JitNik's World

Muslims generally use the term "Halal" to designate food items that they are allowed to eat under the Islamic law (like fish). The opposite of "halal" is ‘haraam’, another Arabic term which is used for food products that Muslims are forbidden from eating (like pork).

This page describes in detail how stuff is classified as Halal or Haram according to Islam. And its not just about food, the term Halal can refer to any action that is permitted under the Quran while prohibited actions are known as "Haram".

A Search Engine for Muslims (and your Kids)

Extending the Halal and Haram concept to the Internet, Ramadan Kareem has created a search engine called I am Halal that might just prevent you (Muslims and Non-Muslims alike) from "accidentally" bumping into any explicit (or "Haram") content on the Internet.

Unlike Safe Search in Google which simply removes all adult sites from search results, I-Am-Halal, which uses search results from Yahoo, employs a double-layered filter.



When you type a search query (e.g. sex) that can potentially retrieve "haram" search results, the search engine would require you to confirm whether you really want to see those search results. When you say yes, it will fetch the relevant pages but will still filter out content that is not deemed as family-safe.

The search results page will also contain thumbnail images of web pages alongside the site links and description. And in addition to websites, you may also use IAmHalal.com to search for images and news stories on the web.

I am actually quite impressed with "I Am Halal" and, other than the religious side of things, this is something good for your kids as well. For instance, if they type a query that is bound to return explicit results, the search engine would simply refuse to work for that query.

http://www.imhalal.com/

If you took the first steps in a radical new technology only to be superseded by someone on the lines of mere reach and power, you’d want to win back that power. Way back when we were playing Pacman in our school labs Marc Andreesen saw a similar story written for him. He made his first browser ever – Mosaic, before heading to build the then famous Netscape Navigator only to see it get piped by Microsoft’s IE.

However, tech streams are now abuzz with reports of Andreesen, now an investor and startup adviser among many other things getting his hands behind a new browser. Andreessen is backing a startup called RockMelt, staffed with some of his close associates, that is building a new Internet browser. There are plenty of options availabe really if you want to go beyond the big four among browsers actually, but when the father of web browsing renews his interest in the field that he essentially created, you’d be interested very much.

The premise of this new adventure is the fact that browsers these days are essentially better versions of an existing skin, means they have not kept up with the changing web. And therefore, if one is creating a browser from scratch,t here would be a lot many things that would be done differently from what is conventional. In many ways Andreesen thinks Rockmelt is doing these different things.

According to Andreesen browsers don’t quite match up to the need of changing web habits influenced by sites like Twitter, Facebook, et al. He should know, he is after all ont he board of Facebook. Which brings us to the other aspect of the Rockmelt.

Readwriteweb claims it is the Facebook browser and offers a number of tidbits on that front. Though there has been no official word on it, it can very well be true and put the limelight squarely on Facebook. And that’s a huge move for a web publisher.




The implications on both counts are really high, on one hand there is a brilliant team developing what can perhaps change the way browsing happens and on the other Facebook can perhaps have towering presence among those fighting for extending their ubiquity on the web and beyond. A lot of questions then begin to find ground, and hopefully they will get answered when Rockmelt comes out of its stealth state.

SMS GupShup has been winning accolades for its superior messaging infrastructure and the capability shown by it in attracting user generated content. The site claims to have some 20+ million users and has earned respect for its business model despite bleeding severely in short-term by repeated interest shown by VC’s.

In a recent development SMS GupShup has announced its current tie-up to power the messaging platform on Facebook India, which would enable the use of its seamless infrastructure in messaging arena. This would certainly help Facebook users in India to truly experience mobility in interaction with the social network.

To Enable Facebook on their Mobile:

User can Visit www.facebook.com/mobile to activate mobile text features to receive and send updates.
Users can then update their status by sending a message to 92-FACEBOOK (9232232665).
Users can also reply to their friend’s messages by simply replying to the incoming SMS.


The availability of SMS feature was first launched for Tata Indicom users and now allows Non-Indicom users too. It would certainly proliferate the use of Facebook in India and it is also rumored that Facebook would soon be launching Indian office to derive separate focus on growth markets like India.

Microsoft recently launched online tools for Small and Medium Sized Businesses. The sales pitch - Online E-mail, Calendar, Collaboration, Productivity Software can Reduce IT-related Costs by Upto 10% to 50%. In a press release, Microsoft stated that all customers can log on to www.microsoft.com/india/onlineservices and experience the online service. The commercial launch is set to be on October 20009. Microsoft Online Services is a part of Microsoft software plus services strategy which provides flexibility and choice of accessing and using software on premise and on Internet as a service.

Mr. Sanjay Manchanda, Director, Microsoft Business Division said “Over 80 percent of the businesses in India are SMBs that are increasingly looking to use world class IT for better business productivity. With tools such as email and collaboration becoming increasingly a must-have in this segment, the pay-as-you-go affordability and freedom from IT administration, Microsoft Online Services offers the much needed respite from financial and logistical hurdles. We encourage businesses to make the best of the free trial opportunity we are launching – and experience the powerful impact of Microsoft Online Services.” The list of products is here.

Through this, Microsoft’s strategy is seen as embracing cloud and promoting its Azure platform. Microsoft seems to be going cloud in a big way, with it also launching Office Live (possible competition to Google Docs). However, Office Live, as commented in this article holds little promise for Medium and Large based customer services and contains several hidden costs.

Right from its multi million dollar launch advertising budget to its controversial/edgy name, Bing has been making quite a bit of noise on the web. In fact it is really pushing the envelope on a lot of aspects of web search, including monetization. Therefore, it wouldn’t be unfair to suggest that Bing in its own small way is beginning to have an impact on online search and access. Enough anyway to question whether it will have an impact on webmaster and SEO best practices.

The first and foremost reason why we need to consider this question is obviously traffic. Since its launch Bing has been gaining traction as a source of traffic for a variety of websites. Especially in the niches that it promotes its decision engine e.g. shopping, travel, health etc.

Once this obvious point is done with the real reasons of why it might have a bearing on site optimization comes through. It’s different approach to presenting content in the search result through categorization. Bing’s selling point at least the one that they blow their trumpet time and again is that it is a decision engine. Which makes the contextual relevance required in a search result far higher than say a Google’s SERP.

For instance, it is far important for an e-commerce site to be on the top searches in the shopping category than the all results one.

The whitepaper that MSN has for Webmasters clearing things out for SEO though doesn’t touch up on this aspect. It simply suggests that the bot and crawling it did as MSN search has not been changed much, and most SEO best practices remain the same for better indexing in Bing. However, like many in the field of optimization point out, this is just a list of on site or on page work while the impact of optimizing for Bing might probably lie outside of it.