Mary Jo Foley, in her blog All About Microsoft on ZDnet has an interesting video on Microsoft code names.

What is a codename?

Microsoft products start life as a project codename (e.g. Longhorn which later was launched as Vista).

Some Revelations

Let us take the Operation System Line up from Microsoft:

All of them have something in common, they are all skiing resorts in British Columbia.

Coming to the development tools:

All of the code names are islands!

You can find more info on codename on the video here.

Wikipedia has a comprehensive list of Microsoft Codenames for those interested.

Source: (here)

Popularity: 6% [?]

Based on a technology acquired by DeepMetrix in 2006, Microsoft is testing a new free website analytics tool, codenamed Gatineau. It is most likely a direct competitor to Google Analytics.

(Picture taken from Microsoft ‘Gatineau’ sneak peek)

Here is a video presentation from Ian Thomas (at OX2 Web Analytics Day Brussels, Sept 14, 2007) giving a sneak peak into Gatineau:

The tool will be closely tied with Microsoft AdCenter. Some of the supported features are:

• Demographics Data integration
• Performance tracking of AdCenter keywords
• Track multiple sites through a single interface
• Integration with Windows Live ID
• Permission based control on reports

You can register for tool here: http://gatineau.adcenter.microsoft.com/gatineau/index.aspx

I tried to register to use it but could not login (was always redirected back tot he login page). Probably it is still in beta, as the beta invite page is still available.

Gatineau Finally Revealed With Screenshots article shows you few screen shots from the tool.

We do not have enough details on the tool and would be able to comment more when we see the tool live, so let us wait.

Popularity: 6% [?]

Google India has launched a competition called the Product Prodigy Competition.  The competition is open to Computer Science students of select Engineering Colleges.

The theme of the product should be:

To organize the world’s information and to make it universally accessible and useful.

The objective is to provide an impetus for entrepreneurship in product engineering that will hopefully result in innovations that benefit the consumer in the sphere of internet and mobile services.

The team sizes can range from 2-5 students and they would prefer a faculty of the Computer Science department to be the guide.

The prize money is over Rs. 2,000,000.

You can download the registration form here. Hurry registration is only open till September.

This is a very good opportunity for students to show their talent and count on Google to promote their ideas.

Google has already help international competitions like the Google Summer of Code earlier, which brought students and open source project mentors together on exciting projects.

Popularity: 5% [?]

Poshd is a site dedicated to showcasing best of the real estate sites. The sites which break the mold and make the for an exciting real estate experience for everyone are the ones which qualify.

The main page features snippets of pages from the sites which are short listed and every month there is one site which is a featured site of the month (gets a banner at the top).

The users visiting the site can vote for the sites they like (voting uses AJAX, making it easy for anyone to vote)

If you feel you have a good site you can submit your site here. If your site is featured you can use the poshd badges on your site.

Popularity: 5% [?]

Yahoo’s open Hack Day is coming to Bangalore on the 5th and 6th of October 2007.

Here is what Yahoo has to say about the event:

We’ll be inviting 200 developers to attend the event, which will begin with hack-related presentations from some of the Web’s most respected developers. We’ll then dive into 24 hours of hacking on a very nice collection of tools, APIs, and data, and end with awards from the sponsors plus bragging rights until the end of eternity or the next Hack Day, whichever comes first.

Please head out to http://www.hackday.org/ for more details and to register.

Booking was easy but the site said the even will be held at Taj Residency Hotel and when you get the confirmation email it says the event will be held at Grand Ashok Hotel, Bangalore!

They have already hosted hack day at Sunnyvale and London before this, both very successful.

More details can be seen here:  Flickr group, and Facebook Group

Here guy sharing his experience on Sunnyvale hack day:

Popularity: 4% [?]

Want to know the demographics data for any web site? Just visit: http://adlab.msn.com/DPUI/DPUI.aspx and enter the URL of the web site.

Here are the demographics data (only Gender distribution) for some popular blogs:

• http://www.techcrunch.com : Male (0.62), Female (0.38)
• http://www.mashable.com: Male (0.60), Female(0.40)
• http://www.smashingmagazine.com: Male(0.61), Female(0.39)
• http://www.lifehacker.com/: Male(0.73), Female(0.27)
• http://www.engadget.com: Male(0.66), Female(0.34)
• http://www.boingboing.net: Male(0.56), Female(0.44)
• http://gizmodo.com: Male(0.75), Female(0.25)
• http://www.huffingtonpost.com: Male(0.51), Female(0.49)
• http://perezhilton.com: Male(0.27), Female(0.73)
• http://www.problogger.net: Male(0.61), Female(0.39)

From the list above one can see that perezhilton (a gossip blog) is very popular among women and general tech blogs are slightly inclined towards Male of the species.

Here is the result for http://www.technacular.com :

Popularity: 7% [?]

Links are the basis for ranking in search engines. But over the years Google and other search engines have tweaked their algorithms so devalue paid links and are continuously working on counting only links which are legitimate.

John Scott has a nice article on Link Building. You can read it here but the 10 tips to take from it are:

1. Buy links from websites which exercise editorial integrity.
2. Vary Your Anchor Text
3. Buy Non-Keyword Links
4. Avoid Site-wide Links
5. PageRank Zero Can Pass Link Weight
6. Avoid Automated Link Spamming
7. Image Links And ALT Text
8. A Link On A Page Is Not The Same As A Link On A Page
9. Do NOT Rent Links
10. Google Tells You Where To Get Links

If interested in link building, please also refer to the article: 131 (Legitimate) Link Building Strategies.

Popularity: 5% [?]

No need to visit Yahoo Shopping site for your social shopping needs. Now you can do it right from Facebook. Yes, Yahoo Shopping has been integrated into Facebook in the form of an application titled “Favorite Things“.

The app allows you to send virtual gifts to your friends, add to your favorites, monitor your friends favorite things, search for products, share products you like, and obviously see gifts send from your friends.

They should integrate the rating tool which they have on Yahoo Shopping inside this application. I am sure they will push more features into this as they go along enhancing it.

Popularity: 5% [?]