Relevant & Context Sensitive Ads. Really? – Jolie Madame & Mouthshut
Google delivers Context sensitive and relevant Ads on web sites using Adsense. This works fine in most of case but sometimes it gives out unexpected ads. Take for example the link ads below showing “Mosquito Repellent”, “Natural Repellent”, “Homemade insecticide” etc. Can you guess on which page these are showing up?
I am sure you have already guessed what could be the page content on which the ads are being shown. Take a little more time and see the bigger ad on the side, which too is from the same screen.
Now I think you have gone too sure on what could be on the page. Right? Time is right for revelation!
The ads are on a page that relates to Jolie Madame Perfumes 
Who would you blame for the wrong matching ads? Google?? Take a look on the screen shot below and think again.
The page above is from mouthshut.com which is a product review site. This particular page is supposed to be review page for “Jolie Madame” (no mention of perfumes). Thankfully there is a pic that elaborates that it is related to perfume otherwise most readers would have tired themselves up thinking Who is Jolie Madame (instead of what is!). Other than that there is a breadcrumb on the top of page that goes like “Home > Health & Beauty > Bath, Body & Skin > Fragrances > Fragrance [Women] > I – J > Jolie Madame” and one other mention of “fragrance”.
There is no other content, no reviews on the page… then why is that page existing? Not only existing but showing up on first result page for term “Jolie Madame”!! No marks for guessing that, well, Google Adsense. Ever heard of “Made for Adsense” sites. They work somewhat in a similar way, contains pages that rank high on search results driving people to the page and when they find no content there, sometimes click on one of the ads to find what they were actually searching for.
Third Word That Ends with GRY – Jingry says Google Book Search
There is a popular puzzle that asks for three English words that ends with GRY , while first two are “Angry” and “Hungry”. If there is no catch in the puzzle the answer is “There is no third word”. Wikipedia points out that there are no such words currently in use but if you go for archaic, obsolete, or uncommon words you will find many. It gives a comprehensive list of such words. One of the words that caught my attention was ‘Jingry’ and source of information was Google Books Search.
If you search for Jingry in Google Book Search more than 40 results are returned. So do you believe that “Jingry” is in fact the third word? Don’t! Just click one of the search results say this one you will get to read the original text as it appears in the Book. What is it? Looks like “Angry” right?
“Angry” gets indexed as “Jingry” thanks to the error in Optical Character Recognition (OCR) which reads out text from images fairly accurate but not 100% accurate. So still there is no third word that ends with GRY
Anyways, reading this page on Wikipedia was fun since it lists out a number of tricky versions of the puzzle that do have answers. Check those and trick you friends.
Google is Not Enough – TakeITlite
Q: What’s the similarity between a NGO and IT Industry?
A: Everyone knows they exist but why… no one knows!
This is one of the few Q&As that generate a smile on your face. I received this in a forwarded mail. The mail contained some jokes on a aesthetic image and was titled “TakeITlite – A daily dose of refreshment”. If you have been reading this blog for a long time you might already know how seriously I take forwarded mails. But this mail containing IT related jokes was little different as I grew interested in getting this dose of refreshment daily and opened Google to search for its origin. Did I forget to point that while the mail had all copyright notices and branding, there was no site address on it.
I checked Google for all combinations of TakeITlite and Daily Dose of Refreshment but failed. The blogs on Blogspot and Rediffland were not the source. From the fifth result this term even seemed to have gone into Google Hot Trends somewhere in February. I checked that page too but still got no clue of the source. Like most of people I believe that “if it’s not on Google, it doesn’t exist” and stopped searching…
Now a few weeks later I received another forwarded mail (too bad! I thought I could get it daily) and this time I kept my belief aside and on again failing to locate the source of mail from Google, decided to search on other search engines. I used Yahoo and found that search result was polluted by multiple sub-domains of a single domain.
Lastly I searched in Live.com and it returned only 4 results for term takeitlite and to my surprise, the site on first result did not occur in any of the other engines, the reason is visible if you visit the site. It is the official site but under construction containing a single big image and a few words “Magazine: Web Experience: Events & Advertisements” with no links. But at least I found out what I was looking for!
At last I realized that Google is not enough. If you are not receiving required results better go ahead and give other search engines a chance. May be it can help you.
By the way, how many of you used live.com in last week or last month or last year? I did not for months, but now will check it once in a while. And did you hear that Live Search is soon going to give way to Kumo.com, Microsoft’s new search engine with improved design and results. I will write more about it later.
Movies Related to Education
College ————— Yaadein
Principal ————— Jaani Dushman
Classes ————— Kabhi kabhi
Canteen ————— Kabhi alvida na kehna
Course —————- Godzilla
Exams —————– Kalyug
Examination hall ——– Chamber of Secrets
Exam-time ———— Qayamat se Qayamat tak
Question paper ——— Paheli
Answer paper ———- Kora kagaz
Cheating ————- Aksar/Chupke chupke
Paper out ————- Plan
Examiner ————- The killer
Last exam ————-Independence day
Paper correction ——— Andha kanoon
Marks —————– Assambhav
Result —————- Murder
Pass —————— Ajooba/Chamatkar
Fail —————– Devdas
Supplementary ——— Aakhri raasta
Vacation ————- Waah life hoto aisi
Coincidence se Coincidence tak
How did Slumdog Millionaire win 8 Oscar Awards?
A) Because they deserved it.
B) Because they bribed Judges
C) Because Judges gave marks based on hypes
D) Because It was Written
Installing Ubuntu Linux (Desktop)
After getting Ubuntu CDs I did not have to wait to see Ubuntu in Action as you do not need to install it to have a preview. Just insert the CD, boot from CD and select ‘Live Run’ when option for installations is asked for. Once I had checked that I could not keep myself from performing the full installation.
Since I did not want to risk loosing existing content on my system, and added to it the fact I was installing Ubuntu as a secondary OS, I choose to go safe by Installing it on existing Windows Partition. There is a decrease in performance associated with it but was ok with me.
To install on existing Windows Partition, start a Windows session and insert the CD and execute it (if autorun fails). You get option to check the demo (by booting from CD) and performing the installation from within demo or “Install inside Windows”. Choose the latter.
First you need to choose the drive where you want to install, Interface Language, and a username and password. (Don’t choose admin as it’s a reserved username)
The above screen has an “Accessibility” button that allows you to install accessibility features as Screen Reader, Magnifier, Braille terminal etc. You can choose to skip this step by keeping ‘None’ selected and return to above screen by pressing “Next”. Click on install.
Done with above steps? Now the installation proceeds at its own till completion. It first checks the installation files.
It then creates images. The ‘’home’, ‘root’, ‘usr’ folders as seen from within Linux all exist as single files within windows partition.
Done! Remove the CD, Reboot, and choose Ubuntu in boot loader menu.
Pappu Didn’t Dance Saala!
I don’t see too many movies, so if I am to prepare a list of movies that I missed it would be a long one. “Jaane Tu… Ya Jaane Na” was one that I missed. In fact I regret missing its star-studded premiere that was held at Oberoi Mall, Goregaon, just two kilometers from my residence.
Colors channel recently announced the world premiere of “Jaane Tu… Ya Jaane Na” on 22nd Feb. I sat all day reminding myself that I want to see that. Just a few minutes after the movie started it was interrupted by messages “E48 No Signal” and “E52 Searching for Signal”. I first thought it to be a problem at Local Cable Operator level but later realized it to be from Satellite.
After signal got OK, the movie ran for less than a couple of minutes and started showing same screens again. I waited for more than an hour hoping that condition would get better but it remained as it is i.e. 3 minutes of movie then 12 minutes of signal breakage.
If this behavior is to be compared to that old Microsoft joke “This is a feature not a bug”, all we can say this is just a new Digital Rights Management and anti-piracy measure. Right?
When I closed the television I was asked "What happened?” I replied “Pappu Didn’t Dance Saala” (Parody to a song from the same movie)
