Thanks to everyone who sent me an email or scrap wishing me a Merry Christmas.
I hope everyone has a happy and safe holiday whether on Orkut or off, and I hope the Orkut team enjoys their Christmas vacations (as they duly deserve after all the improvements they have made to Orkut).
For your enjoyment, here is a video (that is not related to Orkut) that I discovered while surfing across YouTube. Enjoy!
It has been a long time since I last reviewed Scrapboy, which in my opinion was one of the best software programs to use for Orkut (at least as far as scraping goes).
Ever since its launch Scrapboy has had some competition, mainly from Agent Orkut (which seems to have gone missing in action as of late).
Anyways, Scrapboy has relaunched a whole new version of the scrap chat program, which is not only a lot easier to install (compared to version 1.0), but a lot more user friendly as well.
While Scrapboy does include the basic text editing functions (like inserting color, style, etc.) it does have a few noticeable features that may convince users to send scraps through the program rather than logging into Orkut.
Search Thy Friend
One cool feature that I enjoyed is the friend search bar at the top. If one has over several hundred friends on Orkut, it can be a pain to find them on the friend list, and then scrap them on Orkut.
Scrapboy eliminates this by putting a friend search bar, which means you can easily find (and scrap) your friend within a few seconds (depending on how long their name is of course).
Orkut Slide Show
Another cool feature is the ability to view your friends Orkut albums in a slide show format (similar to what Google offers Blogger users).
To activate this, users have to simply highlight their friend on Scrapboy, which will activate a "menu" to the right. After clicking on the photo album button...
...a new window will appear which will allow you to view your friends album in a slide show like format.
Online Status Indicator
While Google prefers to outsource the online status to Google Talk, with a few clicks you can find out if any of your friends are online.
In order to do this users must click the "Who" button...
...which will reveal a drop down menu. Simply click on the "Who is online?" button and users will be able to see which of their friends are actually logged into Orkut, and not merely Google Talk.
Note: Scrapboy also will inform you of new friend requests, upcoming birthdays, as well as your fans.
While version 2.0 of Scrapboy is very impressive, it did however leave out some of Orkut's other main features, like the news feed, as well as the video playlist.
Although I did encounter one minor bug, (which is probably on my end), the program ran relatively smooth. While Scrapboy is quite useful within the "orkutsphere," it looks as if they have already expanded their program into the "Myspace universe."
Users interested in Scrapboy can download the program over here, and if anyone has any other suggestions (or in need of support), they can visit the official Scrapboy forum over here.
Funny, I can't believe I missed this post yesterday! Anyways, Google is rolling out news feeds for Orkut forums which allows admins to display relevent headlines next to their favorite communities.
(Official Orkut Blog) Well, now you can stay up to date on news from within your community, because community owners can now display a news feed on that subject within the community. So while you talk to your fellow members, you can see what's in the news on the same subject, without leaving orkut.
It looks as if Google has either forgotten to add Orkut to the link list on the drop down menu of its international homepage (assuming they updated their search engine), or has decided to treat Orkut as the red headed step child of the Google family.
After logging into Google, I use to be able to enjoy opening up the Orkut without typing in the domain. Now alas I have discovered that they have removed Orkut entirely, along with a few of its other siblings as well.
Fortunately the Gmail team still has a link to Orkut, so I guess I'll have to make that my default page from now on.
Now I know this may come off as simple whining, but Google should reconsider adding Orkut back to the homepage. After all, they still give their "I feel lucky" button some space on the page, despite the fact that it may be costing them millions.
Hopefully a Googler (or perhaps even a Noogler) can contact the search team to reinsert the link back, as it would be sad for my non-geek American friends (who are curious about the social network) to miss exploring what Orkut is all about--especially since Google gave it a fresh new look not to long ago.
Lately I've been receiving a lot more emails, scraps and more emails of people asking about link exchanges.
In order to make it easier to list the various sites, I am asking anyone who has a blog or website focusing on Orkut to either email me or comment below listing the link to their site, as well as a brief explanation of what it is.
Example sites: Orkut Style, Orkut Proxy Tricks, and Orkut Apps.
Note: I am asking for sites/blogs that focus primarily on Orkut, not general tech sites. If you however do blog about Orkut on a tech site, and you want to be listed, simply post a link to your site with a category/label about Orkut.
Example: Devils Workshop posts heavily about Orkut, but he also posts about other tech items as well.
Instead of linking to him directly, I linking to his posts regarding Orkut instead.
http://www.devilsworkshop.org/category/orkut/
If you have scraped me regarding links, please email me again as Gmail is much easier to organize and search, which is mainly due to the colorful labels they just added to their platform.
(Hat Tip: Orkut Open Social)
Although this is probably old news to hackers, it looks as if Vivek has created an Orkut app that allows users to visit (and access) their Facebook accounts while still logged into Orkut.
While users are unable to have access to all of Facebook's features, it does allow you to send messages via Facebook mail, as well as post on users walls (which is similar to Orkut scrapbooks).
Users can install this app by copying and pasting this url below into the field on the Orkut application page.
http://vivekjishtu.com/opensocial/facebook.xml
Note: This feature is only available to developers or users who have access to the Orkut Sandbox. Those interested in participating can sign up over here.
Some may remember a similar app that allowed Facebook users to access Orkut, although the only difference between the Facebook app and the Orkut one is the fact that you have to login to Facebook to view it on Orkut, an item Vivek can hopefully change.
Exit Question: With most of the major social networks joining the Open Social movement, I wonder if every social network will eventually morph into Social Stream?
(Hat Tip: Jerry from Orkut Plus)
After previously allowing users to hide their albums, video's and testimonials from strangers, Google is now allowing users to hide their Orkut scrapbooks as well.
Users can access this by visiting the privacy tab or by clicking on the link below...
http://www.orkut.com/PrivacySettings.aspx
...which will bring you to this page.
You can then select to have your scrapbook and feeds to be viewed by either just your friends--or the entire orkutsphere.
This is definitely good news for users (especially girls) although this may signal the death of software scrap programs as Google seems to be taking more aggressive measures to remove any excuse for users to log into non-Google properties.
Note: With Google finally wrapping up the last major security concern (at least privacy wise) I wonder if they will consider legally opening up Orkut to kids under 18?
