Sunday, December 09, 2007

A new start for Ask.com

Search engine Ask.com is hoping that it will be able to attract more users with promises of increased privacy.  Starting today, whenever you do a search at Ask.com, you’ll have the opportunity to turn on a feature called “AskEraser”.  If you’re using AskEraser, information like your search term and your IP address will not be filed in the Ask.com databases for statistical anaysis.

Surveys have shown that about 75% of web users are concerned about privacy.  However, most of them don’t know what to do about the issue, and consider it merely the price they have to pay for using the Internet.  Ask.com will now offer surfers a viable alternative, and it may help them increase their 4.7% share of searches conducted in the United States.  Google remains the most popular search engine, accounting for 58.5%, despite the fact that they’ve been criticized for saving large quantities of user data.

If you’d like to read more about this story, visit The New York Times.

Posted by Leigh-Ann on 12/09 at 11:57 PM
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Friday, December 07, 2007

Having fun with Google Earth

When I first downloaded Google Earth, I had fun looking up satellite images of the the home where I grew up in Canada, the home I live in now, and other unimaginative things like that.  Then, while watching the Science Channel on TV one night, I had the sudden realization that I could look up things like the pyramids in Egypt.  And Buckingham Place.  And things so much more fascinating than my own backyard.  If you’d like a guided tour of some of the amazing sites you can see in Google Earth, PCMag.com has put together a slideshow of ”The Strangest Sites in Google Earth”.  It will show you some beautiful images and open your mind up to what’s visible when you have the world at your fingertips. 

Posted by Leigh-Ann on 12/07 at 06:07 AM
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Friday, November 30, 2007

Bug in Firefox

This past Monday, Mozilla released a new version of its popular Firefox browser.  Today, Mozilla has released another version, this time to patch a bug in the earlier release.  The bug apparently affected a rarely-used aspect of the “Canvas” tag for HTML, but Mozilla felt it was important to get a fix released quickly.  The fully-patched version, Firefox 2.0.0.11, is available for download now.  This week is the first time ever that Mozilla has had two new releases in the same week.

Posted by Leigh-Ann on 11/30 at 09:29 AM
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Thursday, November 29, 2007

Seagate hard drives come with their own trojan

This story got lost in the holiday shuffle, so I’m just getting to it now.  Stop me if you’ve heard it before.  Seagate is a large manufacturer and distributor of hard drives, many of which are made in China.  A recent batch of drives was infected with a trojan designed to sniff passwords, and all signs point to the drives having been infected at the Chinese factory.  The original news reports claimed that the hard drives were destined for Taiwan, but it now seems that some might have ended up in the US as well.  Seagate now offers free anti-virus software to a anyone who purchased a hard drive from them and wants to ensure it’s clean.  Alternately, you could just format your new drive to ensure it’s empty.  To read more about the infection, and how it might have occurred, read the full story at Internet News.

Posted by Leigh-Ann on 11/29 at 09:39 AM
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Wednesday, November 28, 2007

Technology rules holiday shopping

CNET has published a list of the most sought-after and most purchased retail items on the weekend following Thanksgiving.  Somewhat surprisingly, all the top ten products are high-tech.  From the Nintendo WII to personal GPS systems, it seems that everyone wants (and everyone will be getting), technology for the holidays.  Click here for the entire list (and to get some gift ideas).

Posted by Leigh-Ann on 11/28 at 08:16 AM
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