Posts Tagged ‘google’

What happened with the Internet in 2009?

Pingdom.com has your answers.

How many web­si­tes were added? How many emails were sent? How many Inter­net users were there? This post will ans­wer all of those ques­tions and many more. Pre­pare for infor­ma­tion over­load, but in a good way.

We have used a wide variety of sour­ces from around the Web. A full list of source refe­ren­ces is avai­la­ble at the bot­tom of the post for those inte­res­ted. We here at Ping­dom also did some addi­tio­nal cal­cu­la­tions to get even more num­bers to show you.

A Few of the head­li­nes are:

Read the rest here.

http://royal.pingdom.com/2010/01/22/internet-2009-in-numbers/

Cool Google Interfaces

Goo­gle has always been known for not being the norm. An exam­ple is chan­ging the ban­ner image every­day for one event or another. Take today (Octo­ber 7^th) as an exam­ple. It is the date that bar­co­des were inven­ted. They made the ban­ner image a large bar code.

In addi­tion to the logos, they have every lan­guage repre­sen­ted for their trans­la­tion ser­vi­ces as well as gene­ral search. For most, that would be enough. Not Goo­gle. Try this.

Go to Google.com, type Goo­gle L337 hit “I’m Fee­ling Lucky”.

You should see:

Direct Link: http://www.googoth.co.in/

There are a few more lis­ted below. Please remem­ber to go back to the main Goo­gle site before try each one:

Search Term: Goo­gle Gothic

Direct Link: http://www.googoth.co.in/

Search Term: Goo­gle Linux

Direct Link: http://www.google.com/linux

Search Term: Goo­gle BSD

Direct Link: http://www.google.com/bsd

Search Term: Goo­gle Ewmew

Direct Link:http://www.google.com/intl/xx-elmer/

Search Term: Goo­gle Klingon

Direct Link: http://www.google.com/intl/xx-klingon/

Search Term: Goo­gle Piglatin

Direct Link: http://www.google.com/intl/xx-piglatin/

Search Term: Goo­gle Eas­ter Egg

Direct Link: http://www.google.com/Easter/feature_easter.html

Search Term: Goo­gle Bork

Direct Link: http://www.google.com/intl/xx-bork/

What is that Windows Key really for?

I know this is a long time in coming, but some­time in the mid 90’s a new key began appea­ring on key­boards.  The Win­dows key.  We quickly figu­red out, if you hit the key the start menu came up.  But that one but­ton actually does more, much more to help you move around your Win­dows OS more efficiently.

Win­dows Key + Tab: Cycle through the but­tons in the Task Bar.
Win­dows Key + D: Mini­mize or res­tore all win­dows
Win­dows Key + E: Launch Win­dows Explo­rer
Win­dows Key + F: Launch Search for Files
Win­dows Key + Ctrl + F: Launch Search for Com­pu­ters
Win­dows Key + F1: Launch the Help and Sup­port Cen­ter
Win­dows Key + R: Launch the Run dia­log box
Win­dows Key + Pause/Break: Launch Sys­tem Pro­per­ties dia­log box
Win­dows Key + M: Mini­mi­zes all open win­dows.
Win­dows Key + Shift + M: Undo mini­mize all win­dows
Win­dows Key + L: Locks the works­ta­tion
Win­dows Key + U: Launch the Uti­lity Mana­ger
Win­dows Key + Ctrl + Tab: Accor­ding to Mic­ro­soft: Moves focus from Start, to the Quick Launch tool­bar, to the sys­tem tray. What it does for me in XP: moves through the tabs in your current appli­ca­tion (Fire­fox, IE 7, just to name two)

If you have a Mic­ro­soft Natu­ral Key­board with Inte­lliType soft­ware ins­ta­lled you can use the follo­wing short­cuts as well.

Win­dows Key + L: Log off Win­dows or switch to another user if you have mul­ti­ple users on your sys­tem
Win­dows Key + P: Starts Print Mana­ger
Win­dows Key + C: Opens Con­trol Panel
Win­dows Key + V: Starts Clip­board
Win­dows Key + K: Opens Key­board Pro­per­ties dia­log box
Win­dows Key + I: Opens Mouse Pro­per­ties dia­log box
Win­dows Key + A: Starts Acces­si­bi­lity Options (if ins­ta­lled)
Win­dows Key + Spa­ce­bar: Dis­plays the list of Mic­ro­soft Inte­lliType short­cut keys
Win­dows Key + S: Tog­gles CAPS LOCK on and off

Forget Park Place, I want to buy the Red Square

In case you have not hear about it, Mono­poly is going glo­bal.  Accor­ding to Daily Mail UK, Goo­gle has been in con­tact with Has­bro to make a new Mono­poly game that uti­li­zes Goo­gle Maps.

With the release of the game, you will not only be able to buy the stan­dard upgra­des – House or Hotel, you will also be able to say, put a sta­dium on your pesky neigh­bors house.  Don’t like your current office buil­ding?  Buy the area, put up a skyscraper.

Not only will there be the stan­dard modi­fi­ca­tions to the lots and upgra­des, the chance cards will now give the option to build a pri­son or a gar­bage dump.  The pos­si­bi­li­ties of where to put that are endless.

Accor­ding the article:

Pla­yers start the free game with three million Mono­poly dollars and can buy Dow­ning Street for $231,000, while Pennsyl­va­nia Ave­nue in Washing­ton, where the White House stands, costs $2 million.

Rent is paid auto­ma­ti­cally each day, from $50,000 for a house to $100 million for a skyscraper.

Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1211686/Monopoly-goes-global-giant-online-game-using-Google-Maps.html#ixzz0QX6bL8Ps

I for one, look for­ward to pla­ying.  I have been wai­ting for a major change in the game for a very long time.  Next one they need to do is Risk.

16 Interesting Facts About Google

1. The prime rea­son the Goo­gle home page is so bare is due to the fact that the foun­ders didn’t know HTML and just wan­ted a quick inter­face. In fact it was noted that the sub­mit but­ton was a long time coming and hit­ting the RETURN key was the only way to burst Goo­gle into life.
2. Due to the spar­se­ness of the home­page, in early user tests they noted peo­ple just sit­ting loo­king at the screen. After a minute of nothing­ness, the tes­ter inter­ve­ned and asked ‘Whats up?’ to which they replied “We are wai­ting for the rest of it”. To solve that par­ti­cu­lar pro­blem the Goo­gle Copy­right mes­sage was inser­ted to act as a crude end of page marker.

Read the entire article: http://www.hongkiat.com/blog/16-interesting-facts-about-google/

Things Learned from the Internet

• You want it, you can find it online.
• If you don’t want it, you can also find it online.
• It might take a while.
• Some­ti­mes the hunt is half the fun.
• Ever­yone has a web­site. Grand­fathers, mothers and babies. Everyone.
• At some point, Goo­gle became a verb.
• The dif­fe­rence bet­ween web sur­fing with Fire­fox and IE is the dif­fe­rence bet­ween body armor and a trendy cot­ton vest.
• If it sounds too good to be true, it pro­bably is.
• The Inter­net is the geeks play­ground. Here, we rule.
• Not that you would ever need to know the die­tary habits of the South Ame­ri­can antea­ter, but it’s com­for­ting to know you could find it online if you did.
• When in doubt, Wikipedia.
• Anyone who uses the term ‘Inter­web’ has never been online.
• Explai­ning the Inter­net to someone who’s never been online, is like explai­ning the Magna Carta to your cat.
• Almost everything of subs­tance can be sum­med up with a “DUDE! Check this out!’ and a hyperlink.
• Be safe. Be cynical.
• Some else already said it first. But that doesn’t mean it won’t be said again, and again…
• The Inter­net IS redundancy.
• There is no such thing as ‘suf­fi­cient bandwidth’.
• There’s always something new.
• You can never go back once you’ve tried it.

10 Timesaver Google Search Tricks

Thanks to TricksHub I would like to repost these 10 Goo­gle Search Tricks

The 15 Biggest Screw-ups in Internet History

Check out these 15 Inter­net screw-ups that will live in infamy.

1. Dreamhosts’ $7.5 Million Billing Mis­take: Due to a “fat-fingered” error, Dreamhost acci­den­tally over­bi­lled almost all of their cus­to­mers, char­ging them for nearly a year in hos­ting fees. Large char­ges appea­red on cus­to­mers’ cre­dit and debit cards, but Dreamhost pro­mi­sed to make good on refunds, and even said they’d pay for any over­draft fees they caused.
2. iTu­nes Leaks Star­gate Atlan­tis: On iTu­nes, Apple offe­red what it thought was the sea­son pre­miere of the sci-fi TV show Star­gate Atlan­tis, but actually sold the fourth epi­sode ins­tead. It didn’t take long for the epi­sode to be uploa­ded onto Bit­To­rrent and other P2P net­works, so there was no way out of this screw up. To make up for it, Apple offe­red the actual sea­son pre­miere and an iTu­nes cre­dit for $2. The mis­take was cau­sed by a pro­duc­tion num­ber mixup.
3. Via­com Issues a Take­down For its Own Pira­ted Video: In the midst of a copy­right battle with You­Tube, Via­com revea­led them­sel­ves as video pira­tes them­sel­ves. They tried to get a clip remo­ved from You­Tube, but they hadn’t yet recei­ved per­mis­sion to use the source video in the clip. Via­com even sent a DCMA take­down notice to the owner of the ori­gi­nal con­tent, asking him to take down the clip.
4. AOL Relea­ses Search Data for 650,000 Users: In an effort to pro­vide research tools to the aca­de­mic com­mu­nity, AOL acci­den­tally relea­sed search data on more than 650,000 users. Although it was anony­mi­zed, it sho­wed searches for mur­der, incest, and other unplea­san­tries. You could also find names, Social Secu­rity num­bers, addres­ses, and more.
5. Goo­gle Dele­tes Their Offi­cial Blog: Goo­gle acci­den­tally dele­ted their offi­cial blog, which was pic­ked up by a well-intentioned college stu­dent. It could have been used to send out misin­for­ma­tion or even malware.
6. Goo­gle Mis­ta­kes Own Blog for Spam, Dele­tes It: Goo­gle didn’t learn from past mis­ta­kes. Blogger’s spam clas­si­fier acci­den­tally mar­ked the Cus­tom Search Blog as spam, the blog­gers over­loo­ked the noti­fi­ca­tion they recei­ved, and the blog was disa­bled as a result. This made the URL avai­la­ble to the gene­ral public, and was squat­ted by a per­son named Srikanth.
7. Nevada Gover­nor Acci­den­tally Posts Out­look Pass­word: On the Gover­nor of Nevada’s web­site, an ins­truc­tion guide was pos­ted that told aides how to send out an email on behalf of the gover­nor. This of course inc­lu­ded his email, which was a not-very-secure com­bi­na­tion of his first and last names. The files were quickly taken down, but still avai­la­ble for some time through Google’s cache.
8. Google’s Spi­der Dele­tes a Web­site: One of the website’s users acci­den­tally left an “edit” hyper­link open-and somehow copied this on to every page-which allo­wed dele­tion, and the Goo­gle spi­der found these pages, which con­se­quently dele­ted them. They were able to res­tore the site with bac­kups, and resol­ved to never copy and paste con­tent again.
9. Cap­com Links to Hard­core Porn: On the game box for Capcom’s Killer 7, the offi­cial URL is lis­ted as www.killer7.com, which is a hard­core porn site. The site should have been lis­ted as www.killer-7.com. Appa­rently, the porn site was ori­gi­nally regis­te­red to Cap­com and was the offi­cial site when the game was relea­sed, but they lost the URL.
10. The Morris Worm: Although the Moo­ris Worm gave Robert Tap­pan Morris fame as a hac­ker, it was actually one big mis­take. His inten­tion was to use the worm to see how large the Inter­net was, but things went bad when the work repli­ca­ted itself exces­si­vely and slo­wed down computers.
11. Blog­ger Can’t Quit AOL: This blog­ger taped his con­ver­sa­tion with AOL in which they did just about everything pos­si­ble to keep him from can­ce­ling his account.
12. The Depart­ment of Home­land Secu­rity Fails its Own Cyber Attack: Home­land Secu­rity simu­la­ted a cyber attack, called Ope­ra­tion Cyber Storm, and revea­led that we’d fare pretty poorly.
13. Best Buy’s Sec­ret Web­site: A few cus­to­mers have found that Best Buy’s in-store web­site reflects higher pri­ces than the one widely avai­la­ble on the Inter­net. This is appa­rently an attempt to con­vince cus­to­mers that their in-store price reflects any web spe­cials they may be offe­ring. They are iden­ti­cal, except for the prices.
14. Syman­tec Kills the Cyber­Sit­ter: In a Syman­tec Secu­rity Res­ponse update, a pro­gram called Cyber­Sit­ter was tag­ged as a virus. This led to a num­ber of cus­to­mers losing both their ope­ra­ting sys­tems and Inter­net access, inc­lu­ding schools and libraries.
15. BBC Mis­ta­kes Cab­bie for Inter­net Down­load Expert: A BBC repor­ter thought she was inter­vie­wing Guy Kew­ney, edi­tor of Newswireless.net, but she was actually inter­vie­wing a local cab­bie. In this case of mis­ta­ken iden­tity, the men loo­ked nothing alike, and Mr. Kew­ney actually saw the taxi dri­ver being intro­du­ced under his name. Although the dri­ver knew nothing about the main topics of Apple, online music, or the Beat­les, he said he felt the inter­view went well, “but it was a bit rushed.

Child Safe Searches

In the ever expan­ding inte­gra­tion of the Inter­net and kids lives, fil­te­ring out non age appro­priate infor­ma­tion from searches is often over­loo­ked by parents.

Goo­gle did address this a while back with the Safe Search option.  This, I must admit, is not one of their bet­ter imple­men­ta­tions.  With two mouse clicks, I can turn this fea­ture off.

Enter DuckDuckGo.com.

Duck Duck Go is a new search engine with less gar­bage and bet­ter results. With less clic­king for­ward and back bet­ween results, it is for anyone who wants to get infor­ma­tion faster.

One of the first fea­tu­res I found when I visi­ted their page was the abi­lity to lock Safe Search on.  They report that once it is clic­ked it can not be remo­ved.  I can not gua­ran­tee this as true, but I did do a few things that a young kid might do and sure enough it stuck with it.

Right on the main search page you have the abi­lity to focus your search bet­ween stan­dard search, infor­ma­tion sites, and shop­ping sites.  That can really help limit the results for com­mon terms.

Some of the other fea­tu­res inc­lude: Detec­tion of cal­cu­la­tions, phone, trac­king, car #s; zip, book, pro­duct codes; street and IP addres­ses, Cate­gory pages, and Key­board shortcuts.

Will you get as many results as you do with your big search engi­nes like Goo­gle or Bing?  Most defi­ni­tely not.  But for child safe, tar­ge­ted searches this is a good search engine the whole family can use.

My own son has star­ted to use it and has been very happy with the abi­lity to search just like mommy and daddy.  We on the other hand don’t have to worry about what he will find with an inno­cent search.

Secure that Wireless Router

I felt it was my duty to bring up some basic wire­less rou­ter secu­rity.  I have a neigh­bor by my house that has been pro­vi­ding the area free wire­less access.  The pro­blem is, she didn’t know she was doing it.

It came to my atten­tion when I was wor­king on a friends lap­top and was attemp­ting to get him on my secu­red wire­less net­work and to my sur­prise I saw “Linksys” as a valid net­work in my range.  I didn’t think much about it, until later I star­ted loo­king around at it again and it was still there.

For those that don’t know, if I see Linksys broad­cas­ting, I already know a lot about the rou­ter.  Unless you change defaults, that wire­less rou­ter you have out there for your con­ve­nience is an ope­ning into your net­work con­nec­tion or worse into your com­pu­ter network.

Stic­king with this exam­ple, I know that the default pass­word is admin admin.  The base net­work is 192.168.1.1, DHCP is ena­bled.  With that infor­ma­tion, I am in the net­work and into the rou­ter.  If I was a mean spi­ri­ted per­son, I could even get into the rou­ter and lock the owner com­ple­tely out.  I know, there is no one that would do that, so I will digress.

But it did get me thin­king about the fact that peo­ple are given tech­no­logy that they truly do not unders­tand.  For exam­ple, a search on Goo­gle or Bing for wire­less rou­ter pass­words will bring up many pages that have all of the defaults.  Click one of the above links to see how rea­dily avai­la­ble this infor­ma­tion is.

So now you would like to know how to pro­tect your­self.  Well there are quite a few things that you can do.

1. Change your rou­ter pass­word.  This should be your first step.  As with any of your pass­words, it should be uni­que, not easily gues­sa­ble, the lon­ger and more com­plex the bet­ter.  Please stay away from pass­words like: Wire­less, net­work, pass­word, P@ssword, those are usually tried early on.
2. Change the default IP address range.  Each wire­less rou­ter has it’s defaults that the manu­fac­tu­rer puts in, as I men­tio­ned ear­lier Linksys is 192.168.1.x.  All you have to do is change the third num­ber (1 in the exam­ple about) you can change it to anything up to 255.x (you will want the last digit for the rou­ter to be .1 for ease of configuration).
3. Per­so­nally, I turn off DHCP and run all of my machi­nes as sta­tic IP addres­ses in the range.  I do recom­mend that prac­tice since it keeps other con­nec­tions from pic­king up an IP address from the rou­ter.  They have to know the net­work infor­ma­tion to then patch into it.  The one draw­back from this is that I can not just look at the rou­ter tables and see if someone else has got­ten in by loo­king at the DHCP Table.  I do per­form weekly net­work scans on my net­work to see if there is any IP address that I don’t recognize.
4. Broad­cast SSID.  Think of the Broad­cast SSID as your rou­ters phone num­ber, but it does not need to be uni­que.  I change the name from the default ssid to something that I remem­ber, but does not point out who owns it, in other words, my broad­cast ssid is not my last name, or address, or anything per­so­nal.  It is actually a bunch of rub­bish I punched in.  You will also pro­bably want to turn off the broad­cast por­tion of your ssid.  This does make the con­fi­gu­ra­tion of your PC’s a bit more dif­fi­cult since you will have to add that in on each works­ta­tion and tell it to con­nect even if not broadcasting.
5. Encrypt your data!  This is a very impor­tant step.  Without the encryp­tion setup, your are just broad­cas­ting for the whole world to see.  Your rou­ter pro­bably comes with WEP (wired equi­va­lent pri­vacy) and WPA (wifi pro­tec­ted access).  WEP was the first encryp­tion scheme and as such it is the easiest to crack.  WPA is a lot more sta­ble, but if your sys­tems can not use WPA it will not be able to con­nect, though at this stage of the game, most devi­ces (even gaming con­so­les can use WPA).  If you can not use WPA, at least setup the WEP.  Even that will keep casual eyes from prying to much.
6. Disa­ble web access to your rou­ter.  By default this is tur­ned off, but if you ena­ble this option, your rou­ter will be able to be acces­sed across the net and with that many prying eyes, one day, someone might get in.  There is no valid need to have it ena­bled 24/7.  I can unders­tand if you are get­ting remote help from the manu­fac­tu­rer, ena­bling it for the sup­port ses­sion, but disa­ble it as soon as possible.
7. Most impor­tantly, is be vigi­lant.  Every now and then, change your SSID, change your encryp­tion pass­word, modify the net­work address, change the pass­word to your rou­ter.  I know this will cause a lot of work on your part, but like chan­ging your pass­word at work on a regu­lar basis, it keeps peo­ple gues­sing.  Also, weekly, check on the DHCP log at ran­dom times.  See if someone is get­ting in that shouldn’t be.

I hope this helps.