However, the sending feature is currently restricted only to Indian users, while the receiving feature is availbale for Indians and US users. Alright, now let’s look at how to enable it.

First, login to your gmail account. Go to Google Plus page, by clicking on the +YourName button on the top navbar. Then, click on the small button (looks like some kind of spiked wheel) in the top-right corner of the screen. In the dropdown, click on Google+ settings.

In the Google+ settings page, under the “Set delivery preferences”, you will have an option to add your phone number. Select the country as India, and add your phone number to the account. It will send you a confirmation number through a message which you have to enter it into the confirmation box for verification.

If the above procedure is completed without any problems, then you are up and ready to receive and send updates through SMS. Now, all you need to do is select when to receive notifications.

In order to send updates through SMS, like any other service, you need to follow certain syntax. These SMSes have to be sent to the number +91 9222222222. The standard message and data rates apply to these messages.You can send your updates using the following commands.

• Circles – @[circle name]
• Extended Circles – @extended
• Public – @public
• Any email address – @[email address]

If you want more information/examples on how to use the above commands, visit this page.

Another feature that is notable here is the SMS security PIN. There are chances that sometimes, your SMS might be intercepted (hacked) while sending or someone might pretend to send from your mobile phone. In such cases, Google will be unable to recognize the foul-play. So, if you add a security pin in your notifications, such cases can be avoided.

Okay, last but not the least if you ever want to stop the notifications you need to send STOP to the same number above. Happy Google Plus-ing!

It changes only the top navigation bar to the old type. The remaining will remain as it is. Go ahead and download it.

Here is the user script: Google BlacktoWhite Bar

P.S. If you don’t know what greasemonkey is, then please refer to this post. For Google Chrome users, you can directly download the script. It will be automatically identified as an extension.

• Gmail – Google Mail Checker
• Google Reader – Google Reader Notifier (Official)
• Google Buzz – Google Buzz Checker
• Google Voice – Google Voice (Official)
• Google Tasks – Google Tasks
• Picasa – Picasa Web Albums (Shows the latest comments on your albums and list of your albums)
• Orkut – Orkut Chrome Extension
• Google Talk - Google Talk Pro (Pops up Gtalk window when clicked. Dual Chat also included)
• Google News – Google News (Pops up with the latest stories)
• Google Translate – Google Translate
• Google Wave – Google Wave Notifier
• Google Maps – Mini Google Maps (Pops up Google Maps)
• Google Earth – Google Earth (Pops up Google Earth)
• Youtube – Fast Youtube Search
• Blogger – BlogThis (Official)
• Google Calendar – Google Calendar Checker (Official) (Enables you to quickly see the time left for your next meeting)
• Google Docs – Docs PDF/Powerpoint Viewer (Official)
• Google Sidewiki – Google Sidewiki
• Google Analytics – Straight to Google Analytics

Note: These extensions are selected based on the popularity and number of users, using them. I have no personal opinions on these extensions. Even though, I use a few extensions I have mentioned in the above list, I haven’t used all of them. Use these extensions at your own risk.

Did I miss any other Google service above? or Do you know any other extension for a Google service? Feel free to comment below.

Recommended Reading: Bollywood Themes For Google Chrome Browser, Add Bing Search in Google Chrome

comScore: Graph analyses the traffic

The statistics from ComScore show that there has been a little increase in traffic than the normal traffic that the social networking site was getting usually. In January this year, Twitter got 21.79 million unique visitors which was pretty much higher than that of 21.25 million visitors (calculated on July 2009). There was a 3.1 percent increase in the traffic, in December when compared with the traffic in the previous month. So, the real time search which was introduced on December 7 has caused a great impact on Twitter’s traffic.

Experian Hitwise collects some data on this aspect. The graph above shows the increase in the traffic that is driven to Twitter through Google. There has been a 9% increase in the traffic that Twitter got from Google in the time period of December 5th to February 13th.

[Image Source]

Auto-Follow Is Abandoned

This was one of the positive points for Google Buzz. People could easily get started with Google Buzz. When I started with Google Buzz, I was following about 35+ people.  But, for people who are getting Google Buzz feature now, will not have the auto-follow feature. Instead they will be asked to follow people whom they know. Like the following image. Now, that’s a good change!

Auto-Integration Of Picasa And Google Reader

Yes, even this is removed. When I joined the Buzz, two sites were already connected – Picasa and Google Reader. This surely invades the privacy of a person. Even this has been removed in order to protect the privacy of its users. This can also be seen in the above picture itself.

Also Read: How To Access Gmail In Google Wave

Buzz Settings Now Integrated In Gmail Settings

Didn’t like Google Buzz? You think it’s a disturbance in your account. You think it invades your privacy. No need to follow that long tutorial to hide Google Buzz. Google Buzz team has added this option in the Gmail settings to hide the label “Buzz” from your account!

Now, with these changes Google has certainly protected the privacy of its users to a certain extent. But what about this flaw? We have to wait and see what Google does about this!

]]> http://www.techmonk.com/3-changes-that-might-save-google-buzz-from-becoming-fail/686/feed/ 0 http://www.techmonk.com/funny-gandhiji-opposed-google-chromes-speed-theory-long-back/661/ http://www.techmonk.com/funny-gandhiji-opposed-google-chromes-speed-theory-long-back/661/#comments Wed, 13 Jan 2010 16:38:11 +0000 Pramodh KP http://www.techmonk.com/?p=661 This picture was found in a London underground. This is clear contradiction to the Google’s speed theory.

The father of India, Mahatma Gandhi’s words, “There is more to life than increasing its Speed” definitely puts the chrome banner beside it, to shame.

[via Blogoscoped]

Recently, Raju(Technically Personal) had written an article about how to edit Google Docs in Google Wave. I found that very useful and interesting, thanks Raju. He had used a gadget called as IFrame. I went a step ahead and tried to integrate in a similar way with that gadget, my Gmail account. But, it turned out that the page was getting redirected to my Gmail account itself.

Today, I found a great gadget that could help us integrate Gmail in Google Wave. Well, there is no specific name for the extension, it has just been called “Gmail”.

Follow these steps and add the bot to your Google Wave account.

Now, click on “Add gadget by URL” button. (This button would resemble a small jigsaw piece.) You can refer to the pic below.

http://hosting.gmodules.com/ig/gadgets/file/100080069921643878012/gmail.xml

This is how it would look after it is added!

Enjoy Waving!

P.S. If anybody hasn’t got a wave invite, then I am giving out a few. Just check this article out:

Get Google Wave Invitations By Just Commenting And Retweeting!

You might have seen many URLs pointing to the same/similar page many times. For example,

• www.example.com
• example.com
• www.example.com/index.html
• example.com/home.aspx

These type of URLs may cause search engines to look at your content as duplicate and thus your search engine rankings may go down. In such cases, using canonical elements can reduce the problem.

So, What’s the deal with rel =”canonical”?

When many URLs point to the same or more exactly, similar page then that results in duplicate content. Bloggers, SEOs and website owners avoid this by using  301 redirects, which redirect the search engines to the new URL. This rel=”canonical” element has a similar functionality. While 301 redirection works across different domains, rel=”canonical” works only within a domain. However, canonical elements even work for sub-domains too.

How To Use The Canonical Element?

Using the canonical element is very simple. All you need to do is put a piece of tag/element at the top of your non-canonical page. For example, consider two URLs like “http://www.example.com” and “http://www.test.example.com”. Now, if both the URLs lead to the same page, search engines consider it as duplicate content. To avoid this, you can add the canonical element at the top of the non-canonical page (http://www.example.com).

<link rel="canonical" href="http://www.test.example.com/>

Note: This should be added to the head section of the page. (i.e., after <head> tag.)

Imporant:

If you add the canonical tag to both the pages, this creates an infinite loop. In such cases, search engines have the rights to decide which is better.

Canonical elements do not direct the search engines to a different page, but instead just gives a suggestion to go to that page. To be short, canonical tags are not directive, they are just suggestions. If you have two URLs say, http://www.example.com and http://www.cartoon.example.com which are completely different and you try to add canonical element between them, search engines may not consider it. So, you can add canonical tags only to same or similar pages.

So, this canonical element can be of great help to bloggers who blog from blogger platform. Blogger users often suffer from duplicate content issues. Using canonical tags can reduce this. For more information about this, you can watch the video by Matt Cutts, Google engineer below.

I have got about 16 Google Wave invites and am waiting to send to people who don’t have them. If you want to

What You Have To Do To Get An Invite?

Nothing big.

1) Just leave a comment that you need a Google wave Invite here.

2) Retweet/Stumble this post.

Your job is done! After getting few comments (requests), I will do a lucky draw and if you are lucky enough then, you might get the Google Wave invite.

P.S.- Please do not try to spam or comment multiple times. Those comments will be rejected and no invite will be sent to them.

If you want to be updated about the winner of the lucky draw, you can subscribe to my RSS feed or else follow me on twitter @pramodhkp