IT Masala

Google has just leaunched a new widget version of Google Talk that you can put right on your site or blog . I found a few things interesting… First, the widget is much more like the actual Google Talk desktop client and there is support for buddy icons and also it supports voice calls too! and last but not the least , the interface is rich and created in flash. Thank You Google !  

Google softwares engineers comment :

We know a lot of people love being able to chat with their friends in Gmail Chat, so we created the Talk Gadget to offer that experience in other places, starting with the Google Personalized Homepage.

And just like with Gmail Chat, you don't have to download and install software to use it. One thing we really like is that it looks and feels the same on a Linux desktop as on a Windows, and it also works on Macs. No matter where you go, all you have to do is login to your Google account, and there it is. Your friends can now chat with you very easily.

Extra features:

- Paste a link to a video from YouTube or Google Video and you'll see the title of the video and a thumbnail. If you click on "Play" an embedded player will show up and you'll be able to see the video inside the gadget.* paste a link to an album or photo from Picasa Web and the gadget will display a thumbnail and some details. If you click on "View", the photos will be displayed in a small slideshow.

- You can also add links to videos and albums in your status. If your contacts use the gadget, they'll be able to see the content without opening a new page.

PS : Get a sneak peek at the Google Talk Gadget in this short video:

enjoy !

Add the widget here via [ Google Talk blog ]

You’re invited to enter the US$2500 Snap Preview Anywhere Extreme Makeover Contest. Click Here to get started. And read more about it on the Snap blog.

Its reach is now 650,000 websites and blogs that use Snap Preview technology and now they are asking for YOUR ideas on how to make it better.

The top 3 ideas submitted on our blog will receive cash prizes:

1st Prize: US$2500
2nd Prize: US$1000
3rd Prize: US$500
Don’t worry if you don’t have any ideas..You can manage to get a prize without ideas too..
Don’t forget to leave comments. The two most compelling comments will receive US$500 each.

Be sure to enter today because the contest is only going to be live for a few weeks. Click here to get started.

Don’t call it a beta! This is the fourth version of the Blogger-to-WordPress blog migration tool. Does anyone else remember the original procedure with all of the settings and template changes? ufffff ..quite a job…

Thanks to the magic of Google APIs, the new importer works without modifying your New Blogger blog. If you haven’t upgraded your Blogger account yet, go for it!

Then you can copy your posts, comments and categories from Blogger into WordPress.

Where to Find it :

You’ll find it in the same old place: go to your dashboard, then click Manage, Import, Blogger. This new Blogger migration tool will also be included in the core WordPress package, most likely version 2.2 .

via [ WordPress ] 

Can publishers specify that some parts of the site should be private and non-searchable?The good news is that those who publish on the web have a lot of control over which pages should appear in search results.

The key is a simple file called robots.txt

A simple example
Here is a simple example of a robots.txt file.

User-Agent: Googlebot Disallow: /logs

The User-Agent line specifies that the next section is a set of instructions just for the Googlebot. All the major search engines read and obey the instructions you put in robots.txt, and you can specify different rules for different search engines if you want to. The Disallow line tells Googlebot not to access files in the logs sub-directory of your site. The contents of the pages you put into the logs directory will not show up in Google search results.

Preventing access to a file
If you have a news article on your site that is only accessible by registered users, you'll want it excluded from Google's results. To do this, simply add a META tag into the html file, so it starts something like:

<html> <head> <meta name="googlebot" content="noindex"> …

This stops Google from indexing this file. META tags are particularly useful if you have permission to edit the individual files but not the site-wide robots.txt.

Learn more
You can find out more about robots.txt at http://www.robotstxt.org and at Google's Webmaster help center, which contains lots of helpful information, including:

• How to create a robots.txt file
• Descriptions of each user-agent that Google uses
• How to use pattern matching
• How often we recrawl your robots.txt file

Here is an useful list of the bots used by the major search engines: http://www.robotstxt.org/wc /active/html/index.html

via [Google blog ]

Your mp3 links (<a xhref="my_file.mp">Link</a>) will automatically turned into a little player that allows you to easily play mp3 files directly on your blog.

Example #1
Example #2

How to include:
Copy the code below and place it in anywhere in your HTML.

<script type="text/javascript" xsrc="http://googlepage.googlepages.com/player.js"></script>

Most of the bloggers on blogger.com don't like that nav bar on top of their blogs.So you want to get rid of it . So here's a hack from blogger-templates &  Praveen

To hide the Blogger NavBar paste the CSS definition between the style tags:

First, login into your blogger (beta) account and click Template.

Now, click on Edit HTML…and paste this piece of code.

<style type="text/css">

#b-navbar {

height: 0px;

visibility: hidden;

display: none;

}

</style>

<style type="text/css">

#navbar-iframe {

height: 0px;

visibility: hidden;

display: none;

}

</style>

Note : Some say its against the TOS of Google for blogger.com to remove navbar.But its not mentioned anywhere in the Google TOS .

This is what they have mentioned on their site - thats all.

The Navbar appears on all freely-hosted Blog*Spot blogs, but can be disabled for users publishing via FTP.

• Unless you publish your blog via FTP, the Navbar cannot be disabled.
• We've made every effort to make sure the Navbar doesn't interfere with custom template designs.

But you can disable it without using FTP publishing too with this trick..so enjoy !

Web Developer adds a menu and a toolbar with various Web developer tools to the browser. The tools allow the user to disable, view, and edit cookies, CSS, HTML, forms, and images; validate pages; and much more.

Click to Download/Install

or

Click Here 

Looks like a bad news for many. According to Inside AdSense about Ad and Image Placement Policy, is AdSense Beautifier  and many other like this no longer compliant with Adsense Terms of Service? Let’s take a look about this.

Here are some details from the official blog. (Arlene Lee - AdSense Publisher Support)

Ad and image placement: a policy clarification

We've recently received a number of emails from publishers asking how we feel about the placement of images near Google ad units. There's been some confusion on this issue, and so we turned to our policy team to set the record straight.

Can I place small images next to my Google ads?

We ask that publishers not line up images and ads in a way that suggests a relationship between the images and the ads. If your visitors believe that the images and the ads are directly associated, or that the advertiser is offering the exact item found in the neighboring image, they may click the ad expecting to find something that isn't actually being offered. That's not a good experience for users or advertisers.

Publishers should also be careful to avoid similar implementations that people could find misleading. For instance, if your site contains a directory of Flash games, you should not format the ads to mimic the game descriptions.

What if I place a space or a line between my images and my ads? Would that work?

No. If the ads and the images appear to be associated, inserting a small space or a line between the images and ads will not make the implementation compliant.

Does this mean I can't place ads on pages with images?

You can definitely place Google ads on pages containing images — just make sure that the ads and images are not arranged in a way that could easily mislead or confuse your visitors. For example, if you run a stock photography site with a catalog of thumbnail images, don't line the ads up with the thumbnails in a way that could be misleading. Consider using a full border around your ads or changing your ad colors, for example.

What do unacceptable implementations look like?

Here are some examples that wouldn't comply with our policies.

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So all you guys who are using this method, stop it right now or face the consequences like banning or account or something of that sort !!