February, 2010

BuySellAds: Faster and Better(Show ads vertically with a click)

We all know that internally Google is thinking of considering site loading speed as one of the criteria for ranking the website. Apart form that, faster loading sites are key for grabbing user attention.

BuySellAds has come up with an innovative idea of making the javascript ad codes asynchronous(as they call it).

When any browser downloads the ad code that displays the ads, it blocks everything else on the page from rendering. And, while this process may take less than a second of the user’s time, it is noticeable and it is a big problem.

You can read more at BSA blog.

It is frustrating some times, when my visitors have to wait for the ads to load before they could see the entire page. Now I am happy as BSA is taking every effort to minimize that wait time. Infact, what I understand by reading their blog post, is that, with the new ad codes implemented visitors need not wait. i.e., the javascript codes as well as the other elements of the page load simultaneously. Thats great. So from now, we need not compromise user experience for making some pocket money(of course which is used for paying hosting and other expenses – coffee included!)

Faster is Ok, but I said “Better” in the title? It is because, a known issue for BSA publishers is alignment of the ads(problem with vertical alignment of ads). Now BSA has made it simpler. i.e., if we have implemented the new ad codes, now we can log into our BSA a/c, click on get code and make changes(make ads align vertical) and hit SAVE and the settings will be applied to the ad boxes on our site…..isn’t it better?

Additionally, you can even style your ads from within the BSA a/c – see below screen shot.

Previously we had to add float: left; to the a tag of the code. But people with no css knowledge what so ever, found it very geeky/confusing. So now, alignment of ads isn’t a problem with BSA ads.

If you had made any custom changes to the styling of your old code, then you need to add those changes to the new codes by applying them in the advance settings area in your BSA a/c.

Update:

To Show ads: 2 horizontal and the rest aligned vertically, you need to uncheck the vertical checkbox, and add float: left; to Anchor Style in the Advanced Settings of your BSA a/c. And don’t forget to SAVE the settings!

I highly recommend you to grab the new ad codes and make your site load faster.

My Experience: Purchasing a Dell Desktop Online

It was December 2009, my exams were still going on and I was restless in finding a good configuration for my next best PC!

My plan was: If I order the Computer now, it will be processed, built and sent to me by the time my vacations start. Nice plan. But nothing happened as I expected.

It was December 26th 2009, and I called up Dell Customer care to place my order. Someone luckily picked up the call(after trying 3 times) and talked to me. I was very happy, but they told me to hold the phone until they transfer my call to Dell Sales person. I was hearing some instructions, recorded sales pitch and the call got disconnected.

Same thing went on for the next 3 days. Finally I was connected to a Dell Sales Manager in Delhi – and he answered my call quite satisfactorily. He called me the next day, but I was writing my exams and couldn’t respond the call.

After my exams finished(02/01/2010) I took some more time to review the configuration and decided to purchase a high configure, costly computer. So I went on to mail some of my friends for help and finally settled with this configuration:

Dell Studio XPS 8000
8GB RAM
i7 process 2.8GHz
1GB nVidia GTS 240
24″ monitor
Win 7 etc(which comes with the XPS 8000 package).

Finally I called up Dell on 08/01/2010 and placed my final order. And on 09/01/2010 I sent them the DD[Demand Draft].
It wasn’t a surprise that the delivery will be slightly delayed, so I was mentally prepared. On 19/01/2010 I got an email confirming the payment, and I got my Order Number and Customer Code to track my product status.

I was checking the status daily and one fine day(after a week of waiting) I got a call from the same sales manager and he told me that Studio XPS 8000 is out of stock and I need to wait until Studio XPS 8100 comes to India(within 4 days), orelse I can get my money back. But since I had already waited so long, I decided to wait for 4 more days. After waiting for 4 more days, he called me and I sent him my final quotation:
studio-xps-8100-design1
studio-xps-8100-design3
Dell Studio XPS 8100
Processor i7 860 2.8GHz 8MB Cache
Dell ST2410 24″ Full HD Widescreen Monitor.
8GB(4x2GB) DDR3 SDRAM
500GB SATA 3.0 Gb/s Hard Drive
Wireless mouse and Keyboard
Windows 7 Home Premium
Blu-ray disk drive
nVidia GeForce GTS240 1024MB
Dell 2.1 Multimedia Desktop Speaker System
and a bunch of added legal software packages.

There was a little difference in the amount for XPS 8000 and XPS 8100 and I sent the remaining amount the next day. On 21/01/2010 the new order was placed.
Estimated delivery date was 03/02/2010 and there was further delay due to key board and mouse shortage and then finally on Feb 01 I got a mail and I thought it was another excuse – but it was not. Dell had already handed over my system to BlueDart. By 04/02/2010 my computer was in my home. But had to wait for 2 more days, as the product needs to be opened and installed by a dell representative only.

Everything went well, except for the multiple delays, which I can forgive and forget, as I am still satisfied with the system performance.

What I want to tell is: I had read a lot of bad review about Dell, and almost decided not to go with Dell. And started searching other PC vendors, but I found similar reviews about most of the companies, so I decided to give Dell a try and it was all a happy ending.
I am not saying that, there will be no problem if you order Dell computers online, it all depends on the circumstances – but I appreciate the honest efforts of Dell to serve its customers. In most of the bad reviews I read that, at the end they were able to replace their damaged product.

Have you ever purchased a Branded Computer? Please share your experience with all of us.

I will review Dell Studio XPS 8100 shortly.

Holy IT! – by Scott Wittig

Holy IT! The Amazing power of ClarITy – by SCOTT WITTIG.

‘Holy IT!’ – Is a Guide to Finding and Doing Your Thing – Your ‘IT’. This book is written to help you identify, and start acting on, that thing that you (and those around you) know that you should be doing, but aren’t. We all have one. Scott asks “What’s yours?”.

In scott’s own words – “I identified my purpose in life – to HELP OTHERS ACHIEVE.”
HolyIT-scott-wittig
Main Contents of the Book
IT
Identify
They Can’t Eat You.
Wat If…You Don’t Do It?

DO
Determine
‘fessing up
Great Expectations
Always Positive

Execute.
Baby Steps
Change Agents
The Law of the Squirrel
NOW Rocks!

It is a very small book, with 84 pages(excluding the Appendix etc) of content.

It talks about finding the passion inside us – and takes us through some steps to identify our passion. It helps us to examine whether the chosen IT is really our passion or just a short term interest.

What I like about the book
Goes to the point directly – no added fluff.
Good Writing – catchy structure of the content.
Use of Inspiring Quotes.

From the very beginning(Introduction) itself Scott starts to say what he actually want to say with this book.

This book will surly help you find your passion(if you have it), and it guides you what to do and what not to, to achieve your IT.

I couldn’t come up with a single chapter and say it as my favorite – in fact every chapter is packed with some good stuffs to learn.

I highly recommend this book to everyone. It costs $14.99(amazon) and is a best investment to a great source of information.

One of the quotes I read in the book:
“Death isn’t the greatest loss in life. The greatest loss is what dies inside of us while we live.” – Norman Cousins.

My testimonial:

“I am Having IT, and I am Doing IT. Now you have IT and Do IT.”

“There’s no point in Getting Things Done or aspiring to a 4-Hour Workweek until you discover your IT! You need to know what drives you, compels you, fills you with passion. Holy IT! is a must read for anyone struggling to figure out their passion in life!”
– Andy Beal, co-author of Radically Transparent.

Twitter Mobile Web Adds Reply, Retweet, Favorite..

Twitter Mobile Web was friendly only for status update. There was no reply button, no retweet button and no favorite button.

It was kind of frustrating to remember the Twitter ID of the person, and then type it in the update box(without spelling mistakes!) and send the reply.

Recently Twitter has added bunch of new features to it, to make it more useful. Now I don’t use any Apps, I just use the simple mobile web interface.

Some of the things added to Twitter Mobile Web are – reply, retweet, favorite, turn off the images, Popular topics, popular topics of today week etc, real time search capabilities, hhmm, but the copy rights has not yet been updated, its still showing © 2009. If you find some thing more, please share it with us in the comment section.

Missing..
Yes, I still miss the display of updates in AJAX style(That we can see on Standard Twitter Web). We need to refresh each time to see the new updates. And there is a big Refresh button provided at the top for this purpose.

Here are some of the screen shots from my Nokia 6630.

Problem!
Although there was one issue(at the time of writing this post). Once you goto twitter mobile web and input your user id and password and hit signin, it just refuses to signin and stays on the same page. There is a big Refresh button at the top of the page, which is of no use!

To get into Twitter, all you need is, to switch to Standard Twitter Webpage – signin and then switch back to Twitter Mobile Web, and it works!