Sandeep Hegde

Lockerz – An Innovative Rewards Portal

// April 14th, 2010 // Comments // Cool Sites, Freebies, Making Money, Web

I recently signed up for an innovative rewards portal named as Lockerz.com I really loved this site, and the concept behind the site. Before I signed up I have almost ensured that it is not yet another scam. Here I go with the details about Lockerz :

Lockerz is an invitation-only website created to connect members through commerce, content and social networking. Once invited, you’ll be able to watch exclusive video, buy great products, discover new music, play games, and connect with friends. You’ll be able to do this all in one place, AND you’ll get rewarded for just doing the things you love. When you watch a video, play a game, or even log in, you’ll earn Pointz (or “PTZ”) Lockerz own form of currency. Turn around and redeem your PTZ for incredible merchandise, unique experiences and exclusive deals and sales.

Lockerz has partnered with thousands of the best brands and stores. Lockerz is offering you the latest and greatest in every category – electronics, designer gear, stylish accessories, sports equipment, and more. Members will soon be able to purchase digital assets such as music, videos, art, and decals.

How it works

You can earn Lockerz points in three ways:

1. Logging in each day.

2. Answering the question of the day.

3. Referring new members.

For example, in the four days only, I watched some 15 videos which yielded 2 points each.  All this for a grand total of 30pts!  What does this all mean? Well, I can already redeem many videos games such as GTA4, which is priced at 25pts!

Does Lockerz ship Internationally?

Yes. Keep in mind that you will be responsible for any incoming taxes or duties into your country if your country does not deem a free prize as a gift.

Is Lockerz.com a legitimate website?

As a testament to the legitimacy of Lockerz.com, its CEO, Kathy Savitt, used to be Vice President at Amazon.com and the CMO at American Eagle. Lockerz.com major financial contributors is Liberty Media, which owns a major part of Time Warner, which is the firm that supports Bodybuilding.com and QVC.

Currently, Lockerz is in beta and access is invitation only.

To get an invite:

1) Please subscribe to my blog!
I only get a certain number of invites per day, and want to focus on rewarding my loyal readers.

2) Follow me on Twitter.com/sandeephegde

3) Please send me an twit @sandeephegde. I’ll make sure to double check with my email subscription list to insure that you’ve subscribed to my blog.

IMPORTANT: If you submitted your email on the Official Lockerz.com website, you need to enter in a different email address here. Why? Because Lockerz will not let people invite you on the email you submitted to them.

IMPORTANT: Please check your Spam/Junk Folder because sometimes the Lockerz Invite is mistakenly put there.

As I have said Before I signed up I have almost ensured that it is not yet another scam. I believe this system will workout of many of you too. Let me know your views/comments on Lockerz.com

SMStweet – Tweet using SMS in India

// January 6th, 2010 // Comments // Cool Sites, Web

As you all know I’m a twitter freak, streaming my life live on twitter all the time! One of the craziest thing I do while reading others tweets is to check which twitter client are they using to post the tweets! With a huge number of twitter applications, I have been always curious to know about new and new apps. SMStweet.in is the latest addition to my favorite list of twitter applications. I have been so exited to post about SMStweet, that I’m splitting up the post into two parts. First one is the post you are reading right now and second will be posted soon, an interview with Mayank Sharma, the brain behind SMStweet.

What is smstweet?

SMStweet is a simple service that allows you to tweet using SMS in India.

No longer depend on your web browser or a twitter client. No need to install any software on your phone or use Internet on your phone. No need to pay premium rates to your network provider.

Just send an sms at normal rates to tweet your thoughts.

Getting Started :

• Registering your mobile to the service

You will need to register at smstweet before you can start tweeting. There are two ways in which you can register —  via SMS or Online(Using yout twitter account with OAuth )

Send an sms ‘REGISTER <twitter username> <twitter password>’to any of the following nos:

09220092200 (Mumbai)

09243000111 (Bangalore)

Or register online — Visit the site SMStweet.in and register using your twitter account

• Sending Tweets

Start tweeting by sending a message,‘TWT <your message>’ to any of the following nos:

09220092200 (Mumbai)

09243000111 (Bangalore)

Upon successful updation, you’ll be responded with the latest @mention of yours.

How much does it cost?

You pay nothing to use the service. However the nos used by smstweet belongs to Mumbai & Bangalore. If your phone nos belongs to these cities it costs the same as a local sms. However if you live outside of these cities — it costs the same as a national sms. Different providers have various schemes and packs which could make sending an sms cheaper or even free. For example Reliance charges 1p/sms.

How long does it take to post the tweet?

The time it takes to post your tweet depends on two factors. Mainly the time it takes for your sms to arrive at the nos of smstweet and then how fast our application can post your tweet. The second factor is an important one because Twitter does have it’s fail whale moments.

Behind the scenes

SMSTweets was an idea of Mayank before Airtel came and announced its SMS based Twitter support. This application uses SMSGupShup’s platform to receive and respond to users SMSes and Google App-Engine as the server to run.

Design of the site SMStweet.in was done by Rohit Arondekar who is motivated by simplicity in his designs. Rohit and Mayank happened to meet on Twitter

Stay tuned to this blog to know more about SMStweet with an interview with Mayank. Do not forget to Subscribe to my RSS Feeds and follow me on Twitter.

Twitter – What are you doing?

// January 5th, 2010 // Comments // Cool Sites, Web

Still wondering what Twitter is all about? Well,Twitter is a microblogging, social networking website which lets you write and read messages of up to 140 characters including all punctuations and spaces.

At Twitter, all you simply have to be doing is to keep answering the question: “WHAT IS HAPPENING?” .The messages, which can’t be more than 140 characters are known as TWEETS. Twitter works equally well from your desktop or mobile phone (m.twitter.com).

Before you get started, you can just try and go to search.twitter.com Then, in the search box, try searching for a company or a few key topics of your interest e.g “blogging” . Check through the result and this will help you get a sense of how you want to engage on Twitter.

So, How Do I Get Started?

To get started, just go to http://twitter.com/signup and click on the SIGN UP link. Signing up for an account takes just a few minutes. To help people recognize and trust your account, fill out your profile (http://twitter.com/account/settings) completely and even include a picture.

Once you complete your registration, you can start TWEETING and FOLLOWING people. To find good people to follow, go to search.twitter.com and type in keywords of your choice. In the search results, you will see list of people related to the keyword you searched for. When you find a good candidate, look under their picture for the FOLLOW button. Click on this and you will start receiving their tweets.

Following somebody means you have agreed to be receiving their tweets. People that follow you (i.e FOLLOWERS) will also be receiving any tweet you post on twitter.

So, What Can I Be Tweeting?

Your tweets, which cannot be more than 140 characters, might be anything which can be tips, links to interesting stuffs (news,article, blogposts, pictures, music downloads) etc People following you will also like it when you say hi, respond to their questions, comments, complaints and jokes.

Any Terms To Familiarize Myself With?

Yes, there are some terms you will need to familiarize yourself with for you to easily understand how twitter works. The major ones are highlighted below:

To FOLLOW somebody is to subscribe to their messages.

A TWEET is an individual message.

A DM or direct message is a private message on Twitter.

RT or RETWEET is to repost a message from somebody else on Twitter

TRENDING TOPICS are the most-discussed terms/topics on Twitter at any given moment.

@username is a public message to or about an individual on Twitter.

A hashtag – the # symbol followed by a term/word and included in tweets  – is a way categorizing all the posts on a topic.

Why Use Twitter?

You can use twitter to:

• To build relationships with people of similar interest with yours.
• To respond to comments and questions from your followers
• To ask questions and learn new things
• To post links to things people would find interesting
• To retweet messages you would like to share
• To respond to customer service issues quickly if you have a business
• To engage in discussion on a public issue or a social cause etc.
• There’s’ lots More…

I think I have provided sufficient information about tweeter. I suggest Stay tuned to my my updates on twitter and don’t forget to tweet this post ! As I have said people use twitter in their own styles, I would love to listen how you are using tweeter in the comment section below

Google Wave invite giveaway!

// October 31st, 2009 // Comments // Cool Sites, Tech, Web

If you haven’t heard of Google Wave yet — a) wake up! and b) Read this Post. And with that said, the goodies: SandeepHegde.me is giving away Google Wave invites. I’m going to start giving away invites whenever I have them to give away and today, to get the ball rolling, I’ve got 20 up for grabs! If things heat up, I’ll scrounge under the couch cushions until we find more!

Wave is just starting to pick up steam, with more gadgets and gizmos and robots appearing every day. With reports of Google Wave server federation (the ability for anyone to run a Wave server) coming soon, and the sandbox walls being torn down, now’s your chance to get in on the action.

‘But what can I do with a Wave invite?’
Here’s a quick run-down of why you should care about Google Wave — and why you should enter this giveaway.

• Impress everyone at work — Yes, imagine the faces of your coworkers as they glance over your shoulder and see you using Google Wave!
• Secure your Wave address — I don’t know if our Wave account will ultimately be tied into a Google Account, or if we’ll keep these [email protected] addresses. But if the latter’s the case, you’re going to want to register your name sooner, rather than later.
• Developers can get developing – If you have an idea of a gadget that would work well with Wave, or some kind of robot that hooks into another external service, now would be the time to work on it, ready for public release.
• Prepare yourself for the Wave revolution — this is the reason I’m using it. When Google finally opens the floodgates, I want to be one step ahead of everyone else. I want to be the master of the Blip, while you are struggling with your first Reply. I want to know all of the keyboard shortcuts so that I can leave my other Conversation partners in the dust!

So… do yourself a favor and take part in this giveaway! It’s very easy — just leave a comment below. I’ll throw everyone’s name into a box within a few days, and announce the winners soon after. Full terms follow [Updated on 1/10/2009 10.30am]

• To enter, leave a comment below. (Preferably with a brief description why do you think you are a right person for Google Wave Invitation)
• You may enter only once.
• You should be subscribed to SandeepHegde.me Click to Subscribe now !
• Blogging, Twitting and Spreading a word about this blog will provide extra weightage.
• Winners will be selected in a random drawing.
• Prize: A Google Wave invite.

Google Wave – Redefining communication and collaboration on the web

// August 15th, 2009 // Comments // Cool Sites, Tech, Web

Google Wave is a new tool for communication and collaboration on the web, coming later this year.

Here’s a preview of just some of the aspects of this new tool.

Google Wave Sneek Peek

What is a wave?

Communication & Collaboration

A wave is equal parts conversation and document. People can communicate and work together with richly formatted text, photos, videos, maps, and more.

A wave is shared. Any participant can reply anywhere in the message, edit the content and add participants at any point in the process. Then playback lets anyone rewind the wave to see who said what and when.

A wave is live. With live transmission as you type, participants on a wave can have faster conversations, see edits and interact with extensions in real-time.

Some key technologies in Google Wave

Real-time collaboration

Extending Google Wave

Natural language tools

Note : Google Wave is currently available by invite only. Get an Invite

BelgaumPages.com – Get your voice heard…

// August 13th, 2009 // Comments // Cool Sites, My Works, Web, Wordpress

Hey friends guess whats new this time….Well well i know what you are thinking,NEW RESTAURANT??,NEW MALL?? so that you can hang around with your friends?? Well…Its even better than that!Its belgaumpages.com.Now you must be thinking whats new about a website. Well i am 100% sure you will be logging on to belgaumpages.com even before you finish reading this article. So hurry!!

Belgaumpages is a networking site custom-made for the people of belgaum unlike any other. You can now get in touch with your old friends,relatives,classmates anyone from anywhere! Whats more,you can now form groups and have discussions on forums and explore belgaum like never before just sitting at home sweet home with your even sweeter computer. Me and my girlie friends are already rating hangouts and hep places to be seen in belgaum. Not your type? Well then you can voice your opinions and be heard on topics like power cuts,bad roads anything…thus making belgaum a poster city.

And for people who hate newspapers just like me;grab the latest news at belgaumpages just like i do.

Are you a die-hard facebook fan? Well,you can access belgaumpages from facebook too!!!

Not excited yet?

Let me drop the bomb,you  can have your own website with sub-domain for free!!!! No jhanjhat of learning  to work on wordpress, just log on to your website address http://yourname.belgaumpages.com and voice your opinions on everything under the sum.BE HEARD! DO THE IN THING NOW! I can see you already registering See you on belgaum pages!!

Article Credit : Shruti Patil

After an Month

// March 16th, 2009 // Comments // Cool Sites, My Activities

So friends PingSense.com has successfully completed an month on internet. So just thought of looking a way back.

It was my first attempt of serious Blogging and the most important thing I’m still serious about it!

Although I started with a general post, it moved to movies and departmental stuff. The post related to wordpress workshop had good keywords and got some traffic from Google. My post on Billu Barber got a traffic to the site . This made me to make a post on Delhi 6 too which still stands to to be highest viewed page on the site (2000+ counting on…)

Next comes the series of Lab Programs. I don’t know in which mood I posted the File Structure Lab programs for 6th Semester Information Science. File Structure Lab programs got listed first in Google & other search engines and hence I got a huge response from my fellow engineers. Thanks to our madam! People started mailing me for remaining programs and it went to extend that they even ask for programs in guest book ! The post remains the top discussed post on the site and made me to post lex and yaac programs and other academic stuff too. File Structure programs are too difficult and I may have to post once I get the remaining programs.

Next coming to the design of the site. The colour changed from orange to blue to external world. Internally I change the Personal Magazine theme to new design. Personal magazine had a simply look and lacked functionality. I could not even add widgets in it!

The new layout has two level of menus – one for custom pages and another for post categories. The top slider and feature post helps me to show attractive posts to the readers. Only a small portion of post gets listed up giving an option for more posts on homepage and giving the option to the reader goto the post of his choice. The site has become more user friendly what do you say?

Coming to the interaction with the user , I have added the Email subscription option powered by Google feedburner. This is allowing the readers to get the latest post right in their mailbox. Feedburner has got a good response with a lot of people subscribing daily. I have also added an code to display the feedburner statistics and the site statistics i.e the number of people reading the feeds and the number of people visiting and viewing the site. The comes the tabbed menu which has 3-d tag cloud and the articles which are most discussed and most popular.

Recently I have also added widgets from “Pluck”. The widget scans the content on my site and embeds the related articles from other site on the internet. The content is displayed withing my site and hence making the readers happy.

I have tried to optimize the site with ads but it is not generating any revenue. People now a days does not seem to click on ads. If the site does not generate any revenue through ads it may be difficult to pay my hosting charges next year. The site is getting a lot of visits and is consuming a lot of resources of my shared web hosting account. Keep praying that the service provider to be kind enough not to ban me for over usage of CPU and Memory usage.

Now comes the search engine optimization part. Being in the web industry for more than 3 years search engine optimization ( SEO ) was like an child’s play to me. The site started getting listed on the top of the search engines like google, yahoo, msn etc. Although the visits initially cam through search engines 25% were loyal enough to come back directly and i thank them all for their support. My search engine efforts were only for a week but still giving good results. The site has got a lot of back-links through many social bookmarking sites.

The site has got an seo score of 93% from “DomainTools.com”

Meanwhile site has reached an alexa ranking of 1,696,145 Globally, 125,973 for India and 913,344 for United States. I believe it is an achievement to reach such an ranking within one month time duration.

The site is valued to be worth $1372.4 till date by “WebsiteOutlook.com” and I’m embedding the real time valuation :

But its still a long way to go to get approved by direct ad agencies like “buy sell ads”.

In meanwhile it is making me to think the site is more of programs and academic stuff. So I’m making my mind to keep the academic stuff in limit and post on my areas of expertise. This post is a preface to the coming changes….

I welcome the suggestion and feedbacks .

WordPress Workshop :: Part 2

// February 28th, 2009 // Comments // Cool Sites, Engineering, My Activities, My Works, Software, Tech, Tools, Web

Here is an continuation of my last post WordPress Workshop -Part 1

WordPress Workshop

I think I had written a lot in my last post on the day 1 of wordpress workshop. After self analysis of our performance with first batch me and Snehal decided to have some changes for the second batch. I had explained a lot of extras for the first batch and had to cut it down for the second batch. Also we decided that Snehal and Sanket will handle some portions. And to take some snaps of the workshop which we had missed out yesterday

We were in time at browsing center. We started uninstalling the wamserver installed by the previous batch candidates. Gudi sir set up the projector for us and he was going to be the photographer for us !  Sohel was missing since he went to attend the hacking Contest at K.L.E. Engineering College, Belgaum. Although we expected a lot of people today, there was no crowd outside. Everyone came one by one in time.

K.K.T.  sir started with the introduction and later he went out since he had some work. The first part i.e introduction to websites, blogs, wordpress, hosting, domains etc was done by Snehal. She explained it slowly point by point, asking questions to participants to make the session interactive ( I had finished it just in 5 min yesterday!).  As we had decided to tell the hosting & domain setup at end , I started with WampServer Installation. Unlike yesterday I did not make use of ppt for this. Everything was live ! The installation step seemed to be very easy to everyone( WordPress rocks !). Then Sanket took over to explain how to post on wordpress and how to create categories etc. I came back to explain wordpress themes, plugins and widgets.

The participants were more active compared to yesterdays batch. They were trying to create themes with wordpress theme generator and use it while i was explaining itself. Many had created beautiful designs in no time ! Same was the case with plugins. they googled and got new plugins. But Plugins seemed to be complicated for them due to the diversity in nature of usage from one plugin to plugin. They had a lot of questions to ask unlike yesterdays batch. Since it was afternoon time they seemed to be hungry and wanted to out fast !

I explained only basic stuff cutting a lot of information. Since Snehal and Sanket explain some portions my work was reduced. It was almost 3.30pm and decided to conclude. K.K.T had finished his work and had returned to workshop to conclude it ! Thus making the end of the movie WordPress Worksop – Part 2

We have plan about WordPress Workshop – Part 3 on Monday… Keep awaiting for my next post…

WordPress Workshop :: Part 1

// February 27th, 2009 // Comments // Cool Sites, Engineering, My Activities, Tech, Tools, Web

Hello Everyone,

Today was one of the most wonderful day in my life. As I has posted earlier the Workshop on ” Blogging with WordPress” started today. This was the first workshop I have ever conducted. there was an huge response from the students of I.S.E., GIT we had to decide to organize workshop in batches. So we had divided the registrants into two batches. One batch for those who submitted the assignment work given by us and another batch for those who are lazy to complete the assignment but still wanted to learn wordpress !

The schedule was announced in class and displayed on notice board.

Batch A: Late submissions (First come First Serve Basis)
Day: Friday
Date: 27th Feb 2009
Time: 2.00pm – 5.00pm
Venue: Browsing Center, GIT.

Batch B: For students who have submitted the website designs on or before 25th Feb, 2009
Day: Saturday
Date: 28th Feb 2009
Timing: 12.30pm – 4.00pm
Venue: Browsing Center, GIT.

But everything didn’t go as per to our plans.  There was an hacking contest organize in K.L.E.Engineering college, Belgaum and many wanted to attend it. So they requested that they will be attending on friday itself and we could not deny for that. Secondly the C.S.E. Department woke up after an semester to conduct an I.T. Quiz clashing with our workshop. They had taken registration entries in last semester and organizing this semester that too by announcing it on the previous day.

The students from I.S.E were totally not interested in attending it and all of them prefer to attend our workshop. ( Even I had registered for quiz last semester !) Most of the students had come early as we had said that entries will on first com first serve basis creating an mob outside the browsing center. Everything would have went fine if our H.O.D. would have not interfered in between. They had called up from C.S. Department saying we have told the students to attend the workshop mandatorily by bunking the I.T. Quiz (???????) Our H.O.D’s concern was genuine as he wanted to have an good relationship with the C.S. Department. So he asked us to cancel the workshop and send the student to I.T. quiz !

We had taken a lot of efforts from a week to organize the workshop and offcource how can we cancel it just like that? Prof. Kiran.K.T. was in support of  us. We anyhow managed to convince our H.O.D. Math Sir that we shall not allow the students who have enrolled for I.T. quiz (except me !) to attend workshop and send them to auditorium for I.T. quiz. We ensured I.T. quiz registrants  that we shall conduct the workshop on some other day for them. they agreed upon and went. It was an different matter that most of they went to home instead and those who went for I.T. quiz had missed the preliminary round and coud not participate in that too !

The workshop was finally started  with the words of Prof. Kiran K.T. He introduce us and then i took over.  I started with the presentation I had prepared. I have embedded the same copy here :

WordPress Installation Guide

As you can see it is an self explanatory power point presentation with live screen shots on how to install wordpress. It starts with the basic fundas like website, blog, wordpress, uses of blog, web hosting, domain etc. The actual part starts with signing up free web hosting account at www.FreeHostCell.com. Then comes an overview on hosting control panel and creating database in your free hosting account. The there is details on transferring files to the web server using FileZilla FTP client.  After that comes the actual step by step installation of wordpress. The presentation also contains slides on getting an free co.c domain name. It has links to various resource websites.

But due to problems with internet connection in the college we proceeded with the installation on localhost using WampServer. We explained everything live on the projector and simultaneously the participants did it on their computers. We explained all the menu in the backend i.e the control panel of wordpress. it was be creating post, editing it, changing permalinks, using tags and what not. We also gave an insight of generating wordpress themes using a wordpress theme generator. We also explained how to use plugins and widgets to enhance the functionalities of wordpress. The candidates also got to know how to use google analytics on wordpress and basic search engine optimization.

The worskhop went on for 3 hours and I don’t know how I managed to speak continuously not even drinking a drop of water ( I got to know about it only after Snehal told about it ) Finally we explained the judgement criteria’s for the wordpress blog contest and showed some popular blogs. Finally Prof. Rodd and Prof. Kiran concluded the workshop.

Thanks to Snehal, Sanket, Sohel and others who have helped a lot make it a grand success.

All the participants were very happy as the workshop was good, above their expectation ( and our expectation too !) Many of them commented that I’m best suited for lecture post ! Snehal was asking me how I spoke for 3 hours continuously in a loud pitch without a break ( and I got to know about it only after the workshop was over). I was totally in  a different world for those 3 hours. We remembered that we had forgotten to take snapshots of the event late but luckily we have a chance to get them in the next batch !

Now  I’m awaiting for the second batch to be organized tomorrow. So await for my next post i.e WordPress WorkShop – Part 2

Re. WordPress Blogging Workshop/Contest

// February 19th, 2009 // Comments // Cool Sites, Engineering, My Activities, Tools, Web

We have got an overwhelming response for WordPress blogging workshop/contest I had written in my earlier post. There has been more than 125 registrations till date. I think probably first timewe are getting such an response in Department of Information Science & Engineering, GIT.  Thanks for all who have registered their names.

Due to this large turn-out we are giving an small assignment to registrants. This is to filter out people who just write their name and never participate actively.

The assignment is to :

• Choose an topic for your site

- You can make it your personal website or of any other topic of your interest like sports, movies e

• Get the content ready for your website

- This may be your intro on home page, your biodata or any other article you want to have on your website.

• Draw a rough layout of your website.

- This may be a block diagram with menus and features of the website

• Other

- Creativity has no limit. Submit your own stuff which others may not even thought of !

I wish to make this Workshop / Contest a huge Success and each student of Department of Information Science, GIt to have thier own Blog.

Please comment your suggestions and feedbacks.