Satish | Technotip.org

Google Bus on Indian Roads [Bangalore]

Google announced the launch of Internet Bus Project[on February 3, 2009] – a mobile bus designed to showcase the benefits of Internet to the people across the cities of Tamil Nadu[A state in India].
Google_bus_India

This project was limited to Tamil Nadu and Google had promised to visit other areas, if they get a good response to the program. Now as we had guessed, Google Bus will be seen on Bangalore roads(Karnataka).

Featured Internet Bus Video:-

Internet For Communication:-

Internet For Information:-

Internet For Education:-

Here is the list of places and schedule for the Google Bus:-
04 May Kolar
06 May Mandya
08 May Mysore
13 May Bengaluru
14 May Hassan
17 May Arsikere
18 May Shimoga
21 May Bhadravati
24 May Chikmanglur
27 May Tumkur
30 May Chitradurga
02 Jun Davangere
06 Jun Hubli-Dharwad
11 Jun Belgaum
15 Jun Gadag
18 Jun Hospet

To know more about the Google program, read our previous article @ Google Bus on Indian Roads. You can also look at more pictures on that earlier post.

Next stop for the Internet Bus
Bengaluru (Bangalore). Arriving on 13 May for 1 days.

If you are staying in any of these places, then consider visiting the bus. Do not wait for the bus to visit you 🙂

And if you are one of them to visit the bus, then please share your thoughts about the Google Bus program with our readers.

Download Windows 7 For Free And Use It For A Year, Legally

Windows 7 BETA was available for download only for testers, MSDN and TechNet subscribers, but interestingly Microsoft has now released its much talked Operating System for public download.

Here’s what you need to know:
Source: microsoft.com

This is pre-release software, so please read the following to get an idea of the risks and key things you need to know before you try the RC.

You don’t need to rush to get the RC. The RC will be available at least through July 2009 and we’re not limiting the number of product keys, so you have plenty of time.

Watch the calendar. The RC will expire on June 1, 2010. Starting on March 1, 2010, your PC will begin shutting down every two hours. Windows will notify you two weeks before the bi-hourly shutdowns start. To avoid interruption, you’ll need to install a non-expired version of Windows before March 1, 2010. You’ll also need to install the programs and data that you want to use. (Learn more about installing Windows.)

Protect your PC and data. Be sure to back up your data and please don’t test the RC on your primary home or business PC.

Tech details/updates: Before installing the RC, please read the Release Notes and Things to Know for important information about the release.

Keep up with the news. You can keep up with general technical information and news by following the team blog. And, you can get non-technical news, tips, and offers by subscribing to the monthly Exploring Windows newsletter.

Keep your PC updated: Be sure to turn on automatic updates in Windows Update in case we publish updates for the RC.

Installation: You can install the Windows 7 RC on a PC running Windows Vista without backing up the PC—but we encourage you to make a backup for safe keeping. If you’re running Windows XP or the Windows 7 Beta, you’ll need to backup your data, then do a clean installation of the RC, then reinstall your applications and restore your data. If you need to do a backup, please see How to back up your PC for more details and a suggestion for how to backup a PC running Windows 7 Beta or Windows Vista.

To install and use the RC, you’ll need to know how to:

Troubleshoot problems. You’re pretty much flying solo, so you’ll need to handle your own tech support, and rely on other RC testers for their know-how

Burn an ISO file to make an installation DVD

Install Windows

Backup and restore your PC

Set up a network

Create and use a system recovery disk

To learn more about the Windows 7 RC, see frequently asked questions.

System Requirement:-

Internet access (to download Windows 7 RC and get updates)

A PC with these system requirements:

1 GHz or faster 32-bit (x86) or 64-bit (x64) processor

1 GB RAM (32-bit) / 2 GB RAM (64-bit)

16 GB available disk space (32-bit) / 20 GB (64-bit)

DirectX 9 graphics processor with WDDM 1.0 or higher driver

There are 2 versions of Windows 7 for download, 32- and 64-bit versions available in five languages: English, German, Japanese, French, and Spanish.

Do not hurry and download the wrong version of the OS, and realize later that it doesn’t support your current system. This public download will be available till the end of July 2009 and its not limited to specific number of users, so take your time and test your system specifications before starting to download.

Windows 7 is rumored to be released some times in June – July 2009. So you will be still using this free public download version even after the final version of the Operating System is in the market. And more interestingly you will keep receiving the updates till 1 year.
Note that there will be no official system to support users queries, but there are geeks who will be eager to help you at any time, so I think its a worth thing to download and try on your system(if your system meets the requirement). So far our experience with Windows 7 is just awesome(or better than Vista!).

Here is the link for you to register and download Windows 7 for FREE.

Interview with Young Entrepreneur: Neil Patel

Today we have a young entrepreneur, who is an inspiration to many people around the world.
Neil Patel is the co-founder of 2 Internet companies: Crazy Egg, and KISSmetrics. Through these 2 companies he has helped large corporations such as AOL, General Motors, Hewlett-Packard and Viacom make more money from the web. By the age of 21 not only was Neil named a top 100 blogger by Technorati, but he was also one of the top influencers on the web according to the Wall Street Journal.
Neil Patel
Here is the interview:

1. Please introduce yourself and your companies to our readers.

For those of you who don’t know me, I am a entrepreneur, writer, angel investor, and a marketer. Overall, I am just an average Joe. I am currently 24 years old and I am the owner of 2 .com companies: KISSmetrics and Crazy Egg.

2. Why did you choose Online Business?

I got started in the business world when I was 16 and at that time there wasn’t too many businesses I could get into other than on the web businesses. So in some way I didn’t have any other choice but to get into the online business world if I wanted to be an entrepreneur.

3. Your advice for people who want to start a company?

Stop thinking about all the details, just start a business. You are bound to stumble along the way, but you will figure things out as you move along.

4. Risks in starting a company and its remedies.

The biggest risk is that you are going to lose money. There really isn’t any remedies for this. But don’t let this stop you, sometimes you just have to roll the dice and take chances.

5. At an age of 21, how could you manage to get the money and support to start your own company? What was the motivation behind starting the company?

Borrow money from friends and family because it is the easiest way to get it.

6. Your advice for people who want to start a new blog or online business or online company and are still in schools or college (around the age of 20 – 21).

Just start a business. The younger you are when you start a business the better because you don’t have to worry about feeding a family and providing for someone else. Plus the younger you start, the more time you will have to succeed.

7. Your advice for new bloggers.

Write great content. This is the main way you are going to be able to build your readers is through good content. What I mean by this is write content that isn’t short, but instead descriptive. Don’t just write on the news, write on things that provide value to your readers.

8. Some of the strategies that you use to help your clients get more traffic and link baits.

Yes, I did use linkbait. I would write detailed blog posts such as how to guides, submit them to Digg, and push them hard until I got them on the homepage.

9. Order according to your preference – Stumble Upon, Digg,Delicious, reddit, Yahoo Buzz etc.

Digg
Reddit
Del.icio.us
Twitter
StumbleUpon
Yahoo Buzz

I am ranking them in order of link importance. Yahoo Buzz can be great, but most people will never get on the homepage of Yahoo.

10. What is your opinion about Twitter and Facebook, for marketing our blog/business. Which one do you think has more potential to drive more traffic/conversion?

Although Facebook has more users, Twitter has been more effective in driving traffic and conversions. This is mainly because Twitter is public, while on Facebook only your friends can see your profile.

11. I have seen many good articles going nowhere on DIGG. But a small piece of content submitted by a power user has more chances of getting to the front page. Don’t you think its highly unfair part of DIGG? Do you have any solution for this (other then telling us to be power user 🙂 ).

It is fair, it is how Digg is intended to work. If everything got on the homepage of Digg, no one would be using it. As for getting on the homepage a lot of it has to do with the content you are writing. Things like “Top 10 lists” are getting old, you need to be more creative with your content.

12. What are the main requisites for youngsters starting a company?

There is only 1 requirement, they need to have a passion for whatever it is they want to start.

13. How big or small are your companies?

My companies are very small. They make enough money for me to live off of, but none are making large amounts of money.

14. What about the programming aspects of your sites. Do you outsource them or you do it on your own?

I outsource all programming and design on my blog. As for Crazy Egg and KISSmetrics, we do everything in house.

15. What were the major mistakes you did on your blog and business?

I have a lot… you can find them all here:
http://www.quicksprout.com/2009/02/15/15-things-i-wish-i-had-known-when-i-started-my-first-blog/
http://www.quicksprout.com/2009/01/25/7-reasons-my-first-business-failed/
http://www.quicksprout.com/2009/01/14/7-business-mistakes-that-nearly-made-me-go-broke/

16. How do you define Success?

If you are happy with your accomplishments, then in my eyes you are successful.

17. How could you manage to get big clients in the beginning days of your company ?

I managed them through project management systems like Liquid Planner. This helped clients see what I was doing and it made communication easier.

Some Personal questions:

18. How you spend your day?

I spend most of my day in meetings, responding to emails, and working on KISSmetrics.

19. Personal hobbies and interests?

I love watching basketball games, movies, and hanging with friends.

20. Some of your life’s ambitions?

I want to become a billionaire one day. I don’t know if I will get there, but I’ll try.

21. How about your contacts with the outside real world (other than blogging life)? Do you meet and talk to people often or will you be busy almost all the time infront of your computer?

I meet people everyday. I try to get to as many networking events as possible. And when I can’t I try to meet new people through the web and my blog.

Hope you all enjoyed the interview.
I would recommend everyone to read all the blogs run by Neil Patel, we follow most of the article each day and all of them keep inspiring us. All his blogs deliver a lot of value to the readers.

Adding Your Name Beside Taskbar Clock(system tray) – In Windows

We have bought an old trick for this Sunday!
But some new approach is also mentioned at the end! Make sure to check it out.
Limitation of this old trick:
You might have already observed that, you can not insert more than 12 characters(after deleting the AM and PM symbol). To over come this limitation, we shall enter into registry.(Tested in Windows XP)

We have bought an old trick for this Sunday!
But some new approach is also mentioned at the end! Make sure to check it out.

Here is the Old trick (For windows XP):-

1. Click on Start menu. Then on Control panel.
2. Now click on “Regional and Language Options” icon.
3. In the “Regional Options” tab, click on “Customize” button.
4. After clicking “Customize” button, another window pops up. Now click on the “Time” tab.
5. Besides AM Symbol and PM Symbol, you can add anything that you want to display in the system tray.
6. If there is limitation of characters, you can even delete the AM and/or PM symbol. Apply, OK. Done.. Look at your task bar 🙂

For Vista : In the bottom of the Format tab click on Customize this format button.

Limitation of this old trick:
You might have already observed that, you can not insert more than 12 characters(after deleting the AM and PM symbol).

To over come this limitation, we shall enter into registry.(Tested in Windows XP)
1. Click on Start button.
2. Click on Run.
3. Type regedit. Click Ok.
4. Now click the plus mark besides each of these -> HKEY_CURRENT_USER and then Control Panel and then International.

5. Now click on International. And find these s1159 and s2359. Right click and select “Modify Binary Data“, as shown in the above figure.

6. Now follow the above figure and modify the name.
Do not change the numbers. Just modify the text in the right most side. See to that, there is a period (DOT) after each character and 3 dots to specify/display a DOT in the system tray.

Hope you enjoyed.. Please share your tips, tricks in the comment section. Have a nice week end.

Free Hosting + Free Domain from DreamHost — Hurry!!

This offer seems to be unbelievable! But its by DreamHost, and its a valid offer.

Note: This offer is valid only for the first 1000 GeoCities users. So do not waste your time. Read the complete step-by-step explanation below and hurry up to register an account with DreamHost.
With this offer you will get a 2 year plan (which would otherwise cost $214.80) hosting totally free from DreamHost!

1. Copy and paste below code into a text editor and save it with the name promo.html (not a mandatory name, used just to illustrate)
<html>Dream HostI'm off to DreamHost!</html>

or else

Just right click on this index.html link and click “save Link as“, rename it as promo.html and then upload the file to your geocities account.

2. Log into your geocities account.

3. Click on “Manage” tab.

4. Now click on “Easy Upload” link.

5. Use the Browse button and select the promo.html file that you had created in step 1. Click Upload Files.

Dream Host part:
6. Go to Dream Host Signup page.

7. Click on “Host a domain“(as low as $5.95/month) link.

8. In the “I would like to pre-pay…” section, select “Two Years” plan ($214.80 ($8.95/month), 18% discount + no setup).

9. Next goto “Configure my first domain…” section and select the first option –> “Register a new .com/net/org/info domain for me. (Free with hosting.)”

10. In the same “Configure my first domain..” section, pick a new available domain name @ “Pick First Domain to Host: www” . Remember, its irreversible. We can not modify the domain after we are done with the application.
Also pick a UserName in the same section – “Pick First Server Username“.

11. Fill the contact info @ “My contact information…” .

12. “Finally…” Give the link of this article/post in the “How did you first hear about us?” section. please 🙂

13. Here is the important thing:
In this section – “If you have a promotional code to redeem, or would like to let us know the email address of the person who referred you to DreamHost, please enter it here:” enter the URL of your geocities page with the promo.html page(which you created in the step 1 and uploaded in step 5 🙂 )

14. Check the “I agree” option and hit “Proceed to Payment” button.

You will receive a confirmation email from Dream Host, and a invoice which reads “All paid up – Thank You!” . Owo..you are done with 2 years of Free hosting with Dream Host + a Free Domain Name registered in your name!

NOTE: If you have a @ symbol in your geocities URL then you should replace it with %40 symbol. For more info, read 57th and 60th comment of this article.

What Dream Host promise on their blog is:

In honor of WebRing” or something, we are now offering to the first 1000 GeoCities users who sign up TWO YEARS of a completely free DreamHost account (including domain registration)!

No strings attached.

All you have to do is verify you are an existing GeoCities customer by creating a page on your GeoCities account (or editing an existing page) to have the phrase “I’m off to DreamHost!” on it!

Then when you signup for us, simply put the full URL to that page as your “promotional code” and you’ll get a 2 year plan (normally $214.80) free!

And we promise to never shut down.

With this Free account, you will get Unlimited Disk Space, Unlimited Bandwidth, Unlimited Email Accounts, and unlimited FTP Accounts. What else can you get for FREE 🙂

Another important thing to clarify:
Question is : Can I move my other existing domain to this free dreamhost offer ?

Yes, you definitely can!
Go ahead and move your other blogs in 🙂

Thanks a lot for the help guys: Arpit, Amit, Harsh Agrawal.

Yahoo! Geocities: Closed

Note: Present customers need not to worry till later this year. But Yahoo! Geocities is closed for new registrations.
Yahoo-geocities-closed

There will be no changes for the existing customers account. You can continue using the service till Yahoo! announces the exact date of the closure. Yahoo will announce about the data backup and will update its help center to help its existing customers take back their data safely.

Note that both GeoCities Free or Plus accounts will be closed later this year. So existing customers need to think of their data from now itself, though Yahoo! says not to worry about your data till this summer. As soon as possible, we need to redirect our customers to our new website. So if you have any serious blog/site in GeoCities, it is advisable to move as soon as possible, as Yahoo will not be opening any new channels for free hosting.

Yahoo-geocities-closed

On the foot steps of Google, Yahoo is closing its free hosting service later this year. According to Yahoo! the reason for this closure is to encourage anyone interested in a full-featured web hosting plan to consider upgrading to their award-winning Yahoo! Web Hosting service. Yahoo! has a hosting business and why will it be willing to shoot at its own leg by providing free hosting!

Google had shut down GooglePages.com and it allowed its customers to transfer the existing data to Google sites. Google sites does not support css and java script, thus making it almost worthless!
On the other hand Yahoo! does not have any plans to open another free hosting service.

Will it encourage people to signup for award-winning Yahoo! Web Hosting service? There are many other free hosting services available. Whats your thoughts about this move from Yahoo!

For anyone looking for a professional hosting, we suggest Doreo host and you can try it for free for 45 days.

Somebody’s gain should not be your loss – atleast in blogging

This is a common perception in the minds of many amateur business people. They always concentrate on the loss and gains of others. This is a good practice if you are investing in share market. But it’s bad, if overly done in any other business. We must concentrate more on our loss or gain.

Loss and gain in Blogging:
It’s the beauty of blogging that, some one may think something as a loss but the same thing may seem to be a gain for the other. It’s all how we think.
For Example:-
If you are running a blog and one of your friend also starts a blog with the similar niche as yours. In such a case different people think differently. Some may think that his friend will be his competitor in the future. And some other may feel happy that you may get a business partner in the future.

Situations where someone’s gain is not and should not be your loss:
1. Linking to other bloggers: Be generous while linking to other bloggers. Do not hesitate. Just make sure that you are linking to the relevant content that your readers will be benefited with. There is a big SEO advantage in linking to the relevant content.
Never feel that, if you link to other blog, you will loose the visitors, to the linked blog! This is not true. Your visitors will surly comeback if you provide value orelse they will surly not, even if you don’t link to others.

2. One click on other blogs CPC ad, is not a click less on your blog:-
I have seen some people guiding wrongly about ad placement. They think that one click on others CPC ad will be a click less on his ads! It’s too foolish to think like that. If a visitor finds something interesting and useful in those ads, he will surly click on it, irrespective of the website he is in. And you may think, if he visited your site and saw the same ad before, he might have ended up clicking on your ad. This argument seems to be true, but remember everyone has an abandoned interests, needs and wants. Have you ever seen a normal person with no interest, needs and wants? Probably not. So I don’t think one click on others CPC ad, is one click less on yours.

3. A newbie gets more subscribers then yours:
If a visitor likes your site he will surly subscribe otherwise surly not. It has no connection with other blogs. If you are able to win the heart of your visitor by providing value or by solving certain problem, then you can surely expect to get some loyal readers. Now a days there are some simple, effective and powerful tools like Google Reader, where reading hundreds of blog contents is so easy and less time consuming. So need not feel any other blog as a threat to yours, as long as you provide value to readers.

4. Sharing your idea’s with others, will reduce your chances of success ? :
“If two people exchange 1$, both will have 1$ each. But if they exchange 1 idea, both will have 2 ideas each”.
By sharing ideas you become more accountable – Share your ideas liberally. The benefits from accountability and feedback outweigh the risk that someone steals your idea!
*But be careful with whom you are sharing your ideas with. Do not share with people who specially exist to harm you! Discuss your thoughts and ideas only with trusted people.
By sharing your ideas, you will get valuable feedbacks. Sometimes you may come to know that, what you thought as an innovative idea is infact a crappy idea and would lead you to failure and loss. More about benefits of sharing ideas @ Link Love for Commentators.

Blogging should always be enjoyable. If we do not enjoy blogging, then there is some problem to be addressed! All bloggers or the bloggers in similar niche should get united and support eachother in getting success.

20 Years of Partnership Ends: Oracle & Sun Microsystems

Oracle Corporation and Sun Microsystems Inc were business partners from over 20 years and now they have entered a definitive agreement and Oracle is standing on its toes to acquire Sun Microsystems.
We had previously seen many acquisition by Oracle. It use to purchase other small data base related companies and now it has targeted a really big deal.

Sun Microsystems, Inc. and Oracle Corporation announced on Monday April 20, 2009, that they have entered into a definitive agreement under which Oracle will acquire Sun common stock for $9.50 per share in cash. The transaction is valued at approximately $7.4 billion, or $5.6 billion net of Sun’s cash and debt.
Source: Sun.com
Oracle-SunMicrosystem-deal

Sun Solaris operating system is the leading platform for the Oracle database. With this acquisition, Oracle can work to further optimize its database for Solaris, with continued support to other open source Operating Systems.

With this acquisition, Java would be the asset of Oracle, and thus we can now see Oracle in almost all the new devices like mobile phones, micro ovens etc.

This deal is almost a confirmed one, but it still has some pending formalities. And the most important factor now is the approval from Sun stockholders. With this acquisition Sun stockholders will also be benefited, so things may just run smoothly.

We expect Oracle’s support, innovation and investment in Java technology for the benefit of customers and the Java community.

Now the big question comes for bloggers:
An excerpt from Matt Mullenweg’s blog:

A number of people have contacted me with questions to the effect of “Oracle is evil, they now own MySQL, WordPress runs on MySQL, OMG! What’s next?” In addition to the millions of WordPress blogs all using MySQL, all of the projects Automattic contributes to are MySQL-based and we run more than 250 servers dedicated to MySQL.

Here is what Matt Mullenweg has to say about it:

Today our servers are running various versions of MySQL, tomorrow they’ll be running the same thing, and if need be ten years from now they can run the exact same software. Because of the GPL every WordPress user in the world is protected — we’re not beholden to any one company, only to what works best for us. Today that’s MySQL, tomorrow that’s MySQL, a year from now we’ll see. read more at ma.tt