What do Facebook and Pirates have in common? The language!

I discovered this feature quite a while ago. It so happened that I was trying to pass some time by browsing web pages at random — about.com, howstuffworks, cnn.com and the likes. At that moment, I came across a wikipedia article on facebook features, and found out an easter egg!

You can change the default language of facebook to be English (Pirate), and ye scullywags’ll be speakin the tongue in a grain ‘o sand! See:

Even if you aren’t a Pirates fan, you can try out the application for the fun of it! Just notice how familiar things change when speaking pirate lingo:

Here, Home becomes Home Port, Profile becomes Me, Friends > Me Hearties, and Inbox > Bottle o’ Messages

Look at some more screenshots:

In the last screenshot, Pocket Parrot stands for Mobile Device! 

I suggest that you give that pirate a try! Furthermore, I can be found on facebook at http://facebook.com/rajatarora.info/. Befriend me!

Ah, btw… If you are wondering what an easter egg is, find out all about them here.

Just a quick post over here. Just noticed that I am a top inviter at Facebook! Feels good to hear this. Have you ever encountered this badge in your Facebook profile?

Facebook has undergone a design change too, but I guess more on that later. Let me revel in this new-found fame! 

And yes, this is my shortest post ever!

Google Chrome, a new internet browser from the web search giant Google, was released earlier this week. This adds a yet another service/software from their ever-increasing stable. What started as a small University Project back in 1996, has now grown into a multi-billion dollar company, which encompasses online services including Search, E-Mail, Online Office Suite, Web Albums, Video Sharing, Blogging Platform and what not else. Perhaps the move to introduce a browser to the market must have been anticipated by many. By introducing services after services, Google has become the ubiquitous identity povider for us, for having a single Google Account grants access to a multitude of services encompasing the whole range of our online activities. A browser was on the minds of Google folks for sure.

How is it?

The initial reactions for Chrome have largely been positive. It has some intuitive features not found in mainstream browsers, and is designed to be rock stable. In fact, Chrome’s every tab runs in its separate process, so that the user can safely turn off the one which crashed, while keeping the rest of them intact. A typically useful feature there, considering how notorious some media-heavy websites can be.

Chrome, by its design is minimalistic. There is no Title Bar, no Menu Bar, and no additional toolbars(!), which results in a very clean interface and a lot of screen real estate being given to the web page. Clearly, IE needs to learn something from it! There is no concept of a ‘Home Page’ — upon opening the browser you are presented with thumbnails of nine most visited websites, along with the Bookmarks Bar, and an option to search your history (view screenshot).

The Address Bar, which is known as Omnibox in Chrome, is also very intuitive in its design. You can either type the address of the website you want to visit, or you can enter some keywords, which will initiate a Google Search. Also, as you type, it will show you the relevant links from your history, and also from the World Wide Web (view screenshot).

A nice animation plays when you initiate a download from a website, the progress of which is displayed at the bottom of the tab. Since every tab has its own process, you can view, via Chrome’s own Task Manager, which one is consuming how much amount of memory, or bandwidth. This way, you can safely turn off the offenders (read: tabs which are bandwidth or memory hogs).

Some (early) limitations

Being an early release (it is version 0.2), and some websites, like the popular Social Network Facebook, do not run as expected in Chrome. Also, it does not handle RSS Feed links very well, showing you the XML code instead. Clearly, there is a lot of work to be done. Somebody even discovered a Security Flaw in the browser, hours after it was launched!

However, these issues are likely to be sorted out soon, for Chrome is an Open Source browser, much like FireFox. Also, a multitude of plugins are going to be developed by developers all around the world, which will make such nuisances a thing of the past.

Google (and) Chrome

Although I’m not surprised the least, but Chrome loads Google services, like GMail and Google Reader blazingly fast. In fact, ever since I have got my hands on it, I have not used FireFox to check my email and read my feeds. And it comes bundled with Google Gears too!

On a side note

With the launch of Google’s Browser, there have been skeptisms from a variety of people — how much information is Google allowed to keep? With its own browser, Google might keep track of our browsing histories, and might sell this information to advertisers. Anil Dash of SixApart, says in his blog post -

connecting PageRank to economic systems such as AdWords and AdSense corrupted the meaning and value of links by turning them into an economic exchange.

Now that Google can know the browsing activities of millions of users, it might try to use it for its own benefit. What is your take on this?

Within a day of its launch, Chrome has already captured 1% of market share! I don’t know if this trend will continue, but if it does, it might spell doom for IE, FF and Safari. I’m amazed by its slew of new features, still I love my FireFox better 

Yay! I won an award! An award for writing about what I like. For criticizing the TV version of Mahabharat, for writing about my good friend, for making you guys meet my nephew, or for telling you what I liked on the social web-o-sphere. Wow! How can it be better than this?

Thank you Ritu!
Ritu gave me this award yesterday, who writes at http://phoenixritu.wordpress.com (Weaving a Web). A terrific blog, I must say. If you have read “Discovering Social Web”, you must be knowing that her blog is on my must read list. Her tongue-in-cheek humour, along with her ability to laugh and satire at herself is what I like! After you have done reading this post, head over to her blog! 

The Next Steps
With an award, comes a responsibility! There are a few rules to this award, which are as follows:

1. When you recieve the prize you must write a post showing it, together with the name of who has given it to you, and link them back
2. Choose a minimum of 7 blogs (or even more) that you find brilliant in their content or design.
3. Show their names and links and leave them a comment informing they were prized with ‘Brilliant Weblog’
4. Show a picture of those who awarded you and those you give the prize (optional).
5. I pass the candy forward to :

• Freya, who writes at http://thedreamgirldiaries.blogspot.com/

A seventeen year old South Indian from Mumbai, who likes to write about herself, her mom, her gran, her sis, her college, the guys in her college, her guitar, her ailing PC, and a variety of other things. Her writing style is impeccable, and her blog template changes frequently.

• Meeta Ma’am, who writes at http://myheroes-mita.blogspot.com/

The person who used to teach me English in school, the person whose advice and whacky ideas have found much use in my life, the person who literally says, “Don’t thank me, take me for granted!”. A gem of a person!
On her blog, she writes about the real lives of real people. Their real dilemmas, and their real approaches towards life. I love the way she writes. In fact, I love each and every moment I spend with her. Her writing comes much later!

• James Mowery, who writes at http://onlyjames.com/

A 21 year old living in USA, who calls himself a “hacker”, takes writing very seriously, and spends most of his time researching about various technologies. He also writes at Performancing.com, and has achieved so much in the blogosphere in such a short span of time that it is commendable!

• Rahul Bansal, who writes at http://www.devilsworkshop.org/

He is a 22 year old full-time blogger, who sacrificed a six-figure job offer for the love of blogging. His is a popular tech blog in India, with posts about various Web Technologies and Services. His recent series about WordPress plugins was awesome.
What sets him apart is his personal touch to everything. He replies to each and every comment he gets, which easily runs into hundreds. He remembers each and every suggestion he gets, however insignificant, and takes steps to follow it. The way he connects with his readers is incredible!

• Lemonade, who writes at http://withnowheretogo.blogspot.com/

This one, for the awesome design! Whenever I visit her blog, I actually feel thirsty for a lemonade! Her writing style is personal, and her designing style is exceptional. I like her blog.

• Nita, who writes at http://nitawriter.wordpress.com/

Her blog, “A wide angle view of India”, can be termed as the authority when it comes to reporting about current events. She writes daily, and topics range from opinions about latest news stories to the reviews of the latest movies — and everything in between! Reading her blog is better than reading news from other news sites!

• Nimisha, who writes at http://nimishasspace.blogspot.com/

Her posts are funny. Her posts are nostalgic. Her posts look at the simple things in life. My idea of a great blog! You can easily identify with things she writes about. Things you might have noticed, or things you might have experienced. She has an eye for noticing smaller anecdotes of life, things that easily go unnoticed in this world obsessed with speed. 

Shall I say it once more? Yay! I won an award!

Ever since people discovered the web, the web has been discovering people.

 Over the past couple of months, I’ve been living a second life… Engrossed in Social Media over the web. Connecting with real people, transcending geographical boundaries, learning a lot of things in the process, broadcasting my opinions, and acquiring a new set of thinking skills. Really, the journey has been fulfilling.

The First Steps

When did my first brush with the Social Web happen? It was three years ago, when I had started a blog on Blogger. Although I don’t remember the URL, what I do remember is that, at that time, I was wondering what to write, and I ended up abandoning the blog with no posts! First attempt… Unsuccessful.

Yet, I wanted to blog. But how? I started rajat-arora.blogspot.com in 2006, and uploaded all the contents of my small book, I Me Myself, to it. However, I wasn’t satisfied with the output and ended up deleting it. The link now points to somebody else’s blog. Second attempt… Unsuccessful.

 Quite recently, in 2007 I started another weblog, herespeaksthemind.blogspot.com, and used to update it – albeit for only some days (over a month, I think). The link is still active. You can pay it a visit and read the posts. Interesting? Umm… quite! Third attempt… Partly successful.

 What I can really say, is that with three failed attempts, I realized what blogging really is. I started to get a hang of things, and with each passing post, I got better. I have always loved writing, and blogging gave me a platform to make myself heard. (It was a pseudo-feeling though. Nobody was reading my blogs at that time!)

Why Only Blogs?

To tell you the truth, I was quite a layman at that time to think of Social Web in general. I knew about the Web going in a different direction with user-generated content, I had heard of the term Web 2.0, and I wanted to be a part of it. However, blogging was the only activity I knew about. I never dared to go beyond. I knew about Social Bookmarking Sites like del.icio.us, StumbleUpon and Digg – but never checked them out. I knew about Social Networks like MySpace, Facebook and Orkut – but never created a profile. Neither did I venture outside sites like Yahoo! and Rediff. My online activities were limited, so I never learnt about new and upcoming, killer apps. It was a big, big mistake from my side.

On a Discovering Spree !

Another reason for my web-ignorance, apart from my reluctance, was the fact that I used to connect using Dial Up, which was expensive. The moment I got a broadband connection, I was hooked to the internet, and within no time I was on a discovering spree! I created profiles on the websites mentioned above, got on to Twitter and learnt to enjoy it (You can follow me here). Discovered BitTorrent and made use of it in full steam. Discovered SlideShare, YouTube, HowStuffWorks, eHow, TechCrunch, LifeHacker, ThinkDigit, … the list is endless. Broadband Zindabaad!

Yet, my most useful discovery has been that of Google Reader. 

Apart from writing to my blog, I have developed a passion for reading a lot of them, and I read them through Google Reader. At this point of time, I subscribe to more than 40 blogs, of various shapes and sizes [ read : blogs belonging to various niches. ] And I just love it! The first thing I check when I fire up my PC is Google Reader (yes.. Email is second priority!) Thinking Axe!, The DreamGirl Diaries, Weaving A Web, My Heroes, … these are some of the blogs on my must-read-list. Suddenly, there’s so much to read.!

Twit! Twit!

Ah.. how can I forget Twitter? When I discovered it in February, I did it purely acting upon some newspaper reports. When I signed up, I was at loss about what to tweet. Worse.. I did not tweet anything for two months.! Now, I’m a self-confessed Twitter Addict. Twitter is the place where I found out so many people to talk to. @maverick3400, @JMowery, @Aakriti, @baxiabhishek, @kapilb, @rahul286, … Again, the list is endless.

 What makes me love Twitter this much? Microblogging, of course!

Twitter is a channel of conversation. Twitter makes you answer the question – What are you doing? You answer it, and the world knows it. You can broadcast your mood. You can share some interesting anecdote. You can ask a question. You can disseminate news. You can share your joys, your sorrows. You can market your product. There are just so many opportunities for you to experiment. Twitter is an app the next-gen should be excited about.

If you look at Twitter’s Wikipedia Page, people and companies have been realizing the true potential of the service lately. Moreover, its social justice implications has left me dumbfounded. People are using it to get out of crisis situations, and even the American Red Cross is using it to share information about local disasters. Commendable!

By the way, why am I going elsewhere when a live example is here at home! When serial blasts rocked Bangalore and Ahmedabad, @baxiabhishek was tweeting the news reports live. And he did a great job with that.

Talking Talking

This weblog came into being on May 21, 2008, and I published my first post three days later. This is my fourth attempt with blogging, and I’m determined not to let it fail! This is my twelfth post here, and I can assure you that hundreds more are going to follow. 

Here, I blog about things I like, and things I care for. It is a personal blog, so I like to keep things personal. 

However, there is one first associated with this – Talking Talking is being hosted on my own server – rajatarora.info. I bought this domain name in March, this year. Self Hosted? Gives me a high! 

I bought a cheap Linux Hosting, installed WordPress (actually, at first I wanted to build this site in Drupal, and even installed – but common sense prevailed and I was back to WordPress!). Common sense? Well, I just wanted a small blog, and for that Drupal seemed to be overkill. (By the way, the way I’m using WordPress, even that is seeming to be an overkill!)

That’s for personal blogging. What’s next?

APS2.0

APS2.00 is my latest venture in the blogosphere. Though still on the drawing board, the first post is expected in a couple of days. APS2.00 will be focused about life in my college. And that includes academics. I shall post to the blog each and every thing I learn in college, plus some extras, if required. It will be an all-out-academic-blog, with content from subject like Physics, Mathematics, and Computer Science.

Why such a blog? There are two reasons. First, that B.Sc. Applied Physical Science (the one I am currently pursuing from University of Delhi), is a bad course, and is drawing a lot of flak. In the middle of this, the students find it hard to study – there are very less books to refer to, and the course content is just too heavy. It will be a kind service to all people who study, or want to study, Applied Physical Science.

The second – when I write something academic, for a blog, I shall be making my own set of digital notes! I’ll just have to go through my blog archive while studying for a test! 

PS : You might have got the acronym, APS. But what about 2.0? Something to do with Web 2.0? No! I’m currently in my second year, so…

Yeah! The post is just too long…