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Upgraded to firefox 2

Meanwhile I have upgraded to firefox 2 both at home and office. The most attractive feature is an in-built spell checker. I needed it much as I keep writing blog posts (official and unofficial ones) without using a spell check. It helps me with forum posts. I think on an average I write more than 25 forum posts and firefox is helping me with spell checks. GREAT FEATURE for me.

Also it is to care about phishing using Safe Browsing technology currently available in Google’s Toolbar for Firefox. I am get to test it properly. It is very much needed but will it be proactive enough. I wrote about Paypal hacking but now I see that most of these pages are giving 404. They must have shifted those paypal look alike pages to a new center.

Certainly I can see some improvements for RSS feeds and I am liking it. Also there is some improvements with tabs. Some good improvements.

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Back to blogging after some break

Yes, I finally got a break tonight to update the blog. It’s been some really long and I missed it the most. I have so much to write. The things that kept me busy for last few weeks :-

  1. New HR manager has joined so had to help her understand the complete incentive structure (two months back I tried to revamp the whole incentive structure). Also leave policies and other HR policies needed improvement. She is very much committed in making the best policies. I get more money through incentives than fixed salary.
  2. Other projects kept me busy which included server updates. We updated from php 4.3.9 to php 5.0.3 (by then the most stable version under centosplus repo). Then we updated in to 5.1.6 which was under centos-testing repo. Today I saw that finally 5.1.6 is under centos plus repo and update four major servers (alpha, beta, prod, backup) for all projects. Also upgraded mysql to 5.x.x in alpha but beta and production is giving errors and is still at 4.1.20. Our developers did a good job of fixing bugs which got highlighted with the update. Updated the php editors and debuggers.
  3. Took some interviews. Also new HR manager made me solve all the puzzles to prepare a comparison chart. Some of the puzzles I will put it in the next few posts.
  4. Was listening to Tipping point audio book. I could relate our compagins which we were running for last few years. I could related and the co-relate some of the concepts like Market mavens and connectors. This is very interesting topic and I wish to write about it some time.
  5. I was reading all the blogs regularly. I will write a post on some of the posts I liked.
  6. Started some homeopathy for breathing trouble for a long term solution.
  7. Google custom search engine and Google co-op in general.
  8. WordPress plugins, I surfed across many sites to get an overview of existing plugins. I will adding few of it.
  9. I got some of classmates from class VIII – X (I was in Jammu) through orkut. I thank orkut for it. I will start a thread in Hedir to thank orkut.
  10. ICPF camps got over and now we are preparing for united common convention (combined worship with all the churches across kolkata).
  11. Delivered a speech at Youth meeting last Sunday from Romans and Luke. I touched “Spiritual character vs Spiritual personality”. It was a difficult topic to cover by God helped me brief it. I wish to write about it.

There is more to write but lets get to work. I mean blogging :). Thanks for writing to me while I was away from blogging, such mails kept me motivated and forced me blog (pen) down few things for blog.

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Finally I got the sourceforge project approved

https://sourceforge.net/projects/wordpress-mu. I had worked with hedir to make the multi user wordpress work.

There are many more things left like,

  • A proper user management.
  • Themes edit (which is a big challenge)

I am sure this is much better than http://mu.wordpress.org. If you are interested in working with me on this project please contact ajinimc(at)users.sourceforge.net. I will get back to blogging next month.

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Sabbatical Month in blogging world

I am keeping very busy with office related work which includes an incentive policy improvements, hiring some 30 to 40 more team members (that is doubling the total strength), shifting the servers to php 5, installing sugarcrm and integrating it with phpbb. There are plenty of issues involved but I will be blog about few topics tonight but I will keep this month a sabbatical one for blogging.

Looks like I am not the only one but I see seobook, mattcutts all celebrating the sabbatical month.

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Phplist and Phpbb integration

I am not well and having some fever so can’t outside home. Some soft music and programming in my pajamas is no less programming heaven for a part time programmer like me.

You too can join me, the latest documentation is available at http://beta.idealwebtools.com. You can put you suggestion as comments under this thread. Jesse Heap has already helped me with wordpress and phplist integration.

Few of requirements,

  • Need to understand how the rss feed based subscriptions work.
  • Integrating means nothing is repeated and thus phpbb and phplist sharing the login system.
  • The documentation will help me work in phases.

Join me, add a comment and I will contact you. Also if you are interested add a comment that I can keep you updated with the progress.

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Idealwebtools launches its beta

Today I was not well and was down with fever. So I tried my hands on few new things like phpwiki. I spent some time with phplist and phpbb integration, it is a pain for last few months. PhpBB is the best forum application and phplist the best mailing application, the integration will surely empower both. My previous work of making single user wordpress a multi user is working very fine.

To do proper testing and documentation I have create a beta version of idealwebtools.com, http://beta.idealwebtools.com. It has all the documentation, anyone who wants to offer a helping hand is welcome and will be highly appreciated.

Some good sections for the day: Matt cutts wishing everyone a very happy diwali (He is the interface between webmasters and Google). It is so nice of him.

If you are interested in such a integration please add a comment that I can speed up the work. This integration is very important for myblogplanner.

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Orkut no more requires an invitation – Marketing challenge

Here is another post to my orkut series before I go to sleep. I am sure I am going to have bad dreams as I just saw few more Matt Cutts videos where he was speaking about supplement results and usual 301 redirection stuffs. To avoid bad dreams I am going to read first few chapters of Esther (Bible) before I go to sleep. Just joking. I just read that Orkut doesn’t require invitation.

Google’s social network, Orkut, doesn’t need an invitation anymore. You can sign in using your Google Account.

The invitation was one of the reasons behind Orkut’s failure to compete with MySpace. Now that Facebook is also public, the competition will start to become interesting.

from googlesystem.blogspot.com

The reason of failure caught my attention, the invitation. Almost 60% of the users are from Brazil and I think India comes third (I am missing the Orkut link which showed me the exact stats). I think it is a typical case of “cultural marketing”. In India and Brazil people are very much connected with each other and want to do so, Orkut just made it simpler. Invitation was never a problem in India. Is invitation the reason for orkut’s failure then is Gmail a success in US? I think its the culture and the broken complexity that mattered. In India many who found Internet complex found Orkut comparatively very simple.

Recently when we had our choir practice at our house many asked me to send them an Orkut request and I did that that very moment. Does some culture find the invitation stuff a little difficult? I think I have something new to study tomorrow (Sad that I only know about Indian culture, I never been to any other country but have met many evangelists and missionaries from various countries. I think web forums will make it happen).

http://www.orkut.com/JoinCreate.aspx, this is where you can create a new account for orkut.

Do you think invitation can be a reason behind Orkut’s failure in some part of the world? Did you find invitation a barrier?

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MSN launches linkfromdomain operator

I know I am little slow to offer the info but here are some indepth to it as a compensation for the delay.

What is linkfromdomain operator?
Check this MSN page (click here), it tells you about the outbound links or outgoing links or external links from a domain. In simpler words, “to how many external (other domains) webpages are your domain linking to”. The above mentioned link will tell you that idealwebtools.com links to slashdot.com , digg.com and many more domains.

Is it important?
Yes, it is important. Some 3 years back people use to feel uncomfortable with outgoing links and some even called it a PR leakage. That was the era when PR was everything but now things have changed. And with Blog the outgoing links are very much a part of our culture. If you do not link to any external website then your domain will be called the dead corner of Internet. Internet defines link as the way of communication among various entities of web and it is advised not to have a dead end site.

Does it help in good ranking?
There has been many debate on this issues across various forums. IMO it does help, link to good and relevant neighborhood. Linking to expert webpages also help. I am not the one whom you can catch for tidbits of SEO, so that’s all to this paragraph.

Here are some more tips with operators

  1. link: Are you aware of link:www.idealwebtools.com? This will tell you the total webpages linking to http://www.idealwebtools.com or http://www.idealwebtools.com/index.html .
  2. linkdomain: Here is another operator which will tell you total inbound or incoming links to all the pages of your domain linkdomain:idealwebtools.com (I do not think this is documented anywhere).
  3. linkdomain: -site: This will tell you how many external incoming links do you have for your site. See the result (works in yahoo only, MSN is not giving me the right results)

Using these combinations you can do a few experiments. Even though MSN is offering something new but IMO MSN is still sick. 

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Orkut’s misinterpreted strength is finally interpreted

I wrote about “Is Orkut’s Memetic strength a misinterpretation?“. Now finally Orkut has accepted it as a part of its service. In short,

  • Orkut developed a feature for use A (for adding tidbits of information to your profile).
  • Market misinterpreted it and used it for B (for chatting).
  • use B became its strength.
  • I blogged about it and many people read about it :).
  • Now use B is accepted as a part of Orkut. It remains no more a misinterpretation.
  • Lesson learned – The dumbest customer is smarter than your smartest developer, let them define it. (Also read “Marketers should be dumber than customer” and “Why programmers are Lazy and Dumb” ) 

Now this reply button which is recently added explains the acceptance of use B. Also it tells you that initially Orkut scrapbook was not made for chatting.

Is this a good move?
In my honest opinion (IMHO) this (adding the reply button) is a bad move. Why so? As it will stop people (few if not many) from visiting other’s scrapbook, which will dilute it’s memetic strength. When I visit others scrapbook to add a scrap I can generally notice,

  • a new common friend who is not added to my list scrapping there.
  • Some of my friends changing their avatars and people discussing about it.
  • Some other tidbits.

All the above bulleted points kept Orkut live and viral. IMO Orkut should remove it, I used to get dozens of scraps by changing avatars and people used to find me from other’s scrapbook.