Tulalip: Microsoft’s “Secret” Social Networking Project?

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Few days back Microsoft “accidently” published a secret project named “Tulalip” which by it’s looks seems to be somekind of social networking site. FYI the word Tulalip is referred to a group of Native American peoples from western Washington state in the United States. Strange enough, Tulalip gives Facebook and Twitter log-in option and the tagline suggests it to be incorporated with Bing search (sounds like Google +1?). Here take a look at the pic:

The Tulalip project WAS accessible on socl.com, but now the website reads this:

Thanks for stopping by.

Socl.com is an internal design project from a team in Microsoft Research which was mistakenly published to the web.

We didn’t mean to, honest.

With the buzz generated by Google+ it is quite likely that Microsoft too wants a pie (bigger than what it has in Facebook :P) out of the Social Networking. Do express your views on the latest war on social networking and in the near future which one has the potential to take over the cyber world.

How to get the new Facebook chat with video calling

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Here is the response of Facebook to Google+. Skype integration into Facebook chat to provide video calling to users.  News was circulating that Facebook is about to launch something “awesome” and it comes exactly one week after the limited release of Google+. Facebook was missing the video call feature for a long time and Skype has a proven technology and experience. The integration seems to be a good add-on for Facebook. From another point of view it can also be seen as Microsoft’s rivalry with Google (Microsoft is the new owner of  Skype and a shareholder in Facebook). News apart, here is how you can get the latest video calling chat on Facebook:

  • Log in to your facebook account
  • Go to
  • Click on Get Started (Facebook can take you from here in steps but still I’ll write it), It will ask you to select a friend to video chat
  • Click on a friend, the chat window opens up
  • On the top of the chat window, there is the known video sign  , click it
  • It will ask you “Set up video calling?”
  • Click on Set Up
  • It will ask you to download a plugin exe file (on Windows)
  • Save the file, Run the file
  • Enjoy your video calling

If your friend does not have video calling installed on his/her computer you have an option of leaving a video message. Cool na?

Question, suggestions and a word of thanks is always welcome. Enjoy :)

How to invite other people/friends on Google+ (Google Plus)

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So you got the much awaited invitation of + (If not, click here) and you really enjoy exploring it. While you are enjoying it, your friends are up your “some part of body” :) to get the invite from you and you virtually have no clues how to do that. Here is what I suggest. Get all the E-Mail address (you want to invite on Google+) in your Gmail contacts. You can do the same with Facebook as well. Get all your Facebook contacts in CSV format. No clues what I am saying? Take a look here: Download contacts from Facebook.

Now when you have all the E-Mails in your Gmail contacts list you are ready to take off.

  • Login in to Google plus.
  • Go to circles
  • Click on Find and Invite
  • Click on More Actions drop down and choose Select All
  • Now when all are selected, drag and drop them into new circle

Now when all your contacts are in a circle (you might want to name this circle say My Group) you are ready to please you friends with the Google invite. All you have to do now is:

  • Go on your home page in Google+
  • In the stream box, which is written as Share what’s new (Similar to Facebook status), set your status
  • When you write something in there it gives an option of sharing it with the circles you have (in our case My Group)
  • It also says that EMail people not using Google+, tick yes there
  • Now when you click share, the people who are not on Google+ will be notified about it by E-Mail and from that email they can join Google+

I hope it helped you. As always, questions, suggestions and a word of thanks is welcomed.

How to download/export all the Email Addresses of your Facebook friends

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Though you can search and use some facebook apps like “export contacts” to get all the facebook contacts, these apps are less likely to work. Another way is to use to get all the contacts ( and are anti so they do not allow any interaction with each other and thus you cannot use the same trick in Gmail). Follow these simple steps:

  • Log-in to your Yahoo Mail account
  • Click on Contacts tab
  • On this page there is an option to import contacts, click on it
  • Now you can see options to import contacts from Facebook, Gmail, Hotmail and Others
  • Click on Facebook and allow Facebook to access your information
  • Thus you got all the Emails of your Facebook contacts
  • Now go back to Contacts tab and click on Actions drop down button
  • In there select Export All
  • Now you have all the contacts in CSV format

Hope it was helpful. Questions, suggestions and word of thanks is always welcomed.

How to get the new Gmail

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Google is on fire. Three major changes in a week. Something big has been planned. First it was Google+, then the new look of Google home page and now a complete new look of Gmail. This change was anticipated keeping the new look of in mind. With this, we can also expect some changes in the look of Google and Google . The new Gmail has a cleaner and more refined look. A snapshot of the new Gmail:

It looks more elegant (to some extent it looks like Hotmail, am I right?). I guess the new look blend more with Google+ and Google are making strides towards unifying the Google experience. Change is in the air. We cannot escape it, for sure. Though the new Gmail is not launched yet but you can still enjoy the new look of Gmail by enabling the preview theme.

How to get the new look:

  • Go in to your mail settings.
  • Click on the themes tab
  • Select the Preview (Dense) or Preview theme

Enjoy the new look of Gmail. Feedback, suggestions and questions are welcome.

[update] News: Strange behavior of Facebook No feeds No Side Bars

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While the cyber world abuzz with Google+ hype, Facebook is having some troubles. I can witness some strange behaviour of Facebook (Is it a worldwide outage?) at the present moment (Its 8:05 PM CET). These are the things which I notice currently:

  • Very few feeds 3-4 maximum
  • Hardly any Most Recent Feeds
  • I cannot see new notifications
  • Cannot go into the message box

In short Facebook is dead (for few moments :) ). I hope it will be back to normal soon.  You can have a look at my profile which looks so dull.

Do provide your view on it. Enjoy :)

Update:

Seems like it was a maintenance outage. Facebook is back to normal. :)

How to get Google+ invite (Google plus invite) [update]

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If you are still looking for Google Plus invite, visit this post: Get 150 Google Invites

The recent buzz in the industry is Google+, the candidate to compete with ‘The ‘ (Is Google trying to avenge the murder of by Facebook :P). Social Networking Sites have evolved to a great extent and are a good source of information which can help in personalising the web experience (Google always pressed for the web experience to be person oriented). With the recent spat between Facebook and Google (remember the malign campaign against Goggle by Facebook PR company?) it was quite evident that Google will have its own way and the Google+ indeed seems to be an apt answer to Facebook. Google started the project step by step with Google , Google and now its in penultimate stage. If you want to find out more about Google+, here is a link to the demo:

As of now Google+ is available only to a handful of users but soon they will start rolling down the invitations. If you want to request an invitation go to this link:

Did someone add you?:

If someone adds you to his/her circle, you might not get an email but you still CAN be able to join Google+. Go to and see if it gives you the option of joining Google+.

On Google+ but do not know how to invite friends from Facebook? Click Here.

Get a Google+ invite by subscribing to the blog:

So many people have requested for a Google+ invite but it is not possible for me to copy 300 mail address one by one and then invite them. An easier way is subscribe to this blog (This is not to promote my blog, once you get your invite you are free to unsubscribe from it). And then I can download the subscriber details in CSV format and add them to Google contacts and will invite them in bulk. I have just sent Google+ invite to 27 active subscriber of the blog. So if you want one, subscribe to the blog rather than adding a request in the comment box. Thank you.

Note:

I invite all the subscriber around 3 times a day. If you do not get the invite or not able to use the invite, its not because of me but Google. In any case, all the subscriber are invited in each round so there is no chance for anyone to be left behind. Like a good doctor I do my duty, the rest is in God’s (Google in the case) hand.

Update:

Google has blocked my Google+ profile for violating the terms and condition. I sent so many invitations that it irritated them. So much for my philanthropy work. It means I am no more allowed to send any invitation. I have created another profile to invite people but having trouble getting all my contacts on Google+.

People who earlier got Google+ invitation but were not allowed to join should check that old mail again and try again.

Special thanks to Mark, Steve, Mohamed, Jean Baez, Ахлам малак, Kriz for helping out people with G+ invites.

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[update] News: Google changed its search home page with black header bar

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The one thing which I noticed this morning was the a change in the looks of Google homepage. It has a black header from now onwards. This black bar can be seen by only a selected number of users (I am glad to be the among the “chosen ones”). The new look of Google homepage is rolled out with the much talked Google+. Apart from Google homepage, this black bar is visible in Gmail, Google Calendar, Google Docs, Picasa etc.  Chris Wiggins, Google’s digital creative director, quoted in his blog .

We’re working on a project to bring you a new and improved Google experience, and over the next few months, you’ll continue to see more updates to our look and feel.

He further added that it is an effort to provide a consistent experience irrespective of the Google product. Take a look at the screen shot:


My Reaction: It looks kinda distracting to me. Probably I am not used to it at present. It seems weird at the moment and equally annoying as the you tube with black screen or facebook pics with black background but (I hope) with time people will get used to it for sure. So be ready to face the change from Google as it is also bringing the much awaited Google social networking site Google+. Its raining change, Enjoy :)

Update:

Seems like Google has changed the decision of black bar in one day only (or are they still experimenting?). I do not see the black bar at the top instead it is replaced by a white bar and the there are some other changes in visuals as well. For eg.

  • The side bar at the search page (Which gives you option like everything, Images, Videos etc ) is now gray.
  • On the main page the link like advertisement, business solutions etc have been moved to the bottom of the page.
  • The Google Doodle is smaller in size now.
  • The Google Advanced Search Icon (with magnifying glass ) is now blue in color.

Take a look at the latest screenshots:

         

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How to use I’m feeling lucky with Google instant search

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I was surprised when one of my friend put his facebook status that we cannot use I’m feeling lucky button anymore as starts giving instant results and thus we cannot use it and it makes the I’m feeling lucky button useless. Well its not true (not entirely).

If you want to use it on instant search then when it starts giving the instant results just hover your mouse pointer over the results. Here at the right hand side you can see the option of I’m feeling lucky. The pic below makes it clear what I’m trying to say.

As suggested by Sirius Flosser, “you can also go through auto-completions with up/down-arrow keys and “feel lucky” with the right-arrow key”.

Go for it soon as Google is planning to scrap I’m feeling lucky option. Enjoy :)