Tuesday, September 20, 2005
Opera Free
Opera is now completely free (that is, you don’t need to pay anymore to remove the ad banner that previously came with the program). I’m afraid they’re too late – Firefox already won as “alternative” browser (and Internet Explorer, of course, is still the most mainstream browser). Maybe the Norway guys should focus on mobile phones exclusively these days? I’ve bought their Nokia browser (mainly because Netfront Access didn’t allow me to buy their product easily) and I’m happy with what I got, and the mobile market is still less consolidated than the desktop market.
Update: Search Engine Journal says Opera went free with a little help from Google.
Google Advertising Search Plugin
Shaun emailed me this screenshot and comments: “It seems Google, happy to be the default search in Firefox but wanting more, target users of the IE7 browser to switch their default search plugin to Google.”
Top Spot or Not
Thorsten O. sent in a link to Google Maps powered TopSpot-orNot.com, a site that gives visitors the possibility to do a virtual travel to over 3000 locations around the world. Thorsten adds it’s similar to pages like HotorNot.com with the difference that you vote for your favorite places around the world.
New Google Logo Variations
Zorgloob shows off some recent Google doodles. [Via IG.]
GymPost
GymPost is a Google Maps app “used to locate fitness facilities like gyms around the U.S." [Thanks Ryan in the forum.]
Mistrusting Yahoo
“Yahoo! Inc. has been taking a beating in the blogosphere lately. On Sept. 6 came the revelation that it provided information that helped Beijing jail a journalist. Days earlier, a report said Yahoo was actively supporting the companies that spawn pop-up ads. Around the same time, bloggers started griping about new Yahoo software downloads that change the preferences on users’ PCs. Pretty soon, even a Yahoo employee was blogging about it.”
– BusinessWeek, September 26, 2005
[Via SEW]
Google Secure Access
Google offers a program to make wireless connections more secure. [Thanks Iolaire McFadden in the forum.]
Nathan notes there’s an easter egg (well, a latin proverb) in the Google Secure Access client about box. It reads “Tunc tua res agitur, paries cùm proximus ardet”, and according to one of Nathan’s readers, translates to “It is your concern when your neighbour’s wall is on fire.”
Google Seal
Adam S. informs me apparently there was a “Google” before Google... try searching Corbis for [Google seal] to read the caption and see his picture.
Google 2002
For the nostalgic Google-fan, Gary Price points me to his miscellaneous Google links from 2002.
Google Maps Visitors Statistics
If you’re a blogger yourself, this might be of interest: Blogflux MapStats aims to show you where your visitor come from – via Google Maps.
Searching for Double-Wildcard
Interesting. David Sanger alerts me you can now search Google for [* *] to get what seems to be a page-count of Google’s index. I get 10,570,000,000 pages (a search for [the] returns 9,170,000,000 result pages).
Google Hurricane Katrina
Catching up with news I’ve missed over my vacation (the Blogspot domain is not available in China, and this includes the official Google Blog – Gmail, by the way, isn’t always available either), Google published a special Hurricane Katrina version on 9/12.
Google Earth Illuminated Content
Google Earth (the desktop brother of Google Maps) now features African imagery and articles from National Geographic.
Google and Apostrophes
Ouch. Google apparently doesn’t understand typographically correct apostrophes in the way they should – with a little flexibility. That means if you want to have professional-looking apostrophes, people phrase-searching your site must enter the apostrophes correct as well.
Google-Spoofing Worm
Thanks to Tomi H. for sending in this pointer to PC World from September 16:
“Downloaders looking for a free Star Wars game may instead find themselves installing a new worm that gives them dodgy Google search results.
The worm, called P2Load.A, is being spread on P-to-P (peer-to-peer) programs like Shareaza and Imesh, masquerading as a free version of the Lucasfilm game Knights of the Old Republic II, says Forrest Clark, senior manager of consumer product marketing with antivirus vendor Panda Software.”
Splog Or Not?
Jean Véronis offers an approach to separate Blogspot spam blogs from regular blogs.
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