Eric's ramblings, experiences and random thoughts about e-Learning, distance education and Educational Technology.
Showing posts with label google. Show all posts
Showing posts with label google. Show all posts
Thursday, February 28, 2008
Free Wiki Hosting by Google
Google finally gets into the Wiki game by re-launching the product they acquired last year (JotSpot) under a a new name: Google Sites. See this description of the product via TechCrunch blog. I'll be trying it!
Friday, March 23, 2007
Find files instantly with Google
I work in a military university that has a military computer network. This network has a firewall that is very stringent. Some file types are blocked by the firewall. In fact, the list is quite long and that makes me very frustrated at times. But I digress... haha.
I was asked by one of my colleagues to try and put together a list of file types that are blocked by the firewall. So I now had the challenge of quickly finding different files on the internet to test if they passed through the firewall of not.
A quick search of Google found this fascinating Tech Recipe for doing just that. It's an amazing trick of syntax with Google that lets you find any file type you are looking for.
For example,
Are you looking for some WAV files? To find unprotected directories on the Internet that house WAV files use this syntax in Google:
Are you looking for some SWF files? To find unprotected directories on the Internet that house SWF files use this syntax in Google:
Are you looking for some MP3 files? And not just any MP3 files but MP3 files of your favorite band? To find unprotected directories on the Internet that house MP3s of 'The Tragically Hip' as an example, simply modify the Google syntax as such:
Try it for yourself. Isn't Google interesting?
I was asked by one of my colleagues to try and put together a list of file types that are blocked by the firewall. So I now had the challenge of quickly finding different files on the internet to test if they passed through the firewall of not.
A quick search of Google found this fascinating Tech Recipe for doing just that. It's an amazing trick of syntax with Google that lets you find any file type you are looking for.
For example,
Are you looking for some WAV files? To find unprotected directories on the Internet that house WAV files use this syntax in Google:
-inurl:htm -inurl:html intitle:"index of" "Last modified" wav
Are you looking for some SWF files? To find unprotected directories on the Internet that house SWF files use this syntax in Google:
-inurl:htm -inurl:html intitle:"index of" "Last modified" swf
Are you looking for some MP3 files? And not just any MP3 files but MP3 files of your favorite band? To find unprotected directories on the Internet that house MP3s of 'The Tragically Hip' as an example, simply modify the Google syntax as such:
-inurl:htm -inurl:html intitle:"index of" mp3 "the tragically hip"
Try it for yourself. Isn't Google interesting?
Monday, January 15, 2007
Quantity vs. Quality: Keywords
The ancient battle raging since the beginning of time shows to sign of letting up. Furthermore, some people still confuse quality with quantity. For example, if I am designing a webpage and I put 1,349 keywords in the header does that improve the ability of web-searchers to find my page? Does the quantity of keywords matter or does the quality of keywords matter?
The reason why this is on my brain this morning is because I discovered a new Google gizmo: Google Image Labeler. It’s a game-based application that pairs to random users together, gives them 90 seconds, shows them a random image on the net and asks them to give keywords that represent it. It claims that it will use these responses “to help improve the quality of Google's image search results.” Hmmm. I’m not convinced that adding keywords to images necessarily will improve Google’s image search results. I’ll tell you why. When I play this game, obviously I have an incentive to get as many matches with my partner as I can. So when I see a certain image, I always try to default to the simplest terms in order to maximize my chances of making a match with my partner. For example, if I see a group of people posing for a conference group picture. I try generic keywords like: “people”, “picture”, “group”. How does the addition of generic keywords like this improve the Google image search results? I’m not convinced that adding more keywords to an image… especially very generic ones… will improve the search results. However, maybe Google knows something I don’t. They obviously do because there a multi-million dollar company… and I am not (*grin*). What do you think about this game and whether or not it can be a useful way to improve Google image search results? One thing that I am convinced of, it’s a pretty entertaining game (*smile*)
The reason why this is on my brain this morning is because I discovered a new Google gizmo: Google Image Labeler. It’s a game-based application that pairs to random users together, gives them 90 seconds, shows them a random image on the net and asks them to give keywords that represent it. It claims that it will use these responses “to help improve the quality of Google's image search results.” Hmmm. I’m not convinced that adding keywords to images necessarily will improve Google’s image search results. I’ll tell you why. When I play this game, obviously I have an incentive to get as many matches with my partner as I can. So when I see a certain image, I always try to default to the simplest terms in order to maximize my chances of making a match with my partner. For example, if I see a group of people posing for a conference group picture. I try generic keywords like: “people”, “picture”, “group”. How does the addition of generic keywords like this improve the Google image search results? I’m not convinced that adding more keywords to an image… especially very generic ones… will improve the search results. However, maybe Google knows something I don’t. They obviously do because there a multi-million dollar company… and I am not (*grin*). What do you think about this game and whether or not it can be a useful way to improve Google image search results? One thing that I am convinced of, it’s a pretty entertaining game (*smile*)
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
