Redefining Technology » Google

Google Announces Country-Specific Blog Censorship

Pushpendra Pal — Sat, 04 Feb 2012 13:25:31 +0000

After Twitters announcement to selectively block tweets on a country-by-country basis, now its Google’s turn to use this trick to avoid global content censorship. Google unveils its plan to block BlogSpot blogs on country bases. Google will now be able to block access in individual countries following a legal removal request. This way Google can meet local laws without blocking content at a global level.

These changes are applied in Australia, New Zealand and India, but Google plans to roll it out globally. Under this new system, blog visitors will be redirected to a website address using a country-specific top level domain. Suppose you visits xyz.blogspot.com blog, then the automated system will redirects you to xyz.blogspot.com.in (for Indian visitors). Readers will be redirected to sites with their own country’s domain name when they try to visit blogs recognized as foreign, as determined by their IP addresses.

In recent days Indian government forces Google, Twitter, Facebook and some other web portals to filter their content as per government guidelines. this country specific content censorship strikes a good balance between free speech, legality and practical issues for end users.

But Google give you freedom to browse the web as it is without censoring. Visitors can see blogs as it is available to global users. They just need to add “/ncr” (No Country Redirect) after web address of blog. Google will then show international version of that blog. Adding /ncr places a short term cookie in your browser that temporarily prevent geographical redirection.

Schedule an eMail to be Sent Later Using Bloomberg

Pushpendra Pal — Wed, 25 Jan 2012 16:25:22 +0000

Going for holidays today without carrying your laptop or smartphone (or no internet connectivity) and want to inform your boss next day. Gmail and some other popular mail clients does not offer email scheduling. But here is a solution for this too. Boomerang for Gmail is a free Firefox and Google Chrome plugin that lets you take control of when you send and receive emails. Bloomberg gives you capability to write an email now and set to sent that on a scheduled time in future.

Boomerang is a plugin that fits beautifully into the default Gmail UI. The plugin is also available for the smartphones like iPhone, Android phones and Blackberry. You can try the app on you smartphone by going to this link m.boomeranggmail.com from your mobile device. This will lead you to download page and after downloading it will install in your smartphone.

First download and install Bloomberg add-on on your Firefox or Chrome browser or on smartphone. Bloomberg needs your permission to access your Gmail account. Simply gave account access permission to Bloomberg to use this feature. Now reload Gmail on your browser. Bloomberg adds ‘Send Later’ button next to send button on compose mail page. Just write the message as you normally would, then click the Send Later button. Now Select the time you want to send the message from the drop-down menu or you can even enter your date in normal language. Boomerang will understand phrases such as Tomorrow at 12PM or Next week. Click Confirm when you’ve entered the time you want.

You are done. Now you are ready to schedule your Gmail messages for future.

Bloomberg also offer a follow up reminder service. If you want a cleaner inbox, but don’t want to lose track of important messages? Use Boomerang to take messages out of your inbox until you actually need them. Just click the Boomerang button when you have an email open, and choose when you need it again. Boomerang will archive the message. At the time you chose, Bloomberg bring it back to your inbox, marked unread, starred, or even at the top of your message list.

Bloomberg also remind you if you don’t hear back. There are times you need to make sure you follow up within a specific time frame after sending a message. You can select to only be reminded if nobody replies, or regardless. This way you won’t let messages slip through the crack and will never forget to follow up with people.

But remember Boomerang allows only 10 free scheduled e-mails per month and requires a subscription beyond that limit. If you want to send frequent mails then purchase a premium version of this add-on.

[How to] Download YouTube Video on Android Phone

Pushpendra Pal — Wed, 25 Jan 2012 15:38:46 +0000

Everyone like watching videos on YouTube, its a fun time pass. You are away from home (or computer) and liked a music video while browsing YouTube on your Android phone. There are many software and online tools available to download YouTube videos on your PC, but what about Android Phone. you like a video and want to download it on your Android phone. To short out your problem, here is an Android app to download videos from YouTube; named as TubeMate.

TubeMate app makes it super easy to download any video from YouTube or any mp3 audio file from any YouTube video. There are quick access buttons to download, share, replay and search YouTube videos. App has the ability to share videos on YouTube directly through the app via email, MMS, Facebook, Twitter, or whatever other apps you have installed on the phone that allow the ability to share via app.

After starting TubeMate YouTube Downloader app it will load and present you with a hybrid look of YouTube web version and mobile version. You can search for videos like normal or select any of the featured videos that appear when the app is loaded. When you click the play button to begin the video a dialogue box will open up and ask you whether or not you would like to download or watch the video. If you select Downloading then it will save the video to the SD card or internal memory on your phone.

TubeMate App Features:

Fast download mode (with multiple connections)
Save videos as mp3
Download video in different resolution from flv to full HD (depend on your device support).
Downloading in Background and Multi video download
Share video & Share TubeMate with your friends via e-mail, Facebook, Twitter and any other social network.
Playlist as video/audio.

Supported video Resolution to Download:

320 x 240: Runs almost on every smartphone
480 x 270: general devices
640 x 360 (FLV player required)
854 x 480
1280 x 720 (HD): High-end devices
1920 x 1080 (Full-HD): GalaxyTab, PC
Download as MP3 version.

Tubemate is ad supported and available as a free download app. Due to some unknown reasons Tube mate app is temporarily off the Android Market, so use the link at the bottom of this post to download the APK file.
Download Link: <Click Here>

Google Shuts Down 6 more Services Including Picnik & Sky Map

Pushpendra Pal — Mon, 23 Jan 2012 12:53:54 +0000

In the process of spring cleaning Google shuts down few more products. Some less popular products will be merged as a feature in other stabilized products and some goes open-sourced. Google acquired these startups by paying a lot of money and when these services failed to achieve the promise they hoped for, Google shuts them. There is a comprehensive list of this 2012 Google cleanup.

1. Picnik:

Google acquired Picnik, online photo editor tool in 2010. The goal of this purchase is to allow Picasa users to edit and save their photos online. Picnik will be retired on April 19, 2012 so the Picnik team can continue creating photo-editing magic across Google products. You can download a zip file of your creations through Picnik Takeout or copy them to Google+. Google made Picnik premium service is free to everyone until it shuttered. All the premium members will receive a full refund in the coming weeks.

2. Google Sky Map:

Sky Map was created by half a dozen Googlers at the Pittsburgh office in 2009. This product is initiated to show off the amazing capabilities of the sensors in the first-generation Android phones and offer a window into the sky. Google doesn’t going to shut it down but opens it for open-source community to make it more diverse.

3. Google Message Continuity (GMC):

GMC is an email disaster recovery product for enterprise customers that use Google’s cloud to back up emails originally sent or received in an on-premise, Microsoft Exchange system. This service was started in Dec, 2010. The aim to backup data over cloud is offered within cloud storage services using Google Apps hence there is no need to use another service with same features. Current GMC customers will be able to use GMC for the duration of their contract and are encouraged to consider using Google Apps as their primary messaging and collaboration platform.

4. Urchin:

Urchin, an online analytic product, was acquired by Google in 2005, that became the foundation for Google Analytics. Analytics helps businesses of all sizes measure their websites visits, stats, demographics and online marketing. Google now focus on this online analytics service rather then Urchin which was client side application. New Urchin Software licenses will no longer be available after March 2012.

5. Social Graph API:

Social Graph API is a developer side app which stores information about public connections between people on the web. This app failed to gain exposure and will be shuttered down on April, 2012.

6. Needlebase:

Needlebase is a less known Google product, even I haven’t heard its name before today. Needlebase is a data management platform which was acquired from ITA software. This technology is being evaluated for integration into Google’s other data-related initiatives.

Google acquires new initiatives that attracts Google’s mind as a high prices. Google tweaks these product and make them available within Google’s already existing services. Some services boost Google’s reputation and attracts mass but some failed to gain exposure. Time to time Google shut down less popular services or make them open-sourced.

Grow Your Audience and Business With Google+

Pushpendra Pal — Thu, 19 Jan 2012 13:36:58 +0000

Google+, an emerging social network by Google will help you grow your business, social networks, audience and profit. Its very easy to attract users on Google Plus and make them your loyal customers too. Social media is becoming the next shopping point on the web, so its your turn to produce most out of it. Today I am going to tell you awesome Google+ feature that helps you grow your business.

1. Google+ Business Pages:

Like Facebook pages, Google+ offers Business pages for your company, brand and group. You can post your website content as feed on Google plus and updates users with your latest product. On your page, you can engage in conversations with your visitors, direct readers back to your site for the latest updates, send tailored messages to specific groups of people, and see how many +1’s you have across the web. Google+ Pages will help you build relationships with your users, encouraging them to spend more time engaging with your content.

2. Circles:

If your company offers different niches product and your audience ranges on different categories then Circle will help you. Circles on Google+ allow you to group followers of your Business Page into smaller audiences. You can then share specific messages with specific groups. For example, you could create a Circle containing your most loyal readers and offer them exclusive content.

3. Google+ Badges:

A Google+ Badge can be placed on your website so interested users can circle your business page direct from your website, no need to go on Google+ page. The only need is that visitors must logged in into their Google account. Adding your page in their circle allows them to get updates from your site via Google+.

4. Hangouts:

If your customer want to ask few questions or just check that you are real or not, you can offer them Hangouts on Google+. This way you can negotiate with them and deliver most features of your product. Hangouts make this easy, by letting you have high-quality video chats with nine people with a single click. You can use Hangouts to hold live forums, break news or simply get to know people better, all in real time.

5. The Power of +1:

You can link your website to your Google+ business page so that all your +1s from your Page, your website, and search results will get tallied together and appear as a single total. Potential visitors will be more likely to see the recommendations your site has received, whether they’re looking at a search result, your website, or your Page, meaning your +1’s will reach not only the 60 million users of Google+, but all the people who come to Google every day.

View Real-time AdSense Earnings With AdSense Publisher Toolbar

Pushpendra Pal — Thu, 19 Jan 2012 08:54:13 +0000

Google always work for innovating new technologies that help its users to use advanced tools and services, save time, and better understand account performance. Google serves the best advertising network in the industry, as AdSense. It is the basic and only earning source for millions of web publishers. To give them easy access and real-time monitoring Google created a new Google Chrome browser extension called the AdSense Publisher Toolbar.

When viewing your website, this extension will show you a snapshot of your AdSense account performance as a widget in the corner of your browser window. It also includes ad overlays that describe the recent performance of specific ad units, and gives you the option to access AdSense directly. There are two ways to access your AdSense stats; 1) Pop-up account overview and 2) In-site ad overlay.

Pop-up account overview lets you view the following at a glance:

Account earnings summary (today, yesterday, this month, last month)
Top 5 custom channels
Top 5 URL channels
Lifetime revenue

In-site ad overlay gives you the following options right in your site:

Instant summary of each ad unit’s earnings (today, yesterday, last 7 days)
Links to go straight to your AdSense account

To start using this new toolbar you have to install AdSense Publisher Toolbar extension in your Google Chrome browser. This extension will only available to Chrome users only. Follow these steps to start with:

Visit the Chrome Web Store from your Chrome browser and download the AdSense Publisher Toolbar. This will add the toolbar icon to your browser.
You’ll then need to grant the toolbar access to your AdSense account. To do so, click the toolbar icon and then sign in to Google Accounts with your AdSense login and password.
Next, visit a website where you’ve implemented your ad code, and enable the toolbar by clicking on the toolbar icon again.

After successful following above steps the AdSense account overview widget will appear and show you an earnings summary, broken down by recent and all time performance as well as your top channels.

You can also enable ad overlays directly on top of your ad units, which will tell you how a particular ad unit has performed today, yesterday and in the past seven days. Clicking on the ad overlay will bring you to the “My ads” tab in your account, where you can edit this ad unit.

Don’t worry in you click your on ad overlay generated by the toolbar; because doing this won’t create invalid clicks.

Google Updates Search Algorithm to Get More Personal Results

Pushpendra Pal — Wed, 11 Jan 2012 09:58:38 +0000

Google periodically updates its search algorithm to deliver best search result for the search term. With the evolution of social media peoples also like to search within their social circle. To give more results from social web Google introduced ‘Search, plus your World’ update. This change will show your personal content or things shared with you by people you care about. This feature uses Google+ circle to find more social results.

The main feature introduction in this algorithm change are:

Personal Result: Enable you to find information just for you, such as Google+ photos and posts—both your own and those shared specifically with you, that only you will be able to see on your results page. To use this feature you must logged in to your Google account.
Personal result shows Google+ posts and Photos from Google+ and Picasa from your and your friends profile. This update will help you in a way that “let say you’re looking for a vacation destination. You can of course search the web, but what if you want to learn from the experiences your friends have had on their vacations?” Just as in real life, your friends’ experiences are often so much more meaningful to you than impersonal content on the web.
Profiles in Search: Enables you to immediately find people you’re close to or might be interested in following. This feature works for both in autocomplete and search results.
Every day, there are hundreds of millions of searches for people. Sometimes, it’s hard to find the person you’re looking for. Once you do find him or her, there’s no quick way for you to actually interact. Now you’ll have meaningful ways to connect with people instantly, right from the search results. Now, typing just the first few letters of your friend’s name brings up a personalized profile prediction in autocomplete. Selecting a predicted profile takes you to a results page for your friend, which includes information from their Google+ profile and relevant web results that may be related to them.
People and Pages: Help you find people profiles and Google+ pages related to a specific topic or area of interest, and enable you to follow them with just a few clicks. Because behind most every query is a community.
If you search for a topic like [Gadgets] or [movies], you might see prominent people who frequently discuss this topic on Google+ appearing on the right-hand side of the results page. You can connect with them on Google+, strike up meaningful conversations and discover entire communities in a way that simply wasn’t possible before.

The goal behind getting social is making a search engine that understands not only content, but also people and relationships.

Send Custom Message When Decline Phone Calls on ICS

Pushpendra Pal — Fri, 06 Jan 2012 08:19:18 +0000

There are some great features in Android 4.0, Ice Cream Sandwich. Only few smartphone have ICS preinstalled but you can upgrade your phone to Android 4.0. One of the cool feature in Android 4.0 is that, users can now politely decline phone calls and at the same time send the caller a quick response text message. While the feature isn’t entirely new to the Android platform but the location of the settings for the feature have changed. Now you can send a quick response direct from the call alert screen, which now has three options Accept, Decline and Send quick response SMS.

Samsung, in partnership with Android owner Google, launched first ICS powered smartphone, Nexus. If you ever messed with this feature on the Motorola Atrix, you would have gone into Settings > Call settings > Text message reply to change any of the replies. Not anymore. The settings for the Phone app on Ice Cream Sandwich are now located in the actual Phone app, not the Settings app. To change the default quick response, follow the simple instructions below.

1. Open Phone app and tap on settings option. This option menu have various options for call settings like Quick response, Voicemail service, Voicemail settings, Voice privacy, tones settings etc.

2. On Phone settings menu you will see Quick Response setting at first place, tap on it. There are around 4 pre-installed quick responses to send, like ‘Can’t talk now. What’s up?’ or ‘I’ll call you later’ etc.

3. You can’t add more Quick Responses to the list; but can edit them. It’s very simple, tap on the response you want to edit and write whatever you want. Write those lines which you use frequently like, “Sorry honey, I’m in meeting, call you later”. After editing a response press OK to save it. You can write a long note in this response message, nearly more then 350 letters. This is pretty helpful to say why are you not answering call.

4. That’s it, You are done.

Now use this ICS feature when you stuck in a meeting with client. When a person calls you, slide circle to up to the messaging icon. Then you prompt to the Quick Response written in your phone, choose any of them or create new custom message. When you tap on any predefined response, call will immediately decline and send a message to sender.

Isn’t it easy and useful feature. Share your ideas using comment form.

5 Best Chrome Extensions You Must Have

Pushpendra Pal — Sat, 31 Dec 2011 06:35:43 +0000

Google Chrome is the third most used web browser after Internet Explorer and Firefox. It is super fast, secure, extension rich and most updated web browser. To make chrome better there are thousands of extensions available at chrome store. Extension adds some additional functionalities and features to Chrome browser. All of these are tested, secure and free to use. Here are 5 best Chrome extensions we found useful for everyone.

Awesome Screenshot:

If you take screenshots of webpages, add this extension to your arsenal. This is the best screenshot taking extension for Chrome browser. In addition to turning selected areas, visible portions, or entire pages into a PNG file, you can annotate the grab, save that and then share it via the AwesomeScreenshot.com site. USe this link to install Awesome Screenshot.

Xmarks Bookmark Sync:

If there’s an extension that’s necessary for users of multiple computers—and even multiple browsers on the same or multiple computers—it’s Xmarks. This is a multi platform bookmarking extension to backup and synchronize bookmarks. It ensures that your bookmarks, tabs, and even passwords are synchronized no matter what browser you use, be it Chrome, Firefox, Safari, or IE. Install Xmarks on Chrome.

Adblock Plus:

Advertisements plays a primary part in websites but in most cases there are no use to some user. Adblock extension for chrome will strip out most of the ads from many websites and block the pop-ups, ads and bothersome banners, images and YouTube video ads. This great tool will ensure fast, efficient and clean web browsing with obnoxious and intrusive advertisements. Use this link to install AD Block Extension.

Lastpass:

Lastpass is the best and free password storage and filling out forms is available across platforms and browsers. LastPass supports Chrome, Firefox, Internet Explorer, and Safari as a browser extension (and Opera, Opera Mini and more via Bookmarklets). Use it and the full installer to import all passwords stored with other tools like KeePass, 1Password or Roboform, as well. Download and install Lastpass for Chrome.

FB photo Zoom:

FB Photo Zoom is a simple, light-weight extension that integrates directly into FB so you can see the larger images of photo albums, profile photos and more whenever you hover over a zoomable image. Go to extension settings to control image zoom and other features.

5 YouTube Tricks Know Must Know

Pushpendra Pal — Wed, 28 Dec 2011 16:19:47 +0000

YouTube is world’s most visited and most loved video sharing website. I think most of us are one among the Millions of people who visit YouTube daily for entertainment and fun. Today, I am going to tell you some interesting tricks to make your YouTube video viewing more fun. Just use one or all of them.

1. Disable Related Videos:

Related videos is an addictive feature of YouTube. It give users most appropriate related videos to watch. This is very useful feature but as a video publisher it can annoy you. If you don’t want people to see other people’s content that may be related but may as well be in competition to you. Here is a trick to disable this feature.
Just add ‘&rel=0? to the end of the url part of the embed code and you just turned off the related video suggestions.

2. View High Quality Video:

YouTube supports HD quality videos playback. As the demand of high definition video rises YouTube supports all of them from 240p FLV to full HD 1080p MP4. You can watch any of these resolution videos (if that video available in all formats) depending on your choice and your data plan. For your convenient YouTube provides a button at the bottom-right of video player to change video qualities.
Also there is another method to do this which utilizes URL feature. To view the Youtube video in high quality append the following at the end of the URL as &fmt=6 or &fmt=18 (for 480p) or &fmt=22 (for 720p HD) or &hd=1

3. Embed Specific Part of YouTube Video:

When you embed an YouTube video on a webpage then the whole video will embed. For some reasons you want to show a specific part of video to your viewer then what to do? Use this trick to do so.
Just append ‘&start=60? to skip first 60s of the video.
In general you can modify the value after start= to the number of seconds you want to skip the video for. This way you can improve productivity, save viewers time and bandwidth and of course your server load and monthly bandwidth.

4. Want to watch Adult Videos w/o Logging in?

YouTube censor its content and make sensible content only visible to logged in users. This way YouTube spy on your account, read your date of birth and check whether you qualify age restriction or not. But here is a good news for you that you can still watch those naughty videos without logging into your Google or YouTube account. follow this trick:

Add NSFW before the word YouTube in your URL. e.g. http://www.nsfwyoutube.com/xyz in your address bar.

5. Bypass Regional Filter to Watch International Videos:

Some videos are restricted in your region due to copyright issues or the uploader made his video available in certain part of world. YouTube use IP address to know your geographical location an restrict you to watch those video. You can bypass this region restriction using this trick:

Make a change in the URL from http://www.youtube.com/watch?v= to http://www.youtube.com/v/

Like these tips, share your idea’s with other visitors using comment form.