Subjects:
Google's Tubes getting Blocked?
It appears, even Google - according to Peter Norvig, Google's research director - is no longer trying to understand the enormous amounts of data they're sucking in. So they've come to the conclusion, that it doesn't matter why something is - or isn't - as long as they can be reasonably sure they observe something.
The premise is thoroughly picked apart in a scathing Slashdot discussion. Don't give up hope yet.
Legally Copying
Google's Book Search people should know, in fact, they must know. That's why they worked hard to learn about existing copyright to books published in the US. Now they make available what they established.
Watching a Google Bomb in Real Time
Chris Bowers, a liberal blogger tries to influence people's opinion of Senator John McCain through his blog and Google Bombs created by other bloggers supporting the "cause". The full story is here, results are listed here. Both pages are [currently?] slow to load.
Firefox Colour Profiles
Firefox 3.0 now supports colour profiles, which can improve the on screen rendering of photos dramatically. But can backfire if your photos have the same background as the HTML pages they're shown in. Colour profiles modify images, not ordinary HTML content controlled by CSS. Use with caution.
Headline in Seattle Newspaper
Man gets Windows Vista to work with printer. And yes, it's not a fake.
Please. Please! Can't Somebody use Live Search?
They're paying for it. Big Time. The whole thing seems to have escalated into giving away Ballmer's retirement funds.
Link Quality
The best ever description, for people who don't know this instinctively, of which type of link will always be desirable, supportable and endorseable, comes from no other than Matt Cutts:
Those links are typically given voluntarily. It is an editorial link by someone, and it's someone that's informed. They are not misinformed, they are not tricked; there is no bait and switch involved. It's because somebody thinks that something is so cool, so useful, or so helpful that they want to make little sign posts so that other people on the web can find that out.
Shame he then labours their need to encourage people to report paid links. As if Google doesn't have the ability or capacity to do this without people joining the Stasi. Looks to me like a very poor justification for sometimes honouring questionable links.
Javascript for the Unwashed
It's astonishing what is happening in users' mail boxes after all these years. I presume ignorance is bliss. But it's downright pathetic what's happening on the sites of Verisign, McAfee and Symantec; why don't they have a synthetic and threatening sounding name for their own problems?
Net Neutrality Wins
Not quite, but it's getting there if Google's plans to give users the facts they need to justify moving from interfering to neutral providers come true.
Data Breach Analysis
Verizon Business have just published a study summarising the results of 500 forensic investigations with about 230 millions of records. The study includes three of the largest five security breaches that ever came to light. Summary: nothing new. It's all down to human ignorance and disinterest. About 90% of the breaches were possible because no reasonable measures to prevent problems were in place. And three in four breaches have been detected not by the compromised organisations but by third parties.
Dealing with Dupes
Some duplicate content is created by negligence, such as linking to /page, /page/ and /page/index.html, which is one and the same document, if the web server is configured to do indexing and redirects. Other dupes are created by scrapers wanting to re-use interesting content. If you're concerned or affected here's help with on site duplicates and those created by scrapers.
Flush Flash
The fact that Flash often is a waste of [user] time is emphasised by Google when results contain a link to a flash based site which thankfully has a "skip intro" link.
Typo3 Typos
Typo3 users have to take into account the possibility of web content modifications by third parties. Here's a known cure.
Google Firefox Engagement
In a typically long article Danny Sullivan suggests that the Firefox coders allow users to decide which Search Engine is available right from within the browser toolbar, because "some" are not on the list. To quote:
Microsoft Live Search is an excellent alternative -- but it doesn't make the list.
That is probably a statement which is very politically correct. Doesn't appear to be based on fact, though [as market share suggests]. Apart from that there's one other reason, Danny forgets: Firefox is an Open Source project. And Microsoft has forever been using the dirtiest tricks imaginable trying to prevent Open Source gaining a foothold.
Google Trends with Numbers
Google Trend now allows relative comparisons between search volume numbers when looking at several search terms. The base line at 1.0 is set by the first term entered. And if the graphic representation is not precise enough you can now download the data as a CSV file.
Which websites you shouldn't really trust
Using an analogy from judo Ronald van den Heetkamp explains why there is no known cure against cross site scripting attacks as long as Javascript is allowed to do its things in your browser.
What if You suspect Identity Fraud
HM Revenue and Customs have prepared a Must See Webpage for people suspecting their National Insurance Number has been used in fraud.
Mudslinging Contest
Someone doesn't like Ebay Australia's idea of forcing people to use Paypal exclusively, and thus submitted a report to the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission. But this someone also doesn't like people to know about this, so the report was made anonymously. Now it appears that someone was Google. Leading John Battelle to sum up, This can only further drive eBay, one of Google's largest customers, into the arms of Yahoo and Microsoft. And here I was always believing that Ebay used Google not because of some inherent loyalty, but because Google provided the people typing things into search forms.
Wikia Search
As you may have read Wikia is now open to anyone wanting to search or re-arrange results. And it's definitively worth a screenshot for those who haven't disabled Javascript in their browser.
Phorm Report
Wired had a detailed look at a 2007 report about British Telecom's secret trial of the adcrap technology Phorm published on Wikileaks. It's not only embarrassing because of what they did. It's also so pathetic how they did it.
Javascript Too Slow
If you expect your pages to be viewed on mobile kit such as Apple's Iphone try to avoid Javascript, as apart from the well known risks it's far slower than native execution. If something happens "in a blink" on an ordinary PC, blink 80 to 100 times to see how much longer it takes on a mobile device.
Google SEO
Google officially asks users again for reports about paid links and other forms of spam.
Google Commandline
Stefan Grothkopp created something called Goosh, resembling a "Google commandline". It runs in the browser window, provided Javascript is activated. To see Goosh simulating a text interface to Google unfortunately requires a graphical browser. If you want to use a real command line interface to google - and lots of other search engines and databases - you have to install surfraw.
Official "First Click Free Policy"
If you ever wondered why some media pages are available only after being found in Google News and not when requested directly by typing a URL into the browser's address bar here's the official justification.
Fat Sucks
Google's Marissa Meyer detailed some of the Google Basics visible right from day one, and never really understood or accepted by virtually all of the competitors: faster loading pages lead to more users. Every day. Even today.
History Repeat
Reading Tim O'Reilly's editorial about Microsoft and how it seems not to get Yahoo reminded me that Yahoo abandoned proprietary search in the past in order to buy from Google. They then acquired AltaVista and AllTheWeb and also the pay per click engine Go, later renamed Overture. Now they're considering outsourcing search to Google.
© Copyright 1998 - 2008 Klaus Schallhorn.