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Paul Buchheit – Creator and Lead Developer of Gmail

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There is no denying in the fact that each of us has used Gmail at least once in our lives and, that fact is proved by the current number of Gmail users, i.e., more than 900 million users. Gmail was launched in 2004, and the lead developer, behind this widely used email platform, is Paul Buchheit. Paul Buchheit is the 23rd employee of Google but, has played a pivotal role in the development of many Google products, in his few years of career with Google.

Paul Buchheit
Image Source: Facebook

Early Life

Paul Buchheit was born on 6 November 1976, in Webster, New York. He did his schooling from Webster Thomas High School. He was a brilliant student and always topped the class every year. Later, he entered Case Western Reserve University in Cleveland, Ohio to pursue a degree in Science followed by a PhD (Honors) degree. During his college, he was in the rowing team of the college.

Career

As soon as Buchheit completed his education, he started his internship at Microsoft, in 1995. In 1998, he joined at Intel and after one year he became the 23rd employee at Google.

He worked with Google for nearly 7 years and, had become an influential part of Google’s numerous revolutionary programs, including Google Adsense. He also gave the suggestion of the motto, “Don’t Do Evil”, that was practised as the code of conduct within Google for many years.

In 2006, Paul Buchheit left the job at Google and launched a real-time social aggregator named FriendFeed which was a huge success. But later in 2009, it was acquired by Facebook through a private transaction. He also worked for Facebook for a few years and left the job in 2010, to start an investment company named Y Combinator.

Paul Buchheit always encourages startup companies saying that startups are more than simply a clever way to make money. Before Y Combinator, he had already invested in 83 startups through Angel Investment, and with Y Combinator he is supporting many budding companies with their startups.

Founding Gmail

Before Gmail was launched, the various email service providers, like Microsoft, had given a limited storage of 4 MB. According to Paul Buchheit, every email service was getting worse instead of getting better. And the lesser storage provided by every email platforms grabbed his attention. The planning of creating Gmail was started many years before it was announced. The development of Gmail started in 2001 and in 2004, Gmail was launched, with increased storage of 1000 MB of storage, fast dynamic interface, quick and accurate search including the concept of organised emails. Even Mr Doerr from Microsoft gave a statement that Gmail was like a wakeup call for them.

Personal Life

Paul married his girlfriend April Buchheit on 10 August 2002. Currently, he is living with his wife and two children in California.

Android 9 Pie – The Latest Version of Android Hitting the Market

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After Oreo, Google is back with its another desert, I mean the latest edition of Android – Android 9 Pie. It was launched on Tuesday and, is already rolling out on Google’s Pixel smartphones and will be available for most Android smartphones by the end of the year. This new version of Android is powered by artificial intelligence and, has come with many additional features that claim to help the users to reduce their smartphone addiction to an extent. Let’s see what Google has brought for us with its latest Android version:

1) App Dashboard: The new features of the Android 9, include an App Dashboard, showing various apps, that you have used, from most to least, the whole day long. The dashboard can also tell the number of times you have unlocked your phone, which can be an eye-opener for many, as people spent a lot of time on their smartphones these days.

2) Digital Well Being: The Digital Wellbeing, display a multicoloured circle, each colour representing a particular app, that you use on the daily basis, and between the circle, the total time, the phone screen is opened. You can tap on the colours, to further see the details about the app and set a limit for its usage.

Android Pie
Image Source: Image Source: Pcmag

3) App Timer: App Timer is another Android feature that will help to decrease your mobile usage. The timer is available on the App Dashboard, and you can set a time limit on a particular app so that when you have reached the limit, the app will grey out and you will not be able to start it again until the next set time.

4) Adaptive Battery: Android has come with another feature of saving the battery that works according to your app preferences. The earlier versions of Android also had a similar feature but in this one, with the aid of artificial intelligence, the phone will adapt your app usage practices and will divide the battery control according to the most to least used apps. This will ensure that the apps you need will use the battery.

5) App Actions: App Action also based on your daily app habits and creates shortcuts for your most used apps and activities you do on an app. It will result in the quick launch for even your daily activity inside a particular app.

Along with all the above features it has got a few more features like Gesture, Wind Down, Do Not Disturb, Adaptive Brightness, New Navigation System, etc. Most of them are using the artificial intelligence for making the smartphones more intimate part of our lives so that it can work according to our habits and can help us reduce our Smartphone addiction. Also by the end of the year, Google is going to add a few more features to Android Pie and Android Pie will be available for most of the Android users by the fall.

Sundar Pichai – The CEO Of Google

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World’s biggest tech giants surprised people across the globe when they appointed an Indian to hold the highest position in their company. First Microsoft, and then Google chose the most qualified candidate for the role of CEO of their respective companies. To helm, the highest position in world’s biggest technology giants is a herculean task and needs a dedicated, calm, and experienced person. Google found its perfect candidate in India born Sundar Pichai, who was working in the company for many years and served on many important positions.

Early Life

Born on 12th July 1972, in a middle-class family in Madurai, Chennai, India, Sundararajan Pichai’s father Regunahta Pichai, worked as a Senior Electrical Engineer for British Conglomerate General Electric Company and his mother worked as a stenographer before she conceived any children. Belonging to a middle-class family Sundar never had the privilege to watch television or travel in a car. At the age of 12, he was introduced to a fascinating technology called a landline phone.

Sundar Pichai was naturally good at remembering, especially numbers. He completed his high school from Jawahar Vidyalaya, situated at Ashok Nagar, and then went to Vana Vani School in Chennai, to pursue his class 12 education. Further, Pichai advanced to one of the prominent engineering institutes in India – Indian Institute of Technology, Kharagpur. He graduated in Metallurgical Engineering and didn’t stop just there.

Sundar Pichai
Image Source: wikimedia.org

He further went abroad at Stanford University, to pursue his Masters in Material Sciences and Engineering. After completing his MS, Pichai thought of pursuing PhD in Material Sciences and Semiconductor physics, but instead, he joined a company called Applied Materials, based in Silicon Valley, as an Engineer and Product Manager.

Soon, he quit his job at Applied Materials to join MBA program, at the University of Pennsylvania in 2002. After successfully earning his MBA, he joined McKinsey & Company as a Management Consultant. This was the point where a single decision changed his life forever.

Pichai at Google

After quitting McKinsey & Company, Pichai joined Google in 2004. Initially, he worked on the product management for a range of products, including Toolbar. Pichai played a prominent role in the success of Google Drive. His phenomenal work on Google’s Toolbar, fast-paced his growth in the company. After its launch, Google noticed how Toolbar proved efficient and increased the user searches. This led Google to launch their own browser Google Chrome in 2008. He was also involved in the development of apps like Gmail and Google Maps.

The success of Google Chrome brought Pichai into the spotlight. Chrome quickly became a favourite browser and surpassed its competitors, Internet Explorer and Firefox. Chrome controls more than 45% market share today and has directed everyone’s attention on Sundar Pichai. Following the success of Chrome, Pichai was then promoted to Vice President of Product Development the same year.

Pichai announced a new video codec developed by Google, called VP8 and a new video format WebM, which consists of different video, audio streams, and text tracks. In 2012, he was promoted to Senior Vice President of Chrome and apps.

A year later, he replaced Andy Rubin, to manage all Android related products. He developed a new project called Android One, which aimed towards offering affordable smartphones all across the globe. They launched the Android mobile operating system, on which every smartphone works today.

In 2014, Pichai got promoted to Head of Products. With each promotion, his tasks at the company just got bigger and bigger. Under the Head of Products position, he was responsible to oversee day-to-day operations of Google’s every big product, and the upcoming ones, like Google Photos, and Google Now.

The Leap into the Big League

Sundar Pichai was becoming a well-known face not just in the company, but in the whole Silicon Valley. His leadership qualities and diplomatic nature helped him smoothly close huge deals with the competitors.

His excellent track record came into notice of several other giants in the valley. He was approached to become Vice President of Products at Twitter and was also being considered for the position of CEO of Twitter. Another tech giant Microsoft was also considering Pichai to fill in the shoes of Steve Ballmer, who was retiring from the CEO position.

But, it was the time when Google’s new company Alphabet Inc. was on the way to be launched. As Larry Page resigned as the CEO of Google to take the responsibility of Alphabet, Pichai was the best option as Page’s successor.

And, in 2015, Sundar Pichai was announced as the new CEO of Google.

Personal Life

Pichai married Anjali, his college time girlfriend, and lives in Brooklyn, New York. He is the citizen of US and stays there with his wife and two children.

Google Ad Sense Policy violations- How to avoid from being banned?

Leave a Comment / Ad manager, Adsense, DFP, Google, how to, Tech tips / By

If you are a AdSense publisher, you must be aware of AdSense program guidelines. AdSense program guideline comprises of content policy and rules to detect  fake, fraudulent clicks on Ads.

Any violation of any of these guidelines can result in either a ban on your AdSense account or stopping Ad serving on the website violating the policy guidelines. AdSense publishers are supposed to run ads on a website which has family safe content (no porn or obscene content, images or videos) with no copyright infringement.

Google ads aren’t permitted on sites that contain harassing or bullying content, or on content that incites hatred or promotes violence against individuals or groups based on race or ethnic origin, religion, disability, gender, age, veteran status, or sexual orientation/gender identity. Additionally, Google ads may not appear on content that incites or advocates for harm against an individual or group.



Off late Google has gone quite aggressive in implementation of AdSense policy guidelines. Google has been disabling Ad serving for any website which has nude or porn content. If you’re using AdSense and have such content which violates AdSense policy, don’t wait for warning notification from Google.  Either remove ads from such content or remove such content from your website. Now a days Google instead of disabling AdSense account, disables ads on domain itself. In such scenario you won’t be able to runs ads even if you have another AdSense account.


Steps to follow if your AdSense account or website is banned

In case Google has already disabled ad serving on your website or blog, do following in order to get Ads enabled-

  • Take steps to remove violation- either remove such content or remove Google Ads
  • Disallow such URLs and keywords for AdSense bot in Robots.txt.
    Example- User-agent: Mediapartners-Google
    Disallow: /*xxx
  • Make internal process comprising automated as well human resources to check content quality including that of images and videos
  • File an appeal with Google using this form

Google AdSense policy review team would review your website for violations and if they find everything fine, Ad serving would start.  Normally this process takes around 5 to 6 days before you get to hear from policy team. See it as an opportunity to improve content quality on your website or blog which will not only earn you more from Ads, but also good ranking in search engines.

 

If you are using Google DFP, you might find it difficult to get AdSense Ads enabled since most of the time policy team fail to find AdSense code in HTML sources of your pages. If your account is eligible you can send an email to AdSense support as well using this page.

 

If your account is disabled due to some unethical activity or clicks, file an appeal here.  For more details on AdSense policy guidelines visit AdSense support page.

How to verify your Google DFP Ads from other countries?

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One of the challenges that Google DFP (Ad manager) account managers especially those who are new often face is to set up different Ad banners for different regions or countries and to test them out. The challenge is not to set up different Ad banners since that can be easily done by creating different line items and selecting target criteria and setting Geography. Challenge is to verify whether correct banners appear in targeted region or country?

One can easily verify the Ad banners for the country or region he or she is browsing in but to verify Ad banners in other countries either you need a remote server in all those regions or countries or use some good proxy. You may also seek help of your friends if you are lucky enough to have friends in all those countries.

If you don’t have access to all the things mentioned above, try this simple technique and you would be able to see Ad banners from most parts of the world. Visit some performance testing website which has option to select country and which also provides screen shots in result set.

Two such websites are http://www.webpagetest.org/ and http://loads.in/. By using these websites you would be able to verify which Ad banners appear in different countries. Using this technique you can test any public web page and make sure that Ad is rendering fine without any hiccups.

Generate Privacy Policy, Terms & Conditions, Disclosure For Your Website Online

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privacy
Image by Sean MacEntee via Flickr

If you are an individual blogger or someone who sells items or products online, it’s  important from moral and legal standpoint to have a privacy policy and terms & conditions webpage on your website. Privacy policy and terms and conditions should clearly set forth the rules and conditions for user conduct, content, age criteria, refunds etc. Now even Google Ad-sense requires publishers to have a privacy policy which at least talks about cookie creation by Ad Sense.

If you are among those who have no idea on how to go about creating a privacy policy or do not have adequate funds to hire a legal council, there are websites which can help you generate privacy policy and terms and conditions content for free by just answering few questions about your website.

Here is a list of websites you can use to create Privacy Policy and Terms & conditions page:

  •  http://www.bennadel.com/coldfusion/privacy-policy-generator.htm: Generates basic Privacy policy and terms & conditions. You also get HTML code for easy integration.
  • http://www.generateprivacypolicy.com: Easy to use wizard but requires registration.
  • http://www.serprank.com/privacy-policy-generator/: Easily generate privacy policy as required by Google AdSense.
  • http://www.freeprivacypolicy.com/free-privacy-policy-generator.php: Generate privacy policy by just answering few questions.

There are more such websites. You can Google and select the one which fits the bill.

Generating Disclosures

If you run a blog or a product review website / blog, it is advisable  to have a disclosure on your website or blog so that readers know whether your posts /reviews can be biased or are  influence by some factors. Disclosure brings trust to your website.

You can head to http://disclosurepolicy.org to  generate a disclosure policy.  It’s just a 6 step process to create a disclosure policy on this website.

 

P.S. YourTechStory (YTS) will soon have a privacy policy.