In case you don’t have enough to read, Time magazine has this list of 140 Best Twitter Feeds of 2013 (in the United States) - many good writers on this list.
A best-of list from PCWorld of 18 awesome news, reference and factoid websites – truly awesome.
Android smartphone users aren’t the only ones who can have fun using Google’s voice powered search. People at desktops who get tired of typing can speak to Google web search or Google map search IF they are using Chrome and Google.com or the US Google maps. This neat trick does not work for Google.ca.
Voice powered Google search
Must enunciate very clearly but not too slowly. Google will offer query suggestions – pick the one that corresponds to your intention and click on enter.
Rick Broida describes voice search in PCWorld (Feb 1) How to get Google Voice Search on your PC
As the Internet World turns.
Microsoft is moving all Messenger(instant messaging) users to Skype. Makes sense since Microsoft owns both and they do largely the same thing in providing chat in text, audio, and video forms. Microsoft to kill the Messenger on March 15 (CNet, Jan 9)
Linked In has 200 million users from 200 countries and territories who collectively work in 19 languages. The LinkedIn Blog post, 200 Million Members! , has an infographic for the numbers and relates some of the success stories of its members.
Bulletin to all scrabble players, the most frequently used letters are ETAOIN SRHLDCU. Peter Norvig at Google analyzed Google Books Ngrams data on the number of times each word is mentioned in books Google has digitized to figure out word counts, word lengths, frequent use. Norvig presents all the data in his article, English Letter Frequency Counts: Mayzner Revisited or ETAOIN SRHLDCU.
How do you think Google and Facebook make money? Survey shows that Americans are Confused – (Marketing Land, Jan 9) Harris Interactive ran a study for The Search Agency to find out what people know. I’m not surprised that only 54% of Facebook users said they thought they knew. I’m disappointed that the study didn’t probe to find out in what ways users think Facebook makes money. People knew more about search engines – with 75% pointing to advertising. But results also suggest high distrust – “more than one-third of American online adults believe that search engines sell users’ personal data to marketers; 29% believe that companies pay annual dues for use; and 20% believe that users pay for premium search features.” (from press release)
The command site: can be used at nearly any search engine – and certainly Google, Bing, Duckduckgo, and Blekko – to search all the pages the search engine has indexed from that domain: eg., site:utoronto.ca marshall mcluhan looks for marshall on all pages in the University of Toronto domain. This is one of the best advanced search methods to know.
Daniel Russell give us another application – use site:maps.google.com to find maps and commentaries other people have posted about places. Brilliant. Watch his 1 Minute Morceau video to see what this is all about.
My example is a web search for site:maps.google.com manitoulin trails.
You will likely see some kml files – kml is a file format used to display geographic data in Google Earth and Google Maps. You must view it in Google maps – and Google gives you a handy link to do so.
You might also find custom Google maps that people have created about an area with comments and photos.
Either way you could find some real treasures that would not normally appear in Google web search results.
Done with humour and some insight, this map of the internet is most engaging. Look for Facebook, and the “desert of credible resources”.
. Sasha Anferov, a high school student in Seattle, created this for his school newspaper and posted to his blog, Make Work Draw Play.
History buffs and students – depending on subject interest – will be pleased with Google’s Cultural Institute, a digital archive that is visually rich with photographs, historical documents, and videos.It began with 42 collections, and is partnering with museums and cultural organizations for more.
A time line on the front page scans from 1905 to the present. Many of the topics relate to the Second World War and aftermath or to South Africa – Nelson Mandela.
Time line at Google Cultural Institute
A fuller view of content may be obtained from the Explore option where projects are listed. Among these are:
The Cultural Institute opened in October 2012 and was described in this CNet article – Google Cultural Institute brings dozens of new exhibits online (October 10)
if you have a moment and are curious about how places on this planet have been changing (mainly due to environmental degradation), this blog is for you.
Google Earth Time Machine done by Brian Schrock in Texas – evidently very interested in geoscience.
(Thanks Tony)
View Great Art For Free On These 6 Inspiring Websites, Yaara Lancet, Make Use Of (July 24)
Go to world famous art galleries virtually – save on plane fare. But you’ll need a good monitor.
Comparing the best ways to store your photos online, Sharon Vaknin, CNet (Jun 29)
“Find out which photo storage and sharing site best suits your needs with this deep dive into the top online photo services.”
Alan Turing, author of the Turing test for the intelligence of computers, would have been 100 today. Google celebrates it with a Google Doodle, and Lego does it with a lego Turing Machine.
Celebrate Alan Turing’s Birthday and Check Out the Lego Turing Machine, PCWorld (Jun 23)
Google’s impossibly clever Alan Turing doodle by Chris Matyszczyk, CNet (Jun 22) — has video on how to solve the Alan Turing Google Doodle.