Today I found that there is a new comer added to the list of online Tamil dictionary. Yeap, the new player is none other than Google Dictionary.

Google Tamil Dictionary is nowhere near to the quality of the Wiktionary, but still worth a try with their simplified interface.

Invitation is sent out to Mr. Haris and he has been informed via Facebook.

Hope Haris will update us here soon

Today I got 8 invites for Google Wave. I shared almost all of my invitations with friends but I kept one for my dear readers.

I’d like to give away one Google Wave Invitation for free but you need to do a favour to become a luck winner.

There are two ways you can get into this competition.

Re-Tweet and follow me on Twitter

Tweet about this post (using the button next to Title) and follow me on Twitter

Become a Fan of MAYUonline at Facebook

You can become a fan of MAYUonline at Facebook. You can use either the gadget used here or visit the official page directly and become a fan.

Lucky Winner

I’ll update this post on coming Sunday with the luck winner’s name. I’ll notify the winner by Facebook PM or Twitter DM.

Let’s begin.

By the way if you don’t know what is Google Wave, please have a look at the introduction video (running for about 70 minutes). Google expects to revolutionise the way we communicate online using this Google wave.

Not all are welcomed

AS I went to get the account I was given a message saying “Your Google Account has not yet been activated for Google Wave.”. I was broken hearted.

I was trying all possible ways to get an invite to get into the Google Wave. Till yesterday I was not successful. Yesterday I was managed to pick a friend of mine from USA and he agreed to send me an invite.

How long do I need to wait after being invited

Yesterday night he sent me the invitation but still I have not received it. It is said that Google Australia manually accepting invitations (Nomination in Google’s word) to reduce the load on Wave server. As we know Google Wave is consuming loads of power from client as well as server. Google people need to make sure that their servers are up and able to cope-up with the available number of users.

As I hear for some people it got even 3 days to get the invitation after being invited to Google Wave by one of the friends. For me it’s not even 24 hours, I better wait.

Any alternative for Google Wave

Since Google Wave is an open source project any one who is geek enough to handle the code can set-up their own Wave server. One of the good examples is http://pygowave.net. I’m sure it’s not full of feature like Google wave but it’ll give you an idea how to work. It means that a regular user who has seen the Google Wave Video, will not be satisfied now. But I am sure that any developer will be eager to test the PyGo Wave Server and even test his own gadgets there.

When you create a new wave at pygowave.net you can invite me (mayooresan) so we all can wave there .

http://pygowave.net is working fine on Google Chrome but making silly mistakes in Firefox.

Conclusion

Google has created a big hype over Google wave and that’s what they wanted to do. Some people who bought the invite in EBay for $100 were complaining that it’s not upto their expectation. So don’t set your expectations high. Rushing and buying invite for $100 doesn’t worth it (Google will delete your account if you found selling invites). Simply wait and see. Or use the alternative till Google open doors for everyone.

If you have seen the introduction to Google Wave video (video runs for about one and half hour), by now you’ll also be running looking for an invitation to join Google Wave.

Currently Google wave has been opened for only 100,000 people but if you’re lucky you can request a invitation from those 100,000 people. I’m one of those unlucky guys who didn’t get into Google Wave yet.

Here I’m going to tell you some of the possible ways of getting Google Wave invitation

Request it from Google

You can request Google to give you access to Google Wave. But there are no guarantee that they’ll give you the invitation right away. You might have to wait for a while. Only god knows when Google will give away access to you via the official channel.

Twitter

There are some geeks got invitations via this so called micro blogging platform. Search for the hash key #GoogleWaveInvite or put a request to global community with the tag #GoogleWaveInvite. Who knows you might get the invitation.

Beg from your friends

If you friend got invitation, they he can give away 8 invitation. Beg him or beat him and get one invitation from him.

Yesterday night I saw people were selling Google wave invitation via Ebay but today I couldn’t find one. May be Google has taken initiations to control this unethical business.

Good luck guys. BTW if you happen to get one please do invite me.

11th Birthday

You may wonder why, but to celebrate their 11th birthday they’ve changed their logo like this.

Many more happy returns of the day my dear Google. Even though there are so many criticism on Google, they changed the way we browse the net online.

From the simple search engine concept they’ve grown into a multi million corporation.

Today I come to know that there is a tool is being developed at MILE Lab’s. Now tool is still beta but it works fine. I typed some Tamil text like “அன்பே ஆறுயிரே” to my surprise the automated tool read it correctly.

It’s worth giving a try. Hope they’ll release API and all the stuff around it, so we can integrate such services in our websites where disabled people can make maximum use of it.

Try the tool at http://mile.ee.iisc.ernet.in:8080/tts_demo/

When the micro blogging became popular with Twitter, FaceBook didn’t hesitate to copy the micro blogging idea as status update in FaceBook.

Use @ to tag your friends in Status Mesg

One of the popular method to mention a friend in Twitter is by mentioning the @ sign. For example if you have @mayooresan written on your Twit then it’ll automatically link to the Mayooresan’s profile.

Guess what, FaceBook copied this @ sign method too. Now you can tag your friends in FaceBook status message. Simple type @ sign and see FaceBook will start to bring a dropdown list to tag your friends. Hope this piece of information will bring up more constructive conversation in FaceBook.

Still the English version of the site is under alpha version (that means only the inside developers and testing team will get to test). We can hope in near future Yahoo will release the product in beta (Where external users will be allowed to test).

You can register your email address for beta testers list. I’ve already done so. Once the product is available or opened for the public we can have another post here about the pros and cons about Yahoo Meme.

Some sites are telling Yahoo Meme will have more features than Twitter where you get to upload pictures along with your Meme (You can’t call it Twit ) and instead of a avatar you can have 100 character text.

Lets wait and see how the Yahoo going to acquire micro blogging market.

1. What is PayPal?

There are several instances where you need to make online transactions. Mostly you need to make some online payment to buy a good or service. In this situation the medium you can use is credit card. But how much you can rely on the seller?? What if the seller gets the Credit Card number and misusing it later on??

PayPal is coming into action in this situation. If you’re buying using PayPal then you don’t have to show the credit card number to the seller.

2. Is PayPal safe??

Hell yeah! Don’t worry about it. PayPal is the owner of Ebay.com. So you don’t have to worry they’ll not cheat on you.
3. How to add a Credit Card to my PayPal Account??

When you sign-up for a PayPal account, by default PayPal will ask for your credit card number.

If you missed to add your credit card when you sign-up later you can log into your account and add a credit card.

4. Can I add a debit card to my PayPal account?

Yes you can add a debit card to PayPal but make sure your debit card is international debit card. Most of the debit cards given by Sri Lankan banks are local debit cards you can’t use them for internet transaction.
5. What if I don’t have a credit card?

You can go for Sampath Bank’s Web card. When I was studying in school I used Sampath web card as my primary card to make transactions online. Read more about Sampath Web Card.
6. Can I add any credit card to my PayPal account?

As long as it’s a valid credit card you can add it to your PayPal account. It can be a HSBC Visa card, Commercial Bank Visa card, Master card or even American Express.


7. How long does it take to activate my PayPal account?

It’ll be activated instantly. You can use it just after creating the PayPal account.
8. What about commission and other hidden charges?

As a buyer you don’t have to pay any commission to PayPal, but those who receive money via PayPal will have to pay commission to PayPal.
9. Can I open a PayPal account from Sri Lanka?

Yes
10. Can I receive money via PayPal, if I’m a Sri Lankan PayPal user?

No, you can’t receive money. You can read my work around to check how to receive money via PayPal and get it down to your local bank.