Vancouver Secrets

Tech Tips - How To Get On Google

photo credit: Yodel Anecdotal

I get this question from website owners at least once a week:

“How do I get my site on Google?”

Finally Google has put together an easy guide to what they look for and best practices to follow. All the steps are easy to do.

The interesting thing about this guide is that the basics - that have existed for years -still rule.

You can read their post here, or download the guide directly from this link.

If you have a WordPress blog use this plugin - it does a lot of the tagging for you.

See you on Google.

Sunday Speed-Up For Windows Users

photo credit: niallkennedy

If you haven’t visited Lifehacker before, now is a good time to check it out - they have a great article on how to speed up your slow PC. Takes a little knowledge, but if you follow the article you’ll be able to do what they are advising and get that ol’ clunker of yours going again.

It’s the The Complete Guide to Speeding Up Your PC’s Startup… and in 15 minutes you’ll be good to go.

Also, make sure you read the article on common Windows performance myths.

Or, you could sneak out of the house and get on of those great new MacBooks

Cool Tool - Finding Video In Your Neighborhood

A cool Firefox application… search YouTube for local video - it shows the results to you on a map.

The YouTube team just released an application that merges Google Gears geolocation and the video geo search. Using this demo application, you can find nearby videos based on your location. It will add the plugin you need automatically.

Have fun.

Spam Relief

Major Source of Online Scams and Spams Knocked Offline

Notice less mail in your spam folder today?

That’s because they took down a major spammer… read more here.

They’re promising all the details tomorrow.
photo credit: cobalt123

From a Technological Perspective, It Is The Beginning

From Drudge:

SICK SURVEILLANCE: GOOGLE REPORTS FLU SEARCHES, LOCATIONS TO FEDS

GOOGLE will launch a new tool that will help federal officials “track sickness”.

“Flu Trends” uses search terms that people put into the web giant to figure out where influenza is heating up, and will notify the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in real time!

GOOGLE, continuing to work closely with government, claims it would keep individual user data confidential: “GOOGLE FLU TRENDS can never be used to identify individual users because we rely on anonymized, aggregated counts of how often certain search queries occur each week.”

Engineers will capture keywords and phrases related to the flu, including thermometer, flu symptoms, muscle aches, chest congestion and others.

Dr. Lyn Finelli, chief of influenza surveillance at CDC: “One thing we found last year when we validated this model is it tended to predict surveillance data. The data are really, really timely. They were able to tell us on a day-to-day basis the relative direction of flu activity for a given area. They were about a week ahead of us. They could be used… as early warning signal for flu activity.”

Thomas Malone, professor at M.I.T.: “I think we are just scratching the surface of what’s possible with collective intelligence.”

Eric Schmidt, GOOGLE’s chief executive vows: “From a technological perspective, it is the beginning.”

Site here.

Scary stuf. What’s to stop them from reporting on other searches?

Remember Eric - don’t be evil…

photo credit: exacq

I Want One Of These

These guys always blow my mind - they are probably the best at guerrilla marketing.

This is a patent pending touch capable mirror features proximity sensors, gesturing, and both near-field and far-field infrared. Conceptualized by Alpay Kasal of Lit Studios and Sam Ewen of Interference Inc.

My Christmas list is done…

from Alpay Kasal on Vimeo.

Another Brilliant Reason To Get A Mac

Apple releases a great tool to help you if your laptop is lost or stolen- and it’s free…

“If your credit card gets stolen, police can track it down by finding out where the thieves use it. Undercover does the same thing for Macs. When you install the app, it registers a unique ID for your Mac. If your machine is stolen, the system transmits its Internet location; Orbicule will then cooperate with law enforcement officials to locate the system physically and recover it.

The latest version even adds support for iSight cameras, so your Mac can snap a mug shot of the miscreants. In case recovery fails, Undercover has an ingenious plan B. Undercover will simulate a hardware failure, urging the thief or someone who purchased the stolen Mac to send it in for repair, making recovery easier.

If you have a mac you can get it here..

Almost Time To Let The Kids Plug It In

After a couple of years of my boys pestering me to allow them to plug their Xbox 360 into my LCD in the family room, I am now reconsidering.

Netflix streaming is going to be included in Microsoft’s “New Xbox Experience,” on November 19. In addition to over 12,000 titles available for quality streaming, Netflix will stream 300 titles in HD.

No more waiting on the mail with my Netflix subscription. True movies on demand.

So maybe I can put up with a little FarCry every once in a while to get access to this great service.

photo credit: johnporcaro

PR: wait… I: wait… L: wait… LD: wait… I: wait… wait… C: wait… SD: wait…

Canada Post Needs To Do This

Here’s a service that makes receiving postal mail as easy and convenient as email.

You set up a post office box on the service (or use one of their physical addresses if you get packages), and they receive and scan all your mail. You get an email alert that shows you a list of the day’s mail, and you’re able to request that your mail items be opened and scanned, recycled, shredded, or archived directly from the message. It’s genius. No more stopping by that Super Mailbox every day.

I use it for my US mail, and it costs me $20 month.

This type of service could actually re-invent Canada Post - if the unions could get their heads into the 90’s and allow it. The environmental savings alone could save them millions.

Or, maybe they’ll open up shop in Canada before Canada Post gets their act together.

Whoo Hoo! I Have Hulu

One of my great frustrations when I moved from the US to Vancouver was not getting access to US websites as a US resident.

In some cases, like iTunes, I want to be seen as Canadian. (It costs less with the dollar plummeting.)

Being seen as a Canadian resident means losing access sites like to Hulu. Hulu can’t be watched in Canada as it’s network sensitive. The TV powers don’t want us watching it, so they’ve blacked it out.

Hulu has a lot of the top shows and HD programming - all for free. With a HDMI link from my Mac to my flatscreen, I can now watch all the shows I like, when I want. It’s almost like TIVO on demand.

I found a work-around called Hotspot Shield - it creates a virtual private network (VPN) between your laptop (or iPhone) and their Internet gateway. With it, you to access sites in the US and be seen as being in the US.

Another great feature of Hotspot Sheild is that when you are on a public network or wireless hotspot, it prevents snoopers and hackers from viewing your email, instant messages, credit card information or anything else you send over the network.

The Hotspot Shield security application is free to download, uses VPN technology, and is dead simple to install and use. Mac or PC.

Happy Hulu’ing. Get it and then check out my favourite show (Not available in Canada):

Need Another Reason To Get A Mac?

photo: acordova

Microsoft rushed out a pach this week to fix a vulnerability that allows hackers to run a malicious Internet worm on users’ computers. A successful attack would enable the hacker to take complete control of a victim’s computer, and ultimately steal sensitive financial information from their victims.

Once a user’s system is affected, the malicious code has the ability to rapidly self-propagate and infect every other unpatched computer in the network.

The flaw affects almost every Windows operating system, and is rated “critical” for many of the earlier versions of Windows.

Now the bad news:

By the time the patch was available, the hackers created a new worm, called Gimmiv, which exploited the vulnerability again.

It rifles through a victim’s Windows machine for system information and passwords and then posts them to a remote server.

So keep updating your windows - I’d do it every day.