Jalaj P. Jha

Did you ever noticed that the top 100 searches shown in Google Trends never have any search string containing word “Google”… Are searchers sick of Google? Or the links on the top of Google search pages sufficient for them to access each of Google’s services and products? Let’s check!

First of all we take a look at the Current Hot Trends. Currently we see a raisin in the sun as the top searched for text.

Using the search box on the top of the page let’s search for the string a raisin in the sun and see how the graph looks like. The graph contains data for date as early as year 2004. Let’s concentrate to current period by selecting “Last 30 days” from the dropdown list below the graph. The graph will change to look something like one below.

So that’s the graph showing search trend for string a raisin in the sun. Now let’s compare it with other search terms. Google trends allows it using commas as seperator. so search for a raisin in the sun, google groups, google news will show up a chart comparing the search trends for the three searchs strings, something that will look like below.

If the search strings Google Groups and Google News are more popular than the search string in question then why don’t they show up in Trends? May be that Google don’t want to toot it’s own horn, or may be it wants to protect google keywords from being abused, but whatever be the reason it proves the title of this post “Google Trends = Trends minus Google”

Before I forget to mention, please note that Google Groups and Google News are not the most popular keywords, but the least popular keywords that I found suitable to compare with a raisin in the sun! reason!! a highly popular search string makes the less popular string look flat… want to check? try searching for trends graph for a raisin in the sun, google maps, google earth and you can see for yourself how small this hottest trend of date looks!!! (Warning : Don’t compare with single word search string google, it’s going to make the curve, a straight line at the bottom of graph!! check with a raisin in the sun, google)

This post was prepared yesterday and originally scheduled for posting yesterday only but since the graphs didnot show the current day’s trend it was withheld to verify the trend including this date too and result? “Google Trends = Trends - Google” proved…

Below is the screenshot from Google Trends showing an approximate graph for how many people using Google search engine were searching for word “Google”… Before scrolling down, carefully scan the graph as I am going to ask a question regarding it… and you are not allowed to scroll up and have another look. So I hope you give it enough time.

OK… Done??? If not, please ensure that you have done it before scrolling down. . .

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OK… So you have done it!! and if you are using 800×600 resolution the image is nearly out of vision..

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If you are using 1280×1024 resolution the image should be out of sight by now…

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Let’s get to the question!

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Why are people searching for “Google” when they are already there!!!

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ha ha haaa!!

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ha ha haaa!!

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ha ha haaa!!

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ha ha haaa!!

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ha ha haaa!!

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If laughing is what was your response, you are already dead… (in terms of the Yaksha Prashna Story)

And if you were as wise as Yudhishtir, your answer would have been…

SEO… For years Webmasters have considered “Google” Synonymic to “SEO” (Search Engine Optimization) and “Google” word is the biggest craze among the webmasters to be ranked high for, in search results… and how do you check your rank on the search results for your specific keywords??… naturally by searching for them!!…

Which keyword(s) do you think is the biggest craze? Make Money Online? see it for yourself in the Trends shot below.

… and it is the same reason for which you see so many searches for this, though small word but the biggest keyword “Google”…

While blog hopping today, I happened to visit Amazon related site by Bhumika, a top commentator on this blog. There was a post named Download Free Books from Amazon mentioning free books distribution by Google. Free books surprised me but then they are just novels that were written by lesser known Authors for the Amazon Breakthrough Novel Awards. I think  it’s a novel idea that will help unpublished Authors and books a stage to showcase their work and to compete for the Awards at the same time. I too have passion for reading books but get very less time to devote to them and whatever time I can spare for reading goes to reading Technical Books. The last book that I read was “The Da-Vinci Code” in 2006 that I read after the movie released. From the free books that are available there I would love to read those under Mystery, Thriller & Suspense category. The other categories available are Historical Fiction, General Literature and Sci-Fi & Fantasy. A Technical category could have been a good idea but I think it’s a waste to think about it now as the Awards are now nearing completion.

Want to download Windows Update Agent 5.8.02469 or later? Click here

Most of you (and once me too) had to look for the Windows Update Agent when encountered failure installing an application from Windows Live Services, otherwise nobody even cared what Windows Update Agent was all about.

If you had tried executing Windows Live Installer on an operating system earlier than XP (with SP2), remember the error message that was thrown that meant that you cannot install an application from Windows Live if you didn’t have Windows XP with SP2. Was SP2 that essential? Yes because it was the first time with SP2 that Windows Update Agent came into existance, and since Installing Windows Live required Windows Update Agent makes SP2 essential.

Am I confusing you?… Windows Update Agent existed only after SP2 then how did Windows Update happened earlier??… It did use to happen!!!

Yes Updates happened using an application called “Automatic Windows Update” that used to be a standalone software that looked for the updates on the microsoft site. Now since SP2 the task of looking for updates and downloading no longer is handled by the application but a seperate COM Component name “Windows Update Agent” handles it, and it provides a set of COM Interfaces named “Windows Update Agent API” which any application can call and use Windows Update Agent’s capabilities to check for updates, download, and deploy them.

OK…OK! So Windows Live Installer is one such application that uses Windows Update Agent API to check for latest versions of softwares, to downlaod and to install them…. then why didn’t it function when I had XP with SP2 which had Windows Update Agent and still asked for Windows Update Agent 5.8.02469 or later…

Well the Windows Live Installer is making a API call that was added only after the above version and hence knowing it cannot continue it displays the message for you so that you can get and install it?

Understood, but why did I had to manually download the update and install it, when Automatic Update Service itself could have done it?

Good question! and answer may be that due to download breakups, other more priority downloads or for some other reason it failed to update itself automatically and thus required you to manually do it… and if that doesn’t satisfy you… probably because barbers don’t have hair-cuts themselves

So in essence, Windows Update Agent is here, you like it or not… and going to live, with Windows Live… and may be a lot of software in future would use the API to update themselves. So keep yourselves (I mean your PC) updated.

I read a lot of blogs using Google Reader which serves me about 100 posts daily from over 40 blogs. I have also subscribed to a couple of blogs to be delivered by email. Getting RSS feed by email is a good thing for reading offline but individual mails for each blog keeps me away from subscribing too many feeds. And yes many of the blogs do not offer email subscription, which takes only registering the blog with feedburner, but shouldn’t blame anyone as this blog too didnot offer any till recently. I wish if I could a single daily mail for all blogs I want to subscribe thus enabling me to read them all in one go… Suddently Genie appeared and my wish came true… Yes there is a way, using Google Reader and Feedburner… Read ahead.

The way I am talking here about, requires you to create your own feed by compiling all feeds that you need to read daily and then registering this feed with Feedburner to get the daily mails. The task of creating the compiled feed will be accomplished using Google Reader. How? Let’s get on to it.

First of all you will require to subscribe all feeds on the Google Reader and needless to say that you need a Google account for it. If you need to go for a seperate account then it’s OK but if you can help it, a common account for feeds you want to read on mail and others that you read online can also do.

Now Click on “Manage Subscriptions” to go to Subscription Settings Page. All subscribed feeds would be visible there. Against one of the feeds you wish to get on mail, click on “Add to a folder” (or “Change Folders”) button, then “New Folder…” Option and give a name for new folder/tag, say “GetByEmail” and press OK

Now select all the other feeds, which you want to get by mail, using the checkbox to the left of each of them. Select “GetByEmail” under “Add Tag” section in the drop down list “More Actions…”

Once you get the status message “Saved changes” move to the “Tags’ settings page.

Besides the newly created tag “GetByEmail” you can see a “broadcasting” icon, with “Private” written by the side. Click on this icon to make the tag public.

As soon as you have done it a few links will appear to the right with one of them being “view public page”. Click on this link to open the page that’s now available publicly.

This page lists all latest posts from all feeds that you needed to get email for. Check the sidebar on the right, you will find that there is a link to a RSS feed for all these shared items. Write click on the feed link/icon and copy the url of the feed thus made available.

That’s all that we needed Google Reader for. Now login to your Feedburner account. Create if you don’t have one. Goto “My Feeds” page, link available on the top of the page. On this page there is a form where you can paste the Rss feed url that you just copied and click on “Next”.

On the next page give a title for your feed compilation and a feed address and press “Activate Feed”

Once you have activated your feed, look for the ‘Skip directly to feed management” link on the bottom of the page. On the page that opens, click on “Publicize” and on the next page click on “Email Subscriptions’ on the sidebar on left. On the page that opens up there would be an ‘Activate” button, clicking which will activate the feed.

On the next page a block of code will appear which you can paste to your website (if you own, otherwise don’t worry and read ahead). There is a page url in this code that looks like something below. Copy this section of url and paste in browser’s address bar to open the page.

An email subscription form will appear, put in your email address where you want to receive the consolidated mail, type in the letter appearing on the image and submit. Once you have done that an activation mail would be sent to your email address, clicking the activation link will start your mail subscription sending you daily consolidated mails.

That’s all folks and if you ever find that you want to discontinue reading one or more of of the blogs or want to add new feeds to it.. just log in to Google Reader and Remove the “GetByEmail” tag from the feed (for discontinuing a feed) or subscribe to a feed (if you have not already done it) and add “Get ByEmail” tag to the feed (to add a new feed) and the result feed will be appropriately modified.

When will people learn to be careful?

Not long ago I had posted “Email forwarding - All Fun and No Responsibility ?” which carried several examples where people received forwarded mails, which they in their turn forwarded again, not caring to probe if the information contained is true or not.

Today I received yet another mail which began with an extra large heading (all in CAPS) “Please read below and pass on as soon as possible.” Don’t ever do that… take time… verify the information… and then if you feel like forwarding, pass it on.

Below it was a letter with a logo and address of Australian Federal Police advising not to open attachment contained in certain email moving around the net bearing picture of Osama Bin Laden being hanged. It later says that if the attachment is opened the system will crash and cannot be fixed. All this was followed by a request to forward this mail to everyone you know “as soon as possible”. The shocking thing here was that all the content mentioned here was not in text form but in the form of a single image (this prevents the mail from being filtered by mail servers as spam are identified by checking the text content and cannot read text from images).

Now what you could have done to identify if the mail is real or spam. Check for “Australian Federal Police” on Google and you would know that www.afp.gov.au is their official site. Now fire query “site:www.afp.gov.au osama virus”, idea behind this is that if “Australian Federal Police” actually sent the mail with “forward asap” priority then the same should also be available on their site. Doing so you will get to know that no such thing was published. A page (https://www.afp.gov.au/about/publications/platypus_magazine/december_1999/terror.html), however published in 1999 contained words ‘Osama’ and ‘Virus’, but that was not the content we are searching for.

Now you can fire a generic query for “Osama Virus” and you will get to know from various pages that the mail in circulation is just a Hoax and even the authority varied in some mail (Israeli Police instead of Australian Federal Police)…

Now if yuou knew all these things will you forward the mail?

Selection process for the Team representing India for the 3rd World Sudoku Championship has been declared. Unlike last years selection process that had regional rounds between screening and finals, this year there would be a online qualifying test on 16th March to be held on the new home page sudokumasters.in for National Sudoku Championship. Registration for the qualification test will commence on this site from 1st march onwards, not end date specified. The existence of the new site was already mentioned in the previous post 3rd World Sudoku Championship in this subject.

Finals will be held on 30th March at Bangalore. The team thus selected would be participating in the 3rd World Sudoku Championship (WSC3) at Holiday Inn resort Goa between 14th to 17th April 2008.

The World Sudoku Championship is organized by World Puzzle Federation and the selection process for India Team is undertaken by Quixy.

(I am glad that I am the first one to spread this word, there is no news anywhere to be seen, no press releases, maybe Times Of India is not participating this time, hence the silence)

Update 03.03.2008 7:30 pm IST
They missed the scheduled date for starting of Registration i.e. 1st March, and modified the page to show 3rd March and added a schedule for practice session on 15th March. Most of the day has passed and still the registration has not started.

Update 04.03.2008 9:30 am IST
Missed the date again! The site still shows 3rd March! which is already gone!!

Update 04.03.2008 5:30 pm IST
The Start date for registration has again changed to 8th March. So all of you eagerly looking for registration can sit back calmly for another 4 days (pray it not goes more than that). The probable reason for the registration not starting on schedule is failure to develop the portal in time. It includes the information pages, the registration application, the online qualification test application, and the other applications available at backend. Now the question is “if the portal is stilll not ready? will it get enough time for stress test?? The ultimate deadline is 14th-17th April when all winners of National Sudoku Championship would be participating in the World Sudoku CHampionship! and the more we are loosing time in National Sudoku Championship, less we will get time to prepare for World Sudoku Championship.

Looks like non-participation of Times Of India has really affected the championship and there is no promotion and marketing. I can’t believe that this blog (infact this page) comes as the first result when searched for Sudoku Masters 2008.

Update: 08.03.2008 Registration for The Sudoku masters 2008, National Sudoku Championship Open

Update: 13.03.2008
The site now has link for the PDF files. One that you can read now contains the rules and points associated with each sudoku… The second file is password encrypted and the password will be revealed to you just at the beginning of the contest on 16th when you log in using your token id… and you will get 2.5 hrs to solve all puzzles (25 of them!!!) each one having its own weightage, total of 2008 points in all. It’s on you to decide which puzzle to solve and which one to leave… Try to get the maximum points out of them…

Update: 15.03.2008 5:00 am
A link “DEMO” has appeared which demonstrate how the answers for the test would be required to be submitted. Take a look. The link for practice test still not available but may be made available soon.