Today, on this beautiful day, I would like to wish all my readers a Merry Christmas. Also as this year come to an end, I want to thank all my readers for your support for my blog and my plugin. It has been more than 6 months since I started blogging. Compared to some other blogs that started at the same time, this blog did not grow much in terms of visitors or RSS subscribers. But I am content with the current standing.

Achievements in 2007

• Readers Appreciation award for November, 2007
• Won 5 contests throughout blogosphere
• Released one Wordpress plugin and another one under development
• Released the software bundle TorPlus
• Made over 60 posts with more than 300 comments
• Rankings and Ratings
  PageRank - 3
  Technorati Rank - 61,585
  Alexa Rank - 249439

Once again thanks to all my readers. I will try to be a better blogger in 2008. And till then, happy holidays.

 I had always stayed away from Link Trains because of the fear of search engines penalizing my site. But today I found this Link Train on Jon’s site and found it interesting, because the links have a no follow tag on it. Since the Link Trains follows Google’s guideline of using the nofollow attribute, I too decided to join the train.

Why Join?

If the links have a nofollow tag, then why should you join the contest? There are four reasons.

1.  Helps you get backlinks which will improve your Technorati ranking
2. Increased exposure for your blog
3. 10 lucky winners will get a copy of the book The 4-hour Workweek courtesy of Blogging The Movie
4. And finally, each of the 10 lucky winners  will be able to host their own contest which will be sponsored by Blogging The Movie.

How to Join

1. Write an original short snippet introduction to avoid duplicate content.
2. Just copy the section between the start and end.
3. Add your 3 favorite blogs with rel=”nofollow” in the link on the code page.
   

   <a href=”http://url.com/” rel=”nofollow” target=”_blank”>URL.com</a>

   This is extremely important to ensure that Google won’t ding us. Make sure you contact the bloggers and insist they participate so they can keep this going.

4. Email your URL of your blog post to Free4hourWorkweek@gmail.com
   [Deadline: 12/31/07 ]

Favorite Blogs

Betshopboy | DerekSemmler | Enkay Blog | MsDanielle | JimiMorrisonsHead | Siteguide.us | Darin.cc | JonLee.ca | Samanathon | MrGaryLee | KellyCho | SusanSuarez | RobertaFerguson | Bloggrrl | TheKingKongBlog | TheBeefJerkyBlog | LifeisColourful | MarketingDeviant | MaleWail | RomanDock | 40hourstogo | TylerCruz | JonathanVolk | Egonitron | SuncoastScribe | Gnaka | WorldOfAngel | MyBlogContest | TheGeekBoys | JoyceBabu | JakelDaily | Internet Marketing Fool |  RobertMacEwan | StevenTruong | JobMob |  Add your 3 Favorite Blogs here (it is important that you change the link to rel=”nofollow”)

I was extremely busy for the past few days, and that is the reason why I couldn’t post anything on this blog. Today I thought of making a post, but couldn’t think of anything to write. So I decided to share a few cool videos that I found on the net.

Web 2.0

We hear the word Web 2.0 almost everyday. But do you know what exactly is Web 2.0? If not, see the 5 minute video below by Michael Wesch, Assistant Professor of Cultural Anthropology at Kansas State University. The video was released almost an year back, so it is most probable that some of you have already seen it.

Google Conspiracy

I saw this video on a post in Steven’s blog and found it cool. Actually, I stopped using Google Toolbar after reading an article on the same topic, a few months back.

Ubuntu + Beryl

I have installed Ubuntu on my system only once. It was long back and Ubuntu wasn’t as good as it is now. But recently, after watching this video, I have decided to try it again.

Also the Making Sales Making Money contest at ContestBlogger is going to end on Monday. The entry requirement is extremely simple and require you to link to the sponsor homepage using the text home based business opportunities and  to Contest Blogger homepage using the anchor text sweepstakes somewhere on your blog.

I always considered the ads in Gmail inbox to be quite annoying. Like most of the webmasters, I am never going to click on a Adsense ad. I don’t mind whether it is on my site or not, I am not going to do that. Hence I searched the internet and found two GreaseMonkey scripts that allows you to remove the ads from Gmail andYahoo! Mail. I have tested the script with Opera User Scriptand it works with Opera too. If you are still an IE user, then you have no other option but switch over to Opera/Firefox or hope that the next version of IE will include support for userscript.

• The first script is Gmail Beautifier by Cipher. The addon hides/shows ads in Gmail, widens email body, removes beta from Gmail logo & gives buttons a better look. Removal of beta from Gmail logo is disabled by default, you will have to enable it by uncommenting a few lines. Personally, I don’t mind the beta part in the logo.
• The Yahoo Mail Beta Ad Remover hides the ads at the right side of the page in Yahoo! Mail beta. Yahoo! Mail already allows you to hide the right ad pane their by increasing the width of the reading pane. But on clicking the next message, the ad pane automatically pops out.

Inorder to install the script for Firefox, you must download and install the GreaseMonkey extension from the Firefox Addon Repository. After installing the extension and restarting Firefox, clicking on the “Install this script” link at the right of the script homepage at UserScripts.org will install will popup an installation window. Click install and reload Gmail /Yahoo! Mail and you are done.

For installing the script in Opera, save the script somewhere on your HardDisk, say C:\\Program Files\\Opera\\Profile\\UserJs\\, or anywhere you like. After that go Tools > Preferences > Advanced > Content > Javascript Options in your Opera browser and click the choose button at the bottom of the window and select the directory where you saved the userscripts. Reload your webmail window and enjoy Ad free version of your favorite webmail service.

Before I finish this post, I want to warn all of you that removing/hiding ads from Gmail/Yahoo! Mail is unethical and illegal. It is against Gmail/Yahoo! Mail terms. Due to these reasons and the fact that I always use my mail client for sending and receiving mails, I am not using these scripts. Hence, if you sue these scripts, do it at your own risk. Well, we all know that there is no risk, but still I have warned you :).

Google has released new blogs for Gmail, Orkut and Blogger.

According to the blog, the Gmail blog will contain feature updates, productivity tips, and some insights into the people and the technology behind Gmail. It will also have posts from other Google teams on topic related to Gmail, like using Gmail with Google Calendar andDocs & Spreadsheets. Presently the blog is read only as commenting is disabled.

Orkut is the worlds most popular social networking sites. It was lauched by Orkut Büyükkökten, a Google employee, in 2004 which was later taken over by Google. Now after three years, they have released an official blog for Orkut too with the first post being made by the founder himself. Though commenting is disabled in this blog too, a contact email is provided for feedback.

The new official Blogger blog is for  a special version of blogger called Blogger in draft which is used for testing new features before making them available to everyone. They have began the blog by testing new feature - video upload. Unlike the other two blogs, commenting is enabled in this blog as they would like to have feedback on the new features.

I have been planning to start blogging for a long time. Due to lack of time the plan went getting postponed for a long time. But today I have made up my mind to start my own blog. This is my personal blog. I will always try to write up on things that are of some interest to you. Meanwhile, congratulate me for making my first blog post.