Renie Ravin | Founder of IndiBlogger.in – on Web Design, Photography, Advertising

Is Google making the same mistakes that Microsoft made with IE?

// September 10th, 2009 // 14 Comments » // Cribs, Google

For years now, users have been griping about Microsoft bundling their web browser with Windows. By doing so, users were never compelled to install a browser – why go about selecting the best one when my pc came with one installed? Microsoft was blamed for monopolizing the market, using the popularity of Windows to make Internet Explorer the dominant force.

Google does not have a product like Windows (yet!) but they do have their web properties which are used by millions of people. I was just surfing youtube, on the latest version of Opera and I saw this:

Correct me if I’m wrong, but aren’t they doing the same thing by nagging me when I surf one of their websites? Also, “new web browser”? Does that mean my browser is outdated?

The same message shows up in Internet Explorer, Safari and Firefox.

Google makes typos too!

// October 5th, 2008 // 5 Comments » // Google, Popular

“Post failed: Too may posts on this channel in last 24 hrs”

Saw this typo while I was trying out Google’s new SMS Channels service. Looks like they may have openings in their QC department.

Body scare

// August 2nd, 2007 // No Comments » // Adverts, Movies, Web

Another great viral ad – open it up and click on a link… or just wait!

Axe – Let the game continue

// August 2nd, 2007 // 1 Comment » // Adverts, Web

Remember the Axe “Tickle the hot girl with a feather” ad viral that flooded your inbox a few years ago?

Here’s their latest over-the-top ad viral. Let the Game Continue!

Moving from Blogger to Wordpress

// August 2nd, 2007 // 1 Comment » // Web, Wordpress

Naveen, a long time blogspot blogger and a buddy from school wants to move to Wordpress but is worried that he’ll lose his visitors. Here’s a way to move your posts while keeping your permalink structure intact and you SE rankings.

Move From Blogger To Wordpress and Maintain Permalinks And Traffic 

Permalinks for wordpress on IIS

// August 2nd, 2007 // No Comments » // Web, Wordpress

It’s taken me months to get this sorted, but I finally found a way to get nice, pretty permalinks for my wordpress installation in Microsoft’s web server IIS. Permalinks are natively supported by the Apache web server with a little help from the Mod_Rewrite module.  Unfortunately there isn’t any equivalent module built into windows.

I downloaded the  Wordpress URL rewrite plugin and it worked without any installation hassles whatsoever. Be warned though – you will need root access to your web server as the .dll needs to added to the ISAPI filters on IIS.

Hopefully the plugin works for Wordpress Mu – going to try that next.

Blog theft!

// August 2nd, 2007 // No Comments » // Web

What do you do when someone grabs your RSS feed and uses it to feed content onto their own blog? If you’re using wordpress, you can try ©Feed – a plugin that adds a copyright signature to your RSS feed.

Get online videos onto your iPod

// July 25th, 2007 // No Comments » // Featured, Gadgets, Popular, Web

Check out Flvix, a new online service that lets you convert any video from Google Video or YouTube into the .MP4 format – so you can watch it on your iPod.

[ Update: Jan 2nd, 2009 ] – Google video and YouTube are the same now, and flvix has become a porno site. Things change.

To convert videos as described above, try out Vixy.net. If it’s turned adult by the time you click on this link, good luck!

Tools for facebook

// July 6th, 2007 // No Comments » // Web

I’ve noticed increased activity on Facebook and declining activity on Orkut of late. So for all your facebook freaks, here you go:

Facebook Powertools: 150+ Apps, Scripts and Add-ons for Facebook

If you’re like me and can’t be bothered going though 150 apps, here’s someone who’s done all the work for you:

Top 10 facebook apps

Yahoo hates Google

// December 7th, 2006 // No Comments » // Cribs, Google

Do a search for the term Google using Yahoo! Search and you’ll see a special search box on top of the results labelled “Search the Web with Yahoo!”. They’re singling out Google for this treatment, as a search for MSN or Altavista will show you.

Google hasn’t returned the favor, which I’m sure they won’t.

[ Edit - The special search box has been removed. Guess they're friends now. ]