Some of you might have woken up today morning and checked out something called Google Buzz. Some of you lucky ones might even have it available in your Gmail account. Google launched it’s own social network Buzz which will  be embedded within Gmail. There will be a link to Buzz as you sign-in to Gmail page. It is still being rolled out and I guess everyone with a Gmail id will soon have access to it. Google Buzz has an advantage which no social networking website has had untill now and that is a ready user base of millions.

Google Buzz at a glance

• Like all social networking websites it will allow sharing of links, photos and your comments on what you are upto. This is all integrated in your Inbox and also allows you to use your Inbox to comment on shared links, pictures and status messages.
• All your Gmail contacts will automatically appear as your friends on Buzz. It will also integrate with Picassa, Google Reader, Flickr and Twitter.
• One point that Google Buzz is making is that it will have a simplistic style of sharing things personally and publicy without too much of a fuss. I guess that was pointed to Facebook and Twitter. Twitter users obviously will not share pictures of their wedding as it is all public and Facebook users might find it difficult with the privacy settings to share a link with the world. Buzz probably will simplify it but I have not got the change to play around with Buzz and so I will reserve my verdict on it.
• The potential for Google Buzz to be really big is there. It can shamelessly borrow from Facebook and Twitter and improve on it rather than try to reinvent the wheel. It has a featured called recommended messages. This might be something similar to a ReTweet; but considering Google’s search engine genius; it might be a way for a way of ranking users and their content.

Here is a video of Google Buzz from its blog.

I do not know how successful Google Buzz will end up being. But it seems to have a better chance than Yahoo meme had when it was launched a few months ago. Let me know if you have Buzz enabled on your Gmail account what do you think about it?

This Post Google buzzes Facebook and Twitter is Published on Devils Workshop .

Related posts:

• Share from Google Reader to Twitter, Blogger, Facebook, Myspace and more
• Update Twitter, Facebook and Orkut Status With Just One Click
• Update Twitter from Facebook Pages [How-to]

If you are a professional blogger or running a website, then one way to build a community is to have APIs on your website. It is very important in today’s world to have APIs because it is one way for websites to communicate with each other. Facebook, Twitter, Digg etc all have APIs available to be added to websites. API-Status is a website which monitors API’s for their up time.

About API-Status

• As you can see in the image the website shows if the API service is operating normally of it there is a downtime. For instance in the above image; GeoNames API is facing service disruption.
• Clicking on one of the APIs link displays current service performance by country, a average graphical display of the daily downtime. (see image below)

• There is a total of 30 APIs which are being monitored and I could not really think of any popular API which was not included.

This website will a great use for webmasters or developers to refer to as quick reference point for a API’s performance. It can also be a great way for developers to see how API’s perform based on country specific locations. Do try it out and drop in you comments with your views and opinions.

Link: API-Status

This Post Monitor the status of popular APIs is Published on Devils Workshop .

Related posts:

• Thinking of a new Facebook status idea for yourself?
• IT Layoff Tracker – Single place to monitor layoffs in IT companies
• Update Your Status from Orkut Homepage! [New Feature]

For all the Geeks out there who swear by open source technology , you have a friend in Ubuntu ! Yep , thats right ! Ubuntu , famous for being the most user friendly Linux based operating system , is compiling their second round of developer week ! The  Ubuntu Opportunistic developer conference has been slated to be held from 1st-6th March 2010 , the details for which can be found on Ubuntu`s Home page .

What is the Developer Week ?

Ubuntu

The Ubuntu Opportunistic Developer week is an Online meeting of aspiring developers and professionals , to help
inexperienced developers develop applications that suits their needs on the Open source framework. The agenda for the developer week this timearound, is to give the  developers  a head start on the various technologies that they will use to build     applications ,  like python tools and frameworks , Bazaar , Launchpad and infrastructure etc.The previous developer week was held from Jan 25th  2010 toJan 29th 2010 .

If you want to be a part of the Developer week you need to register  here .  All the Developer sessions are conducted online.  And if you think you can contribute to any one of the sessions you can drop an email at : jono@ubuntu.com .

The growth of Open source technology has indeed been phenomenal , from web servers to operating systems ! Linux has proven to be a robust operating system and is now barely trailing their competitors Microsoft. So , all you techies out there , pull up your socks and make the most of this Technovanza ! For any other information you can check Ubuntu`s website !

There are empty slots in the upcoming conference . The rough schedule is as follows :

If you would like to confirm what your local time is as compared to the UTC time : just run date -u in a terminal to find out what the current UTC time is.

Are you  going to participate on this Open source frenzy? Do let me know via your comments.

This Post Ubuntu opportunistic Developer Week is Published on Devils Workshop .

Related posts:

• Facebook Developer Garage in New Delhi, India
• Shipit Ubuntu Temporarily Down
• Multi-touch gestures in Ubuntu (least some of em…)

Twitter recently introduced the much needed Hovercards feature, but if twitter is still missing on something, then it is the ability to show mutual followers. Whenever I come across any profile, I would want to know, who I have in common or, Which of my friends are following him? And since, all of his updates would be visible on my twitter page, so, Is he reliable enough to follow back?

Understanding the need of users, many third-Party web apps have been created, that fill this gap. MutualTweeps, ReFollow, Twitual, Twtfrnd are a part of the long list. All of them work on the functionality of Comparison between two twitter users, where you need to input your twitter user name and user name of the fellow tweeter.

Since most of the twitter users still use twitter.com to access their twitter accounts. The plugins below, will let them discover mutual friends, from their twitter domains. As of now, the plugins are in early stages on development, but still, we found them interesting and useful because of the functionality they bestow us with.

Ul.timate.info – A Firefox add-on offering the ability to display Mutual friends you have with any other twitter user. This is a neat little add-on that does not require any user name input from user.

After installing the add-on,  go to ul.timate.info menu in the menu bar. Configure the settings by verifying your twitter account. Then right click on any other user’s Name or Profile picture, and select “View Mutual Friends”. Quickly, you can see the people you two have in common. This add-on finds it usage with other social networks like Facebook, MySpace and FriendFeed also.

Firefox Users can install the  Ul.timate.info add-on.
Don’t worry! We have a similar, but an advanced Extension for Chrome Users also.

Intersect – As the name suggests, a Google Chrome extension that lets you see users who mutually follow you and another user on Twitter. It adds an embedded column just under the Followers module. This extension does not work on Protected accounts.

Chrome Users can install Intersect extension.

Mutual Followers add-ons provide us a much better idea of the people surrounding us. We wish, twitter itself comes up with a feature of its own! Because, it’s not what you know but who you know that counts!

Do let me know if you use any such similar service via any website or addons.

This Post Browser Plugins to See Mutual Friends on twitter is Published on Devils Workshop .

Related posts:

• Mutual Communities – Know how alike you and your friends are! Orkut Dating Tips!
• Googles Chrome Browser – Features and alternative Firefox Plugins
• Twitter + Google URL shortener extension for Chrome browser

Sometimes you just like a pdf file of something you read on the internet. This is really needed when you read a tutorial or a online manual. One thing you want, would be a PDF document to read or even store. I reviewed Flexamail recently which allows you to from your email create a pdf document of a web page and fetch it as a PDF document. That service can only be used for a PDF document of 15MB as it has to be email friendly.

One of the main features of this is it allows any page to be converted into PDF. I checked with creating PDF of large size and it does work quite well so I guess size of the PDF to be generated will not be a issue.

I think the most exciting part of this service is that you can add this into your website or blog with a simple code being inserted in the web-page. I tried to see if there is a widget which can put up this code to create the PDF of the page automatically; but I did not come across any. I guess at the moment if you want visitors to download your webpage you have to manually enter this HTML code.

<a href="http://pdfmyurl.com?url=www.opentracker.net">downlaod this page as pdf</a>

You can even directly link an customized image to

http://pdfmyurl.com?url=www.opentracker.net

This will allow a visitor to click on the image or link on your page and the page is converted to PDF.

For people addicted to PDF there is also a bookmarket which is offered by the website and all you need to do is drag the bookmarklet to your bookmarks in the browser and when you are at a page you want to convert to PDF just click on the bookmarklet.

Do check out PDF my URL and try it out. Do drop in your comments on what you think about this service.

This Post Convert any URL to PDF is Published on Devils Workshop .

Related posts:

• Convert your Mails into RSS Feeds
• Convert Files Into Public Websites with File2.ws
• Convert your files into other Formats: Online and for Free!

A few months ago I reviewed Google Sidewiki which was Google’s way of allowing you to put up your comment on any webpage. At that time there was a bit of a mini-controversy on the point that Google is allowing un-moderated comments on websites with Sidewiki.
Here is a new extension on Chrome browser called Twitter Remarks which allows you to look up people’s comment on the webpage through Twitter.

Twitter Remarks

• Download and install Twitter remarks extension on the Chrome browser. I tried to look up a similar Add-on for Firefox unfortunately it is not there as yet.
• I like Twitter Remarks as I can view any website or any page and see its exposure on Twitter. This gives a instant yet a good idea of how websites use Twitter to get the message across.
• For blogs with Tweetmeme counter you might not need this extension for looking up the whats the reaction to a particular link. But if a blog does not have Tweetmeme counter this extension gives a good idea of who is referring the link to their followers on Twitter.
• I think this is also a great way to check for who is following your blog and add people who regularly Retweet your posts.
• You never know in the nooks and carnies of the internet who resides and where you name or website URL might pop up.

I am not sure that it can replace Sidewiki or give real insights on people are sharing the URL on Twitter. But for people still struggling with the decision on weather they should have a prominent tweetmeme counter on each post; they might like to install this extension and monitor how retweets work with and without a counter.

Hopefully very soon they will have a similar add-on for Firefox; if you do know about one do drop in a comment.

Install: Twitter Remarks Extension

This Post Get Twitter exposure of any page you visit is Published on Devils Workshop .

Related posts:

• Claim Your Twitter Page as A Blog On Technorati [New Feature]
• Pay-Per-Visit Programs over Pay-Per-Click
• Page rank update from Google

In the past I wrote about using Flexamail a service which could be used for using Facebook and Twitter through Email without even the need to visit Twitter or Facebook. Now thanks to a tip by Michael Fleischauer I can share with you new features with Flexamail which allow you to get a pdf file of a webpage by using email client.

Website in PDF

• First I needed to register with Flexamail with my Email Id.
• Once you are done with that just log into the Email Id which you have used for registering with Flexamail.
• Now I sent an email to the address pdfwww@flexamail.com and with the subject line :www.devilsworkshop.org
• Once the email was sent Felxamail takes the webpage indicated in the subject line and converts it into a pdf file and sends it back to your email id as an attachment.
• So basically now if your browser is not working or if you cannot access a particular website you can simply use your email to fetch it.

Another handy new feature with Flexamail is that I can send an email to savewww@flexamail.com and with subject line of any website I want to covert to pdf. Once done, Felxamail saves the pdf file on its servers and you can fetch the file by sending an email to getfile@flexamail.com I get a return mail with all the files stored by me on Flexamail. I can also log into Flexamail website and download the saved pdf files. This is ideal for taking snapshots of a website and keep it for later reading. Basically a great way to archive a particular webpage into pdf format.

Here is a video which explains in detail how you can use the new features.

Let me know if you like the new features of Flexamail which in way allows you to browse the internet through your email client and without the need of a browser. Do drop in your comments.

Link: Flexamail

This Post Flexamail: Take a snapshot of a website without visiting it is Published on Devils Workshop .

Related posts:

• 5 Websites Worth Visiting
• Get notifed by email if your website is down
• Use Email to control Twitter and Facebook

Tata Consultancy Services official website www.tcs.com has been attacked and hacked. The hacker has left a message suggesting the website is up for sale.

At the time of writing of this post if you visited the official url of TCS, www.tcs.com; this is message you are greeted with.

Strangely the hacker has put up a email Id out there in case someone is interested in buying the domain.

It is probably unrelated but there has been a rise in official websites being hacked into with messages. This is known as defacing homepages. Only recently Indian government had admitted that China based hackers had attacked official computers. But those were more sophisticated and meant to attack computer systems rather than deface any websites.

DNS Attack?

It seems TCS is facing DNS attack of some kind as the homepage opens fine with Pagewash. Here is a video to explain.

This Post TCS official website hacked is Published on Devils Workshop .

Related posts:

• Does using a Wi-Fi increase the chances of you being hacked?
• How To Get Back Your Hacked Gmail/Orkut/Google Account!
• Facebook’s Official Blog is Down!

Browsing through images can be a little boring and monotonous but there is an extension which works really well; using a 3D like interface for looking up images or even videos.

CoolIris is a extension which works on Chrome and you can just about browse any image online with its very interesting graphical browser. Before downloading the extension I need to warn you that the CoolIris extension does use your graphics card for rendering.

About Cool Iris

• Download the Cool Iris extension from here and install it in Chrome.
• While using Chrome you come across any image it will show you a new symbol.
• Clicking on this icon starts the Cooliris extension and allows you to browse images as if you are viewing them against a wall in an exhibition.
• I clicked on a friends image on Facebook and I could browse all the pictures he was tagged in through the extension without needing to go through the album.

I started playing around with this extension and really think it is a brilliant way to browse images or videos online. It is said an image is worth a thousand words and going by that logic a video should be worth a million. So I decided to put up the CoolIris demo video.

Go ahead and download Cooliris extension and try it out for yourself. Do drop in your comments about your opinions on it.

This Post Browse online pics and videos in a 3D layout [Video] is Published on Devils Workshop .

Related posts:

• Download Videos from Websites Like Google Video, YouTube, MySpace, and Others!
• Keepvid Hack – Download Videos from YouTube, MySpace, Google and virtually every video sharing sites!
• Apple iPhone Launch Fever – Top 5 news, rumors, videos, pics, etc flooding my inbox!

We never published traffic report in past but from now on every month Devils workshop will be publishing its monthly traffic report. One reason for publishing traffic report is most of Devils workshop readers are budding bloggers and we want them to see what are the areas from where they can drive traffic to their blog. Another good reason to publish your monthly traffic report is, advertisers will have an idea about the traffic and exposure they will get while advertising with devils workshop and our blog network.

Monthly Traffic report for January 2010

• Monthly Visits : 170K
• Monthly Page Views : 250K
• New Visit : 87.60%

Traffic source :

Devilsworkshop provide premier SEO service for Wordpress and we target search engine traffic over any other traffic. Most of DW traffic is organic traffic and here is break down of traffic for DW:

As you can see most of our traffic comes from search engine and because of that Devils workshop traffic is targeted traffic.

Soon we will be doing a complete redesign of Devils workshop. You can have a glimpse of our new design here.We are open for more suggestions on design. Apart from it, devils workshop is going under lots of development and soon we will make a big public announcement for all the readers which I’m sure all of you are going to welcome.

Do give your feedback about devilsworkshop and your suggestion for better community building ?

This Post DevilsWorkshop Monthly Traffic Report January 2010 is Published on Devils Workshop .

Related posts:

• Wish u all a very happy n rocking new year 2010!
• Traffic Stats and Analysis of 2008
• Surf smartly to reduce your monthly Broadband bill.