Web & Tech Track

GAIM is PIDGIN now.

2007-05-01T00:31:00.000+05:30

The name of popular IM service GAIM has changed to pidgin now following the dispute and settlement with AOL. I just feel sad about it, as GAIM is my favourite IM and I would prefer the old name only. you could say "What is in a name..buddy??". It is just unexplainable.

Website is also changes now. It is pidgin.im .
It has confirmed that just the name has changed where as the product will remain the same. Yesterday only they have released pidgin 2.0.0 beta7.

According to the website,
Many years ago when this project was first started, it was called "GTK+ AOL Instant Messenger." AOL naturally complained, and Mark Spencer changed the name to "Gaim." AOL was appeased, and no one really ever heard of it because there were very few users back then.

A few years later AOL trademarked "AIM," and started referring to their IM services using that name. They complained. The issue was brought up on Slashdot, and the Gaim developers at the time got some legal support. That legal support advised that the ongoing discussions with AOL be kept confidential until fully settled, and so it remained. The public thought the issue had gone away then. It sorta did, in that AOL stopped responding to Gaim's legal support for a while.

At long last, I am pleased to announce that we have a signed settlement and can release our new version. There is one catch however: we have had to change the project's name.

After a long, and unfortunately secret debate (as we could not say why we were looking at a name change, we ended up just doing this ourselves), we settled on the name "Pidgin" for gaim itself, "libpurple" for libgaim (which, as of 2.0.0 beta6, exists), and "Finch" for gaim-text. Yes, the spelling of "Pidgin" is intentional, see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pidgin.

If you haven't used GAIM before, here are the advantages of using it.

1. You can login to MSN, gTalk, Yahoo..etc at the same time.

2. You can even login to two Yahoo ( or the other) at the same time.
3. In built logging.
4. Wider support for platforms.
5. Tabbed chatting.
6. Plug in support.
7. Finally it is open source..edit the code the way you want it.

I used a bit old version. It has a disadvantage that you cant log-in in invisible mode directly. Hopefully the new version will have this feature.(or does it already have??)

-Ahmed.

Order prints online

2007-04-30T22:38:00.000+05:30

This post is targeted for Indian audience. Please ignore if you are not from India.

Ever wanted get the prints of your favourite digital pics??
I wanted it...so I did a small research and find out some of the sites which offer digital prints and delivery in India at a very minimal price. The best one I found which was offering prints for less price is SnapGalaxy. I ordered some prints using Snap Galaxy....and the prints reached me within 2 days and the quality is amazing. Here is the summary of my findings.

1. SnapGalaxy
SnapGalaxy.com is a consumer digital imaging web site that provides users a way to store, share and print digital photos. The site facilitates users to create personalized items such as mugs, photo gifts, photo books, cards, DVDs, frames, calendars and much more. It provides user a choice to choose from different size prints along with paper type - glossy or matte. SnapGalaxy.com uses premium quality paper and chemicals. It provide competitive prices too.

Prints/Cards	4x6	5x7	6x8	8x10	Wallet	Photo Cards
In USA	12¢	35¢	65¢	$1.99	89¢ (per 4)	~~39¢~~ 35¢
To India	~~10¢~~ 9¢	20¢	35¢	89¢	59¢ (per 4)	~~39¢~~ 35¢
To Other	12¢	35¢	65¢	$1.99	89¢ (per 4)	~~39¢~~ 35¢
Sizes shown are in inches. Cost is per print.

Cost per photo: 9 cents = 3.78 Rs
Shipping in India is .89$ (37.38 Rs) only for 50 Pics.
Joining bonus of 10 free prints. 20 free prints for a referral.

2. PicSquare
This is started by two IITan graduates. This also a good service.
Price per photo: 3Rs ( This is under present offer...otherwise it is 4.5Rs)
Shipping cost: Not sure but arnd 50Rs
No Joining offer. No referral offers.
Read their blog here.

3. Rangeelaphotos
Cost per photo: 10 cents = 4.2 Rs
Shipping cost : 1.49 $ = 63 Rs
Joining Offer: 10 photo prints. 10 free prints for a referral.

4. iTasveer
Cost per photo: 4.5 Rs
Shipping cost : 30 Rs
No joining or referral bonus.

5. eYadein
Cost per photo: 4.2 Rs
Shipping cost : 64 Rs
No joining or referral bonus.

6. PrintCamp
Cost per photo: 5 Rs
Shipping cost : 35 Rs
No joining bonus. Might have referral bonus.

7. Merasnap
Cost per photo: 4.4 Rs
Shipping cost : 35 Rs
No joining bonus. No referral bonus.

There sites offer photo frames, customized prints on Mugs, T-shirts also.
Check them out.

-Ahmed.

PS: Prices are calculated assuming 1$=42 Rs and cost specified is cost for 4x6''. For other sizes and for updated pricing information please visit respective sites. These prices do not involve any taxes. You need to pay 2-3% extra for dollar conversion, if the company accepts only dollars.

-Ahmed.

Ibibo: Worst blogging site ever

2007-04-30T21:05:00.000+05:30

If there is any contest for worst blogging platforms, I am sure Ibibo will win it.

ibibo comes from MIH Web Services, a part of MIH-the worldwide digital business division of Naspers, the South Africa-headquartered media conglomerate. This is targeted at Indian bloggers and launched in Aug2006. To increase its popularity it has made bad marketing decision. They have launched a so called "great Indian Blogger Hunt" in feb 2007. It promised to pay 1.5Crore to first top 250 bloggers in a span of one year. At first looks it seems to be a good idea. But visit ibibo to realize the truth. Site is coded so badly that it has so many bugs, some times your account goes out of the leader board, sometimes your score decreases..all the fun happens there.

They have ridiculous system to rank the bloggers ( definitely I dont call them bloggers though) which depends on the popularity of the blog. Using the loopholes users have a made a mess there. One guy even claimed that he hacked ibibo and can increase anyone's points within minutes. Some people have more than 5000 posts in just one month and all of them are just copy paste stuff. You should look at the comments people make at the posts.." I rated you with stars please visit mine and rate me with five star". 99% of the comments are like this only. In my view it is a like a dustbin of web.

They have launched a good contest but did not understand the nature of the users. They should have designed a good algorithm which takes into effect the quality rather than quality. Just visiting the posts increases the score. So, what people did is that they have written scripts to increase their scores and won the contest. Ibibo has clearly not taken any measure to stop the spam. Users complained about the "Abuse" for all the top bloggers even for some good post just to through out of the contest. I cant tell you more. You should visit ibibo to enjoy this fun.

Ibibo admins lack any transparency. They can deletes points , delete accounts at their will without any notification. they can change the leader board in whatever way they want. Another funny thing is that "Month-3" contest is for 45 days :)). Now, I see they have increased by another 7 days. Users are complaining about it , but admins are behaving like school children..changing the rules whenever they want..changing the scoring system in the middle of the contest. I have seen in their blog that.."they are stopping the contest and no payout will be made" and given the explanation that ibibo has write to deny the prizes any time pointing this out in the Rules section. And surprisingly next minute when I refresh it, this blog is gone and they announce that blogging contest for this month is extended by another 7 days..:))

99.999% of the blogs and comments are spam that makes it the worst blogging site ever, In my view.

Readers should note that , I am not saying that this is a fraud I am just pointing out their poor marketing strategy. Enjoy the spam-full ibibo.

-Ahmed.

Social Bookmarking

2007-04-30T19:34:00.000+05:30

Social networking is the practice of saving your bookmarks to a public site. You can choose to share it with your freinds or you can keep them just for yourself. There are lots of services avaailable online for this. To name a few, del.icio.us , blinklist, rawsugar, netvouz, shadows, furl, simpy, spurl, yahoobookmarks, ma.gnolia, folked, jots, spinspy....Huh...ya that is lot rt.....

I always wonder why there are somany websites for this simple thing. Most of the sites have more services along with the book marking...like rating others bookmarks, commenting about them, seaching the bookmarks, top bookmarks, tagging. Here you can interact with the other users and make freinds with them too. But, One is fine for me..Why hundreds ha..anyways..choose one of them and establish your social bookmarking network. I advice you to use del.icio.us .

I have no idea that where things are going in social book marking. There is very less bandwidth for it move forward. It looks like it has reached threshold now. Lets see what we can unleash in the following years.

Diigo has gone forward to give a annotations faility along with the bookmarking. Here, you can select the text from any webpage ..highlight it..boom..it is saved on the server for later viewing. This can be used as very good reaserch tool. It is like you are reading a book, you uinderline the important things in an article for later fast reference. I certainly find it very useful. You can give a shot.

More about social networking in the following blogs.

-Ahmed.

Hi everyone

2007-04-30T19:08:00.000+05:30

Hi all,

Let me tell you about myself first. I am Ahmed from India. I am software engineer from a reputed database company. Dont worry, I am not going to discuss anything about databases here. Like anyone else in India, I like cricket and I am great fan of Sachin Tendulkar. Other than that I collect stamps and learning to play Tennis now. And, my problem is my spelling mistakes.. somehow I cant spell properly..you have to bare with me in this thing.

Now, about this blog. the aim of the blog is to post some of the new happenings in technical areas (computers) and web so that everybody knows about this stuff and make use of it efficiently.

Please feel free to express your views on it.

Thanks,
Ahmed.