Web buzz

Google's " Unexplained phenomenon" logo

noreply@blogger.com (Rohit) — Sat, 05 Sep 2009 13:34:00 +0000

Google homepage was adored on Friday by a strange and equally stimulating logo shown below.

As you should see, the doodle depicts that an 'O' is being taken away by an unidentified flying object(UFO). The logo image is fittingly named "Unexplained phenomenon". Clicking the image will take you to a list of Google web results on 'Unexplained phenomenon".

There's a funny bit of creativity attached to the logo as well as it's URL has a missing 'O' as well. Here's the url of the image: "http://www.google.com/logos/go_gle.gif".

Now check your BSNL broadband usage details at a new link!.

noreply@blogger.com (Rohit) — Thu, 27 Aug 2009 11:12:00 +0000

If you are a BSNL Braodband subscriber you should have been checking your broadband usage details at the web link www.bbservice.bsnl.in for many months. But with effect from 21st August 2009, the link www.bbservice.bsnl.in will no longer work and broadband subscribers will have to check their usage details at the link www.data.bsnl.in.

So, go to www.data.bsnl.in in your browser and when the page loads, enter the username and password (the same you used to enter at bbservice.bsnl.in) in the login form and login.

When you are logged in, click on “My Services” tab and chose your “service name” as broadband from the drop down menu. The page reloads and then chose your account number and usage month from the drop down menu and click “search” button . You are done.

Your broadband usage details are shown in a clean manner which include the connection start and stop times, duration of the connection, data upload and download done and total usage details. These details can also be exported to excel using a link given at the bottom on this page.

Nokia 5230 Mobilecoming to India: details

noreply@blogger.com (Rohit) — Wed, 26 Aug 2009 06:42:00 +0000

Nokia is rolling out it's new version of Music phones- the Nokia 5230, a touch screen mobile phone.

The main features of this mobile are:

A 3.2 inch screen
A 2 MP camera
3G enabled
In built GPS
Stereo FM radio
Expandable storage upto 16 GB
Longer battery life.
Runs on Nokia's Symbian S60 5th Edition OS
Access to OVI store to download and use cool apps

The price of Nokia 5230 in India will be about 10,000 rupees which is equivalent to $215 price mentioned. Availability of this phone will be in the 4th quarter of this year

You can read more about the specs of Nokia 5230 at http://www.nokia.co.in/find-products/products/nokia-5230/specifications.

Here is a picture of the smartphone...

Nokia launching Booklet 3G Netbook soon: details

noreply@blogger.com (Rohit) — Mon, 24 Aug 2009 14:08:00 +0000

Seems to be the hottest segment right now.Seems everyone want to make their impact in the growing netbook market.

Earlier it has been Sony, wipro joined it later with their e.go netbook and now it's Nokia which is better known as mobile phone and accessories manufacturer.

The netbook from Nokia named Nokia Booklet 3G looks a lot similar to other netbooks already in the market feature wise. It is powered by Intel atom processor, uses Windows XP as it's operating system and has a 10-inch display screen with greater battery life of 12 hours.

What's special here is that you can have fun with some Nokia add-ons like easy coupling with a Nokia phone if you own one. You can access Nokia OVI and music store just as you would on a Nokia phone as in Nokia N97.

The complete details about the price and others are not yet available but will be on September 2. Looks like a cool one in the pcitures doesn't it?

Wipro e.go 7F3800 netbook details

noreply@blogger.com (Rohit) — Fri, 14 Aug 2009 07:38:00 +0000

More and more companies are looking to tap profits from the netbook market. Cheap cost, portability and … are the reasons why many users are looking to keep a netbook.
Even a large player like Sony which earlier underestimated the netbook market later accepted it and launched the Sony Vaio W netbook.

The newest player in this market is Wipro which is better known for it’s software products. The netbook named Wipro e.go is somewhat different specification-wise from other netbooks already in the market.

Going into the details, e.go 7F3800 has a 10 inch screen, hard disk of 120GB, 2 GB RAM, Intel Atom 270 CPU processor, 1.3 MP webcam and runs on Windows XP home edition. The battery can provide backup of upto 3 hours. As you have noticed, the plus point of e.go is 2GB of RAM which enables better and faster performance. The price of e.go 7F3800 including taxes is Rs 19,900 and this will be available in Reliance Digital, Next and E-zone stores as of now.

Bhuvan similar to Google Earth launched by ISRO.

noreply@blogger.com (Rohit) — Thu, 13 Aug 2009 14:23:00 +0000

Indians’ can now boast of a home-made map browser application similar to Google Earth. Named Bhuvan, the application is developed by Indian Space Research Organization ( ISRO).

Bhuvan, in it's beta stage, being prepared by India’s major Space Organization, users can expect high resolution images of the Indian sub-continent. It will be a fun-based try for users as the interface is similar to Google Earth but with greater details. You can view your home,office and nearby streets with greater zoom level.

But one thing that may turn away users is the fact that the images supplied are those captured one year ago. So, homes and places that came up less than an year ago will not appear in the images. The plus point over here is that the application needs less bandwidth and so it can comfortably run on slow internet connections too.

The application Bhuvan can be downloaded from the link http://bhuvan.nrsc.gov.in/

Google Caffeine : My impressions

noreply@blogger.com (Rohit) — Thu, 13 Aug 2009 13:09:00 +0000

Google in it’s bid to provide quality search results to it’s users has developed a new search engine algorithm and has opened it for public. Such an update is pending from Google until now as Microsoft’s Bing is posing a far-away threat to the Google’s search engine business.

The new system being called Google Caffeine by the excited bloggers around the World is available for a try at http://www2.sandbox.google.com/. Everything remains the same as the parent Google homepage but the change is to be noticed in the search results you are shown for your queries.

I played around for quite a while with Caffeine and noticed the following:
1. Importance for social web like Twitter
2. Indexing of Twitter updates faster for live web results

Since traffic from Google search engine makes majority portion of income for bloggers and web developers,you should better decode how this new system is working to optimize your blogs for Caffeine.

Reliance mobile plans Paris Hilton game.

noreply@blogger.com (Rohit) — Mon, 10 Aug 2009 07:22:00 +0000

Reliance mobile has planned to launch a video game on Paris Hilton, a famous Hollywood celebrity. The game will be based on the life of Paris Hilton and is named “Paris Hilton’s Diamond Quest “.

The work to develop the game is handed over to Gameloft, an US based mobile game developing company. Users can wait for a fabulous game as Gameloft is specialized in developing games based on Hollywood celebrities.

The partnership also allows Reliance mobile users to play a wide variety of games based on some super-hit Hollywood flicks like The Mummy3, Night At Museum 2 ,Terminator Salvation and some other classic games based on Wimbledon tennis, Ferrari World Championship, Spider Man etc.,.

This seems to be a good strategy from Reliance Communications to keep and grow it’s user base considering the Indians’ craze for movie stars. But whether Indians’ have similar craze for Hollywood films and celebrities is what we need to wait to see…

Airtel Net PC : Low cost computer from Airtel.

noreply@blogger.com (Rohit) — Thu, 09 Jul 2009 14:58:00 +0000

Inspired by the increasing popularity of Netbooks, Airtel has launched a similar product called NetPC. This product is built mainly to perform basic applications like internet surfing,chatting and document making.This is being brought up mainly for the use by Indian Airtel broadband users located in Delhi,Gurgaon and Noida areas.

Here is a brief review of the product outlining the goods and the bads of it:

The Goods:
• Unlike most other netbooks, Airtel NetPC uses or runs on WindowsXP.Most cheap netboks run Linux to reduce the cost of the software.Users can still stick to their favorite Windows platform.
• It is compact and highly portable weighing just half kilogram. If you purchased a USB modem from Airtel, you can freely access the internet on the go.
• The cost is low-within the reach of an average Indian's pocket. Net PC costs 7999 rupees excluding the monthly bill.

The Bads:
• Your monthly bill will be little heavier as you need to pay for the software you are using in addition to the broadband bill.The minimum plan stands at Rs 699 per month.
• You can’t play videos on it.
• You can’t install other new softwares
• You can’t install other browing softwares like Chrome,Firefox etc.,.You got to use IE that comes bundled with Windows.
• You can’t shift to other broadband networks like Reliance,BSNL as the product would be locked to Airtel Broadband.

Seems to be an exciting product but the probably high monthly bill and other limitations make it a rather unexciting one.Netbooks though a little costlier than this NetPC have more better features and I think users should prefer Netbooks to NetPC.

What say you?.Let me know about your views on NetPC in the comments...

Google Chrome Operating System mainly for netbooks

noreply@blogger.com (Rohit) — Wed, 08 Jul 2009 10:43:00 +0000

There have been speculations for some time now that Google, the king of search would also enter the Operating System business.Those speculations rose and fell and everyone else thought that was a rumor.But it is not to be.

Google today announced that it is launching Google Chrome Operating System. This open source operating system is mainly built to power netbooks and netbooks bundled with Chrome Operating system are set to be available in 2010.Reportedly, the operating system is being targeted at people who spend a lot of their life on the web.So, it's coupling with netbooks would be an ideal match.Main focus of this OS is on speed, security and simplicity.

Read the announcement and more about Google Chrome Operating System here

Sony launches Vaio W netbook

noreply@blogger.com (Rohit) — Wed, 08 Jul 2009 10:01:00 +0000

Sony is finally entering the growing Netbook market probably knowing what it has been missing by taking the netbook market as a completely no-no space till now.

Sony is launching it’s Sony Vaio W Netbook. Vaio W 's specifications are similar to those of any other netbook.To go into the details, it has a 10.1-inch screen ,is powered by an Intel Atom N280 CPU, has 1GB of RAM, runs on Windows XP and has a 160GB hard disk.

The launch date of Vaio W netbook is in August.The date is for it's release in U.S.But it should be available at the same time in other countries including India.

Sony fixes the price of Vaio W at $499 which is approximately Rs 25,000 in India.

More and more people are looking at netbooks which are low cost laptops built mainly to perform basic computer applications like internet browsing, document making etc.,.With a big player like Sony entering this arena, there is more scope for reduction in prices and flexibility for the user to chose a suitable netbook for his/her needs.

Get free Snagit Camtasia Studio laptop stickers

noreply@blogger.com (Rohit) — Thu, 18 Jun 2009 09:09:00 +0000

If you love laptop stickers, here is an oppurtunity for you to get those of Snagit(a screenshot sofware), Camtasia Studio( a screencasting software) for you.

All you need to do is fill this form furnishing your details and address to where the stickers will be sent without any charge.Via DI

UPDATE:Received my beautiful set of buttons and stickers.Thanks to Techsmith for the surprise gift of a calculator.I really love SNAGIT !!.

Win free Nokia N97 phones in Nokia Search for N contest

noreply@blogger.com (Rohit) — Mon, 15 Jun 2009 13:44:00 +0000

To energize it's publicity efforts and to give more popularity to it's latest product N97, Nokia took the contest route.

In the "Nokia Search for N contest", Nokia is giving away 10 Nokia N97 for the winners.All you have to do is to rush over to any or all of the 5 websites running the contest and answer the simple questions(clues given) that will be put up by 8 A.M (IST) everyday till June 19th starting today, i.e June 15th.

The 5 sites where the N97 contest is being run are :

Since the main aim of the contest is to draw more and more people towards the new N97, the questions are very simple(I just answered one!!). So it's only a matter of accuracy and speed.Since the contest site declares "Only the first ten all-correct entries will each get a chance to win the New Nokia N97.", only those persons who have answered the last(5th) question quickly would win these cool N97 phones( assuming an average person would be intelligent enough to answer the 4 other questions correctly).

So whatever time you answer the first 4 questions, on the last day i.e., on June 19 be there before time and post your answer as soon as possible.Good luck to you all.

Nokia N97 touch phone review

noreply@blogger.com (Rohit) — Mon, 15 Jun 2009 12:41:00 +0000

It's going to be another battle between Apple and Nokia in the mobile phone arena.Way back in 2007 there was this battle between Apple's iPhone and Nokia's N95 in which iPhone emerged as the clear winner.Now it's time for another one between new iPhone 3G S and Nokia N97.I have reviewed iPhone 3G S recently and now here's a review of Nokia N97.

Nokia is loaded with a lot of cool features which you shouldn't have experienced in any other mobile phone.Here is a short review of the touch phone:

Inspired by iGoogle homepage, Nokia N97 has a personalized home screen on which you can manage widgets to see your favourite feeds,bookmarks,shortcuts and email messages on the same page. These widgets can be dragged with ease to any place on the screen.
It has a feature to read aloud text. So users can rest their eyes while still managing t listening to their emails and text messages.
Another exciting feature is the ability to go live on the Web.With Qik, you can take a video of yourself and others can see your videos live on the Web simultaneously.
Reading webpages on a mobile phone could have never been better.Owing to it's wide 3.5 inches screen, webpages can be read in their original format.Portions of these pages can be magnified according to your wish.
Flash Lite in N97 allows users to watch streaming YouTube videos on the go.
Similar to N73 and N95, N97 has a camera on both sides with the back one producing clear images( 5MP).
It has a touch screen and QWERTY keypad facilitating easy typing.
It comes loaded with anti-theft software Wavesecure, which locks the phone in case someone tries to replace the SIM card.You can also erase all the data on the phone from the internet so you need not worry about somebody gaining access to your data.

Nokia N97 has a memory capacity of 48 GB with 32 GB of phone memory and16 GB expandable memory.It should be more than enough for storing movies,videos, music and other documents.

Nokia's N97 price in India is at Rs 34,000.That should be something high to shell out!!.

Did you grab your Facebook vanity url ??.

noreply@blogger.com (Rohit) — Mon, 15 Jun 2009 12:03:00 +0000

Following the footsteps of Google(which launched Google Profiles), Facebook has now given a chance for it's users to grab a vanity url like " Facebook.com/username " for their profile.

The advantages of these vanity urls are that:

They are easy-to-remember and easy-to-share.
One need not go around his list of friends to reach his friend's profile.He/she can just type in the vanity url to reach the friend's profile.
One can easily add you as a friend without using Facebook friend search where one needs to use an email address or go around hundreds of profiles before arriving at the right one.

The registrations were open from midnight on Saturday and since then it’s been quite a heavy rush.Reportedly, registrations happened at 550 a second with about 5,00,000 users claiming their vanity urls within the first 15 minutes.

If you haven't claimed your Facebook vanity url as yet, it's never too late.Head over to Facebook.com/username.After logging-in to your account, you will be provided with a ready list of some suggested usernames.If you like one of them, well and good.Otherwise click 'more' and you can key-in your choice of username.

But owing to the time lapse, you may not manage to get the vanity url of your choice straight away(unless you have a very unique name).So here are few tips to help you obtain a most suitable username.

Make sure your name is included in the vanity url you choose since these profiles may appear in search engine results when anyone queries for it.This would ease up the process for your friends.
Since vanity urls like "facebook.com/rohit.nvvs" and like "facebook.com/rohit.n.v.v.s"(notice that it has multiple dots) direct to the same profile, there is no use tweaking around with the help of dots.You can only change the order like using "facebook.com/nvvs.rohit"
If you still can't arrive at a suitable name because of someone already registering one in your name, try adding numbers at the end like "facebook.com/rohit.nvvs1" etc.,

GO grab your Facebook vanity url and remember that once chosen you cannot change the url.

New Apple iPhone 3G S features and price.

noreply@blogger.com (Rohit) — Thu, 11 Jun 2009 13:33:00 +0000

Apple, which became a most sought after brand after the sweetest launch of iPhone is planning to release a new version of iPhone 3G called the iPhone 3G Speed or iPhone 3G S.

Appearance wise, iPhone 3G S looks the same as an iPhone 3G but all the difference is in it’s added features.

This new touch phone boasts about:

A mobile compass for giving directions
Faster performance that is 3.6 times faster than 2G phones and 2 times faster than iPhone 3G
Faster loading of web pages
Ability to connect your iPhone 3G S to a personal computer(PC)/laptop and enjoy 3G browsing in bigger resolution.
Better 3D graphics experience and gaming
Ability to call a number on uttering a name or a number

iPhone 3G S will be available in the American markets from 19th June and in other countries including India from August.

The iPhone 3G S is priced in India at Rs 9400($199) for a 16GB model and Rs 14,100($299) for a 32GB model.

With the launching of this new model, Apple have reduced the price of iPhone 3G to Rs 4700($99).

Search Engine encounters just got intense - New ones reviewed !!.

noreply@blogger.com (Rohit) — Mon, 01 Jun 2009 15:52:00 +0000

The competition in the search engine field just got intense with every new search engine making it’s main aim to dethrone the uncrowned king of search – Google.

Here are short reviews of search engines that opened up in the recent times:

Cuil : This search engine created interest among netizens as a direct improvement of Google. The main reason for this is because of it’s architects -Anna Patterson and Russell Power being former search specialists at Google. This search engine boasts that it’s indexed volume on the internet is three times that of Google.

Wolfram|Alpha : This search engine, which is reported to have involved a lot of Mathematics in it’s algorithm by Stephen Wolfram, should be refreshing for many users. It manages to give direct answers to questions typed in by the users.

Bing : The latest search engine unleashed today is Microsoft’s another hit at Google to increase it’s market share in the search market.Interestingly and quite cunningly, Microsoft has prepared it in such a way that a user needsto browse Bing in IE8 to be able to experience some of it’s features.
Additionally, you can get a previews of Hulu videos(on Bing videos), email search queries to your friend and can even save them to your Window SkyDrive account. These features should certainly make it’s users feel good.

Now with such competitors coming to the fore, Google needs to be careful with it’s strategies if it is to keep it’s strong user base if not to improve it.

Exciting new oppurtunity for bloggers to earn money on Amazon Kindle .

noreply@blogger.com (Rohit) — Sat, 30 May 2009 15:49:00 +0000

Amazon Kindle is a revolutionary ebook reader. People can pay and download ebooks directly to this portable digital reader and enjoy reading them on the go.

For bloggers and kindle users who have till now only read ebooks on kindle, here is a good news. Following the ever increasing popularity of blogs and the number of blog readers, Amazon can’t help but introduce blogs for reading on Kindle. The exciting news for bloggers is that bloggers can earn a fixed monthly income paid on a per user basis.

Going into the details of the deal, a kindle user needs to pay a monthly subscription amount anywhere between $0.99 to $1.99 to read a blog on their Kindle. Amazon has agreed to pay some 30% of the subscription amount to the content owner(the blogger). This means you can earn some 30-60 cents per subscriber per month which adds up to a handsome amount if your content is good to be read by a lot of rich people.

Wolfram|Alpha : A Google Killer ?

noreply@blogger.com (Rohit) — Fri, 15 May 2009 06:51:00 +0000

The World would soon see a refreshing new innovative search engine.This could be real god news for the netizens who are bored of their routine regular searches on Google,Yahoo.

Designed and developed by famous mathematician Stephen Wolfram,this revolutionary search engine named “Wolfram|Alpha” is tipped to become a "Google killer".Well, we have heard of many pre launch "Google killers" but none realized their challenge post-launch.We need to wait till the 18th of May to see if this realizes it’s challenge to reduce the importance of Googling in out lives.

The main idea in launching this search engine is to bring revolutionary changes in the way we perform our seaches on a search engine.Contrary to the Google searches where some hundreds of thousands of results come up on a query,a query on Wolfram Alpha first commands it’s algorithm to understand it deeply.Then, according to the developers, the algorithm outputs an appropriate answer from it’s expertly developed database.Read a detailed explanation by Stephen Wolfram and more about his other projects here.

Well, the description looks quite interesting but we need to wait to get a hands-on on the search engine and experience it in first person.Make sure you head over to Wolfram|Alpha soon.

Zoozoo ads are a hit on the Web too....

noreply@blogger.com (Rohit) — Thu, 07 May 2009 12:06:00 +0000

Zoozoo ads,which are created by O&M for Vodafone to advertise about the various value added services of Vodafone are becoming very popular.

Following their broadcast during the IPL ad-breaks,these videos are a hit on the web too.The zoozoo ads as they are popularly called are among the most-watched videos on YouTube and also boast of 50,000+ fans on Facebook.

These ads comprise of actors named as "zoozoos". These characters aren't animated ones as many people think.They are enacted by thin women and children who are dressed in funny white costumes.The thin hands and legs with egg-shaped heads and bulged stomachs and back give us an impression that these characters are nothing but short animatin video clips but the other thing is true.

Receive your Adsense earnings in India via standard delivery for free

noreply@blogger.com (Rohit) — Tue, 21 Apr 2009 20:30:00 +0000

It's good news for Indian publishers who are worried about huge sum of money they need to pay as courier fees in case they want to receive their Adsense checks via a secure courier delivery.

Earlier, a hard-earned sum of $25 used to be deducted from the Adsense check for when the publishers wanted their check to be issued by a secured delivery.This secured delivery ensured safe and faster check delivery through courier via DHL service to avoid missing of checks.

But now, as Google made it official that all checks for Indian publishers be delivered via Blue Dart courier service, publishers need not pay that hefty amount.

This is the reason why secure delivery will not be further seen as a payment option in India.All payments will be made through standard delivery from now on.These checks should arrive at your address within 10-30 days of the check date, according to Google.

Though this is a good move from Google Adsense team, I still feel the inclusion of payment through Western Union will be a very helpful.With Western Union, one can withdraw the amount within hours of issue of payment.

Google page rank update of April 2009

noreply@blogger.com (Rohit) — Sun, 05 Apr 2009 04:06:00 +0000

It's another page rank update from Google and it's good news again for Web Buzz.

In the first Google page rank update this year,Web Buzz rose from PR2 to PR3.The last page rank update happened in December 2008.

Quality content has been the key in achieving this and nothing could have been possible without the encouagement from the readers.So, here's a "THANK YOU"for all that you have done and would continue to do.

Go check whether your site/blog fared well in this first of the year pagerank update at www.checkpagerank.net !!.

Google Summer of Code 2009: Internship program for students

noreply@blogger.com (Rohit) — Tue, 31 Mar 2009 18:14:00 +0000

Google, as a part of it’s initiative to encourage the talent in student coders has been organizing a program "Google Summer of Code" since 2005. The annual program calls for students around the World to send in their project proposals programmable on a Open Source platform. Selected candidates are then allotted a mentor(s) who would guide the student throughout the period of the project.

This year's version of the program, The Google Summer of Code 2009 has started and is receiving project proposals from students.

Just head over to “ code.google.com/soc “, register as a student with your Google account and you should be ready to submit abstract and other details about your project idea. An individual can propose up to 20 ideas, though, finally only one will be selected.

Google has appointed 47 companies or organizations to whom the responsibility of guidance is given. Mentors from these organizations will help and guide you with the project proposals.

The deadline for the submission of the ideas is 19:00 GMT on the 3rd of April. The proposals are then scrutinized for quality and a final list of selected projects would be made.

Google announced that approximately some 1000 students should be given projects this time as compared to 1125 last year.

One more exciting thing other than working with Google is the cash value associated with the program. Selected candidates receive a total stipend of $4500 upon the successful completion of the project. That should be a nice income for 3 months of hardwork.

If you are a student, above 18 years of age, this could be a golden chance to give extra weight to your curriculum vitae. Don’t miss out on this.

Are you voting for Earth Hour tonight ?

noreply@blogger.com (Rohit) — Sat, 28 Mar 2009 05:34:00 +0000

Earth Hour 2009 is a move to spread awareness about energy conservation.This global WWF climate change initiative first took place at Sydney,Australia in 2007.Since then,the program has been receiving tremendous support and it is expected to reach a billion supporters this year.

To be a part of this movement , turn off your lights for one hour tonight(i.e.,28th March) from 8:30 p.m to 9:30 p.m as per your local time. More importantly, practice and teach energy conservation among your family and friends.

Web Buzz supports this action and now,it's your turn to be a part of this and take control over the future of this planet.Take action !!.

Follow Adsense on Twitter

noreply@blogger.com (Rohit) — Wed, 25 Mar 2009 21:52:00 +0000

Finally, Google Adsense has recognized the evolution of Twitter.

Twitter has become a place of live-wire discussions and Adsense related issues were actively discussed on it.Any problem with Adsense, publishers go to Twitter and start their tweets.Other publishers join the conversation and it becomes a hot topic of discussion in a matter of minutes.A recent occurence of this was when Adsense had problems with tracking the clicks.The problem was rectified within hours-thanks to the outcry on Twitter.

Adsense team admits this saying, "If there's an issue affecting many publishers, Twitter is one of the very first places we hear about it".

Now,Google Adsense has it's very own account on Twitter so any issues can be directly notified to the Adsense team through @reply.Besides this,we can expect daily dose of interesting optimization tips and other quick updates.

So, start following Adsense on Twitter here.