I wanted to pass VNC setup file to my friend as I wanted to show him few things remotely. I was not able to send it through gmail due to gmail security issues (Gmail is very secure and very powerful, see how I handle over 100 mails a day with Google tricks). Then I zipped it and tried but the same message came back.

So how can we send it then? It is very easy when you know else it is as tough as running Bill Gates OS. Here is the simple trick

Follow the steps for a smooth sail

1. Sender End: Rename the file to some other extension. I renamed it to UltraVNC-Setup.removeit-exe-removeit
2. Receiver end: Just rename it by removing removeit parts. Very simple but very helpful.

Take care and read my other posts on gmail, orkut and various HR and technical issues.

One of my colleague asked me to help him with URL Canonicalization. I had mentioned about Canonicalization (both at domain level and URL level earlier), I think I did it in company Intranet. I will find it and add it to this post. He also referred me to a post where it was mentioned. I generally end up writing big comments on various blogs, so decided to post it here instead.

Redirection from /index.html to /. Example if someone types http://www.idealwebtools.com/index.html we will take them to http://www.idealwebtools.com/.

Why I might not do it

• Reason1: It is very much natural
• Reason2: Almost 99% of the website will never do it, so it is a problem at google’s end, they need to solve it.
• Reason 3: Very important, when a person is coming to index.html I am redirecting it to / which is making my customer wait.

Why I might do it?

• Reason 1: Only from links point of view and to help Google. SEO benefits (may be)
• Reason 2: Technically both these files can be different too.

SEO advices from Matt Cutts
He says google does it work but still fails sometimes.

Q: What is a canonical url? Do you have to use such a weird word, anyway?
A: Sorry that it’s a strange word; that’s what we call it around Google. Canonicalization is the process of picking the best url when there are several choices, and it usually refers to home pages. For example, most people would consider these the same urls:

* www.example.com
* example.com/
* www.example.com/index.html
* example.com/home.asp

But technically all of these urls are different. A web server could return completely different content for all the urls above. When Google “canonicalizes” a url, we try to pick the url that seems like the best representative from that set.

More at http://www.mattcutts.com/blog/seo-advice-url-canonicalization/
and http://www.mattcutts.com/blog/canonicalization-update/

Let me think more carefully about it. What is your opinion, should we do it?

Some helpful links

1. Master guide for canonicalization by JD (he is a gem, he helped me a lot with htaccess issues) –
   http://www.webmasterworld.com/apache/3208525.htm

Some tests

1. Linking to mattcutts blog using different URL, first with id =2
2. Second with id=3
3. Second with id=4
4. Second with id=5
5. Linking to with index.php
6. Linking to with index.php and id =2
7. Linking to with index.php and id =3

I got an email from Krishna Srikanth with a link to PHP 5 PPT. This is an old PPT, “Introduction to PHP 5” presented on September 22rd 2004 at Toronto, Canada by Ilia Alshanetsky. Hope it helps.

Finally I am back home after spending some 58 hrs in office. Slept for 10 hrs and feeling a little fresher. Google uses blogs as their major communication tool. Google has many official blogs to communicate with its users. There are many Googlers who own a personal blog as well (many of these blogs are not active, see the list below). Also there are few who are ex-employees with a personal blog (see the list below).

Who is the smartest of all these?
Last year at AIMAA meet I talked about creating brands inside brands and took his blog as an example. He has created his own brand being inside Google. His blog is referred everywhere on the web. Everyone seems to love his everything. A post about his cat being sick got him 99 comments. He must have hired one person to handle comments. Yes, I am talking about none other than Matt Cutts. http://www.mattcutts.com/blog/.

Meet the dumbest Google Blogger
Jen worked for Google between January 17, 2005 and January 28, 2005. It looks to me that he started the right thing in a wrong way. According to him, “i thought i could make connections to real people in the outside world and get first hand feedback”. Mark Jen is known for being terminated with cause by Google, Inc. for distributing corporate secrets in his personal blog, 99zeros.blogspot.com. Now he blogs at blog.plaxoed.com.

Smartest	VS	Dumbest

Did Matt cutts learn blogging from Mark’s Mistake? Mark stopped the Google blog in Jan 2005 and Matt Cutts started from July 2005. Enjoy Google and Google blogs

Blogs by Google employees

1. Adam Bosworth’s Weblog (Adam Bosworth)
2. Alpie.net (David Alpert)
3. Beyond Satire (Ellen Spertus)
4. Bo Cowgill.com (Bo Cowgill)
5. Brightly Colored Food (Chad Thornton)
6. Continuations (Christine Davis)
7. CrazyBob.org (Bob Lee)
8. Dave Barr’s Journal (Dave Barr)
9. Doctor Awesome
10. Douwe Osinga Thinks (Douwe Osinga)
11. Ego Food (Chris DiBona)
12. Fury.com (Kevin Fox)
13. Goldtoe Lemon.Nut (Jason Goldman)
14. Graham’s Page of Stuph (Graham Waldon)
15. Hixie’s Natural Log (Ian Hickson)
16. Joe Beda Eighty Percent.net (Joe Beda)
17. …that she might be a sufficient reason for young Candide (John Hawkins)
18. Kimbalina.com (Kimbalina)
19. Kraneland (David Krane)
20. Marked for Dearth (Mark Ayzenshtat)
21. Massless (Chris Wetherell)
22. Matt Cutts: Gadgets, Google and SEO (Matt Cutts)
23. Natala la la la … (Natala Menezes, also at MSN Spaces)
24. Nelson’s Weblog (Nelson Minar)
25. The Oliver Project (Oliver Deighton)
26. Otaku (Cédric Beust)
27. Ovidiu Predescu’s Weblog (Ovidiu Predescu)
28. persistent.info (Mihai Parparita)
29. Piaw’s Blog (Piaw Na)
30. Rahrah feminista (Lilly Irani)
31. Shellen dot com (Jason Shellen)
32. Shumans.com (Shuman Ghosemajumder)
33. snarfed.org (Ryan Barrett)
34. So Many Games (Greg Stein)
35. Sowbug (Mike Tsao)
36. The Other Eighty Percent (Chip Turner)
37. Vedana (Eric Case)
38. Weschan.com (Wesley Chan)
39. Xenomachina (Laurence Gonsalves)
40. xdelta (Josh Macdonald)
41. Youngpup.net Journal (Aaron Boodman)

Some Ex-Googlers…

1. Biz Stone, Genius (Biz Stone)
2. Evhead (Evan Williams) – He was the CEO of pyra labs (Blogger creator)
3. Mark Jen’s Life @ Plaxo (Mark Jen)

(list collected from blog.outer-court.com anbd other sources), please let me know if you come across other blogs. I will also go through the list once again.

Here is a creative way of creating gmail accounts (first hand method), sorry if illegal (why should it be illegal, it is just a free account creation?). Creating gmail account with invitations is just a big pain and everybody needs to create and manage various accounts. I prefer gmail accounts over others for obvious reasons (as they are the best).

This image will explain it properly (Life can’t be simpler).

Some notes

• Sometimes an invitation to an email id which does not exist may not work so send it to your friends.
• Use two browsers to avoid logging out.

Enjoy Gmail and you can use the gmail multi account manager to manage more than one gmail account.

As I wrote earlier that multi email accounts can be managed using one gmail account. Is it protecting my identity (my primary email account details)? On the surface it is hiding your primary email but not at a technical level.

We use some ids which are anonymous and the person should not come to know the sender (this is used for some internal communication for improvement, we are using it with inferno team).

Let me again use the screenshots for better explanation with a step by step description:-

1. I am sending an email to xyz(at)gmail.com(Manojit) using aji(at)aimk.org. aji(at)aim.org is an additional email account added to my primary account ajiissac(at)gmail.com.
   
2. My friend Manojit gets the email. On surface it looks as an email from aji(at)aimk.org
   
3. Even while reading Manojit can’t figure it out.
   

How can Manojit figure out then?
How can Manojit figure out that it is sent by ajiissac(at)gmail.com (who is managing another email id aji(at)aimk.org)? It can be done by Looking at the full header of the email. Click on the “reply down” and choose the option “show original”.

You will get the full header where the sender is ajiissac(at)gmail.com not aji(at)aimk.org and thus anyone can figure it out.

In the above example it is not a problem as there is no harm if my primary email id is exposed but take a different case where [email protected] says “You are doing the right thing, please correct yourself Mr Manojit.”.

Now if Manojit figures out that it is not anonymous but ajiissac then the purpose is lost. In short Multi Gmail Account manager is not safe if you do not want to disclose your identity (your primary email account).

Before I rush back to Church for the special Christmas prayers I thought of penning down an important blog posting for the Inferno’s Technical team. This is about managing multi email accounts using big G’s Gmail (It may be not safe, know why). It is much simpler than what many thought. Here I go with more images and less words (oops if one image == 1000 words, then worth almost 5000 words :)).

Characters of this play

1. ajiissac(at)gmail.com – My mail account
2. aji(at)aimk.org – Seasonal account
3. aji(at)idealwebtools.com – Official account for idealwebtools.com

After fixing AIMK email accounts (Now it is working with Google, I have pointed the MX records to google) I have already fixed it for aji(at)aimk.org. Lets fix it for aji(at)idealwebtools.com.

What do I mean by fixing?

1. All the mails coming to aji(at)idealwebtools.com should come to ajiissac(at)gmail.com.
2. I should be able to send email from ajiissac(at)gmail.com using aji(at)idealwebtools.com.

Part 1 is relatively simpler. Just do a forward and it will work (Do let me know if you need help with it). The second part is somehow new to many.

Sending as aji(at)idealwebtools.com from ajiissac(at)gmail.com

1. Go to settings > accounts
   
2. Click on “Add another email address”. You will get a pop up (some pop up blocker can blog this). Fill in the pop up box (you can also specify a different reply to email).
   
3. After clicking on the “next step” from step 2, you get this screen in pop up box. Click on “Send verifiication”.
   
4. Check you email (for me it was aji(at)idealwebtools.com) for verification code. I got the verification code and entered into the last screen of the popup box.
   
   You are done.
5. Start sending email as aji(at)idealwebtools.com from ajiissac(at)gmail.com using the drop down.
   

Wasn’t that simple? If you have learned something new, do drop a comment (just kidding). Once again Merry Christmas, enjoy the season and Thank God for all his benefits.