Sbot: Perform Google, Yahoo, Bing & Twitter search right from your IM

We perform lot of searches on the web everyday using search engines. Most of the time we use Google, sometimes it’s just not enough & we try others like Bing. So, myself & the100rabh came up with an idea to provide access to multiple search engines right from IM. We built an IM Search Bot, which we call “sbot” which is always available for you in your IM to perform searches.

Sbot supports Google, Bing, Yahoo! & Twitter search right now. Just add Sbot as your buddy on Gtalk/Y! Messenger/Live Messenger & start using it!!

Google Talk – sbot@bot.im
Yahoo Messenger – searchbot@ymail.com
MSN Live Messenger - searchbot@live.com

Once Sbot is added to your IM Buddy list, just start conversing with it. To start with send “help” & bot responds with usage instructions.

• To perform Google search send g<space>search term
• To perform Bing search send b<space>search term
• To perform Yahoo search send y<space>search term
• To perform Twitter search send t<space>search term

I use Sbot more when I’m at work since I don’t like to open too many tabs in the browser at work. One more really good usage of Sbot is Twitter Search! Whenever I’m busy, I use sbot to check my replies by just sending a message “t @hnprashanth”, simple!!

We are open for suggestions to add more search engines & features to sbot, please drop them in comments section.

Search Bot is built using Imified

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When I switched my email ID, I switched my Gtalk ID also. I don’t wanted to use the old ID just for IM. But how to tell everyone about it? My friends list on Gtalk is very huge! I Googled for available options to set auto responder for my old ID. I come across answer.im which just does the job but went down after just few hours. Then I found another desktop application to set auto responder, but this works only when your computer is on. So, I wasn’t satisfied with both of them.

Imified is a free service which provides you hosted IM bots. User can write it’s behavior  in his favorite server side language like PHP. So, following are few things you must know/have to complete this Auto Responder Bot:

• Imified account, off course you can get one at imified.com if you don’t have.
• Web Space to put your IM end point script (Ex: PHP File). There are few free hosting providers which you can make use of.
• Knowledge of a server side scripting language, not must, but if you know, you can add more functionality. I will give the basic PHP code in this tutorial.

Now that you have an Imified account, create a new bot clicking on “Create New Bot”. Give your bot a name & select a bot.im ID, both of these are not important since you are going to use this for personal use on your existing Gtalk/MSN/Yahoo/AIM ID. But “Bot URL” is important here, you need to specify end point script file path which will be accessed whenever somebody pings your ID. In my case, I placed this file at http://prashanth.net/bot.php.

Once your Bot is created, you can see options to add other networks at the bottom. Select the network which you want to set the auto responder, here I am opting for Gtalk. Just enter username, password, nickname and click activate.

Now your bot is active, but we haven’t created our end point script yet, so bot still don’t know what to respond if somebody pings it! So the basic PHP script for auto responder is as follows (which is placed at http://prashanth.net/bot.php) :

<?php

echo “Hey, I am no longer available on this ID. Please add me as prashanth@prashanth.net on your Gtalk to chat with me. Thanks, Prashanth”;

?>

Just open a text editor, like notepad, copy/paste the above code & save it as bot.php, upload it to your server. Make sure you upload it to the same path you gave to Imified in Bot URL field. This is very basic script to enable auto responder, I guess which is just enough. Imified passes various variables to this page through GET which you can make use of to write more interactive auto responder. Go through Imified API documentation for more on it.

So our always ON (24X7!!!) auto responder is up!

Update: As Adam said in comment section, user need not to use any scripting language until unless he wants to make use of variables passed by the Bot. So, for this purpose, we can simply use a text (.txt) file instead of PHP.

Yes, You can access live score updates on your mobile for free. All you need to have is a GPRS enabled handset & active GPRS connection. Point your wap browser to
http://in.wap.yahoo.com,Click on Yahoo Cricket > Scorecard to view live score.
This site can be accessed with Airtel Free GPRS connection.To activate Airtel Free GPRS Click Here!.

Note: Tech Bangalore is not the provider of score updates. Please use the service mentioned above to get scores. Commenting your mobile phone numbers on comment section might be dangerous & we are not providing any such service.

Reliance Communications has launched Yahoo! IM for its users.This IM will work on Java, Brew & wap enabled handsets. To avail this feature go to “Reliance Mobile World > Hot & New > Yahoo Msgr.”.
Charges:
Customers will be charged Rs 5 for each session logged, and can send and receive unlimited instant messages.

You might be bit confused about the logo above. Well get into this web site & check out yourself.This was told to me by my friend “Prabhanjan“. This web site allows you to search simultaneously with Google & Yahoo.

Yahoo Messenger can be used withoutht downloading huge file & installing it.You can try Yahoo Web Messenger @ http://messenger.yahoo.com/webmsgr/fmsgr.php. But sometimes this does’t work properly.Its completely not working in my system.
Another better way is www.e-messenger.net which is very good.In this site you can also use MSN Messenger.These messengers are not fully functional as normal one.But its good for chatting purpose.This will be helpfull to working people where they don’t have privilages or permissions to install any programs

STEP 1: Login to your Yahoo Mail. In the address line, you will see the name of the Yahoo Server which you are accessing.

For example, the server name is f380 in case of US(i.e a@yahoo.com) and it is f379 in case of Yahoo india( i.e a@yahoo.co.in)

the f 379 or 380 can be seen in the tool bar once u have logged in with ur username and password (Kindly have a close look at the tool bar whether it is f379, 380 or some number)

STEP 2: Now enter the following URL in the same window in which you have opened Yahoo Mail

http://us.fXXX.mail.yahoo.com/dc/landing

Here, replace fXXX by your own Yahoo Mail Server. In the example above, the URL will be http://us.f380.mail.yahoo.com/dc/landing.

STEP 3: A page will open, just click on “Try It Now” button to upgrade your Yahoo Mail!

That’s it! You are done. If at any time, you need to come back to old version of Yahoo Mail, you can do so by clicking on “Switch Back” link at the top near “Logout” link, or through Yahoo Mail Options.