Tech News Beats

Customized search engines are the flavour of the day now. In the begining Google gave its users to narrow its search via selection of websites. Since then various companies have started to give customized search for niche areas like hotel search, flight search etc. These searches are typically very helpfull as they allows one to find the best price or the service. This sector has pickup very well in India and some of the popular names are given below along with their features. Your can use their service to find better deal for flight and hotels.

1. www.travelguru.com

TravelGuru is probably the largest Indian hotel network site. It lets you search both better deal hotels and flights. It also has holiday packages, travel guide and a international section.

2. www.ixigo.com

Ixigo claims to be India’s number 1 travel search engine and have recently ventured into hotel search also.

3. www.cleartrip.com

Cleartrip is a very good site to look for flight or hotel. The site is very nicely built with various features. It lets one search hotels, flights in india, print/email their E-ticket, air search via SMS, train search and also have a section called “Small World” to search the whole world.

4. www.makemytrip.com

MakeMyTrip is probably the most popular in this segment in India and probably doing better business than its peers. It lets you search hotel, flight, holiday packages, rail tours and provides travel guide.

5. www.ezeego1.com

EzeeGo is growing in popularity and quite fast. It lets you book discounted airline tickets, hotel reservations, car rentals etc.

Today I found a website which can create password for you. As we understand password is very important for security in web world. You can try PasswordBird by giving a few info it asks for and it will create a password for you with those info. If you do not like that combination, you can click a link below and it will change the combination of the password for you. Also, you can feed in new info to have a new password.

Website: www.passwordbird.com

If you have news website and would like to show some other form of news, you can do so simply by republishing the feed for such a news website using FeedDigest. No extra working, just use FeedDigest to republish the data on your site. FeedDigest simply takes the feed it received from that site and republishes on your site. Now if you are wondering what is Feed then feed or a web feed is a data format used for providing users with frequently updated content. Also, we may say it is a shortened version of a Web page that has been created for syndication. Feeds usually end in .xml or .rss.

To start with visit www.feeddigest.com

1. Enter the feed URL of a site like http://www.cricketnext.com/xml/cricketnext.xml that uses feeds and click on the green “Click here” button below.

2. On this page enter all the required info and create your account. You even get to select your digest layout and template.

3. Once you are done you will be given various forms of code like php, Java, HTML etc Select the one which best suits you and paste it on your site where you would like the digest to be shown.

4. You can mix and blend multiple feeds and can add upto 6 feeds. Moreover, the service is free.

Thats it! You are done. Check like I have done in one of my other blog under National News. You can do this with any site or blog, not only news which allows feed.

For free feed icons visit:

1. www.feedicons.com

2. www.freeiconsweb.com

There is a lots of buzz around Microblogging and tumblelogging in the web world these days. Sometimes blogging applications like WordPress and Blogger are too much for what you want — they are actually content management systems(CMS). Writing long-form content might not be your goal: perhaps you want to communicate with friends, or share links? Blogging has evolved into a culture of long-form articles. Sometimes all you want to do is put something on the web with the least amount of effort as possible. In the such case microblogging comes into light.

What is Microblogging?

Micro-blogging is a form of blogging that allows users to write brief text updates (usually less than 200 characters) and publish them, either to be viewed by anyone or by a restricted group which can be chosen by the user. These messages can be submitted by a variety of means, including text, messaging, instant messaging, email, MP3 or the web.

There are few websites which can help you in this regard as follows:

1. www.jaiku.com

Jaiku was launched to help people share their activities throught the day easily via web, SMS, IM and third party application via API. It also allows web feeds. Last year, Jaiku has been acquired by Google. 

2. www.twitter.com

Twitter is probably the most popular in its own field. In their own words, “Twitter is a service for friends, family, and co–workers to communicate and stay connected through the exchange of quick questions and answers via IM, SMS and web.

3. www.tumblr.com

It gives subdomain like Jaiku, wheres twitter gives subdirectory. Submission can be via SMS, IM. Also, offers bookmarks for easy submission, RSS etc. One great feature of tumblr is you can run your own custom doamin.

4. www.pownce.com

In their own words, “Pownce is a way to send stuffs to your friends. You can send almost anything like music, photos, videos, files, messages, links and events. You can do all this on their website or you can install their lightweight desktop software that lets you get out of the browser”. Like wordpress or other CMS it also allows to select your theme and personalize your profile.

5. www.facebook.com and www.myspace.com

FaceBook and MySpace also have sections for microblogging where you can share things with your friends and keep in touch.

There are also few other sites which you may like to check. I have not used them so I may not be able to say about them. The websites below are typically placed under tumlelogging.

What is tumblelogging?

A tumblelog (or tlog) is a variation of a blog that favors short-form, mixed-media posts over the longer editorial posts frequently associated with blogging. Common post formats found on tumblelogs include links, photos, quotes, dialogues, and video. Unlike blogs, tumblelogs are frequently used to share the author’s creations, discoveries, or experiences while providing little or no commentary. Most tumblelogs act as compilations for links and online discoveries.

1. http://streem.us/

Easy microblogging or tumblelogging site.

2. www.soup.io

In their own words, ” Soup is an online scrapbook, share tidbits, thoughts, observations and snapshots of your own or collect stuff you find on the web(typically bookmark).

3. www.gelatocms.com

Gelato CMS is open source tumblelog CMS built on Ajax, Php and MySql. This you have to install it on your own website and that way it gives you more control. Mostly for geeks and who want more control over the system.

4. www.jaanix.com

Discover and share site.

5. www.chyrp.net

Open source blog or tumblelog engine.

If you have a blog and would like to increase the reach of the site. Now you have one more way to mobilize your blog with Plusmo. This way visitors can check your website through their mobile phone by subscribing to your site. Now lets see how to do it:

1. Visit the site: www.plusmo.com  and click on the “”Blogger” link or “Plusmo” button under “Mobilize your blog”. On the next page click on the “Get Started” button on top right hand side.

2. Select a standard “Plusmo” button or a customized phone button. Also, add a picture that represents your blog like your logo. However, this is optional. Click on the “Generate Button” and click on “Next”.

3. Give the URL or Web address of your blog like http://www.bangalorebeats.com/bangaloreblog and click on the “Generate” button. Fill in or edit the name, description and tags and click on “Next”.

4. Now you will be given a widget, that is codes of HTML which you will need to copy and paste it on your blog.

Thats it! You are done. Following this the widget will show on your blog like as the image on my other blog. Clicking on the they will be taken to a link, where they can enter their email address and password and sign-up for your site to view on their internet enabled mobile phones.

From my personal experience, I can say that it is very easy to use.  Also, plusmo provides free statistics like visitors, page views etc. It also lt you monetize your mobile visitors which can help you earn more revenue. Moreover, the service is free and they will support 24/7 through email.

Today’s Internet discovered by Tim Berners Lee at CERN in 1989 is already facing data delivery and download problems. The technology of the past - Dial-up, is almost obsolete with present trendy webistes which are very high on graphics and content. The present broadband technology which offers 256 KBPS also may not be enough with the kind of data being generated. Also, if you notice the end user do not get the actual speed of 256 KBPS. However, take heart - a new technology is comming to your aid. The “Grid Technology” is supposed to be 10,000 times faster than the present typical broadband internet connection. After the Grid technology is in place there will be no need of CDs/DVDs/Pen Drive as users can get 1 GBPS. This will allow users to download a movie in seconds.

Work on Grid technology was started at CERN based near Geneva in 2001 after work began on a new particle accelerator - Large Hadron Collider(LHC). As it was apparent that the present internet will not be able to take the huge load of data that will be generated. The Grid is more of a service for a sharing computing power and data storage capacity over the internet. It will allow online gaming with thousands of players and offer high defination video telephony for the price of a local call.

To know more on Grid computing visit: http://www.gridcomputing.com/