Nikhil Vishnu » google

Add background image to Google’s home page

Nikhil Vishnu — Fri, 04 Jun 2010 11:51:20 +0000

Google goes colorful like Bing. Now you can put any images as the background of your Google home page. Google puts a link “Change background image” at the bottom left of the home page for changing the background. You need to login to your Google account before changing the background.

Rather than have a daily image served to you like Bing does, Google lets you select an image from your own computer, your Picasa album, Picasa featured images and images recommended by Google. Google recommend that your background Images must be at least 800 x 600 pixels and in one of the following formats: .jpeg, .tif, .tiff, .bmp, .gif, .psd (Photoshop), .png, .tga, and selected RAW formats.

This new feature is independent of iGoogle. Checkout Google’s official blog post here for more details

Kerala Google Technology User Group Launched

Nikhil Vishnu — Sun, 11 Apr 2010 17:34:06 +0000

Finally Google fans in Kerala (including me) launched Kerala Google Technology User Group in Trivandrum yesterday. I was eagerly waiting to attend the function after registering for the event. The event was really a superb one. All sessions were good. But the only thing I missed was the wifi( I missed Twitter). Event was also broadcasting live from the venue.

Kerala GTUG Introduction & Launch by Sreejumon

Sreejumon is the man behind this venture. He is currently working with Nokia R&D Center Bangalore. He started the meeting with a talk about GTUG’s. He also detailed the structure and the way of functioning of Kerala GTUG. Then he introduced some books related to Google technology. These books are decided to put in the GTUG library starting at the premises of KeLNet. He concluded his speech by inviting Praseed Pai for taking a session on How Google Changed the Software Development Landscape.

Praseed pai taking session on How Google Changed the Software Development Landscape

As always Praseed Pai started his talk by showing the photo of a person. It was Rajeev Motwani , co-author of influential paper on the PageRank algorithm. He explained the working of PageRank algorithm and another algorithm that is mostly used in cloud computing. He showed that how Google changed the machine centric development into web centric development.

Session by Anash Oommen on Chrome Extension

After a short tea break Anash Oommen took a session on Chrome Extension. Anash Oommen is a Developer Programs Engineer at Google, and works to promote Google’s APIs and technologies. His session was really informative. He showed a demo of making a Google chrome extension. Session also discussed the architecture and working of chrome extensions.

Google Tips and Tricks by Sreejumon

In the lunch break I met lots of tweepls. I was really excited by seeing my followers out there J. Next session was taken by Sreejumon. He gave some tips and tricks to work with Google. Google playground was a great tip for me.

Rajesh Varghese taking session on Google Tools for Web Developers

Last session was about Google Tools for Web Developers. Rajesh Varghese, Senior Software Engineer at Software Incubator handled the session. He talked about the various tools from Google that can be used for web development. He showed demos of Google analytics, Google webmaster tools etc…

Kerala GTUG launch event attendees

So, Kerala Google Technology Users Group Launch ends up with a bang. Lots of goodies passed to the attendees. I got a Google Tee . Google pens, Google stickers were distributed there. That was really the amazing part of the event.

Overall the event was really rocking one. I managed to get a golden membership in Kerala GTUG. I learned and enjoyed a lot from the event. All the best for Kerala GTUG in coming days.

Google introduces new orkut

Nikhil Vishnu — Tue, 03 Nov 2009 14:38:10 +0000

Google has revamped its social networking site Orkut with a new look and bunch of new features. In this new version google concentrated orkut’s principle actions into the home page, so the browsing get faster compared to the old version. The new version is entirely built on the Google Web Toolkit(GWT). New orkut give more importace for status updates like facebook and twitter. A google bar with navigation to other google services is provided in this version, now it is looking like a usual google product. At present, users need an invite to see the new orkut interface. Luckly I got one directly from google with 5 invitations . Now let’s have a look at the new orkut.

Fewer pages, Fast browsing

All the principle actions concentrated into the home page so browsing is faster than old one.

Home page of new orkut with all actions listed

Google bar
Google includes its navigation bar to other google services in new orkut.

New orkut google bar

Search box
Unlike old orkut you can search orkut as well as web using a single search box. Quick friend search in the old orkut is
not available in this search box.

New orkut search box

Quick colour theme selection
Colour scheme of orkut can be changed from the home page itself. Total five colour schemes are available, default is blue.

New orkut header

Status Updates
New orkut layout is giving more importance to status updates. Recent visitor area is also changed, profile pics are displayed here instead of names.

Searching Friends and communities
Finding friends is very easy in new layout. The list is dynamic. Searching is done with every keystroke

Latest activity updates
Latest activity updates are something good. You can comment on these updates from your home page, no need to go to a profile.

Commenting on activity updates

My experience
Well, Its not very easy to change over to new version all of a sudden. Bit confusing to ordinary orkut users. If you are already using facebook or twitter this interface will not make any problem. I didn’t find the new promotions option anywhere in the new layout. If you find it please let me know . Photos, status updates, videos are fine. On the whole I would say its not up to the expectation. Google have to work a lot for making it more simple and elegant.

Google’s cryptic tweet : What does it really means?

Nikhil Vishnu — Mon, 07 Sep 2009 10:05:50 +0000

Google officially joined Twitter on February. You can find google’s official twitter account here. Google’s first tweet was a cryptic message in binary.

Some guy’s decoded that message using a python script and they said that it means ” I’m feeling lucky “. Yeah there’s possibility for such a tweet. But that’snot the end of the game. Google’s second cryptic tweet appeard on its account on 4th sepetember. It was like this

1.12.12 25.15.21.18 15 1.18.5 2.5.12.15.14.7 20.15 21.19 http://twitpic.com/giyxf

The picture that’s attached to this tweet is google’s logo with a UFO (Unidentified flying object). google’s second ‘o’ hilighted.

Ok now comeback let’s decode the tweet. We can apply the simple pattern, A=1, B=2, C=3 etc..Then the decrypted message is “All your o are belong to us”. Huh! What does this means?. This is in reference to the meme from the early 2000s “All your base are belong to us,” a humorous saying that was popularized from a poor translation of a Japanese video game.

No one find the solution for this “Unexplained phenomenon” yet. There may be a hidden message in this puzzle or they are just kidding.Whatever its a hot topic now.