Google has moved leaps and bounds during the past 15 years to become the largest online conglomerate in existence. Not only does it have a wide array of features that grows every day as it expands to new technological concepts but it also owns popular websites like YouTube. It has even recently created Google+, its latest attempt at a social networking site to rival Facebook and Twitter.

But Google+ was a long time coming in social networking after a list of beta trials that didn’t quite work out. Concerns of privacy, hacking scandals and even just lack of interest managed to kill off more than one project. There were also many others that stuck around for a long while but were eventually dropped as new ideas took their place.

These 10 Google projects are some that made it off the ground but are now dead – some that died too soon and some long after they should have kicked the bucket.

1. Google Answers

Older Internet users will remember the days of the question-and-answer sites. Of course, they are still around but in a very different format than they once were. In April 2003, Google opened up its own version of the Q&A. It would allow users to ask questions and pay researchers themselves to find and provide in-depth answers.

But other websites began to pop up that were free and user-based. So when Google Answers shut down in November 2006, it was more of a shock that it lasted a full three years. There were no plans provided to relaunch it in the future, and it was clear that it was well and truly gone for good.

Since then, Google has bought Q&A service Aardvark. However, next to nothing has been done with it, and it looks like it might be yet another elephant graveyard.

2. Google X

March 15, 2005, is the date a mystery began that is still going years after it was yanked from the web. Put up with next to no hype, no explanation and no real reason, Google X lasted a single day.  If you look at the mirrors on the web of the site, such as on The Place For It All, you will see that it is extremely similar to Apple’s Mac OS X operating system user interface.

That, and the fact that it was no different in use from its original engine, was probably the reason that the next day it was removed and never seen again. Which poses the question: What was the point?

3. Google Lively

In July 2008, Google tried its hand at 3-D multiplayer games. Google Lively was, basically, a platform similar to popular sim Second Life, and it was actually a fair beta.

Created by Niniane Wang, it might have done OK if it continued to work on maturing and promoting it. But on Dec. 31, 2008, the New Year was brought in with the sound of an axe. Google Lively was chopped, and 2009 started with a ton of brand-new concepts.

4. Google Notebook

On Jan. 14, 2009, Google ended a service that was actually fairly popular. Google Notebook worked by allowing users to take “clippings” from other online sources and keep them all in one file, or “notebook.” This file was fully customizable and could be easily organized as well as accessed from any computer through your Google account. You could also share and collaborate, which made it good for many businesses at the time.

But in an interesting development, you can now use Notebook again. All you have to do is go to its main page, and you can use the newer interface. No updates on the application seem to be coming in the future, as far as we know.

5. Google Catalogs

It was clear back in 2001 that Google began running its catalog service, and it wasn’t until Jan. 14, 2009, that it shut it down for good. What was amazing about Google Catalogs is that hardly anyone seemed to know it existed.

Unlike its shopping feature that allows you to compare prices with direct links to sellers, this one was a separate search engine that ran through hundreds of American catalogs. You could then contact the store with the appropriate buying procedure.  Sometimes it was online, but usually, it was via phone or mail.

But catalogs barely even exist anymore, and most mailing material is nothing but advertisements. With online shopping more convenient (as well as cheaper) there is just no reason for catalogs, which is why Google finally pulled the plug after eight whole years of providing a service no one wanted.

It was the first of many projects to be stopped that year.

6. Google Print Ads

On Jan. 20, 2009, Google ended a 2-year-old project that most people could see would be a disaster from the first day. Google Print Ads was just what it sounded like: the selling of print ads in various newspapers and publications. Google would rent out space it had purchased to customers, which would have been a great idea – a decade ago.

In an age where print is dying fast, with newspapers moving more toward paid digital formats or sponsered free content, you would think Google could have avoided the mistake. After all, it’s the largest Internet empire; it should have known which way the wind was blowing. But a desire to expand into the real world led to a misstep that cost Google time, energy and money.

7. Google Shared Stuff

Google Shared Stuff sucked. It sucked the day the beta was unofficially launched, and it sucked on Feb. 25, 2009, when it announced it would be cutting the project short. It never even made it to a full version, and it was so badly made that it couldn’t even be used properly. That was despite the fact that it was a simple service used to bookmark videos and Knol articles.

What was amazing was the notice in the press release from Google. It told users that if they wanted another way to share videos they could use the helpful little share buttons under each clip on YouTube. Or, of course, they could just provide a link. It’s amazing that the geniuses at Google didn’t think of that before trying to create Shared Stuff.

8. Google Wave

Collaborative editing applications are getting bigger and bigger. They allow people in and out of the office, or even across seas, to work together on projects by signing into a shared file and editing as they go. This has both pros and cons, but ultimately, it is seen in the business world as a great idea that is used quite a bit.

On May 27, 2009, Google created Wave. But the company did things like they always do in beta form: It made it invite-only. The invites were also very selective, and very few were released. This caused one major problem: People can’t collaborate if they are not all on board. So it flopped like crazy.

That is why on August 4, 2010, just a little over a year since its conception, Wave was shut down to new updates. Not that anyone cared. It was then bought and renamed Apache Wave.

Even though Google had that setback with the invite-only system, the company still used it for Google+. However, Google made the invites user-controlled, which might have helped this time around – that and the high school and college students who wanted a social networking site their parents weren’t on.

9. Google Health

When the announcement came on June 26, 2011, that Google would be shutting down its Health application, there were many tears. People ripped their garments from their bodies, shouting their pain into the heavens for all to hear. Alright, not really – no one noticed because no one knew that Google had a Health feature. If they did, I bet they wouldn’t use it.

The idea was that you put all of your health information (illnesses, symptoms, weight, medical history, etc.) into this platform. You then stored it all in that one place. This was supposed to help you to stay fit, find information, manage diseases and keep things for your medical professional when you went to the doctor.

It was also supercreepy. Who would just throw their medical history onto an application like that? Especially with Google, which freely gives search, email and even location information to anyone who asks? Isn’t it bad enough that it has Google Earth?

Apparently, the “impact wasn’t broad enough” to continue. I bet that is code for “people didn’t want to tell us about their colonoscopy.”

10. Google Video Player

You have probably used Google Video. It might have provided both success and frustration for you. It was far from complete and was as biased as its web search (even more so), but it has been there since 2005. Or it was, until Google announced on Jan. 28, 2011, that it was cutting it off.

This was pretty much expected. Google has YouTube, and so its video search had pretty much become yet another way of looking for YouTube clips. Hardly anything else came up, if anything at all. Keeping it going would have been a pretty pointless thing to do.

These are only some of the dead Google projects out there, as the company seems to come up with a new idea once every 14 seconds. What are some of your favs?

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Folks, listen up. If you are still using your ISPs slow DNS servers you are probably suffering needlessly and not taking advantage of the full speed of whichever connection you may have – even high speed ones like cable, DSL or Fiber Optics. And if you don’t know what I’m talking about – this means you!

I’m going to show you how to speed up everything you do online by switching to a better, faster Domain Name Server (DNS) system run by either Google or OpenDNS. Best of all, it will only take you like 5 minutes to make a change that will benefit you every day from now on! But before we get started, let me explain what DNS does for you in non-technical terms.

What is DNS Anyway?

When you launch your Web browser and want to navigate to a new Website, at first your computer doesn’t know where that site is. So what it does is the following:

1. Looks at your own network settings to determine, “Where are MY DNS servers?“
2. Makes a call to your DNS servers and asks, “Where is this Website I want to go to?“
3. Gets the IP address for the Website you are trying to find, and then heads on over to it.

To complicate matters, it doesn’t just do it one time per Website you go to. Web pages have lots of images, videos and other things embedded in them, and you have to check DNS for each one! So this happens hundreds of times a day when you are online, and it represents a huge opportunity for improvement.

Testing and Recommendations

This might be a little too technical to get into for everyone, but suffice it to say that before I chose which DNS I wanted to use, I did a little testing. There were two parts to the testing. The first consisted of running a series of Ping tests to the various DNS server to see which one would respond to me faster. (Kind of like playing Marco-Polo with the DNS server.)

Part 1

In my test results I compared Time Warner (my cable provider) with OpenDNS and Google

• Time Warner: Average Response Time – 29.70ms
• OpenDNS: Average Response Time – 27.99ms
• Google Public DNS: Average Response Time – 62.58ms

In the ping test it seems that OpenDNS provides the fastest response time, even beating my own ISP by about 10%, and outperforming Google’s public DNS by about 100%.

Part 2

The second part involved running a script which compared actual look-up response times. So not only which DNS server pinged me back quickest, but which could look up an actual domain name and send the results back quickest.

These tests are hard to do because there is caching occurring upstream from me somewhere. This means that once a domain is looked up, the DNS servers are holding the results in memory for a while so they don’t have to look it up again. You can see the difference in the two times I ran the test above.

For example, look at MyRecip.es results. Time Warner took 700+ms for the first look-up, but the second look-up was only 39ms because it just served the results from recent memory (cache).

However, it’s clear that Google’s DNS consistency is just plain impressive. It doesn’t matter if it’s the first look-up or subsequent ones, nor does it matter which country the domain is from.

EDIT: By request, if you want the script to run this test yourself, here it is. Save it to your hard drive, change to that directory in Terminal, then at the command prompt type: bash dns.txt

Choices, Choices…

It’s hard to say which is going to be faster in the wild. OpenDNS seems to respond about twice as fast for sites it has in it’s cache, which will certainly be all the big ones. But Google’s consistency is hard to argue with! Personally, I’ve gone ahead and switched to Google for now. Though OpenDNS has been good for a long time.

The main thing that pushed me over to Google by the way is NOT the speed. But the fact that Google DNS is doing something extra for me now. If you just type in a domain and leave off the .com, .net, or .org Google seems to take a guess at what you are looking for and loads it for you. So if I type in “onemansblog” and hit enter in my browser, it brings me to this site. If you type in something that it can’t find, it takes you to a Google search results page!

Now that we’ve covered that, you are going to need to choose which one you want to use. And you are going to need the IP addresses for the one you’ve chosen. Don’t worry, we’ll get to how to set them up in just a minute…

The Google Public DNS IP addresses are as follows:

• 8.8.8.8
• 8.8.4.4

The OpenDNS IP addresses are as follows:

• 208.67.222.222
• 208.67.220.220

How to Configure Your DNS

Now that you’ve made up your mind, the following instructions should help you get your DNS set up to speed up your personal browsing experience.

Microsoft Windows

DNS settings are specified in the TCP/IP Properties window for the selected network connection.
Example: Changing DNS server settings on Microsoft Windows Vista

1. Go the Control Panel.
2. Click Network and Internet, then Network and Sharing Center, then Manage network connections.
3. Select the connection for which you want to configure DNS. For example:
   • To change the settings for an Ethernet connection, right-click Local Area Connection, and
     click Properties.
   • To change the settings for a wireless connection, right-click Wireless Network Connection, and click Properties.

   If you are prompted for an administrator password or confirmation, type the password or provide confirmation.

4. Select the Networking tab. Under This connection uses the following items, click Internet
   Protocol Version 4 (TCP/IPv4), and then click Properties.
5. Click Advanced and select the DNS tab. If there are any DNS server IP addresses listed there, write them down for future reference, and remove them from this window.
6. Click OK.
7. Select Use the following DNS server addresses. If there are any IP addresses listed in the Preferred DNS server or Alternate DNS server, write them down for future reference.
8. Replace those addresses with the IP addresses of the Google DNS servers: 8.8.8.8 and 8.8.4.4 or the OpenDNS servers: 208.67.222.222 and 208.67.220.220.
9. Restart the connection you selected in step 3.
10. Repeat the procedure for additional network connections you want to change.

Mac OS X

DNS settings are specified in the Network window.
Example: Changing DNS server settings on Mac OS 10.5

1. From the Apple menu, click System Preferences, then click Network.
2. If the lock icon in the lower left-hand corner of the window is locked, click the icon to make changes, and when prompted to authenticate, enter your password.
3. Select the connection for which you want to configure Google Public DNS. For example:
   • To change the settings for an Ethernet connection, select Built-In Ethernet, and click Advanced.
   • To change the settings for a wireless connection, select Airport, and click Advanced.
4. Select the DNS tab.
5. Click + to replace any listed addresses with, or add, the Google DNS servers: 8.8.8.8 and 8.8.4.4 or the OpenDNS servers: 208.67.222.222 and 208.67.220.220.
6. Click Apply and OK.
7. Repeat the procedure for additional network connections you want to change.

If you need additional information about changing settings, see the complete documentation over at Google.

Ok, that’s it! If you do a little testing and make the changes on all your computers you’ll notice that everything speeds up for you. And if you are technically savvy enough, you can even go in and change the setting in your router so that everyone accessing your network automatically gets the DNS servers assigned when they connect.

Let me know if this helps. Especially drop me a comment below if you make the changes and notice an improvement. I know I did!

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Ok. Don’t say that I never bring you anything completely useless, but absolutely fascinating nonetheless.

Someone sent me this image that was supposedly captured by a Google Maps vehicle when they were driving around taking the Street View images. As you can see, it’s of a deer that appears to have been hit.

Watch this little video to get the scoop on what is going on, and the image is below it. Ciao!

Here is the original image. I have no idea where it came from so if anyone figures out who found it please let me know:

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First of all, before you even watch the video you should go to the Google Wave home page and request access. You’re going to have to wait in line, but like all other Google stuff, you know you’re gonna want it.

According to Google:

What is a wave?

A wave is equal parts conversation and document. People can communicate and work together with richly formatted text, photos, videos, maps, and more.

A wave is shared. Any participant can reply anywhere in the message, edit the content and add participants at any point in the process. Then playback lets anyone rewind the wave to see who said what and when.

A wave is live. With live transmission as you type, participants on a wave can have faster conversations, see edits and interact with extensions in real-time.

Now, I want you to watch the following video, and then think about the fact that this is free open-source software that Google will be releasing soon. If your business isn’t among the first to adopt this, you are going to be left behind – big time!

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Yesterday was the day I’ve been waiting on for months. Google finally released the popular, and FREE, Picasa image management software for the Mac!

Let me explain. You see, a while back I was forcibly converted to the Mac at work. At first I complained. A lot. But later it grew on me. Now, even though I hate to admit it, I have to say I actually prefer the Mac for most computing operations. One of the things that I did not enjoy, however, was the pathetic iPhoto software which was pretty much the only game in town for Mac users… until today.

So, Picasa, how do I love thee? Let me count the ways:

• First of all, I hate any sort of application that unnecessarily forces it’s users into a proprietary closed platform. And right off the bat, iPhoto does this (just like freakin iTunes!). You see, when you import photos into an iPhoto library it basically takes all of your individual pictures and lumps them into a giant ball, from which the average users can no longer extract them without great pain!

  Clearly they do this for the sole purpose of excluding the use of any other image editing software once they’ve got their grubby hands on your photos, because once they are imported you are going to have one heck of a time getting them OUT of iPhoto without making a huge mess. (You can opt out of this default behavior, but most people don’t know that.)

  If we take a look at Picasa on the other hand, this image management tool simply organizes your photos into directories on your hard drive which it efficiently scans and catalogs – without moving things around or messing stuff up!

  It also means that if you wanted to make a copy of your entire photo library, or a portion of it, for a friend or relative all you need to do is copy those folders onto portable media and hand it over. Can’t do that with iPhoto without a messy Export session! Oh, and while we’re on this topic, the folks behind Picasa were nice enough to include an “Import from iPhoto…” function to help you free those images from their bonds.

• Speaking of liberating your photos, God forbid you ever end up with photos in two separate iPhoto albums! Like one on your desktop and one on your laptop! Attempting to combine them means you’re going to have to literally spend money on third party software to make it happen. That is inconceivable! (You keep’a using this word. I do not think it means what you think it means…)

  But again, Picasa makes this as simple as copying your photo directories to the other computer, and voila! It catalogs the images automatically. And you can still even gain access to those images with another piece of image editing or management software since the photos are just sitting there in directories, just like normal.

  

  By comparison, the Picasa image editor screen places your image in a window on the right, and clearly displays all the tools on the left, and even some more options on the bottom of the screen. Absolutely anyone can figure out how to edit their images using this method. Even my dad. (Love ya Pop!)
  

• Next, let’s talk about the primary interface for a moment, shall we? iPhoto attempts to organize everything into “Events”, and while this might work for someone who doesn’t take that many photos, it will eventually grow completely out of control. For example, I have over 60,000 photos that I’ve taken over the last decade on my primary computer at home. They are neatly organized into directories. How in God’s name could I possibly organize them all into “Events”?
  

  Picasa deals with this quite elegantly. It displays all of the directories on the left and they can be expanded as usual, then on the right side it displays a chrolological stream of the image thumbnails. While doing so it also manages to nicely integrate the ability to do other things such as sync the directory to the Web, burn a CD, change the directory name, and much more.
  

• In addition to the massive differences outlined above, there are a ton of little things that make all the difference between the two applications. For example, zooming in on an image. With Picasa you simply grab and drag the zoom bar at any time when looking at an image. In iPhoto you have to be in the edit menu. This almost drove me to drink!
  

  If you also check that image above again, you’ll see that Picasa is constantly showing you all sorts of vital details about the image you’re viewing like the resolution, size on disk, etc. This detail is all buried in the iPhoto interface for no good reason whatsoever.

• Let’s talk about printing for a moment. My freakin iPhoto literally won’t print an image! I paid $79 for this software, and when I try to print it gives an error! I have to export an image and print it elsewhere.
  

  Meanwhile, Picasa has a wonderful print wizard which basically lets you choose the size of the image, how many you want, and make adjustments to the print settings while you’re at it.
  

Believe me, I could go on for hours about how much better Picasa is, but I’m bored with all this documentation, and frankly if you aren’t sold on giving it a try yet, nothing is going to work. But to sum things up, you can also watch this little Google video that explains some of the features in more detail:

I hope that all of you Mac users out there give Picasa a serious try. You’ve got nothing to lose since, unlike iPhoto, it won’t lock you in or make irreversible changes to your photo library.

Enjoy!

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Months ago when flying into San Francisco, our plane was diverted into a holding pattern a little ways outside the airport due to traffic, and as I watched from the window I noticed that we were circling some sort of massive pools of colored water. They were so vibrant in color that I was amazed, and I took a bunch of photos (and posted them).

What I didn’t know at the time was, that was the Cargill solar evaporation salt production facility. I actually just learned it by watching the TV show “Modern Marvels” that was specifically on salt production. As soon as they began describing the location of the facility I instantly knew what I had seen months ago!

Anyway, the rich colors that you can see in the ariel photography are supposedly due to the microorganisms that live in this heavy concentration of salt water called brine. The brine contains a concentration of about 25% salt, which is about the maximum amount of salt that can actually be disolved in water.

Cargill describes the salt production facility as such:

Solar Evaporation

Solar salt is produced through the natural evaporation of sea water or other naturally occurring brine. Salt water is captured in shallow ponds and allowed to evaporate by means of the sun and wind. During the process, a salt bed forms on the bottom of the pond. The salt is harvested, washed, screened and packaged. The typical solar “crop” takes from one to five years to produce.

So, what they are doing is flooding sea water into these large areas and then basically letting it evaporate away over time and leaving millions of tons of salt behind for harvesting.

This is actually similar to a naturally occurring process which is demonstrated in a few inland bodies of water such as Utah’s Great Salt Lake, the Dead Sea, and other ancient bodies of water. For example, the great salt lake used to be many times larger than it is now. But over time the water has evaporated, leaving the concentration of salt much, much higher than even the ocean. About seven times higher to be exact! In the southern portion of the lake the concentration is about 15% salt, which the northern half is closer to 25%.

You can actually see the difference in the salt concentrations from the satellite imagery in the embedded map below:

And of course, the world famous Bonneville Salt Flats nearby are just another part of the evaporated ancient lake that the Great Salt Lake comes from. The Salt Flats of course being the place that most of the world’s land speed records were set.

Anyway, I know I rambled on a little there and moved from San Francisco over to Utah, but I thought the whole thing was just so cool, starting with the fact that I had actually photographed a salt plant without really knowing it. Hope you guys found it as interesting as I did.

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Listen up folks, cause I’m only going to say this one time. If you are choosing your site’s theme based on how many ads you can shove in your visitor’s face, or if people come to your site and have to scroll down the page before they see anything other than Google Ads, then your site sucks. And you do too.

Here’s an example:

Someone stopped by my site and left a comment on the blog with a link to the site in this image. I marked it as spam as soon as I verified the site was MFA. I’ll continue marking MFA sites as spam until the day I die, and I hope that all of my fellow webmasters admin their comments and do likewise.

Every time someone builds a site strictly for the sake of putting Google ads on it, it makes us all collectively dumber. It actually sucks the intelligence right out of the Web. Yet Google continues to reward these “Web authors” by allowing anyone to place AdWords on their site with no quality control whatsoever.

To make matters worse, Google is actually incented to send traffic to these spammers because their ads are on the pages. It results in a mad clicking frenzy from certain visitors who are just trying to follow Google’s recommendation when they get to a site. Then they click on ads to get to other sites, and it can become a nightmare.

Bottom line: Google is wrong to allow the unfettered perpetuation of MFA sites. And if you are building them, you are wrong too. Why don’t you spend some time actually adding value to the Web by writing about something someone wants to read? Yeah, it takes a little more work, and a little more time to get ramped up. But in the end you will have built something that adds value to the world and it will ultimately generate far more income.

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This is actually pretty amazing, if it isn’t staged (and it doesn’t look like it is). For those of you who are unaware, in Google Maps you now have the option in many cities to check out a Street View of the map you’re looking at, which will allow you to see whatever you would see if you were standing in that position.

The way they accomplish this is by having a specially fitted fleet of cars that have 360 degree cameras driving all over the place taking pictures. Once in a while they capture something really interesting. This is one of those times.

Now, there are times when people are expecting the cameras and they go out and pose for them, but this one looks like one kid just basically got caught pointing a gun at another much younger kid running away from him.

How can you tell? Well, the photo below is an interactive timeline of the Google car driving down the street. You can zoom in and out, change the direction you are pointing, and navigate forward and backwards on the street. Give the controls in the top left corner a try, and back up in the street. You can watch the timeline of events unfold as the car drives up and passes the people. Just zoom in, drag the photo around, and zoom out and move on.

EDIT: Wow! I can’t believe it folks, but this image has actually been removed by Google! Perhaps it’s evidence in a police investigation or something. Or maybe they deemed it inappropriate.

Luckily I did the screen capture so you can still see the missing frame above (select the small image to see a large one). I’ve also re-inserted the scene below from the photo immediately before the missing one. If you click on the interactive map and move South one frame you can see the deleted image frame.

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The following Press Release appeared in the Dallas Morning News to announce my sale of One Man’s Blog:

Google today announced it has struck an accord with the popular blogger John Pozadzides, from One Man’s Blog, whereby they will acquire all content and image rights including the likeness of Mr. Pozadzides.

Jack Spenser, VP of New Media Development, said, “Google is pleased to have obtained such a volumnuous library of top content. Over the past two years we’ve sent millions of visitors to the site, so it seemed like a natural fit to bring it under the Google umbrella. This is the first acquisition in the new Google Blog Content Ownership program, and we will be announcing acquisitions of many other top bloggers in the very near future. Our goal is to own all the top content on the Web.”

“To be honest, I’m quite pleased to dump this albatross off on Google,” said Mr. Pozadzides. “Now that I’ve already cashed the check I don’t mind telling you that I won’t be missing the late nights of authoring articles until 3am. Now it’s someone else’s problem, good riddance!”

Mr. Pozadzides has agreed to stay on as a content advisor for no more than a period of 144 months in order to maintain the content and supervise a team of outsourced Malaysians who will take over publication duties.

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I just had to give up my Sprint powered PPC8800 for a Blackberry Curve 8310 so I could be on the communal rate plan and also have real-time Exchange access for e-mail at work. After doing so it forced me to do a lot of research on applications and ways to better my Curve.

I figured some other people are going to go looking for this info as well, so I’ve compiled what I learned here. Its not my most organized post, but there is a lot of information and I didn’t want to spend forever getting the post out. Hopefully if anyone knows of other cool, free stuff for the BB you’ll drop a comment below and let me know.

Free Themes for BlackBerry

If you want to change the look and feel of your BB you need to swap themes. But I found it was very hard to discover the free ones because so many people were trying to sell you themes! The absolutely most comprehensive and easy to search list of Free themes can be found on the BerryReview.com site. Each theme review is listed and is clearly labeled as FREE.

Personally, I’m only looking for themes which will provide the most information and best make use of screen real estate. I did find the following theme’s interesting:

• New Freebies from Mobile.Blackberry.com
• Jason Calhoun’s Titanium Today theme and Calix ATT Today theme.
• Want your BlackBerry to look like an iPhone? Here you go.

Travel Tools

If you do a lot of traveling, you might want to take a look at WorldMate. WorldMate Live pieces together your travel itinerary details – including flight, hotel, car rental and meeting information – creating a complete schedule available for immediate inspection on your mobile phone screen.

Here is a cute little video that demonstrates what it does because it’s too much to describe.

Starry Night is an application that lets you enter your location and see what constellations are in the sky around you from that geographic position.

There is a free GPS Navigation service from Nav4All, but it got a really bad review from BerryReview.com. I tried it out and although it’s not perfect, it’s better than nothing! And it is free…

bbLocal: Free Maping and Local Directory for the Blackberry!
What started as a regular Google Maps viewer for the Blackberry has now turned into a full fledge City Guide, with the ability to locate businesses and tourists spots.

Features include:

• Full featured mapping program
• Business directory
• Get information on business and tourist spots
• Find the hottest tourists spots
• Satellite view

Earthcomber also offers a BlackBerry application that:

It’s the free way to find all the things you care about nearby – instead of tapping, tapping, tapping in a search box. You can use Earthcomber as-is, anonymously, to find the most popular things in the most common situations. But, you can also personalize Earthcomber to look for the special things and people you like, wherever you go in the US.

Superpages Mobile
Features include:

• Get Movie Info Fast – Search by movie, theater or genre. See show times, read reviews and connect directly to driving directions from wherever you are.
• Locate a Business – With millions of businesses available from the Superpages.com database, you’re sure to find what you need, when you need it.
• Map Your Way – With interactive maps and turn by turn directions, you can get where you’re going quickly, easily and without the frustration of having to find that piece of paper on which you wrote directions.
• Find a Person – The People Finder function allows you to find a friend, old neighbor or coworker across town, or across the country.
• Track the Weather – Don’t let the weather ruin your plans – your five day forecast is available whether you will be in town or far away.

Finance

MarketFilters quotes and analysis application puts stock quotes, charts and technical analysis right on your BlackBerry device. Just visit MarketFilters.com on your BlackBerry Web browser and look for the link to install the application. After you’ve installed the app you can load in your list of stocks to keep an eye on and it will give you up to date quotes every time you open the application. (I know Todd is going to love this one!)

MarketFilter Features include:

• Stock and index quotes.
• Charts of price and Market Filters scores.
• MarketFilters scan results.
• Light-weight and transfers significantly less data than a website.
• Uses webservices provided by Market Filters for the scan and quote data.
• Built for BlackBerry devices.

Google Apps

First things first. Point your Web browser to Google.com and scroll to the bottom of the page where you’ll be presented with the ability to download and install a bunch of apps. These will give you access to Google Maps complete with GPS integration, RSS Reader, GMail, Picasa, Search, and more. It’s the first download anyone should make.

GPSed
Record tracks of your trips anywhere on the Earth from your mobile device. Tracks are traced on Google Maps and stored in an online archive. All you need to start tracking is a mobile device with the internal or external GPS receiver. Here is a review.

Instant Messaging

WebMessenger Mobile lets you access AIM, Google, MSN, and Yahoo from your BlackBerry. Here is the announcement that the software just became free on 2/11/2008.

TwitterBerry is a great application for sending and reading your tweets on the BlackBerry as well.

Multimedia

CellSpin allows you to upload photos, videos, audio and text from your BlackBerry to a range of sites including YouTube, Flickr, Blogger, Facebook and more.

bbPlaces is another application designed for BlackBerry® devices with which you can geoposition places associated with photos you take.

Miscellaneous

vTap adds a quick search that allows you to choose between WikiPedia, Wiktionary, News, Pronunciation, and a website if applicable.

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For hours today every time I do a Google search it comes back with a “we’re sorry” message and makes me keep putting in a capcha. WTF? I know it’s not something on my PC because the same thing is occurring with searches conducted from OMB’s built in Google search.

Specifically the error reads:

We’re Sorry…

… but your query looks similar to to automated requests from a computer virus or spyware application. To protect our users, we can’t process your request right now.

We’ll restore your access as quickly as possible, so try again soon. In the meantime, if you suspect that your computer or network has been infected, you might want to run a virus checker or spyware remover to make sure that your systems are free of viruses and other spurious software.

We apologize for the inconvenience, and hope we’ll see you again on Google.

Somebody there needs to get this sucker fixed!

I found a ton of links in Google to these specific error results, but they are all talking about using things like inurl: intitle: and other advanced searches. I’m not doing any of that! All I’m doing is using the actual Google sidebar to perform my searches, or using the normal search function on my blog which has been working perfectly for over a year.

• Discussion thread on Webmaster World
• Heres one out of a bunch of threads on Google Groups about the problem.
• MyDigitalLife reported the same issue.
• JayAre comments on automated requests and queries.

Is anyone else getting this crap?

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You know, I don’t think I could be any more disappointed in Google than I am today.

And that is a shame because I’m normally a big fan. I mean, just look… I’ve got an entire category dedicated to Google Tools with 50 posts in it! But the problem is, today Google decided to penalize a whole boatload of sites for some reason or another, and in the process they dropped OMB from a PR7 to PR5. And just in the last few weeks it had already moved from a PR8 to PR7.

I just don’t understand this at all. I know Matt Cutts, and have spoken with him and we’ve e-mailed one another several times on the topic of Google PageRank, and even I just have no idea why in the hell this happened.

Now, a whole slew of other notable blogs and sites were just de-ranked severely, but most of those were done this way because they were selling links without the “rel=’nofollow’” attribute on them. HOWEVER, Matt and I spoke about the ads that I’ve sold on my homepage and he knows that they have that attribute assigned to them! So I should not be penalized for that.

So, what other reason could there possibly be for such a magnitude of PageRank demotion in one fell swoop? From a PR8 to PR5 in just a few weeks!?! And for doing absolutely nothing! I’ve used the Bad Link Neighborhood checker tool to see if somehow I linked to something that hurt me. Nope. I’ve NEVER done anything blackhat SEO to warrant this. Heck, I even took great care with my monthly contests to never ask for any specific linking or anything like that. Hell you don’t even have to link to win! And on top of everything else, I donate all the money I earn from this blog to charity! So there is just no economic incentive for me to cheat – and everyone knows this.

Now, if there is a lesson to be learned here, it is that you can NEVER, NEVER, NEVER trust Google. I’ve been silent for far too long on this matter, but they are demanding that we all bastardize our Web sites with this non-standard attribute “rel=nofollow” which has failed to gain traction with the other search engines and failed to make it’s way into the Web standards for years. OK, fine. Google asks that we label text links with “rel=nofollow” and then we do but they still penalize us!

Mark my words. If this can happen here on One Man’s Blog, it can happen to your site as well! And absolutely no one at Google gives a shit whatsoever. I really mean that 100%. Although I think Matt is a nice guy, I do not believe that he’ll even blink an eye about dropping this site’s PR even though he knows first hand that I’ve instituted nofollow at his personal request.

And I know with absolute certainty that the guys working over in the abuse group at Google don’t give a shit either because my conversations with them have been unbelievable. They just don’t care. They talk to me as if I’m a freaking child. No respect whatsoever.

And why should they? Google rules the Internet. It doesn’t matter that they create massive negativity with popular sites like mine. They are to the Internet what Microsoft is to software. Ubiquitous. So, as far as the Google search quality team is concerned, I take their message as a giant “F- You!”

Oh, and let’s assume for a moment that this drop is independent of my legal text link advertisers (thanks guys!). Well, what is it for? I’ve logged into the Webmaster Tools area, and there isn’t any indicator as to why the penalty has been instituted. So how would I be expected to fix whatever the heck they think I’m doing wrong? And if they really did give a crap, wouldn’t they want me to fix it so that I could go back to the “natural” rank my site should have? I mean all they have to do is put a notification into the Webmaster Tools area and I (and I’m sure everyone else) would take care of it!

So Thanks Google! Are you done with me yet? ‘Cause yeah, it’s sore.

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Blogstorm had a fun little post a couple of days ago which inspired me to whip up this little search tool. I came across the article on Weblog Tools Collection which had the following to say:

Digg saturation: Patrick from Blogstorm came up with a way to rank websites using a Digg saturation value that he came up with by searching Google with a specific URI. Apparently Google really likes sites that are Dugg.

This got me to thinking… why should people have to go elsewhere to conduct the search, I worked out a method to integrate this into the site without having to leave when I wrote my article on How to Bootleg Everything! So, here is a simple little form you can use to see what your Blog’s Digg saturation level is.

After you do, drop a comment below and let us all know where you are at! Right now OMB is at 1,930! I had to check it like 3 times because I couldn’t believe it! (I still can’t!)

To use the search form replace “YOUR-DOMAIN.com” with your actual domain name.

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I keep wondering two things, why does the RIAA continue to persecute people, and more importantly why do people do stupid enough things to keep getting prosecuted?

That organization exists for the sole purpose of suing the pants off of people, but they can only do so when people leave plenty of evidence about their activity – namely hosting content on their computers and allowing others to download it. Most of the time it seems these foolish people aren’t even aware that what they are doing by running Kazaa, eMule, Gnutella, or some other file sharing application puts them at risk.

But why in the world would anyone share their music, movie or software collections via open, anonymous connections? Especially when there are other virtually risk-free alternatives? (By the way, know your rights if RIAA comes calling.)

Now, I’m not advocating that people steal stuff online.

When it comes to software there are plenty of freeware and open source alternatives for just about anything you could want to do. Long ago I published a list of My 51 Favorite Freeware Apps which I recommend and use on every machine I own. But if you are going to download some software or music online, then at least don’t be an idiot about it!

• Don’t use file-sharing applications! Many of them have all sorts of mal-ware built into them, and you will compromise your computer just by installing them! Not to mention the fact that by design they leave a great big open hole into your hard drive that people can put and take things in and out of. Don’t do it!
• Google is all you need. In many cases Google will serve up exactly what you are looking for. You just have to learn how to do a search correctly (see below).
• Usenet is a sure bet because it isn’t free. Everyone wants something for nothing. But didn’t your mama ever tell you that nothing in life is free? Well, Usenet has a cost – but it contains just about everything in the known digital universe.

**–WARNING!!–**

There are bad people out there looking to take over and control your computer and ruin your life. They use viruses, trojans and other mal-ware, so I don’t recommend you follow any of the instructions below. If you are going to do so, make sure that you have your anti-virus and firewall software up to date and activated. If you need recommendations for good ones see my freeware listing above.

You have been warned!!!

How to Bootleg Music using Google

It is pathetically simple to download just about any song you want using nothing more than Google. All you need to do is search using the terms “index of” along with the name of the song or artist. Using the quotes around “index of” helps narrow the results to directories that contain files.

For example, lets say you like the song Stacy’s Mom by Fountains of Wayne. Do a search on either “index of” stacy’s mom or “index of” fountains of wayne. Very quickly you’ll find some listings that look something like “Index of ./Music/” and guess what you’ll find in them.

It’s all there: The Beatles, Elvis, Pavarotti, Harry Potter audio books… whatever. Here, I’ve even built a custom little search form (with a few added improvements) to demonstrate. You may have to check several of the results because spammers try to capture some of the most common search terms with fake listings.

To use the search form replace “ENTER-SEARCH-TERMS” with your search terms inside the first set of quotes.

How to Bootleg Movies using Google

Feature length movies are a little more complex to search for, and there are not nearly as many posted in open directories on the web. Probably because they are about 200 times the size of a typical MP3. However, here is another custom search which will help you find it if it is there.

The same search method is often used to find free “porn”, “xxx”, “sex” and other illicit movies. To use the search form below replace “ENTER-SEARCH-TERMS” with your search terms inside the first set of quotes.

How to Bootleg Software using Google

Downloading illegal copies of music or movies may be wrong, but downloading software from an unknown source is just plain stupid. Hackers embed all kinds of nasty mal-ware in popular software and then distribute it freely around the net hoping people will install it – and the hidden payload. You can put your entire digital world at risk by downloading from untrusted sources.

Still, for those of you who run with scissors, here is a Google search box. Try “photoshop”, “partition magic” or “ethereal” etc. Just like above, replace “ENTER-SEARCH-TERMS” with your search terms inside the first set of quotes. And don’t forget how dangerous this software can be!

Bootleg ANYTHING on Usenet

Unlike the Web or file-sharing sites, Usenet is a global system of interconnected news servers run by private companies or organizations. Usenet is distributed among a large, constantly changing conglomeration of servers which store and forward messages to one another. (Here is everything you could want to know about them.)

Usenet is comprised of around 100,000 different “news groups”, each focused on a particular topic. Some of these news groups get hardly any traffic, while others are very, very busy. There are really cool, useful and perfectly moral newsgroups such as alt.crafts.blacksmithing, sci.engr.joining.welding or comp.infosystems.www.authoring.html. There are also morally questionable groups that contain software such as alt.binaries.warez, alt.binaries.warez.ibm-pc, or alt.binaries.multimedia.utilities; and groups that contain adult material such as alt.binaries.multimedia.erotica alt.binaries.pictures.erotica or alt.binaries.ijsklontje.

It is likely that your ISP is running news servers which you have access to for free; however, they are probably only carrying the newsgroups that don’t tend to have all of the attached photos, media and software in them. The reason is simple. The more attachments there are, the more data has to be stored. And your ISP doesn’t want to be the central repository of illegal content because it’s expensive to maintain the massive databases.

For this reason you will have to subscribe to a News service provider such as GigaNews at a cost of between $7 – $20 per month. They also offer a free 3 day trials. You will also need News Reader software. Although Outlook and Outlook Express come with free news readers built in, most people turn to outside software for this task because of the huge feature differential. The most popular newsreader is Forte Agent, which also offers a free trial.

Once you have the software and a news service provider it’s as simple as doing a search to find just about anything your evil little heart desires. The following sites run services that catalog everything posted on Usenet and will direct you to immediately download the results:

• NZBIndex.nl
• newzBin
• Yabse

Forte Inc. also maintains Agent’s Guide to Binaries for more information.

Summary

To finish up this article I’d just like to make a few comments.

• Please, I’m begging you not to lecture me about providing this information. I’ve posted articles on how to hack weak passwords, how to make cocaine, and how to make crack. I don’t do these things, and the criminals already know how! I’m providing the information so that regular honest people at least know what the heck is going on and how it’s being done.
• Don’t do anything that goes against your personal belief system. That means don’t murder people, steal stuff, hurt puppys, or be mean. If you do any of these things it is on you – not me! If you buy a kitchen knife and use it to carve up a human it doesn’t mean the person who made the knife is evil.
• There is such a thing as white hat, or “ethical”, hacking. Ethical hackers often uncover exploits in systems and then publish the information for the general public in order to draw attention and close security loop holes which otherwise would remain open. I consider providing this information the same thing. Like I said, it’s nothing the criminals don’t already know.

In summary, I’m just the reporter.

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I’ve been holding off on sharing this information, which is really mostly rumor and speculation, up to this point – but Google is supposedly readying the launch of a new cellular phone which will come GPS and have built in access to Google Maps, Gmail, Calendar and Docs.

Google previously bid for the FCC’s 700MHz wireless spectrum, one which could be used to operate a new Google cellular phone service, and as I previously reported they acquired GrandCentral (I handed out around 75 invites to the beta service), a unified messaging platform which provides “find-me, follow-me” service, voice mail, and other goodies.

If you think about it, with the convergence of Voice into IP and the ubiquity of the Web it makes perfect sense for Google to play in this game and disrupt all of the natural players. And a well integrated Web / phone device would be a great starting point.

The latest fuel to the fire comes from Mark Hopkins who claims to have an inside source at Google that is confirming that Google will announce their new phone device by early to mid September 2007. His source is also claiming that the device will be:

• Cheap.
• Linux based.
• GPS enabled.
• Demo’ed in 2 weeks with a general US release to follow a little later.

If all of this turns out to be true, and I could surf the web, write articles on my blog, and watch online videos on this device – in addition to all of the cellular phone features we are already accustomed to (syncing with Outlook, etc.) then I’d be tempted to buy one. Otherwise I’ll just stick with my PPC-6700 which already does all of this.

Here are a few other people reporting the same story:

• Rediff India Abroad
• Wired Magazine
• Mobile Magazine
• CrunchGear
• Google News stories on the Google Phone.

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Google recently launched a pretty amazing program clearly designed to build out their base of information for the Google Local Search. And only a company like Google could actually afford to do this! They are honestly paying up to $10 for each business you manage to take photos of and get updated in Google’s database.

All of the program details can be found on the Google Local Business Referrals page. So if you’ve got a little extra time, a digital camera, and a computer check it out and you can pick up a little extra spending cash.

More information:

• gSpy
• eWhisper
• Small Business SEM

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I bet that headline got everyone’s attention! No, I’m not starting up an illicit internet drug trade, but I am testing out a search engine theory. (By the way, if you want to help test this theory please link to this article.)

Aaron Wall proposed the question, “How Easily do Authoritative Sites Rank for New Keywords?” over on SEOBook.com, and he pointed out that Matt Cutts managed to rank pretty high by just using the words Buy Cheap Viagra in one post. His postulate is that the relative authority of Matt’s site (a Google PR7 rank) drove his rankings towards the top of the Google results for a search for the terms “buy cheap viagra”.

Well, I figured I’d throw a little weight in the ring and help test this theory. If Aaron’s postulate is correct, I would think that this article should eventually even outrank Matt’s post given that OMB has a Google PR8. Plus I have noticed what seems to be this effect quite often. After I write an article it seems to appear high for searches with the key words.

But then again, the one other item that I mentioned previously is that inbound links to an article also tend to drive it to the top of the results, and Matt’s Viagra post has 38 links to it currently. This may be what makes the difference. So now we’ll see which carries more weight. A PR7 site with 38 inbound links to an article, or a PR8 site with most likely much fewer. (Unless you folks get busy linking…)

Oh, and another factor which could have an effect is the fact that Matt’s post is from August of 2005. Longevity may positively or adversely affect the ranking as well and that is a wildcard in this test.

It seems to me that the relative authority theory will be weak if this post doesn’t pass Matt’s. However, if several people decide to link to this article to help with test results we’ll be able to watch what happens as the search results change over the next several days.

There was one thing that intrigued me about Aaron’s “buy cheap Viagra” post which I’d like some more clarity on. Aaron, you made the comment that authoritative sites can “..rank well enough to make deep into 5 or 6 figures a month from it”. Um, how exactly?

Now, getting back to this whole concept of Viagra and search engine optimization. I figure I need to go ahead and talk a little bit about just how cheap the Viagra will be, and the fact that you can even buy it. This way since I’m dropping a few extra keywords in here it should probably help the search engine realize how fantastic this page is and put it up near the top of the buy cheap Viagra results.

In the coming days, after Google picks up this page, it will be interesting to check the search results for “buy cheap viagra” to see whether this post is showing up in the top few results. Matt’s post is currently showing up around the 12th position. So stay tuned…

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Google recently acquired a company called GrandCentral, which I was preparing to do a review of anyway after testing the service out a bit. This only makes the offering all that much stronger, and in my opinion it’s something everyone should try out.

Here is the Google acquisition announcement which took about 2 seconds to download directly from my voice mail:
Google Buys GrandCentral

GrandCentral links all of your phone numbers together and layers on a TON of new features. How? They are giving people One Number…for Life – a number that’s not tied to a phone or a location – but tied to you. This number will consolidate your voice messaging, route calls to wherever you are, and even allow you to screen your calls.

With GrandCentral, you can be reached with a single number, answer a call at any phone you want, seamlessly switch phones in the middle of a call, and even know whether a call is important before you take it.

Here are just a few of the features:

• Check your messages by phone, email, or online
• Keep all your messages online for eternity
• Record and store your phone calls (just like voicemail)
• Quickly (and secretly) block an annoying caller
• Click-to-dial from your address book
• Surprise your callers with a custom voicemail greeting
• Forward, download, and add notes to your messages

Folks, if you’ve never used a Find-me, Follow-me service before or had access to your voicemails as e-mail attachments then you don’t know what you’re missing. You really, really need to sign up.

There are a great number of advantages to having this service:

• First, you are no longer tied to a service provider for your phone number. You can change cell numbers, home numbers… whatever. Your GrandCentral number never changes.
• You can set up call screening which requires unknown callers to announce themselves before you accept the call. No more solicitations!
• You can have multiple phones ring simultaneously and grab the one that’s most convenient (or cheapest).
• You can put a “Click to Call” button on your Web site for people to reach you directly from your site.
• While you’re at home or in the office talk on your landline phone, then transfer to your cell if you need to leave, transfer back when you return!

There are also some drawbacks to using a service like this but they can be minimized:

• Friends and Family type calling plans on cell phones get screwed up by this sort of service. Calls from the same network pass through the GrandCentral system so they probably burn up your minutes. So, either have those people continue to use your direct cell number or upgrade your minutes!
• The GC Terms of Service state that it is for non-commercial use only. Considering that people have jobs and are going to have the phone ring to their office I don’t know what they mean by this. But I guess just be aware of it.
• The Web Click to Call feature may conflict with the business use terms. I’m guessing it also only works in the US.

Room for Improvement:

• Find a way around the “Friends and Family” call routing issue.
• For the number to truly be universal it needs to be able to accept inbound faxes as well. (They’ll probably charge for this later.)
• I imagine they will add on optional 800 number support at some time in the future.
• Click to Call from your address book needs to be integrated with Outlook so you don’t have to log in to the Web site.
• How about inbound caller ID notification pop ups on my PC and perhaps a small application that sits in the system tray which gives me access to everything without visiting the Web site?

Now, they are currently in Beta with the service and you have to wait for an invitation. According to their blog it’s kind of hard to get an invite right now. But luckily I’ve been a tester for a while and I can send invites to allow you to skip the wait! All you need to do is drop me a comment below with a request for an invitation (make sure you put your real e-mail address in there).

EDIT: Folks, this service is now known as Google Voice, and I have NO more invites! So please don’t bother asking for one because they don’t exist for anyone, anywhere. You just have to wait to get it direct from Google. In fact, I’m closing the comments on this one…

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Google has teamed up with the Holocaust Museum to create a complete interactive map that can be viewed in Google Earth which shows the ongoing slaughter and torture of millions of people in Darfur. You’d have to be living under a rock not to know this was going on, but it seems the “civilized world” is willing to turn a blind eye to Africa.

Anyway, if you don’t yet have Google Earth you can get it here. Once you have it, here is the interactive map which includes photos, videos and testimony.

Here’s how they describe it:

Witness the destruction for yourself. Using coordinates provided by the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, Google acquired high-resolution imagery over the region of Darfur and Eastern Chad. Now you can witness the destruction in Darfur via Google Earth. Zoom down and see what a burned village looks like from above, the vast tent cities of people displaced from their homes, and photographs on the ground of refugees struggling to survive. Read eyewitness testimony of atrocities in attacked villages. Visualize what genocide looks like today in Darfur.

You can also see the full post over at the Holocaust Museum.

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Google has launched an experimental service called Google Voice Local Search which makes local-business searches accessible over the phone.

And it’s free. Google doesn’t charge you a thing for the call or for connecting you to the business. So stop dialing 411 and paying those astronomical Cell phone charges!

Here is a sample call I made to demonstrate:
Sample 800-GOOG-411 Call

To try it yourself, just dial 1-800-GOOG-411 (1-800-466-4411) from any phone.

Here are a few of the features:

• You can find a business listing by category. Just say “pizza,” for example.
• You can send the listing details to your mobile phone via SMS.
• The service is fully automated, so it doesn’t rely on human operators.
• It connects you directly to the business, free of charge. However, your telephone company may apply regular charges for making a phone call or receiving an SMS.

Here is how to use it:

When you are asked for city and state, you can:

• say the city and state like “beverly hills california”.
• say the zip, e.g. “nine-oh-two-one-oh”.
• type the zip code using the key pad, e.g. “9-0-2-1-0″.

When you are asked for a business name or category, you can:

• say a business name, like “Giovanni’s pizzeria”.
• say a category name, like “hardware stores”.
• say “go back” to change city and state.

When browsing through results, you can:

• say the listing number (e.g. “number two”) or press the corresponding key (e.g. “2″) to choose a listing or navigate between results.
• say “text message” or press “9″ to receive a text message, when you are calling from a mobile phone.
• say “details” to get more information about the current listing.
• say “start over” or press “*” to start from the main menu.
• say “go back” to change business or category.

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