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Search Box For Google Chrome
How influential is your Twitter profile?
Featuring Microsoft Windows Phone 7 Series [PICS & VIDEO]

Posted: 16 Feb 2010 01:06 PM PST

No doubt, chrome is a firefox killer, when it comes to speedily loading of web pages. Chrome seems to be the perfect light weight browser, but there are certain features available in firefox that i am so much used to, and i miss them in chrome. One such feature is the search bar in firefox, rather, the absence of search bar in chrome!

You can perform search in different ways in chrome-

Tab to search- Type the address of website you want to search in address bar. You can search the website, if chrome has a record of site’s search engine. Press Tab to select the search engine, and you can type the keywords that you want to search for .

Keyword search- This is the quickest way to search in chrome. Type the key words in address bar and hit Enter to see the search results from your default search engine.

Right-click & search- Select some text in a webpage, right click and select the option to perform a search for selected text.

Firefox, IE and Safari have an address bar to type website url’s and a search bar, that facilitates search as per requirement, providing search results in the same tab. In google chrome, developers combined the address bar and search bar. Although, you can add as many search engines to the settings in chrome, but, this way one is restricted to use the search engine that is default to the browser, and the settings have to be changed every time to perform search on desired search engine, unlike firefox, where you can easily change the search engine by simply selecting the right one from drop down menu attached to search bar.

Suppose, i want to perform an image search. I will select my flickr search engine and type the desired keywords in search bar. Hitting Enter will give the desired results!

Search Box

To address the above problem, an extension is available. The extension is aptly named Search Box. Like other extensions in chrome, it is an out of the box extension in form of an icon, which when clicked, provides you with a search bar, where you can type the desired key words and perform search.

You are allowed to add custom search engines from the options field of the extension. Select the search engine you want to search with, input keywords, press Enter and results will appear in new tab.

I personally find the extension a great replacement to search bar in safari, IE and firefox. And this gives me another reason to leave firefox and shift to Chrome!

What are your views on it ?

This Post Search Box For Google Chrome is Published on Devils Workshop .

How influential is your Twitter profile?

Posted: 16 Feb 2010 04:43 AM PST

We all have heard of Google’s Page Rank and how it is used in the algorithm for giving you relevant search results. One way Google does is to determine how influential your website it. But how does one determine the influence of one website compared to the other. It is simple, it is by way of references or in case of search engine language we can call it back-links. Twitter Grader is a website which ranks your Twitter ID and gives you an indication of how influential it is.

Here I tried to find my level of influence on Twitter grader and I was ranked 1,574,610 out of over 6 million. I got a grade of 74 out of 100 which is like a rating. I looked up how they came up with this ranking and rating and it seems they have a algorithm which they do not want to share. This is obviously because they do not want people to game the system.

But here are some of the things Twitter Grader takes into account to give you a ranking.

The number of followers you have is very important. Even Twitter Grader accepts it is a easy way to create more followers by following people continuously and randomly. But what Twitter Grader also takes into account is what sort of influence your followers have.
Updates are also given weight in the rating. A decent amount of updates means you are taking care to revise your profile but too many updates can make you lose a few points as it would be more like spamming.
Follower vs Following ratio is important but it goes downwards once you start engageing regularly with a lot of updates. Another factor is how many of your tweets are re-tweeted.

I liked this web service as it gives me a good idea of how well I am doing with Twitter as I use it primarily to interact with people and share things online. For professional blogger it is important to have a Twitter ID which has significant influence. For someone in Internet marketing I guess it is absolutely important to have a Twitter account which is highly influential.

What do you think about it? Do check out Twitter Grader and drop in your comments.

This Post How influential is your Twitter profile? is Published on Devils Workshop .

Featuring Microsoft Windows Phone 7 Series [PICS & VIDEO]

Posted: 15 Feb 2010 10:29 PM PST

It was very much expected, and it happened! Microsoft unveiled the much anticipated Windows Mobile 7 during a press conference at Mobile World Congress today in Barcelona, Spain. CEO Steve Ballmer made the announcement about new operating system, that thay have been working on.

Windows Phone 7 Series, yes this is the brand name for the microsoft’s next generation of windows phone. All Windows 7 smartphones will be united under this brand name. With a smart design, good looking UI and integrated features the 7 series has been rebuilt from the ground up. A completely new OS for the smarphones. The user interface that wasn’t looked at for the past 10 years, has been changed for the sake of good Multimedia expereince and real-time feaures. As per reports, there is no flash support in the initial launch.

Windows Phone 7 Series is much about integrated set of experience on a phone through Windows Phone hubs. Hubs bring together the related content from various services, simplifying it to a single view. Six hubs which simplify the common tasks have been built on the activities, that matter the most to people-

People- An engaging social experience, bringing together relevant content based on the person, including his or her live feeds from social networks and photos. A one stop to post updates on various social networking websites at once!

Pictures- Bringing together a user's photos by integrating with the Web and PC, making the phone the ideal place to view a person's entire picture and video collection.

Music + Video- Turn your media experience into a social one with Zune Social on a PC and share their media recommendations with like-minded music lovers.

Games- Xbox LIVE experience on a phone, including Xbox LIVE games, spotlight feed and the ability to see a gamer's avatar, achievements and gamer profile. Million of active members around the world, Xbox LIVE unlocks a world of friends, games and entertainment on Xbox 360.

Office- Access to Office, OneNote and SharePoint Workspace all in one place, users can easily read, edit and share documents.

Marketplace- This hub allows the user to easily discover and load the phone with certified applications and games.

Demo may provide you a better idea about its features-

[Links - Microsoft , Engadget ]

A few words from the CEO of Microsoft corp., Steve Ballmer-

Today, I'm proud to introduce Windows Phone 7 Series, the next generation of Windows Phones," said Steve Ballmer, chief executive officer at Microsoft. "In a crowded market filled with phones that look the same and do the same things, I challenged the team to deliver a different kind of mobile experience. Windows Phone 7 Series marks a turning point toward phones that truly reflect the speed of people's lives and their need to connect to other people and all kinds of seamless experiences.

Ir seems Microsoft looks all set to clash Head on with Apple’s iPhone! Let us know, what you think about this latest venture from Microsoft ? Does Apple has something to worry about??

This Post Featuring Microsoft Windows Phone 7 Series [PICS & VIDEO] is Published on Devils Workshop .