Government Requests is  a tool from Google that reveals what different governments across the Globe are asking them to reveal. These are categorized into two – Data Requests and Removal Requests. Data Requests include requests for information about Google users and products and Removal Requests include requests for removal of content from Google search results.

The data is based on the number of requests received between July 1, 2009 and December 31, 2009. Brazil tops the list with 3663 data requests and 291 removal requests. India is in 4th position in Data Requests with 1061 requests and 3rd in removal requests with 142 requests.

In the FAQ section it says – “We are working on a separate tool to show you when Google services have been blocked by governments or government agencies” .

You can view India’s profile on Open Net Initiative here.

• This works with Mozilla Firefox only.
• Install Greasemonkey add-on for Firefox (if you haven’t)
• Install the remove Orkut ads script

Why Orkut is showing ads ?

The Official Orkut blog explains that in this post as

One of the great things about social networks is their ability to supply you with information that’s relevant to you….On the Orkut team, we believe that advertisements should be no different

So the Orkut team thinks that these ads may provide additional information relevant to you.

But that might not be the only reason. There were rumors that Google might be shutting down Orkut. Running Orkut is a very expensive task for Google and they might want to earn at least some part of the expenses through these ads.

In fact they have created a micro site for advertising on Orkut that says Orkut is the best way to reach Indians online.

1. Create a filter for emails from Twitter :

Go to Gmail Settings > Filters > Create a new filter

In the From text box use Twitter . Then just click Test search to find if that is really working and click Next Step >>

In the next window check the options Skip the inbox (Archive it) and Apply the label and create a new label from the drop down box. I used the label Twitter

NB: Checking the Skip the inbox option is important, otherwise you will see the email in both your actual inbox and new inbox

2. Using the Multiple inboxes feature

Multiple Inboxes is a Gmail labs feature so you have to enable that first. Goto Settings > Labs and find the Multiple Inboxes feature .enable it using the enable radio button and Save your changes.

You can add a number of inboxes. For adding  a new inbox for your Twitter emails use label:Twitter in the first text box. (since I used Twitter as the label name).

You can choose the number of emails to be shown and also the position of the new inbox.

That’s it now when ever you open your Gmail you see a multiple inboxes. Filters are a power feature of Gmail. You can used them along with some Gmail labs features such as Canned Responses to create amazing results. So  do experiment with them. You can use the same idea to manage your newsletter and rss subscriptions and lots more.

It’s your life and you should have the right to choose how to live. Why on Earth would someone want to control you unnecessarily as long as you don’t cause trouble for others.

Internet giants are doing no good. According to this blog post at Digital Inspiration companies like Yahoo, Google and Microsoft co-operate wholeheartedly with the Chinese government in implementing internet censorship there. Even Google shows a separate set of search results for China.

WordPress is different That would be the good news to all those WP fans including me. Matt said a big NO to the Communist government on blocking some topics in WordPress or giving out details about WordPress users. Big Kudos to Matt and WordPress.

Thank God the Communists are losing grounds in India and their anti media activities are limited to calling  the main stream media “a syndicate against the communists”.

Image: Xanga-TaiwanIndependent

Here is how you can get your Gmail emails as SMS for Free in India. This uses the Google SMS Channel that has been recently introduced and FreeMyFeed service

About FreeMyFeed

Free my feed is a service that allows you to bypass password protected feeds. They say passwords are “never stored on the server,” and discarded immediately after parsing your feed. This is featured in Lifehacker and Google systems. So you might try this risk free.

First step: Getting the feed URL of your inbox

Gmail provides a RSS feed for your inbox which is by default http://mail.google.com/mail/feed/atom

But this requires password authentication. So we use FreeMyFeed to by pass that. Go to FreeMyFeed. Give your feed address ,username and password and submit.

Here the feed URL is http://mail.google.com/mail/feed/atom

They will give a very long URL, some thing like http://freemyfeed.com/feed/asjdasjkdhas232h3… This is the feed URL for our inbox

Second step: Create an SMS channel

In this step we will create an SMS channel for our feed. Goto Google SMS channel and sign in using your Google account. If you are using this for the first time you have to get your mobile verified by getting an SMS with activation code. Once that is done click on try it now section at the right side of it home page to create your own channel.

You will have to fill a long form like the one below now where you have to give the feed URL obtained in the previous step.

You have to be very careful about two things.

1. You have to select RSS/Feed Atom as Source and give the feed URL obtained in the previous step. (Without http:// as that is already given there)

2. Change Allow publishing by to Only me and Who can subscribe to By invitation only. This makes your feed private so that only you can view them.

Almost done , now click create channel.

From now onwards you get an SMS whenever you get an email. However it has two limitations, one that you get only the Subject of the email in  your SMS and that there can be considerable time delay. But for those who don’t check their email every hour this can be  very useful.