News : US Gov't Approves VeriSign .com Deal

VeriSign's proposed deal with ICANN for oversight of the .com domain has received final approval from the US Commerce Department, removing the last hurdle to extending the agreement until 2012.

The agreement was approved by ICANN back in March in a split 9-to-5 vote, and the negotiations were highlighted by opposition by some of the Web's largest registrars. Under the deal, VeriSign could raise rates without justification by up to seven percent in four of the next six years.

In addition to having the rights to the .com domain through 2012, VeriSign also won the right to "presumptive renewal" when the agreement expires. Such moves were opposed by registrars, who argued that rates should be dropping, and that the company had a monopoly on U.S. domain names.

The world's largest registrar, GoDaddy.com, took things a step farther after the agreement's approval by ICANN, filing a petition with the Commerce Department in an attempt to block the deal. It asked the agency to send the deal back to ICANN to ensure fairer terms.

"We will not sit back without a fight. This deal is outrageous," GoDaddy CEO Bob Parsons said at the time. "It's monopolistic because it locks in price hikes and eliminates good old-fashion competition. It's a mistake [Commerce] Secretary Gutierrez can stop."

Furthermore, a majority of public comments on the deal voiced opposition to it. However, it now appears as if all these calls for the most part fell on deaf ears once the deal reached the Commerce Deparment.

The Commerce Department did interject some oversight into the process. It retained the right to oversee any pricing increases, as well as having final veto power against any approvals.

Renewal of the deal would be granted if "the approval will serve the public interest," it said.

News : Yahoo Refuses to Help Google in Book Case

Google will not be receiving any help from Yahoo in the case brought against it by the Author's Guild, the Associated Press reports.

Calling the company's subpoena an attempt to force it to divulge trade secrets, Yahoo said Thursday that it has refused to testify. A 17-page rejection letter was sent to Google last week, and Yahoo's reasoning sounds a lot like that of Amazon, which rejected a subpoena in October.

Amazon also accused Google of similar ulterior motives, and directed it to information on book search methods that are available publicly on the Web. The information requested was "highly confidential," it claimed.

"There is simply no need for Google to be peering into the minds and computers of Yahoo employees," the AP quotes the document as saying.

Google is fighting a lawsuit brought against it by the Authors Guild in September 2005. In that suit, the group accuses the search giant of "massive copyright infringement," and alleges that Google never approached them for permission to index their books.

In its defense, Google points to the fact it has set up a system for authors and publishers to opt out of the index. It would also direct users to purchase the full book if they would require more information than the search function provides.

One subpoena is pending against Microsoft. In addition, Google has requests out to several other smaller companies, the AP reported. However, Google is not discussing the case with the media.

News : Verizon Dials Up Revver in Content Deal

Just a day after it announced a similar agreement with competitor YouTube, the nation's second largest cellular provider announced it would also included selected videos from Revver.

It appears at the heart of Verizon Wireless' decision to push forward with more content for VCAST is a desire to lure more of its consumer base of 57 million customers to sign up for the service. After spending billions on its 3G network, it now is looking to recoup that.

That problem has plagued many carriers, both here in the US and overseas -- especially in Europe. After spending exorbitant amounts of money, many carriers found the demand for 3G services is not meeting the investments they put into their networks.

Like the YouTube deal, Revver would select videos to be included in the VCAST version of the service. In turn, Verizon would have final say over the videos that are included, and would check them to ensure they meet the company's editorial guidelines.

Content would come from several of the most popular categories, and would be refreshed twice weekly. Verizon will have exclusive rights to the mobile Revver service for a undisclosed period of time.

Revver would also offer its users the same 50/50 revenue split arrangement that it offers users who post videos to the main web site. Content creators would also have the power to opt in and out of allowing videos to be posted on VCAST.

Financial terms of the deal were not disclosed.

"With Verizon Wireless, our users have another compelling platform to share their work with millions of people and to get paid for it," Revver CEO and founder Steven Starr said. "Revver and V CAST share the same audience, a new generation of consumers that discover and share content using new technology."

In reaction to Tuesday's YouTube deal, some analysts and pundits said the deal was more about attempting to remake the image of a service many cellular customers have passed

News : Google Closes Down 'Answers' Service

Later this week, Google will stop accepting new questions on its Answers service, one of many search-related products the company has rolled out over the years. Google says that part of being an innovator means "reconsidering our goals."

Google Answers provided a way for users to pose questions and set a price for how much the answer would be worth to them. Others from around the world could then answer the question, and receive payment, with Google taking 50 cents as a listing fee.

The search giant says over 800 individuals participated in the service, but it's audience was quite niche and Google Answers failed to achieve mainstream adoption in the more-than four years it has been around.

"The project started with a rough idea from Larry Page, and a small 4-person team turned it into reality in less than 4 months," Google developers Andrew Fikes and Lexi Baugher wrote on the company's blog. "For two new grads, it was a crash course in building a scalable product, responding to customer requests, and discovering what questions are on people's minds."

Despite its moderate success, Google Answers did catch the eye of the company's competitors. Yahoo launched its own Q and A service last year, which has proven to be quite popular. Yahoo took a different approach, however, dropping the fees and relying on users to answer questions out of goodwill, much like the online encyclopedia Wikipedia.

In September, Microsoft took the wraps off Windows Live QnA, a service similar to Yahoo's that utilizes a reputation based system. Users vote for the best answers and after four days, the question and answer get locked down for future reference.

Although it ceasing to accept new questions this week and will stop accepting new answers by the end of the year, Google says it will leave existing Q and A's available for perusal.

"Google Answers was a great experiment which provided us with a lot of material for developing future products to serve our users. We'll continue to look for new ways to improve the search experience and to connect people to the information they want," added Fikes and Baugher.

News : Zune Sales Lagging Behind iPod, Others

Sales of the Microsoft Zune appear to be trailing off rather quickly after a fast start, leading some analysts to believe consumer interest is waning.

The player, which stayed in the top 10 in sales in the Amazon.com electronics category for several days following its launch, has now nearly fallen out of the top 100. As of midday Tuesday, only the black player registered, coming in at #96.

Several other manufacturers beat out the Zune: Apple held six of the top 10 spots; SanDisk's Sansa M240 held eighth and 14th spot; Creative's Zen Vision:M also made an appearance in the top 20. Analysts pointed to the player's low rank as an indication that many consumers are passing over the Zune in favor of more established brands.

Microsoft in a statement to the Wall Street Journal said that "exactly within our expectations," and sources told BetaNews shortly after the launch that internal sales data indicated the player sold the best in the West, with sales strong in the Northeast and in Florida as well.

However, that buzz appears to have been short lived. Whereas the iPod is expected to sell as many as 15 million players this holiday season, analysts only project Zune sales of about 300,000 to 500,000 units at most.

Part of the problem may be the beating the Zune has taken in the hands of the media. Reviews of the product have been nearly all negative, with one going as far as calling the experience "about as pleasant as having an airbag deploy in your face."

"The Zune is a complete, humiliating failure," Chicago Sun-Times technology pundit Andy Ihnatko wrote recently. "Throw in the Zune's tail-wagging relationship with music publishers, and it almost becomes important that you encourage people not to buy one."

News : YouTube Brings Videos to Cell Phones

The Web's largest purveyor of user-generated content has signed a deal with Verizon Wireless. The deal will bring YouTube videos to VCAST subscribers in early December.

YouTube says it would provide the most popular videos exclusively to Verizon Wireless for a limited time. After that, it appears as if the site has plans to market the offering to other wireless carriers with capable handsets.

Editors with YouTube would select videos that would be made available on the service. However, Verizon would have the right to deny access to videos that it feels does not meet its guidelines of good taste.

The deal mark's YouTube's first in the mobile industry. "We are excited to launch our new mobile service and to partner with Verizon Wireless to bring YouTube videos to a new audience," CTO Steve Chen said. The company said it plans to unveil new partnerships and mobile services in 2007.

Not only would users be able to view videos from others, but they would also be able to record their own videos on their phones and upload them to YouTube to share. Handsets compatible with the service include the recently-announced LG Chocolate and MOTOKRZR K1m.

Verizon VCAST carries a $3 daily or $15 monthly charge that includes unlimited basic video content. However, games and premium video carry an additional fee. YouTube would be available under the service's basic offering, Verizon said.

Interview With Google's Adam Lasnik

Tell us about how you became a Google employee. What was involved with getting "recruited" by Matt Cutts?

I've been a fan of Google for quite some time, even writing up a "how to Google" tips article in early 2000 for a former employer's internal newsletter. Also, many of my friends have worked at Google since the early days, and I was impressed by what they shared about the corporate culture. Amazing amounts of trust, freedom, and goodwill.

I was particularly intrigued by the idea of strengthening communications between Googlers and Google users, amongst groups of Googlers, and so on. As a happy coincidence, Matt and the Search Quality group had been increasingly interested in extending these sorts of conversations as well, and so you might say we sort of found each other.

Matt's detailed the situation a bit more here: "Better Conversations"

So there's not much more for me to add. But about eight months later, I can say that it's been a great fit and I'm really pleased things worked out the way they did.

Please explain the webmaster liaison work you do. What sorts of questions annoy you the most? (besides that one) What have been some of the more rewarding interactions?

I think there's a misconception that my main role is "getting out there"… meeting with Webmasters, giving answers, solving specific problems, and so on. While - as someone who was Webmastering even back in'95 - I do enjoy the external aspects of my job, I think the most powerful part of what I do is internal. I'd say about 20% of my job involves interacting with Webmasters, SEOs, geeks, and even non-geeks at conferences, online, and otherwise. The remaining 80% is where the talk is translated into action. I am blessed with colleagues who care deeply about search and also about Webmasters; some of them are pretty well-known in the Webmaster community (including Vanessa, and - of course - Matt). But countless others work behind the scenes… the crawl folks, the Googlers working on indexing, and so on. I'm confident that I'm helping Webmasters most when I'm tackling both the urgent as well as important-but-long-term issues with my teammates, serving as both a Webmaster advocate and facilitator internally.

As for what questions annoy me the most? There aren't any specific ones that I find particularly frustrating. Rather, I do occasionally grow weary with two types of questions:

1. Questions that are clearly answered in our much-improved Webmaster Central, via a quick search of our Webmaster Help group, or questions that would also be likely answered via use of our Webmaster Tools. There's no such thing as a stupid question, IMHO, but lazy questions… well, that's a different story.

2. Accusatory "questions." I suppose I need to get some thicker skin, but it stings when people imply that we either don't care or - worse - that a relationship between Webmasters and Google must inherently be adversarial. Every time I've spoken with Larry Page and Marissa Mayer they've made it unequivocally clear that being mindful of Webmaster concerns is something resonating not just in Search Quality, but from the very top of Google.

And thankfully, most of my interactions - with Googlers and Webmasters - have been decidedly positive. I got some incredible insights when I visited my colleagues in Dublin, Ireland (our European headquarters) as well as various Webmasters / Google users throughout Europe, all of whom offered thoughtfully global perspectives on search. Closer to home, I've especially enjoyed chatting with Webmasters and IT folks from non-profit organizations; these are people who often lack the resources to delve into the world of SEO, can't even afford a week to schmooze at a conference. It's made me think about how we (Google and all of us passionate about search) can most scalably and responsibly spread knowledge, and broadly share best search and user-experience practices in this area.

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How Google Updates are Like a Hurricane

When Google updates it's results pages, it can come on like a storm - literally. For those sites that move upward when a major algorithm update occurs, there is major rejoicing. For those sites that move downward in the rankings, there is often wailing and gnashing of teeth. While the updates themselves have been occurring much more frequently, and the results for most keyword categories are shifting subtly each and every day - there was a time when the update process came without warning and often upended entire pages of top ranking sites.

In those earlier days of the Google update (also known as the ''Google dance'') when a major algorithm change was launched, the professional search engine optimization community would instantaneously begin buzzing with search engine optimizers comparing notes. SEO professionals would want to know exactly when the update started, which Google servers were impacted, which keywords or phrases had shifted the most, and whether or not any so-called ''black hat'' tactics were being rewarded or punished in the update.

To facilitate these discussions, it became obvious that everyone had to know which particular update a discussion was referring to. Thus was born the need to name the Google updates.

The man responsible for this hugely important task is Brett Tabke, the Chief Operating Officer of SEO professional discussion site, WebmasterWorld. So how exactly did the process get started? According to Mr. Tabke, ''Well we started in 2001, offhand, and joking around saying, 'well, here comes another Google storm'. We said, 'yeah, we ought to name them like a hurricane if this keeps up'. The next thing you know, we started naming them like hurricanes.''

So the moderators of Webmaster World began keeping track of the updates, and giving them names in a fashion similar to the National Weather Service hurricane naming system. Mr. Tabke explained, ''In the early days we did it specifically like, one month a woman, then a man, ABCD. It finally got to be such a chore for we moderators to decide the name – we just said, 'hey, what's going on right now?'. For example, the last update in August was right at the same time that they demoted Pluto from a planet, so we just said hey let's call it update 'pluto'. The previous update before that, we kind of acknowledged Matt Cutts - talking about Google's internal 'big daddy' update on their 'big daddy' server. We let him have that one. Throw him a little bone.''

And so, the naming of Google updates has progressed. It is driven forward by the Webmaster World community and crystallized by Brett Tabke. One may ask as well, ''But what about Yahoo?''. This other large search engine also has search results that periodically fluctuate. When pressed on the issue of whether or not Yahoo! has asked to be included in the update naming pool, Mr. Tabke commented, ''We started to name the Yahoo! updates about two years ago. It quickly became clear that Yahoo! was going to go into a state of ever-fluxing and updating on the fly. It wasn't possible with Yahoo! in the same way it was with Google.''

Brett Tabke's time is consumed these days with the planning and organizing of PubCon - the webmaster and search engine professional trade show sponsored by Webmaster World. However, if the time comes to name a new Google update, he and his team stand ready to accept the challenge of creating an interesting and compelling name for it.

About the Author
Derek Vaughan is the Chief Marketing Officer at TechPad Agency. He is a freelance writer on topics ranging from search engine optimization to web hosting to Internet marketing. TechPad Agency operates a professional network of hosting related websites.

Google Launches Web Book Reader

By Nate Mook, BetaNews
November 22, 2006, 6:34 PM

Firing a shot over Adobe's bow, Google on Wednesday launched a Web-based application for reading books digitized by the company's Book Search project. Like Google Maps and Gmail, the interactive tool works directly in a Web browser and supports zooming as well as a fullscreen mode.

Books that are available through the search can still be downloaded in PDF format, but Google's online utility replaces the need for the bulky Adobe Reader. Users can switch to a two-page view that appears like a physical book, or read one page per screen like a standard Web page. Scrolling through the book is instant using the mouse.

On the right side of the page, users can find a search and table of contents that lets them jump through to different sections of a book, as well as links to purchase the book from a number of online retailers. Google has also linked the application up to Google Scholar so users can locate works that reference the book.

"Just click on "About this book" to find more books related to the book you're reading," says Google developer Nathan Naze. "If the book How to Draw Comic Book Heroes and Villains interests you, you'll probably like Comic Book Artist Collection, Vol. 1. We also revised our 'About this book' page to provide better information for in-copyright books, from which you can just see short snippets or a limited preview."

For now, the number of full books available for reading is still limited, as Google is still in the process of digitizing a number of major libraries including those of the Universities of Michigan and California, Harvard, Oxford, Stanford, as well as the New York Public Library. Google recently signed a deal to scan 3 million works from Complutense University in Madrid.

Still, not everyone is impressed with the immense effort to catalog the world's books. Last month, a second publisher group in France has joined a lawsuit against Google in French court over its Google Book Search service. The suit is similar to one brought forth by the US-based Author's Guild and was filed October 24.

video interview with Opera CEO

When you think of innovations in web browsing clients such as tabs, the immediate reaction is to think of Mozilla’s Firefox or the recently launched Internet Explorer 7 by Microsoft. You might be surprised, however, to learn that Opera has been implemented tabbed browsing for years. Opera’s CEO, Jon von Tetchner, spoke with WebProNews at PubCon about the company’s plans to increase market share and consumer knowledge of it’s web browsing software.

Jon spoke about the company’s relationship with Google, and its commitment to develop a browser that seamlessly executes all of Google’s services such as Gmail, Docs & Spreadsheets, and Google Reader. He also touched on some of the browser’s feature that set it apart from Firefox and Internet Explorer, and is encouraging developers to reach out to Opera in efforts to develop web content that offers cross-platform functionality rather that limiting content to specific browsers.

Video

Firefox : Scrollbar For Your Tabs

I like the idea of having so many tabs open they start to stack up. While I am writing here, I always have multiple things going on at the same time. Now when it comes to switching between twenty or so tabs, you start to find using the default methods of navigating through them aggravating. If you find yourself in this type of pickle, then you need the Tab Overflow Scrollbar extension.

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Get the Firefox Facts!

There are many different aspects to Mozilla's Firefox, do you know about them all? Firefox Facts is the definitive guide when it comes to using the world's most famous alternative browser. Inside the pages of this eBook you will get tips and tweaks to make your browsing experience better. You will also get reviews of some of the best known and the less known extensions as well.

News : When A Spam Site Isn't Spammy

Blogger Niall Kennedy delved into the murkiness surrounding a site that hit the front page of Digg and several other social media websites, and found a hugely intertwined mix of link-baiting and keyword-targeting in place that profits from the viral nature of stories that grab attention.

Geeks with weight problems need to pay better attention to their health, and as it is an ongoing concern for many people, any suggestion of a way to better accomplish that will usually draw attention. Online, the attention for a story on steps to weight loss dubbed a "spam node" by Kennedy gained some significant traffic which it likely capitalized on via its affiliate membership.

Kennedy walked through the example posting that used sites like Digg and Delicious to increase in awareness while garnering traffic and affiliate revenue. The tips are hosted on a blog that appears to be dedicated to dental information, but is mostly a conduit to an affiliate program.

"Scanning the sidebar links and adjacent content it was obvious this content was out of place on a page optimized for dental insurance," wrote Kennedy. "

The webmaster of i-dentalresources.com had inserted some Digg bait, seeded a few social bookmarking services, and waited for links and page views to roll in, creating a new node in a spam farm fueled by high-paying affiliate programs and identity collection for resale."

Kennedy also traced the path of the site, from its genesis as a domain managed "by eBizzSol, a company with fake domain registration information including the address block of a Christian church in Fullerton, California." The site is registered to an address in the capital of Bangladesh.

The site makes its money from referrals to a seller of dental plans. Each referral brings in $40 or more, according to Kennedy. By using a number of significant keyphrases in its article categories, the site rose in its organic rankings.

To further help traffic, they purchased links in directories at Yahoo, Microsoft, Business.com, and others. Then they moved to the social networking sites. On Digg, 920 users gave the story a vote, which seems to indicate the common belief that people Digg stories based on their front page presence and not their content may have some credence.

Now here is the issue. The article in question, though somewhat general in content and not related to dental work, isn't necessarily spammy.

After opening the site in Opera and Firefox, I fed the URL to poor defenseless Internet Explorer, where I fully expected it to explode with popups, banners, and contextual advertising. But except for two image links and several text links to the dental plan affiliate, and a text link to a content writing website, there were no other elements besides the weight loss tips.

One will see more ads on A-list blogs than they will on this dental site. While it's hard to not see the site as a blatant grab for profitable pass-through traffic to the affiliate, it's far less offensive than the sorts of spyware that researchers like Ben Edelman and Vitalsecurity.org write about often.

The scary part about the dental site is how it benignly occupies middle ground when its comes to revenue links. The nigh-ubiquitous AdSense and other contextual ad links are absent, as are the more intrusive ad elements.

It may be dodgy if its affiliate does not offer a valid product, but if those dental plans are legitimate, the site may be a decent example of gaming search optimization and social media without being the spam node Kennedy and other bloggers have called it.

Tools to improve your Reader experience

by Mihai Parparita on Nov 14, 2006

As an engineer, one of the things that warms my heart is when users of my product become invested enough in it to want to extend it. I was very happy to see that Reader has begun to attract all sorts of hacks and add-ons that tweak the application to better suit the usage patterns of particular people. It's hard to make an interface that is everything to everyone, and add-ons like these are our best hope of making Reader the ideal feed aggregator for the largest number of people.

Here are a few add-ons that we've discovered recently:

Google Reader Notifier (Mac): This open-source application adds a menu-bar icon which keeps track of new items within your entire reading list or just for a particular tag (the latter is useful for people like me that are subscribed to a lot of feeds and want to know only when the important ones are updated). Troels Bay, the author, has been revving the application on a regular basis, and it's getting better and better.

Gordita: Reader has one-click starring and sharing of items, but you may want to do the same to pages outside of Reader. Gordita lets you create a bookmarklet that allows you to copy Reader items that interest you to del.icio.us, along with all the other items you've bookmarked over the Web.

Google Reader Optimized: This set of user styles maximizes the reading area. When you want to sit down and power through hundreds of items, you may find this compact, stripped-down interface preferable.

Controlling Google Reader with a Cell Phone : This add-on may be a bit out there, but in a nutshell it allows you to control Reader with your Bluetooth cellphone. Perhaps if used in combination with the full-screen style above, you can build your own Reader 10-foot user interface.

Reader Button for the Google Toolbar for Internet Explorer: If you use the Google Toolbar for Internet Explorer, this custom button gives you one-click access to Reader and notifies you of new items via a changing icon.

Firefox extension Zotero

Zotero [zoh-TAIR-oh] is a free, easy-to-use Firefox extension to help you collect, manage, and cite your research sources. It lives right where you do your work — in the web browser itself.

Features

Automatic capture of citation information from web pages

Storage of PDFs, files, images, links, and whole web pages

Flexible notetaking with autosave

Fast, as-you-type search through your materials

Playlist-like library organization, including saved searches (smart collections) and tags

Platform for new forms of digital research that can be extended with other web tools and services

Runs right in your web browser

Formatted citation export (style list to grow rapidly)

Free and open source

Shared collections

Finally Google buys iRows information on: Google

And with this buy of iRows and the incorporation of his creators to the staff of Google they give the reinforcement that he was lacking to the software to improve Google Spreadsheet.

Also, iRows will close on December 31 (we suppose that forwarding and being able to recover the documents that exist in Google Docs as they comment in his incorporation

Google Has Long Road To Hoe To Pass Yahoo

Google Has Long Road To Hoe To Pass Yahoo
As GOOG climbs above $500 per share, as predicted to happen about this time last year before the great January plunge, questions as to just how high Google can get, in terms of stock, search share, and visits, get more intense. Last week, a Citigroup analyst predicted Google would overtake Yahoo in visits by the end of 2007. Hitwise disagrees.

While Google is the Wall Street darling, with stock projected to rise as high as $750 (some have timidly suggested as high as $840), and with a search market share somewhere between 40 and 60 percent, Hitwise's Bill Tancer says that not only will it take longer than a year, but much has to be assumed, lost, and gained to get Google past Yahoo and to the number one online property.

Citigroup's Mark Mahaney, based on numbers provided by comScore projected that Google would overcome a 20-million visitor deficit, supplanting Yahoo as the top spot, if current growth rates continued.

Tancer chewed that over using Hitwise numbers and came to a different conclusion. Though Yahoo's market share has dropped by 10 percent in the last year, and Google's has risen by 18.6 percent, Tancer estimates it will take three years for Google to catch up with Yahoo.

"If we apply those growth rates, and assume no material changes in those rates over the next three years (a big assumption), Google would not surpass Yahoo! in market share of visits until mid-2009," writes Tancer.

News: Verizon Launches Idearc

Verizon yellow pages launched a spin off of their popular SuperPages.com local search engine called Idearc.

Verizon's Idearc began trading today at the New York Stock Exchange while Verizon YellowPages survives the spin off.

Idearc was intended by Verizon to be, according to the company's media website, "A multi-platform media company with the most innovative ways of connecting buyers with sellers, making consumers better shoppers and businesses more successful."

The purpose of the site is to assist consumers in finding what they desire in a time efficient and simple manner and includes over 17 million businesses in the United States.

Because of parent company Verizon's established reputation, with their print directories in over 35 million homes, Idearc already has an extensive consumer base.

Idearc also assists businesses in leading consumers to their products. The site even features a "value promise" to the businesses that place their ads on Idearc Yellow Pages, which states that they will make as many cost-effective solutions available as possible.

Average return on investments, or ROI, for companies who advertise their business on yellow pages is $21 for every $1 spent. Other forms of media, including newspaper and billboard, have proven to yield a much smaller ROI than those attained through online advertising.

Idearc is the official distributor of Verizon's print directories, distributing 136 Verizon Yellow Pages and White Pages to 35 states per year.

Show Open with Kevin Mitnick and Steve Wozniak

Kevin Mitnick's first time on the net in 8 years!

Microsoft Hits A New Note , digital music player at the iPod

After five years of dominating the digital music player market, Apple now has competition from that "other" computer company.
Microsoft Zune – the software giant's answer to the Apple iPod – makes its debut Tuesday, a rollout conveniently coinciding with the holiday shoppping season.
Will Zune be the pricey stocking stuffer of the year? Microsoft sure hopes so.
I've had a chance to test the new digital music player and, while it does do everything the iPod does and more, I'm not convinced it will take a bite out of Apple's market share – at least not yet.
Although it comes in three colors – brown, black and white – there is really only one version of Zune, which stores 30 gigabytes of music, photos and video and sells for $249.00. That's the same price as Apple's 30GB iPod, but Apple offers a whole crop of iPods - ranging from the 1GB $79 shuffle to the 80GB $349 model.
When you hold a Zune next to an iPod of the same capacity, the first thing you notice is that Zune is larger, thicker, heavier and – dare I say – a bit more awkward-looking. Zune weighs 5.6 ounces – 17 percent more than Apple's 30GB iPod. At .6 inches in depth, it's 40 percent thicker and a bit taller than the iPod. But weight and dimensions don't tell the whole story. The iPod has a polished, finished look to it; Zune looks and feels, well, just a little bit cheaper.
But looks aren't everything. When it comes to performance, Zune delivers the goods. Its software is quite easy to use, making it a cinch to sync your digital music collection from your PC to Zune. The sound is excellent but photos, videos and album covers look more grainy than they do on the iPod's smaller screen.
Zune has a couple of features you won't find on any iPod. For example, it has a built-in FM tuner that can scan for stations and choose your favorites as pre-sets. Apple offers an FM radio as an accessory, but it's not built into the product.

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Click here to hear Larry Magid's podcast interview of Microsoft's Matt Jubelirer on what Zune can and cannot do.

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Googlepedia

by James Hall

More previews…

Shows you a relevant Wikipedia article along with your search results. Clicking links in the article will trigger new Google searches, making it a very useful research tool.
** Like Googlepedia? Please donate at www.amusd.com **
Features:
* Turns internal Wikipedia links into Google search links
* Uses Google's I'm Feeling Lucky(tm) feature to find relevant articles
* Links images directly to their full-sized versions
* Removes Google AdWords
* Can be expanded to take the full width of the page
* Uses your local language Wikipedia based on the Google language
* Hide button to disable Googlepedia
New features will be available soon through a new preferences dialog I'm working on.

Works with:

Firefox
1.5 - 2.0.0.*
ALL

Install now (26 KB)

Version 0.4.2, released on Nov 8, 2006.

Firefox: Handling Widget Differences

Each operating system provides or supports a GUI library that can be used to draw interactive widgets. Firefox does not draw widgets using these libraries. Firefox uses its own widget-drawing code to draw widgets on a blank canvas supplied by those libraries. So, for example, Firefox for Windows does not depend on COMCTL32.DLL (or .OCX), and replacing that library is therefore of no use.

There are two areas of the desktop GUI that Firefox widgets depend upon. One is the theme engine for natively styled widgets . Not all platforms support all -moz-appearance values, so applying such a style property can do nothing in some instances, but at least that's harmless.

The second area is the operating-system accessibility API. This is wrapped up in a portable XPCOM object with the nsIAccessible interface. It is used in the XBL definitions for XUL widgets . You can't see the equivalent use for HTML tags unless you turn on XHTML tag support.

Where there is accessibility support, follow the guidelines at http://www.mozilla.org/access/xul-guidelines for best results in XUL.

In general, don't try to lay out XUL or HTML widgets in pixel-perfect style. What looks good on one operating system will be up for debate on another. It is better to pack widgets loosely, using the naturally flowing layout of the page: line boxes and blocks for HTML, boxes for XUL.

Firefox: Unofficial changelogs for Firefox releases

A more systematic breakdown of feature changes is provided by the highly organized Burning Edge web site (http://www.squarefree.com/burningedge/releases/), which reports on the code changes made by the Mozilla community. Look here for a stack of release summaries, including one that forecasts the contents of the next minor release.

The FAQ at the Burning Edge site (http://www.squarefree.com/burningedge/faq.html) also lists a number of other resources that provide release information.

Firefox : Flicks and YOU on TV

Taking a cue from the amazing success of the Firefox 1.0 celebration announcement in the New York Times, we've decided to do something similar for Flicks!

Full details to be posted soon, but suffice it to say that a limited number of people will be able to participate in this first test run and see their name on TV along with a Firefox Flicks ad, so keep an eye out here for next steps and get those TV remotes and digital video recorders ready!

As written in a previous post, we're going to be doing something very cool to Spread Firefox. We're really excited about the prospect of reaching out to millions of people and getting them jazzed about using a browser that so many folks love using as a part of everyday life. Over the coming weeks, our intention is to demystify the process of airing a TV ad for Firefox and have you involved in the process as we go from concept to air sometime late this fall. Think of it as kind of a combination of Insider meets choose-your-own-adventure.

Our goals for airing on TV are simiple: to get people to download Firefox and give it a test-drive; to get the Firefox name out to the masses; and to see if TV actually works as an advertising medium for Firefox. There were many outstanding Flicks submissions that could have worked well as commercial spots. We narrowed down the submissions to choices that met three basic criteria:

1. Appeal to a wide, mainstream audience
2. Capture an audience's attention and imagination
3. Don't directly attack our competition by name

Here are some questions that may help guide the selection:

• Which Flicks make you proud to be Firefox user?
• Which Flicks do you think people that use other browsers would like best and why?
• Which Flicks grab your attention?
• Which Flicks do you think would appeal to a less saavy web user?

Below is a list of flicks that we feel meet the above three criteria best:

Daredevil, This is Hot, Billy's Browser, Web for All, Give me the soap, Painter, One Window for Every Reason, Improve, No comparison, Sunday Morning, Life Lessons.

More to come, but in the meantime we would love to hear your thoughts and suggestions about and which of the Flicks on the list you'd like to see on air.

Singaporean is world's fastest text messager

SINGAPORE (Reuters) - A Singaporean student broke the Guinness World Record for the shortest time needed to type a 160-character SMS message on Sunday after whizzing through the task in less than 42 seconds in a competition.

Sixteen-year-old Ang Chuang Yang typed the SMS (short message service) message in 41.52 seconds, beating the previous record of 42.22 seconds set by American Ben Cook in July, according to Singapore Telecommunications, organizers of the competition.

"I'll try for 39 seconds next year," said Ang, adding that the trick to speedy text messaging was to use a mobile phone with larger keys on the dial pad.

SMS messaging competitions around the world use the same SMS text provided by the Guinness organization -- "The razor-toothed piranhas of the genera Serrasalmus and Pygocentrus are the most ferocious freshwater fish in the world. In reality they seldom attack a human."

Advice For Doctors Stumped By A Difficult-To-Diagnose Illness: Google It

By W. David Gardner

nov 10, 2006 10:42 AM

Doctors trying to find the correct diagnosis of difficult cases should try Google for an answer, according to a study published Friday by Australian researchers.

Physicians at Princess Alexandra Hospital in Brisbane decided to study the effectiveness of Google searches after they were impressed that a rare disease in one of their patients had been diagnosed in a Google search.

"Our study suggests that in difficult diagnostic cases, it is often useful to Google for a diagnosis," physicians Hangwi Tang and Jennifer Hwee Kwoon Ng wrote. "We suspect that using Google to search for a diagnosis is likely to be more effective for conditions with unique symptoms."

The study had an international tone as the Australian researchers studied cases reported in the New England Journal of Medicine and reported their findings in the British Medical Journal.

The Australian physicians picked three to five search terms for illnesses the New England Journal had listed as difficult to diagnosis. Then they carried out a Google search on each. They discovered that the Google searches were right in in correctly diagnosing 58 percent of the cases.

Even though Google didn't find the correct answer in all cases studied, the results illustrated that the online search engine can be useful, the Australian physicians said. "I think docs should use search engines like Google more often if they are stuck with a difficult diagnosis," said Dr. Tang, according to media reports. "It's quick, and has no harm, and is usually educational."

The Australian physicians also cited a case in the New England Journal in which a doctor astonished her colleagues when, confronted with a rare and difficult-to-diagnose form of thrombosis, she "Googled" the patient's symptoms and the correct diagnosis "popped right out."

Browsers : Flash Embed - Google video - YouTube

by Elizabeth Castro

It has always gotten my goat that Internet Explorer’s non-standard use of the object tag has forced standards-loving browsers to use the non-standard embed tag in order to embed movies on a web page. Even on Apple’s site, the embed tag—a Netscape extension, for Pete’s sake!—is so entrenched that it’s hard to even find information about using the object element for QuickTime, except in a non-standard way.

The use of embed has gone on too long. Wishing for it to become part of the official specs is like wishing your partner would start putting the cap on the toothpaste. It’s not going to happen. It’s time to move on. If you want to validate your website, you have to get rid of embed. In this article, I’ll show you how.
Online Movies: Google Video and YouTube

ALA readers will remember Drew McLellan’s seminal article on Flash Satay. In that article, Drew described a method for inserting Flash animations on a page without using the embed element. Flash Satay has two parts. First, Drew figured out that you can use a single object element to call Flash as long as you specify its type adequately. Second, to properly stream Flash movies, you have to embed a sort of reference movie.

I’ve been experimenting with Drew’s code on Google Video and YouTube content. I was shocked to find that Google Video suggests you use only the embed tag to embed their video on Web pages. Alas, not shocked that they would suggest such a thing—just shocked that it actually works on Internet Explorer, which stopped supporting the non-standard, but universally-supported embed tag years ago in favor of its proprietary implementation of the standard object tag that renders that tag completely invisible to standards-loving browsers. It turns out that IE supports embed as long as the visitor has the appropriate player already installed. If not, they get an error and a generic broken-plugin icon, but no help. YouTube, for its part, does the often seen but hardly standard twice cooked approach, offering both the object and embed tags.

Since both Google Video and YouTube serve movies through the Flash player—regardless of your movie’s format when you uploaded it—you can use Drew’s single object method to embed such movies on your page. Indeed, you don’t have to use the Satay part of his code; movies on Google Video and YouTube stream even without the reference movie he suggests. (Line wraps marked » —Ed.)

<object type="application/x-shockwave-flash"
data="http://video.google.com/googleplayer.swf? »
8755581808731033658"
width="400" height="326" id="VideoPlayback">
<param name="movie"
value="http://video.google.com/googleplayer.swf? »
docId=8755581808731033658" />
<param name="allowScriptAcess" value="sameDomain" />
<param name="quality" value="best" />
<param name="bgcolor" value="#FFFFFF" />
<param name="scale" value="noScale" />
<param name="salign" value="TL" />
<param name="FlashVars" value="playerMode=embedded" />
</object>

My real peeve, however, as I mentioned above, isn’t with Flash movies—which I have little experience with—but with QuickTime and Windows Media Player movies. I’ve been trying to embed these in a standard way for years, but without much luck. Quite recently, I came upon the MIME type that will let you use a single object for Windows Media Player files (.wmv). I still can’t quite believe it.

One object for Windows Media Player

I am a firm believer in paying attention to mistakes. It’s only when I notice that I’ve done something wrong, and figure out why, that I am able to figure out new ways of doing things right. As I was reviewing the technique, I noticed that although it did work well for QuickTime movies (as described below), it didn’t work for Windows Media Player movies…on Opera…for Windows. I suppressed the urge to ignore it, and as I dug for an answer to that problem, I came across the MIME type that will let you use a single object to embed Windows Media Player files: video/x-ms-wmv.

To embed a Windows Media Player file, you should be able to use this code (Line wraps marked » —Ed.):
<object type="video/x-ms-wmv"
data="http://www.sarahsnotecards.com/catalunyalive/ »
fishstore.wmv"
width="320" height="260">
<param name="autostart" value="true" />
<param name="controller" value="true" />
</object>

But it turns out that IE6 and IE7 and Safari (strange bedfellows if ever there were), all need a little extra push, in the form of an extra param element:
<object type="video/x-ms-wmv"
data="http://www.sarahsnotecards.com/catalunyalive/ »
fishstore.wmv"
width="320" height="260">
<param name="src"
value="http://www.sarahsnotecards.com/catalunyalive/ »
fishstore.wmv" />
<param name="autostart" value="true" />
<param name="controller" value="true" />
</object>

And it works.

Personally, I consider this pretty experimental, or at the very least sacrilegious… embedding a Windows Media Player movie without a classid! (What’s next? Valid documents with no DOCTYPE?) I tested this simple example in IE5.5, IE6, IE7, Opera Win/Mac, Firefox Win/Mac, and Safari and it worked just fine. That said, I don’t do a lot of scripting or Microsoft stuff, so your mileage may vary. (Note: Of course, there are many more param elements that you may wish to use.)

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Web News : Device Won't Work When Vehicle Is In Motion

Get Ready For The Web... In Your Car

DETROIT, Nov. 9, 2006

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Stephen Devine, an architect who owns several construction-related businesses, shows off the computer system installed in his RV, which relies on cell phone technology to connect to the Internet. (AP)

Fast Facts

The current price is $1,995 for the automotive version of TracNet, plus operating costs of about $70 to $90 per month.

---

(AP) When Stephen Devine and his family drove from their home in Massachusetts to New York City, he spent two frustrating hours trying to find a place to park his 9-foot-high camper van, which won't fit in most garages.
In the end, his 17-year-old daughter found a place to park online - and she didn't even have to leave the van to do it.
Devine's van is equipped with TracNet, a system that allows passengers to access the Internet on a vehicle's video screens. Launched in September by Middletown, R.I.-based KVH Industries Inc., TracNet brings the Internet to the installed screens in a car, truck, RV or boat. It also turns the entire vehicle into a wireless hot spot, so passengers can use their laptops to go online.
Devine - who also purchased KVH's satellite TV system, called TracVision, when he bought his camper a month ago - said the value of in-vehicle Internet became obvious at that moment in New York.

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Firefox - FireBug

FireBug
by Joe Hewitt
FireBug lets you explore the far corners of the DOM by keyboard or mouse. All of the tools you need to poke, prod, and monitor your JavaScript, CSS, HTML and Ajax are brought together into one seamless experience, including a debugger, an error console, command line, and a variety of fun inspectors.

Visit the FireBug website for documentation, screen shots, and discussion forums:

http://www.joehewitt.com/software/firebug/

A quick overview of FireBug's features:

* JavaScript debugger for stepping through code one line at a time
* Status bar icon shows you when there is an error in a web page
* A console that shows errors from JavaScript and CSS
* Log messages from JavaScript in your web page to the console (bye bye "alert debugging")
* An JavaScript command line (no more "javascript:" in the URL bar)
* Spy on XMLHttpRequest traffic
* Inspect HTML source, computed style, events, layout and the DOM

Works with: Firefox 1.5 - 2.0.0.* ALL

Install now (105 KB)

read more

Proofs of Google Talk's Integration with orkut

I wrote last week that orkut and Google Talk are about to become friends. Checking the resource files from the last version of Google Talk using Resource Hacker, I've noticed there are already some messages that talk about an orkut integration:
45901, "orkut"
45902, "New feature! Chat with your orkut friends."
45903, "View orkut profile"
45905, "Change how your orkut friends are shared with Google Talk."
45906, "Send scrap"

From the other side, here's an example of mail invitation from orkut.

Your orkut friend, [email], would like to chat with you using Google Talk.
Google Talk is a downloadable Windows application that lets you chat, make free voice calls, and share files with friends inside and outside your orkut network.
Now, it's easy to add your orkut friends to your Google Talk friends list. You'll see their chat availability in orkut, and you can even send scraps (and get scrap notifications) right from Google Talk!

But if you want, you can disable Google Talk's integration with orkut.

Proofs of Google Talk's Integration with orkut by Ionut Alex. Chitu

Orkut SMS and Photo Tagging

Besides the integration with Google Talk, orkut is about to have other new features. Here's what I found:
orkut SMS
With orkut SMS you can send and receive scraps with your mobile phone as well as other cool stuff. But first you need to register your mobile phone to use orkut.
Photo Tagging
You can tag your friends in photos. To create a photo tag, click and drag the mouse to select a friend.
I don't use orkut, so maybe someone who does could make an educated guess about these new features. Photo tagging might be useful to train a face recognition program, like Riya does, as you can see here.

orkut SMS and Photo Tagging by Ionut Alex. Chitu

Search Google Topics

Google doesn't talk about it much, but it does make specialty web searches available. And I'm not just talking about searches limited to a certain domain. I'm talking about searches devoted to a particular topic (http://www.google.com/options/specialsearches.html). You'll find four specialty searches related to technology, one that limits results to U.S. government sites, and hundreds of specialty searches limited to specific universities across the U.S. The Google API makes four of these searches available: the U.S. Government, Linux (an alternative operating system), BSD (Berkeley Software Distribution, another alternative operating system), and Macintosh (your friendly Apple cult).

Scrape Yahoo!

No web site is an island. Billions of hyperlinks link to billions of documents. Sometimes, however, you want to take information from one site and apply it to another site.

Unless that site has a web service API such as Google's, your best bet is scraping. Scraping is where you use an automated program to remove specific bits of information from a web page. Examples of the sorts of elements that are scraped include stock quotes, news headlines, prices, and so forth. You name it, and someone's probably scraped it.

There's some controversy about scraping. Some sites don't mind it, while others can't stand it. If you decide to scrape a site, do it gently: take the minimum amount of information you need and, whatever you do, don't hog the scrapee's bandwidth

This is where Yahoo! Buzz (http://buzz.yahoo.com) comes in. The site is rich with constantly updated information. Its Buzz Index keeps tabs on what's hot in popular culture: celebs, games, movies, television shows, music, and more.

Google takes aim fast e-mail for cell phones

By Eric Auchard Thu Nov 2, 8:52 AM ET

 

SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) - Google Inc. (Nasdaq:GOOG - news) aims to close the gap between the classic way people get e-mail -- sitting at a computer -- and the slow-as-molasses reality of receiving e-mail on cell phones, the company said on Thursday.

The Web search leader is introducing a custom version of its Gmail e-mail service that can run on any phone with Java software, or close to 300 different mobile phone devices.

"Because it is an application and not running through a browser ... it looks and feels like Gmail on the desktop," said Tony Hsieh, product manager for the Gmail on mobile service.

Gmail for mobile, as the new service is known, promises computer-like response times for viewing e-mail. And it retains many of the features users expect when running Gmail in Web browsers on their personal computers, Hsieh said.

These include the ability to search through one's e-mail history, to organize e-mails according to conversation, and automatic synchronization so any e-mail read on the phone show up as already read when you sign on a computer the next time.

Initially, the service is available in the United States on phones from Sprint Nextel Corp. (NYSE:S - news), T-Mobile and Cingular, which is a joint venture between AT&T Inc. (NYSE:T - news) and BellSouth. Google later plans to expand Gmail for mobile to other countries and languages.

The phones need to be able to run or support Java software, a programming language commonly used in cell phones to create games and other applications.

Gmail for mobile also allows phone users to receive document attachments, including Word or Adobe Acrobat files and photos, which are instantly viewable and automatically resized to fit the user's phone screen.

True e-mail obsessives have other options, but they are pricey and out of reach of most consumers. Millions of professionals have become instantly available via Blackberry phones. Millions more use more or less copycat e-mail services on smart phones.

Virtually all mobile phones sold worldwide for the past 18 months come with a Web browser. Just be prepared to wait 30 seconds to a minute to sign on and download each e-mail.

Users of Gmail, or rivals like Yahoo Mail, can already view their e-mail this way, but it's slow and hard to use.

Mobile users can go to http://gmail.com/app on their Java phone browser to download the application. Gmail for mobile is free of charge from Google, although data charges by phone carriers may apply for downloading lots of mobile e-mail.

Google AJAX Search API (Beta)

The Google AJAX Search API is designed to make it easier for webmasters and developers to do two things:
Add a dynamic search box to your site that includes Google Web, Video, News, Maps, and Blog search results.
Build powerful web apps on top of Google search. See some samples.

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Google code Blog - Google data APIs : Now With PHP

Per an announcement today at Zend Conference 2006, GData support is now available in the Zend Framework:
The Google Data APIs provide a simple standard protocol for reading and writing data on the web. With the Google data APIs, developers can mash up services like Google Base, Calendar, Blogger, and CodeSearch.

Zend Google Data Client Library provides a PHP 5 component to execute queries and commands against Google Data APIs from your PHP applications.

Why Google's L is green