About a week back I created a new feed that collates five of my feeds. This was done with the help of FeedBlendr. It is a good service, but there is a lot of room for improvement. The feed work but it seemed to give a problem with Feedburner.

I decided to give Yahoo! Pipes a shot as I originally intended to. The interface is easy to use but it doesn’t look at all welcoming. I haven’t let a single interface to this date benumb and I don’t intend to let Yahoo! Pipes be the first!

Got down to understanding how Yahoo! Pipes actually works and I was shocked to realize that it was actually really really easy to mix my feeds together!

All you need is a single Fetch module into which you feed in the locations of all your feeds. The output of this module is then sent to your Output module. You save and publish your pipe and you’re done!

I next got the RSS for the pipe and modified the Feedburner feed to point to this new RSS feed.

The result is a faster and possibly more reliable interface. Easy customization in case I wish to add or remove feeds. I’m sure I can do a lot more like limiting the number of articles and so on, but will take a bit more trial.

Have you tried out Yahoo! Pipes so far?

Yahoo! may own Del.icio.us however, that hasn’t stopped it from launching a fantastic update to Yahoo! Bookmarks.

If you compare that with the old version (which I didn’t know existed), you will understand how major the upgrade actually is!

They also have a comprehensive Flash Tutorial that will teach you how to use the new bookmarks interface.

I would think that with the upgraded Bookmark service, Yahoo! would go all out to promote it, however C|Net reports that users of Yahoo! My Web will soon be directed to Del.icio.us

If you intend to use Yahoo! Bookmarks do get the updated version of Yahoo! Toolbar which has integrated support for the same.

As for me, I’m sticking to Del.icio.us
The main reason being that I can easily integrate Del.icio.us bookmarks within my feed. So, if you have subscribed to my feed you can view some of the resources I’ve been finding online

Found via Techcrunch

Logged in yesterday to my Windows Live Mail account and was completely blown away.

Firstly, the interface loaded in a jiffy, which was a really good experience from my past experiences with Windows Live Mail.

Next, it had a whole new look. You now have several user selectable themes and colors available at the click of a button.

For those unaware, Windows Live Mail is the new revamped interface of the old Hotmail. It has an Ajax interface with complete drag and drop support for emails. It also intergrates Live Contacts, Calendar and MSN Spaces.

Messages can be read either by themselves or in a Reading Pane.

You also can choose a light version of the interface, though I don’t think it needed with this update.

Hotmail is my oldest email account, registered way back in 1998 and I will confess that I haven’t used the email features of the account much, as I have always preferred Yahoo! Mail.

However, MSN has been a primary chat client, besides Yahoo! and GTalk.

I actually started using Windows Live recently after the beta version of the Mail interface released. And this was a little frustrating because the design had a lot to be desired.

I may however, start using Live Mail more often given this update.

I have released v1.1 of the plugin to fix a minor bug that prevented the display of the widget in IE.

If you have downloaded v1.0, please upgrade to v1.1.

Sorry for the inconvenience.

Read more and download >>

The meebo me Plugin for WordPress lets you display your chat widget from meebo me. meebo me lets you chat with your site visitors using your Meebo account.

Key Features:

• Generate perfectly valid XHTML code
• Set Widget ID and Size from within WP-Admin

Read more and download >>

Meebo has already gained a lot of popularity among the masses for their amazing web based chat service that lets you simultaneously login to MSN, Yahoo, Jabber, Gmail, AIM and IRC networks and chat with your friends there.

Though I usually login to my respective messengers, I have been using their service quite extensively and am a very satisfied user of the same.

With the launch of MeeboMe, they now let visitors to your site chat with you live, if you are logged into Meebo. While this is not a new concept, this is usually a paid service offered by several companies.

I am not sure if I will make full utilization of MeeboMe, but I have generated a widget as you can see below. (you may not be able to see it if you are using a feed reader)

Have given it a test run and I am pleased with the results so far. I may just decide to make it permanent!

One good feature I noticed is it’s tracking of the visitor even across browsers (I assume using their IP Address ?)
I’m sure this may be considered by users to be a privacy related issue. I don’t think it should be that much of a worry, because a good number of stat scripts are already doing basic tracking.

Just wish that they generate XHTML Compliant code. Or maybe I should write a plugin for this? The meebo me Plugin for WordPress is now available for download.

I have signed up at their forum and am providing some suggestions for making it even better.

I had a #1 rank on Google for the keyword “Ajay” around December, which I lost around Jan.

However, was searching today and found my self on the top spot once again. This time I made sure I got a screenshot

One thing I did notice was that it has happened after I dropped the www from my address.

Is it just a co-incidence or … ?

I have always been #1 on Yahoo, so this screenshot is for memory

As for MSN, I’ve given up hope on that engine. It just won’t go through my site. And even resubmitting doesn’t help!

Following a link from Weblog Tools Collection, I landed up on Yahoo! Domains.

Have already picked up one and will see how easy it is to work with Yahoo! (since this isn’t my regular domain registrar) before I pick up the few.

If I am not mistaken, the offer is valid till end of October. And since this is one-third of the rate I purchase domains, I think I’m going to pick up a few more before then.

I’m just wondering that when the domain comes up for renewal will I be charged $2.99 or the then existing rate?

I have been checking my StatCounter Results to monitor the popular pages on my site as well as search keywords being used to reach here not to mention several other statistics.

Realized that people are searching for Ajay and landing up here (don’t know if it is for me).
So I decided to run a search for Ajay and was shocked to find my website topping the list when searching using Google India.
Have been number one on Yahoo! Search for quite a while now, but never on Google, so this kind of thrilled me even though its not Google.com.

Here are some search results for various keywords:

• Search for Ajay on Google India
• Search for Ajay on Google.com
• Search for Ajay on Yahoo!
• Search for Ajay on MSN
• Search for “Ajay D’Souza” on MSN
• Search for “Ajay D’Souza” on Google.com
• Search for “Ajay D’Souza” on Yahoo!

Also have noticed that the Alexa reports a high rise in my site traffic.

Well so, I’m getting popular. On the down side, my site is consuming more bandwidth. Well, since I got lot to spare, I am not complaining