Tag: Google

Categories
News

ISRO Bhuvan: To be Google Earth’s competitor

Recently, news paper articles were flooded with the term "ISRO Bhuvan" and it was quite annoying for me to see the same term everywhere in my feed reader as well. Finally I too wanted to know, what exactly ISRO’s Bhuvan is? The answer to this question was quite interesting.. I came to know that Bhuvan is a competitor for Google Earth and would provide services similar to Google Earth and Wikimapia but it will be confined only within India.

But there is something special in Bhuvan that keeps Google Earth and Wikimapia aside. Bhuvan will have a greater zooming efficiency that will help you recognize details upto a 3 storey building and all its data will be updated every year, unlike Google and Wikimapia which updates in every 4 years.

As per an article in TOI:

Bhuvan allows you to zoom far closer than the aerial view from a chopper. If Google Earth shows details upto 200 meters distance and Wikimapia upto 50 meters, Bhuvan will show images upto 10 meters, which means you can easily see details upto a  three floor high building and also add information.

ADVERTISEMENT

It has also came to light that, unlike others, Bhuvan will support multi layer viewing with a option to view on past dates. Finally I would feel proud to say that Bhuvan is going to use Indian satellites. 🙂

Also, at the Indian National Cartographic Association (INCA) International Congress it was said that:

The prototype of Bhuvan will be ready by the end of November and ISRO is hoping to officially launch the service by March next.

So, we will have to wait for another couple of months to see it live. 🙂

Categories
News

Now use Gmail for Voice and Video Chat!

Couple of hours ago, Gmail has announced its launch of “Gmail Voice and Video Chat” feature using which you can make voice and video calls to your online buddies right from the browser. Ironically, this feature is introduced first on the browser instead of messenger. Since long Gtalk was missing the feature of video calling which is now fulfilled by this brand new addon – Gmail for Voice and Video Chat. Seems, this new innovation is going to bring a stiff competition on the net telephony market, also the launch can be a red alert for Skype too.

To get started, you just need to install this plugin and rest will be taken care of by it. 🙂 Now you must be wondering how to make voice and video calls right from the browser.. Isn’t it? Well, as highlighted on the image, after installing the plugin, just use the ‘Video & more’ button to get started. To help you understand better, I have also included a video tutorial at the bottom of this article.

As of now, we were unable to test the quality of these chats, but we will update this post once we get a chance to try it out for ourselves.

If you are still confused, just have a look on the video

Links: Video Chat Plugin | Support

Categories
Tips

Backup Gmail Emails using Gmail Backup

These days, online mail accounts are like postal addresses. All your official and personal communication takes place via E-mail ids and it would be a nightmare if you find that, your important information and emails were being deleted by hackers. To prevent from such kind of problems, you may make use of Gmail Backup, a tool to backup all your emails present in Gmail account. At present this tool is made available only for Gmail users and comes absolutely free. 🙂

 

  • Just download this tiny application, install it, and save your login into this application.
  • Also you’ll need to activate IMAP option from your Gmail settings page.

Now you can backup all your emails in a regular interval and store them locally.

Links: Gmail Backup

(Via LifeHacker)

Categories
Analysis

Domain hijacking menace is still on; flaws in Gmail?

Many of us are aware of the fact that the domain of a popular tech blog – makeuseof was being hacked just a couple of days ago. As per sources, the name of the domain owner ‘Aibek’, was impersonated to make a request to their domain provider (Godaddy) for transfer of the domain to another web hosting company. Also it was revealed that, the domain was being transferred by Ali Ferank to a Dubai based web hosting company. But Aibek was yet confused, whether his domain was expired and immediately purchased by some one or it was a case of hijacking.

The actual hassle began when the hacker mentioned about the domain hijacking and demanded a huge ransom. The mail that the hackers sent to Aibek reads:

Hi there,
I said it very simply and very easily !
2 K !
Deal or not ?!
You own the domain I get the money…

Regards

Ultimately Aibek got his domain back as he owned it legally, but the point that Aibek explains now will scare you.. He says, the hackers somehow managed to get access to his Gmail account that was linked with Godaddy, and set it such that all incoming mails with certain keywords or from Godaddy were forwarded to their inbox leaving no trace on the primary mail id. And ultimately they requested Godaddy to get the domain transferred by authenticating the request from the hacked Gmail id. Though Albek is not yet sure whether the hackers really used his Gmail id.

ADVERTISEMENT

Let me also tell you, this is not the first time that a G-mail flaw was exploited. Exactly a year ago, another popular blog – Davidairey too, was trapped under a similar circumstance, wherein the hackers got access to the owner’s Gmail account and used the same method to hack down his domain. Details about it is here.

<

p align=”justify”>Well, we are here not to make you scared, our intention is just to aware you that, your Gmail account too may be hacked or misused to gain access to all your important information and data..
So its a high time to ensure that your mail account is never being shared with anyone and you regularly keep on checking all filters, settings, and forwardings.

Categories
Tips

How I Got My Google Adsense Account Back In 14 Days

On Friday, October 10, 2008 I got an email from Google AdSense Team and I was shocked to read that my AdSense account is disabled due to invalid clicks.

It was really an embarrassing moment as there were 160$ on hold. Then finally, I decided to write an application to Google and I got a reply on Wednesday, October 15, 2008 saying :

On Friday, October 24, 2008 AdSense Team replied to my mail and I got my account back. When I opened my AdSense account my 160$ were still in it. It was hard to keep my feet on the ground. Then I decided to share my experience on how I got my AdSense account back in 14 days. Lets start :

My habit saved my account :

ADVERTISEMENT

I have a habit to take screenshot of my AdSense account daily . When ever I noticed invalid clicks I used to take a screenshot, note the exact date and time and request invalid clicks. Click here to visit Invalid Clicks Contact Form

Where did I Appeal about disabled account :

ADVERTISEMENT

When your account gets disabled by Google just remember that you have only one chance to make an appeal. So, your mail should be impressive and well written. You can write to Google from Online Appeal Form

What did I write :

As mentioned above about my habit, I wrote a big mail to Google giving them the exact date, time and screenshot about the invalid clicks. I knew it was my first and last chance, I also told them about my previous earnings.

Just after 14 days I got an mail from AdSense Team saying :

Thank you for clarifying your situation. We have reviewed your
circumstances and have reinstated your account, effective immediately.
Please note that there will be a delay of up to 48 hours before our
servers are informed of the update and ads start running on your website
again.

ADVERTISEMENT

Editor’s Note: Congrats Gagan for getting back his Adsense account. I came across many such incidents recently. I hope Gagan’s post will help guys in trouble.

[Editor’s Note: This guest post is by Gagan. Gagan blogs on internet & technology at CreativeBloggingIdeas.

If you like to write for Devils Workshop, please check this. Details about our revenue sharing programs are here.]

Also visit Technoholic for latest updates on spy gadgets, laptops, mobiles & digital cameras reviews

Categories
News

Now get Google alerts on your feed reader!

For those who don’t know what Google alert is, using Google alert service you can keep track of some specified keywords and get alerts about the keywords as soon as it appears over the Internet. Earlier it used to deliver alerts just by E-mail, but the much talked ‘Google alert for feed’ is now official. Using this new feature, one can read new alerts right on their feed reader.

For activating Google alerts you’ve to go to your manage alerts page and do the changes as mentioned underneath.

<

p align=”justify”>On your manage alerts page, change the ‘delivery to’ option as ‘feed’ from ‘Email’ and save your changes.
(Refer screenshot below)

Now save the feed URL into your feed reader and enjoy reading all alerts on your feed reader. 🙂

Link: Manage alerts.

Categories
Analysis

Are We Allowed To Place Google Ads After Post Title?

Google Adsense no doubt is the best known service to earn money through blog/site. Almost all the bloggers use this service and most of them just register with AdSense without even reading their TOS.

I have seen a lot of Bloggers placing ads between post title and post body. Rahul also posted a tutorial for Blogger on Showing Ads After Each Post. This trick surely increases click through rate but are we violating Google’s TOS by placing ads after post title?

Recently, I read a post on Google Adsense Official Blog saying,

Ads shouldn’t be placed under a title or section heading in a way that implies that the ads are not ads.

They provided following screenshot. Have a look…

The image above clearly signifies what they are talking about and many bloggers still have placed ads using this format. As we all know that Google does not even warn before disabling account. So beware.

Update by Editor: If you still want to use place ment like above, you can put a line of text containing “ADVERTISEMENT” or “SPONSORED LINKS” in between Title and Adsense block. Still, this is something what big bloggers are doing and not what is clearly mentioned by AdSense. So go ahead at your own risk!

[Editor’s Note: This is first post by Gagan on this blog. Gagan blogs on internet & technology at CreativeBloggingIdeas.

If you like to write for Devils Workshop, please check this. Details about our revenue sharing programs are here.]

Also visit Technoholic for latest updates on spy gadgets, laptops, mobiles & digital cameras reviews

Categories
News

Problems with Google SMS Channels!

In my last post about Google SMS channels, I discussed its usefulness and also brought into light some of its pros and  cons. If you have already read the post, you can surely recall that, even after working hard we were unable to locate any disadvantages in this group messaging service. As a result more and more people started creating their own channels hastily.

Later on, it was discovered that many flaws and bugs were present in Google’s SMS service as well. In the Google help group, Sriganesh expressed how this service may be exploited and misused. He explained that, as Google SMS Channels are now opened only for Indian users, anyone can use the RSS feeds of foreign nation’s blogs like TechCrunch, lifehacker, etc and publish their contents via SMS, ultimately affecting the credibility of such web-sites. In response to this Google said someone can report the channels that are using others contents and stringent action would be taken.

Finally I was disappointed because this is not the only drawback, there are many others as well, some of them are listed below:

  • There is a cap to the number of channels that can be created, subscribed to and the number of customized SMS that can be sent per day.
  • Messages sent by channel owner will not be sent to his/her own mobile.
  • On the first day of its launch, the messages tend to get delivered within seconds but this is not the case now.
  • And the biggest drawback that Manoj Fracis suggested was, there is no option for channel owner to view the details of people subscribed to their channel. 🙁

So all these disadvantages are the basis of my disappointment, specially because the service is provided by Google. Can you ever imagine that the Internet giant like Google could come up with a service with so many flaws?

Thanks Deepesh for the tip… 🙂

Categories
Tips

Use Google Search as it was in 2001!

In honor of their 10th Birthday, Google put oldest search engine index available online for use which dates back to 2001. This means you can use Google search as it was in 2001. It is not just home page or logo but also search result will be served from 2001.

Just out of curiosity I tried searching “Rahul Bansal” but I failed to get any result pointing to me! This is quite expected as in 2001, I did not know much about computers and Internet. I got my first computer at the end of 2002 and it was 2006, when I created this blog and my first web presence. More about this is posted on about page.

It was nice searching back in time. I experienced true time-travel as it was entirely different world. Of course, I could not follow most of the result. Search results are served from wayback machines archives.

If you are a techie or student of computer science/engineering, you will also like this powerpoint presentation which describes Google’s System Architecture. I had case study of Google as part of my M.Tech. course. Unfortunately, I failed to find other presentations which have details about Pagerank algorithm and general working of Search engine. Anyway below is what I found, rest you can always Google! 😉

If you are a Google fan, I am sure you will enjoy it.  Just out of curiosity, wanted to know if anyone here used Google Search back in 2001. 🙂

Link: Google search in 2001

Related: Interactive Timeline of Google History

Categories
Tips

Create free “Group SMS” service using Google SMS Channels

Did you ever wish for an SMS service similar to Yahoo Groups or Google Groups???

A service that you could help you send your one SMS to all your friends and if any one of them reply to it… the reply goes back as an SMS to mobile phone of all you friends in the group.

Well here is a cool usage of Google SMS Channels to create a similar service…..but before going into details…

Catch this situation…

ADVERTISEMENT

One lazy Sunday afternoon in Pune, sitting at home you feel like planning to watch a late night movie show….You type an SMS and send it to 6 of your friends to check who is interested to join you. Minutes later you start getting all types of queries.. one wants to watch “Drona” the other friend is ok with any movie but only in “Inox” … the third one can watch any movie but only in “Rahul cinema”…. while you start trying to collaborate using only SMS (as its only 10 paise per SMS) you actually end up doing 2-3 round robin of calling everyone to bring all to a conclusion…… Total time taken : 30 minutes

Now the same situation using “Group SMS”…

One lazy Sunday afternoon in Pune, sitting at home you feel like planning to watch a late night movie show….You type an SMS and post it to your “Google SMS channel”. All your friends receive this message (as an SMS on their mobile) as they have subscribed to your channel… now everyone post back to the channel (reply the SMS) what their preference is (You have set up your Google SMS channel in such a way that it allow its subscribers to post messages).

Everyone’ s SMS is further relayed to all other friend’s mobile handsets..  and after 2-3 iterations (posting back SMS on the group)  you come to a unanimous plan. Total time taken : 5 minutes

ADVERTISEMENT

Before winding up here are few simple steps you need to take to create your own cool SMS group!!!!!

Step 1

  • Start your own SMS channel
  • Click on “Try now>>” under “Create your own channel” on http://labs.google.co.in/smschannels/browse
  • Give name to your channel say “CoolGroup”
  • Do not select any Data Source
  • Set ‘Allow publishing by’ to ‘Any subscriber’
  • Set ‘Who can subscribe’ to ‘By invitation only’

Step 2

  • Invite your friends using “Invite others”
ADVERTISEMENT

Step 3

  • All your friends will receive an invitation SMS from Google on your behalf
  • They need to send an SMS ‘ON CoolGroup’ to 9870807070
  • and later ‘accept’ to 9870807070 to accept the terms and conditions

Step 4

  • To post a message to the channel (sending SMS to all your friends) any of the members can send an SMS <channel_name> <message>  to 9870807070
  • In this case it will be sending an SMS ‘CoolGroup Hi all wanna go 4 any movie 2nite?’ to 9870807070
  • This message will reach everyone’s mobile to which they can further reply back using the same method

Google SMS channels are poised to bring a complete revolution in the way we exchange information today!  People are already exploring ways to innovate cool applications using Google SMS channels….

So keep exploring the countless possibilities and do keep me posted…

D-So-D

Deepesh Sodhi

Related: Google SMS Channels with TinyUrl Links

[Editor Note: This is first post by Deepesh Sodhi on this blog. Deepesh works on innovative product based business opportunities in IT, Telecom and Personal finance management space for the Indian market.

If you like to write for Devils Workshop, please check this. Details about our revenue sharing programs are here.]