Blogger turns 10! Many happy returns of the day!!

Last week, Google's well known Blogger platform turned 10! Many happy returns of the day!

How did I learn of this? From a follower on Twitter, named TechPupil. Apologies, I can't paste that particular story link here, lest that link turn into a malware host or some bad link later on! :) So, please search for this site, and the post on Blogger turning 10!

I may have been having some tough times in the recent weeks with Blogger -- first with it marking my blog -- Pradeep Chakraborty's Blog -- as having malware, and later, removing the site, and later, it also blocked five of my other blogs -- on electronic components, electronics, semiconductors, solar/PV and telecom -- as spam blogs, only to release it later, on request.

My troubles apart, I am the first to admit to being a massive fan of blogger, and find it a great, very user friendly platform with super features. Hey, those are the very reasons that I've so many blogs on Blogger in the first place!

Would definitely hate to leave Blogger, some day! I personally share an emotional history with it -- as this very blogging platform also won me a best blogger's world title in early December 2008, and another, in February 2009 -- for Pradeep Chakraborty's Blog.

Am quite sure that Blogger has made a mistake somewhere regarding my blog and sincerely hope that sooner or later, it will be returned to me. If, for some reason, it remains unreturned, let that famous and well known blog rest in peace!

And well, as I've told a couple of friends, if I can write that particular blog, I can very well write other such blogs quite easily, especially on semiconductors and telecom! Besides, my identity starts and ends with me, and not with that particular blog, or any other, for that matter.

Till this last week, I've never had any problems with the Blogger platform and in fact, have recommended it to several of my friends and colleagues. Keeping with its trend, it is quite certain that Blogger will be introducing great features in the future for bloggers such as you and me!

Keep up the good work, Blogger (and Google)!

Google blocked my blog! So, I moved to another URL!!

Wonder why Google has done so! A few days ago, I kept receiving messages that there was some malware within my blog -- Pradeep Chakraborty's Blog -- with the url http://pradeepchakraborty.blogspot.com

The next thing I know late evening is -- this blog is first blocked and then it disappears!

Since then, I've received lots of messages from friends and people from far away, who've been searching for my blog and blog posts. Thanks a lot for your support, guys!

I've sent requests to Google to return my blog, but till now, no reply has come from them!

Nevertheless, within one hour of this event, I changed to a new blog address, which is: http://pradeepchakraborty.wordpress.com! Yes, I've finally moved this blog out of Blogger, even though I didn't want to! I've been literally forced to do so!

I'd added a new site -- http://pradeep-chakraborty.blogspot.com, only for that too to be blocked for malware. I've no idea what's happened, and now, I have stopped bothering.

I have added a site with the same blog posts -- http://testlinksonblog.blogspot.com -- but I don't know how long it will be before this gets blocked for malware.

I wonder why Google said I had malware on my blog, when I only blog about technology related subjects, and especially, semiconductors and telecom. There's no post on sleaze or pornography or sex! Even then?

I didn't know that semicon and telecom were just some other bad words! Apologies!!

Well, most importantly, why on earth will I promote spam or malware? And, how am I to supposed to know what links will later go on to become malware or spam? And even if some links did become like those, isn't it Google's job to protect bloggers like us? They are the online experts, and not I!

How can blogging ever be safe, when the leading global company promoting a blogging platform can't protect itself, leave alone bloggers!

I've tried to do work as honestly as possible. Even then, if I am penalized for no fault of mine, there's nothing much I can do!

About a month ago, Google found my Electronics blog a spam blog! Why will I spam anyone, when I don't even have a newsletter? Nor have I told anyone to spam my posts. It is up to readers to visit that particular blog and read what they wish!

Today, I receive another mail from Google, saying my Solar PV blog is a spam blog!

Come on guys! This is just too much!!

Coming back to my main blog, I have a dedicated follower of readers -- who visit Pradeep Chakraborty's Blog to read that content. If I were, some day, to stop blogging -- because of Google's actions -- please don't blame me!

Or, perhaps, I should move over to Wordpress, or some other blogging platform, where I don't have to break my head over being a spam blog or an attack site, etc. etc.! Nor do I wish to make scores of backups for my blogs! Or, to change URLs. Where's the need? There's much more to life beyond all of this!

Really, this is extremely irritating and frustrating! So much for blogging!!

Maybe, next time this happens, I'll have to bid goodbye to Blogger.

Am also very sure that the semiconductor and telecom worlds can find much better bloggers...

P.S.: Well, after locking three other blogs -- solar, telecom and later, semiconductors, Google unlocked those. Thanks a lot, Google.

Update: August 24 -- Now, Google has blocked my Electronic Components blog! This, after removing my main blog, and then blocking (and later releasing) Solar, Telecom and Semiconductor blogs... and earlier, Electronics! Just don't know what to make of all these...

Google finds my electronics blog a spam blog!

What an interesting thing to happen!

As usual, I was adding press releases to this particular blog, which only focuses on electronics. The moment I published a post and returned to the dashboard, I get this message -- This blog has been locked due to possible Blogger Terms of Service violations. You may not publish new posts until your blog is reviewed and unlocked. This blog will be deleted within 20 days unless you request a review.

Well, immediately, I sent off a blog unlock review request. On clicking that page, I found this message -- Blogger's spam-prevention robots have detected that your blog has characteristics of a spam blog. (What's a spam blog?) Since you're an actual person reading this, your blog is probably not a spam blog. Automated spam detection is inherently fuzzy, and we sincerely apologize for this false positive.

Brilliant! When and whom did I spam? I don't send out newsletters. And these releases are for my personal consumption, so that I may keep up with what's happening in the electronics industry.

So, how is it a spam blog? Can someone help?

I recently wrote a blog post about a bloggers' survey, where I had indicated that perhaps, it is time that I should close down all of my other blogs -- which I recently started to host all of those press releases that I get bombarded with.

Seriously, after this 'spam blog' thing, I am greatly tempted to do so! Maybe, I should also look at other blogging platforms in future.

P.S.: I must thank Google for taking very quick action and taking my electronics blog off my spam blog within hours of my request. Thanks again!

Can't wait to use Google Chrome OS!

Yesterday, or rather, the day before, there was an announcement on Google's Blog -- Introducing the Google Chrome OS!

This is such pleasant news, especially for folks like me who try out new things all the time! At least, we will have an option against Microsoft Windows, for starters! What I do know is: it is too early to even predict how the Google Chrome OS will overtake or beat the Microsoft OS. Nevertheless, we all will have a choice!

I've been a long-time user of the Google Chrome browser, and that's really light and fast. It is expected that the new Google Chrome OS will be equally light and fast!

According to the blog, the Google Chrome OS is an open source, lightweight operating system that will initially be targeted at netbooks. That is really smart thinking! Going open source, perhaps, even better.

Just yesterday, I was visiting the Croma electronic store browsing the various netbooks on display. It won't be that long when netbooks with Google Chrome OS will be available -- by H2-2010, as per Google. Even better, the Google Chrome OS will run on both x86 and ARM chips. Some really very serious thought seems to have gone into this project!

I am also a user of Open Office, along with MS Office. Wonder when will we see a Google Chrome Office! Nevertheless, I just can't wait to get my hands on the Google Chrome OS!

Clouds gather over Google with Hulbee launch?

SWITZERLAND: Leading Swiss software company, Grossbay AG, has launched its new search application http://hulbee.com to challenge the dominance of Google by providing users with a more intelligent search capability.

Based on the Hulbee knowledge management programme developed by Grossbay to assist companies in managing their knowledge databases, Hulbee provides the first truly “intelligent search” facility, allowing users to access information intuitively via a data cloud.

Users searching via http://hulbee.com will not get the normal long list of pages containing their search words, but will instead get a data cloud containing a number of other key words that will help the user define their search in a more natural way.

This new way of searching narrows results by searching for thematic connected keywords, which are then displayed as a data cloud. This enables the user to see the complete context of a search term, which otherwise would still be hidden in long lists of results.

Hulbee uses knowledge management software, originally developed to assist enterprises in managing their information by proposing related topics when a search word or term is entered, therefore narrowing the results. Hulbee builds on the comprehensive search indexing provided by its partner company, Yahoo!

If you carry out a topical search for “swine flu symptoms” on http://hulbee.com, you would see a data cloud as a result (see visual below). From that cloud you are then able to refine your search more easily without having to open up endless websites hoping to find the information you want.

Andreas Wiebe, CEO of Grossbay, said: “Searching for information on the internet is taking too long: there is just too much. Hulbee reduces search times by presenting information in a manageable list. It’s intuitive so everyone will find it easy to use.”

Now, Google's Internet Bus in Karnataka!

I received this release announcing that Google India's 'Internet Bus' will now tour Karnataka. Starting its journey from Bangalore, the bus will travel through 15 towns in the next 50 days.

This campaign is aimed at people with limited knowledge and exposure to the Internet and the experience has been designed to create awareness of the benefits of this powerful medium.

The Karnataka leg of Google's Internet Bus will continue to focus on four themes -- information, communication, entertainment and education. The video driven content will showcase how even with basic knowledge of the Internet people can make their everyday lives simpler. The content will also provide familiarization on using services like search, email, social networking, online maps and mobile. All this information will be available in English and Kannada.

Dr. Prasad Ram, Head of Google R&D, India, said: "Tamil Nadu was a big learning for us and it was inspiring to see that people wanted to know about the internet and share their needs with us. This experience has reinforced our belief that awareness is the key challenge in the growth of the Internet in India and we are excited about bringing this campaign to yet another state. In this phase besides popular services like email, search and videos, we will be focusing on how mobile phones can be used to access useful local information even without data plans. Access to the Internet in local languages will continue to be a focus area."

The success of the Internet Bus in Tamil Nadu was evident from the number of interesting stories that followed each time the bus visited a city. In Krishnagiri, an elderly couple came on board the Google Internet Bus and, after experiencing Gmail, decided to buy a computer and use it to communicate with their son who was abroad.

A young businessman who dropped out of high school said that "since visiting the Google Internet Bus, I have found a way to improve my knowledge of the stock market." In Coimbatore, a young boy, who sold flowers for a living and had never been exposed to the Internet managed to learn about Google Maps, Google Earth, and Google Search in Tamil, his mother tongue.

Users across India will be able to follow the bus through its journey, see pictures and videos and join online communities.

Opera Mini usage up 157pc YoY!

OSLO, NORWAY: There has been a major jump in usage, page views and data transfers for Opera Mini this month. In March 2009, more than 23 million people used Opera Mini, a 12.1 percent increase from February 2009 and more than 157 percent increase from March 2008.

Those users viewed more than 8.6 billion pages in March 2009. Since February, page views have gone up 17.4 percent. Year over year (YoY), page views have increased 255 percent. The full State of the Mobile Web report is available here! http://www.opera.com/smw/.

The growth in data transfers also highlights the value Opera Mini offers global operators. In March 2009, Opera Mini served 148 million MB of data to handsets worldwide. Since February, the data consumed went up by 19.3 percent.

Data in Opera Mini is compressed 90 percent on average. If this data were uncompressed, Opera Mini users would have viewed nearly 1.4 PB of data in March. Since March 2008, data traffic is up 319 percent.

A surge of Opera Mini usage in Nigeria pushed that country into the top 10, displacing Germany.

Opera Mini use over the course of a day
We looked at one 24-hour period (Tuesday, March 17) to see how Opera Mini is used throughout the day in the top 10 countries. In this case, we measured usage according to data transferred. For analysis, the 24-hour day was split into six four-hour slices (using local times).

Here is what we observed:
* In all but two of the top 10 countries, the highest level of Opera Mini use is at the tail end of the day -- from 8pm to midnight. In Indonesia, Opera Mini is used most between noon and 4pm. In China, Opera Mini is used most between 8am and noon.
* More than users from any other top 10 country, Nigerians are likely to be browsing with Opera Mini between 4am and 8am.
* More than users from any other top 10 country, Chinese users are likely to be browsing with Opera Mini between 8am and noon.
* More than users from any other top 10 country, Ukrainian and Chinese users are likely to be browsing with Opera Mini between noon and 4pm.
* More than users from any other top 10 country, Polish users are likely to be browsing with Opera Mini between 4pm and midnight.
* Users in all of the top 10 countries are least likely to use Opera Mini between the hours of midnight and 8am.
* In all of the top 10 countries, except Indonesia and China, usage of Opera Mini between 4pm and midnight outweighs Opera Mini usage between 8am and 4pm.

The difference in Opera Mini usage during peak hours versus off-peak hours varies in each country. The biggest difference is noticeable in Poland (28 percent between 8pm and midnight versus 5 percent between midnight and 4am). The smallest difference is noticeable in Nigeria (20 percent between 8pm and midnight versus 14 percent between midnight and 4am).

"A mobile phone will be the device most people use to access the Web," said Jon von Tetzchner, CEO, Opera. "As millions of people each month discover the Web through Opera Mini, content providers have an incredible opportunity to seize competitive advantage in this new medium. By simply ensuring their content works on any device, they will open themselves to the next generation of Web users."

Snapshot: India
Page-view growth since March 2008: 153 percent
Unique-user growth since March 2008: 53 percent
Page-views per user: 359
This month, GameJump fell off of India's top 10 list. GetJar, on the other hand, is new to the list.

Top 10 sites in India (# of unique users)
google.com
orkut.com
yahoo.com
gmail.com
rediff.com (up from 6)
wikipedia.org (up from 8)
songs.pk
peperonity.com (up from 9)
my.opera.com (up from 10)
getjar.com (new)

Top handsets for March 2009
Nokia N70
Nokia N73
Nokia 3110c
Nokia 6300
Nokia N72
Nokia 3500c
Nokia 6233
Sony Ericsson W200i
Sony Ericsson K750i
Nokia 5310

Don't focus on beauty, focus on function: Adam Lasnik, Google

The Google India Searchmasters 2009, held today at RMZ Infinity on Old Madras Road presented an excellent opportunity to interact with Googlers and learn more their work.

The gathering of webmasters, bloggers, and other search engine optimization (SEO) specialists made the event memorable. It is rare to find so many Googlers in India interacting with this community, but then, this conference aimed to change that! And it did!!

Presenters ranged from Adam Lasnik, Google's first Search Evangelist, Koti Ivaturi, Strategist in Google's Search Quality Team, Dr. Rajat Mukherjee, Group Product Manager who is working on Google's Custom Search platform, Ankit Gupta, who is working on making mobile products discoverable and accessible, to Deepak Kumar from the Google Analytics team, who also works on Google's Website Optimizer.

The photo shows Google's Adam Lasnik making his presentation!

Of course, there were Vivaik Bharadwaaj, manager of Google's Search Quality Evaluation team in India and Korea, and product manager, Alok Goel. Both were responsible for putting together this event in India, for the first time ever! Kudos, guys!

Bharadwaaj set the tone, stating Google's desire to build a strong relationship with the Indian webmasters' community. He touched upon some of Google's India specific initiatives, such as Orkut, India Corporate Blog, Google Bus (which has just been launched in Tamil Nadu), Transliteration Tool, Mobile Search, Onscreen Keyboard, Webmasters' Forum, and now, Searchmasters!

Speaking on Webmaster Central and Best Practices, Adam Lasnik highlighted three areas for best practices: discovery, accessibility and promotion. Google's guiding principles are fairness, effectiveness and stability. Google's tools and blogs are its two key resources.

How to get good links?
Commenting on good links, he said those were essentially from trustworthy, relevant and from choosy resources. These links are similar to votes that are given consciously.

There are ways your website can get good links. First, create a notable site with original and compelling content. [Wow, I just did a check on Google for my other blog, and received a whopping 4,950 results! Hope I am on the right track!] Next, participate thoughtfully in communities. Also, make your page easy to share and link to.

"Don't focus on beauty, focus on function," Lasnik advised. "Content is really the foundation." Be original, by having your own information and commentary. Make that content compelling, especially the kind that people would be willing to share with others. Also, make that content accessible.

Website accessibility tips and tricks
First, make sure that your web page or website is accessible to both users and to Google. Ensure that all of the pages load and that users can navigate the site successfully. There is a need to ensure that everyone can see what's available on each page. Most importantly, everyone should be able to understand the content provided.

It helps when users are able to bookmark their favorite pages and also share pages with others. They should also be able to transact appropriately on the website as well. "The most important thing here is TEXT," stressed Lasnik. "Your core content and navigation should be in text," he advised.

Lasnik further provided some tips for testing accessibility. One, access your site with different browsers -- a golden tip, most webmasters generally overlook! Next, make sure that you not only browse the website but also transact! Also, have your colleagues explore and complete specific tasks on your website. "Ensure that people and search engines understand what your web pages are all about," he added.

Moving on to page titles, he advised the webmasters to create title tags that are brief, descriptive and compelling. Good titles are specific to the page. You can also consider adding the organization's name. However, care should be taken that the title tags are phrase based, and not a sentence!

Those of you who aren't doing it yet: make the most of your website's images! "Use Alt text, and use descriptive filenames," said Lasnik. Describe the image appropriately in plain text as well. A key note: be kind to other web users and optimize your images!

Some next steps
It is important that searchmasters and webmasters make their web pages discoverable. "Ensure that your site has an HTML sitemap. Add an XML sitemap as well," advised Lasnik.

Next, help users to access and understand your content. Create descriptive and distinct title tags. Annote all images with appropriate Alt text, and all media, with thoughtful surrounding text.

Touching on keyword density, he said that was not something Google really looked at! He added that keyword stuffing actually violated webmaster guidelines. According to Wikipedia, keyword stuffing is considered to be an unethical search engine optimization (SEO) technique. It occurs when a web page is loaded with keywords in the meta tags or in content.

Tackling copied content from your sites
Most bloggers and leading Web sites are plagued with their content being copied by others on to other web sites or even blogs. In fact, I myself spend some time on the Web searching for copied content from my blogs. Well, there's really nothing much I can do about that!

When posed this question, Lasnik referred to bloggers and web sites making use of the DMCA or The Digital Millennium Copyright Act.

As per Wikipedia, The Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA) is a United States copyright law that implements two 1996 treaties of the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO). It criminalizes production and dissemination of technology, devices, or services intended to circumvent measures (commonly known as Digital Rights Management or DRM) that control access to copyrighted works and it also criminalizes the act of circumventing an access control, whether or not there is actual infringement of copyright itself. In addition, the DMCA heightens the penalties for copyright infringement on the Internet.

Google Webmaster tools -- see your site like Google sees it!
Koti Ivaturi drew everyone's attention to Google's Webmaster Help Forum. He urged Webmasters to use these tools so that they can see their own sites as Google does!

He referred to the sitemap tools as well, which provide links to tools and code snippets that allow you to generate sitemap files. Google has recently added the Webmaster Help Forum, a new platform.

In the next post, I will discuss the salient points needed to design your site for mobile phones. In fact, Google seems to have a great solution, using the GWT (Google Web transcoder!

Google SearchMasters Conference 2009 is here!

I consider myself really lucky and delighted at being invited to attend The Google SearchMasters Conference 2009, which will be held this Saturday in Bangalore.

It will present me a great opportunity to learn all about how Google functions, or at least, how its well known search engine functions.

It will be wonderful opportunity to learn about how Google's webmaster resources can help folks develop and build better websites. Attendees will learn how to leverage the different webmaster support tools and improve their website's performance.

There's this brilliant resource from Google for Webmasters. They can connect with the webmaster community, and research and ask specific questions. Users can also learn and see how others are reaching their websites. Besides, you would get to learn how to make your website more search engine friendly. I would surely like to know a bit more about Google Analytics.

Well, I certainly look forward to the Google SearchMasters Conference 2009!