Aseem’s Blog
Leap over the bounds…
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Chat in 8 Indian Languages |
I found this cool program on net, many of you might already be aware of. Anyways, worth a share!
Called ChitChat this program by Monusoft can be used to chat with friends in Yahoo Messenger or Google Talk in 8 different Indian Languages (Bengali, Gujarati, Hindi, Kannada, Malayalam, Punjabi, Tamil, Telugu). And believe me its real easy, and you will soon catch up good speed. It supports both yahoo messenger 7.0 and 8.0. And there is no insallation too.
If you are using Yahoo Messenger 8.0 you can download the same program as a plugin for yahoo messenger from http://us.gallery.yahoo.com/apps/1711.
But in this case, buddies using yahoo messenger 7.0 will not be able to receive your messages as that version dsnt support plugins. I am not a great fan of yahoo messenger 8.0. The new sounds are too irritating and also the chat room button has been removed off. So you can download the program instead which is actually compatible with all the yahoo versions supporting unicode character messages.
So guys… spread the word!
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Wow! www.aseemn.org now PR-5! |
Had been at IIT Bombay until early this week for my project work. Got back, and got a pleasant surprise. I was checking my blog www.aseemn.org and noticed that the PR field of my Google toolbar for PR(Page Rank) was half filled! Wow! That means my blog is now a PR-5 site! Jumped from PR-0 to PR-5 in its very first update! :D
Some other sites of mine which I had optimised and managed some backlinks also shooted up in their Page Rank. But a PR-5 for my blog has been the most delightful! Well many other blog posts are PR-4 now and some of the more popular ones still got to make it little higher. May be by the next time Google updates!
Overall… Thank You Google!!! :)
Well for those you are not acquainted with the term Page Rank, then it’s a rank given to a page according to its importance on the net. Page Rank is scaled from 0 to 10. You can read more info here on Wikipedia - Google Page Rank.
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Professional Ajax |
Was really busy for the last few days and yes for atleast another week more to come. Managing academics and business interests isn’t an easy job as I thought it was. And then there is this now hebetudinous blog of mine, I want to kick live with newer posts.
Well, everytime I go to Pune, I don’t miss ‘Appa Balwant Chowk’ a street known for 1st hand, 2nd hand and probably even Nth hand books… All in good form and shape as though they were all new and more importantly at some dirt price (only if you know to bargain well).
Ajax has been around for quite some time now. But never got a project that demanded its use. But recently got a development project for a local newspaper website. Thought, a good read on Ajax should be useful. For all the not so common books there is one stop there at Appa Balwant Chowk. ‘Unnati Book House’, I never miss that! I have taken hours to search the books there on the street, but this book stall hasn’t ever disappointed me.
There were some 4-5 books on Ajax that the guy there showed me. Hmm… I was particularly searching for a SAM’s publication one, my favorite series. Wasn’t there :(. So ran through the contents of the ones in front of me. I found a couple of them interesting. But since Ajax being a newer technology… even a 200 page book had an overhead cost. So had to settle for one book.
I was impressed with this book - ‘Professional Ajax’ by Wrox publications. The Indian Edition costed me some Rs 325 odd after discount. Well, its also available at Amazon.
Will read the book the next weekend when I have a little more time for myself. And will definitely come up with a review of it. At first glance, it looks to be the best and most comprehensive book around for learning Ajax.
POST SPONSORED BY: Webdesign
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Create your own Search Engine |
www.googlealive.com gives you a chance to rebrand Google…
Log on to the site… enter a new name… and get your own re-branded google!!!
LOl! :)
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Review: Scrapboy – The Orkut Messenger |
Scrapboy has been around for quite sometime now… Well for those who have not heard of it and been scrapping friends through orkut, this is the new and supposed to be popular instant messenger for orkut.
Yahoo, MSN, AOL, Skype have been great tools to be in touch with friends. But suddenly with the advent of orkut.com ‘scrap’ has changed meaning from being useless or a refuse to something much more worthy and awaited! Though scrapping, scrapbooks and other new related terminology have got popular, the feel of real-time chatting is somehow lost. That is where the instant messenger, scrapboy makes you feel home.
Scrapboy has suddenly caught all the attention and popularity in a small time span. Certainly because of orkut, than for itself. When I reviewed this software, I found that it was more of a hype, and it still has a long way to go…
After receiving an email from a friend to download scrapboy, I logged on to their website: www.scrapboy.com.
The download file size was just below 25MB. The size didn’t bother me much as I have an unlimited 256kbps connection. But for dial-up users, am sure this fact will suck big-time. They rather did wait for it to show up on their favorite tech magazine CD/DVD. And even if they do, I am sure its not worth the wait or download.
In a few minutes I had the setup on my PC which announced itself as beta version 1.0. I installed the software, after a few installation hiccups due to security warning by Norton. But no big issues. Soon, I logged in with my orkut id, it loaded my friends list, I played around with the interface, tried to search for some tweaking options (didn’t find any)… And soon I realised that I was looking at some dumb piece of software. But mind you… I do believe it has great potential.
The following is the review of the software with all the Pros and Cons listed and justified for.
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Review: Rediffmail Beta |
Rating: 2.5/5 (Thumbs down)
Having a dynamic page that loads most of your needed content all in the same page is definitely the new hot thing in website development. Ever since AJAX has hit the box, most web services are trying to reface their websites and services with this new technology. With Yahoo India in the Ajax pipeline, how could Rediffmail stay behind? One of India’s premiere mail services, Rediff a few days back launched its beta version based on AJAX and XML.
I am sure this might just be a long old story for the tech geeks, as it’s been in news for quite some time now with all the laurels to its name. But I have not seen any review on net over this change. It’s been accepted happily by Rediff Users, may be with a few complains that have gone unheard and users who are trying to adjust themselves to this change. This post gives an insight to some of the features that rediff left behind in framing its new AJAX based version.
‘Lightning fast web mail service’ is how they identify themselves. The very reason why rediff has always been my favourite mail service. And being a truthful user of its services it hits hard if I am asked to change to any other service. That’s why even with Yahoo, Gmail and many other feature rich free email services in, I still prefer to use Rediffmail. The good thing is that, they keep making small changes here and there. This time, a much welcomed package.
It’s a human tendency to resist change, probably this is what I did like to sketch up here. When I logged into my mailbox, I was happy to see a new look. :) Definitely, a nice tailored look. More of the grey shades than the blues… With all the folders listed on the left, I realized things are definitely going to be quicker to use and load. With a clean and neat look everything looked so fast and smooth to work on.
But soon I could point over a few drawbacks to finally impede my happiness. The mail preview window was too small. If I had to view the whole message I had to open it in a new window. So it was almost the same. The area assigned for loading the message was too less… 25% of my previous rediff mail window, which can be resized upto 50%. :| So it forced me to open a new window to browse my long forwards or emails that contained digicam pics. Also in the bargain of faster loading the graphic attachments were resized to too small in size, though having an interesting slide show option. After opening the email in a new window, I thought it now looked good. After reading the email, I wanted to reply to the sender. I clicked on the button… and spank… one more browser window opens. (6) Suck… how many more windows I thought. Sulked over it for a couple of seconds and moved forward to reply to the sender. Things were a little better with other mailing features incorporated into the write mail window. Like the address book that nicely fitted in, not to leave out the templates and drafts options. Also an upload file as attachment option in the same window. Thank God that I didn’t have to open another window for it! ;) Soon the window showed me that the mail was sent, I closed both of the opened windows and returned to my main rediff inbox window.
I saw a couple of new mails sent by a friend. Sent on the same day I was inquisitive to know of the time they were sent. Bah! The email interface just tells me the date. Dumb! I want to know when he sent each one… morning, evening or night… heck! So then I clicked on show email headers to try and interpret the time from the header information. Ok it was there, but not many would know what to do in such a case. Also whenever I logged into my mailbox or would select a folder to view, the first message in the folder automatically showed up. Now I wouldn’t want that. Anybody would want to be safe enough to check around and see for other people peeking into your monitor screen, before opening any private mail. Ahh, rediff how could u miss out on this one! :(
The select page option was a nice include. Helps a lot when u want to reach to older messages. On realising that I have to move a few emails to another folder, I tried to select them. Now this was a high precision job. As to select them, I had to click exactly on the checkbox. If by any chance I did miss out on a checkbox and clicked at the side of it (even by a pixel!) I would lose all my selections and it would instead load the message in the message preview window. Aah.. that’s real bad. Once done with the selections, it was real easy thought to make the move.Their search mail feature also sucks a lot. I never found the mail I wanted, though it was very much there! Many times it just showed ‘Loading Please Wait’…
I am sure if I decide to play around a little more, I will find a lot more flaws and fallbacks that I really wouldn’t like my RediffMail to have. So I looked up to the top left of my screen and clicked on ‘Take me to the regular Rediffmail’ option. :) Am sure I won’t log in back to this new beta version until Rediff doesn’t announce to release a full fledged one. This version is no beta… to me it looks like an alpha version. I know it’s a lot easy and fast to work in this new beta version of rediff, but its all AJAX that I admire in it, not Rediff. I feel that one loses the comfort level that one shared with its GUI in this new version. I hope they come up with something better soon. As many might have, I too have informed them about all these issues I found, through their feedback option. I wonder if they would ever see and forward it to the concerned persons.
Interestingly, if you sign up now for a rediffmail mail service, you wont see the option to switch to the new rediffmail, contrary to the GUI for the already registered users. I wonder why! 8O
As the end, I feel Rediff has launched this version in too much of a hurry and haste with an aim to beat its counterparts. They should sit back and analyse all the flaws and come up with a more comfortable to use package.
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Free Blog Hosts Reviewed |
Blogs have become the just next thing to own on net after colossal sized email accounts equipped with loads of features. Blogs provide netizens a platform to present their views and opinions and hence unplug their anonymity. They make them visible. For many they are still a sort of journal or personal diary where they can post their personal day to day endeavors for their friends and family to see. But on a large, most blogs are maintained by indivisuals who present their thoughts, notions, ideas or share scientific and technical information…
There is literally no definition of how a blog should be. You can write about anything you feel like in this very world of yours. Check out more over blogs on wikipedia.
I bet, with the growing popularity of web blogs, soon the Oxford Dictionary will have to consider including ‘to blog’ as a verb as it has included ‘to google’ ;). So if the idea of having a blog has really enthrilled you… follow this article to find out on how can you have your own blog.
I googled a little bit to find out some popular blogging hosts around and reviewed them. The one’s I considered were:
1] www.blogger.com
2] www.wordpress.com
3] www.livejournal.com
4] www.blogeasy.com
Some are big names that are being popularly used for quite some time now. So let’s be sure to find our Blog host amongst these… Continue Reading »
RANDOM POSTS
06/15/2007: Yahoooo!!! Finally its all over!10/10/2006: YouTube is now a part of Google
10/09/2006: Chat in 8 Indian Languages
