Google has introduced 30 themes for its customers on 19th Nov. The release was gradually rolled out to all the customers in the next two days (I got the themes today )

Gmail users (me included) have long been using other ways to spice up their Gmail interface using third party addons, but now with this new addition, we wont have to do that.

Here is a screenshot of all the themes:

To see the themes and chose one for yourself, go to Settings–>Themes

From Gmail blog

Suggested readings

• Google adds more kewl features to Gmail (2)
• The power of google… (7)

Paying post is a relatively new site on the lines of already many sites that are present which helps you do Paid posting. The site looks good and is a great platform for both advertisers and bloggers alive to make most of this amazing publicity medium of internet. While bloggers can make good money, advertisers get best deals for promoting their products. Many such services already exists which let you write sponsored review, so how is Payingpost different from all the others? Well, for one i think their quality of payout is good. You get paid well for your work.

Payingpost is brilliant as well useful in concept.After you sign up for Payingpost, you can earn money to write blog posts on your blog. You have the freedom to write what you want to write.

Once you sign up for blog marketing, you will have to install their script on your blog and you will be good to go.

You can then chose from “open opportunities” to see what are the available opportunities and select the topic that suits your writing style. If you write good,who knows some advertiser also picks you directly towrite for him via PayingPost Direct

You can earn as you write,what you like to write,when you like to write

Sign up for PayingPost now!

Democrat Barack Obama, the senator from Illinois has made history by becoming the first black president of United States Of America. He defeated his rival, the Republican John McCain by a convincing margin. The win signifies victory of the will of American people who showed up in huge numbers to vote for a “change”. The results also showed public rejection of Bush and his policies.

Obama who is just 44  years old will be the 44th president of US and will be sworn as the president in Januray 2009.

Suggested readings

• Obama wins democrat nomination, change the US believes in is happening (0)
• Presidental elections cancelled - no budget left after war efforts (2)
• I see dead people (1)

Do you want great eyeglasses for less? Then you need not look any further, because Variable Dimension Frames From Zenni are starting from as low as $8! Yeah thats right. Zenni optical provides you with the cheapest option to buy quality prescription eyeglasses for dirt cheap. Their proces are so less because they sell directly to the customers and no middlemen are involved.
Recently, Zenni Optical was on FOX news!

Indiblogger organised a Delhi Blogger Meet in CR Park Delhi on 8th Sep 2008 which was a saturday. I signed up for the event at their website and was veryeagerly waiting for the moment as this was going to be my first blogging meet after dwelling in the blogging world for almost one year.

On the day, i landed up on the venue half an hour earlier ( as asked by Renie, one of the event organiser) to lend a helping hand. I met a person while entering the building and came to know later that he owns a few (not completely) adult blogs. Anyway, we entered the hall and greeted 3-4 people standing there. We then also prepared a 1-2 minute long skit. In the meantime people kept pouring in and organisers kept waiting for few more to come so that we have a decent strength and can kick start the evening. In the meantime we kept interacting with the fellow bloggers. I met Anand, who is an avid reader and writes book reviews on his blog, i met Abhishek who also has a photo blog.
Finally the evening, which was slated to start at 5:00 PM, started at 5:45 PM by intro given by Indiblogger team. IBNMS guys also gave a short intro.We were also fortunate to view a video made by a Pune blogger for Pune Blogger Meet.It was very inspiring.

After that, we all had our 1 minute of fame in which we spoke about ourselves and our blogs. It was fun. People told interesting bits about their blogging expirience, how they started their journey, how long they have been blogging and also which blogs they read. One of the bloggers told he started blogging from a cyber cafe. It was fun and informative. Then we headed for Pizza session and mingled all the time while munching Pizza and sipping coke. I met a person frm my college, Abhinav aka Photoshopper. He has nice photoshopping skills and he designed me the current logo for this blog,free! As the attendance was low, there were more pizzas then bloggers so the organisers aksed us to help them finish the pizzas.Me and some others gladly accepted the offer.

Then came the discussion on ethical blogging. People spoke their minds on everything. I spoke about my expirience with paid blogging and how it changed my PR.

The event ended after it and people left with some promising voices to meet again in near future without the banner.
That was a great expirience. Ofcourse i enjoyed because it was my first blogger meet but also because it gave me a chance to interact with people in real life.

Suggested readings

• Michael Phelps when he was “too young” (0)
• How badly Australia and Ponting wanted 16th consecutive win. (1)
• 4 Indians in top 10 billionaires in Forbes’s list (1)
• Some great troubleshooting tips on very common errors in windows-by Vishal Gupta (0)
• Business loans (0)

If you think this is a great opprtunity, Register for an eBrochure Here.

WOW! I have never felt so much pride in being an Indian while writing a post. The feeling I have is shared by millions of Indians around the globe.

India’s maiden mission to the moon, Chandrayaan-I was launched successfully from Srijarikota today. The PSLV-C11 rocket was fired at exactly 0622 IST (0052 UTC).

Chandrayaan was blasted into space by highly reliable 4 stage PSLV-C11 rocket. The space craft carries 11 scientific instruments, 5 Indian and 6 foreign which will make a detailed 3D map of lunar surface as well as look for presence of water,minerals and a rare isotope Helium-3 which could be the answer to the ever increasing energy needs of our planet. It will make the most detailed maps of moon.

Soon after PSLV (Polar Satellite Launch vehicle) successfully placed Chandrayaan-I into the orbit around the earth, all the scientists who worked non-stop exulted in joy,thumping their chests with pride and congratulated each other. The whole nation was doing the same and salutes its true heroes. ISRO chief  G Madhavan Nair said “This is a historic moment for India. We’ve started our journey to the moon and and the first leg of the journey has gone remarkably well”.

Chandrayaan-I will take another 5 and a half days to reach the moon where it will orbit it for 2 years and send valuable data. It will also send a “Moon impactor” probe to the surface of the moon which will evaluate the surface of the moon. This probe is painted with Indian tri color, so if this probe reaches the surface safely, India will only be the fourth country to place their national flag on the lunar surface. Earlier US, Russia, Japan have achieved this feat. India has also joined US, China, japan, ESA, Russia in the list of countries/agencies capable of sending missions to moon.

Chandrayaan-I’s cost is $83 million, much more cost efficient than any other nation.

But even this appears sore to some eyes. There are a few negative arguements as well:

1. Some people are talking whether the space mission was at all required in a poverty ridden country like India where billions live below poverty line? For non-Indians giving this arguement, weell, you have half (not full because your reason does not purely sound a result of jealousy and you show your concern for the poor. What have you/your nation done to help the poor BTW) my middle finger as an answer. If you are an Indian thinking the same,read on the next para.

Well, first things first, it is because of Indian scientists we have been able to achieve this goal. Had it been in control of our politicians, rest assured, we would have gone no where. Agreed,that this mission was approved by government,but this mission could have been achieved much earlier also. Our scientists have the will power, skills and intelligence to power a challenging mission like this and beyond (manned missions). It is also true that our leaders have to heavily debate every project as India is a democracy. But, i doubt that if the space endeavours are cancelled, the money alloted to them will bring any good to the poor in the country.Thanks to our politicians.They are just too currupt and greedy.Heck most of the money alloted to MP’s and MLA’s for improving their constituency goes whoosh. Also, the project has long term advantages.It has exploration of Helium-3 as one of its objectives which could help India satisfy its energy needs in the future. If we had not started with Aryabhatta back in 1975, we would not have been where we stand today. If we had thought Aryabhatta will do us no good and lets get rid of poverty first, we would have been light years behind other countries. Because of those small initial steps, we today in space have an array of remote sensing,educational,communication and defense satellites. And those satellites paved way for discoveringing hidden resources, exploit them better. We today launch satellites commercially.We have to sow the seeds now to reap benefits from them tomorrow. Chandrayaan-I is today as Aryabhatta was in 1975, a small stepping stone to sucess for future missions.

2. Another question being raised is “Bah! This was done by US/USSR 50 years ago,so its not much of an achievement”.

Well,if you say this then you have my full middle finger as an answer. When India announced plans for Chandrayaan-I, people were questioning India’s capability altogether,if India is indeed capable of undertaking such technologically challenging missions? many eyes were suspicious. Now when we have done it, you say its not much of an achievement! Ever heard of “foot-in-mouth-disease”? Also if it is not much of an achievement, why only 5 countries were able to accomplish this before Chandrayaan?

Chandrayaan is not just a chest thumping issue for India as it was for US/USSR when they indulged in space race propelled by the cold war to put the first man on moon. Chandrayaan intends to make more detailed maps of moon. It will only benefit mankind,so why all these lame arguements. Chandrayaan-I has 6 international probe aboard,all included free of cost, so instead of reaping benefits from Chandrayaan why are we still raising eyebrows on a supposedly third world country for launching its moon mission? India has time and again proved that it is arriving at the global stage like never before. Why ignore it? What is the need for doing so?

One more question on a rather neutral tone possible is, why moon? Why not Mars?Or atleast a manned mission?

Well, you need to grow steady.  India so far had only launched satellites into the Earth’s orbit. We had not ventured beyond Earth’s orbit. So we had to fist make a stop at the next higher level before going further. Who says it would have been wise attempting a direct manned landing on moon in 2020 without a dress rehearsal?  You need to have an expirience,expertise for every level and Chandrayaan-I will provide that for Chandrayaan-II and other missions. US and USSR have already learnt it, but we still are learing it so that we can send our man using this expirience.

I was obviously glued to my television screen from the morning as you know i just could not have afford to miss it.But i was surprised on finding many people were just not bothered to check it and were sleeping at the launch time(it was 0620 local time you see).

Congrats to all the frontline personnels and those beind the scenes who worked so hard. Project incharge, M. Anadurai does not even have an air conditioned office, but he and other people have done every Indian proud. The nation salutes you all.

Here is a video of the launch in case you were not able to catch it LIVE.

Jai Hind

Suggested readings

• Chandrayaan-I : India’s flight into the space (6)

If you are not a guru yourself in the field of SEO in want to enhance your site to make it search engine friendly, LotusJump is an excellent place to start from. LotusJump is now here to help you to optimize your site and see your site climb up the positions in SERP.

You just need to go to the LotusJump Sign-Up, register with them and give the details of your site. Then depending on the details you gave, LotusJump will create SEO taks for you with detailed step-by-step instructions. When you complete the assigned tasks or jobs, you will see your site climbing up the search engine result page rankings. The more task you complete, better will be the ranking of your website.
LotusJump SEO Software is a great way to boost your site’s search engine rankings. Take advantage from it if you want to optimize your site hassle free and at a fraction of the cost of other marketing tools.