How do you use Google? - Here is mine!

Google is going to celebrate its' 10th birthday soon (see: http://www.google.com/tenthbirthday/). And there is a section where it's asking - "How do you use Google?" to see user's fee



see the video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tNFf44pWuL8

Personally i felt describing my Google usage within 100 words is a big tough job. So i decided to post it in my Blog and i even thought of sharing this information for a long time .. So, here goes my post ...


1. www.Google.com
The giant Search engine for any type of information search. My best friend who replies with any search result even i type any slang words! :P

2. Gmail
My primary email account is Gmail. I love the labeling, filtering, accessing multiple POP3 accounts and love to read chain discussions under the same page using just a click of Expand / Collapse :) And interestingly it's giving me more spaces each day! Integrated Chat is there too! so do we need anything more? :P

3. Google Calender
A great online calender with addition of SMS feature which reminds me whenever and wherever i am. Till i am under a network i get my reminders on basis of my calender entries.

4. Google Documents
A great personal document repository where i can put and share documents or excel files with my other colleagues or team mates or friends..

5. Google Blogger
The great blogger service using which i am posting this post and my own thoughts and views or reviews .. I just love it!

6. Google Reader
Just awesome! I love it just like a blind lover! I subscribe all the RSS and Atom feeds using my Google Reader.

7. Google YouTube/Google Video
Great place for Tech Shows and Tutorials or entertaining videos! Can't think without these!

8. Google NoteBook
An online Notebook which is accessible for my personal use - I use this notebook using the google notebook firefox extension which is much more flexible and easier to use.

9. Google Desktop
Most usefull part is the use of Desktop Search! :)

10. Google Groups
We old friends do use a Google group where we share and discuss many things with our old friends.

11. Google Feedburner
Feedburner which is used for all of my Blogs i manage.

12. Google AdSense
Adsense integrated with all of my Blogger blogs.

13. Google Analytics
Google Analytics used for most of regular Blogs that i manage.

14. Google Picasa
Being a hobbyist Photographer i use Picasa for faster photo post processing.

15. Google Alerts
I customized some google alerts up on my requirements..


I have experience with Google Maps, Earth, Browser Sync and Orkut, though i don't really use them very often these days. And at last i am using Google Chrome too! :)

Windows Live Hotmail announcement

Once upon a time we, most of the internet users used to use Hotmail or Yahoo as our most popular free webmail service. Hotmail was really cool and Yahoo too with their Pop3 service. Then running after time to time, competing with each other Yahoo and Hotmail came with shorter storage facilities and made their POP3 services a paid service. Suddenly Gmail launched in the market and then kicked off the whole market of free webmail service with increasing peoples expectation getting 2GB Free inbox size with free POP3 facilities.

The email representation and browsing options in Gmail are getting day by day more user friendly with new options and better facilities. Personally i stopped using Hotmail cause it became more messy and most of the time i found it getting stuck in a moment without any specific reason. Even I found many people around me, are very much enjoying Gmail while Yahoo is getting bulky with a big fat tummy and Hotmail with a getting wider with their header banner to advertise their Windows Live (don't really understand what's the specific business plan in it's background).

Interestingly i found useless to rename Hotmail into MSN then again into Windows Live. Whatever! They knows what they really want to claim with all these service names and other messy features.

Here are some commercials on Windows Live Hotmail :
Windows Live Hotmail Video (part 1)


Windows Live Hotmail Video (part 2)


Windows Live Hotmail Video (part 3)


Windows Live Hotmail Video (part 4)


God knows what new messy inbox that Hotmail gonna gift us in a few up coming days.

"Coming soon! Even better, even faster." - are they claiming of a new a webmail service which is at least error free and at least loads the page without showing loading clocks even faster :P
The new announcement is not that impressive or eye catchy to me at all:
http://www.windowslive-hotmail.com/comingsoon/en-us/default.htm


Let's see what's coming up! :)

Google Chrome - Present and Future

It's really a sudden buzz on the whole internet world that Google released their own browser named Chrome (beta release) and which is quite stable and slick, not that bad like IE6 or IE7 ;) (from an end user point of view). Hope it will not show javascript errors like IE6 or IE7 does most frequent :) Thanks goes to Shajib and Zuberul, my colleagues who buzzed me today morning while i was deeply busy at my work.

From technical perspective after watching the googlebook on Chrome:
www.google.com/googlebooks/chrome/  - really liked this new idea of process oriented tabs.

Here is an official video on Google Chrome:


This is all that we can see at present. A beta release rocking the world with it's sudden presence. But what about the future? The giant information base of Google is getting larger day by day. Now saving your user/pass or your session or cookies under Google browser going to let Google know more about you and your personal information. Don't you think who once started shouting about the privacy issues will start shouting again against Google - thinking Google collecting more private user data?

I still have faith on Firefox - that it will not be getting killed so early for Chrome's presence. But I doubt about IE6, IE7 and IE8 to compete in this strong competing market of Chrome, Firefox 3, Safari 3.1 or with Opera (:p). Large repository of Firefox add-ons are still highly delicious to the end users. Where most of the Safari users are also looking for customized extension usage like Firefox. There are large number of people still using several Scripts in Firefox browsers. Firefox 3 release is already a well welcoming release in the market and secondly Chrome is a lightning buzz on the head! :)

Truly speaking Google is stealing my mind day by day :P Still there are more i need to test on Chrome! :)

Manage your Open Source Projects tackticly

A good guideline for managing Open Source Projects :)Though i was not able to go through the whole video. But I found it interesting and that's why i am sharing it to my readers so that you can watch it and even i can go through your comments from your own perspective!

How Open Source Projects Survive Poisonous People (And You Can Too)


source: Google Video

Software Tester @ Microsoft

Whatever you call a Software Tester, or Testing Engineer or a Software Design Engineer in Test - it's all the same and here is a video recently i found posted in MS's JobsBlog - "What’s it like to be a Tester at Microsoft?"

Video: A Cowboy Meets a Microsoft Tester?

Here are few more Links though those posts had been posted a long ago.. at least near about 3 years back - But i think those are real good practical examples for any fresh graduate or an undergraduate University student to choose their career in Software Testing.

3 Days in the Life of a SDET by Sara Ford
http://blogs.msdn.com/saraford/archive/2004/06/01/145819.aspx

Test Developers Are Real Developers by Steve Rowe
http://blogs.msdn.com/steverowe/archive/2004/03/26/96663.aspx

This video or examples was made on perspective of Microsoft. But it doesn't mean that the only heaven is in Microsoft. The Career could be even in some other software company and it's not defined yet that you couldn't be a father of another Microsoft or Google someday!
Who knows - what's there in You?!?! :)

Google Search Engine to protect automated request - but why me?

Today i was searching on "mysql data generator" tools using Google search. Suddenly after 1st or 2nd search result page i took more then 20min to click on 3rd page request by clicking the NEXT button in Google Search result page. And here i faced this screen for the 1st time - a page of 403 Forbidden message of Google - We're Sorry! . Even after entering the 1st CAPTCHA value it asked 2nd time to enter the CAPTCHA.



Did you faced this ever doing any Google search before? I need to reproduce this step manually. Not sure why my usual Google search appeared to be like an Automated Request as like as a Computer Virus or a Spyware Application or whatever it claimed? :) Really interesting!

And is it really the way Google gonna verify each and every search click using a CAPTCHA? :) I really love to search anything comes into my mind to search in Google rather using Live Search, Yahoo search or any other search engine. But is Google out of their Search Engine bandwidth? :)

May be i am missing any other important point here. Want to know - Why this verification is really important to Google? :) And what really made Google to identify me in this way? :)

Ajax Start Page as like as Google IG by Omar AL Zabir

Recently Omar Al Zabir published his Ajax Start Page as like as Google IG at http://www.dropthings.com.



Here you will get his Recent post from his Blog about how did he came up with this Ajax Start Page which is similar to Google IG. Enjoy reading his Post:

http://msmvps.com/blogs/omar/

Search Option within the Google Reader

Though i have noticed it for last 1 week. I couldn't get time to write and share about it yet. You will get a searching option at Top middle section of your Google Reader Page.

And here goes an article from Google Readers Blog on Search Option of Google Reader. Enjoy using and searching your feeds in your Google Reader :)

Google Browser Sync - Firefox Extension

Suddenly i was browsing on Google Labs and found Google Browser Sync - a Firefox Extension. Got interest to try it out. Here is a little overview on Google Browser Sync.



After clicking on the "browsersync.xpi" you will be redirected to Install the Firefox Extension from this Google Labs page. And after you are done installing the Browser will be restarted and will ask for your Google Account Information to Login and a Security PIN to choose for the 1st time ever you install in your any system.

Google Browser Sync for Firefox could save Cookies, Saved Passwords, Bookmarks, History, Tabs and Windows with 2 options - Store and Encrypt.



After configuring the Google Browser Sync of Firefox properly. If you close your Firefox browser and Restart again. Then you will face a prompt says whether you are interested to Restore the Last Session or not?
And if you chose to Restore the pages then those selective pages are restored with their saved sessions and appears as below:


Limitations:
Google Browser Sync has a limitation of Public Shared Computers. It was requested not to install in Publicly Shared Computers as it has no security of the User's Browsing History + Saved Sessions + Cookies + Security PIN and Google Account Information. Google Browser Sync has no option to back my Firefox Extensions. Easily accessible for anyone to check my private Security PIN for once and get my updates for ever :P


My Expectations:
Google Sync should have the option to change the User Login as like in Delicious Extension the User Login is changeable. Google Browser Sync should have the option to Sync the Firefox Extensions which is done by FEBE. Secure option to hide Security PIN.

Reading 600+ Feeds using Google Reader

Suddenly i noticed this Blog post in Google Reader's Blog which was posted in last June 22nd, 2007: Read it : "Doing the Shuffle"and enjoy the video below:



Keep rocking with Google Reader!

Blogger was Down approx. 2 Hours!

Yesterday night I saw a message like "Blogger and Blog*Spot are unavailable". Was interesting to me to find out the reason.. was it hacked?




Today after posting a post in my general blog i went home and at evening i got Blogger.com down! I have no idea why i got that Google Error 502.




It was more then 1 or 2 hours i saw Blogger.com down! Then it came back again.. and here comes my Post :p



I searched for the reasons and in Help Blog of Blogger i found this Status update as below:


source: help.blogger.com

Google Reader as My Daily Feed Reader

It's been long time i have been using Google Reader :) Now i really love it :) See the Google Reader Introduction video below.



Then here comes a screen shot of my Google Reader page. Lots of Feeds from different places. I don't need and not even forget to see the new updates from other sites /blogs/news :)
It's really easy and fantastic.


Whenever i am free and nothing to do.. then i can go through the old feeds and got an option to share them in a single page called Publicly Shared Items Page :)

Here it is: Tahmid Munaz's shared items (From My Google Reader)

Java based Web Application Testing

Today one of my friend emailed me asking a name of a community/group/forum - where he can get the Java based Web Application Testing information. So, here i am sharing a part of my reply:

Here are few communities where you can discuss on Software QA/Testing issues:

1. SQAtester,
2. SQABD and
3. SQAforums

JPGroup is an open community for Java knowledge base.


Here are few links i am sharing in cases helps you anyway.

http://grinder.sourceforge.net/

http://www.fiercedeveloper.com/story/momeunit-a-new-java-test-framework/2007-05-29

http://java-source.net/open-source/web-testing-tools

http://www.clabs.org/wtr/index.cgi?page=/WhatDistinguishesUs

http://community.java.net/java-ws-xml/

http://www.testdriven.com/modules/news/article.php?storyid=560

http://safsdev.sourceforge.net/doc/JBrowserTIE.htm

http://jtiger.org/

http://www.froglogic.com/


I could have been the right person for asking something,
but I'm not until there is Google.com :p

Never mind :) Feel free to ask :)
I would love to search.

[video] Google - The Best Place To Work

[Video] The power of Google - Master Plan

Enjoy this video!