Footsteps on Clouds

Google Trends for India

2008-02-11T11:46:00.000+05:30

Find what people are searching for on Google India with Google Search Trends for India. Compare web search queries from Google India to find their relative popularity based on search volume and see daily hot trends (those searches that have sudden surges in popularity on Google India).

An Interesting Read: Determining Search Intent

2008-02-02T17:37:00.000+05:30

An interesting article on SearchEngineLand that talks of approaches to find search intent.

- Should a user on an e-commerce shopping web site get a recommendation (related/see more/find more/you may find these interesting/learn more/get more products, etc) based on what a certain category of users have tried and liked

or

- Should a user be made to view choices and recommendations based on personal search trends/search history

# Search intent to be based on Wisdom of the Crowds or Personal Preferences is what this article talks about.

Determining search intent through wisdom of the crowds or through an individual's preferences through personal search trends.

# Web sites related to the above hyperlink:
- Baynote.com - Wisdom of the Crowds
- VortexDna - Personal preferences as a guide to online content.

Keyword Selection Tools for Search Engine Marketing (SEM) and Online Pay Per Click (PPC) Advertising

2008-01-13T12:16:00.000+05:30

List of keyword research and keyword selection tools for search engine marketing (SEM) through pay-per-click (PPC) advertising.

- Google AdWords Keyword Suggestion Tool
- Overture Yahoo! Search Marketing (Y!SM) Keyword Selector
- Digital Point Keyword Selector Tool
- Keyword Discovery (Paid with free trial)
- Yooter Keyword Selection Tool
- Spyfu.com
- WordTracker.com (Paid with free trial)
- KeywordSpy.com (Paid with free trial)

Happy New Year

2008-01-01T12:35:00.000+05:30

Products and Features: Ideas for Search Engines in India

2007-10-20T10:24:00.000+05:30

Product and feature ideas for search engines in India.

- Music and Movies Information 1-Box Search
- TV Schedules 1-Box Search
- Train Enquiry/ Train TimeTable 1-Box Search
- City Events and Engagements 1 -Box Search ( For e.g. New play at Rang Sharada, J.P. Nagar)
- Retail Stores Info 1-Box Search (Big Bazaar, Fabmall, Megamart, Trinethra, Pyramid, Reliance Fresh, Subhiksha, etc.)

- Airfares and Flights Search 1-Box (Type Mumbai to Bangalore, get 1-Box search with text boxes for From to Dates with links to those search results from airfare search aggregators like cleartrip, makemytrip, ezeego1, travelguru, and zoomtra)

- Books 1-Box Search (Books from Landmark, Crossword, FirstandSecond)
- Local Search for more Tier I, II, and III cities like Nashik, Bellary, Solan, Amritsar, Ludhiana, Patiala, Jalandhar, Shimla, Ranchi, Darjeeling, Salem, Aurangabad, Shillong, Burdwan, Kalyan, Surat, Belgaum, Bhatinda, Margao, Bharuch, Jamnagar, Rajkot, Bhuj, Jaisalmer, Jodhpur, Kanpur, Lucknow, Allahabad, Cuttack, Balasore, Puri, Ujjain, Gwalior, Jhansi, and many more.

- India Local Search with Maps
- India Street Maps Search (Find distance and directions from Koramangala 4th Block 2nd Main to Koramangala 7th Block 3rd Main in Bangalore)
- Regional Language Local Search (type in Kannada and get the address of your neighbourhood 'Darshini')

- Jobs (get the latest jobs posted on Naukri, ClickJobs, Vyoms, and other job sites)
- Stock Markets (Real-time Stock Quotes from BSE and NSE, Sensex Live)

- Kids (Special collection of websites for children between the ages of 4-14 years. Filtered content, specific categories)
- Shopping Aggregator (Price comparison across Indian e-commerce sites like Futurebazaar, IndiaPlaza, Sify Shopping, Rediff Shopping, and so on)
- Education (URLs of universities, colleges, schools, professional and academic institutes)
- Games

- Special Sanskrit Initiative (Scan and make archived Sanskrit texts searchable)
- Custom Regional Language Search Application for Government

An index of start-ups in India. इंडेक्स ऑफ़ स्टार्ट-उप्स इन इंडिया

2007-04-29T10:14:00.000+05:30

An index of start-ups in India.

Why doesn't the page link to the Web sites? It only shows the लोगोस (logos). What's a reference on the Web without a hyperlink? Guys, please link to those start-ups, else how will people visit them if they don't have the inclination to open an instance of a browser window to enter the URL of the Web site in the address bar? Isn't it a point? The effort is good. All the best in supporting start-ups in India. Good luck.

'गूगल समाचार भारत' से हिन्दी मे समाचार पढिये

2007-04-28T09:28:00.000+05:30

गूगल समाचार भारत के द्वारा हिन्दी मैं लेटेस्ट समाचार पढिये. Read the latest breaking news, as it happens, from Hindi newspapers online and Hindi Web portals on गूगल समाचार भारत (Google News Hindi)।

गूगल समाचार भारत tracks the latest news stories from Hindi newspapers, portals, and वेब साइट्स and presents them category-wise (खेल, मनोरंजन, कारोबार, विश्व, भारत)। Try Google News Hindi(हिन्दी).

A Thought For Today

2007-04-27T23:03:00.000+05:30

I know you've heard it a thousand times before. But it's true—hard work pays off. If you want to be good, you have to practice, practice, practice. If you don't love something, then don't do it. नहीं पसंद है तो मत कर|
~ Ray Bradbury

AOL launches Portal for India

2007-04-27T12:34:00.001+05:30

AOL launches web portal for India. Visit www.aol.in.

टाईप More Easily in Hindi Using Blogger's Hindi Transliteration Feature

2007-04-18T12:25:00.000+05:30

हिन्दी मैं लिखना और टाईप करना अब और आसान हो गया है ब्लॉगर के 'Write in Hindi' फीचर से without any need for an Input Method Editor like Baraha.

Now the type in Hindi feature is in-built in Blogger.

Use Ctrl+G keys on your keyboard to toggle between typing in English and Hindi in 'Compose' mode. मैंने अब हिन्दी मैं टाईप करना शुरू कीया and this is English after using the Ctrl+G key to toggle between Hindi and English typing in the कम्पोस (Compose) mode of ब्लॉगर। :-)

सही हैं ना। अब हिन्दी मैं ब्लोग करना और भी आसान हो गया हैं।

There's no need for an input method editor (IME) for blogging in Hindi. It's in-built in Blogger, that's nice.

However an input method editor like बराहा (Baraha) is required for blogging in other Indian regional languages like ગુજરાતી, বান্গলা (Bengali), मराठी, ਪੰਜਾਬੀ (पंजाबी), तमील, तेलगु, कन्नड़, मलयालम, and ओरीया (Oriya).

-If you want to change the way a word shows on screen then select the word and left-click the mouse button to get a drop-down box with a suggested list of words that you may replace it with.

Read more about Google's Blogger Transliteration feature for Hindi language.

Nice lines from the song 'dilli' फ्रॉम the film 'Delhii Heights'.

आवारा हैंै नाम
भटकना अपना वीधान हैं
फुर्सत हैं काम
कुछ धुन्द्ला सा अपना नीशान हैं
और मैं हूँ, तू हैं, और हैं dilli बस्स...

Gujarati-English Dictionary

2007-04-17T13:30:00.000+05:30

Link to download ગુજરાતી to English Dictionary compiled by Babu Suthar. (PDF - file size: 1.01MB). Contains more than 6500 words in Gujarati with their meanings in English.

Convert PDF to word document/text file from Zamzar file conversion Web site.

Download હિતાર્થ ગુજરાતી પ્રેયસ (hitarth gujarati preyas) font. (Zip file, size: 104KB).

Themes for Google Personalized Homepage

2007-03-23T13:10:00.001+05:30

Add Web design themes to your personalized Google page. Sign in to your Google Personalized Home page with your Gmail id and choose 'Select Themes' from the top right-hand side of the Web page to select a theme for your personalized Google page.

Google Personalized Home page Themes.

Search Trends Report

2007-03-16T12:19:00.000+05:30

For my reading and ready reference.

Piper Jaffray Internet Media and Marketing Research team predicts Internet advertising and search industry trends in its 425-page (5.95MB) Feb 2007 PDF report The User Revolution: The New Advertising Ecosystem and the Rise of the Internet as a Mass Medium.

Download PDF. (Link via SearchEngineWatch).
File size: 5.95MB. Pages: 425.

Did you know that 55 crore (550 million) searches are conducted daily in the U.S.? Search marketing is a U.S. $15.8 billion global industry growing to $44.5 billion over the next five years and search is the second most commonly used application on the World Wide Web. Numbers from page 13 of the above report.

It's a big world out there for regional search engines and there's money to make for players in the local and regional search engine industry. Read Key Findings on pg 13-14 of the above PDF report.

Cricket World Cup Logo on Google India

2007-03-12T10:58:00.000+05:30

Google celebrates the start of 2007 Cricket World Cup in West Indies with a special cricket logo on its Google India search page.

Store and Share Photos with Picasa Web Albums

2007-03-09T12:52:00.001+05:30

Picasa Web Albums offer 1GB of free storage space to upload, save, store, and share photos and images.

Airfare Search Aggregators in India

2007-03-06T18:09:00.000+05:30

Find and compare airfares from low-cost and other Indian airlines with these India-centric travel aggregators.

- Mobissimo India finds and compares domestic Indian airfares and also airfares across the globe, with a hyperlink to book tickets for each search result shown on the Web page.

- Yahoo Farechase India (Beta) finds airfares of Indian carriers.

- Zoomtra (Beta).

- Rediff Faresearch finds domestic airfares and provides a link to the airline Web site to book tickets.

Add your Hindi Blog to Narad Akshargram

2007-03-06T17:31:00.001+05:30

Narad Akshargram is a Web site that tracks and shows latest posts from Hindi blogs in cyberspace. Submit your Hindi blog to Narad Akshargram.

My Visual DNA

2007-03-06T12:05:00.000+05:30

This is my Visual DNA. See image below.

Please be patient for the shockwave-flash widget to load.

Read my VisualDNA™ Get your own VisualDNA™

What is your Visual DNA? Find out from Imagini Friends.

Interesting: What's your Visual DNA?

2007-03-05T16:10:00.000+05:30

What's your Visual DNA?

Follow the above link. Choose a picture that you most relate to from the ones shown for the text written on each Web page. Get to know your personality type, habits, and mood based on the images that you choose. Try it. It's fun.

Octopart - Search Engine for Electronic Components

2007-03-05T15:05:00.001+05:30

Octopart search engine finds and compares prices and availability of electronic components from catalogues of Allied Electronics, Digi-Key, Mouser, and Newark component distributors. For example: 105 degree electrolytic capacitors.

You may contact Octopart if you are an electronic components distributor that wants to add its catalog of inventory to the new search engine.

Schedule of India's Matches at the Cricket World Cup in West Indies

2007-03-05T12:55:00.000+05:30

Schedule of India's matches at the Cricket World Cup in the West Indies from the 13th of March to the 28th of April 2007.

Group matches start at 7pm Indian Standard Time (IST). The group matches in Jamaica start at 8pm IST. Super Eight matches start at 8pm IST.

January 2007 - Google Zeitgeist

2007-03-05T12:39:00.001+05:30

A list of popular search queries on Google India in January 2007.

March and April are going to be the months of cricket frenzy in Indian sub-continent. Target cricket related keywords in your web content and include cricket posts and write-ups on the 2007 cricket world cup to generate hits from cricket-related search queries on Google and Google India.

- According to Google Zeitgeist International, the top search queries on Google Pakistan are Bollywood related.
- Shilpa Shetty, courtesy Celebrity Big Brother UK, was the 13th most popular search term on Google United Kingdom in January this year.

Back to Blogging

2007-03-05T12:32:00.000+05:30

I'm back after a month's gap in blogging. Pictures coming soon.

Adobe Plans to Host Photoshop Online

2007-03-05T12:30:00.001+05:30

Adobe to host an online version of Photoshop, its popular image editing software, (for free) in the next six months.

Schedule of Cricket World Cup

2007-03-05T12:04:00.000+05:30

Schedule of Cricket World Cup in the West Indies. The practice matches start from today.

That's Good Advice

2007-03-05T11:03:00.000+05:30

The time to stop talking is when the other person nods his head affirmatively but says nothing.
~ Henry S. Haskins

You must first have a lot of patience to learn to have patience.
~ Stanislaw J. Lec

My Blog, Footsteps on Clouds, Turns Three Today

2007-02-02T11:36:00.000+05:30

Friday, 2nd February 2007.

I complete three years of blogging today. Footsteps on Clouds celebrates its third blogging anniversary today.

Thanks to all readers. A select bunch reads daily, quite a few visit often, a lot many read once or twice a week, and many more come through search engines.

Hope each visit to my blog provides something informative, interesting, and gives readers what they are looking for.

I thank all readers and regular visitors of Footsteps on Clouds for their support, interest, suggestions, comments, and online friendship.

Thanks for visiting my Web page out of these billions of others in this vast cyberspace that is a world in itself.

Let's go back in time. Read my first blog post dated 2nd February 2004.

Cheers,
Chirayu

Shahrukh Rocks in KBC 3

2007-01-23T18:15:00.000+05:30

A new version of Kaun Banega Crorepati (KBC 3) with Shahrukh Khan as the host, anchor, and quizmaster started yesterday on Star Plus.

Shahrukh brings his charm, enthusiasm, energy, and subtle humour to the show and makes it a refreshing change from the sober, polite, courteous, encouraging, and commanding presence of Amitabh Bachchan.

Both have different styles. Both are remarkable, and as Abhishek Bachchan had once said during a prize distribution ceremony for his role in Sarkar, "Anyone appearing with Dad 'Amitabh Bachchan' in the same frame gets recognized by default." Filling-in Amitabh Bachchan's place in acting, diction, and conversation would be an enormous and onerous task for any individual, even for Bollywood superstar—Shahrukh Khan.

Shahrukh made an admirable start to KBC 3 and in his charismatic, charming, vivacious style connected with the viewers and contestants. Looking suave in a light blue shirt with a matching blue tie and shining black coat, Shahrukh played to the gallery with his trademark smile and tongue in cheek remarks. He built a bond with the hot seat contestants and made them feel comfortable, even doing a mock massage to a contestant that was feeling tense. He also tried to connect with the contestants and viewers by speaking in regional languages Bengali and Telugu, when contestants from Kolkata and Khammam (A.P) were on the hot seat.

It was a good first episode and an energetic beginning by Shahrukh. A rocking start that would keep the viewers interested and glued to their television sets for more charisma from Shahrukh.

Shahrukh mixed up Computergaaru in Telugu and Computerda in Bengali with Compaqgaaru and Compaqda. The 'Compaq' guys would be happy with free publicity coming their way or is it because a 'Compaq' computer is used for asking questions on the show?

The buzz word in this edition of KBC, instead of lock kiya jaaye, is freeze kiya jaaye with high fives from Shahrukh for the right answer.

KBC is off to a good start with Shahrukh Khan as the host and I look forward to more excitement on KBC. Well done, Shahrukh. Here's looking forward to exciting times on Kaun Banega Crorepati (KBC).

So freeze kiya jaaye Compaqda, well done Shahrukh, you're a champion.

- Watch Kaun Banega Crorepati (KBC) on Star Plus at 9pm IST from Mon. to Thu.

Find Maps with MapShark

2007-01-19T17:15:00.001+05:30

Search for maps of cities, destinations, locations on MapShark maps search engine.

New Search Engines

2007-01-02T10:48:00.001+05:30

An article on New search engines in The New York Times.

New search engines in 2007

- Hakia, Powerset (Not live), and ChaCha.

Google 2007 Logo

2007-01-01T11:16:00.000+05:30

Google welcomes the new year with a decorative logo on its homepage today.

Wish You A Happy New Year

2006-12-31T11:14:00.000+05:30

Click image to view full size.
Resolution: 640 by 482. Filesize: 345KB.

Guru releases on 12th Jan 2007

2006-12-28T13:29:00.000+05:30

I watched two movies this week—Dhoom 2 and Kabul Express. Dhoom 2 was the better of the two, but Lage Raho Munnabhai by far beats most other movies hands-down as the movie of the year, with Rang De Basanti a close second.

A film that I'm eagerly awaiting is Mani Ratnam's Guru, which releases on the 12th of January 2007. Guru is based on the life and times of India's business tycoon; textile, polymer, and petrochemical industry giant, and the man who made Reliance a household name, and India's most powerful company—Late Dhirubhai Ambani.

The movie traces Dhirubhai's journey as the son of a school teacher in a village in Gujarat who dreamt big and converted those dreams to reality by becoming the founder of India's biggest private sector enterprise, which brought faith in India's stock market.

The movie stars Abhishek Bachchan and Aishwarya Rai in lead roles with music by A.R. Rahman and lyrics penned by Gulzar.

Here are a couple of lovely lines written by Gulzar.

aye hairatein aashiqui jaga mat
pairon se zameen zameen laga mat

Oh wondrous love don't wake me up
Let not my feet touch the ground

Today is the 74th birth anniversary of Dhirubhai Ambani.

Our dreams have to be bigger. Our ambitions higher. Our commitment deeper. Our efforts greater. This is my dream for Reliance. This is my dream for India.
~ Dhirubhai Ambani

Most Popular Searches on Google India in November 2006

2006-12-28T10:14:00.000+05:30

Dhoom 2 was the most popular search query in November 2006 on Google India according to Google Zeitgeist India search trends tracker.

Google Adds Street Level Maps for India on Google Maps

2006-12-22T18:04:00.000+05:30

Google adds street level maps for India on Google Maps. Add your business on Google Maps for India.

Caption: Roads of Pune, India mapped on Google Maps.

Related Links:
- Sightseeing India with Google Satellite Maps.

Post Free Classifieds on Kijiji India

2006-12-20T15:41:00.000+05:30

Post classifieds in Hindi and Tamil with Kijiji Rural marketplace. Kijiji is an eBay company.

Kijiji means village in Swahili—a language widely spoken in the the East African countries of Kenya, Tanzania, Uganda, Malawi, Somalia, and Mozambique.

Advertise your small or medium business on Kijiji India. Post free city-specific classified advertisements on Kijiji.

Indian Railways is a popular search query on Google India

2006-12-14T11:26:00.000+05:30

Indian Railways is the most popular search query on Google India and surprise there is only one sponsored (PPC) ad for that keyword.
That means the search volume is maximum and advertiser competition is minimum. Low cost airlines like SpiceJet, Go Air, Indigo, Air Deccan can advertise their Web sites for this keyword with an ad that says 'Save travel time, spend it with your family. Airfares lower than 2nd A/c train ticket. Book a flight.' See the search results for Indian Railways.

Related:
- Indian Railways Online Ticket Booking: www.irctc.co.in
- Indian Railways PNR Status Check: www.indianrail.gov.in/pnr_stat.html

Booking train tickets from www.irctc.co.in on a 56kbps dial-up Internet connection is a test of patience. At any time of the day, even if one uses the irctc.co.in Web site for even 15 minutes, a message is bound to appear that says, "Unable To Retrieve Due To Communication failure."

Interesting Search Query

2006-12-13T18:34:00.000+05:30

Google was the third most popular search query on Yahoo! Japan in 2006. Interesting, isn't it? Why doesn't Yahoo! show a Yahoo! search box before the results for the search query google on Yahoo! Japan like it does on Yahoo.com?

Google India Zeitgeist

2006-12-11T10:29:00.000+05:30

Popular search queries on Google India in October 2006.

Gujarati Thali in Surat

2006-12-07T16:35:00.000+05:30

Tue., Dec. 05, 2006.

Gujarati thali at Hotel Kansar, Surat.

Click image to view larger size. Resolution: 1024 by 768.

Yahoo! Top Searches of 2006

2006-12-07T12:37:00.000+05:30

What the world was searching for on Yahoo! this year. Watch an interactive presentation of the most popular search queries on Yahoo! in 2006.

Most popular International searches on Yahoo!

Most popular searches on Yahoo! UK, Australia, Canada, France, Deutschland (Germany), Italia (Italy), and Espanya (Spain).

Beautiful Thought

2006-12-03T11:29:00.000+05:30

May the road rise to meet you,
May the wind be always at your back.
May the sun shine warm upon your face,
Mat the rains fall soft upon your fields.

May God be with you and bless you,
May you see your children's children.
May you be poor in misfortune,
Rich in blessings,
May you know nothing but happiness
From this day forward.

May the road rise to meet you,
May the wind be always at your back,
May the warm rays of sun fall upon your home,
And may the hand of a friend always be near.

May green be the grass you walk on,
May blue be the skies above you,
May pure be the joys that surround you,
May true be the hearts that love you.

And until we meet again,
May God hold you in the palm of his hand.
~ An Irish Blessing

Fun with Google

2006-12-03T02:48:00.000+05:30

Google searches at 2 on a Sunday morning.

That's the thing with Google—it is omnipresent. And people being emotional creatures, how one feels in a certain mood may be different from time to time, but Google being an omnipresent technology God records it with the help of its loyal ally Googlebot.

Never write a blog post when angry; or drunk with alcohol, love, or even emotion. That's a popular point stated in articles on blogging etiquette and tips. It's true to a certain extent, as one may not associate with or have the same feelings and emotions for a thought that one writes on a weekend night, probably listening to a sad love song, with more than a drink or two for company; and reading the same at work the next morning.

Questions like What is the meaning of life? Is it 42? Pretty easy for Hitchhikers, isn't it?

What should I do with my life? Chances are if one doesn't know, would Google know? Yes, why not; else one may watch The Interview with God, or Ask Guru Joe for an unexpected response!

There are some things one can't find on the Internet, for everything else there is Google. It never disappoints, isn't it? So is Google God as it does no evil?

Hope is the thing with feathers that perches in the soul...

Never say good night on the Internet because it may be late afternoon or early morning where people may be reading this. That's why, what's the best time to have a global conference call? It's 6am Pacific. :-) Have a good weekend.

Reading

2006-12-01T23:34:00.000+05:30

I want to read some of these travel books.

How can a week go without a single post? Hence this quick post.

Weekend Viewing

2006-11-24T17:31:00.000+05:30

- If food be food for thought then an office lunch like this would be the source of all happiness.

- India travel blog and Benaras photo gallery.

GOOG Shares Fly Past US $500 Mark

2006-11-22T11:45:00.000+05:30

GOOG goes beyond the US $500 barrier on NASDAQ.

Numbers on Internet Use in India

2006-11-22T11:20:00.000+05:30

- India Internet Statistics

Did you know almost 4.5 lakh (0.45mn) people access the Internet from cybercafes/netcafes in Pune? Source: IAMAI.in - The Internet and Mobile Association of India.

Statistics of Internet use in Indian cities.

There are 0.9mn users in Pune. Fifty per cent of these users access the Internet from cybercafes. That's why speed matters in search and e-commerce, more so when targetting users from India.

- Marissa Mayer on the importance of speed for search engines.

Create a Custom Search Engine with Google Co-op

2006-11-16T12:18:00.000+05:30

Create your own search engine with the sites that you want to search with Google Co-op.

- For example: Try these searches in the Gujarati Blog Search Engine search box on the right-hand sidebar of this Web page. Type your query in Gujarati or English in the search box shown below my profile on this Web page.

Try it. Let me know, if it works, and are the results good? I have added 91 Gujarati blogs in this Gujarati Blog Search engine. The search results appear on a new page.

ગુજરાત, ગુજરાતિ, અમદાવાદ, ગુજરાત સમાચાર, ગુજરાતિ કવિતા, gujarati poems, gujarati, gujarat, gujarati kavita, gujarati poetry, gujarati poems, gurjari, ગુજરાત પેપર, ગુજારાતિ news, amdavad news, gujarati ghazals, gujarati poem, gujarati food, gujarati blogs, gujarati blog, surat, સુરત, વડોદરા, vadodara, mumbai, મુંબઇ, મુંબઇ સમાચાર, પુના, ગુજ્રાતિ સમાજ, etc.

- Use Baraha IME (Input Method Editor) (file size: 1.2MB) to type in Gujarati with an English keyboard.

# For example: samay સમય, raam રામ, vaDodaraa વડોદરા

- You may use a virtual keyboard (choose Gujarati-Gujarati from the Select Search Item dropdown box to access keyboard) to frame search queries in Gujarati.

- Transliterate to Gujarati

- Syndicate Gujarati Blog Search Engine: Add Gujarati Blog Search Engine (on the right-hand sidebar of this Web page) to Google Reader by clicking on the 'Google Reader' button below.

Thoughts on Why an India-specific Search Engine in English is a Misnomer

2006-11-12T23:37:00.000+05:30

Why India-specific content in English is a Misnomer or why Search Engines that position themselves as India-specific should ideally Index the entire Web for English language content.

For regional languages positioning a search engine as India-specific is obvious and fine, but for English language search, any search engine that wants to provide good results needs to index the entire Web and not only India-specific content, because per se, India-specific content itself doesn't exist, because the Indian Internet user is looking for content that is global in nature.

What is India-specific content and how does one find out?

What if a collegian from a small town in India is searching for a University in the USA, and what if an Indian software professional from San Francisco is searching for devotional folk songs from India?

Now, a search engine that positions itself as India-specific needs to address both these audiences, and if India-specific content is collected only by IP filtering, domain filtering, and gathering content from DMOZ India and other directories, then the content that comes up say 150 million Web pages is not enough, because the Indian searcher is looking for global information, and a search engine that falls into the trap of 'India-specific' content tends to ignore indexing the entire English-language Web content, and misses on information that people from India are searching for.

Let's take an example: If I search for Cricket on Guruji.com I get the first result as cricket.deepthi.com which addresses the query but doesn't provide the most optimum result, because the best result, in my opinion is a more popular Web site like say Cricinfo or Cricinfo India in an Indian context; but because of domain filtering, IP filtering, and other filters that may have been set, Guruji's crawler GurujiBot would not have indexed those sites. This is where a search engine that positions itself as India-specific misses out.

For English language searches, an Indian search engine like Guruji.com would be competing with giants like Google, Yahoo!, and MSN (Live). Now Google.co.in provides results from all over the Web, so do Yahoo! and Live. If those major search engines provide results that are more relevant to search queries then people would use them, why would they use Guruji.com for English search, if it can't provide English-language search results at par with those of global search engines.

An example. Search for Angelina Jolie on Guruji. Now it isn't an India-specific keyword, but Indians are searching for Angelina Jolie and a search engine that fails to index Web sites related to Hollywood, because it isn't India-specific, fails to do so at its own peril.

- Ideally an Indian search engine should index the entire Web for English-language content. Filters may be set for not crawling International languages like German, French, Spanish, Italian etc. But even for India, the English language content should be that of the entire Web and not sorted by domain or IP filters.

- Indians are searching for news, travel, sports, celebrities, religion, education, entertainment, shopping, movies, music, social networking, matrimony sites, health, reference, jobs, adult content, and more. This is the trend almost globally as seen from Google Zeitgeist.

- What is the profile of an average Indian Internet user?
Given a choice between using English or typing in regional languages, most people that know both English and regional languages would still like to type, write, chat, surf, search, browse, shop online in English, because it is the preferred medium of communication for the average Indian Internet user.

- How many people have access to the Internet in India?
As per September 2006 numbers from The Internet and Mobile Association of India (IAMAI) there are 37 million people that access the Internet in India, that is less than 3.5per cent of the population. Of these 39 per cent access the Internet from cyber cafes, 31 per cent from home, and 22 per cent at work. 32 per cent of these 37 million users from India use the Internet as the primary source for information and research.

Of these 12 million (~32 per cent of 37 million) people how many of them would be using a regional language as their primary medium of accessing the Internet? Maybe 0.1 per cent or even less. So the potential of regional language search engines as a revenue generating medium arises when say 10 per cent of India's population (~ 120 million) has access to the Internet, which on an optimistic note should happen in the next five years, although there aren't any numbers for sure to say it would take five years or ten or more for Indian regional search to be a viable stand-alone revenue-generating model for search engines operating in India.

- So for an Indian search engine to survive in the short run, it needs to deliver English search results that are as good as those provided by Google, Yahoo!, Live, and Ask.

All Indian regional languages content combined would make for less than 10 per cent of English language content taken only from Indian (*.in/*.co.in/*.gov.in/*.ac.in/*.nic.in/*.com by IP filtering) Web sites, leave aside global English content.

- There may be infrastructure, hardware, Internet connectivity, programming resources, and monetary limitations for crawling the entire Web; but not crawling the Web because there's a limitation to include only India-specific content in the index would be a fallacy, because Indian content is not only related to India or Indian Web sites or sites with the domain as India; it is global in nature.

- That means even a search engine that positions itself as an Indian search engine should have global content for its English language. At least 10 billion Web pages in its English language index. This approximate number is found by finding the number of results for a common English word like say and, or, the, for, but etc., that is likely to be found on any English-language Web page.

- On a regional scale, if an Indian search engine finds more content than say only the Unicode (UTF-8) pages indexed by Google, it has a chance of upstaging the giant. But that's only for local languages where the PPC advertising market is not as attractive as in English.

- For a search in English, if a user searches on Guruji and doesn't get the result, the difference between that user going to the home page of Google or Yahoo is only an Alt+F4.

Comparing Search Results for Popular Queries

2006-11-12T23:18:00.000+05:30

Comparison of search results across different search engines for popular search queries, as observed on Google Zeitgeist for India, for the months Jun-Sep 2006. Source of search queries: Google Zeitgeist International.

September 2006:

# sania mirza on Google, Yahoo!, Guruji, Live, and Ask

# cricket on Google, Yahoo!, Guruji, Live, and Ask

# wikipedia on Google, Yahoo!, Guruji, Live, and Ask

# aishwarya rai on Google, Yahoo!, Guruji, Live, and Ask

# maria sharapova on Google, Yahoo!, Guruji, Live, and Ask

# ignou on Google, Yahoo!, Guruji, Live, and Ask

# katrina kaif on Google, Yahoo!, Guruji, Live, and Ask

# WWE on Google, Yahoo!, Guruji, Live, and Ask

# salman khan on Google, Yahoo!, Guruji, Live, and Ask

# ndtv on Google, Yahoo!, Guruji, Live, and Ask

# bollywood on Google, Yahoo!, Guruji, Live, and Ask

# priyanka chopra Google, Yahoo!, Guruji, Live, and Ask

# angelina jolie on Google, Yahoo!, Guruji, Live, and Ask

# kareena kapoor on Google, Yahoo!, Guruji, Live, and Ask

# cricinfo on Google, Yahoo!, Guruji, Live, and Ask

August 2006:

# english german dictionary on Google, Yahoo!, Guruji, Live, and Ask

# legal dictionary on Google, Yahoo!, Guruji, Live, and Ask

# air deccan on Google, Yahoo!, Guruji, Live, and Ask

# indian airlines on Google, Yahoo!, Guruji, Live, and Ask

# nokia on Google, Yahoo!, Guruji, Live, and Ask

# airtel on Google, Yahoo!, Guruji, Live, and Ask

# ganesh festival on Google, Yahoo!, Guruji, Live, and Ask

# indian flag on Google, Yahoo!, Guruji, Live, and Ask

July 2006:

# world cup 2006 on Google, Yahoo!, Guruji, Live, and Ask

# phentermine on Google, Yahoo!, Guruji, Live, and Ask

# krrish on Google, Yahoo!, Guruji, Live, and Ask

# times of india on Google, Yahoo!, Guruji, Live, and Ask

# icici on Google, Yahoo!, Guruji, Live, and Ask

# zidane on Google, Yahoo!, Guruji, Live, and Ask

# harry potter on Google, Yahoo!, Guruji, Live, and Ask

# fifa on Google, Yahoo!, Guruji, Live, and Ask

June 2006:

# indian railways on Google, Yahoo!, Guruji, Live, and Ask

# air deccan on Google, Yahoo!, Guruji, Live, and Ask

# jet airways on Google, Yahoo!, Guruji, Live, and Ask

# mumbai university on Google, Yahoo!, Guruji, Live, and Ask

Find more search trends on Google Zeitgeist Archive 2006.

Weekend Fun

2006-11-12T11:14:00.000+05:30

What message does good ol' Charlie Brown have for us? See the Charlie Brown says generator. More such links on the Generator Blog. More generator fun on RedKid.

Local Search

2006-11-11T19:59:00.000+05:30

- Guruji partners with Infomedia India for local search listings.

- HotFrog, a part of Infomedia India, is a free business directory listing site for small and medium businesses from India.

- JustDial positions itself as a telephonic search engine. Call 2222 2222 for information about Pune. Check its movie listing page.

New Travel Search Site for India

2006-11-11T18:46:00.000+05:30

A new travel Web site for India—Bangalore-based FlightRaja. They also provide airline ticket booking through mobile phones for Hutch subscribers.

Information from ContentSutra—always an informative read. To make it a part of my daily reads.

An interesting read on the size of India's online travel market. With so many players, is there room for all in the short run? Although the article doesn't mention the source of numbers, or it may be a guesstimate.

Nice Wallpaper Site

2006-11-11T00:33:00.000+05:30

Beautiful wallpapers with quotable quotes on Words4Ever.com.

Google India Zeitgeist for September 2006

2006-11-10T20:25:00.000+05:30

Tennis and bollywood celebrities, cricket, wikipedia, distance education (ignou), wwe, and news channel ndtv were popular search queries in September 2006 on Google India. Airfares and airline Web sites were missing from the list of popular search queries in September.

Related Links:
- Google Zeitgeist around the world
- Google Zeitgeist U.S.

Reading

2006-11-09T20:12:00.000+05:30

To make EyeForTravel a part of my daily reads.

To check Desiya travel search for India.

ClearTrip targets 400K transactions in the first 12 months of its operations in India; marks US $6.6 million for advertising.

A new travel search engine, Kinkaa, in English and German.

To read - Search marketing articles.

Write in Regional Languages on WordPress Blogs

2006-11-09T00:10:00.000+05:30

Blog in your regional language on WordPress blogging platform by using Monusoft's WordPress plugin for Indian languages.

Fun Quiz

2006-11-08T16:28:00.000+05:30

- What's your power colour? Take this fun quiz to know about it.

- Live local search goes 3D.

Thoughts

2006-11-04T16:58:00.000+05:30

I believe in these quotes.

- Beauty is only skin deep.

- If you don't ask, the answer is always No.

- There's never a wrong time to do the right thing in life.

Current Music: ये जो देस है तेरा, स्वदेस है तेरा, तुझे है पुकारा

Autonomy looks for Video Search Partners in India

2006-11-01T12:35:00.000+05:30

This may be an opportunity for regional search players in India.

British search engine company Autonomy jointly owns Chinese video search service OpenV.tv and it plans to launch a video search engine for India. Autonomy is looking for partners in India to power its video search.

Customised Google-style Logo

2006-11-01T12:07:00.000+05:30

Create a customised Google-style logo from Goglogo.com

Thoughts

2006-10-25T16:07:00.000+05:30

One for the road.

- The Diwali lighting in Surat is fabulous. Why don't they do that in Pune? Major commercial buildings are all covered with bright lights. The long flyover from Surat station is decorated, the entire city seems to be clothed in bright lights.

- There are more flyovers in Surat than in Pune.

- The roads are in surprisingly good condition even after those floods in August this year.

- Surat has bigger and better roads than Pune. Can't help, but compare.
What are our politicians doing? Granted that Surat is a rich municipal corporation with textile, diamond, and chemical industries; but still the administration is doing work. I've not seen public lighting in Pune in Diwali, except at Shaniwarwada.

- Why does Pune's infrastructure suck? Will Pune ever have good roads? Leave Hyderabad or Bombay, even Surat has better infrastructure than Pune.

A Thought For Today in Gujarati

2006-10-25T15:15:00.000+05:30

ગુજારાતિ મા એક કહાવત છે

નિષાન ચુક માફઃ નહિ નીચુ નિષાન

Download Firefox 2.0

2006-10-23T23:39:00.000+05:30

Download Firefox 2.0 for Windows - English U.S. - Filesize: 5.6MB.

Diwali Wishes

2006-10-22T17:12:00.000+05:30

Reading

2006-10-19T10:30:00.000+05:30

19-10-2006
- To read: Google Website Optimizer

- Search Engine Dictionary
- IAMAI: Internet and Mobile Association of India
- PDF: State of Search Engine Marketing in India. Sept. 2006. File size: 1.5MB.
- Lyrics of One of these days

Nice One

2006-10-17T16:28:00.000+05:30

A sensuous 2-liner. The beauty of words woven with grace.

काम नहीं नशे मे जाड़े की गुलाबी रातें
और अगर तेरी जवानी भी मिला दी जाए
Continue reading the verses.

kam nahiN nashe me jaaDe ki gulaabi raatein
aur agar teri javaani bhi mila di jaaye

These pink winter nights are no less intoxicating
And if your youth and beauty is mixed with it

Haiku Morning

2006-10-14T10:14:00.000+05:30

A 5-7-5 Haiku on a Saturday morning.

Vanilla ice cream delights tooth
Cool breeze on a hot October morning
There's always pain before Wisdom

Type in Hindi with Quillpad Input Method Editor

2006-10-13T02:12:00.000+05:30

Type in Hindi with Quillpad Web-based input method editor. Type Hindi words in English and get the output in Hindi (Devanagari) script. See an example below.

Tachyon Technologies' Quillpad also provides Web-based writing and text editing interfaces for South Indian regional languages Kannada, Telugu, Tamil, and Malayalam.

This beta works best with IE6 that's what a message box says on accessing Quillpad's Web site, however it worked fine with Firefox too, as seen above.

Thanks for sharing the link, Sudhir.

Beautiful Marathi 4-liner

2006-10-13T00:40:00.000+05:30

मला ही मराठी चारोळि खुप आवड्लि. I liked this Marathi charoli (4-liner).

मी आहेच जरा असा
एक्टा एक्टा राह्णारा
वाळ्क पान सुद्धा गळ्ताना
तन्मय्ताने पाह्णारा
~ From Chango's Meemaza.

An English transliteration of the above Marathi 4-liner.

mee aahech jharaa asaa
ekTa ekTa raahNaara
vaaLk paan suddha gaLtaana
tanmaytaane paahNaara

An English translation of the above Marathi 4-liner. I welcome suggestions to improve on the Marathi to English translation below.

I am a bit like that
lonely and to myself
(watching) even a dry leaf wither and fall
with rapt delight (with an engrossing look)

* tanmay means engrossed.

Marathi Charoli (4-Liners)

2006-10-12T13:36:00.000+05:30

मला वाट्लच होत मला पाहिल्यावर
तु मागे वळुन पाह्शील
वळुन पाह्ण्याइत्कि
तु नक्किच माझि राह्शील
~ Chandrashekhar Gokhale 'Chango's' Meemaza.

Download Devanagari font AkrutiDevPriya to read poetry on Meemaza.com.

An English transliteration of the above Marathi charoli 4-liner.

mala vaTlach hot
mala paahilyavar
tu maage vaLun paahsheel
vaLun paahnyaitki tu nakkich majhi raahsheel

An English translation of the above Marathi charoli 4-liner.

I always knew
On seeing me
You would turn to look
Your 'turning to look (at me)' would always be a part of me

खुप्दा माझा एक्लेपणा
माझ्यशि बोल्का होतो
मग कोणि एक शब्द जरि बोल्ल
तर त्याचाहि गल्का होतो
~ Chandrashekhar Gokhale 'Chango's' Meemaza.

An English transliteration of the above Marathi charoli 4-liner.

khupda maza eklepana
mazyashi bolka hoto
mag koni ek shabd jari bol..l
tar tyachahi galka hoto

An English translation of the above Marathi charoli 4-liner.

Many a times my loneliness
Speaks to me
Then when someone speaks even a word
That too gives goosebumps

Suggestions to improve the translation are most welcome.

Man Booker Prize 2006

2006-10-11T22:15:00.000+05:30

Kiran Desai's The Inheritance of Loss wins the Man Booker Prize for Fiction 2006.

Current Wallpaper

2006-10-11T10:26:00.000+05:30

My current desktop wallpaper.

Click image to view full size. Resolution: 1024 by 768, file size: 212KB. Image from InterfaceLift.

A Thought for Today

નિશાન ચુક માફ, નહિ માફ નીચુ નિશાન
This is in Gujarati, written with Baraha Input Method Editor.

nishaan chuk maaf, nahin maaf neechu nishaan
Missing an aim is acceptable, having a low aim isn't.

Beautiful Lines

2006-10-10T22:20:00.000+05:30

A Thought For Today

होने दो वहि जो क्शन कहे
सीमा वहि जो मन कहे

hone do wahi jo kshan kahe
seemaa wahi jo mann kahe

Let it happen as the moment demands
The only boundaries are those of the mind

The only boundaries are those that we set for ourselves.

Google to acquire YouTube

2006-10-10T10:08:00.000+05:30

Google takes a step forward in its mission to organize the world's information and make it universally accessible and useful by agreeing to acquire popular video-sharing Web site YouTube for U.S. $1.65 billion in a stock-for-stock transaction that is expected to close in the fourth quarter of 2006.

This acquisition will combine Google's advertising reach with YouTube's user base and provide opportunities to multimedia content owners to reach a bigger audience.

Google + YouTube = More reach + More ads + More money + More innovations + More information.

Congratulations, YouTube. All the best, Google.

Related Links:
- YouTube
- GOOG is trading at $429 on NASDAQ

Note: USD $1.65 billion is approximately Rs. 7519 crores.
1 crore = 100 lakh = 10 million.

What's an article or a blog post on the Internet without a hyperlink?

2006-10-09T11:52:00.000+05:30

Writing an article or a blog post on the Internet and not linking to Web sites mentioned in it is like writing a Restaurant review in a newspaper and not providing the address of the place to visit. Most Indian newspapers on the Internet follow this anomaly of not linking to Web sites they mention in their articles.

View an example here. This is an article from Mumbai-based newspaper DNAIndia where they've mentioned about blogs popular in the Indian blogosphere but haven't linked to any of them to enable readers to view those sites.

Each hyperlink provides an identity on the Internet, and would you meet people in real life (IRL) and not know their names? Knowledge shared is knowledge gained and what use is an idea or a thought that remains in isolation? We may as well let it out to mingle with a hundred other minds and ideas and let it find its destiny, which may or may not be the path that we've set for it. That's the beauty of cyberspace, isn't it?

A Thought For Today

You affect the world by what you browse.
~ Tim Berners-Lee

Related Link:
- Quotes by Tim Berners-Lee.

Never miss an opportunity to add a hyperlink to a write-up, a newspaper article, or a blog post on the World Wide Web.

Google India Zeitgeist for August 2006

2006-10-08T23:08:00.000+05:30

English German dictionary and legal dictionary were the most popular search queries on Google India in August 2006. Wikipedia and WWE were also among the popular search queries, along with the usual searches for celebrities and airfares.

Read a list of fifteen popular search queries on Google India in August this year.

Fun with Words

2006-10-08T22:40:00.000+05:30

Sphinx of black quartz, judge my vow is a sentence that uses all twenty-six letters of the English alphabet. It is a pangram. A pangram is a piece of text that includes each letter of the alphabet. The quick brown fox jumps over the lazy dog is a popular pangram used to test fonts, as it contains each letter of the English alphabet.

Here's an interesting list of words that are misspelled most often and a collection of pangrams and other word oddities.

I searched for the above 'Sphinx of black ...' string after I read Vardan's status message on Gtalk that had these words. Thanks, Vardan.

Current Playlist

2006-10-08T22:23:00.000+05:30

My current Winamp playlist.

Current read: Vikram Chandra's Sacred Games.

Give a Mosaic effect to images

2006-10-08T17:53:00.000+05:30

Give a Mosaic effect to images using the Brush Strokes and Pixelate filters in Adobe Photoshop.

1. Open the image in Adobe Photoshop
2. Duplicate the layer from Layer -> Duplicate Layer
3. Apply the Brush Strokes filter to the duplicate layer
Filter -> Brush Strokes -> Accented Edges -> Width (2), Brightness (38), Smoothness (5) -> OK
4. Apply the Pixelate Mosaic filter
Filter -> Pixelate -> Mosaic -> Cell size 15 square -> OK
5. Apply the Sharpen filter thrice.
Filter -> Sharpen -> Sharpen
6. Set the Blending mode to Soft Light
7. Merge the two layers
Layer -> Merge Layers (Ctrl+E)
8. File -> Save As -> .jpeg

Mosaic effect applied to Rahul Dravid's image.

Rahul Dravid leads India in the Champions Trophy cricket tournament.

Schedule of India's matches in the Champions Trophy 2006:
- Sun., Oct 15 v. England at Jaipur
- Thu., Oct 26 v. 2nd Qualifying team at Ahmedabad
- Sun., Oct 29 v. Australia at Mohali

The semi-final matches take place on the 1st and 2nd Nov. at Mohali and Jaipur with the final at Brabourne Stadium, Mumbai on the 5th of November.

Schedule of Champions Trophy from 7th Oct to 5th Nov 2006 in India.

Related link on this blog. Follow the Champions Trophy on Cricinfo.

The image below provides a view of the Mosaic effect.

Image Editing: Diffuse Glow Look

2006-10-08T12:10:00.000+05:30

Add a diffuse glow look to an image by applying the Overlay blending mode and Gaussian Blur filter in Adobe Photoshop.

1. Open the image in Adobe Photoshop.
2. Duplicate the layer from Layer -> Duplicate Layer
3. Set the Blending mode of the duplicate layer to Overlay
4. Add a Gaussian Blur filter to the duplicate layer.
Filter -> Blur -> Gaussian Blur -> Radius 0.2 pixels -> OK
5. Merge the layers from Layer -> Merge Layers (Ctrl+E)
6. File -> Save As -> .jpeg file -> Quality 12 -> OK

British actress Keira Knightley of Pirates of the Caribbean, King Arthur, and Bend It Like Beckham fame.

Original and Diffuse Glow look.

Original image of Keira Knightley from the archives of Canadian newspaper The Globe and Mail.

Ping Google BlogSearch

2006-10-07T22:58:00.000+05:30

Now there's an easy way to inform Google BlogSearch of updates and changes to your blog. Google launches a pinging service for blogs. Now you can ping Google BlogSearch to notify it of content updates on your blog.

Publish a post and ping Google BlogSearch to inform it to check your blog for updates. You may ping Google BlogSearch as often as the content of your blog changes. That means, you may ping Google BlogSearch after each new post.

For example: I will publish this post and ping Google BlogSearch to inform it to check for new content on my blog.

And there it is, the result of pinging Google BlogSearch to notify it of new content. This post has been indexed within two minutes of being posted online. See image below.

The URL to ping Google BlogSearch is http://blogsearch.google.com/ping

Related Links:
- Ping Technorati
- Ping multiple blog search engines with Pingomatic 1-click pinging service.
- Read more about Google BlogSearch Pinging Service

Current Music

2006-10-07T18:47:00.000+05:30

चल चले अप्ने घर ऎ मेरे हम्सफ़्र from वोह लम्हे।

Download MP3 of 'chal chale apne ghar' from Woh Lamhe. File size: 3.1MB.

Pencil Sketch of Vidya Balan

2006-10-07T15:54:00.000+05:30

Convert a color photograph to a pencil sketch by applying the High Pass Filter and using the Color Dodge and Overlay blending modes in Adobe Photoshop.

Pencil sketch of Vidya Balan.

A Thought For Today

2006-10-07T15:18:00.000+05:30

Being ignorant is not so much a shame as being unwilling to learn to do things the right way.

A Thought About My City, Pune

2006-10-07T12:30:00.000+05:30

A sarcastic thought about my city, Pune.

Pune is a city where people have the time to take a 3-hour afternoon siesta after lunch, but don't have the time to wait 10 seconds at the traffic signal for the lights to turn green.

Many more thoughts, but instead of writing, which would turn to a diatribe, I prefer to follow the traffic rules, as far as possible. At some places like the Cafe GoodLuck signal (to turn right) to J.M. Road from Lakdi Pul, it is impossible, because at any point in time people take it as an open/free right turn.

Photos of Google's NYC Office

2006-10-07T12:13:00.000+05:30

A holiday, headphones with good music playing, a fast Internet connection that doesn't snap, and blogging. It's heaven. I wish for the third point to hold true more often.

View pictures of Google's Ninth Avenue, Manhattan, New York City office.

Current Music: GnR - Patience

Search Public Source Code with Google Code Search engine

2006-10-07T11:29:00.000+05:30

What's new at Google?

Find public source code from Google Code Search.

Example: "/* Tower of Hanoi */"

Bargains from Indian Shopping Sites on AllIndiaDeals.com

2006-10-07T10:55:00.000+05:30

A collection of shopping deals from various Indian e-commerce and shopping Web sites on AllIndiaDeals.com.

Ruby Tutorial

2006-10-07T10:49:00.000+05:30

A tutorial on Ruby programming language by Satish Talim.

Dussehra Greetings

2006-10-02T15:35:00.000+05:30

Reading

2006-10-02T10:17:00.000+05:30

Chaos by design at Google or why speed matters and it is better to be fast, sometimes wrong but wise all the more.

Photoshop: Give an ice cool look to images

2006-10-01T17:25:00.000+05:30

Dabbling with Photoshop on a drizzling Sunday evening. Convert a black and white image to an azure ice cool picture.

1. Open the image in Photoshop.

2. Convert it to grayscale.
2a. Convert grayscale to RGB color.

3. Duplicate layer.

4. Change Hue/Saturation settings.
Image -> Adjustments -> Hue/Saturation
Hue:200, Saturation:0, Lightness:0 (with the Colorize box checked).

5. Choose Filter -> Distort -> Wave
Set the settings as shown in the image (Figure 1) below. You may click the 'Randomize' button to generate different patterns.

Figure 1: Applying the Wave Filter. Filter -> Distort -> Wave.

Distort -> Wave) in Photoshop" title="Applying the Wave filter in Photoshop" height="241" width="300" />

6. Choose Blending Mode as 'Linear Burn'

7. Merge the layers (Ctrl+E)

8. Duplicate the merged layer

9. Change Hue/Saturation settings.
Image -> Adjustments -> Hue/Saturation
Hue:200, Saturation:0, Lightness:0 (with the Colorize box checked).

10. Choose Filter -> Blur -> Motion Blur. See image (Figure 2) below.

Figure 2: Applying the Motion Blur filter in Photoshop. Filter -> Blur -> Motion Blur.

Motion Blur filter in Photoshop" title="Applying the Filter -> Blur -> Motion Blur in Photoshop" width="250" height="299" />

11. Choose Blending Mode as Hard Light

12. Save the image as .jpeg with file quality between 10 to 12 for a sharper photo.

13. Actual and converted images placed side by side.

Figure 3: Give an image an ice cool look with Adobe Photoshop.

Related Links:
- Original image from Longines.
- Photoshop help from DailyPhotoshop.

Technorati Tags:
- Photoshop, Aishwarya Rai, Ash, and Ice Cool.

Current Music:
~ Rang De Basanti - Roo-ba-roo

Reading

2006-09-28T22:36:00.000+05:30

- Information retrieval based on historical data
- Google Patent Application
- SEO by the Sea
- IPLists

Papers on Spam in search engine results (PDFs)

- Paper on detecting spam
- Paper on finding spam

What is the size of English language content on the World Wide Web?

Search for a common English word that is likely to be found on any Web page. Examples: the, of, to, and, a, in, is, it, you, or that.
The average of the number of Web pages found for these searches comes to ~12.5bn.
Add Web pages in other languages, images, news, groups, blogs, rss feeds, atom feeds, maps, local listings, directories, and other multimedia content and as a rough estimate the total size of searchable content on the Internet would be ~18bn-19bn documents, that's ~20 times the population of India!

Sites using Dmoz data

2006-09-27T17:38:00.000+05:30

List of Web sites using data from DMOZ Open Directory Project.

Blogged with Flock

Google Turns Eight Today. Happy Birthday, Google

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My favourite search engine, Google, turns eight today. Happy Birthday, Google and hope your wish this year is to eliminate broken links, remove spam, and optimize the search index for even better results, and while doing that we would be happy if we get search options for the filetype operator, like filetype:mp3, filetype:avi, filetype:mpeg, and filetype:rm. We would like more updates to Google Zeitgeist, more India-related trend comparison information on Google Trends, and Google Local search for India.

Wish you good luck in pursuing your dream of organizing the world's information and making it universally accessible and useful.

All the best with changing the way the world interacts and uses information. Hope there are many more milestones in your path that lead you to achieving your mission.

When do we celebrate Google's birthday? Anytime in September when we feel like eating cake.

Video: Search Indexing

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To view this video. Random sampling from a search engine's index.

Reading: Different URLs similar text.

Font Viewers

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Advanced Font Viewer

FontList

Blogged with Flock

Footsteps on Clouds

Google Trends for India

An Interesting Read: Determining Search Intent

Keyword Selection Tools for Search Engine Marketing (SEM) and Online Pay Per Click (PPC) Advertising

Happy New Year

Products and Features: Ideas for Search Engines in India

An index of start-ups in India. इंडेक्स ऑफ़ स्टार्ट-उप्स इन इंडिया

'गूगल समाचार भारत' से हिन्दी मे समाचार पढिये

A Thought For Today

AOL launches Portal for India

टाईप More Easily in Hindi Using Blogger's Hindi Transliteration Feature

Gujarati-English Dictionary

Themes for Google Personalized Homepage

Search Trends Report

Cricket World Cup Logo on Google India

Store and Share Photos with Picasa Web Albums

Airfare Search Aggregators in India

Add your Hindi Blog to Narad Akshargram

My Visual DNA

Interesting: What's your Visual DNA?

Octopart - Search Engine for Electronic Components

Schedule of India's Matches at the Cricket World Cup in West Indies

January 2007 - Google Zeitgeist

Back to Blogging

Adobe Plans to Host Photoshop Online

Schedule of Cricket World Cup

That's Good Advice

My Blog, Footsteps on Clouds, Turns Three Today

Popular Searches on Google India

Shahrukh Rocks in KBC 3

Find Maps with MapShark

New Search Engines

Google 2007 Logo

Wish You A Happy New Year

Guru releases on 12th Jan 2007

Most Popular Searches on Google India in November 2006

Google Adds Street Level Maps for India on Google Maps

Popular Searches on Google in 2006

Post Free Classifieds on Kijiji India

Indian Railways is a popular search query on Google India

Interesting Search Query

Google India Zeitgeist

Gujarati Thali in Surat

Yahoo! Top Searches of 2006

Beautiful Thought

Fun with Google

Reading

Weekend Viewing

GOOG Shares Fly Past US $500 Mark

Numbers on Internet Use in India

Create a Custom Search Engine with Google Co-op

Thoughts on Why an India-specific Search Engine in English is a Misnomer

Comparing Search Results for Popular Queries

Weekend Fun

Local Search

New Travel Search Site for India

Nice Wallpaper Site

Google India Zeitgeist for September 2006

Reading

Write in Regional Languages on WordPress Blogs

Fun Quiz

Thoughts

Autonomy looks for Video Search Partners in India

Customised Google-style Logo

Thoughts

A Thought For Today in Gujarati

Download Firefox 2.0

Diwali Wishes

Reading

Nice One

Haiku Morning

Type in Hindi with Quillpad Input Method Editor

Beautiful Marathi 4-liner

Marathi Charoli (4-Liners)

Man Booker Prize 2006

Current Wallpaper

Beautiful Lines

Google to acquire YouTube

What's an article or a blog post on the Internet without a hyperlink?

Google India Zeitgeist for August 2006