Alpesh Nakar's Blog

I have downloaded the TweetDeck app for the iPhone and am impressed. I have been using tweetie for a while now, but I think TweetDeck will (probably has) take(n) over!

View the Full Album of shots taken on my iPhone!

TweetDeck Desktop Version

In addition to the iPhone App, TweetDeck has also released a new version of TweetDeck for the desktop, with lots of new features including sync with the iPhone app and in the cloud.

To quote from the source, highlights of TweetDeck

Sync – you can automatically synchronise TweetDeck between your desktop and iPhone, making it really simple to import your columns and groups so you can be up and running on iPhone in a matter of minutes – no reinventing the wheel. Sync works in the background so whenever you change a group or add a new search column it’s updated and available on all your computers and your iPhone. This also means that everything can be backed up in case your computer ever crashes.

Multiple account support – you can now have multiple accounts with no need to switch between them. Whether you’re on the desktop or iPhone we’ve made it simple to see all your columns, for all your accounts and tweet from any account or even cross-post tweets to numerous Twitter accounts at the same time.

Unlimited columns – you’ll be happy to hear that you can now have as many columns as you’d like on TweetDeck. No more 10 columns limit, now the sky’s the limit.

Local trends – rather than only being able to see what’s trending on Twitter as a whole, with local trends, you can now see what’s hot among your own friends and colleagues. You’ll be able to run local trends on any of your columns in TweetDeck.

Here’s a quick list of everything else that you can expect to see in the new desktop version:

• Conversation window – View an entire dialogue all at once.
• Video playback – Watch Qik or 12seconds video clips from the comfort of TweetDeck.
• New ‘Block & Report Spam’ button – Just one click will delete the message from view, block the user and report them to Twitter.
• TweetDeck Recommends column – Find new and interesting people to follow whether you’re a Twitter newbie or a veteran of the Twitterverse.
• ‘Reply All’ – Tweet everyone mentioned in a tweet in just a couple of clicks.
• YFrog – Share and preview YFrog photos inside TweetDeck.
• Smart filter – Start typing a username to find a person and add them to a group quickly and easily.
• RE (In reference to) tweets – Easily comment on a discussion.

View Full Album

All ye Windows Live Messenger’s, grab 30 free emoticons.

 All you have to do is open a chat window and select the packs. I found them on this web site. I am not sure if you will see it too. Have a go and let me know

Is here! Code named Windows Live Folder, Windows Live SkyDrive has been announced officially.

If you didn’t know, you had to be in U.S to be able to get Windows Live Folders (which you could easily be in by changing the regional settings )

However, the good news is that it has been made available for India and U.K. Wow that’s cool.

New Features:

• An upgraded look and feel — new graphics to go along with your new features!
• “Also on SkyDrive” — easily get back to the SkyDrives you’ve recently visited
• Thumbnail images — we heard you loud and clear, and now you can see thumbnails of your image files
• Drag and drop your files — sick of our five-at-a-time upload limit? Drag and drop your files right onto your SkyDrive
• Embed your stuff anywhere — with just a few clicks, post your files and folders anywhere you can post html

Sign up now! | Source

Doors are open! Get in quick! What’s with Windows Live Folders?

When you sign in to Windows Live Folders, you’re in charge

For each folder you create, you choose who has access to it. Add new folders, rename them, or change who has access at any time.

Always where you need them

• 500 MB of free online storage, available from any computer with Internet access.
• Create personal, shared, and public folders — you decide who has access to each folder.
• Folders work well on any Windows or Macintosh computer with Firefox 1.5 or higher, or Internet Explorer 6.0 or higher.

How we help protect your files

• Your personal folders are password-protected with your Windows Live ID, so only you have access.
• When you create a shared folder, the friends you’re sharing with need to sign in with their own Windows Live ID and password.
• Just like at your online bank, all file transfers are protected using Secure Socket Layers (SSL).

Personal

• Use personal folders to back up important files that are only for you.
• Get to your files from any computer with Internet access by signing in with your Windows Live ID.

Shared

• Shared folders make it easy to collaborate with coworkers or classmates.
• You decide how much control each person has over each shared folder. Some can just read what’s there: others can add and delete files.
• Everyone who is sharing uses their own Windows Live ID.

Public

• With public folders, anyone on the Internet can view your files, but they can’t change them.
• Want to show your public files to others? Just send them a link! Each folder and file has its own web address.

Source | Sign Up

gMail certainly changed email management. Having been straddled with measly 2 MB mailboxes, unless you chose to host them professionally or used ISP-of-the-day provided mail boxes. Then if you did use ISP mail boxes, you had to worry about forwarding, etc. Seriously, how did we manage without gmail? I guess we did manage, but that is because we had no options and we had to keep mailboxes fit and trim

For me, I have been using my personal domain nakars DOT com since 2000 – self hosted at home, giving me the flexibility of imap, so I wasn’t too worried. For junk, I used variety of web-based providers and was never a fan of Hotmail. Trust me. I had couple of yahoo ids for trash mails.

And then gmail happened! Definitely looks leave a lot to be desired, but you have ways of getting around that. If you use gMail and Firefox, you are better off, customizing the looks and the works. The works = customization, integrating Google Reader in your mailbox. IT’s all about technology! Yes, its the scripts that drive gMail and as such the customizations are possible.

Read the rest of this entry »

Continuing from my earlier post on Google services, I look at how another Google Labs product has helped me in my ITsphere.

Before I got hooked on to Google Reader, I had tried many rss feed readers / aggregators. This post tracks my path to the final destination.

I would like to highlight the fact that I have not been into blogosphere for long. It’s less then a year *grins*

I started off with FireFox ‘bookmarking’ some feeds. And then IE7 beta got released and since I wasn’t really into rss feeds, I ported across to IE7 beta. Then the unstoppable happened!!! I was adding feeds by the dozens and since IE7 was in beta, I had to find a better alternative.  My quest to find an alternative, that I could use anywhere, anytime Not limited to one workstation. Honestly, I did not once think that Google Services would cater to my RSS Feed need. It just did not happen.

Well, so what was the alternative? It was Squeet! Yeah – the best solution I found then. Its your feeds in email, so nothing like it. Subscribed, received in Outlook, rules took care of everything else! They also had nice add-ons for IE7 & Firefox. It is rather unfortunate, that I had to move away from Squeet – in a way that is how I found Google Reader!!! Hooray! I was receiving rss feeds-Squeet-emails regularly and as I kept adding the feeds, Squeet matched it with performance. As a backup, I had some sites in IE 7 beta. After couple of months, I noticed IE 7 show new feed items. At that time, I was too busy with our Microsoft Operations Manager rollout, so had not noticed that emails from Squeet had been heading south! Hmm, I tried to login into my account and it was locked out – at Squeet. Well, the reason was that a lot of emails had been bouncing off. There was no reason, since I got all my emails. This was my work email. Also I have subscribed to a couple of SharePoint discussion groups and had been regularly receiving emails on them.

So absolutely no reason for rss feeds-Squeet-emails to fail. Well, I got the account unlocked couple of times. In the meantime I had started exploring live.com. Great clean concept, used only for rss feeds. I was able to import my opml, easily and without any dramas. Basically it had this Share Point look and web part concept ( the concept that I love). BUT! There is always a but! I found organizing my feeds bit too horrible!

So I moved on to Great News! Fantastic. I just loved it! However, this was workstation bound. And then… I came across Google Reader! Literally came across. Seriously, I have not considered any other RSS Feed readers out there. I love Gmail and I just got into Google Reader. I know, this post is supposed to by about Google Services, but bear in mind, there is always a reason, why you end with Google Services and this is what I am highlighting. Other products and services fail to deliver, their marketing and promises baseless, and Google Services don’t rave and rant, but deliver! Trust me, did you ever know or for now know, when will Google Reader come out of Google Labs, to be a fully functional Google Service like Google Search or Google Product like Writely? They will deliver and let you scramble for it aka gmail!

I have been hooked to Google Reader ever since and more so now, primarily because of the following reasons:

1. Web-Based: This eliminates my biggest hurdle of 24x7x365 access.
2. OPML: Import/Export was painless.
3. Manage Subscriptions: Bewdy! I was able to tag, manage my subscriptions as easily as you apply labels in Gmail.
4. Read View: Plain and simple, with a choice of expanded and list view. Automagically mark a feed read as soon as you move to the next feed.
5. Add Subscription: Never been so easy! Type in the Website address and voila!! – choose the tag or ‘folder’
6. List View: You can see updated subscriptions or all. Your subscriptions within the folders can be seen as a group or individual within the folder.
7. Marking – You can star (favorite) your feeds like Gmail.
8. Sharing – Does any other reader do this? For an example hit on My SharePoint Blog and check out what I mean by Sharing. This is awesome! You can even subscribe to my ‘shared feeds’ Basically, I share the feed and then if you have subscribed to the feeds, you will be notified. Another option for me to share – grab a code and put it on my blog/site and people can see what I have been upto
9. ITs my news reader Back when I was in India, I did not open any Website, any newspaper but my Google Reader, because it works and displays like a charm on my iPaq!!!! I was on top of all my feeds

Need I say more? What news reader rss feed aggregator you use?

Next in series – the mother of all Google Services, gMail!

My SharePointBlog

This is part 1 of a series of upcoming posts on Google Services.

Lets start with Google Search. We all live by Google Search. They certainly revolutionized search.

Arguably live.com is the step in the right direction, as far as search is concerned. I have found satisfactory results and solutions on live.com and not on Google Search.

Lets look at the actual results I got for my search: How To Install SharePoint 2007 Beta 2

Look at Google Search Results and now look at Live.com Results. Spot on! Live.com gave me the exact result – first link, first page.

Rod Trent at myITForum swears by live.com search.

However, I must admit, the first place to start search still remains Google and I believe that this is more out of a habit, then choice.

And then there is Google Mini, which is enterprise search. Could this be a threat to 2007 MOSS (Microsoft Office Server System)? Not really, as per the comments on this blog by Dan

From prospects and customers, many limitations to the Google Mini compared to SharePoint (or Coveo for SharePoint):
1. No security
2. One collection
3. No API
4. Low query throughput
5. No upgrade path for more documents (must buy full appliance for $30k/2 years)
6. Provided from an Advertising company, not an enterprise software company
7. No way to upgrade software
8. No SharePoint integration
9. No way to fix HW or OS issues
10. Must re-purchase every two years
11. No wildcard, no boolean, no stemming
12. Web content only
13. Page Rank does not work in enterprise
and dozens more.

Google is certainly the default option and with Google co-op for web publishers, integrating with adsense – smart choice too. Live.com has made available custom search macros, but you don’t make money out of it, so I will stay out of it. Unless live.com and MSN adcenter follow this business model.

Next to come… RSS Feed Reader….

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