Google Jotspot - Feb 29, 2008
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If you registered for Google Jotspot you will likely have received an email from the company by now. They’ve rebranded it as Google Sites, which is described as a suite of products designed to improve communication and collaboration
amongst employees, students, and groups. Apparently, Google Sites makes creating a team web site as easy as editing a document with the added benefits of adding videos, calendars, presentations, attachments, and gadgets. #
Join the Last.FM part - Feb 28, 2008
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Online radio service and scrobbling system, Last.fm, is opening up to third-party apps, which could mean a whole bunch of new ways to use and share your scrobblings on your Desktop, the web, and in Social Networks #
Unblock MySpace at school - Feb 28, 2008
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Just how safe are these anonymizers and proxies for accessing MySpace, nexopia, Facebook, and other sites from school and work where they’re often banned? You Are Free apparently bypasses filters and firewalls. Check it out and let me know if you works for you. #
Europe flips Microsoft the bird - Feb 28, 2008
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The European Commission has fined
Microsoft $1.4 billion for defying the sanctions it imposed on the company under law aimed at preventing anti-competitive practices. #
Not another Italian site: Fav.or.it - Feb 27, 2008
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The .it top-level domain gets another outing, this time with a community-led RSS aggregator with a twist (you know, like fusilli), it has comment features not available in other aggregators. Will it become my favorit? Cannot say just yet, it’s in public beta ripe for signups though. Hold the pepper. #
MapleStory and MapleTip - Feb 27, 2008
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Lots of Sig Figs readers have been looking for help on Maplestory. Mapletip.com seems to fill that gap so here’s the link. By the way, Maplestory is an online game where 2D avatars (none of your Second Life 3D nonsense) attack monsters, meet other characters, chat, and even get married. Fun? You decide. #
Post a pic, get an answer - Feb 27, 2008
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Curious about a mystery object, a symbol, want to know where something is? Post a picture of it, ask the community a question, and get an answer. #
Online lessons, not for everyone - Feb26, 2008
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Despite the proclamations of teaching sells brigade, not everyone takes to online learning. Now, a researcher at the University of Missouri has found that some students are destined to fail in online learning whereas others will succeed. #
Adsense privacy policy - Feb 26, 2008
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Google has updated its AdSense terms and conditions to reflect forthcoming offerings, such as Gadget Ads. One of the new requirements is that publishers have a transparent privacy policy. So, now is the time to get yours ready. Probably the quickest and slickest way to create a validated privacy policy that covers your back legally speaking is to use Trust Guard at http://www.freeprivacypolicy.com. It’s very straightforward and creates all the standard compliance statements covering all eventualities including Californian law and child protection etc. #
Diggoogle widget updates - Feb 26, 2008
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Social bookmarks site Digg.com has updated its Google Gadget to allow greater customization, has created a MySpace widget and customized its Netvibes widget to show what your friends are Digging. #
Somewhere…YouTube - Feb 25, 2008
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Trust propagation across the web all the way from Islamabad to Idaho led to blackout across Youtube’s interwebs on Sunday. The outage caused by a failure to block blocking instructions reveals how easily fooled the internet’s inherent trust system can be. #
Stealth chat on GMail - Feb 25, 2008
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Google Mail this weekend added a stealth mode to GMail Chat. Bizarrely, the same option is not available in GTalk. #
What was your first photo? - Feb 25, 2008
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What’s the first thing people photograph with their brand-new digital camera. Search for DSC00001.jpg files on flickr and Google Images to find out! #
Simplified sharing with Siphs - Feb 25, 2008
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A new bookmarking widget similar to AddThis but with extras just launched. In addition to the sharing benefits, the widget lets bloggers get an
RSS feed of the most shared items as well as allowing to add their branding to the email forwards. Sounds good to me. Pity about the name, sounds like catching an STD more than once. #
MSIE version 8 private beta - feb 24, 2008
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I’m not a big fan of Internet Explorer, but a lot of Sig Figs visitors use it, so I don’t mind offering a heads-up for the next version (ver which is in private beta. This link offers an invitation. #
Google Goolag Feb 23, 2008
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Hacker/cracker group Cult of the Dead Cow releases search exploits, makes finding vulnerable sites easy. Be warned. #
Finding authoritative sources - Feb 22, 2008
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I don’t know a journalist who doesn’t have a vast pile of contacts, experts and authoritative sources they can draw on for a quote, but if you’re a blogger your Rolodex may not be so big. You could turn to Ask Questions on LinkedIn as an alternative source of quotable words to bolster your opinions in any given post. #
Video interrupted - Feb 21, 2008
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Google Adsense the contextual advertising system is launching invideo ads for website owners and bloggers who want to monetize their video content. Of course, that means their readers will not have watch interrupted vidz. No doubt someone somewhere is working on a fast-forward Greasemonkey script or an add-on for AdBlockPlus. #
Remove DRM from iTunes - Feb 21, 2008
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Finally, a way to remove DRM licensing protection from music files you bought from iTunes so you can make them portable across all your devices and desktops #
Blogger photo addiction - Feb 21, 2008
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Google Blogger Play shows you what photos are being uploaded, right now, to Blogger Blogspot blogs. It’s a never-ending stream of imagery, some amusing, some wonderful, some absolutel sh*t. Google’s Matt Cutts describes it as “addictive”, I wonder whether he really spends his time following the photostream or whether he’s got better things to do. #
Murmurs from Feedburner - Feb 21, 2008
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There has been very little new activity from Feedburner recently, but today (coinciding with some dissenting voices in the blogosphere earlier this week), it opened its fiery mouth for the first time in months (previous post on their Burning Qs blog was November). So, what did they have to say? Anything to set you alight? Well…no…the post was just a “helloooo” that tells us they’ve been busy making Feedburner more Googley. Maybe there’ll be some real news soon…November say? #
Fix y’all’s hardware - Feb 20, 2008
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Fixya.com just launched and offers hardware fixes for everyone. No sound from your soundcard? Listen up! Digital camera no longer able to point and shoot? Snap out of it! Router issues? 66 it! #
Who’s reading your email? Feb 20, 2008
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An electronic equivalent of James Bond’s hair stuck between door and frame can reveal whether someone is spying on your email. It’s based on a web app called OneStatFree and reveals the impostors IP and other time of snooping even if they mark an email as unread afterwards. #
Blogger in Filipino - Feb 20, 2008
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Google’s Blogspot Blogger system is now available in Filipino. The launch of this new language in the big G’s blogosphere recognizes the very strong blogging community in the Philippines, says the company. #
Did you get defriended - Feb 19, 2008
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There are technological limits to how many friends you can have on sites like StumbleUpon, but there are also natural limits to how many people you can truly care about. #
Google Sitelinks explained - Feb 19. 2008
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Two of my science sites recently started showing Google SiteLinks in the SERPs. Wayne Smallman at Blah Blah Tech reckons he knows what’s going on as he’s seen something similar just this week too with some of his web design client sites. #
Gates opening for search - Feb 19, 2008
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Microsoft’s Bill Gates will not up his offer to Yahoo but will attempt to take some of Google’s market share for search either with or without Y! #
Stop checking your email - Feb 18, 2008
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An eight-point plan to help you cut back on your evening and weekend email addiction without going cold turkey and without losing business. #
Tune your hard drive - Feb 18. 2008
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Check and tune your hard drive before it’s too late. Free version will be adequate for finding imminent failure-causing faults. #
Blu-Ray loses - Feb 18, 2008
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Blue-Ray may have won the battle of the high-definition DVDs, but ultimately it will lose out to downloads. #
Download all your Yahoo Mail Feb 15, 2008
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After a long wait and with little fanfare (other than this Adesblog post), Yahoo has added a link to allow you to download all your Y!Mail in one go. It’s about time…but are we going to see more and more long-overdue new features as the big Y! tries to keep a grip? I think so… #
Use Google to boost your rank - Feb 15, 2008
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Check out your best keywords with GWMTs, search for those terms and optimize the specific page from your site that ranks in the SERPs…sit back…wait till re-spiders and then watch the new traffic surge. Here’s hoping. #
Yahoo Video Exclusive - Feb 15, 2008
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Yahoo Video has relaunched and now includes exclusive content, although Mashable says it’s nothing particularly new even with new features. Is this panic building following Micro$oft’s recent advances. Surely, Yahoo doesn’t think it’s going to be able to compete seriously with Youtube? #
No Keywords in Comments - Feb 15, 2008
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Sensible policy for those running a blog, don’t let your commenters use keywords instead of their name, it not makes the commenter look cheap and spammy but it makes the blogger look cheap and spammy too. Not a good idea. #
Google is squaring up against Baidu - Feb 14, 2008
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Google is to go head to head with Baidu.com in China for music dominance, according to Reuters. Google is expected to announce a joint venture with Top100.cn, to allow users to listen to and download licensed music files for free, major portal Sina.com said, citing local newspaper reports based on sources close to the U.S. firm. #
Drupal 6.0 released - Feb 14, 2008
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The “easiest” version of the Drupal content management system is released. Just so users know they’re among good company, the org lists Drupal users including the homepages of Warner Brothers Records, The New York Observer, Fast Company, Popular Science, and Amnesty International, as well as project sites at SonyBMG, Forbes, Harvard University. Drupal blogs and podcasts include those of Tim Berners-Lee, TWIT.tv and online communities such as SpreadFireFox.com. #
Win $200 of Google AdWords vouchers - Feb 14, 2008
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Google is Giiiiving away $200 of vouchers to spend on an Adwords campaign to some 21,000 students who will have to devise a marketing strategy and beat others in an international challenge. #
Post to MySpace Button - Feb 14, 2008
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Social networking just got easier for MySpace users who now have a Post to MySpace button that allows you to promote your content with your MySpace profile. Watch the viral marketeers have a field day. #
Digg for carrs - Feb 13, 2008
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A social media site for petrol heads, in beta at the time of writing. US launches for “gas-heads” in a couple of weeks time UK ebuga boss Andy Foote tells me. #
Dooooodle Google Feb 13, 2008
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A competition from Gooooogle to get your Dooooodle on their homepage for a day. What more could you ask? It’s open to K12 students only though, d’oh! #
If you run your own business or are responsible for network security within your organization then preventing attacks and eliminating network weaknesses are important. Vulnerability Management for Dummies arms you with the facts and shows you how to keep your business safe. Qualifying Sciencetext readers can download their copy free, right now.
which is in private beta. This link offers an invitation. #
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