Tag: Google

News

Gmail – Email Sending Limit of 500!

Post author By Deepak Jain
Post date October 3, 2008
19 Comments on Gmail – Email Sending Limit of 500!

Gmail, is among one of the best free e-mail services available on the Internet. Right from the day of its launch on April 1, 2004, people started appreciating it. If you remember, not so long before, to open Gmail account you needed an invitation from existing Gmail users. According to a Wiki entry, Gmail invitation were being sold on eBay for as high as $150 per invite. Infact, even my friends offered me 300 INR to send them Gmail invite. 😉

The point of telling all this is, Gmail remained free since it launch, eventhough some people made money selling Gmail invite. Gmail also offered best service with ever growing storage space. But when it comes to sending email, they have limit like most other free service.

As per this article from Gmail help, I was astonished to know that…

Google will temporarily disable your account if you send a message to more than 500 recipients or if you send a large number of undeliverable messages.

Even worse, those access Gmail via POP or IMAP interface, limit is as low as 100.

Like me if you are also unaware about this fact, then recheck the recipients address once again before hitting the send button, as exceeding its limits or sending many mails to invalid ids may temporarily disable your account. 😉

Added by Editor:

Gmail’s disabling of your account prevent you from sending mails only. This is to just prevent spammer abusing their server. Many free email services enforces limit like this. But if you keep pushing limit more often you may end up with your account getting deleted.

As festival season is around, do not get panic if your account get temporarily disabled when you send wished to more than 500 people. Actually this is the reason, I never sent any greetings via email to all on special occasions. I have contact list of more than 2000 and picking 500 is not an easy job! 😉

Tags Email, Gmail, Google

News

Google SMS Channels with Links

Post author By Rahul Bansal
Post date October 2, 2008
28 Comments on Google SMS Channels with Links

Without a doubt, Google SMS Channels is really a good service. Many bloggers are creating SMS channels dedicated for their blog, so that their readers can follow their blog from mobile.

I have created Devils Workshop SMS channel last night and started receiving SMS for each post as it was getting published. But I was disappointed to see that there was no link to article in SMS I received. Links could help people having GPRS/wi-fi enabled cellphones browse articles from their handset.

I tried finding such option first, but I failed. So I created a small script which accept your original feed URL and give you link to a new feed which:

First shorten links to your article using famous service TinyUrl. This takes care of 160 character limit of SMS.
Next it append such shortened link to your feeds title.

Now when Google SMS channel will fetch such converted link, they will send short urls to articles in SMS updates.

Below is screenshot which highlights this difference:

How to use:

1. Getting a converted link

You can either get converted link using web interface provided at Google SMS Channels with TinyUrl
OR simply prefix http://gsmslinks.rtcamp.com/ to your feed URL.

Example: http://feeds.devilsworkshop.rsites.dev6.rt.gw/rb286 will become http://gsmslinks.rtcamp.com/http://feeds.devilsworkshop.rsites.dev6.rt.gw/rb286

2. Modifying Existing Channel

Go to Google SMS Channels. Switch to Manage Channels section.

Just edit RSS/Atom feed URL. If you are creating a new channel, enter converted feed link here otherwise replace old link with converted link. Please DO NOT forget to remove prefix http:// from links as it is added by Google by default.

Next better click on Preview button to check if desired results are coming in mobile emulator screen on page. If yes, click Update Channel button below.

If you have any question, please ask via comments only. If there exist option to do this, please let me know. 🙂

Link: Google SMS Channels with TinyUrl Links

Tags Blogging, Google, Internet, short url, SMS Tips and Tools

News

Google SMS Channels: New Group Messaging Service

Post author By Deepak Jain
Post date October 2, 2008
7 Comments on Google SMS Channels: New Group Messaging Service

This time, Google comes up with a new and innovative service for mobile phone subscribes. After SMS based search, Google has recently announced the launch of Google SMS Channels, that is a platform to send group SMS free of cost. May be, you can call it the improved version of existing group messaging services like SMSgupshup and Mytoday.

In case you are interested, listed below are few of the pros and cons of Google SMS Channels.

Pros:

Unlike other group SMS providers, Google’s SMS channel does not add any advertisements on the message footer, so group publishers get full 160 character messages to post.
Compared to other group messaging providers, Google gets its message published faster and FREE.
Supports Blogger blogs, Google groups, Google Alerts, RSS feed URL and custom messages.
Subscriber point of view, option to set the maximum number of Incoming messages.

Cons:

After going through the service in detail, I could manage to find only single disadvantage in Google SMS channels that, unlike SMSgupshup a group owner himself cannot add subscribers to his/her channel. But again, this is good subscribers point of view, as they might not get spammed by channels that they don’t want to subscribe to.

Google SMS channel for Devilsworkshop:

We have created a channel to keep you informed via SMS. To Join,

Either Subscribe here.
Or send an SMS: ‘ON DEVILSWORKSHOP’ to 09870807070

We have also created a dedicated channel for our Orkut users:

Either Subscribe here.
Or send an SMS: ‘ON ORKUTBLOG’ to 09870807070

This innovative initiative by Google surely deserves 2 thumbs up from all mobile users in India. Even I personally feel this bandwagon from Google deserves 4.5 stars out of 5. We are interested to hear your say, too!

Links: Google SMS channels (FAQ)

(via: Labnol)

[Editor Note: This is first post by Deepak Jain on this blog. He blogs at MobileGyaan about mobile softwares & technology. Deepak was in news for demonstrating loopholes in SMS technology.

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

Tags Blogger, Google

News

Interactive Timeline of Google History

Post author By Rahul Bansal
Post date September 26, 2008
4 Comments on Interactive Timeline of Google History

During last few weeks, many blogs posted about Google’s 10th official anniversary. Surprisingly, Google did very little to mark an event, compared to the enthusiasm they usually show for not-so-big events.

May be its debate on Google’s actual anniversary date, or may be Google, as usual, decided to do it differently by keeping entire event low profile.

Technically Google.com was registered on September 15, 1997 (whois data). Many Googlers posted nice articles as part of 10th anniversary celebration. But thing I liked most, is interactive timeline of Google history.

Google fan will surely love this time travel. Also for those who are lazy enough to read best book on Google history, “The Google Story“, can take this tour. Of course, it doesn’t have drama that book unfolds but still an experience to remember! Thanks Dion Almaer. 🙂

Link: Start Time Travel of Google History

Tags Google, Internet

News

Google AdSense 1:1 Exchange Rate Issue

Post author By Rahul Bansal
Post date September 26, 2008
17 Comments on Google AdSense 1:1 Exchange Rate Issue

Just noticed on my AdSense Payment History Page, that recent check is issued with crazy exchange rate of 1:1!

After visiting AdSense help Google group, I have noticed that many publishers, mostly from India are facing same problem. This particular message is receipt of AdSense team being aware of the problem. So all I can say, do not get panic!

The other question remains whether you will get a small check in local currency at exchange rate of 1:1 or is it just problem with web-interface?

If you are an experienced AdSense publisher, then you must have noticed that every Payment Details page shows “Payment Number”, which is in this case is blank. So I think payments are already processed correctly and soon web-interface will show accurate information.

Anyway, if you get check at exchange rate of 1:1, I am sure difference will be credited back to our account for sure automatically by Google AdSense team.

Point of writing is, do not get panic and do not flood already busy AdSense team with support requests related to the issue. They are working on this (proof).

Just in case, you need follow-up, keep watching this thread.

Update: Just received this response from Google AdSense Team. (Sep 27)

Hello,

We’re writing to let you know that your AdSense account is displaying an incorrect exchange rate for your most recent AdSense payment issued on September 23, 2008. While the exchange rate is incorrectly listed as 1:1, please rest assured that your payment has been issued with the correct exchange rate. You can expect your check to arrive according to the normal delivery time, within two to four weeks.

If you normally receive communication from us in a language other than English, we will provide additional information in your preferred language next week.

We apologize for the inconvenience and appreciate your patience.

Sincerely,

The Google AdSense Team

Google Inc.
1600 Amphitheatre Parkway
Mountain View, CA 94043
USA

Tags Adsense, Google

Tips

Down for Everyone or Just Me! Uptime Monitoring…

Post author By Rahul Bansal
Post date September 25, 2008
8 Comments on Down for Everyone or Just Me! Uptime Monitoring…

Down for Everyone or Just Me is a very simple service which basically help you check if a particular website is down for everyone or just you!

If you are using free wi-fi on a public network, often it blocks some websites form opening. One such free wi-fi network near my home blocks all blogspot.com domain blogs and on top of it, they do not show any custom error message when I request a blogspot.com blog!

I remember for the first time, when I connected to it and saw all blogspot.com blogs down. For a moment, I thought I should post about it as many people think blogspot never goes down (and they are right as well). But then I wanted to make sure, if its unlucky me or overloaded Google! A simple service like this can help a lot in many situation.

The URL’s to result page have bookmarkable structure. Like you can bookmark this to check if Devils Workshop is down for everyone or just you.

Link: Down for Everyone or Just Me

Server Monitoring…

Now apart from this manual checking, their sponsor (or parent company) Uptime Party offers server monitoring service for webmasters and professionals.

On registration, you can setup to monitor 1 server for free. For more than 1, they charge you accordingly. As most of blogger run only 1 main blog, free package is sufficient for most of us.

You can configure email notification on per server basis, for events like web downtime, email downtime, ftp downtime, etc.

I signed up for free account and configured email notification for Devils Workshop web downtime. I use Google Apps for emails.

Link: Uptime Party

Tags Google, Internet

Tips

Creating Custom Search Page in WordPress Blog

Post author By Rahul Bansal
Post date September 23, 2008
7 Comments on Creating Custom Search Page in WordPress Blog

In wordpress, there are two types of webpages – “posts” and “pages”. While “posts” are generated dynamically, “pages” are statics and created explicitly. You can create as many “pages” as you want and put them anywhere in your blog’s structure. Few pages I have here includes – about page, contact page, joining DW page, etc.

Apart from these “pages”, I use a special “search page” with extra-level of customization. It is technically outside my wordpress setup. I do not use wordpress built-in search mechanism. Instead I use, Google custom search like many of you. I will explain why I use Google custom search some other time!

For time being, if you notice my search page do not have any sidebar compared to say “contact page”. A simple way to disable sidebar for any post/page is to surround “get_sidebar()” call in theme with if-else block. But for sake of slight performance improvement and few other reasons I prefer maintaining a dedicated search page outside my wordpress setup. But as you can see, it is blended with my theme very-well!

So here is “how-to” guide to create such “search pages” outside wordpress:

Create a page say in root-directory of your blog. Name it something like – search.php. It will have URL like – http://www.devilsworkshop.rsites.dev6.rt.gw/search.php
Next log into AdSense or Google Custom Search Engine, and create a new custom search or update existing search engine.
Just remember to use above URL (step 1) for search result pafe

Then add following code as it is to it:

<?php
define('WP_USE_THEMES', false);
require('wp-blog-header.php');
get_header();
?>
<!-- Google Search Result CODE -->
<?php
get_footer();
?>

Finally replace “Google Search Result CODE” line in above code with codes you will get from Google.
Save/Upload search.php in your blog’s root directory.

If you need to use some CSS, use it inline on Google search result code’s first line, i.e.

<div id="cse-search-results"></div>

Example:

<div id="cse-search-results" style="width:980px;"></div>

I needed to set width attribute like above to expand search results into space made available by absence of sidebar.

Try this and use comments form below if you stuck! I hope this answer your question Anurag. 🙂

Related: WordPress Plugin Series

Tags Adsense, Developers, Google, plugin, Wordpress

News

PHPCamp Pune Log!

Yesterday, I was at PHPCamp Pune for full day. Here is my log of event for those who missed it!

As usual, for all early morning events, I reached late and missed my free T-shirt. Actual reason was huge response to the event. Organizer printed 300 T-shirts but around 600 geeks turned up for the event! More than 1200 guys registered for it. In fact, it was so overcrowded that venue sponsor Persistent denied access to the lift and asked people to use the staircase to the 7th floor! Smarty me, didn’t do that. I used lift between 1st and 6th Floor. 😉

Now something really important…

There were lots of talks on Drupal and Joomla, two popular CMSes. Those who use them or work on them must have been greatly benefited.

Apart from this another hot topic was OpenSocial. Out of all talks on OpenSocial, I liked one given by Pravin Nirmal. He presented his topic very nicely with live demo of an Orkut App. He also cleared lots of my doubts regarding OpenSocial and Orkut Apps. You can expect my first Orkut App within a month. If you have any nice idea for an Orkut app, please share it with us. 🙂

I spent most of my time with Ankur Gattani, young entrepreneur behind LifeinLines. If you missed my earlier review about LifeinLines, its here. It was nice to know his plans for LifeinLines and if you are using it, expect a lot of cool features in coming days.

Apart from it, I was privileged to meet Sebastiaan Deckers, a member of XMPP (Jabber) Foundation and developer of Pandion chat client. Those who don’t know, famous Google Talk uses XMPP protocol for communications.

And lastly…

It was really surprising to see that there was no single talk on WordPress and Facebook – two most-famous PHP apps! 🙁

Another bad thing was no wi-fi for campers. Again sponsor turned off wi-fi connectivity on campus. Sorry Rupesh, this is the reason, I couldn’t blog about event while it was going on. 🙁

Apart from this, overall event was great, thanks to organizers, who really worked hard to make it successful.

Finally thanks to my friend Anil’s younger bro Santosh, I got a cool T-shirt from Directi. It has PHP logo on it with PHP defined as – “Pretty Hot Programmer”. 😉

PhpCamp Links: Official Site | Google Group | Flickr Group for event pics

[Admin note: Those who visited this site on Saturday night and Sunday (till eve), Indian Standard Time, might have found it down. There was some technical issue popped up which is resolved now. Sorry for inconvinence caused and thanks for all who notified me.]

Tags Bing, contest, Developers, Events, Google, OpenSocial, PHP, Polls, Wordpress