Computer Tips -Tech Info

Category: General Web/Tech

  • MSN Virtual Earth neat tricks

    I’ve spent some time covering some of the neat implementations of Google Maps and Google Earth, I’ve just come across a site that has similar uses for Microsoft’s MSN Virtual Earth. The site is called viavirtualearth.com and not only links to examples of neat things people have done using Virtual Earth, but also articles and how-to’s on implementing some of your own neat-tricks.

    At this point, I still find Google maps easier (more intuitive?) to navigate in some of these (I tried a Ufo-maps link which offers both virtual earth and google maps overlays.) That could just be because I’ve used Google Maps more at this point.

  • Microsoft working to ensure Windows Validation works with Firefox

    I’ve got to say, I’m impressed that this is happening. From the IEblog…

    The core of my team’s job is to make IE7 and Windows Vista so compelling so that people choose our products. The people who work on Windows want you to have a good experience, whether you use IE or not – for example, Windows Media Player has a Firefox plugin. I also recently got a chance to play with a new Firefox plugin that simplifies and improves the Windows validation process on that browser – since, as I said to Scoble a long time ago, it would be arrogant for the people working on a product not to use other products in that category.

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  • Cogent cut takes down major internet backbone

    Cogent has suffered a major outage of one of their main internet backbone connections. It appears that this link is having a big affect on the “internet health”. Comcast seems to be relatively hard hit with connectivity issues from this. It appears that the Northeast US and Southeast may have sporadic outages depending on the ISP. I’ve had a few peculiar net experiences this morning, but I’m not sure if this connectivity problem is what I’ve seen.

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  • 64 bit chips will soon be required for Microsoft Software

    CNet is reporting that Microsoft will require 64bit processor for upcoming server applications and Operating Systems. Amonge these, Exchange 12, Longhorn Server R2 and a small business version of Longhorn Server will ONLY be available for x86 64-bit processors. (Longhorn Server R2 is expected ~2009, although Exchange 12 is expected late next year (late 2006).

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  • Google Print is renamed Google Book Search

    Google has renamed Google Print to Google Book Search today. It appears that among other things, the name was a bit misleading for some. (Some apparently were excited that “Google Print would help them print out their documents, or web pages they visit — which of course it won’t. ” Their other reason is due to the “evolution” of the product. Their goal of course, is to allow searches within the full text of books.

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  • The best way to get rid of the Sony DRM rootkit

    The SecurityFix has a great how to article for the general public on the best way to remove the Sony DRM rootkit that’s been big news the last two weeks in tech circles. First, DON’T use Sony’s removal software as that introduces more security problems. Hopefully Sony will get together a removal for THAT eventually. Right now though, Microsoft has updated it’s malicious software removal tool to remove the Sony rootkit. This link is to Windows Live Safety Center, which will give a page with, among other things, a button that says “Full Service Scan” in the lower right hand corner.

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  • More google news sitemaps….

    What are they trying to prove??? Okay, Google Analytics rolled out (slowly) earlier this week and is just now catching up on reporting data. It looked like one of the rockiest initial Google releases to date. This morning came the news of Google Base a way to submit and search, well, sets of information that you’d commonly see in a database. NOW, this afternoon I read that Google Sitemaps has added statistics and tracking information….

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  • Google Analytics under the microscope

    I’ve spent some time this evening looking at Google Analytics. (Now the data is being collected.) And I’ve got to say I’m impressed with the scope of what I’m seeing. First, since last night, more stats have been collected, there seem to be some missing from today yet (maybe ~12 hours behind at the moment). When I signed up, I went ahead and created profiles for 4 websites that I run to have some different things to look at. I’ve spent about 30-45 minutes looking through the stats for just one of those.

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  • Google Base is now available

    Sometime back, there was talk of Google Base, a databas-ish product coming from Google. Let me let a summary from their blog explain it…

    Rather than impose specific schemas and structures on the world, Google Base suggests attributes and item types based on popularity, which you can use to define and attach your own labels and attributes to each data item. Then searchers can find information more quickly and effectively by using these labels and attributes to refine their queries on the experimental version of Google Base search.

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  • Google Analytics stats start to trickle in

    I’ve just logged back in at 1:11 AM EST, 11/16/05 and am seeing the stats from the 14th come in, some from the 15th. It looks like Google Analytics is starting to catch up. I suspect they’ve been working overtime to try and beef up the server resources dedicated to this project, hopefully things will continue to improve. I hope the former paying customers are going to get good treatment here….