Google has been toying around with it’s search results page layout for some time. They randomly serve these modified layouts to a small fraction of Google Search users and track various user patterns.

Below are screenshots of some of the layouts that Google has played around with :

The newest layout looks something like this -
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DNS stands for Domain Name System. Essentially, Domain Name System (DNS) translates domain names (host names) into actual ip addresses. So whenever you type an url in your browser, it first sends a request to the DNS of your ISP which resolves the hostname. If your ISP has a poor domain name system, then a website would take longer to load due to the time taken by your ISP’s DNS to resolve the domain name. This is where OpenDNS come into the picture.

OpenDNS claims to have a super fast Domain Management System, that reduces the time taken to resolve a domain name. I had come across OpenDNS a few months back, but didn’t bother checking it out, as I didn’t believe it would do any good. But, after reading a bunch of positive testimonials in Neowin I decided to give it a go. Instantly I noticed an increase in speed, which was too large to be placebo effect. Its was very noticeable in Opera, as Opera browser has the ability to redraw pages instantly.
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It’s that time of the year again when we pause for a moment and look back at that year bygone. The search engines have done their bit by releasing their list of hottest search terms of 2006. This time around these lists created a fair bit of controversy as several renowned bloggers alleged that these lists are nothing but carefully edited marketing tools. The controversy got so much attention that Google was forced to post an explanation on the Google Blog. I am still not convinced though (more on this later in the article)
Anyway, that aside Google Year-End Zeitgeist was as usual interesting to go through.
The Top Gainers list continues to be dominated by Web2.0 websites. While in 2005 only three out of the top 10 gainers (Myspace, Wikipedia and Orkut) were Web 2.0 sites, in 2006 their number is five (Bebo, myspace, metacafe, wikipedia and wiki). This shows that Web 2.0 is something which continues to fascinate people as well as mainstream media. “define:Web 2.0″ is second in the list of most popular defination searches while Ajax which is another term associated with Web 2.0 is at number 5. A lot of people also wanted to learn how to create a wiki or a blog or how to podcast.
The “what is” list on the other hand is dominated by various drugs. Two of them ‘Vicodin’ and “hydrocodone” have been made famous by the medical drama “House”, whose protagonist Dr.Gregory House is addicted to vicodin (brand name for Hydrocodone).
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Web 2.0 has truly become a craze, and I am sure that most of you would have heard about it. However very few are actually aware about what Web 2.0 really is!

This can be attributed to the fact that the definition of web 2.0 itself is very ambiguous.According to Wikipedia :

Web 2.0 generally refers to a second generation of services available on the World Wide Web that lets people collaborate, and share information online. In contrast to the first generation, Web 2.0 gives users an experience closer to desktop applications than the traditional static Web pages.

The concept of “Web 2.0″ began with a conference brainstorming session between O’Reilly and MediaLive International. O’Reilly’s website contains a detailed explanation about Web 2.0. Web 2.0 is a more dynamic and interactive World Wide Web.

One of the things that is often associated with Web 2.0 is AJAX. The web has evolved over the years. The bland and completely html based websites have made way for more sophisticated websites implementing various standards like Ajax, JavaScript and CSS. Ajax makes it possible to make websites more interactive. I have used Ajax in my blog for Displaying comments (to get a demonstration click on the View comments link in the main page.)

To make the meaning of Web 2.0 clear let us consider couple of examples

1. Digg Vs. Zdnet : Zdnet is a Web 1.0 website. It offers little interactivity. Only the Zdnet editors have control over what gets posted. Digg is a Web2.0 website. It is a technology news site. However what sets is apart is the fact that the content of the site is entirely managed by the members of the site ( anyone can become a member). All members can post news that they think is interesting. The news is posted in the Backyard. Now members Digg (or vote ) for a news. Once it received sufficient amount of votes it reaches the front page. So this offers much more interactivity.

2. Yahoo Vs Netvibes : Yahoo is an old-fashioned Web 1.0 start page or portal. It contains links to various services like Horoscopes, Entertainment etc. You are also presented with the news headlines. Again you have no control over the content of the page. On the other hand in a website like Netvibes it is you who decides the content of the page. You can add weather reports, News feeds you find interesting, search engine you want to use and so on. Thus, Netvibes is a Web2.0 website.

( Readers please note that this article was written before Yahoo unveiled it’s new interface. )
3. Encyclopedia Britannica Vs Wikipedia : This is another excellent example of Web 2.0 vs Web 1.0. Encyclopedia Britannica operates in the classical fashion. It has a group of experts, writers and editors who manage the content of the site. Where as Wikipedia is largely maintained by the community. Anyone can become a part of the community. Everyone can contribute to Wikipedia. While this has often led to the abuse of Wikipedia, it has it’s own advantages. In many matters Wikipedia’s converge is more than Britannica’s. For eg. Search for St. Patrick’s Higher Secondary School doesn’t throw up any valid results in Britannica, there is a stub on this subject in Wikipedia.

Many people associate Web 2.0 with rounded edges, XHTML validation, Firefox compatibility and so on. In my opinion these are just misconceptions. The hype surrounding Web 2.0 has clouded the real meaning of Web 2.0.Nowadays, anything trendy is being defined as Web 2.0. According to John C. Dvorak Web 2.0 is nothing but hype.
He says that :
Web 2.0 is a rallying point. Maybe cheerleading will make it happen! But what they are cheerleading for, a slew of vague and meaningless concepts shows that they have no clue about what they are doing.

He is certainly right when he says that Web2.0 is vague. In a way Web 2.0 is nothing new. No new technology is behind these sites. Even AJAX which has gained popularity only recently, was invented in 1998.However, the concept behind these sites is certainly new. These sites are changing the face of the web. And there is no denying it. I am pretty sure that Web 2.0 is here to stay. The popularity of sites like Digg, Slashdot, del.icio.us and Gmail prove that.
What do you say?
P.S. A huge list of Web 2.0 sites is available here

Yes.Though it sounds unbeliveable but it is true.Google is down currently.I cant open www.google.com currently.Not only that I am having trouble accesing Gmail as well.It is opening sometimes and sometimes it is giving an error.

This is the first time that I have ever seen google going down!

Edit:Everything seems to be working fine now .

Another new google subdomain has been found.It is base.google.com
According to Tony Ruscoe

“Google Base is Google’s latest project in an effort to organize the world’s information. It isn’t in Beta or Alpha yet. They are still developing it. I wasn’t able to get much information from my sources at Google, but I’ll tell you what they told me. Basically, Google Base will present feed results on the results page. The feeds will probably be anywhere from 1-3 results, and either presented above or below the horizontal sponsored ads.”

Read his post here

It was alive briefly,but Google quickly removed it.Here is the text that was on it

“Google Base is Google’s database into which you can add all types of content. We’ll host your content and make it searchable online for free.
Examples of items you can find in Google Base:
Description of your party planning service
Articles on current events from your website
Listing of your used car for sale
Database of protein structures
You can describe any item you post with attributes, which will help people find it when they search Google Base. In fact, based on the relevance of your items, they may also be included in the main Google search index and other Google products like Froogle and Google Local.”

You can view the screenshots here and here.

Update: Google responds.

It’s almost three months now since the announcement of Kahuna-the new interface for Msn/Hotmail.Finally I got an invite from Microsoft.With yahoo also announcing that they are going to update their interface and gmail’s continuous splurge in popularity Microsoft has some competition.Lets see how it fares.Here is a short graphical review of it(Click on the thumnails for full size images).

The welcome screen:
MSN Today

The Inbox
The new 3 pane inbox certainly looks a lot less cluttered now.But there is one major functionality issue for me.Suppose you want to trash some of the message.You have to do them one by one.They have removed the checkbox.

However a very handy addition is that you can drag and drop your messages.

Also Kahuna features a customized right click menu just like in Outlook.

Now you can create your own folders and group your messages.This is somewhat similar to Gmail’s idea of labeling emails.Microsoft has clearly taken a leaf out of Google’s book.Now you can search your emails in Kahuna too.


Hotmail is optimised for viewing at 1024×768 resolution.However even at that resolution a Kahuna cropped away the edges of some mails.

Microsoft claims that Kahuna would be able to alert you about suspicious phishing emails.It did correctly pick out one fake Paypal email that I had received.

Composing emails

Nothing special here.Standard rich text formatting options are available along with the familiar MSN Messenger smileys.Kahuna also looks up addresses from your buddy list and suggests it as you type.

Calendar

The calendar sports a neat and tidy look.You have the option of being alerted on via MSN Messenger, email as well as Mobile.

All in all I think it is definitely a major improvement.Microsoft says that it is going to provide you upto 2gb space.However I am not sure about the maximum attachement size.However I dont think that there is any limit on the total size of attachements.However Kahuna now supports Internet Explorer 6 more later.Hopefully in future it would add support for Firefox and Opera also.

In case you are interested in trying out Kahuna you can enroll yourself here

Yes.This is a shocker.Today when I updated my Anti-spam black list from b2evolution’s centralised list I was shocked to see download.com in the list!When I checked in b2evo’s official forum I found that download.com was reported by a min of 20 users for spamming!One of the forum members had received 4 hits from them in 5 seconds,and there was no link to his blog on download.com.You can find the discussion here

Download.com is already very popular and they get a huge number of hits everyday.It is beyond me why they would need to do this.One thing that comes to my mind is that may be it is a conspiracy.But again I dont see any reason why any one would be mad enough to do that.

What do you think?Anyway I have decided to remove download.com from my black list.