Free Gtalk Theme with lot of features for download

I am not into chatting big-time. But, over the past few days, had to use GTalk a lot, because i had to communicate with a colleague in another country for many issues and using the phone would simply be too expensive, as we don't have any "official" connection to this country. One of my friends Ravi Sharma had developed his own Gtalk Theme which has some amazing customisations. I am kind of reviewing in detail all the features below so that you can see these wonderful features in action and then download the theme.

Features of the new free Gtalk Theme:

• Changing the background of the Gtalk Chat Window. All you have to do is go to Start--> gtheme--> Change Background. Then, choose any jpg and reopen your chat windows and you shall have the background you want. When you download the theme, you get more than a dozen sample images too.

• Got bored of the same old smileys in your chat? This theme provides dozens of innovative smileys to be used in you chat. You can see the complete list of smilies and their codes on this page.

• Day in History: You can also post a Day in history in your chat window by using the command sravi:dih in the chat window.


• Joke of the Day: You can post the Joke of the day in your chat window by using the command sravi:jod


• Word of the Day: You can post the Joke of the day in your chat window by using the command sravi:wod


• Live Cricket scores: By entering sravi:cricket, you can get the latest score of that day's match or the last recorded match.

• For the romantically inclined, try this command: sravi:msg1:I*Love*You or any other message with the * denoted a break of a line eg: sravi:msg1:I*like*chatting*with*you

• You can even send a hand-written letter to the person you are chatting with by using the command: sravi:msg2:Hi$I am enjoying this theme, You should try it too$Rajaram S

• You can even play any youtube/google video inside the chat window by using the command: sravi:gvideo:(google video link) or sravi:utube:(youtube video link)
• You can share random picasa photos inside the chat window using the command: sravi:photos:(google user id without @gmail.com)
• Read comic strips online within the chat window: Use the command sravi:comics: (number is from 1-34) to share various comic strips. Go to the comics page for details on which number to use for a particular comic strip.

and of course, the most important feature, you can chat too !

If you are interested in this theme, you can download the theme by going to Ravi Sharma's Gtalk theme page here or you can download the zipped installer directly by clicking here.

Technorati Tags: google+chat google gtalk chat gtalk theme google chat theme free download google talk

Blog Hosting for Dummies

If you are reading this, there is a good probability that you already have a blog up and running. There is a high probability that it is either on blogger.com or wordpress.com. If you are really interested in blogging and not started a blog just because the guy in the next cubicle did, it is time you thought about moving out of blogger and wordpress to your own domain and hosting it with any hosting provider. Following are excerpts from a fictional book "Blog Hosting for Dummies" which was written fictionally by me sometime in the past. Click on the picture to the right to see a bigger picture of the cover of the book.

There are many advantages of moving to your domain.

• You have an identity of your own on the internet. http://www.srajaram.com/ definitely sounds better than srajaram.blogger.com
• You can have your own email ids on your domain. I don't use this option, though :-)
• Search engines rank (SEOs say so) content on domains higher than that on free hosts. So, your writing might receive a bigger audience.
• If you intend to make money through your blog, having your domain is a better option as blogs on own domains are preferred over blogs on free hosts by many ad networks.
• Buying a domain costs just under 10 USD a year and this small investment or rather the lack of could prove very costly in the future in case you end up becoming really famous!

Of course, moving to your own domain has its share of worries

• Where do you host it ? There are hundreds of companies offering hosting and which one do i choose?
• Hosting a site costs $$$. Currently, i host it on blogger and it doesn't cost me a cent.
• Blogger/Wordpress never goes down. What if my host goes down and my site if offline for a long time?'
• I don't know HTML !! How do i "write" pages then ?

I hope that this post would cover most of your apprehensions about hosting your blog on a platform other than blogger or wordpress. The easiest way is to buy a domain name and redirect it to your blogger blog.

I buy my domains at GoDaddy. Their interface is clean and clear. They also offer a free hosting package where you can host up to 5 pages. Of course, the godaddy ads appear on these pages. One thing about buying hosting plans with free domain names. Avoid buying the domain name through the hosting company. You never know whether the domain is really yours or registered under the hosting company's name. Domains are cheap, buy them yourselves.

I am assuming that you are planning to "buy" your hosting package. Firstly, these are things you need not worry about when looking for a hosting package i.e not look at what the company says on its pages

• Support providing by the company. Almost all companies say that they provide 24/7 support. Don't trust them. Search around on google for " support" and you might find comments by people who have had first-hand experience with the support from the company.
• Uptime reliability. I have never seen a hosting company give a figure less than 99.5% uptime. Do a similar search on google to find out the reality.
• Type of hosting. 99% of the blogs go for Shared Hosting which is the default. If your blog is really popular or you expect it to have hits in the range of a few million a month, then you should go for a dedicated server i.e. dedicated hosting. Dedicated hosting costs bigtime $$$.

Things you should be concerned about

• Space provided. Actually this is not much of a concern as most hosting plans give at least a GB of space which is too much in my opinion for an ordinary blog. Of course, if your blog primarily contains photos or videos, then you might run out of space fast. What i do to avoid this situation is that i upload all my photos to Google Picasa Web and then link to it. I don't know whether this is perfectly legal, as i know that it is not with flickr. If you have videos too, why not put them on youtube or the numerous other clones and just link to them?
• Bandwidth. If your blog becomes super-popular, then you need to worry about it. If any site says "unlimited bandwidth", then be assured that they are lying. Any bandwidth in the range of 100 GB a month is more than enough. I never thought that i would reach this limit, but it happened with this post on Aishwarya Rai's wedding pictures. Also check with the company about their exact policy on this. My hosting company told me that, for my plan, the bandwidth shouldn't exceed 1MB a minute.
• Number of domains, sub-domains, number of email boxes. These aren't really a concern for the novice blogger. But bigger the better. I am yet to create a sub-domain on my domain, but i know that i get x sub-domains free.
• Databases. If you are planning to install wordpress as your blogging platform on your domain, then this should concern you. Make sure that the hosting company doesn't charge you extra for mysql databases. Most packages offer them free. I haven't used any database until now for my website. Of course, if you are geeky, go ahead and try!

If you don't want to get into the hassle of writing HTML or installing wordpress, just create your blog in blogger and post the pages onto your domain, which is what i do. I hope that this small article helps you a bit in establishing your blog on your own domain. At the end of it, if you want to “Win a year’s worth of hosting at BloggingTips.com” , just enter the competition at BloggingTips and hope that you win. If i 'Win a year’s worth of hosting at BloggingTips.com' , then i shall probably introduce the Cyprus Blog. In fact, I am planning to make the switch for my Hindu crossword blog to its own domain soon, by hopefully winning the competition on Blogging Dosh.

If you want to blog daily, but don't find the time for this on a regular basis, Ms.Danielle's blog site has an interesting tip for busy bloggers (applies to wordpress users).

If you like this article, digg it by clicking this button

Technorati Tags: blog+hosting hosting+plans free+hosting cheap+hosting hosting+website blogging+tips

One dollar a day through Google Adsense

February may be the shortest month, but it has been the biggest for me in terms of Google adsense earnings. I am still not near the million a month figure, but i am close to it. February earnings through Google Adsense were a little more than double that of January's earnings, closing in at almost -------------------- ROL (Romanian Lei) which translates to about XX USD. Another thing to be proud of is the fact that this is the first time i have managed an average of more than one dollar a day for the month. Good going !

Update: Just heard that I am not supposed to disclose my adsense earnings according to the adsense terms and conditions.

Technorati Tags: earning money with google adsense google adsense Google Page Rank getting rich google adsense

Getting rich through Google Adsense

Well, I am not exactly getting rich, but I am sure earning money through Google Adsense, and lots of it! I earned close a quarter million last month and this month, the earnings have almost gone up by almost 50% bringing my earnings for the month of January to xxxxxxx ROL (Romanian Lei). Slowly, but steadily inching towards the half million mark. I know that I am far away from the million mark, but I am not trying to be too greedy. I am happy with the xx USD that I have earned this month. Maybe, i shall increase the stakes for my 100 Rupee quiz, because i should be giving what i am getting, right ?

Once again, i thank the TIME person of the year 2006 for this.

Update: Just heard that I am not supposed to disclose my adsense earnings according to the adsense terms and conditions.

Technorati Tags: earning money with google adsense google adsense Google Page Rank getting rich google adsense

Earning Money from google ads through adsense

Another month has gone by after implementing good adsense on my blog and the news can't get any better. I started off with adsense in November and i had posted my huge earnings from adsense for that month.

This month, the increase in earnings has been phenomenal. I have earned 236,023.47 ROL (Romanian Lei). The figure 236,023.47 is indeed huge. I expected to break the million barrier this month, but did not. Although a quarter of a million is something i can't complain about. For those not from the european continent (eg: americans) who do not know about the existence of a country called Romania, the figure above transtaltes to 9.27 USD. Its almost a 500% jump from the 1.6 USD last month.

I thank the TIME person of the year.

Technorati Tags: google adsense earning making money google ads TIME person of the year

A new concept in Search Engines

If you have heard that "getting personal" is the motto behind some companies who deal with customers and really doubted its meaning, then look at this company. This company took the meaning literally. Check out the new kid on the block, a new search engine chacha.com.

When you search for anything on this site, you can choose the "Search with Guide" option and you will be transferred to a page which looks like a chatroom. Here, a guide, a real person, a human, not a robot, comes to chat and help you with the search.

According to chacha.com,

ChaCha is a great new search engine that recently launched with an interesting new feature - Search with a Live Guide. ChaCha instantly connects you with a live person with knowledge in your search topic. You can also choose instant search results on ChaCha and receive the best results that have been hand-picked by thousands of ChaCha guides.When your query is submitted it is sent to a Guide who is knowledgeable in the topic you're searching. By searching with a Guide your query is sent to a real person who is skilled at finding information on the internet and knowledgeable on the subject at hand so that you get the few exact results you want, not the millions of results you don't.

I didn't believe this at first. Imagine someone's work is just to look at what people are searching for and then help them in getting better results. But, it was true. I went ahead and chose this option. One person called Tricia came on the chat and helped me to search for "quizzing blogs". I was very satisfied with the search because the first link Tricia returned was my quizzing blogs page :-). You can rate the guides at the end of the session and of course Tricia received 5 stars!

If you want to use how people have been playing with this search engine (I feel sorry for the guides), check out the digg page on chacha.com.

Technorati Tags: chacha.com search engine search guide google

Earning Money Through Google Adsense

It's been a month since i started putting Google Ads through AdSense on my site. So, i thought i shall announce to the world the huge sum of money i have earned in one month. To be exact, I have earned 16,505.77 Indonesian Rupees in the past one month. I chose this currency, because i felt embarrased to say that i have earned 1.8 USD in one month. The first figure looked impressive!

Well, i didn't expect to earn millions through Google Adsense. Also, during late october my site's PR (Page Rank) dropped from 5 to 3, probably because my site was down for almost 3 weeks when i was moving hosts.

Keep reading, soon I expect to reach the magical 100,000 mark, this time in Romanian Leis!!!

Technorati Tags: earning money with google adsense google adsense Google Page Rank

How i wish i were working in google

Then, i would be able to amuse myself by looking at what people search for, on google. For example, there is someone out there who is searching for "underarms of Vidya Balan" and then lands on my site through google's algorithm which managed to link the posts containing underarms and Vidya Balan on one page. More importantly, my site appeared first in the search, so it had to merit a visit. This is really the strangest fetish I have ever heard of!
Visits to my site from people searching for free porn are pretty frequent because of this post on free porn on Orkut. But, it is the strange combinations such as "Chennai call girls", "Punjabi Girl prostitutes", "How old is raja ram" (wow, i wonder whose age this person is really interested in), "old indian heroines" and "indian foreplay" which amuse me the most.
If I am writing about Google searches bringing visitors to my site, i would be doing injustice if i don't thank Surya and Jyotika for getting married. Surya and Jyotika's marriage was the most significant moment in my website's life. They were single-handedly (or is it double-handedly) responsible for increasing the traffic to my site manifold.

Of course, another reason i wish i were working in google is that i would then have a rajaram.sethuraman@google.com email id rather than a gmail.com id :-)

Technorati Tags: Google Search Surya Jyotika Vidya Balan working in google

The New Blogger, with cool features - Review

On August 14th, Blogger went live with its new version in Beta. Well, its not yet completely available to all the existing blogs. Like all google products or acquisitions, this too is on a "entry by invite" basis. But, as they say, everyone should ultimately have access to it. But, if you can't wait to try out the new features on your existing blog, all you have to do is to create a new account and create a test blog, which is automatically linked to the newer version of blogger! This is what i did and I was impressed by the new features.

First and foremost,the dashboard looks different, with the basic tasks on a blog being available right on the dashboard. This eliminates the need to first go to a blog's admin page and then choose the action, if you maintain multiple blogs. Click to see a bigger picture.

So, i created a blog and made my first post. The "Create Post" screen has been modified to include an option for allocating labels for a particular post. No idea why Blogger took this long to implement this, as this has been available for long on other blogging platforms. "Labels" enable to categorize posts on your blog to enable easy access to your blog readers. For example, if you have a general blog, but also report about the quizzes happening in your city, you can categorize such posts under the label "quiz", so that readers can directly access all blogs related to the quizzes.

I created a "testing" label and created a sample post. I had chosen one of the many standard templates available. In fact, in this new version, lot of new templates are available as part of the standard templates.

Now comes the best new feature, that of customising templates and changing their appearance. Until now, if you wanted to change the look and feel of your blog, you needed to know some basic html or CSS to achieve the results. But now, you just need to know to use the mouse. Yes, as simple as that. With a few drag and drops, I was able to change the look of my blog, i.e. the way the different sections are organised. It would have been a monumental task to achieve this in the previous version. But, this takes out the fun of playing with CSS. My current site is heavily customised and it was a good learning experience for me to play around with CSS and change the code. But, i guess, it pays for blogger to provide such interfaces as not all bloggers would be interested in dirtying their hands with code. The new look with sections moved around (just a drag and drop of the mouse) is shown below

Doing the above modifications would involve copy-paste activities of CSS code, if you were to do it manually. But, if you wanted to change the colour-schema, you would have to spend lot more time in identifying where these definitions are made. No need for it now. Just go to the fonts and colors sections and control the colours of each and every individual aspect possible.

The new blogger has eliminated one more step in publishing the blog. In fact, now you don't need to publish the blog everytime you make a change in your settings. The moment you save the settings, blogger automatically publishes the blog, making it ready for viewing.

For the official blogger buzz on the new release, head over to The Blogger Buzz blog entry, where you can take a tour of the new features. Enjoy these features, as I am sure that these are going to make blogging an even more satisfying experience. Btw, news is that Wordpress is charging 15 Dollars for the facility to customise their blog templates. Blogger has always made customising templates available for free and now, they are providing tools to make that easy. Three cheers to Blogger!