Posts

More alternate search engines

You know that Google is popular, right? SearchEngineWatch.com reported a nearly 44% share for July 2006, while Yahoo! and MSN continue to lose market share. ( HitWise reported a 64% U.S. share for March 2007) In January I wrote about a few alternate search engines ( Ms. Dewey , ChaCha , Snap , and Rollyo ), in case you were interested in whether their was a competitor or two on the horizon. If that didn't move you away from Google (it didn't make me change), there are 100 more search engines you might want to try at Read / WriteWeb . Let me know if you find any promising alternatives; right now I'm staying with Google.

Open Source Software -- Free and Legal

I recently ran across a blog posting at The Simple Dollar titled 30 Essential Pieces of Free (and Open) Software for Windows . They are not quite all essential; perhaps 10 are. Many I have heard of, but a few are new to me. Of course it lists popular open source software such as Firefox , Thunderbird , and Audacity , but there are some other good ones including Filezilla (FTP client), Handbrake (watch DVDs locally without the DVD), and FreeMind (mind mapping). Check this blog post and see what you might be paying for that you could get for free and legal.

Firefox and Google together make a powerful search utility

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If you have ever explored Google's advanced search capabilities, you would know that it can be very powerful in finding specific content. For example, you can use it to find web directories with music from your favorite artist. Take this code for example, which you can enter into the Google search box: -inurl:(htm|html|php) intitle:”index of” +”last modified” +”parent directory” +description +size +(wma|mp3) “Stevie Ray Vaughn” Your results would be something like this: You can even add different file formats and wildcards for the search string: -inurl:(htm|html|php) intitle:"index of" +"last modified" +"parent directory" +description +size +(wma|mp3| ogg ) "stevie ray vaughn % " How does this apply to Firefox? Well I'm glad you asked! You may recall that by entering a keyword into the field of a bookmark, you can retrieve the bookmark in the Address Box by just entering the keyword. Firefox also supports wildcard parameters, so you can

Hacking Skype

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I recently published a blog post on my experience in moving to Skype as my phone service. Since that time, I found an article from VOIP News that has 25 hacks for Skype. This article includes a wealth of information on how you can extend the capabilities of Skype. For example, using a program called AudioID , it will announce the Skype user name on incoming calls. This is a great feature if you're away from your PC. Other hacks include: A DIY security system Recording calls Enhanced voice mail Integrating with last.fm Lip syncing Avatar If you have Skype, this is a must read; if you don't ahve Skype, check out what you're missing.

Use Excel to solve Soduko puzzles

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I found a clever Excel template on the Microsoft site . With this template, it can help you solve Soduko puzzles. You enter the numbers you have, and have it calculate possible answers for the remaining open spots. If it cannot completely solve it, try 1 of the possible numbers and recalculate. Eventually, you will solve the puzzle. Microsoft has other game templates as well.

Music just gets better and better on the Internet

I have talked about some of my favorite music services in the past, including Pandora and of course the iTunes/iPod combination. I have also used YouTube , Live365 , and other streaming services. Now I have a new favorite, last.fm . With last.fm, I enter my favorite artist, band, or song, and it streams music related to that category. At the surface it sounds just like Pandora, but I believe the music matching algorithm is better, as well as last.fm offers many more features. For example, the module above will play my music recommendations, or you can play it on the last.fm site . These are the songs that match what I have selected. I can also play my recommended songs through a downloadable client . last.fm uses scrobbing to assist in recommending music. Scrobbling a song means that when you listen to it, the name of the song is sent to Last.fm and added to your music profile. Once you've signed up and downloaded Last.fm , you can scrobble songs you

Cool Firefox Trick

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I ran across a cool trick with Firefox, which allows you to open Firefox within Firefox. There's no real purpose behind it, it's just a fun thing to do. Just enter this into the URL line of Firefox: chrome://browser/content/browser.xul