Lord of the Web

I have been trying out Google Buzz and have found it to be pretty exciting. It is at an early stage, but I see it replacing Twitter and Facebook. Not now, not soon, but it is inevitable.

If you had tinkered with Buzz, you would have noticed that your Buzz feed is actually collected from a set of connected sites. You can have only Blogger, Flickr, Picasa, your Google Reader Shared Items, Google chat status, and Twitter accounts in your Buzz feed.

Even though not available by default, you can add you (WordPress) blog to your connected sites in Google Buzz.

Update : Rather than waiting for Google to crawl your site and get the connected sites, you can use the following SGAPI crawler to recrawl your site at your whime

Such an association between a public feed and a Buzz user, which relies on the Social Graph API to verify that the Buzz user is the owner of the feed, can be done through a bi-directional claim. This means that the blog or site you want to add to your connected sites must be first added to the My Links section of your Google profile.

Then, you must point back to the Google profile from your blog or site. Do this by adding a <link> element of type rel=”me” and type=”text/html” with a href value of http://www.google.com/profiles/{user}.

That is, adding the following code to your blog/ site :

<link rel=”me” type=”text/html” href=”http://www.google.com/profiles/your.username”/>

The above is an example of an XFN (XHTML Friendly Network) link . I came to know about XFN while trying to add my blog to Buzz and now, this blog is an XFN friendly blog.

And when Google crawls your blog again and finds this association, voila, you will find your blog as a connected site on Buzz.

Happy Buzzing!

These days, even a new born baby is expected to have a web site of its own. Establishing one’s web presence through web sites — be it for personal purposes or business related purposes — has become a necessity. While the domain name real estate battle goes on in one side, there is also the challenge of finding the right web host to go with the hard fought for domain!

As the demand for websites grows, so does the number of web site hosting providers. Some good, some not so good at all. There is definitely no dearth of web hosts. The real difficulty is in finding the right web host satisfying your requirements, and perhaps more importantly, your budget.

While some hosts are suitable for static HTML pages, they may not be so for dynamic pages (PHP, ASP, etc). Your website may only work with Windows hosting and not Linux Hosting. The cost of the web host may not be justified for your needs. Sometimes you just want to host a blog. Sometimes you want to host your own ECommerce solution with all the bells and whistles. A web host suitable for a situation may be a very bad choice in another.

It is always better to begin with a web hosting review site, providing a list of web hosting providers in various categories and budgets. Your search for the right host should begin, and hopefully end, at such review sites. Catch you on the web!

ThoughtWorks India is organizing the first ever Ruby Conf in India. Scheduled for the 20th and 21st of March 2010, it will take place in Bangalore, the IT capital of the country.

Ruby Conf India 2010 will feature talks from Chad Fowler (author of The Passionate Programmer), Ola Bini (contributor to the JRuby project) and others from the Ruby community.

Over the 2 days, RubyConf India 2010 promises to offer Ruby enthusiasts with an opportunity to meet the key people in the Ruby community and learn about the latest technology changes first-hand. It is definitely an exciting opportunity to brainstorm, network and share information on the latest trends and developments in Ruby.

Don’t miss it!

We all know how easy it really is to be caught in the “debt web”. Debt leads to loss of freedom, time, credit and opportunities and it is this word that instills nightmares in many of us.

The effects of debt can be quite drastic. Having debts is like being put up in a cage. For example, there is every possibility that a person in debt can lose his home because he wasn’t able to pay back the loan. Just the thought that he could be losing his home limits the persons actions and leads to worser conditions. See, debt is a vicious sircle. If you cannot pay them off, since you cannot pay them off, it becomes even more difficult to pay them off…

Those who have various small loans should look at debt consolidation. With proper planning, it can be ensured that the actual interest payed is reduced. To reduce monthly repayments, one can look at debt management services, but it usually means you pay for a longer term. The kind of solution you need depends on the situation you are in. Weigh all aspects of your debt situation before making a decision. And there is no lack of companies providing such services.

Debt web is not as scary it seems!

I started playing Mass Effect without any expectation. I only bought it because I got it at a good price off eBay. Playing the game proved to be a great experience indeed and I started loving Mass Effect as I progressed through it. Spending time on the interactive dialogues with the NPCs, leveling up my team and others small but enjoyable things had me hooked to the game.

Predictably, I approached Mass Effect 2 with very high expectations. And that made me uncomfortable as well, since many a times high expectations may ruin our perception of the game even if it had only minor glitches.

Thankfully, Mass Effect 2 has proved to be a worthy sequels and has even surpassed my expectations. There have been so many tweaks to the game and almost all the weaknesses of it predecessors are gone. Small additions like the “Mission Complete” screen are mighty welcome. Experience points are now given at end of missions and not midway as in Mass Effect, where you had to scramble to the squad menu and level up, partway through a mission.

The third-person shooting is vastly improved and gives a better sense of speedy action. The balance between action and role playing has been well struck. Shield and health regenerate and ammo can also be picked up. These features are commonly found in many games, but were badly missed in the first game.

A very good game, followed up with a better sequel. That does raise my expectations way way high for Mass Effect 3!