Syntax is a way to tell Google that you want to restrict your searches to certain elements or characteristics of Web pages. Google has a fairly complete list of its syntax elements at:
www.google.com/help/operators.html
Here are some advanced operators that can help narrow down your search results.
Intitle: at the beginning of a query word or phrase (intitle:”Three Blind Mice”) restricts your search results to just the titles of Web pages.
Intext: does the opposite of intitle:, searching only the body text, ignoring titles, links, and so forth. Intext: is perfect when what you’re searching for might commonly appear in URLs. If you’re looking for the term HTML, for example, and you don’t want to get results such as
www.mysite.com/index.html
You can also enter intext:html.
Link: lets you see which pages are linking to your Web page or to another page you’re interested in. For example, try typing in
link:http://www.hungry-hackers.com
Try using site: (which restricts results to top-level domains) with intitle: to find certain types of pages. For example, get scholarly pages about Mark Twain by searching for intitle:”Mark Twain”site:edu. Experiment with mixing various elements; you’ll develop several strategies for finding the stuff you want more effectively. The site: command is very helpful as an alternative to the mediocre search engines built into many sites.
Swiss Army Google
Google has a number of services that can help you accomplish tasks you may never have thought to use Google for. For example, the new calculator feature
(www.google.com/help/features.html#calculator)
Lets you do both math and a variety of conversions from the search box. For extra fun, try the query “Answer to life the universe and everything.”
Let Google help you figure out whether you’ve got the right spelling—and the right word—for your search. Enter a misspelled word or phrase into the query box (try “thre blund mise”) and Google may suggest a proper spelling. This doesn’t always succeed; it works best when the word you’re searching for can be found in a dictionary. Once you search for a properly spelled word, look at the results page, which repeats your query. (If you’re searching for “three blind mice,” underneath the search window will appear a statement such as Searched the web for “three blind mice.”) You’ll discover that you can click on each word in your search phrase and get a definition from a dictionary.
Suppose you want to contact someone and don’t have his phone number handy. Google can help you with that, too. Just enter a name, city, and state. (The city is optional, but you must enter a state.) If a phone number matches the listing, you’ll see it at the top of the search results along with a map link to the address. If you’d rather restrict your results, use rphonebook: for residential listings or bphonebook: for business listings. If you’d rather use a search form for business phone listings, try Yellow Search
(www.buzztoolbox.com/google/yellowsearch.shtml).
Extended Googling
Google offers several services that give you a head start in focusing your search. Google Groups
(http://groups.google.com)
indexes literally millions of messages from decades of discussion on Usenet. Google even helps you with your shopping via two tools: Froogle
CODE
(http://froogle.google.com),
which indexes products from online stores, and Google Catalogs
CODE
(http://catalogs.google.com),
which features products from more 6,000 paper catalogs in a searchable index. And this only scratches the surface. You can get a complete list of Google’s tools and services at
www.google.com/options/index.html
You’re probably used to using Google in your browser. But have you ever thought of using Google outside your browser?
Google Alert
(www.googlealert.com)
monitors your search terms and e-mails you information about new additions to Google’s Web index. (Google Alert is not affiliated with Google; it uses Google’s Web services API to perform its searches.) If you’re more interested in news stories than general Web content, check out the beta version of Google News Alerts
(www.google.com/newsalerts).
This service (which is affiliated with Google) will monitor up to 50 news queries per e-mail address and send you information about news stories that match your query. (Hint: Use the intitle: and source: syntax elements with Google News to limit the number of alerts you get.)
Google on the telephone? Yup. This service is brought to you by the folks at Google Labs
(http://labs.google.com),
a place for experimental Google ideas and features (which may come and go, so what’s there at this writing might not be there when you decide to check it out). With Google Voice Search
(http://labs1.google.com/gvs.html),
you dial the Voice Search phone number, speak your keywords, and then click on the indicated link. Every time you say a new search term, the results page will refresh with your new query (you must have JavaScript enabled for this to work). Remember, this service is still in an experimental phase, so don’t expect 100 percent success.
In 2002, Google released the Google API (application programming interface), a way for programmers to access Google’s search engine results without violating the Google Terms of Service. A lot of people have created useful (and occasionally not-so-useful but interesting) applications not available from Google itself, such as Google Alert. For many applications, you’ll need an API key, which is available free from
CODE
www.google.com/apis
Thanks to its many different search properties, Google goes far beyond a regular search engine. Give the tricks in this article a try. You’ll be amazed at how many different ways Google can improve your Internet searching.
Online Extra: More Google Tips
Here are a few more clever ways to tweak your Google searches.
Search Within a Timeframe
Daterange: (start date–end date). You can restrict your searches to pages that were indexed within a certain time period. Daterange: searches by when Google indexed a page, not when the page itself was created. This operator can help you ensure that results will have fresh content (by using recent dates), or you can use it to avoid a topic’s current-news blizzard and concentrate only on older results. Daterange: is actually more useful if you go elsewhere to take advantage of it, because daterange: requires Julian dates, not standard Gregorian dates. You can find converters on the Web (such as
CODE
http://aa.usno.navy.mil/data/docs/JulianDate.html
excl.gif No Active Links, Read the Rules - Edit by Ninja excl.gif), but an easier way is to do a Google daterange: search by filling in a form at
www.researchbuzz.com/toolbox/goofresh.shtml or www.faganfinder.com/engines/google.shtml
If one special syntax element is good, two must be better, right? Sometimes. Though some operators can’t be mixed (you can’t use the link: operator with anything else) many can be, quickly narrowing your results to a less overwhelming number.
More Google API Applications
Staggernation.com offers three tools based on the Google API. The Google API Web Search by Host (GAWSH) lists the Web hosts of the results for a given query
(www.staggernation.com/gawsh/).
When you click on the triangle next to each host, you get a list of results for that host. The Google API Relation Browsing Outliner (GARBO) is a little more complicated: You enter a URL and choose whether you want pages that related to the URL or linked to the URL
(www.staggernation.com/garbo/).
Click on the triangle next to an URL to get a list of pages linked or related to that particular URL. CapeMail is an e-mail search application that allows you to send an e-mail to google@capeclear.com with the text of your query in the subject line and get the first ten results for that query back. Maybe it’s not something you’d do every day, but if your cell phone does e-mail and doesn’t do Web browsing, this is a very handy address to know.
Saturday, September 27, 2008
How To Become HACKER???????
Hackers solve problems and build things, and they believe in freedom and voluntary mutual help. To be accepted as a hacker, you have to behave as though you have this kind of attitude yourself. And to behave as though you have the attitude, you have to really believe the attitude.
But if you think of cultivating hacker attitudes as just a way to gain acceptance in the culture, you'll miss the point. Becoming the kind of person who believes these things is important for you — for helping you learn and keeping you motivated. As with all creative arts, the most effective way to become a master is to imitate the mind-set of masters — not just intellectually but emotionally as well.
Or, as the following modern Zen poem has it:
To follow the path:
look to the master,
follow the master,
walk with the master,
see through the master,
become the master.
So, if you want to be a hacker, repeat the following things until you believe them
1. The world is full of fascinating problems waiting to be solved.
Being a hacker is lots of fun, but it's a kind of fun that takes lots of effort. The effort takes motivation. Successful athletes get their motivation from a kind of physical delight in making their bodies perform, in pushing themselves past their own physical limits. Similarly, to be a hacker you have to get a basic thrill from solving problems, sharpening your skills, and exercising your intelligence.
If you aren't the kind of person that feels this way naturally, you'll need to become one in order to make it as a hacker. Otherwise you'll find your hacking energy is sapped by distractions like sex, money, and social approval.
(You also have to develop a kind of faith in your own learning capacity — a belief that even though you may not know all of what you need to solve a problem, if you tackle just a piece of it and learn from that, you'll learn enough to solve the next piece — and so on, until you're done.)
2. No problem should ever have to be solved twice.
Creative brains are a valuable, limited resource. They shouldn't be wasted on re-inventing the wheel when there are so many fascinating new problems waiting out there.
To behave like a hacker, you have to believe that the thinking time of other hackers is precious — so much so that it's almost a moral duty for you to share information, solve problems and then give the solutions away just so other hackers can solve new problems instead of having to perpetually re-address old ones.
Note, however, that "No problem should ever have to be solved twice." does not imply that you have to consider all existing solutions sacred, or that there is only one right solution to any given problem. Often, we learn a lot about the problem that we didn't know before by studying the first cut at a solution. It's OK, and often necessary, to decide that we can do better. What's not OK is artificial technical, legal, or institutional barriers (like closed-source code) that prevent a good solution from being re-used and force people to re-invent wheels.
(You don't have to believe that you're obligated to give all your creative product away, though the hackers that do are the ones that get most respect from other hackers. It's consistent with hacker values to sell enough of it to keep you in food and rent and computers. It's fine to use your hacking skills to support a family or even get rich, as long as you don't forget your loyalty to your art and your fellow hackers while doing it.)
3. Boredom and drudgery are evil.
Hackers (and creative people in general) should never be bored or have to drudge at stupid repetitive work, because when this happens it means they aren't doing what only they can do — solve new problems. This wastefulness hurts everybody. Therefore boredom and drudgery are not just unpleasant but actually evil.
To behave like a hacker, you have to believe this enough to want to automate away the boring bits as much as possible, not just for yourself but for everybody else (especially other hackers).
(There is one apparent exception to this. Hackers will sometimes do things that may seem repetitive or boring to an observer as a mind-clearing exercise, or in order to acquire a skill or have some particular kind of experience you can't have otherwise. But this is by choice — nobody who can think should ever be forced into a situation that bores them.)
4. Freedom is good.
Hackers are naturally anti-authoritarian. Anyone who can give you orders can stop you from solving whatever problem you're being fascinated by — and, given the way authoritarian minds work, will generally find some appallingly stupid reason to do so. So the authoritarian attitude has to be fought wherever you find it, lest it smother you and other hackers.
(This isn't the same as fighting all authority. Children need to be guided and criminals restrained. A hacker may agree to accept some kinds of authority in order to get something he wants more than the time he spends following orders. But that's a limited, conscious bargain; the kind of personal surrender authoritarians want is not on offer.)
Authoritarians thrive on censorship and secrecy. And they distrust voluntary cooperation and information-sharing — they only like ‘cooperation’ that they control. So to behave like a hacker, you have to develop an instinctive hostility to censorship, secrecy, and the use of force or deception to compel responsible adults. And you have to be willing to act on that belief.
5. Attitude is no substitute for competence.
To be a hacker, you have to develop some of these attitudes. But copping an attitude alone won't make you a hacker, any more than it will make you a champion athlete or a rock star. Becoming a hacker will take intelligence, practice, dedication, and hard work.
Therefore, you have to learn to distrust attitude and respect competence of every kind. Hackers won't let posers waste their time, but they worship competence — especially competence at hacking, but competence at anything is valued. Competence at demanding skills that few can master is especially good, and competence at demanding skills that involve mental acuteness, craft, and concentration is best.
If you revere competence, you'll enjoy developing it in yourself — the hard work and dedication will become a kind of intense play rather than drudgery. That attitude is vital to becoming a hacker.
Points For Style
Again, to be a hacker, you have to enter the hacker mindset. There are some things you can do when you're not at a computer that seem to help. They're not substitutes for hacking (nothing is) but many hackers do them, and feel that they connect in some basic way with the essence of hacking.
• Learn to write your native language well. Though it's a common stereotype that programmers can't write, a surprising number of hackers (including all the most accomplished ones I know of) are very able writers.
• Read science fiction. Go to science fiction conventions (a good way to meet hackers and proto-hackers).
• Train in a martial-arts form. The kind of mental discipline required for martial arts seems to be similar in important ways to what hackers do. The most popular forms among hackers are definitely Asian empty-hand arts such as Tae Kwon Do, various forms of Karate, Wing Chun, Aikido, or Ju Jitsu. Western fencing and Asian sword arts also have visible followings. In places where it's legal, pistol shooting has been rising in popularity since the late 1990s. The most hackerly martial arts are those which emphasize mental discipline, relaxed awareness, and control, rather than raw strength, athleticism, or physical toughness.
• Study an actual meditation discipline. The perennial favorite among hackers is Zen (importantly, it is possible to benefit from Zen without acquiring a religion or discarding one you already have). Other styles may work as well, but be careful to choose one that doesn't require you to believe crazy things.
• Develop an analytical ear for music. Learn to appreciate peculiar kinds of music. Learn to play some musical instrument well, or how to sing.
• Develop your appreciation of puns and wordplay.
The more of these things you already do, the more likely it is that you are natural hacker material. Why these things in particular is not completely clear, but they're connected with a mix of left- and right-brain skills that seems to be important; hackers need to be able to both reason logically and step outside the apparent logic of a problem at a moment's notice.
Work as intensely as you play and play as intensely as you work. For true hackers, the boundaries between "play", "work", "science" and "art" all tend to disappear, or to merge into a high-level creative playfulness. Also, don't be content with a narrow range of skills. Though most hackers self-describe as programmers, they are very likely to be more than competent in several related skills — system administration, web design, and PC hardware troubleshooting are common ones. A hacker who's a system administrator, on the other hand, is likely to be quite skilled at script programming and web design. Hackers don't do things by halves; if they invest in a skill at all, they tend to get very good at it.
Finally, a few things not to do.
• Don't use a silly, grandiose user ID or screen name.
• Don't get in flame wars on Usenet (or anywhere else).
• Don't call yourself a ‘cyberpunk’, and don't waste your time on anybody who does.
• Don't post or email writing that's full of spelling errors and bad grammar.
The only reputation you'll make doing any of these things is as a twit. Hackers have long memories — it could take you years to live your early blunders down enough to be accepted.
The problem with screen names or handles deserves some amplification. Concealing your identity behind a handle is a juvenile and silly behavior characteristic of crackers, warez d00dz, and other lower life forms. Hackers don't do this; they're proud of what they do and want it associated with their real names. So if you have a handle, drop it. In the hacker culture it will only mark you as a loser
But if you think of cultivating hacker attitudes as just a way to gain acceptance in the culture, you'll miss the point. Becoming the kind of person who believes these things is important for you — for helping you learn and keeping you motivated. As with all creative arts, the most effective way to become a master is to imitate the mind-set of masters — not just intellectually but emotionally as well.
Or, as the following modern Zen poem has it:
To follow the path:
look to the master,
follow the master,
walk with the master,
see through the master,
become the master.
So, if you want to be a hacker, repeat the following things until you believe them
1. The world is full of fascinating problems waiting to be solved.
Being a hacker is lots of fun, but it's a kind of fun that takes lots of effort. The effort takes motivation. Successful athletes get their motivation from a kind of physical delight in making their bodies perform, in pushing themselves past their own physical limits. Similarly, to be a hacker you have to get a basic thrill from solving problems, sharpening your skills, and exercising your intelligence.
If you aren't the kind of person that feels this way naturally, you'll need to become one in order to make it as a hacker. Otherwise you'll find your hacking energy is sapped by distractions like sex, money, and social approval.
(You also have to develop a kind of faith in your own learning capacity — a belief that even though you may not know all of what you need to solve a problem, if you tackle just a piece of it and learn from that, you'll learn enough to solve the next piece — and so on, until you're done.)
2. No problem should ever have to be solved twice.
Creative brains are a valuable, limited resource. They shouldn't be wasted on re-inventing the wheel when there are so many fascinating new problems waiting out there.
To behave like a hacker, you have to believe that the thinking time of other hackers is precious — so much so that it's almost a moral duty for you to share information, solve problems and then give the solutions away just so other hackers can solve new problems instead of having to perpetually re-address old ones.
Note, however, that "No problem should ever have to be solved twice." does not imply that you have to consider all existing solutions sacred, or that there is only one right solution to any given problem. Often, we learn a lot about the problem that we didn't know before by studying the first cut at a solution. It's OK, and often necessary, to decide that we can do better. What's not OK is artificial technical, legal, or institutional barriers (like closed-source code) that prevent a good solution from being re-used and force people to re-invent wheels.
(You don't have to believe that you're obligated to give all your creative product away, though the hackers that do are the ones that get most respect from other hackers. It's consistent with hacker values to sell enough of it to keep you in food and rent and computers. It's fine to use your hacking skills to support a family or even get rich, as long as you don't forget your loyalty to your art and your fellow hackers while doing it.)
3. Boredom and drudgery are evil.
Hackers (and creative people in general) should never be bored or have to drudge at stupid repetitive work, because when this happens it means they aren't doing what only they can do — solve new problems. This wastefulness hurts everybody. Therefore boredom and drudgery are not just unpleasant but actually evil.
To behave like a hacker, you have to believe this enough to want to automate away the boring bits as much as possible, not just for yourself but for everybody else (especially other hackers).
(There is one apparent exception to this. Hackers will sometimes do things that may seem repetitive or boring to an observer as a mind-clearing exercise, or in order to acquire a skill or have some particular kind of experience you can't have otherwise. But this is by choice — nobody who can think should ever be forced into a situation that bores them.)
4. Freedom is good.
Hackers are naturally anti-authoritarian. Anyone who can give you orders can stop you from solving whatever problem you're being fascinated by — and, given the way authoritarian minds work, will generally find some appallingly stupid reason to do so. So the authoritarian attitude has to be fought wherever you find it, lest it smother you and other hackers.
(This isn't the same as fighting all authority. Children need to be guided and criminals restrained. A hacker may agree to accept some kinds of authority in order to get something he wants more than the time he spends following orders. But that's a limited, conscious bargain; the kind of personal surrender authoritarians want is not on offer.)
Authoritarians thrive on censorship and secrecy. And they distrust voluntary cooperation and information-sharing — they only like ‘cooperation’ that they control. So to behave like a hacker, you have to develop an instinctive hostility to censorship, secrecy, and the use of force or deception to compel responsible adults. And you have to be willing to act on that belief.
5. Attitude is no substitute for competence.
To be a hacker, you have to develop some of these attitudes. But copping an attitude alone won't make you a hacker, any more than it will make you a champion athlete or a rock star. Becoming a hacker will take intelligence, practice, dedication, and hard work.
Therefore, you have to learn to distrust attitude and respect competence of every kind. Hackers won't let posers waste their time, but they worship competence — especially competence at hacking, but competence at anything is valued. Competence at demanding skills that few can master is especially good, and competence at demanding skills that involve mental acuteness, craft, and concentration is best.
If you revere competence, you'll enjoy developing it in yourself — the hard work and dedication will become a kind of intense play rather than drudgery. That attitude is vital to becoming a hacker.
Points For Style
Again, to be a hacker, you have to enter the hacker mindset. There are some things you can do when you're not at a computer that seem to help. They're not substitutes for hacking (nothing is) but many hackers do them, and feel that they connect in some basic way with the essence of hacking.
• Learn to write your native language well. Though it's a common stereotype that programmers can't write, a surprising number of hackers (including all the most accomplished ones I know of) are very able writers.
• Read science fiction. Go to science fiction conventions (a good way to meet hackers and proto-hackers).
• Train in a martial-arts form. The kind of mental discipline required for martial arts seems to be similar in important ways to what hackers do. The most popular forms among hackers are definitely Asian empty-hand arts such as Tae Kwon Do, various forms of Karate, Wing Chun, Aikido, or Ju Jitsu. Western fencing and Asian sword arts also have visible followings. In places where it's legal, pistol shooting has been rising in popularity since the late 1990s. The most hackerly martial arts are those which emphasize mental discipline, relaxed awareness, and control, rather than raw strength, athleticism, or physical toughness.
• Study an actual meditation discipline. The perennial favorite among hackers is Zen (importantly, it is possible to benefit from Zen without acquiring a religion or discarding one you already have). Other styles may work as well, but be careful to choose one that doesn't require you to believe crazy things.
• Develop an analytical ear for music. Learn to appreciate peculiar kinds of music. Learn to play some musical instrument well, or how to sing.
• Develop your appreciation of puns and wordplay.
The more of these things you already do, the more likely it is that you are natural hacker material. Why these things in particular is not completely clear, but they're connected with a mix of left- and right-brain skills that seems to be important; hackers need to be able to both reason logically and step outside the apparent logic of a problem at a moment's notice.
Work as intensely as you play and play as intensely as you work. For true hackers, the boundaries between "play", "work", "science" and "art" all tend to disappear, or to merge into a high-level creative playfulness. Also, don't be content with a narrow range of skills. Though most hackers self-describe as programmers, they are very likely to be more than competent in several related skills — system administration, web design, and PC hardware troubleshooting are common ones. A hacker who's a system administrator, on the other hand, is likely to be quite skilled at script programming and web design. Hackers don't do things by halves; if they invest in a skill at all, they tend to get very good at it.
Finally, a few things not to do.
• Don't use a silly, grandiose user ID or screen name.
• Don't get in flame wars on Usenet (or anywhere else).
• Don't call yourself a ‘cyberpunk’, and don't waste your time on anybody who does.
• Don't post or email writing that's full of spelling errors and bad grammar.
The only reputation you'll make doing any of these things is as a twit. Hackers have long memories — it could take you years to live your early blunders down enough to be accepted.
The problem with screen names or handles deserves some amplification. Concealing your identity behind a handle is a juvenile and silly behavior characteristic of crackers, warez d00dz, and other lower life forms. Hackers don't do this; they're proud of what they do and want it associated with their real names. So if you have a handle, drop it. In the hacker culture it will only mark you as a loser
Sunday, September 21, 2008
SECRET BACKDOORS TO MANY SITES
Ever experienced this? You ask Google to look something up; the engine returns with a number of finds, but if you try to open the ones with the most promising content, you are confronted with a registration page instead, and the stuff you were looking for will not be revealed to you unless you agree to a credit card transaction first….
The lesson you should have learned here is: Obviously Google can go where you can’t.Can we solve this problem? Yes, we can.
We merely have to convince the site we want to enter, that WE ARE GOOGLE. In fact, many sites that force users to register or even pay in order to search and use their content, leave a backdoor open for the Googlebot, because a prominent presence in Google searches is known to generate sales leads, site hits and exposure.Examples of such sites are Windows Magazine, .Net Magazine, Nature, and many, many newspapers around the globe.How then, can you disguise yourself as a Googlebot? Quite simple:
by changing your browser’s User Agent.
Copy the following code segment and paste it into a fresh notepad file. Save it as Useragent.reg and merge it into your registry.
*********************************************
Windows Registry Editor Version 5.00
[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINESOFTWAREMicrosoftWindowsCurrentVersion Internet Settings5.0User Agent]
@=”Googlebot/2.1″
Windows Registry Editor Version 5.00
[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINESOFTWAREMicrosoftWindowsCurrentVersion Internet Settings5.0User Agent]
@=”Googlebot/2.1″
“Compatible”=”+http://www.googlebot.com/bot.html
***************************************************
Please Remove The Spaces Between Current Version Internet Settings
“Voila! You’re done!You may always change it back again….
I know only one site that uses you User Agent to establish your eligability to use its services, and that’s the Windows Update site…
To restore the IE6 User Agent, save the following code to NormalAgent.reg and merge with your registry:
******************************************
Windows Registry Editor Version 5.00
[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINESOFTWAREMicrosoftWindowsCurrentVersionInternet Settings5.0User Agent]
@=”Mozilla/4.0 (compatible; MSIE 6.0; Windows NT 5.1)”
The lesson you should have learned here is: Obviously Google can go where you can’t.Can we solve this problem? Yes, we can.
We merely have to convince the site we want to enter, that WE ARE GOOGLE. In fact, many sites that force users to register or even pay in order to search and use their content, leave a backdoor open for the Googlebot, because a prominent presence in Google searches is known to generate sales leads, site hits and exposure.Examples of such sites are Windows Magazine, .Net Magazine, Nature, and many, many newspapers around the globe.How then, can you disguise yourself as a Googlebot? Quite simple:
by changing your browser’s User Agent.
Copy the following code segment and paste it into a fresh notepad file. Save it as Useragent.reg and merge it into your registry.
*********************************************
Windows Registry Editor Version 5.00
[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINESOFTWAREMicrosoftWindowsCurrentVersion Internet Settings5.0User Agent]
@=”Googlebot/2.1″
Windows Registry Editor Version 5.00
[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINESOFTWAREMicrosoftWindowsCurrentVersion Internet Settings5.0User Agent]
@=”Googlebot/2.1″
“Compatible”=”+http://www.googlebot.com/bot.html
***************************************************
Please Remove The Spaces Between Current Version Internet Settings
“Voila! You’re done!You may always change it back again….
I know only one site that uses you User Agent to establish your eligability to use its services, and that’s the Windows Update site…
To restore the IE6 User Agent, save the following code to NormalAgent.reg and merge with your registry:
******************************************
Windows Registry Editor Version 5.00
[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINESOFTWAREMicrosoftWindowsCurrentVersionInternet Settings5.0User Agent]
@=”Mozilla/4.0 (compatible; MSIE 6.0; Windows NT 5.1)”
Friday, September 12, 2008
Hi, I'm an iPhone and You're Nobody
Uh-Oh. Apple will almost certainly wipe up Microsoft in smartphone operating system market share during third quarter.
That's my conclusion after further reviewing Gartner's smartphone OS shipment numbers for first and second quarters. Sorry, I should have figured this all out earlier in the day.
Some background: Yesterday, I couldn't get to Nokia's announcement about licensing Exchange ActiveSync for Symbian S60 handsets. I instead posted to Apple Watch on new iPod colors (the one new feature) and iTunes 8's sales pushiness. Overnight, I asked Gartner for mobile OS shipments so I could write an analysis on the Nokia-Microsoft deal. Afterwards, I dug further into the numbers for an Apple Watch post on iPhone OS market share. While writing that post, I realized Windows Mobile's plight, and its dire.
By even the most conservative of analyst estimates about third-quarter iPhone shipments, Apple's OS almost certainly will push aside Windows Mobile in smartphone operating system marketshare. The smartphone is Windows Mobile's core market.
GOT A TIP OR RUMOR?
During first half 2008, Microsoft shipped about 7.6 million copies of Windows Mobile. Smartphone OS marketshare was about 12 percent for each of the first two quarters. Gartner's second quarter numbers combined with Apple's disclosed iPhone shipments for first quarter equals about 2.6 million units for the first half. That's a little less than half the Linux total.
Looking ahead, iPhone OS could easily pass Windows Mobile, assuming Microsoft ships about the same number of copies in each of the previous two quarters&151;3.8 million. My guess: Windows Mobile shipments will decline to as few as 3 million. There are a bunch of exciting new Windows Mobile handsets coming to market, but the emphasis is on coming. For example, the HTC Touch Diamond and HTC Touch Pro are coming to Sprint here in the United States—next week and late October, respectively. Sony's Xperia X-1 launches on Sept. 30, which isn't soon enough for Microsoft.
Windows Mobile could have an exciting fourth quarter, but there's not much bang going on in third quarter. By contrast, Apple launched one of the most highly anticipated smartphones ever on July 11. Financial analyst estimates range anywhere from 4.4 million to 6 million iPhones shipped in third quarter. Either number would likely push Microsoft down a spot behind Apple. How strange if the top three providers of Exchange syncing, based on smartphone OS shipments, were companies other than Microsoft.
The reversal of fortune would be perhaps a psychological blow to some Microsoft Windows Mobile product managers and one big smiley face for Apple's iPhone team. More importantly, it's news Apple could seize for competitive marketing purposes. Then there will be the jibes from the Apple fanboy bloggers. After all, Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer made fun of iPhone in interviews last year. Which Steve will be laughing now, Microsoft's Ballmer or Apple's Jobs?
Windows Mobile's sudden, uncertain future is more reason for Microsoft to start a mobile Manhattan Project. Mobile devices are the future of computing. Microsoft cannot afford to cede anything to Apple—or to Google, which is rapidly preparing for Android's release. The mobile operating system is suddenly getting crowded. Microsoft once worried about Linux, Palm OS and RIM. But Apple is gaining fast, and Google will further fragment the smartphone OS market. Microsoft cannot continue in business-as-usual mode. Somebody needs to yell fire, then light one under every butt that doesn't move. It's time for a project with the urgency of Internet Explorer 2, 3 and 4 during the browser wars with Netscape.
Microsoft executives harp on about choice. That's fine if businesses or consumers choose your product. The local supermarket offers lots of choice, but I can walk to the pricier convenience store. The point: Choice is good but it's not a market differentiator. People need good choices, and Windows Mobile doesn't feel like one of them right now.
Some strong advice to Microsoft's executive team: If you lose the mobile market you lose the future of computing, particularly as emerging markets skip over PCs to cell phones and cheap laptops (many of which won't run Windows Vista). Here, let me scare you with this future iPhone commercial. It's in the guise of Apple's "Get a Mac" commercials but even more condescending. "Hi, I'm an iPhone—and you're nobody."
That's my conclusion after further reviewing Gartner's smartphone OS shipment numbers for first and second quarters. Sorry, I should have figured this all out earlier in the day.
Some background: Yesterday, I couldn't get to Nokia's announcement about licensing Exchange ActiveSync for Symbian S60 handsets. I instead posted to Apple Watch on new iPod colors (the one new feature) and iTunes 8's sales pushiness. Overnight, I asked Gartner for mobile OS shipments so I could write an analysis on the Nokia-Microsoft deal. Afterwards, I dug further into the numbers for an Apple Watch post on iPhone OS market share. While writing that post, I realized Windows Mobile's plight, and its dire.
By even the most conservative of analyst estimates about third-quarter iPhone shipments, Apple's OS almost certainly will push aside Windows Mobile in smartphone operating system marketshare. The smartphone is Windows Mobile's core market.
GOT A TIP OR RUMOR?
During first half 2008, Microsoft shipped about 7.6 million copies of Windows Mobile. Smartphone OS marketshare was about 12 percent for each of the first two quarters. Gartner's second quarter numbers combined with Apple's disclosed iPhone shipments for first quarter equals about 2.6 million units for the first half. That's a little less than half the Linux total.
Looking ahead, iPhone OS could easily pass Windows Mobile, assuming Microsoft ships about the same number of copies in each of the previous two quarters&151;3.8 million. My guess: Windows Mobile shipments will decline to as few as 3 million. There are a bunch of exciting new Windows Mobile handsets coming to market, but the emphasis is on coming. For example, the HTC Touch Diamond and HTC Touch Pro are coming to Sprint here in the United States—next week and late October, respectively. Sony's Xperia X-1 launches on Sept. 30, which isn't soon enough for Microsoft.
Windows Mobile could have an exciting fourth quarter, but there's not much bang going on in third quarter. By contrast, Apple launched one of the most highly anticipated smartphones ever on July 11. Financial analyst estimates range anywhere from 4.4 million to 6 million iPhones shipped in third quarter. Either number would likely push Microsoft down a spot behind Apple. How strange if the top three providers of Exchange syncing, based on smartphone OS shipments, were companies other than Microsoft.
The reversal of fortune would be perhaps a psychological blow to some Microsoft Windows Mobile product managers and one big smiley face for Apple's iPhone team. More importantly, it's news Apple could seize for competitive marketing purposes. Then there will be the jibes from the Apple fanboy bloggers. After all, Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer made fun of iPhone in interviews last year. Which Steve will be laughing now, Microsoft's Ballmer or Apple's Jobs?
Windows Mobile's sudden, uncertain future is more reason for Microsoft to start a mobile Manhattan Project. Mobile devices are the future of computing. Microsoft cannot afford to cede anything to Apple—or to Google, which is rapidly preparing for Android's release. The mobile operating system is suddenly getting crowded. Microsoft once worried about Linux, Palm OS and RIM. But Apple is gaining fast, and Google will further fragment the smartphone OS market. Microsoft cannot continue in business-as-usual mode. Somebody needs to yell fire, then light one under every butt that doesn't move. It's time for a project with the urgency of Internet Explorer 2, 3 and 4 during the browser wars with Netscape.
Microsoft executives harp on about choice. That's fine if businesses or consumers choose your product. The local supermarket offers lots of choice, but I can walk to the pricier convenience store. The point: Choice is good but it's not a market differentiator. People need good choices, and Windows Mobile doesn't feel like one of them right now.
Some strong advice to Microsoft's executive team: If you lose the mobile market you lose the future of computing, particularly as emerging markets skip over PCs to cell phones and cheap laptops (many of which won't run Windows Vista). Here, let me scare you with this future iPhone commercial. It's in the guise of Apple's "Get a Mac" commercials but even more condescending. "Hi, I'm an iPhone—and you're nobody."
Thursday, September 11, 2008
DON'T UPGRADE TO LEOPARD!
I can't believe I am saying this, but, as an advisory to others, I feel I need to considering the pain I have endured (and am enduring) since I have done so. I am a HUGE Apple fan(atic), as anyone reading these posts knows. Indeed , I took Apple's delay of Leopard in stride because I thought it would only give them more time to make the product better. Sadly, I was wrong. It is unfortunate that such a wonderful product as the Mac OS had to take a backseat to the iPhone, but, to make matters worse, it seems the product was released much too soon.
To enumerate the problems I have experienced since upgrading to Leopard:
I would appreciate any feedback here, since I am sure others are in the same boat. Unfortunately, it seems that this issue is related to Leopard and unless and until Apple gets things right here we are all going to suffer. So, we need to make sure our collective voices are heard.
To enumerate the problems I have experienced since upgrading to Leopard:
I would appreciate any feedback here, since I am sure others are in the same boat. Unfortunately, it seems that this issue is related to Leopard and unless and until Apple gets things right here we are all going to suffer. So, we need to make sure our collective voices are heard.
TEAM TALK, DATA RECOVERY, ARRANGE STARTUP, PDF TOOLS, WINDOWS SHOOT
Talk lets you chat with your friends and others using the internet or a local area network. All you need is a microphone and a sound card. The primary goal of TeamTalk, avers the developer, is to provide a conversation with high TEAM TALK
Team quality sound and minimum transmission delay. Features - allows any number of people to participate in a conversation, this of-course would depend on the bandwidth available, a variety of configuration options to select the the audio quality that is ideal for your connection speed, and minimum lag (delay). The 1.63 MB for windows version (All) at CLICK HERE TO DOWNLOAD
DATA RECOVERY
Smart FAT Recovery can recover any deleted files, including MS Office files, photos, mp3s. This a FAT recovery tool for Windows operating system supports the FAT 12/16/32 file system. The software, claim the developers, easily recovers data from hard disks, digital cameras, and any type of storage media - flash drives, USB drives, memory stick, PC card, multimedia card, secure digital card and diskette. Compatible Platforms: Windows NT/2000/XP/2003. The 660 KB Smart FAT Recovery CLICK HERE TO DOWNLOAD
ARRANGE STARTUP
When many programs are loaded onto the memory of a PC at startup the performance could get affected significantly. Some of the programs are system ones which are loaded at startup are necessary for normal functioning, quite a number of others are not. These can be easily removed from the startup list with Arrange Startup. This utifilty not only classifies the programs that are executed at startup as system programs, suspicious applications, etc, it also helps to remove the unwanted ones. Compatible Platforms: Windows NT/2000/XP/2003. The 1 MB Arrange Startup CLICK HERE TO DOWNLOAD
PDF TOOLS
PDFTools is a PDF management application. It can encrypt, decrypt, join, split, stamp, create and rearrange a PDF file. Easy to use as the main window gives quick access to all the features provided. Features: Encrypt to protect any PDF file; Decrypt to create a protection-free version; Join multiple PDF files; Split a PDF file in multiple ways; Rearrange PDF to arrange pages in a PDF file; option to create a PDF file from xml file ( a new feature and still going through functional testing). Includes a simple to use XML to PDF converter. The 2.82 MB PDFTools v.2 (Release Date: 2006-10-13) for OS: Win 9x/ ME/ NT/ 2K/ XP/2K3.CLICK HERE TO DOWNLOAD Download PDF2XL Converter
WINDOW SHOOT
Window-Shoot is a fast and cool Screen Capture software. WindowShoot can capture any Window screen and save them as a Video file. Features like adding Text, Mouse Cursor and Cursor Position to the Video are also available. The easy to use 304 Kb WindowShoot for OS: 98/ME/2000/XP/2003 is the brain child of Suresh. CLICK HERE TO DOWNLOAD
Saturday, September 6, 2008
MUSICAL TASTE DEFINING YOU
You could have read this somewhere or maybe told upon. But its gonna be repeated here.Fans of classical and jazz music are creative, pop lovers are hardworking and, despite the stereotypes, heavy metal listeners are gentle, creative somewhat who are at ease with themselves.
People often define their sense of identity through their musical taste, wearing particular clothes, going to certain pubs and using certain types of slang. For me its not surprising that personality should also be related to musical preference.
Actually, this is proven research which concluded that jazz and classical fans are creative with good self-esteem, altough the former are much more outgoing whereas the latter are shy.
Country and western fans were found to be hardworking and shy; rap fans are outgoing and indie lovers lack self-esteem and are not very gentle.
Those who like soul music can take heart as the research concluded they are creative, outgoing, gentle, at ease and have a high self-esteem.Those who choose to listen to exciting, punchy music likely to be in a higher earning bracket, while those who go for relaxing sounds tend to be lower down the pay scale.
So this story featured your musical taste with your features .
People often define their sense of identity through their musical taste, wearing particular clothes, going to certain pubs and using certain types of slang. For me its not surprising that personality should also be related to musical preference.
Actually, this is proven research which concluded that jazz and classical fans are creative with good self-esteem, altough the former are much more outgoing whereas the latter are shy.
Country and western fans were found to be hardworking and shy; rap fans are outgoing and indie lovers lack self-esteem and are not very gentle.
Those who like soul music can take heart as the research concluded they are creative, outgoing, gentle, at ease and have a high self-esteem.Those who choose to listen to exciting, punchy music likely to be in a higher earning bracket, while those who go for relaxing sounds tend to be lower down the pay scale.
So this story featured your musical taste with your features .
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