Google Plus or Facebook ?

If you are a regular reader of this blog then you are well aware of my antipathy when it comes to Facebook. However, I have been considering joining Google Plus. For the last month I have been reading all I could find on both so I had some information upon which to make an informed decision. Below are excerpts from some articles I would like to share. What I’m looking for now is feedback from those readers who do have a Google Plus account.

With 800 million users, Facebook is where the action is.  The recent F8 upgrade means Facebook will collect and share a lot more information about its users, whether they like it or not. But by opening membership to everybody, Google+ not even a 10th of Facebook’s 800 million is getting the most important upgrade of all: a lot more members. Social one-upmanship

New data from Experian Hitwise suggests that Google+ has exploded since Google decided to open the social network to the public. … Last week, Google began allowing users to join Google+ without an invite. Google+ still seems to be dominated by what they describe as “influencers” and “early adopters.”
Google+ Traffic Grows 1269% After Ditching Invitations | WebProNews.

One major difference between Facebook’s set up  and Google Plus is the circle system. Google Plus divides your associates into circles (friends, acquaintances,family, etc.). You can customize what’s on your front page based on these circles and you can customize who sees what you post.

ccording to an article in the Daily Mail, the website’s practices were exposed by Australian technology blogger Nick Cubrilovic, and Facebook claims the issue has since been fixed.  So after the last round of updates in response to Google Plus going public Facebook now allows you to customize who sees what you post. Facebook Privacy? Really?

The fast-paced development of Google+ has become a force to be reckoned with. Social media marketers and community managers will undoubtedly feel the pressure to keep up. In this post are 20 tips and resources to help you keep learning about Google+and ways to enhance your user experience. 20 Ways to Master Google+ – Summify.

Did you know that you can add a Google Plus tab to your Facebook page? Those of you that already have a Google+ page, and would like to link it to your Facebook page, this is just another way to keep everything neat, organized & all in one spot on Facebook. How to Add a Google Plus Tab to Your Facebook Page

Thanks +Matt Mastracci, a Google+ user who has been looking closely at the social network’s source code, we are now able to predict with some evidence whats coming next to Google+. 5 Major Upcoming Features Discovered Within The Google+ Source Code

1. photos from posts;
2. photos from Messenger;
3. new profile privacy presets;
4. Google+/Google Voice integration;
5. Google Experts.

Internet Censorship Comman Tasks

Internet censorship is control or suppression of the publishing or accessing of information on the Internet. The legal issues are similar to offline censorship.
One difference is that national borders are more permeable online: residents of a country that bans certain information can find it on websites hosted outside the country. A government can try to prevent its citizens from viewing these even if it has no control over the websites themselves. Filtering can be based on a blacklist or be dynamic. In the case of a blacklist, that list is usually not published. The list may be produced manually or automatically.
Unless the government has total control over all Internet-connected computers, such as in North Korea, total censorship of information on the Internet is very difficult (or impossible) to achieve due to the underlying distributed technology of the Internet. Pseudonymity and data havens (such as Freenet) allow unconditional free speech, as the technology guarantees that material cannot be removed and the author of any information is impossible to link to a physical identity or organization.
In some cases, Internet censorship may involve deceit. In such cases the censoring authority may block content while leading the public to believe that censorship has not been applied. This may be done by having the ISP provide a fake "Not Found" error message upon the request of an Internet page that is actually found but blocked (see 404 error for details).
In November 2007, "Father of the Internet" Vint Cerf stated that he sees control of the Internet failing due to private ownership. Many Internet experts use the term "splinternet" to describe some of the effects of national firewalls. The verb "rivercrab" colloquially refers to censorship of the Internet, particularly in Asia.

Internet Censorship Ratings by Countries

 

  No censorship

  Some censorship

  Country under surveillance from Reporters Without Borders

  Most heavily censored nations

  The level of censorship in Tunisia has changed since Zine El Abidine Ben Ali's government was overthrown on 14 January 2011.

Technical censorship

Some commonly used methods for (partial) censoring content are:

• IP blocking. Access to a certain IP address is denied. If the target Web site is hosted in a shared hosting server, all websites on the same server will be blocked. This affects IP-based protocols such as HTTP, FTP and POP. A typical circumvention method is to find proxies that have access to the target websites, but proxies may be jammed or blocked, and some Web sites, such as Wikipedia (when editing), also block proxies. Some large websites like Google have allocated additional IP addresses to circumvent the block, but later the block was extended to cover the new IPs.
• DNS filtering and redirection. Don't resolve domain names, or return incorrect IP addresses. This affects all IP-based protocols such as HTTP, FTP and POP. A typical circumvention method is to find a Alternative DNS root that resolves domain names correctly, but domain name servers are subject to blockage as well, especially IP blocking. Another workaround is to bypass DNS if the IP address is obtainable from other sources and is not blocked. Examples are modifying the Hosts file or typing the IP address instead of the domain name in a Web browser.
• Uniform Resource Locator (URL) filtering. Scan the requested URL string for target keywords regardless of the domain name specified in the URL. This affects the HTTP protocol. Typical circumvention methods are to use escaped characters in the URL, or to use encrypted protocols such as VPN and TLS/SSL.^[5]
• Packet filtering. Terminate TCP packet transmissions when a certain number of controversial keywords are detected. This affects all TCP-based protocols such as HTTP, FTP and POP, but Search engine results pages are more likely to be censored. Typical circumvention methods are to use encrypted connections - such as VPN and TLS/SSL - to escape the HTML content, or by reducing the TCP/IP stack's MTU/MSS to reduce the amount of text contained in a given packet.
• Connection reset. If a previous TCP connection is blocked by the filter, future connection attempts from both sides will also be blocked for up to 30 minutes. Depending on the location of the block, other users or websites may also be blocked if the communication is routed to the location of the block. A circumvention method is to ignore the reset packet sent by the firewall.
• Reverse surveillance. Computers accessing certain websites including Google are automatically exposed to reverse scanning from the ISP in an apparent attempt to extract further information from the "offending" system.

One of the most popular filtering software programmes is SmartFilter, owned by Secure Computing in California, which has recently been bought by McAfee. SmartFilter has been used by Tunisia, Saudi Arabia and Sudan, as well as in the US and the UK.

Full block

A technically simpler method of internet censorship is to completely cut off all routers, either by software or by hardware (turning off machines, pulling out cables). This appears to have been the case on 27/28 January 2011 during the 2011 Egyptian protests, in what has been widely described as an "unprecedented" internet block. About 3500 Border Gateway Protocol (BGP) routes to Egyptian networks were shut down from about 22:10 to 22:35 UTC 27 January. This full block was implemented without cutting off major intercontinental fibre-optic links, with Renesys stating on 27 January, "Critical European-Asian fiber-optic routes through Egypt appear to be unaffected for now."

Commonly targeted websites

• Pornographic and fetishism websites.
• Pedophile-related and other websites considered highly objectionable (see also CIRCAMP)
• Media sharing website (e.g. Flickr and YouTube)
• Social networks (e.g. Facebook, MySpace and Twitter)
• Wikipedia
• Wikileaks
• Political blogs
• Nazi and similar websites — particularly in France and Germany
• Religious websites
• Erowid
• Filesharing and P2P-related websites
• Google - particularly in mainland China and Cuba
• Censorship-circumvention websites
• Foreign websites
• 4chan

PAYPAL

What is PayPal ?
 
PayPal is an e-commerce business allowing payments and money transfers to be made through the Internet. Online money transfers serve as electronic alternatives to traditional paper methods such as checks and money orders.
A PayPal account can be funded with an electronic debit from a bank account or by a credit card. The recipient of a PayPal transfer can either request a check from PayPal, establish their own PayPal deposit account or request a transfer to their bank account.
PayPal performs payment processing for online vendors, auction sites, and other commercial users, for which it charges a fee. It may also charge a fee for receiving money, proportional to the amount received. The fees depend on the currency used, the payment option used, the country of the sender, the country of the recipient, the amount sent and the recipient's account type.^[2] In addition, eBay purchases made by credit card through PayPal may incur extra fees if the buyer and seller use different currencies.
On October 3, 2002, PayPal became a wholly owned subsidiary of eBay.^[3] Its corporate headquarters are in San Jose, California, United States at eBay's North First Street satellite office campus. The company also has significant operations in Omaha, Nebraska; Scottsdale, Arizona; and Austin, Texas in the U.S., Chennai, Dublin, Kleinmachnow (near Berlin) and Tel-Aviv. As of July 2007, across Europe, PayPal also operates as a Luxembourg-based bank.
On March 17, 2010, PayPal entered into an agreement with China UnionPay (CUP), China's bankcard association, to allow Chinese consumers to use PayPal to shop online.^{[citation needed]} PayPal is planning to expand its workforce in Asia to 2,000 by the end of the year 2010.^{[4][5][dated info]}
Between December 4–9, 2010, PayPal services were disrupted due to denial-of-service attacks organized by Anonymous in retaliation for PayPal's decision to freeze the account of WikiLeaks citing terms of use violations over the publication of leaked US diplomatic cables.

Local restrictions

 China

In China PayPal offers two kinds of accounts:

• PayPal.com accounts, for sending and receiving money to/from other PayPal.com accounts. All non-Chinese accounts are PayPal.com accounts, so these accounts may be used to send money internationally.
• PayPal.cn accounts, for sending and receiving money to and from other PayPal.cn accounts.

It is impossible to send money between PayPal.cn accounts and PayPal.com accounts, so PayPal.cn accounts are effectively unable to make international payments. For PayPal.cn, the only supported currency is the renminbi.

Japan

In late March 2010, new Japanese banking regulations forced PayPal Japan to suspend the ability of personal account holders registered in Japan from sending or receiving money between individuals and as a result are now subject to PayPal's business fees on all transactions.

Taiwan

As of mid July 2010, users in Taiwan have noticed that the "Personal" tab for sending money has been omitted without notice. There is no longer an option to send personal payments, thus forcing all recipients to pay a fee.^{[citation needed]}

Brazil

As of mid-November 2010, users in Brazil also have noticed that the "Personal" tab for sending money has been omitted without notice. There is no longer an option to send personal payments, thus forcing all recipients to pay a fee. Balance transfers between PayPal accounts of the same account holder incur an additional 6.4% fee.

As of beginning January 2011, Brazilian users are no longer allowed to withdraw money using credit/debit cards.

India

As of March 2011, PayPal made changes to the User Agreement for Indian users to comply with Reserve Bank of India regulations . Notable changes to the agreement were:

• Export related payments for goods and services may not exceed $500.
• Any balance or future payments must not be used to buy goods or services but transferred to a bank account within 7 days from the receipt of payment.

Security

A credit-card sized alternative to the keychain security token, the PayPal Keycard generates a temporary login code to authenticate the user.

Security key

In early 2006, PayPal introduced an optional security key as an additional precaution against fraud. A user account tied to a security key has a modified login process: the account holder enters their login ID and password, as normal, but is then prompted to press the button on the security key and enter the six-digit number generated by it. For convenience, the user may append the six-digit to their password in the login screen. This way they are not prompted for it on another page. Using this method is required for some services, such as when using PayPal through the eBay application on iPhone.
This two-factor authentication is intended to make account compromise by a malicious third party without access to the physical security key difficult, although it does not prevent so-called Man in the Browser (MITB) attacks. However, the user (or malicious third party) can alternatively authenticate by providing the credit card or bank account number listed on their account. Thus, the PayPal's implementation does not offer the security of true two-factor authentication.
The key currently costs US$5.00 for all users with no ongoing fees. The option of using a security key with one's account is currently available only to users registered in Australia, Germany, Canada, the United Kingdom and the United States.

Google payment's through EFT is not available in India

Is EFT available in my country?

Electronic funds transfer is available in the following countries:

Australia	Australian Dollar
Austria	Euro
Belgium	Euro
Canada	Canadian Dollar
Czech Republic	Koruna
Denmark	Krone
Finland	Euro
France	Euro
Germany	Euro
Greece	Euro
Hong Kong	Hong Kong Dollar
Hungary	Forint
Ireland	Euro
Israel	Shekel
Italy	Euro
Japan	Yen
Mexico	Peso
Netherlands	Euro
New Zealand	New Zealand Dollar
Norway	Krone
Poland	Zloty
Portugal	Euro
Slovakia	Euro
Spain	Euro
Sweden	Krona
Switzerland	Franc
Turkey	Lira
United States	United States Dollar
United Kingdom	British Pound

BASIC NEEDS FOR CREATING A WEBSITE

What are the web development software's and web designing languages ?

Web Development can be split into many areas and a typical and basic web development hierarchy might consist of:

Client Side Coding

• Ajax Asynchronous JavaScript provides new methods of using JavaScript, and other languages to improve the user experience.
• Flash Adobe Flash Player is an ubiquitous browser plugin ready for RIAs. Flex 2 is also deployed to the Flash Player (version 9+).
• JavaScript Formally called ECMAScript, JavaScript is a ubiquitous client side platform for creating and delivering rich Web applications that can also run across a wide variety of devices.
• Microsoft Silverlight Microsoft's browser plugin that enables animation, vector graphics and high-definition video playback, programmed using XAML and .NET programming languages.
• REAL Studio Web Edition is a rapid application development environment for the web. The language is object oriented and is similar to both VB and Java. Applications are uniquely compiled to binary code.
• HTML5 and CSS3 Latest HTML proposed standard combined with the latest proposed standard for CSS natively supports much of the client-side functionality provided by other frameworks such as Flash and Silverlight

 Server Side Coding

• ASP (Microsoft proprietary)
• CSP, Server-Side ANSI C
• ColdFusion (Adobe proprietary, formerly Macromedia, formerly Allaire)
• CGI and/or Perl (open source)
• Groovy (programming language) Grails (framework)
• Java, e.g. Java EE or WebObjects
• Lotus Domino
• PHP (open source)
• Python, e.g. Django (web framework) (open source)
• REAL Studio Web Edition
• Ruby, e.g. Ruby on Rails (open source)
• Smalltalk e.g. Seaside, AIDA/Web
• SSJS Server-Side JavaScript, e.g. Aptana Jaxer, Mozilla Rhino
• Websphere (IBM proprietary)
• .NET (Microsoft proprietary)

Client Side + Server Side

• Google Web Toolkit provides tools to create and maintain complex JavaScript front-end applications in Java.
• Pyjamas is a tool and framework for developing Ajax applications and Rich Internet Applications in python.
• Tersus is a platform for the development of rich web applications by visually defining user interface, client side behavior and server side processing. (open source)

 Database Technology

• Apache Derby
• DB2 (IBM proprietary)
• Firebird
• Microsoft SQL Server
• MySQL
• Oracle
• PostgreSQL
• SQLite
• Sybase

Web design is a broad term used to encompass the way that content (usually hypertext or hypermedia) is delivered to an end-user through the World Wide Web, using a web browser or other web-enabled software is displayed. The intent of web design is to create a website—a collection of online content including documents and applications that reside on a web server/servers. A website may include text, images, sounds and other content, and may be interactive.

This definition separates web design from web programming, emphasizing the functional features of a web site, as well as positioning web design as a kind of graphic design.^[1] The process of designing web pages, web sites, web applications or multimedia for the Web may utilize multiple disciplines, such as animation, authoring, communication design, corporate identity, graphic design, human-computer interaction, information architecture, interaction design, marketing, photography, search engine optimization and typography.

• Markup languages (such as HTML, XHTML and XML)
• Style sheet languages (such as CSS and XSL)
• Client-side scripting (such as JavaScript)
• Server-side scripting (such as PHP and ASP)
• Database technologies (such as MySQL and PostgreSQL)
• Multimedia technologies (such as Flash and Silverlight)

Calculate duration between two dates with time

This service calculates the duration, counting the number of years, months, days, hours, minutes and seconds between two moments in time. If you only need the day count, without hours/minutes/seconds fields, please see the Date duration calculator instead.CLICK HERE FOR TIME BETWEEN TWO MOMENTS