lifeOmaniac

RSS Feed Homepage

Articles: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5

Twitter with ads!
2008-06-04 22:00:00
I noticed that Twitter puts ads by DoubleClick on its user pages in the Japanese translated version. You could check it out yourself by going to my Twitter page and then selecting Japanese from the language dropdown list. You need to be logged out of your twitter account in order to see the language selection box.A screenshot of the page with the ad:Well we all know Twitter needs a lot of support for their current problems, so a small ad box wouldn't upset its users I guess. Atleast it doesn't bother me although I don't have many Japanese followers. What about you? What are your comments about the ad box in Twitter?

Orkut introduces Themes
2008-05-28 09:54:00
A few Orkut users from India are reporting that they are getting a new option to change the theme of their profile and scrapbook pages. These themes are not javascript hacks or Orkut apps, they are official themes by Orkut. Only a limited number of users have access to this feature and you can choose between four different themes.I got a few screenshots from TechBuzz:Official announcement is yet to be heard on the Orkut Blog. They usually release new features within two weeks of testing them with a few users so most probably we'll get to see it soon.So what do you think, Orkut is trying all this to outrun Facebook? Hmm...
More About: Themes

Twitter down again - Over Capacity
2008-05-26 19:58:00
I was trying to access my Twitter account to do some twitting and follow new people but I guess Twitter is having yet another problem. Meet the Twitter whale:Oh great! They are over their capacity. "Too many tweets! We'll try to lighten the load and have things back to normal soon." - Yea you better do that.

Cowpetition - Cow vs Conn
2008-05-25 11:56:00
Want to learn the proven trade secrets on how make a profitable income online through blogging by the most prominent "make money online" guru?John Cow is up with a challenge with Garry Conn and he is hosting a Cowpetition where you can win almost $3000 worth of prizes just for helping him to promote the event.So whats with the challenge between the two money making gurus? Well, the blogs that they have crafted from scratch and marketed with their skills will be put on auction at Sitepoint. The person who can sell their niche blog for the highest amount in a NO RESERVE Sitepoint auction wins the game. Both sites will end up selling and the runner up who sells for less, will have to transfer his earnings to the winner of the game.John Chow is giving away a whopping $3000 worth of prizes to his readers through his contest:A FREE Copy of ContentComposer ($297 Value)A FREE Copy of SEOCodeBreaker ($97 Value)$100 DealDotCom Bucks at DealDotCom.com ($100 Value)A FREE one year subscription t...

Google Sites now open for all
2008-05-22 21:38:00
Google Sites (aka Google Wiki) is now open for signups by anybody having a Google Account.Google Sites makes it easy for anyone to create and manage simple, secure group websites. You can create and publish new pages with the click of a button, edit web pages like documents, and move content and pages around as you please. Information is stored securely online, and you decide who can edit or view the site. Google Sites is powerful enough for a company intranet, yet simple enough for a family website.They even made a small video to explain what Google Sites basically is:So quickly go and grab your Google Sites URLs before someone else takes them because like all other Google Services(almost all) - its Free of Cost! Google Sites will not offer SEO benefits as all the external links have a "rel=nofollow" tag in them.So what do you think about Google Sites?Note: If you have subscribed to this blog's newsletter you may not be able to see the video widget in your email issue or feed synd...
More About: Google , Open

Firefox renders Live Mail correctly unlike Internet Explorer
2008-05-22 17:29:00
I logged into Windows Live Mail using Internet Explorer 7 just because Windows Live Messenger forced me to log into it through it. I was certain that as Live Mail is a Microsoft service, IE would render the website correctly but to my surprise I saw that it did not(Erm...could not!). See what did I saw after the loading finished:When I tried log into Live Mail through Firefox 2 see what I saw:Click on the two images for a full page view.Surprising huh? LOL! Firefox can render Windows Live Mail but IE cannot! Doesn't really Firefox rock? Erm...I don't think we need anymore arguments against this topic.
More About: Internet Explorer

Firefox 3 ads in Adsense units
2008-05-20 15:58:00
I just spotted a "Firefox 3 is coming" ad in an Adsense ad unit.Looks like they are trying to gain in users before their final release planned to be in June. You can download the Firefox 3 Release Candidate 1 if you want a sneak peak of whats going to be in it in the final release.BTW, Adsense thinks I am a girl(second ad above) - I guess you are mistaken Adsense!
More About: Units

Swap Blogger Title Hack - Error Free!
2008-05-17 12:17:00
Blogger recently changed the way the layout codes are processed which prevented Blogger users to change their layout through the Page Elements Layout tab while using the Swap Title hack. Nobody could find a solution to this till now. Blogger introduced a new layout tag "blog.pageName" recently which gave me an idea to solve the Swap Title problem. I tested my method on this blog and guess what? It works just fine!So without wasting any more time here is the all new "Error Free " Blogger Swap Title Hack :Backup your blog's template just to be safe.Find this code in your template: <title><data:blog.title/>< /title>Replace the above tag with this: <!-- Blogger Swap Title by Archit T at http://blog.archit.in --><b:if cond='data:blog.pageType == &quot;item&quot;'><title> ;<data:blog.pageName/> | <data:blog.title/></title>< ;b:else/><title><data:blog.pa geTitle/></title></b:if>&l t;!-- End of Blogger Swa...
More About: Blogger

Logo design for Shubhangam
2008-05-16 12:06:00
I designed a logo for Shubhangam today which he would mostly use for his new blog. Shubhangam didn't have a logo for himself previously so it was somewhat a challenge for me to understand his taste.While discussing the logo project, Shubhangam wanted a design that was:Clean and SimpleA text based logoColor theme - BlueWell, this was all I had asked for as this is my first time I am designing a logo for somebody else. I have designed a logo before for my site which I have been using everywhere except this blog. If you haven't seen it yet, have a look at it on your right.So what do you think about the logo?
More About: Design , Logo

Get into YouTube India
2008-05-13 16:28:00
Everybody knows YouTube launched YouTube India last week and it has already become so famous. The localised site contains all the videos found on YouTube's global site, except they've applied an "Indian lens" to the content, meaning that the video charts you see reflect what Indians are watching now, the featured videos are programmed to cater to an Indian audience. I saw this video and found it pretty good:What do you think about the video as well as the localized site?
More About: Youtube

lifeOmaniac blocked in China
2008-05-13 13:26:00
I had a ping test of this blog to check whether it was blocked in China or not and guess what's the answer? YES! (dhuh!). Seems this blog is also visiting the "Great Firewall of China"! China has been blocking a lot of blogs ahead of the Olympic games that begin in Beijing in three months from now.I conducted connectivity tests using two different nodes in China and none of them could connect to this blog:Is your blog blocked in China too?

Crack these CAPTCHAs
2008-05-12 09:00:00
I am sure you have come across many websites which require you to enter CAPTCHA ("Completely Automated Public Turing test to tell Computers and Humans Apart") words to complete registrations or send mails. Don't you just hate them to the core?I came a cross a few CAPTCHAs which will make you laugh rolling on the floor! Try to crack them if you can:So how many did you crack?
More About: Crack

Computersied Voting System
2008-05-08 16:02:00
I have for you the "Computerised Voting System "! Shubhangam and I finally got the time to write a review on the software which we made for our school's Students' Council Elections.People are saying that me and my friend created history by making this software as this is a First Time in India (and prolly the world) that a computerised voting system has been used in a school. This software got a lot of media coverage by Times of India, NIE, The Telegraph and Hindustan Times too and I guess they will be publishing their stories in tomorrow's newspapers.Got a hug amount of positive feedback from my friends, teacher and other people. Waiting for you all now. :)

Good News!
2008-05-06 17:16:00
I am very happy to announce that my name associated with this blog has been put on the list of India Blogs 1.0 under the Blogging and Internet category! It is a Directory of Top Blogs in India and Most Widely Read Indian Bloggers. This blog has yet again reached another milestone. I would like to thank you all my readers for bringing this blog where it is today!Summing all what happened in this month:My blog's Alexa Rankings reached an all-time-high of 690,599*This blog is on the SocialSpark Top 10 Blogs list. And my Blogger profile is also on the Top 10 Bloggers List sometimes reaching the Top 5 list.My name associated with this blog is listed on India Blogs 1.0 of Digital Inspiration.Thank you appreciating my work and helping me make a place for lifeOmaniac in this blogosphere. :)Cheers!*At the time of publishing this post.
More About: News , Good News , Good

SocialSpark - The Revolution!
2008-04-26 15:27:00
Have you been RankSpanked by Google for putting up sponsored posts on your blog? Are you still interested in making money by writing sponsored posts while not letting the search engines punish you for doing that? Want to make friends while making money? Want to increase your blog traffic?SocialSpark to the rescue! It’s a revolutionary Get Paid to Blog site which lets you make money while staying together with Search Engine guidelines so that you don’t fall into troubles with you search rankings. Each sponsored link in SocialSpark automatically carries the "no-follow" attribute so as not to affect search engine rankings. This is designed to protect bloggers and advertisers from search engine penalties based on paid linking. SocialSpark also invented a new form of advertising - Blog Sponsorships. You can get your blog sponsored and get paid without the need of blogging anything about it.The thing I like the most is that the system doesn’t hide anything from anyone that includes ...
More About: Revolution , The Revolution

Apple iPhone to finally launch in India
2008-04-17 12:54:00
People in India will finally get to buy the much-hyped Apple 's iPhone from their local Apple Stores!Don't be that excited now because it's delayed launch in India is expected with telecom operator Vodafone in the first week of September. Now thats a long time to come.Initially the 8 GB version of the much-hyped touchscreen device — which combines Wi-Fi capabilities with a powerful email client, TV feeds, online music store and map-based location guide — will be launched at a price ranging between Rs. 27,200 and Rs. 28,000. Presently Indians get to buy the illegal cracked version at a price near Rs. 24,000 so it seems the legal version's price will have to go down else people would still prefer buying the illegal version when it comes here.A detailed report can be read here.
More About: Iphone , Launch , Finally

Google indexes something wrong
2008-04-09 11:57:00
Google indexes something on their own site which should not be indexed at the first moment. Out of just curiosity, I typed google.com/google to find out what happens and I saw a 404 - Page not found custom error page. But wait, the error page also showed some suggested URLs. The first one was something which should not be indexed. Some Google Registry file at google.com/google.reg.The registry file had a few lines written specifically for Internet Explorer:REGEDIT4[HKEY_CURRENT_USERSoftwa reMicrosoftInternet ExplorerMain]"Use Search Asst"="no""Search Page"="http://www.google.com""Search Bar"="http://www.google.com/ie"[HKEY_CURR ENT_USERSoftwareMicrosoftInternet ExplorerSearchURL]""="http://www.google.c om/keyword/%s""provider"="gogl"[HKEY_LOCA L_MACHINESOFTWAREMicrosoftInternet ExplorerSearch]"SearchAssistant"="http:// www.google.com/ie"Weird?The second suggested URL made me learn a new link to the Official Google Blog. Its google.com/googleblog.Anybody knows what the registr...
More About: Google , Wrong

Happy Birthday to me! :P
2008-04-05 09:29:00
I'd like you thank everybody out there who wished me today! It was so nice of you all. I would also like to thank my friends who really saved my "back" form being kicked by not giving my Birthday Bums like last year which almost forced me to stay in bed for 2 days :P But I bet they'll not leave me so easily; the day is not over yet!My plans? Lets see, I think I'll go out with my friends now and then with my family for dinner tonight.I didn't know the people at Facebook had such a nice thing for wishing their users.How nice of you people at Facebook for this feature.Anyways, I'll take a leave now. Seeya!
More About: Happy , Happy Birthday

Get the "Real Rank"
2008-04-02 17:54:00
Have you been Rank Spanked by Google(lost your Google Page Rank) for a reason unknown to everybody out here? Now you don't need to work hard for breaking the "secret algorithm" used by Google for ranking its indexed pages. Well IZEARanks comes to the rescue! IZEARanks gives your blog the real rank it deserves in the blogosphere and guess what? They have not kept secret the algorithms used by them for the calculation of the Real Rank.The people out there in the Izea house have taken site ranking to such an open extent that the algorithms for used for the calculation of the IZEARanks is public. The system weights blogs 70% on daily unique visitors, 20% by daily active inbound links and 10% by daily page views; no hidden formulas for the calculations.Using it is also as simple as it can get. After signing up, submit your blog and claim it by installing the IZEARanks ITK javascript code in your blog and thats it! Just sit back and watch your blog get its Real Rank which it deserves in ...

Virgle by Virgin and Google
2008-04-01 15:29:00
Virgle - The Adventure of Many Lifetimes - Yet another hotshot Aprils Fools' Day prank by Google ! I knew they were up to fooling people the moment I started reading the pages but believe me, someone who doesn't know about Google's April Fools' Day pranks would definitely fall into the prank.They even made an Application Form for people who are interested in the project (Dhuh!) and this is what it shows when you click on the Submit button after filling up the form:Okay, let's just get this over with quickly, like ripping off a medical adhesive: you did not do well on this test. You are not, by all available evidence, well suited to be a Virgle Pioneer, or any sort space explorer, really, or for that matter, any profession which requires leaving behind your creature comforts, your nice warm bed, your lovely wardrobe, your gourmet meals, your high-end home theater, your friends and family -- oh man, what have we gotten ourselves into here? We're kind of freaking out ourselves, ac...
More About: Virgin

Happy Holi!
2008-03-22 07:56:00
Wishing you all a very Happy Holi! Play Safe and drink Bhang nicely! :PI had a very nice time playing Holi with my family and a few building friends, didn't get to drink some Bhang though :PPhoto by Aditi Pany, used under a CC-license

Coming Soon
2008-03-14 16:33:00
Just to let you people know that the new web project I was talking about is soon to come up for public beta testing. I will be inviting a few people I know for the beta test sometime soon. If you also want to be part of the beta phase, contact me here or here and I shall get back to you when I need more beta testers. :)

Lost your precious data?
2008-03-14 16:15:00
Have you ever needed to recover you lost or deleted files from your computer? Flashback Data has the technical experience of Computer Forensics to recover your critical data whether you need to recover deleted files or recover lost files from damaged media. They can even recover critical data after a hurricane or other natural disaster. Their data recovery solutions are the most advanced in the industry. Working in a Class 10 clean environment, their technicians use the latest in-house technology to get your data back quickly and effectively.This is a Sponsored Post.
More About: Lost , Precious

Happenings...
2008-03-10 14:42:00
Just before my exams started, a lot of things happened here.I started guest blogging at TechTreak.com.I am somewhat busy with two web projects about which I'll talk sometime later here.My site got to see a nice 6 digit Alexa Rankings for a few days. Hope I get it back.Me and Shubhangam are almost complete with the TOP SECRET(!) program for our School.Lots more interesting things happened for which you'll have to wait to know about. :)
More About: Happenings

Google Account Locked!?
2008-03-08 09:41:00
A few days ago when I tried logging in to Google Talk, I encountered a new-for-me problem. My account had been locked! This is what I saw:Don't know why they locked my account though.
More About: Locked , Account

Finally!
2008-03-08 09:35:00
OK my exams' finally over! Gotta get back to blogging now. :-)
More About: Finally

Not dead :P
2008-02-28 10:00:00
It has been a long time since I blogged here. Well I am not dead. Its just that my exams have started and I am busy all day long "trying" to study. I will be back after the 8th of March, my exams finish that day. Seeao!
More About: Dead

Google finally speaks about the Yahoo deal
2008-02-04 10:58:00
I had posted my views on the Microhoo! deal a few days ago. Now finally the long awaited comment from Google has arrived at their official blog. The post has been done by David Drummond, Senior Vice President, Corporate Development and Chief Legal Officer at Google and is somewhat a bit rude relating to Google's posting habits.I think this is the first time Google has openly questioned one of its rivals like this and this attitude doesn't rightly portray its "Don't be Evil" motto.Whatever the attitude of the post, I think he gave a very powerful view about Microsoft's doing;Could Microsoft now attempt to exert the same sort of inappropriate and illegal influence over the Internet that it did with the PC? While the Internet rewards competitive innovation, Microsoft has frequently sought to establish proprietary monopolies -- and then leverage its dominance into new, adjacent markets.So what's your view on the official Google post about the hot in the market deal?
More About: Yahoo , Deal , Finally , Yahoo!

Microsoft-Yahoo Deal Good or Bad?
2008-02-02 10:00:00
Is the $44.6 billion bid for Yahoo ! Inc. by Microsoft Corp good or bad for us and Google? I say it just won't matter. For the users it would be the same old less-relevant search results by both the "Google fed-up" companies. And for Google - Sergey and Larry are going to have no problems sleeping.Google’s search market share was 58.4 percent in December, while Yahoo and Microsoft combined for almost 33 percent of the market. Yahoo holds 22.9 percent and Microsoft 9.8 percent. So even if the deal is successful Microsoft still wouldn't be able to capture more market share than Google.Google will get a 12 month time to boost its services and customer base if the companies merge. Microhoo! (Microsoft - Yahoo) will be in a big mess coordinating with each other's headquarters loosing customers due to poor synchronization. Microsoft doesn't have the experience to fix and combine Yahoo.Microsoft Chief Executive Officer Steve Ballmer himself told analysts in July 2006 that buying Yahoo...
More About: Deal , Good , Yahoo!

Saved from the outage!
2008-01-31 14:51:00
Looks like I a saved from the Internet outage India is suffering from. I was like so shocked when I read the news in school today. I really cant imagine myself being cut from the Internet. I would rather die :PYou can read the detailed news here. Gosh! There has 50 to 60 percent cut in bandwidth in India here and the Internet Service Providers' Association of India says that full restoration of the Internet backbone would take 10 to 15 days.Anyways, I am not so worried because my net is working just fine, just a bit slow though but that doesn't matter. So whats your view on this and were you effected?
More About: Outage