Google's 11th Birthday! Celebrate when you want to eat the cake!

Google celebrated it's 10th Birthday last year and here's its Project10100 'May Those who Help the Most Win', with Ideas to change the world by helping many people as possible. The response was overwhelming as Google quotes on it's Project10100 site as more than 170 countries submitted more than 150,000 Ideas. These ideas range from general Investment suggestions to specific implementation proposals. You can take a note of the 16 Big Ideas that inspires and you can Vote for it. Voting ends on October 8, 2009.

Ideas to Vote:

Provide quality education to African students

Make government more transparent

Help social entrepreneurs drive change

Make educational content available online for free

Drive innovation in public transport

Create more efficient landmine removal programs

Build real-time, user-reported news service

Create real-world issue reporting system

Enhance science and engineering education

Create genocide monitoring and alert system

Promote health monitoring and data analysis

Collect and organize the world's urban data

Build better banking tools for everyone

Encourage positive media depictions of engineers and scientists

Work toward socially conscious tax policies

Now, all Ideas are innovative and draws our attention. Don't you think so? Best Ideas still can fit in the category. However, important is How long will the Idea's impact last and how many people would this idea affect? Urgency of the need creates an awareness and if these Ideas have implementation faster, it can let the results be seen.

Google is committing $10 million to implement these projects, and their goal is to help as many people as possible. You can be a part of the Project10tothe100 and join the task. Watch the video or just visit their site and Vote for the Best Idea.

Happy Birthday Google - 27th September is a memory. Google opened its doors in September 1998. "The exact date when we celebrate our birthday has moved around over the years, depending on when people feel like having cake." says Larry Page and Sergey Brin. Here is on google info and G Docs I blogged earlier and on its 10th Birthday last year.

However, its time for celebration for me as we celebrate MJ Blog Birthday just around Google's Birthday completing 5 years of web presence. A continuous, endless, thoughtful writing by M J and presenting the Blog on the web.

- ilaxi

Suspend Twitter - Mosey along to Friendfeed.com

Follow Friendfeed:
Are you a fan of 140 character Twitter and addicted posting from any place, any where, any time? Beware!!! You are soon going to be insane or maybe your account will be 'Mosey along - nothing to see here' - Just Suspended for no reason of yours!

Recently, the news around at Mashable has more than 250+ Comment posts of Twitter users whose account is Suspended. It seems 4chan maybe behind this attack on Twitter says Cnet. Twitter is going to have a hard time controlling spammers, pranksters and hackers whose number will inevitably increase with the rise of Twitter’s popularity. Moreover, Twitter lacks in Security and have no control over its own program and it uses Google API !

The following is an update from Twitter Blog on 5th July 2009:

Restoring accidentally suspended accounts

"We regret the human error that led to these mistaken suspensions and we are working to restore the affected accounts—we expect this to be completed in the next several hours.
One additional note: some the accounts suspended were using the third-party site Tweetlater. However, Tweetlater is not to blame for these suspensions nor is it in violation of our Terms."

Well, I did spot some problems of Twitter Phishing in January as some Hi Profile accounts were hacked. Among the many were New York Times and Brittany Spears and of coz, mine too:-) Again, in May end, the phishing strikes and this time, Kidsfreesouls account goes Suspended due to reasons best known to Twitter. More users are being Suspended with Mosey along stranding the users. The Twitter Customer Support is very active for a reply to help to users and diverts to 'Terms and conditions' and other things with no satisfactory answer. Repeat tickets are soon tagged as 'Closed' or 'Solved' with a curt reply 'Thanks for your feature request' and you can tweet @twitter - How? remains to be seen as you cannot send @twitter when your account opens but is 'Dead.'!!!

Many users have diverted to Friendfeed and truly welcoming, it open up doors with much more better Tweeting + added features to stay tuned. I had earlier wrote on Twitter Phishing and would recommend Twitter users to be Cautious - Follow Mashable for more inputs on this and other related tech information. Twitter seems to be desperately trying to rectify errors on their side and provide lame assistance to users - However, there is a "Hole in the Twitter" and it remains to be seen how Twitter can safeguard its own as well users security.

You may follow me on Friendfeed now or connect FACEBOOK by visiting my site Kidsfreesouls and for mjakbar.org - you may stop following Twitter as we have suspended Twitter use. Instead, follow Covert Facebook Group.

- ilaxi

Your Vote Counts! Doodles by Kids

Google Doodle 4 Google contest in the U.S. Google doodles are the special "dressed-up" logos that Google run on their homepage for holidays and other events, and Doodle 4 Google is an opportunity for one child to have his/her artwork displayed on their homepage as a doodle for hundreds of millions of people to see. This year's theme "What I Wish for the World," and tap into not only children's creativity but also what they want their future to look like.

You can help Google to select National Finalist from 40 regional winners. Your Vote Counts! Just click to the grades and Vote for the Best. Click to the Doodles and amazing Ideas from children. World Peace, Spread Literacy, Save Energy, Be Friendly nations, Stop War, Recycle the future, healthy world, etc are the messages through Doodles. You can even view the State Finalists. Approx 400 Doodles were chosen.

It is unfortunate that children in India cannot . Yet I guess, this will be an inspiration and let our Kids Wish for a Better World - Get them to write or paint and pin up in your School/home/club paste boards. Even you can send to Kidsfreesouls to add to Paste Board section.

Btw, here is Chief Google Doodler Dennis Hwang drawing away the Doodles...It's fun to watch! Also here's last year's Awards for Doodles.

- ilaxi

Google Color filter to Image Search

Google adds Color Filter to the Image Search recently. You can find the changes here on 'Google Images' - All content, drop down box. This means, now you have options to view the images in various colors - Red, orange, teal..and more. Find Image search of kidsfreesouls here.

Under advanced options, Google Image Search already has quite a number of interesting options, including filters for image content type, size, and format.

Several search engines seems to be coming up and I hear, the latest one is Webscaler, Allinone Search Engine. It is connected to more than 1800 search engines in 200 countries and eventually to built a metasearch engine that would integrate all the one million small search engines into a single system which provide instant answers. Webscaler distinguish different from metasearch engines as they focus on smaller search engines as opposed to google, msn or yahoo.

Well, the biggest challenge on web is to stay tuned to the search - and finally, here is Kosmix - you might find it interesting!

- ilaxi

Twouble with Twitters

An Interesting Video! How much do you Twitter? How much you hang on Facebook? My Space, Orkut?

Set up your Time Management before it's Addiction or tooo Late! Follow http://tinyurl.com/5roann on Twitter and stay tuned here http://tinyurl.com/2z6env - Enjoy Life! Keep the Faith.

- ilaxi

Top Blogs 2009

Since quite years, I am quite familiar with many Top Blogs and been randomly visiting some of them while space made way inbetween my workload. Blogs related to Tech are on my top list, followed by Politics and related to my Blog posts.

Andrew Sullivan's Daily Dish is a lovely meal and as Time says, can be appointed as 'Country's Blogger in Chief.' The Daily Dish sub head says, 'No Party, no clique'. Andrew's post on 'Why Blog' pose as an Inspiration to many a souls like me and nevertheless, I agree to what he says. "We blog as news reaches us, as facts emerge." For Bloggers, deadline is always now - spontaneous and just not like the Reporters or the Novelist who can pick time and wait for final selection. Blogging is more a free form, you even end up writing personal or share, speak loud your ideas and opinions - no barriers but dedicated daily journal posts and comitted to self. Read the post and maybe you are inspired to Blog if you're not doing so. A blogger has no limits - you Blog or enjoy real life - no hassles.

The Huffington Post , Mashable , Official Google Blog, TechCrunch, Daily Kos: State of the Nation, Gawker are my random visited Blogs but I am surprize I cannot find ProBlogger and I would add this to Best Blog on the web too! Do let me know what you read and like in the comments and maybe, I can find more resources to list here.

Here are 25 Best Blogs 2009 as per the Time Magazine:

Talking Points Memo
The Huffington Post
Lifehacker
Metafilter
The Daily Dish by Andrew Sullivan
Freakonomics
BoingBoing
Got2BeGreen
Zen Habits
The Conscience of a Liberal: Paul Krugman
Crooks and Liars
Generación Y
Mashable
Slashfood
Official Google Blog
synthesis
bleat
/Film
Seth Godin's Blog
Deadspin: Sports News without Access, Favor, or Discretion
Dooce
Confessions of a Pioneer Woman
Said the Gramophone
Detention Slip
Bad Astronomy

You can find the 2008 Web Log Awards here. The Best Asian Blogs list Indiauncut and there's more over here.

Follow the winners and find your interests, learning curve and above all, keep informed. Btw, here's my Ed Blog and other blogs. Maybe, you'd like to follow them. Enjoy.

- ilaxi

Twitter Phishing strikes!!!

A big phishing attack hit Twitter users worldwide, forcing the micro-blogging service to advise its users to change their passwords. Phishers are now targeting the microblogging service Twitter to promote a widespread phishing campaign tricking celebrities and other users into submitting their personal information for identity theft and other illegal activities.

On 3rd Jan, it was noticed that many users got direct messages to follow a link but for me, it was a strange way to know Twitter phishing as I noticed the backgrounds of my site changed to Twitter profile background. On finding the source, it read:

http://s3.amazonaws.com/twitter_production/profile_background_images/3080822/tweetila.jpg
As I checked on this, it is a surprize as to how my Twitter image reached Amazon Developer site! I changed my Twitter bg and my site bg with twitter bg was gone!

http://s3.amazonaws.com/

http://s3.amazonaws.com/twitter_production/

On following Chris Pirillo's Tweet, I realised Twitter Phishing. Could this be a marketing gimmick of Amazon Simple storage service as found in my twitter image url? Or is Amazon (AWS) lack in security? How do they have the Twitter production RSS jpgs of twitter profiles?

All questions are confusing! Maybe the Blogger and Wordpress blogs have good security which is otherwise not in the case of Websites hosted by hosts! in the last 3 days, it is learnt, 33 high profile Twitter users had their accounts hacked. These accounts included President Elect Barack Obama, Rick Sanchez, Britney Spears and other high profile/celebrity Twitter users. And one is Mine! Maybe, these hi profile user list feature in list of http://s3.amazonaws.com/twitter_production/

Read more in Google News on Kidsfreesouls and even follow my twitter.

Twitter has advised all users to change passwords but here's a tip from me, Change your backgrounds too!!!

- ilaxi