussions about Blogging and Social Networking in the Forum.Thanks for visiting!
Posted in Google, Innovation, SEO | 8 Comments »
Friday, November 30th, 2007
Today when I opened my Gmail Inbox I saw a new red link indicating addition of two new features on Gmail. One is Group chat and other is graphic emoticons.
Group Chat Feature:
This feature would allow anyone to start a chat with one of their contacts and then invite any number of people to join in.To start a group chat click on options at left bottom corner and select group chat. Similarly,to invite a person one needs to click options on left bottom corner of the chat window and select the option add a person to this chat.
There is no limit to the number of people that can join in. If you have 5 people in the group chat from your friends list, each one of them can then invite people from their list. So this can become something like a big chat room.
New Gmail Emoticons:
Keeping the popular trend in mind, Gmail has now adopted new set of emoticons. Previously Gmail only provided the regular smileys, though they were animated, they didnt look pretty. Now they have added an options to send emoticons. Two sets of different emoticons have been provided. One Circular and one Square.
The images above show the Original Gmail smiley set and the Two new Circular and Square Smiley sets added to the service. I am sure these two features may add some flavour and activity to our usual G-Talk sessions! Say Cheese - 
Posted in Google, Innovation, News | 4 Comments »
Thursday, November 29th, 2007
Adobe and Yahoo Publisher Networks have announced a new advertising avenue for Publishers called as “Ads for Adobe PDF Powered by Yahoo!” Till date Adobe had not included any ads in their pdf platform. If a publisher wanted to include Ads, he would need to manually put banner ads and then publish the PDF file. But now with this new advertising network, they can get contextual ads in their PDF documents.
So how does it work?
According to Yahoo Biz News, publishers first need to register an account and then upload their PDF documents to the Adobe website. Once processed, they can then download the document from Adobe, but now the PDF document is Ad enabled. Now when the document is opened, it would serve contextual ads, through the YPN.
To see an example of a PDF Document with Contextual Advertising visit Cnet
Good News for E-Book Publishers:
This is actually a good news for Ebook publishers. Now they can serve contextual ads instead of traditional ads in their E-books or E-Report. One good feature is if anyone prints the document the ads don’t get printed. Oh yes there is one limitation, with which not many people would be happy. This is only limited to US based publishers with English content. I hope they remove this soon and make it available for everyone.
According to Reuters: It’s already been in private beta; the public test is expected to last for several months. So I don’t think this would be available to everyone soon. It would be interesting to observe how this new platform performs.
Do you think serving Ads in PDF files is a good idea?
Posted in Advertising, News, Yahoo | 9 Comments »
Saturday, November 24th, 2007
rssHugger is a new service developed for blogs who want more exposure for their Rss feeds and help them reach readers who are interested in their niche. You can get your rss feed listed on rssHugger and it would get its own page. According to John Chow, this website is being dubbed as the technorati without the spam, as every blogs entry would be manually reviewed.
The initial plan was, one would get a 10 year listing for $20 and if you blog about the service then the same page would be available for your blog for $10. However on advice from John Chow, rssHugger is now letting any blog which posts about them, to get your own page for free.
From the rssHugger blog itself :
The community has spoken, and we have listened! We have removed the $10 registration fee. Write a blog post reviewing rssHugger and get a 10 year listing absolutely free! We feel that in order to allow the smallest blogs that write quality content to join, we needed to offer a free solution.
This is actually an excellent idea as now the service would get good exposure and has a great chance of going viral. If you own a blog and would like to get listed, you can write about rssHugger and get more exposure for your blogs feed!
Update:
Collin the man behind the website rssHugger personally checked my blog and the feed and then approved it. He commented on my blog to let me know my blogs feed is a part of the
system. You can find my rssHugger feed page here.
Join in and get your own page now!
Posted in Blogging Tools, Online Services | 6 Comments »
Friday, November 23rd, 2007
Nowadays we have seen a lot of new Web 2.0 betas coming up which let you join only on an Invite only basis. The invite only culture started with “Gmail Invites” and has been followed on since then. Using the Invite only option is a good thing for startups in many ways. Startups love this, of course. They create scarcity around a desired service and that creates buzz. These “beta invites” are targeted towards a certain group of people who would give the appropriate feedback for their service (mostly tech Savvy guys). These new members are then given some additional invites, so that they can invite friends or blog readers who share a similar interests.
Getting in early has some advantages. One gets to test the service and provide feedback.Bloggers can blog about this and this is exclusive as no one else has actual access. Active new users are given extra privileges and given some invites to share with more people. A blogger or a website owner can send out invitations on request to his most active users. Your readers would remember you for that and participate more actively in your blog.
Sometimes, however getting these invites is quite tough. If one know the founder(which is quite unlikely), or one of the early joiner(this is also rare),then you can get an invite.
If you want to stay ahead in this and grab some early invites, there are two ways of doing that:
1) Join this group on Facebook. This group is for bloggers who want to try out new web 2.0 beta services early on and blog about them, if they want.
2) Get invitations for latest Web 2.0 beta services at the Beta Invite exchange service : InviteShare. This service is quite popular and the waiting time can be long is the new beta service is very popular, but you would get an invite eventually.
This is a fairly simple service but does an excellent job of fetching the invitations. You have to list your email in the a queue and invitations are sent out on first come first server basis. People who send out more invitations get priority on the lists, so there is an incentive to participate. And in a nice touch, email addresses are shown in images, making it much more difficult for spam bots to grab the names. At this time the services that are in demand from Invite share are Pownce.com , 8apps.com and Grandcentral.com to name a few.
So if you are one of those who like to get an early start join in and Enjoy the status of Beta Tester!
Posted in Innovation, Online Services | 6 Comments »
Monday, November 19th, 2007
When I first started blogging, I knew that the best way to get exposure is through social media sites. As I started participating, I saw that my blog got exposure, appreciation and a steady flow of traffic. But there were days when I saw that there was a huge surge of non-stop traffic, and the source was none other than StumbleUpon (SU) . I also observed that on the days when my posts received a lot of Thumbs Up from SU, the number of feed subscribers increased and so did the comments. Thats made me realize that SU can be an excellent source of new readers and getting diverse exposure from a wide range of audience.
I also noted that being active on SU can give you an edge over others and get better results. Thats why I decided that either slowly or aggressively, I should try and get in the Top stumblers list. However the opinion varies here. Some say that being a Top Stumbler does not give you an edge over others and isn’t that big a deal, whereas on the other side, Top stumblers are respected and get more exposure and a chance to be a part of a wonderful and expanding community.
Getting into the Top Stumblers list is a tough task. There are stumblers who have stumbled about 130,434 pages been with SU since 2 years or even more. But on the other side there are guys who have stumbled 500 odd pages and have been with the site since 4 months only. So there is no ideal profile to get into the TOP stumblers list. This seems encouraging. Some interesting information about Top StumbleUpon users can be found on my friend Glen’s Blog here.
I am going to try and get into the Top stumblers list with good old manual labor, by stumbling maximum number of pages and trying to discover great websites on the way.
This is an experiment, really, to check if getting into a Top stumblers position really worth it and whether others should try it or not. I would dedicate a major chunk of my day to SU to make the most of it. In this way if I lose some time and energy in this and no results come out, my readers need not waste their time in this effort. However if I succeed in this quest, then this is something I would advocate loud and wide and would share tips to get into the StumbleUpon Top stumblers list and share with everyone what benefits one can derive by being active in that community.
The ideal strategy to make it big on SU is to maximize the number of pages you stumble. Also the other factors are:
1)Number of Friends one has.
2)The number of reviews received.
3)How active the person is in the community.
I am going to try hard to get the maximum number of pages, videos and photos to improve my SU profile. If you think this is something you might want to assist me with please help me by adding me as your friend or writing a review . This is not a stunt to get more friends or reviews. Comment only if I show results. I am letting you know my present stats below.
My SU page is BlogStumbler. You can check the latest stats there as well. I would update the stats when I make some significant progress. This is a test to check if being active in SU really pays off or not? The current stats are as under:
My StumbleUpon Stats on 19/11/2007:
Pages: 140
Videos: 5
Photos: 9
Fans: 10
I am going to maximize the number if websites first as that is the most influencing attribute on all Top Stumblers profile.
I will Update these stats after I make noticeable progress. This is a quest to know if absolute dedication to SU everyday for a few hours pays off or not! The challenge I would say is breaking the 10000 pages mark. Thats my 1st challenge and I aim to break it in the least time possible.
If it does work well for me, you can join me in my quest and if doesn’t it would be only me who wasted my time and in a way I would save several other peoples time in the process, which can be put to other productive use. Whether this effort is foolhardy or productive only time will tell.You can subscribe to the blogs feed as I would update the stats quite regularly and you could see how is the progressing.
Wish me Luck and advice me by commenting about what you think about this project!
Posted in Online Services, Social Networking | 9 Comments »
Friday, November 16th, 2007
Recently I had to face the nightmarish experience of a Server crash, which eventually resulted in the database corruption of the entire Blog and whenever I tried to open it in a browser, all I saw was an option to Reinstall WordPress?? RE-INSTALL WP?? What happened to all my posts, my theme,the plugins and all the comments? When I tried to reinstall it, I got a list of over a 100 database errors. It was a horrible experience. Many weeks of work vanished in a matter of seconds! I used to believe one has to experience something to understand its gravity, but I pray to God, none of you guys ever face a server crash.
I read a lot of Blogs and subscribe to quite a few, but I have seen this topic does not get the attention it deserves. Many bloggers are beginners and don’t have experience in maintaining their self hosted blogs. One is not always aware how shared hosting can be deceptive and you can lose your entire site in a server crash, so its of utmost importance that one backs up his work as often as possible, at least once a week. It is almost the only insurance one has.In this post I have covered the process of backing up your blog along with various resources, tools and services that can be useful in this process.
Any WordPress blog, consists of two important parts that need to be backed up separately. One is your actual blog, and other is the database. Its important to understand the difference between these two as both have a different method of backing up and they are incomplete without the each other.Some people just backup the database and think they don’t need to worry about anything, but thats not enough.
Your Blog + Your Blogs Database = Your Complete Site.
Your WordPress Blog consists of the following:
- Your WordPress Core Installation.
- Your WordPress Theme.
- Your Plugins.
- The images and files on your Blog.
- Various Scripts (Java scripts, php scripts etc) and static webpages.
Your WordPress Database consists of the following:
- Your Blog Posts.
- Your Blog Comments.
- Various data that is generated by different plugins. (like Akismet and WP Stats)
These two components together constitute your Blog. If you back up your blog and not the database then you would only get a blank theme and no content. And if you backup the database and not the theme, you would all your content but, the Theme would need to be rebuilt from scratch. Now I would elaborate on the methods of backing up the Blog first and then the database with the most commonly used tools.
Backing up your WordPress Blog: There are three ways to backup your blog(files).
- Back Up software provided by your Webhost: Almost all Webhosts provide some software to back up your Blog. You should consult with your respective Webhost and find out what options do you have to back up your Blog. You should also check with them how often do they back up your blog and if they back up just the database or the entire site.
- Copying your entire blog to your computer using a FTP software: Using a FTP software like FileZilla or CuteFTP you can connect to your server and download the entire site in one of the folders on your computer. If your blog is quite large with lot of images and other graphics you can use a Zip software to Zip it and save space, which will let you have multiple back ups without wasting space. A comprehensive guide by WordPress.org about FTP clients and how they work is given here.
- Synchronizing your Blog with the backup of your computer: There are certain softwares that can automatically sync your Blog contents and the changes that you make on your blog,with the files that you have previously backed up on your computer. Its a a automated process and saves time. Once you get a hang of it, backing the Blog will become quite easy. SyncBackSE and WinSCP are two products that allow you to sync your blog. You can download them and get more information about them by clicking on the names.
Backing up your WordPress Database: There are three ways to back up your WordPress Blog Database.
- Using a web-based MySQL database Administrative tool: Almost all webhosts provide a utility like phpMyAdmin which is a program to perform administrative operations on your database.Its graphical user interface makes it more intuitive to use. An excellent guide to backup the database using phpMAdmin can be found here. Another excellent guide can be found here. Please bookmark these links for future as backing up of the database is of prime importance. However phpMyAdmin can’t handle large databases. For large databases straight MySQL code would help. Instructions can be found here.
- Using the WordPress database backup Plugins: There are quite a few plugins that would help us backup our WordPress database. The ones I have used or currently using and recommend are, WordPress Database Backup. Another effective plugin for database backup is BackUp WordPress, its in beta phase but it works quite fine.
- Using an Online Blog Backup Service: This is also a good option. You can use this as a back up of the back up. One of the great features of a Online Blog back up service is that once you set it up, its completely automated and each post is backed up after its published. The one week of data that I had not manually backed up was recovered from one such service. I would recommend you register for one as well. The one I use is Blog Back Up Online. Limitations are 50 Mb space and its in Beta stage. It supports all major blogging platforms.
After backing up your blog, in case something goes wrong and you need to restore the back up, and excellent guide to restore your database can be found here.
I hope you find the above information useful and make the best use of it. I would ask you to backup your blog every week at the least. I would be more than happy to answer and assist you with any stage of backing up your blog as I have gone through the entire process, using all the above methods to get the peace of mind that my blog is perfectly safe.
Loading …
Posted in Blogging, Online Services, Popular, WordPress | 20 Comments »
