Google Profile?

Web 2.0 refers to what is perceived as a second generation of web development and web design. It is characterized as facilitating communication, information sharing, interoperability, User-centered design and collaboration on the World Wide Web. It has led to the development and evolution of web-based communities, hosted services, and web applications. Examples include social-networking sites, video-sharing sites, wikis, blogs, mashups and folksonomies.

Although the term suggests a new version of WWW, it does not have any up gradations to technical specifications whereas gives a new tilt to the way end users utilize the web.

Got to Wiki for more info: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Web_2.0

Now, do you wonder why am I writing a post on web 2.0 here? The answer is pretty simple. As usual I was exploring one of the features of Google. As a google adherent, I thought of sharing information about Google Profile.

In the current day, we have so many social networking sites bumping each other. LinkedIn is one such site with a different outlook to the SNS .Its a “Professional SNS”.
It’s a place where one can put their professional information there by floating ones information in the WWW.

Orkut on the other hand is a “Personal SNS” with a similar motive.

Today majority of the people ranging from school going kids to elderly people have got them registered in Orkut, LinkedIn, youtube, Picassa, reader, blogger, facebook & so on..

We know most of these products are under the very big umbrella called Google. Now what is different about Google Profile then?

Google Profile can be logged in with the usual gmail account and is built on the “Web 2.0” concept. It’s basically a place where one can register to have public presence. If someone wants to track a person on the web and the person being tracked has a google profile created, everything becomes pretty simple. It has link to all the google products and shows all of those where the logged in member has registered with.

Most of us log into any google related products with the same id. We don’t maintain different ids for different products when they always popularize the product with the fact that one can login if h/she has a gmail account. Thus the web 2.0 concept emerges.

For example, when a person logs into google profile with the gmail id, it shows their blog links, you tube membership details, presence in picassa, any journal membership, orkut, facebook and twitter and so on.


In the past when you did a “Vanity Search” ( if you wanted to be listed in search results for your own name), it would not have showed up the results as expected and often you needed your own website. However in April, Google has started giving Profiles a prominent placement in search results. If you set up an online profile with Google, a person looking for you online will be able to find you more easily. Google will let you know if they need more information before having your profile listed in search results.

Do you want to take a look to see a profile looks like? Search for Tim O'Reilly( web 2.0 guru) on the web.

Read for more details:
http://seodenver.com/2009/05/20/how-to-create-a-google-profile-and-manage-your-online-reputation/

I was very excited to learn about web 2.0 a year and a half back. But when I realized the concept in real-time, I have my own thoughts reserved for this.

I was analyzing the pros and cons of Google profile. I don’t want to discuss about it here as it might be a very good topic in a technical forum.

Although I jotted out many points, my question is still open.” Is Profile a boon or a bane?”

Power Outage

Couple of days before, at work…..
I was starring at the monitor without moving anywhere as if I was glued to the chair. I was trying to open some document and all of a sudden the mouse stopped working. The computer got disconnected from the network. All the lights were turned off.
I realized it was a “Power outage”. After coming to the US, it was the first time I encountered a power outage.

Ah…….Probably it was a time to take break :)

Some of my coworkers started heading to their home. I was wondering what next to do?

But this brought a kind of happiness in everyone’s face as though no one is compelled to work anymore.

In school and college days it was really fun when an unexpected holiday was declared. Especially the bombs scare kind of rumors. I remember running to the play ground once during a bomb scare in the school.

Will a similar thing happen today? When I cannot afford to take a day off, it’s ok to expect a leave announcement.
Such was a kind of thought running through my mind and unfortunately everything resumed in 15 minutes.

रेशम

वो लोग रेशमी कपड़े पहनते हैं

बोलते हैं कि वो अमीर हैं

वो समझ्तें हैं कि अमीर्पनका नमूना रेशम है

मन्दिर मे भगवान को धूम धाम से सजाते हैं

अगर्बती का मतलब इस मतलबी दुनिया में खो गया है

लोग समझ्तें हैं कि रेशमी कपडों में भगवान् की कीर्ती बद्थी है

रेशम की कीमत अनमोल है

लेकिन लोग माया के वश में हें

क्या रेशम कभी कफ़न बन सकता है?

कफ़न हमेशा सफ़ेद ही है

वह दुःख का नमूना है

For Hindi Aspirants, the poem means :

Everything in this world has its own significance. One cannot replace the otherones value.

A silk cloth cannot be used as a shroud.

Also this means ones value is not influenced by the others value. Our greatness lies in the quality of our inner self. For example, god is a supreme power.He is not a supreme power because of how we decorate him or what we offer to him.

उदार

किरण जब ऊपर पड्त्ती है

आहिस्ता आलस उतारकर खिलती हैं ये नन्हे कलियाँ

फ़िर मुस्कुराती हैं फूल बनके

अपने दैनिक जीवन की सोच थोडी भी नही है

चारों तरफ़ खुश्बू फैलाकर हमको खुशी दिलाती हैं

इस स्वार्थी दुनिया में एक दिन की खुशी देकर स्वर्गीय बन जाती हैं

क्या ये सारे फूल हरि के लिए हार बनती हैं ?

आपस में हर एक फूल तड्पती हैं

एक दिन की परियां , हरि के गले में जब चड्ती हैं, तब उनका जन्मदिन है

क्या इन सबको वो मौका मिलता है ?

फ़िर भी खिलती हैं, हिलती हैं , खुशृबू फैलाती हैं, मुर्झाती भी हैं

The Garbage Truck

I read this story very recently. Sometimes we know very clearly what to practice in our life. But we fail to do it due to circumstances. However, we get reminded of them when we read such stories or articles. Here is a very nice story.

How often do we let other people's emotions affect our mood? Do we let a
terrible driver, or a rude comment ruin our day?

The mark of a spiritual aspirant is how quickly we can ‘regain our focus’ on
what is important. One man learnt this experience while he was in a New
York City cab. Here's what happened.

He was traveling in a taxi, on his way to Grand Central Station. All of a
sudden, without warning, a black car jumped out of a parking space right in
front of them. The taxi driver slammed on his brakes, skidded and missed the
other car's back end by inches.

Then, the driver in the other car, who nearly caused a huge accident,
whipped his head around and started abusing the taxi driver. So did the
companion sitting next to him! One would have thought that it should have
been the other way round!!!

But the taxi driver just smiled and waved at the guy. The startled passenger
sitting in the taxi said, "Why did you take it so easy? The guys almost
caused your car to crash and send us to hospital!"

The taxi driver laughed and then related what he called, "The Law of The
Garbage Truck."

"Many people are like garbage trucks. They run around full of rubbish,
filled with frustration, bursting with anger, and packed with
disappointment. As their garbage piles up, they need a place to dump it. And
if you let them, they'll dump it on you. When someone wants to dump it all
on you, don't take it personally. You just smile, wave, wish them well, and
move on. You'll be glad you did. I assure you.”

The passenger started thinking how regularly he let garbage trucks run right
over him? And how frequently he took his own garbage and spread it onto
other people, at work, at home, or on the streets? It was that day he
promised to himself, "I'm not going to do it anymore. Enough is enough!"

Over time he learnt how to distinguish when a "Garbage Truck" was coming to
dump all over him. He noticed the junk they were carrying and prepared
himself to avoid it all being unloaded onto him. Like the taxi driver, he
did not make it a personal thing; he just smiled or waved or wished them or
did all of these and moved on!!!

We generally get disturbed on reacting to situations, to people’s opinions that we don’t like. Don’t we? Also we have an aversion to a rude comment, those who tease us, those who underestimate us, those who gossip about us and lot more.
A few years back, I started incorporating “The Law of Garbage truck”. I ensured that I don’t let anyone’s negative thoughts influence me. Generally we forget what to do when we have many more challenging situations and that’s what happened to me. I forgot totally about this law. I was reminded of this law sometime during last year.

I know a person who keeps smiling always. When someone talks rudely, he just doesn’t react. He says it’s our duty to keep our heart as beautiful like a flower and we need to try all possible ways for that.

But our mind is like a coin that has two sides. We can take conscious effort to practice good things. But isn’t it tough to remain the same always? When I do that I get a feeling, am I trying to clone “Mother Theresa”? Also it gives a feeling of being fooled. No……I don’t want to do that. I just want to remain the way I am.
That’s when we forcefully unlearn.

We can practice all good things and we can do it only till the threshold. Once that’s reached, we just can’t bear things and we react. No harm in it. Sometimes we need to let the world know what we are and who we are.

Shouldn’t we?

राह

राह में बटमार दूर निकलने लगे

तमन्ना पुरी होने जैसे लग रही थी

लेकिन राही की छाया डूबने लगा

तब महसूस हुआ कि राह का दीप बुजने लगा है

For hindi aspirants, the poem means:

"When the tough gets going, the going gets tough" and thats life and we need to face it.