Windows Platform Blog

msnbot/2.0b is Bing Bot!

2009-07-20T18:57:19Z

If you have a website and have been finding

msnbot/2.0b (+http://search.msn.com/msnbot.htm)

in the referrers list, fear not. This is not some horrible new evil 'bot intending to take over your website. According to the Webmaster Center Team at the Bing Community Blogs, that's just their new and improved Bing Bot out scouring the web. It may also show up as

msnbot/1.1 (+http://search.msn.com/msnbot.htm)

Again, nothing there to fear.

Wolfram|Alpha is live online!

2009-05-18T23:17:29Z

Wolfram|Alpha was online and computing at 12 am EST on May 18, 2009.

What can it do?

It can do practically any math computation you want, but shows a checkered set of data in other areas. It knew how many teaspoons fit in a quart, but not how many jelly beans fit. As a matter of fact, it didn't know what a jelly bean was. It offered me my choice of jelly or dried beans. It did give me calories for a quart of beans, along with fiber, sodium and protein, among other nutritional information. What it showed looked like the nutrition label from the grocery store. It didn't know how many beans were in that quart. I got calories for a portion of asparagus - which is 3 ounces- but not how many pieces in a portion.

It knew the height of the Great Pyramid of Giza, but not the length of its sides, so it couldn't figure out the volume.

It knew who I meant when I asked it when Bloody Mary died- giving me the date for Mary I of England. However, it did not know how many wives Henry the VIII had. It knew about half the death dates for his wives- but not all of them.

It gave me an exact date of death for Jesus- and the phase of the moon on that date at my location on the globe. It had the date of death for Shakespeare, but not Christopher Marley. And when I asked it when Romeo and Juliet was written, it asked whether I wanted the book or the movie.

It showed me a sky map from my location when I asked where Ceres was, and highlighted its position against the constellations. When asked for the height of the International Space station, it showed me the orbit around the earth, and told me it was not currently visible from my location.

I asked it about a diagnosis for pain in the lower abdomen, and it did not understand my input. (I got that answer a number of times.) It told me appendix was in future information.

On several of the queries it could not answer, it asked me if I was an expert on the subject. It sounds like they may be recruiting curators.

It did have calorie information for six marshmallows. And it gave me calorie information for a banana and a six ounce glass of milk (although I don't know if it used skim milk or whole milk or 2 percent. )

It knows the height of the Statue of Liberty, and the distance in a straight line form Schenectady to Los Angeles, as well as air travel time, the length of time it would take a sound to get there, light in a fiber, and light in a vacuum.

It is late, and I can't think of everything I wanted to ask it, but it seems like a fun toy right now.

It didn't know how much 50 pounds would weigh in .64 gravity, and it didn't know how much 50 pounds would weigh on the moon. Of course, maybe I don't know the right way to parse my questions yet.

Go out there and quiz it. Let it know if you are an expert in something it doesn't know about. Send it a comment if you found its answers strange. I think that its future is going to depend on what we make of it, and what we let it know we want to know. Right now, it is an idiot savant, but it can learn.

Wired News Making Fun of the Conficker Virus?

2009-04-02T19:51:14Z

Wired New's Threat Level has a posting by Kevin Poulsen making light of the media's sometimes inaccurate and sometimes sensational treatment of the Conficker/Downadup virus. Was the threat overblown?

"Conficker, like all the other botnets," said Poulsen last week, "will mostly send spam." This week he adds, "...reporting on a doomsday worm is good for page views."

While that may be true, and while we are still waiting to see what, if anything, a 12,000,000-strong computer 'bot will do, Bright Hub's position is still that if you have a Conficker infection, you don't need it and should try to get rid of it.

PlayMP3z, Firesox, and Foxcicle are Firefox Adware

2009-04-02T18:04:55Z

In the Webroot Threat Blog, Andrew Brant reports that two new adware packages have appeared in the wild that target the Firefox browser. One installs itself as a browser plugin and watches for Google and other searches. When detected, it inserts its own misleading adware directly into the search results. It’s called Firesox.

The other is downloaded with a streaming MP2 player called PlayMP3z. It's called Foxcicle, and its purpose is to serve over and under ads while you browse.

Bright Hub's recommendation is that you only install approved Firefox plug-ins found through using Tools → Add-Ons → Get Add-Ons to access the real Mozilla add-on server website.

Ubiquity and Interclue are real Firefox Add-Ons that enhance and quicken your browsing experience. Ubiquity is an in-house project at Mozilla that adds a command-line interface to the Internet. You press a key-press combination to access it and then type in a shorthand command to enter your query terms. It often can retrieve the data you want without having to open a new page. For example, "we cleveland" or "weather cleveland" will retrieve the information and display it right in the Ubiquity pane.

Interclue provides a quick preview function that is activated when you hover your mouse over a link on a page. Without opening a new window, it provides a mini-pane showing you information about the link's contents, including a preview image, number of words on the page, number of links, and other information. It's particularly handy for previewing results in a search engine and for detecting dead-end links.

Free Windows Wallpaper from MSN

2009-03-21T20:09:54Z

Some things sound better in concept than they are in actuality. The beta MSN Wallpaper application is sort of like that. Here's the description from their website: "From dramatic landscapes to sleeping puppies, action sports to clips from your favorite Xbox games, you'll find the wallpapers that suit you." I found very few that suited me. At first glance, I thought that most of them had an obvious movie or game tie-in. There are darn few "vistas" in the collection. Out of 265 wallpapers, only about thirty were not promotional. I was hoping for some images like those included with the Windows 7 beta, but they are not in this package. Instead there's Wall-E, Lord of the Rings Conquest, and a lot of unaffordable MSN cars. If this "suits you," great. MSN beta Wallpaper is free and can be downloaded here.

MSN Wallpaper also automatically checks for updates with Windows Update, so if this is your bag, you'll always be updated to the latest promotional material.

Google Joining EU Antitrust Complaint over IE?

2009-02-26T17:19:01Z

On Tuesday, February 24, an announcement was made on the Google Public Policy Blog by Product Management VP Sundar Pichai that Google would be applying to join the European Commission's proceeding against Microsoft and its bundling of Internet Explorer with the Windows operating system.

In this post, Pichai remarks, "...Google believes that the browser market is still largely uncompetitive, which holds back innovation for users."

Hmm. Is this why Firefox continues to gain ground on IE? Does Google really think this is the reason people aren't flocking in droves to Google Chrome?

I can't argue with the fact that the preinstallation of IE on Windows systems makes it the easier "choice" for most users, but that's not the only thing at play here, especially when it comes to Chrome. While I appreciate that Chrome seems to be a much faster browser and that it was designed with security in mind, I find that I'm unable to use it as my default browser for the simple reason that many web sites I visit are basically unviewable in Chrome.

I may be missing the point here, but I rather like the fact that a browser, even if it is IE, comes preinstalled on Windows systems. Downloading Firefox may be the first thing I do with IE on that new system, but at least the browser is there so that I can do that.

Change the find highlight color in Excel 2007?

2009-02-24T19:15:31Z

Amazingly, there's no real provision for changing the highlight color of the Ctrl-F search results in Excel 2007. I have a spreadsheet from an associate that has a background color that is the same as the search results color. Some folks have found that tweaking "display" colors deep in Windows settings has an effect - but it tends to be temoporary. A better solution is to change the way one searches. Instead of using "Find next" after entering your search phrase, first click "Find all" and then click "Find next." This will put a thick black surround around the search results, and you'll be able to see them.

Welcome to the Machine?

2009-01-30T18:11:20Z

Bright Hub author Arvind Arora starts his article "Three Performance Tools Your PC Would Love to Have" with this phrase:

"Machines are, after all, meant to be our slaves, as good and obedient as possible."

He goes on to talk about optimization utilities and performance tips, but I found that first sentence thought-provoking. How many times, I wondered, do we find ourselves slave to the machine, instead of its master? It certainly can seem that way when updates just won't install or drivers crashing cause us to spend hours searching forums and manufacturer's websites on the Internet.

The other argument is, "It's a poor craftsmen who blames his tools."

No, I don't think that's the same thing at all.

How to Get a Secure Connection in Gmail

2008-12-31T17:17:03Z

Did you know that Google offers an SSL connection to Gmail and has since July 2008?

Even better, it's very easy to use. Log into your Gmail account. Then, in the web browser address box, change "http:" to "https:" and reload the page. You'll get a secure connection and the "lock" indicator will appear in your browser. If you have a bookmark set for Gmail, save it as this URL, and you'll always have a secure connection when reading and sending your email.

You can also set "Always use https" in Gmail settings. It's under Settings, then General, then Browser Connection. This will require a secure connection from any PC or laptop you use, so if you log into Gmail from different machines, selecting this would be a good idea.

How does this differ from other web email providers? The entire session stays a secure connection when using Gmail. Other providers may have a secure log-in, but then the session changes or "drops" to a non-secure connection.

Source: ReadWriteWeb via the New York Times

Think YOU Are Hard on Laptops?

2008-12-12T14:41:22Z

Here's one from the interesting press releases department. Kroll Ontrack, the data recovery folks in Minneapolis, have released their fifth annual list of the top ten data diasters of 2008. Here's number ten to get you started:

Overboard – A round-the-world sailing trip ended poorly when a traveler's boat capsized on the last day of her trip with her laptop on board. Luckily, Ontrack Data Recovery engineers were able to recover 100 percent of the data, which documented her once-in-a-lifetime experience.

Amazon's Windowshop.com is Fun and Cool

2008-11-21T02:01:42Z

Here's an interesting website: http://www.windowshop.com

It's sort of like Cooliris meets multimedia. Basically, it's javascript-driven access to samples of Amazon's best-selling multimedia on a big interactive canvas. I'm sure it's easier to experience than describe, so I'll leave you to it.

However, if you're running Firefox in armored mode with NoScript, you'll need to allow the site. Then use your arrow buttons on your PC or laptop to navigate. Pause on a pane to get a preview of the content involved, be it it video, music, or recitation, or keep scrolling in every direction. It's really pretty simple, but visit when you have plenty of time to get lost for a while.I mean it - it's that distracting.

Here's what it looks like:

iTunes Adds $4.99 Bargain Movies

2008-11-16T17:48:47Z

The iTunes store is testing a bargain bin for movie sales.

Not only is it not easy to find in the iTunes store (I couldn't find a link from the front page), it's only for a limited time. To see what's available, go to the iTunes store and do a search for "great movies for under $5."

At the time of this posting, the movies listed were featuring Mr. Budget Shortfall himself, Arnold Schwarzenegger, in Terminator 2: Judgment Day, Total Recall, and Red Heat. Other movies for $4.99 were Air America, Basic Instinct, and St. Elmo's Fire.

More Internet Download Caps on the Way

2008-11-05T20:54:35Z

"The Biggest Little City in the World," Reno, Nevada, is where AT&T has rolled out the latest in the Internet service provider's plan to impose download limits on high-consumption users. The caps, which include both upload and download amounts, vary from 20 to 150 GB based on the customer's service plan. With this, AT&T joins Comcast (250 GB), Frontier (5 GB), Rogers in Canada (60 GB), and Time Warner Cable, who are currently testing caps from 5 to 40 GB in Texas.

So the battle between content providers and the pipe owners becomes even closer to becoming a conflict between users and providers - the purchasers of high-speed internet plans vs. the desire of the ISPs to limit the size of the pipes, at least when they are not the providers of the online contest. Comcast and Time Warner Cable want to be the provider of your movies and music. Purchasing the same content from Amazon or iTunes may be seen as an end-run around the providers' own setups, so imposing caps is one way to limit this. One wonders what, exactly, AT&T is planning to add to the mix. Does this suggest that AT&T may be planning movie rentals over their customers' connections?

This is certainly a time to begin to monitor and track your internet usage - to know for sure how much bandwidth you're using.

AC/DC Promotion Penetrates Your Office Network

2008-10-24T21:56:40Z

In perhaps the most novel way yet conceived to penetrate corporate firewalls, Sony/BMG in England has made available a portion of a promotional video of Australian mega-group AC/DC's "Runaway Train" available in Excel format. Yes, Excel spreadsheet format. You can download it here:

http://www.acdcrocks.com/excel/

This was tested in Excel in Office Pro 2007. Note that macros must be enabled before playing the video, and the website warns that it won't work in Excel on Macs (but then, this is the Windows blog).

Those without Microsoft Office will find links to the YouTube version, running in Excel, on the same page, or can follow the link to the main video on the AC/DC website.

Far less novel than this, however, AC/DC's latest CD in the US is only available in Wal-Mart.

Thanks, Wired.com

Update: Running the video in Excel caused incomplete screen draw and fill in QuickTime and iTunes windows running in the background underneath Excel. Minimizing them from Vista's toolbar and reactivating them caused them to draw correctly.

Comcast Rolls Out 50 Mbps Service

2008-10-23T19:39:15Z

In the Boston area and parts of New Jersey, Comcast is introducing 50 Mbps Internet service. It's $139.90 per month and it's called "Extreme 50." Although it's nice to see really fast Internet arrive, it's puzzling that these customers will still be subject to Comcast's stated 250 GB throughput limit.

These lucky customers will be able to get there much faster now.

Source: Comcast broadens reach of DOCSIS 3.0, 50Mbps connections

Articles on Bright Hub about Comcast's policies and practices:

We're Not Blocking P2P Traffic - How Comcast's Traffic Management Interfered with BitTorrent and Other File-Sharing Protocols - Every network provider has the right to manage traffic on his own network. However, did Comcast go too far when they decided to interfere with traffic that belonged only to a few specific file-sharing protocols? Here we'll look at the nuts and bolts (and actual hardware) to find out just how Comcast actually did it.

We're Not Blocking P2P Traffic - How Comcast Plans to Become Protocol-Agnostic - Ordered by the FCC to cease blocking P2P protocols, Comcast has revealed how they plan to comply in a "protocol-agnostic" manner. This has been a fascinating look at the inner workings of a large ISP, but can we trust them to treat heavy Internet users fairly?