Home / Archives for Google

Google Thinks OMB SUCKS!

October 25, 2007 By 51 Comments

No PR8 For You!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.
[Read more...]

Filed Under: Google Tools, Site Updates, Thoughts, Wordpress Tagged With: , , , , ,

The Google Phone – Coming Soon!

August 29, 2007 By 10 Comments

Google gPhoneI’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.
[Read more...]

Filed Under: Gadgets, Google Tools, News Tagged With: , , , , , , , , , , ,

Google Pays You $10 to Take Photos of Local Businesses!

August 10, 2007 By 13 Comments

Google Local Business ReferralsGoogle 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.
[Read more...]

Filed Under: Google Tools Tagged With: ,

WordPress: Secure & Accessible PHP Contact Form SPAMs Blogs

March 21, 2007 By
I am exceedingly pleased to announce that the one and only issue with the Secure & Accessible plugin has been remedied, rendering all of the information below irrelevant. The only issue worth mentioning at this point is that if you installed a version of the plugin prior to 4-15-2007 you should update to the latest version to ensure your contact form meets search engine guidelines.

Honestly, there is really no reason to read the history on this as the past is the past. Go get the latest version of the plugin and if you really want to stick around here how about checking out something funny.

It pains me to report this, because the Secure and Accessible PHP Contact Form version 2 from Mike Cherim and Mike Jolley seems to be a nice contact form for WordPress, but the fact remains that this plug-in is dangerous and designed to secretly Spam blogs on which it is placed.

This stems from the fact there is an option that users believe will disable the display of credit links back to the author’s web sites; however, this option does not actually remove the links. It merely makes them invisible – and this is enough to cause Google to remove a site.
[Read more...]

Filed Under: Wordpress Tagged With: , , , , , , ,

PayPal to Offer Password Key Fobs to Users

March 14, 2007 By 1 Comment

SecureIDIn the recent past I’ve done a lot of harping on the security woes of financial institutions (see here, here, and here) so when I saw this announcement I was both extremely happy and a little disappointed at the same time.

PayPal is about to issue SecureID cards to all business clients in order to provide further account security. Now this is what I’m always talking about when I speak of defense in depth! PayPal will combine layers of security, in this case something I have (SecureID password generator), with something I know (my username/password combo) to ensure it’s actually me accessing the site.
[Read more...]

Filed Under: Finance, Security Tagged With: , , , , , , ,

Athiest Banned from YouTube

February 9, 2007 By 10 Comments

Nick GisburneReligion is one of those topics I normally don’t want to touch with a 10 foot pole. I’ve found that no one ever agrees when it comes to this topic. Heck, I’ve seen Christians arguing with one another over the meaning of a particular passage of scripture, so you know no good can come of a debate with an Atheist.

Having said that, I was very disturbed to learn that some YouTube staffer decided to ban a member on religious grounds. Nick Gisburne, an outspoken member of the YouTube community recently posted a video comprised solely of a slide show of quotes taken from the Qur’an. All of the quotes deal with the negative aspects of being a non-believer – such as going to hell, being killed and burning for eternity.

Clearly this video illustrates just one side of the discussion, and I would imagine an appropriate Islamic response would have been a video depicting passages of love and peace from the same book. But no one had the chance to issue such a response.
[Read more...]

Filed Under: Google Tools, Philosophy, Videos Tagged With: , , , , , , , , , , , ,

New GoogleGames.org Site Launch

January 15, 2007 By 1 Comment

Google GamesAs most of my readers are aware, I’m a fan of Google in general. More specifically as of late I’ve become fascinated with the wide variety of creativity being demonstrated by developers that choose to use Google services to build games.

So, about two weeks ago we launched a new site called GoogleGames.org with the sole intention of cataloging and showcasing all games Google. I say “we” because it’s a collaborative project between myself, Terry Green, and my brother Kirk.

We invite everyone to check out the site, and if you know of any worthy games which should be included please use our contact form to let us know! We promise to give credit where credit is due if you, unless you wish to remain anonymous.

Filed Under: News, Web Links Tagged With: , , ,

My 51 Favorite Freeware Apps for Windows

December 29, 2006 By 26 Comments

Favorite FreewarePeople routinely ask about my favorite software so, I’ve decided to gather all my top picks in one place to make every one’s life a little easier.

All of the software listed here is free for personal use, meaning:

  1. Any of this software can be installed and used at absolutely no charge, forever. There is no nagging, spyware, or anything else nasty.
  2. Because it’s totally free, sometimes there is very little support. You either figure out how to use it, or just get rid of it.

So, without further ado, here is the list categorized by type of application:
[Read more...]

Filed Under: Computing, Google Tools, Security Tagged With: , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

5% of Web Sites Will Ruin Your Computer

December 18, 2006 By 4 Comments

Bad SitesSecurity conscious techies now have some additional evidence to illustrate the inherent risks posed from surfing the Internet unprotected.

According to this article at ARSTechnica, one in twenty-five search results across major search engines result in sites affiliated with spyware, viruses, excessive pop-up advertisements, and junk e-mail.

The study found that not only can regular links found by search engines be dangerous, the sponsored links that appear in prominent positions in the results pages can also be harmful. In fact, in the May study, sponsored links were more than twice as likely to be linked to malware than non-sponsored links (8.5 vs. 3.1 percent).

[Read more...]

Filed Under: Security Tagged With: , , , , , ,
« Older Posts
Newer Posts »