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xxxdisc.net is Google's Look Like By All Means

Labels: fun, google

Your Site 'Listed On Top' In Google Search Results - Guaranteed

Mike Grehan spotted a unique feature at Google where you can suggest Google of a better search result than what you received and the next time you search for same query you will get that link on top of search page (for you only of course) with a * marked to it.


Click on the image to see the experiment in action. SearchEngineLand has a reply from Google related to this stuff. It says that Google keeps testing new and innovative experiments daily and this one was no different. See the official Google blog post here.

Now I understand why I could not see the experiment in action. Looks like they brought it down with the same speed as they activated it!

More:
Top 10 Ways To Improve Your Google PageRank
Hidden Google Pages - Awesome
Awesome Google Search Commands To Download FREE Stuff
10 Google Myths

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Labels: google

Google's Technical Errors Deletes User Accounts By Mistake

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'Ads By Google' On Your Morning Newspaper

Labels: google

Pirated 'Harry Potter', 'Spiderman', 'Meet the Robinsons', 'Mr. Bean's Holiday' And Many More Available At Google Video

Problems do not seem to end up for the film industry and for online video sites too. Pirated versions of latest movies are uploaded successfully into sites like YouTube and Google video and viewed by thousands daily. The Viacom $1 billion lawsuit burns were still fresh for Google and here they are hanging up in the middle with National Legal and Policy Center posting a list of 50 movies whom they have found and flagged in Google video.

For those excited with the news that they might get chance to view these movies online, NLPC hasn't uploaded links to these movies so as to avoid any further damages. But after reading the article I went on to search for them on Google Video and was easily able to find the links with little digging. Sad for Google. I also wont be uploading the links here to avoid any piracy issues!

Ironically, many other Internet operations such as MySpace, TorrentSpy, DailyMotion and Break.com have set up filtering systems to block copyrighted material. Google is a $158 Billion company with arguably the most advanced search technology in the world. The argument that Google cannot block pirated content because of technological or financial reasons is laughable.

NLPC has also uploaded a pdf file with screen shots of those movies.

Labels: google

Yahoo Suggestions. Oh Sorry, Yahoo Search Suggest

Google Suggests suggest you an example of what you were searching, displaying along with the example the number of results for that keyword. Yahoo, a little late though, has also launched it suggestions tool Yahoo Search Suggest. Similar in working like Google Suggestions Yahoo forgets to tell you the number of results for that keyword.

Google Suggests FAQ states that it has integrated the technology with Google News too. Its a different case that I wasn't able to find that working. Yahoo on the other hand is still working with there new tools bug fixes.

Google and Yahoo both let you disable the suggest feature if you find it disturbing. I do not find it disturbing though. Its more of a helper many times. Like if I was to search for Arnold Swarchenegger both would display the full spelling when I type Arnold S. It saves me from writing down that sir name. Quite a help!

Technorati Tags: yahoo search suggest

Labels: google, yahoo

Chinese Internet Users Prefer Google Search

[click images to enlarge them]

Another noteworthy part of the research is that the more a respondent uses search engines, the better he likes the results of Google.

The respondents were also asked what they didn’t like about the search results.

The instability of Google’s website, thanks mostly to the great Chinese firewall, was seen as negative as well as having no page-caching. The fact that Google doesn’t offer a search functionality for free mp3’s and other downloadable entertainment was also not appreciated.

The instability of Google’s website is a matter of politics whereas mp3 search is more likely a matter of law.

Labels: google

Warning: Google Video Could Be Used To Hack Your Password

Labels: bugs found, google

Want To Bet On Google's Next Move

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Google Did Not Ignore Your E-Mail

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Google Desktop Vulnerable To Attack

Labels: bugs found, google

The Camera Behind Google's Street View

Everyone by now knows about Google's Street View feature in Google Maps. If you ask my views about the penetration of Google Maps, I do not know if I am terrified or delighted. More delighted as it does not feature my house yet!

But to reveal the real thing do you know Google used the camera shown in above image for its street view images. Its an awesome 11-sided camera which works best for the purpose. And just to make things more clear it wasn't Google itself which took all the images. Immersive Media was the company which was part of the project.

The Google van has higher resolution than Immersive Media's system. Compare this image of New York with this one of San Francisco.

[via]

Labels: google

Search Google "Without Ads"

Labels: google, google tips

Is Google X Being Re-tested?

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Google Behaving Awkwardly

[click to enlarge]

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How To Download Free Torrent Files Using Google

Labels: google, google tips, torrents

20 Must Have Firefox Extensions

Google Browser Sync & Foxmarks Bookmark Synchronizer
If you use Firefox on more than one computer, you might be frustrated keeping track of what bookmarks are where. Google Browser Sync to the rescue. Using your existing Google account, Google Browser Sync will sync not only bookmarks, but sessions, persistent cookies, passwords and history among instances of Firefox on different machines. (This is user configurable on a broad scale -- i.e., you can choose to sync cookies, or not to sync cookies, but you can't make the decision based on individual cookies.) In addition to your Google account name and password, you'll assign a PIN to add additional security to the transaction.

Version reviewed: 1.3.20061031.0
www.google.com/tools/firefox/browsersync

One downside is that the initial sync can take quite a while, and for some folks, Google Browser Sync might be overkill. If all you want to do is sync bookmarks, try Foxmarks Bookmark Synchronizer. You'll have to set up an account with Foxmarks (the same is true of Google, but many of us already have Google accounts), but the initial sync seems much faster.

As a bonus, you can access your bookmarks by navigating to my.foxmarks.com. This could be handy if you're on a borrowed machine somewhere.

Version reviewed: 0.84
addons.mozilla.org/firefox/2410

Session Manager
Session Manager is a handy utility to help you manage your Firefox tabs. If you're a Web surfer who habitually visits the same sites every morning, all you need do is open the sites in separate tabs and/or windows, and then use Session Manager to save the session under a name of your choosing. After that, every morning start up Firefox and go to Tools > Session Manager, pick your session and voila, all the windows and tabs open up just as you saved them.

You can also choose a saved session as your "Start Session" (instead of just using a start page) that'll open each time you launch Firefox. As an added bonus, Session Manager tracks your sessions as you surf, and if Firefox (or your system) crashes, you can recover the selection of tabs you had open when it crashed.

One last perk: If you accidentally close a tab, you can easily reopen it from the Session Manager menu.

While Firefox 2.0 has incorporated many of Session Manager's functions, I find Session Manager performs its tasks more elegantly and reliably. And if you're still on Firefox 1.5, Session Manager remains your lone option for these features. Note that the most current version of Session Manager requires Firefox 2.0 or later. Earlier, Firefox 1.5-compatible versions can be found on the Web site.

Version reviewed: 0.5.3.1
addons.mozilla.org/firefox/2324

All-in-One Gestures
This is one of those extensions that does more than you'll probably ever need, but the core function is to assign commands to "Gestures" made with the mouse. For instance, holding down the right mouse button and dragging the mouse a bit to the left issues a "Back" command. A right-mouse button/dragging up combo opens a new tab. And so on.

The extension also provides auto-scrolling, as seen in Internet Explorer. This is where you click the middle button, then move the mouse up or down to start the page continuously scrolling. The farther you move the mouse, the faster the page scrolls.

All-in-One offers a wide selection of small navigation improvements like these. It's really one of those "you have to try it to appreciate it" extensions. But the core functionality of accomplishing frequent tasks via a small twitch of the mouse makes this a must-have for its many advocates.

Version reviewed: 0.18.0
addons.mozilla.org/firefox/12

IE Tab
It's a fact of life that there are still Web sites out there that require (or work better with) Internet Explorer. IE Tab to the rescue. Once installed, it places a small icon in your status bar. Clicking this icon swaps out the rendering engine from Firefox's to Internet Explorer's. In my experience, this is particularly helpful with sites that refuse to play video in Firefox.

You can set filters so that certain sites are always displayed in an IE tab. In fact, the extension comes preconfigured with filters for the Microsoft Update site. It also adds an "Open Link in IE Tab" option to the right-click context menu of Firefox.

Since the extension uses IE's engine, this one is for Windows only.

Version reviewed: 1.3.1.20070126
addons.mozilla.org/firefox/1419

Download Statusbar
You're probably familiar with that sometimes-pesky Downloads window that pops up whenever you download a file in Firefox. Download Statusbar suppresses that window from popping up, and instead provides you the same information in the status bar at the bottom of the browser window. (You can still manually open the Downloads window if you find you need it.)

You can roll your mouse over the file name and get a pop-up tool tip with some extra information about your download, too (where it's being download from, and where it's being saved to, the speed of the download, percentage complete and so on).

Additional feature, still in beta, is to automatically run your virus scanner against downloaded files.

Pretty simple, but it helps to "clean up" the browsing experience. By the way, this is from the same developer as Download Sort, below.

Version reviewed: 0.9.4.5.1
addons.mozilla.org/firefox/26

Download Sort
If you find yourself doing a lot of "Save Link As" or "Save Image As" downloading, then Download Sort will be quite a time saver. It allows you to file downloads by extension, or by a keyword or regular expression in the URL.

Here's how it works. After installing the extension, you set up filters. As an example, you might want any file with the extension .jpg to go into a Pictures folder and anything ending in .zip to go into an Archives folder on your drive.

Now when you right-click on a .jpg image and choose Save Image As, the image immediately downloads into your Pictures folder without any prompting. Right-click on a link to a .zip file and choose Save Link As, and again, the file goes right into your Archives folder. You can optionally have the extension create subdirectories according to date, domain and a few other criteria.

The big drawback here is that Download Sort doesn't intercept normal left-click downloads. It'd be great to see the developer add this capability.

Version reviewed: 2.5.7
addons.mozilla.org/firefox/25

Nuke Anything Enhanced
If you find yourself printing a lot of Web pages, this extension will help you save on ink. Once installed, it adds a "Remove this object" option to the right-click context menu. Place your mouse over information you don't need printed (menu bars, big graphical logos and so on) and use "Remove this object" to zap them temporarily. Clean up the page, then print just what you need.

It can be a little fussy, since you don't know exactly what you're hovering over. Images are pretty straightforward, but menus and other page parts can take some trial and error. There's an "Undo Last Remove" option in case you accidentally zap something you need. Or you can just reload the page to restore it to its original state.

One limitation is that you can't easily nuke Flash content, since when you right-click on Flash, you get its context menu, not Firefox's. Sometimes you can find the container tag that holds the Flash, but it can take some trial and error.

Version reviewed: 0.54
addons.mozilla.org/firefox/951

Forecastfox
Forecastfox puts an up-to-date weather forecast in Firefox's status bar. Just click one of its icons to see the full weather report at AccuWeather.com.

A wide range of options gives you control over how much, or how little, information you want, including a radar image button, severe weather warnings and extended forecasts of up to eight days. You can set up profiles, each with its own set of options. Use these to get the weather in different zip codes if you're a traveler, or create profiles with lots of data for turbulent winter conditions and minimal data for warm, sunny summer days.

The only downside here is that, as with all extensions that rely on data from external Web sites, if the AccuWeather.com site isn't responding, you won't get any weather updates.

Version reviewed: 0.9.3.1
addons.mozilla.org/firefox/398

Answers
This one's simple: Just hold down the Alt key (Option key on a Mac) and click on a word, and a window will pop up with information about that word from Answers.com. (You can have the results displayed in a full window if you'd rather.) There's a More button in the pop-up that'll open a new tab with the full Answers.com results page.

For phrases, you still have to highlight, right-click and choose "Look up on Answers.com" to get results in a new tab.

Version reviewed: 2.2.22
addons.mozilla.org/firefox/735

FireFTP
Why bounce between applications when you can use FireFTP and have a full-featured FTP client in one tab, and the page you're working on in another?

FireFTP adds an option to Firefox's Tools menu. Click on it and a new tab opens (you can set this to a new window if you prefer) with a traditional two-panel FTP client: local files on the left, remote on the right. By right-clicking on files you can tweak their permissions and all the other things you'd expect to be able to do via FTP.

One nice feature is "View on the Web," which opens the file on the remote server in a new tab. You can set up each host to "snip" out parts of the directory structure (/public_html, for example) so that you get valid URLs rather than the full "physical" path to the file.

The one disappointment is that the client is FTP only. When asked about SFTP support, the author responds (in a FAQ on his page), "Maybe in Version 2.0." Let's hope.

Warning: The combination of FireFTP and Firefox 2.0.0.1 exposes a regression bug in Firefox, causing high CPU usage. If you're still running 2.0.0.1, you should upgrade to 2.0.0.2 before installing FireFTP.

Version reviewed: 0.94.6
addons.mozilla.org/firefox/684

Firebug
Firebug is an essential tool for developers working on Web pages. It allows you to examine and tweak the HTML, CSS and JavaScript contained in a page, all on the fly. Firebug opens either as a panel at the bottom of the page you're inspecting, or in a separate window.

Exploring all that Firebug can do could be a full article of its own. But for a taste of its power, let's look at basic HTML coding. Once Firebug is activated, running your mouse over an HTML tag in the Firebug window causes a highlighted area to appear on the rendered page, showing where that tag is in the display.

For JavaScript development, Firebug finds errors and quickly jumps to where they are in the code. You can change the code and step through a script line by line, set breakpoints and so on. Essentially, it's a full-fledged JavaScript debugging system residing in a browser extension.

Firebug is a great extension and a big topic. If you develop Web pages, you'll want to add this extension to your tool kit. There's plenty of documentation and discussion of what it can do at the GetFirebug Web site.

Version reviewed: 1.01
www.getfirebug.com

Web Developer
Web Developer is another virtual Swiss Army Knife for coding. There's some overlap with Firebug, but where Firebug concerns itself almost exclusively with the content of a Web page, Web Developer offers tools to tweak how you're interacting with the page.

For instance, you can modify cookies on the fly, examining, deleting and even manually adding them. You can tweak form settings, clear private data and disable the cache -- all kinds of real-time manipulations.

Web Developer's features can be accessed as a tool bar, or as cascading menus under Firefox's Tools menu. The tool bar is particularly handy since you can see all 12 of the top-level categories of features at a glance (and, of course, it can be easily turned off when you're not in the midst of site development).

This extension can even be useful for regular Web users, thanks to features like the ability to turn off background images. If you've ever struggled to read text displayed, for example, over a background image of someone's dog, you'll appreciate this.

Web developers will probably want to run both Firebug and Web Developer, and the two extensions seem to co-exist peacefully.

Version reviewed: 1.1.3
addons.mozilla.org/firefox/60

MeasureIt
So simple and so useful. After installing this extension, you'll have a small ruler icon in your status bar. When you click on this icon, the client area of your browser window will fade out a little, and you'll have a crosshair cursor.

Use this to drag out a box over a section of the screen. Next to the box is its height and width, measured in pixels. No more guessing as to how wide a sidebar really is, or if the footer is really rendering 150 pixels deep like your style sheet says it should. When you're done, a tap of the Escape key turns off MeasureIt and gives your Web page back to you.

ColorZilla
Another quick and simple tool, this one more for designers than developers. ColorZilla puts an eyedropper icon in your status bar. Click it and you'll get a crosshair cursor. As you run this over a Web page, the RGB values of the pixel under the crosshair will display in the status bar, both as three separate values and as a hex value (e.g., R:255, G:255, B:255 | #FFFFFF).

Additionally, you'll get a border around the style container you're hovering over, an indicator of what the container is and what style it is using (e.g., h2.posttitle or div#content).

ColorZilla also offers a color picker, color palettes and easy access to DOM Inspector, a Mozilla tool for examining a page's Document Object Module.

Huh!!!

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Labels: firefox, firefox tips, fun, google, ie, security, yahoo, youtube

Awesome Google Search Commands To Download FREE Stuff

Labels: google, google tips

Fantastic Freebies

It's no wonder that the PC World readers surveyed rate Gmail as their favorite e-mail service. Says Chuck McNevich of Lexington Park, Maryland, "The interface is considerably faster than Hotmail, Yahoo, and the like. I don't have to pay for the huge storage it gives me."

PC World readers also love Blogger, with one reader noting the service's "easy-to-use features [and] nice themes."

One surveyed PC World reader explains his vote for YouTube succinctly: "Billions of videos. Loads fast." Another cites the service's sizable storage space. And yet another reader speaks directly about why people like video sites in general -- it's a "decent source of diversions," he says. We couldn't agree more.

Labels: blogging, fun, google, microsoft, tips tricks and hacks, youtube