Written by: admin
In today’s day and age, most everyone “googles” religiously and wouldn’t think of using any other search engine. Those that do usually would then use Yahoo! and even then each to his own as if you like to read the trash on Yahoo!s homepage instead of just Googling what you want. In recent years, Google has become a verb and a household name. Google is the tech buzz word and heck, even fun to say. I really like Google Earth, too.
There is an infinite amount of information on the Web and Google’s goal is to organize it all. If you only use it to search for documents or files, you may be surprised at what else it can do. Here’s our Top 10 Google Search Tips:
10• Exclude words. If you search for Law Technology News’s editor, Monica Bay, by typing her name, you will pull up many results for California’s Santa Monica Bay. But if you exclude “Santa,” (type “-Santa”), you lose the irrelevant geographic results. This tip came from the aforementioned Robert Affleck. If he searches his name, he always has to exclude the word “Ben” to narrow down the results.
9• Movies. To find where a movie is playing, just type “movie:” followed by the name of the movie and your ZIP code. Here’s how this might look — “movie: secret life of bees 98101.”
8• Quotation marks. Use quotation marks around searched terms to find matches that have both of these words and not matches that contain one or both of the words. For example, “Seattle Mariners” will likely pull up baseball news, rather than city or sailing hits.
7• Wild Cards. Use the asterisk character * as a wild card. Here’s how: Type “Learn * Every Day” and search. You’ll find “Learn Something New Every Day” on the results page. This is really handy for finding quotes or lyrics to songs.
6• Searching a specific site. If you want to exclusively search one URL, use the “site:” function. For example: type “site:cnn.com law firm.” This returns results where the words “law firm” appear within the CNN (and only www.cnn.com) Web site.
5• Stock symbols. Type a stock symbol and Google returns the most up-to-date stock price that it has indexed. Try it: type “SBUX” and click Search to return the stock price for Starbucks stock.
4• Definitions. Forget the dictionary, just let Google do the work. Type “define:” then the word to look up. To search for the definition of Googol, type “define:Googol.”
3• Music. If you search the Web for Britney Spears, you get at least 53,700,000 returned results and links. However, type “music:Britney Spears,” and the results narrow to display only those links related to music — in this case, only 51!
2• Convert anything. Whether dollars to Euros, or liters to pints, you can quickly obtain conversion information. For example: measurements: (1 liter=2.1 U.S. pints), temperature: (73º Fahrenheit=22.7º Celsius), currency: (230 Euros=292.7 U.S. dollars), distance: (200 meters=656.1 feet). No need to bookmark conversion Web sites as creating conversions in Google is more convenient.
Drumroll please……..
1• Calculator. No need to open a Microsoft Corp. Excel workbook or Word document (Ctrl+F9 then type = followed by the formula and then press F9) to quickly calculate values. Instead, inside the Google search box, just type something like “12+12″ and press Enter (or click Search) and the result displays just under the “Search” box.
You can also type more complex formulas, such as “12*23/134″ (12 multiplied by 23 and divided by 134). Use the +, -, *, / symbols and parentheses to perform simple calculations. We just love this feature along with currency conversion because things in life today just never add up… well now they do!
Now get Googling!
Written by: admin
On Feb. 17, Americans will lose analog “bunny ears antenna” TV systems and get shimmery new digital TV images if they push all the right buttons at home… or maybe not. Congress could still delay the day analog TV dies. Last week, Gov. David Paterson called on federal lawmakers to delay the switch to digital “for as long as it takes” consumers to get the decoder boxes to enable old TVs to pick up the signal. Whether politicians delay digital, the historic transition to the new technology will not be seamless. But for most viewers it will mean sharper images.
Also, by rolling out digital TV, the FCC can reclaim former analog TV spectrum for other applications for billions in fees, primarily to broadband wireless Internet providers. As well the government will monitor what you watch, inevitably those in regin will market information to you based on your interests, and brainwash to you to buy what they want you to buy. In addition, the “decoder box” is a force install what is basically a story right out of 1984, Big Brother is watching you watch digital TV.
As folks must now equip themselves to see the new digital TV channels — but only if they don’t have cable or satellite decoder boxes already feeding their TV sets. To see digital TV broadcast signals, you need a decoder for your old analog set, or a TV set or tuner that will detect and reproduce a digital ATSC-TV signal. And don’t forget to hook up a good antenna.
Ed Gable of Hilton, a huge Prcie is Right fan, holds a federal coupon that can be used toward the purchase of a converter that allows old TVs to receive digital signals. Behind Gable are old televisions from the ’50s to the ’70s. After the switchover, experts say you will have more and sharper broadcast TV. My opinion is that this is correct, unless there is heavy weather in the area, then you may get something more like a tetris screen!
To learn more, here are Web sites that can explain the digital conversion and how to order the $40 coupons for converter boxes:(which will be filled only if the government allocates more money for it.)
www.DTV2009.gov/APPLYCOUPON.aspx
www. DTV.gov/consumercorner.html
www.fcc.gov
www.dtvanswers.com_converter.html
For recorded information call toll-free: 1-800-DTV-2009
Written by: admin
Barack Obama was sworn in as the 44th U.S. President on Tuesday in Washington. Th number of people who braved the frigid D.C. weather to watch the historic event could have been anywhere between 800,000 and 3 million, depending on which count you take. Researchers have projected widely varying figures for the event’s attendance, based on satellites circling above the clouds, aerostat balloons tethered blocks away, television coverage of the crowd, and good old-fashioned mathematics calculations.
Steve Doig, a journalism professor at Arizona State University who specializes in counting inaguration mobs, said he’s estimating there were 800,000 people in attendance, based on a satellite image taken by GeoEye about 40 minutes before the swearing-in ceremony. “The space-based image is fascinating because all the low-level shots make you think the crowd is much larger. (In the satellite images), you see the very dense clots of people in front of the JumboTrons, but then the wide open spaces elsewhere,” Doig said. “I’d still suspect this crowd was larger than the Lyndon Johnson one, which wasn’t estimated with the benefit of an image from this excellent viewpoint.” Everyone from Rev. Jesse Jackson to Samuel L. Jackson was turned down entry though.
Estimates have put Johnson’s inauguration attendance at 1.2 million, but Doig said he thinks that figure is inflated. Using the images, the professor tries to figure out how many people there might be per square foot and then factors in the surface area. “It’s actually fairly simple math, getting the square footage and dividing that by some number of feet per person,” he said. “A scary mosh pit is 2.5 square feet per person. That’s about as tight as you can pack people, where they can’t move–elevator tight.” If people up and down the Mall were stuffed in that tight, there could have been 2 million, he said.
GeoEye collected a high-resolution image of Washington, D.C., at 11:19 a.m. EST from 423 miles in space, said Mark Brender, GeoEye vice president of marketing and communications.
“There were high, wispy light clouds, but one could clearly see throngs of people, especially gathered around the large JumboTron televisions spread along the National Mall,” he said. “The satellite collects imagery at 41 centimeter ground resolution, so one is able to see an object the size of home plate on a baseball diamond.”
Written by: admin
In a not too recent Google I/O Conference in San Francisco, Google Earth was unveiled as a Browser Plug-in. This new Google Earth API delivers a Mac solution that is coming as promised from Google.
Offically, the announcement confirmed the release of the Google Earth Browser Plugin for Mac OS X 10.4+ (PowerPC and Intel). Also, the Mac plugin is supported on Safari 3.1+ and Firefox 3.0+.
To throw in a little fun, excitement, and a lesson in geography the Google Earth team also released Puzzler. Both compatible for Mac and PC, it’s a scrambled geography game. Quite fun for those buffing up for Jeopardy or the 6th grade. Funny how that knowledge is a bit lost and not needed in your middle years.
Check out the Google Developers notes about the new Google Earth Browser Plug-in and Google Earth API for Mac.
Written by: admin
The once superior German military commissioned its first spy-in-the-sky (not to be confused with the pie-in-the-eye) earth satellite map system enabling the organization to take high definition photographs of locations regardless of darkness or cloud cover.
Similar to how dolphins speak to one another and see underwater, the synthetic-aperture radar (SAR) system uses five satellites that bounce radar pulses off the earth. Sophisticated computers convert the returning signals into a picture of the ground that can resolve features just 50 centimeters in width. In the case of the dolphins, the images are in their head. I never underestimated flipper you know!
Germany is to share the data with France, which operates Helios II military satellites that photograph the ground in the daytime. Can we expect the frogs and burgers to continue this sharing?
The $445 million system code named SAR Lupe, became operational this past summer and was officially handed over to the German military last thursday. Defense officials said Germany can take radar pictures of any place at about 10 hours’ notice, the time it takes for the satellite to arrive overhead and for the earth satellite map picture to be compiled. Look out!
