AWARD Bootblock recovery:
That shorting trick should work if the boot block code is not corrupted, and it should not be if /sb switch is used when flashing the bios (instead of /wb switch).
The 2 pins to short to force a checksum error varies from chip to chip. But these are usually the highest-numbered address pins (A10 and above).
These are the pins used by the system to read the System BIOS (original.bin for award v6), calculate the ROM checksum and see if it’s valid before decompressing it into memory, and subsequently allow Bootblock POST to pass control over to the System BIOS.
You just have to fool the system into believing that the System BIOS is corrupt. This you do by giving your system a hard time reading the System BIOS by shorting the 2 high address pins. And when it could not read the System BIOS properly, ROM Checksum Error is detected “so to speak” and Bootblock recovery is activated.
Sometimes, any combination of the high address pins won’t work to force a checksum error in some chips, like my Winbond W49F002U. But shorting the #WE pin with the highest-numbered address pin (A17) worked for this chip. You just have to be experimentative if you’re not comfortable with “hot flashing” or “replacement BIOS”.
But to avoid further damage to your chip if you’re not sure which are the correct pins to short, measure the potential between the 2 pins by a voltmeter while the system is on. If the voltage reading is zero (or no potential at all), it is safe to short these pins.
But do not short the pins while the system is on. Instead, power down then do the short, then power up while still shorting. And as soon as you hear 3 beeps (1 long, 2 short), remove the short at once so that automatic reflashing from Drive A can proceed without errors (assuming you had autoexec.bat in it).
About how to do the shorting, the tip of a screwdriver would do. But with such minute pins on the PLCC chip, I’m pretty comfortable doing it with the tip of my multi-tester or voltmeter probe. Short the pins at the point where they come out of the chip.
AMIBIOS Recovery bootblock:
1. Copy a known working BIOS image for your board to a floppy and rename it to AMIBOOT.ROM.
2. Insert the floppy in your system’s floppydrive.
3. Power on the system while holding CTRL+Home keys. Release the keys when you hear a beep and/or see the floppy light coming on.
4 . Just wait until you hear 4 beeps. When 4 beeps are heard the reprogramming of the System Block BIOS went succesfull, so then you may restart your system.
Some alternative keys that can be used to force BIOS update (only the System Block will be updated so it’s quite safe):
CTRL+Home= restore missing code into system block and clear CMOS when programming went ok.
CTRL+Page Up= restore missing code into system block and clear CMOS or DMI when programming went ok.
CTRL+Page Down= restore missing code into system block and do not clear CMOS and DMI area when programming went ok
Btw: the alternative keys work only with AMIBIOS 7 or higher (so for example an AMI 6.26 BIOS can be only recovered by using CTRL+Home keys).
[eminimall]
BLACKOUT Flashing
Recovering a Corrupt AMI BIOS chip
With motherboards that use BOOT BLOCK BIOS it is possible to recover a corrupted BIOS because the BOOT BLOCK section of the BIOS, which is responsible for booting the computer remains unmodified. When an AMI BIOS becomes corrupt the system will appear to start, but nothing will appear on the screen, the floppy drive light will come on and the system will access the floppy drive repeatedly. If your motherboard has an ISA slot and you have an old ISA video card lying around, put the ISA video card in your system and connect the monitor. The BOOT BLOCK section of the BIOS only supports ISA video cards, so if you do not have an ISA video card or your motherboard does not have ISA slots, you will have to restore your BIOS blind, with no monitor to show you what’s going on.
AMI has integrated a recovery routine into the BOOT BLOCK of the BIOS, which in the event the BIOS becomes corrupt can be used to restore the BIOS to a working state. The routine is called when the SYSTEM BLOCK of the BIOS is empty. The restore routine will access the floppy drive looking for a BIOS file names AMIBOOT.ROM, this is why the floppy drive light comes on and the drive spins. If the file is found it is loaded into the SYSTEM BLOCK of the BIOS to replace the missing information. To restore your BIOS simply copy a working BIOS file to a floppy diskette and rename it AMIBOOT.ROM, then insert it into the computer while the power is on. The diskette does not need to be bootable or contain a flash utility. After about four minutes the system will beep four times. Remove the floppy diskette from the drive and reboot the computer. The BIOS should now be restored.
Recovering a Corrupt AWARD BIOS
With AWARD BIOS the process is similar but still a bit different. To recover an AWARD BIOS you will need to create a floppy diskette with a working BIOS file in .BIN format, an AWARD flash utility and an AUTOEXEC.BAT file. AWARD BIOS will not automatically restore the BIOS information to the SYSTEM BLOCK for this reason you will need to add the commands necessary to flash the BIOS in the AUTOEXEC.BAT file. The system will run the AUTOEXE.BAT file, which will in turn flash the BIOS. This is fairly easy. Here are the steps you need to take.
• Create a bootable floppy diskette
• Copy the BIOS file and flash utility to the diskette
• Create an text file with any standard text editor and add the following lines
@ECHO OFF
FLASH763 BIOSFILE.BIN /py
Note: In the above example I am assuming that you are using the FLASH763.EXE flash utility. You will need to replace the FLASH763 with the name of whatever flash utility you are using, and replace the BIOSFILE.BIN with the name of the BIOS file you are using. You will also need to change the ‘/py’ to whatever the command is for your flash utility to automatically program the BIOS without user intervention. If you do not know the command to automatically flash your BIOS type the name of the flash utility with a space and then /? to display the utility’s help screen. The help screen should pecify the command switch to automatically flash your BIOS. If you are using the FLASH763.EXE utility then the switch to automatically flash your BIOS is ‘/py’.
Thursday, September 16, 2010
100 Free Software For Mac OS X
System Monitoring and Maintenance Tools
1. Mactracker – provides detailed information on every Apple Macintosh computer ever made, including items such as processor speed, memory, optical drives, graphic cards, supported Mac OS versions and many other information.
2. Maintenance – a system maintenance and cleaning utility
3. xMod – a system tweaker that allows you to change some of the hidden settings.
4. iStat Menus – monitor your Mac from the menubar
5. Mini Usage – displays various data like CPU usage, amount of network flow, battery status and process names
6. SMARTReporter – warn you of some hard disk drive failures before they actually happen!
7. Onyx – verify the startup disk and the structure of its system files
8. atMonitor – system monitor and process explorer tool
9. Omni Disk Sweeper – hard disk analyzer
10. Secrets – A database of hidden settings for Mac OS X
System Enhancement Tools
1. Preferences Cleaner – a utility which aims to simplify the task of deleting preference files.
2. Wallsaver – use any screen saver as wallpaper
3. SizeWell – better window resize and zoom options
4. TrimTheFat – remove PPC architecture from applications
5. Lock-UnMatic – unlock locked files
6. QuickBoot – make it quick and easy to boot another drive/partition
7. Hide-unhide – show hidden files
8. Flying Windows – work in single application mode
9. What’s Keeping Me? – empty the Trash or eject a disk
10. BumpTop – 3D desktop
Office Suite/Word Processing/Text Editor
1. OpenOffice.org
2. NeoOffice – a port of OpenOffice
3. IBM Lotus Symphony
4. Siag Office – a free office package for UNIX
5. Beans – a small, easy-to-use rich text editor designed to make writing convenient, efficient and comfortable.
6. Editra – a multi-platform text editor with an implementation that focuses on creating an easy to use interface and features that aid in code development. Currently it supports syntax highlighting and variety of other useful features for over 60 programming languages.
7. TextWrangler – a powerful general purpose text editor, and Unix and server administrator’s tool.
8. Komodo Edit – a free and open source cross-platforms text editor.
9. Smultron – an open source text editor for Mac OS X that is designed for both beginners and advanced users.
10. Aquamacs Emacs – an Editor for Text, HTML, LaTeX, C++, Java, Python, Perl, Ruby, PHP, and more
Image Viewer/Image editor
1. GIMP
2. Inkscape – an open source vector graphics editor, with capabilities similar to Illustrator, CorelDraw, or Xara X
3. LiveQuartz – a simple and powerful free photo editor based on non destructive layers and filters.
4. Phoenix Slide – a fast full-screen slideshow program/image browser, for flipping through folders or disks full of images.
5. Image Trick – a freeware application for editing your photos and images using Mac OS X Core Image filters.
6. DrawBerry – If you don’t want applications such as illustrator or Inkscape and you want to create some simple (or less simple) illustrations, DrawBerry is for you.
7. Paintbrush – a simple paint program for Mac OS X
8. ialterImage – you can, crop, scale, size, rotate, convert and rename a single image or a folder of images by just dropping them on it’s icon.
9. Acorn – an image editor built for the Mac with simplicity in mind. Acorn provides the tools you need to alter and enhance your images, without any overhead.
Software complementing iTunes
1. iTunesShut – shut down your Mac after playing the music
2. BravoTunes – put iTunes on your menubar, with scrolling or stationary track information for both the current and upcoming songs.
3. SizzlingKeys – control iTunes without leaving the current app
4. Get Lyrical – Auto-magically add lyrics to songs in iTunes!
5. Tune.Instructor – informs you about actual track information and allows you to keep a quick access to ratings and further basic functions without having iTunes in the front
6. iTunes Menu – displays the current song artist, name, and/or album right in the menu so you can see what song is currently playing easily.
7. youcontrol: tunes – a simple app that allows you to control iTunes from Menu
8. iTunes Doodad – instantly switch playlists, skip tracks, or pause iTunes, all without using the iTunes interface, or bringing up a pokey Dashboard widget.
9. Bowtie – allows you to control iTunes with shortcuts, submits your songs to Last.fm, and change themes
10. GimmeSomeTune – an application that extends iTunes’ functionality. You can download lyrics and album covers without the user having to do anything
Productivity Tools
1. EasyFind – an alternative to or supplement of Spotlight and finds files, folders or contents in any file without the need for indexing.
2. Quicksilver – A unified, extensible interface for working with applications, contacts, music, and other data.
3. Think – enables you to get back to what you should focus, and get back to thinking.
4. Isolator – When you’re working on a document, and don’t want to be distracted, turn on Isolator. It will cover up your desktop and all the icons on it, so you can concentrate on the task in hand.
5. Spark – a powerful, and easy Shortcuts manager.
6. FlyGesture – use your mouse to control a single action, or chains of actions such as opening applications.
7. KeyRemap4MacBook – Remap your Mac shortcut key to your own preferences.
8. MagicPrefs – useful preferences for magic mouse
9. Self Control – an application which blocks access to mail servers and websites for a predetermined period of time, keep you focus on your work.
10. Caffeine – prevent your Mac from automatically going to sleep, dimming the screen or starting screen savers.
11. Spirited Away – Spirited Away checks each running application’s activity, and if an application isn’t active for a certain fixed time, Spirited Away hides the application automatically.
12. Task Till Dawn – a free task scheduler which can execute your repetitive tasks at specified times or intervals.
13. App QuitTimer – Quit any application automatically using a time delay of your choice.
14. iSofa – remote control your Mac with your iPhone/iPod Touch
15. MacTimer – a free all-purpose timer app for Mac.
Backup and Synchronization Tools
1. Carbon copy cloner – create a carbon clone of your hard drive.
2. iBackup – iBackup backs up the data, system and applications settings of a user.
3. Sync!Sync!Sync! – helps you to make copies of your data by synchronizing two folders.
4. Fruux – a lightweight and convenient system preference pane, that syncs your Address Book, Calendars, Tasks and Bookmarks between different Macs
5. Filesync – a simple utility for updating copies of your current work.
6. Backuplist+ – a powerful backup application that is simple for novice users and offers many choices for the more advanced user.
7. WinClone – Clone your XP/Vista bootcamp partition
8. SilverKeeper – automates backups to external storage devices
9. MozyHome – Backup your data to online server.
10. MaBuRe (English translation)– Backup mail.app and Thunderbird
Instant Messaging
1. Adium – the most popular IM client in Mac
2. Nimbuzz – another popular IM client. Support multi IM protocol.
3. Messenger for Mac – access native MSN in Mac
4. Canary – a Twitter client that is beautifully designed, fun to use and has everything you’ll ever need.
5. ChatX – a collection of minor modifications and additions that make using Apple’s iChat more enjoyable.
6. Yoono Desktop – an easy to use application that allows you to connect to all your social networks and instant messaging services
Archiving Tools
1. Slices – an application that allows you to split and combine files.
2. TarPit – allows you to easily create tar archives by drag and drop
3. The Unarchiver – is designed to handle many more formats than the default Archive tool in Mac, and to better fit in with the design of the Finder.
4. 7zX – a file archiver with high compression ratio
5. YemuZip – an easy-to-use application for making zip files. Just drag, drop, name your zip file and you’re done.
Screen Capture Tools
1. SimpleCap – Quick, easy and powerful Screenshot utility. SimpleCap runs on menubar.
2. Capture Me – a flexible screen capture and recording utility for Mac OS X which features a floating capture window, several saving options, and resize ability.
3. Skitch + Skitch.com – Skitch.com is a webservice that works hand in hand with Skitch to give you 1-click uploading of images for fast and fun image sharing.
4. Jing – a popular application that allows you to take screenshots, screencast, edit them and share them instantly over the Web.
5. InstantShot – offers classical screenshot functionality for capturing the whole screen, a portion of it or a window and also the option to make timed screenshots or to make delayed captures over time.
6. SnapNDrag – lets you take a screenshot by just clicking a button and dragging the resulting screenshot off.
Uninstaller Tools
1. AppCleaner – a small application which allows you to thoroughly uninstall unwanted apps.
2. AppTrap – when you move an application to the trash, you’re automatically asked if you want to move the associated preference files as well.
3. DesInstaller – a simple tool that reads the receipts generated when you install a pkg file with Apple’s Installer. Every file installed by this package is removed, even if it has been modified, and archived if you ask the DesInstaller to.
4. Permanent Eraser – provides an even stronger level of security by overwriting your data thirty-five times, scrambles the original file name, and truncates the file size to nothing before Permanent Eraser finally unlinks it from the system.
Desktop Note taking app
1. SlidePad – a convenient note-taking application that allows you to unobtrusively take notes without ever leaving your keyboard.
2. Sidenotes – appears in the form of a multi-document drawer that will hide in the corner of your screen (left or right).
3. JustNotes – a simple, beautiful and powerful notes app.
4. QuickNotes – a combined stickies and clipboard manager, useful to quickly jot down ideas and todos, store quotes, code snippets or whatever.
5. MacNote3 – a light-weight and fast notepad for Mac OS X
1. Mactracker – provides detailed information on every Apple Macintosh computer ever made, including items such as processor speed, memory, optical drives, graphic cards, supported Mac OS versions and many other information.
2. Maintenance – a system maintenance and cleaning utility
3. xMod – a system tweaker that allows you to change some of the hidden settings.
4. iStat Menus – monitor your Mac from the menubar
5. Mini Usage – displays various data like CPU usage, amount of network flow, battery status and process names
6. SMARTReporter – warn you of some hard disk drive failures before they actually happen!
7. Onyx – verify the startup disk and the structure of its system files
8. atMonitor – system monitor and process explorer tool
9. Omni Disk Sweeper – hard disk analyzer
10. Secrets – A database of hidden settings for Mac OS X
System Enhancement Tools
1. Preferences Cleaner – a utility which aims to simplify the task of deleting preference files.
2. Wallsaver – use any screen saver as wallpaper
3. SizeWell – better window resize and zoom options
4. TrimTheFat – remove PPC architecture from applications
5. Lock-UnMatic – unlock locked files
6. QuickBoot – make it quick and easy to boot another drive/partition
7. Hide-unhide – show hidden files
8. Flying Windows – work in single application mode
9. What’s Keeping Me? – empty the Trash or eject a disk
10. BumpTop – 3D desktop
Office Suite/Word Processing/Text Editor
1. OpenOffice.org
2. NeoOffice – a port of OpenOffice
3. IBM Lotus Symphony
4. Siag Office – a free office package for UNIX
5. Beans – a small, easy-to-use rich text editor designed to make writing convenient, efficient and comfortable.
6. Editra – a multi-platform text editor with an implementation that focuses on creating an easy to use interface and features that aid in code development. Currently it supports syntax highlighting and variety of other useful features for over 60 programming languages.
7. TextWrangler – a powerful general purpose text editor, and Unix and server administrator’s tool.
8. Komodo Edit – a free and open source cross-platforms text editor.
9. Smultron – an open source text editor for Mac OS X that is designed for both beginners and advanced users.
10. Aquamacs Emacs – an Editor for Text, HTML, LaTeX, C++, Java, Python, Perl, Ruby, PHP, and more
Image Viewer/Image editor
1. GIMP
2. Inkscape – an open source vector graphics editor, with capabilities similar to Illustrator, CorelDraw, or Xara X
3. LiveQuartz – a simple and powerful free photo editor based on non destructive layers and filters.
4. Phoenix Slide – a fast full-screen slideshow program/image browser, for flipping through folders or disks full of images.
5. Image Trick – a freeware application for editing your photos and images using Mac OS X Core Image filters.
6. DrawBerry – If you don’t want applications such as illustrator or Inkscape and you want to create some simple (or less simple) illustrations, DrawBerry is for you.
7. Paintbrush – a simple paint program for Mac OS X
8. ialterImage – you can, crop, scale, size, rotate, convert and rename a single image or a folder of images by just dropping them on it’s icon.
9. Acorn – an image editor built for the Mac with simplicity in mind. Acorn provides the tools you need to alter and enhance your images, without any overhead.
Software complementing iTunes
1. iTunesShut – shut down your Mac after playing the music
2. BravoTunes – put iTunes on your menubar, with scrolling or stationary track information for both the current and upcoming songs.
3. SizzlingKeys – control iTunes without leaving the current app
4. Get Lyrical – Auto-magically add lyrics to songs in iTunes!
5. Tune.Instructor – informs you about actual track information and allows you to keep a quick access to ratings and further basic functions without having iTunes in the front
6. iTunes Menu – displays the current song artist, name, and/or album right in the menu so you can see what song is currently playing easily.
7. youcontrol: tunes – a simple app that allows you to control iTunes from Menu
8. iTunes Doodad – instantly switch playlists, skip tracks, or pause iTunes, all without using the iTunes interface, or bringing up a pokey Dashboard widget.
9. Bowtie – allows you to control iTunes with shortcuts, submits your songs to Last.fm, and change themes
10. GimmeSomeTune – an application that extends iTunes’ functionality. You can download lyrics and album covers without the user having to do anything
Productivity Tools
1. EasyFind – an alternative to or supplement of Spotlight and finds files, folders or contents in any file without the need for indexing.
2. Quicksilver – A unified, extensible interface for working with applications, contacts, music, and other data.
3. Think – enables you to get back to what you should focus, and get back to thinking.
4. Isolator – When you’re working on a document, and don’t want to be distracted, turn on Isolator. It will cover up your desktop and all the icons on it, so you can concentrate on the task in hand.
5. Spark – a powerful, and easy Shortcuts manager.
6. FlyGesture – use your mouse to control a single action, or chains of actions such as opening applications.
7. KeyRemap4MacBook – Remap your Mac shortcut key to your own preferences.
8. MagicPrefs – useful preferences for magic mouse
9. Self Control – an application which blocks access to mail servers and websites for a predetermined period of time, keep you focus on your work.
10. Caffeine – prevent your Mac from automatically going to sleep, dimming the screen or starting screen savers.
11. Spirited Away – Spirited Away checks each running application’s activity, and if an application isn’t active for a certain fixed time, Spirited Away hides the application automatically.
12. Task Till Dawn – a free task scheduler which can execute your repetitive tasks at specified times or intervals.
13. App QuitTimer – Quit any application automatically using a time delay of your choice.
14. iSofa – remote control your Mac with your iPhone/iPod Touch
15. MacTimer – a free all-purpose timer app for Mac.
Backup and Synchronization Tools
1. Carbon copy cloner – create a carbon clone of your hard drive.
2. iBackup – iBackup backs up the data, system and applications settings of a user.
3. Sync!Sync!Sync! – helps you to make copies of your data by synchronizing two folders.
4. Fruux – a lightweight and convenient system preference pane, that syncs your Address Book, Calendars, Tasks and Bookmarks between different Macs
5. Filesync – a simple utility for updating copies of your current work.
6. Backuplist+ – a powerful backup application that is simple for novice users and offers many choices for the more advanced user.
7. WinClone – Clone your XP/Vista bootcamp partition
8. SilverKeeper – automates backups to external storage devices
9. MozyHome – Backup your data to online server.
10. MaBuRe (English translation)– Backup mail.app and Thunderbird
Instant Messaging
1. Adium – the most popular IM client in Mac
2. Nimbuzz – another popular IM client. Support multi IM protocol.
3. Messenger for Mac – access native MSN in Mac
4. Canary – a Twitter client that is beautifully designed, fun to use and has everything you’ll ever need.
5. ChatX – a collection of minor modifications and additions that make using Apple’s iChat more enjoyable.
6. Yoono Desktop – an easy to use application that allows you to connect to all your social networks and instant messaging services
Archiving Tools
1. Slices – an application that allows you to split and combine files.
2. TarPit – allows you to easily create tar archives by drag and drop
3. The Unarchiver – is designed to handle many more formats than the default Archive tool in Mac, and to better fit in with the design of the Finder.
4. 7zX – a file archiver with high compression ratio
5. YemuZip – an easy-to-use application for making zip files. Just drag, drop, name your zip file and you’re done.
Screen Capture Tools
1. SimpleCap – Quick, easy and powerful Screenshot utility. SimpleCap runs on menubar.
2. Capture Me – a flexible screen capture and recording utility for Mac OS X which features a floating capture window, several saving options, and resize ability.
3. Skitch + Skitch.com – Skitch.com is a webservice that works hand in hand with Skitch to give you 1-click uploading of images for fast and fun image sharing.
4. Jing – a popular application that allows you to take screenshots, screencast, edit them and share them instantly over the Web.
5. InstantShot – offers classical screenshot functionality for capturing the whole screen, a portion of it or a window and also the option to make timed screenshots or to make delayed captures over time.
6. SnapNDrag – lets you take a screenshot by just clicking a button and dragging the resulting screenshot off.
Uninstaller Tools
1. AppCleaner – a small application which allows you to thoroughly uninstall unwanted apps.
2. AppTrap – when you move an application to the trash, you’re automatically asked if you want to move the associated preference files as well.
3. DesInstaller – a simple tool that reads the receipts generated when you install a pkg file with Apple’s Installer. Every file installed by this package is removed, even if it has been modified, and archived if you ask the DesInstaller to.
4. Permanent Eraser – provides an even stronger level of security by overwriting your data thirty-five times, scrambles the original file name, and truncates the file size to nothing before Permanent Eraser finally unlinks it from the system.
Desktop Note taking app
1. SlidePad – a convenient note-taking application that allows you to unobtrusively take notes without ever leaving your keyboard.
2. Sidenotes – appears in the form of a multi-document drawer that will hide in the corner of your screen (left or right).
3. JustNotes – a simple, beautiful and powerful notes app.
4. QuickNotes – a combined stickies and clipboard manager, useful to quickly jot down ideas and todos, store quotes, code snippets or whatever.
5. MacNote3 – a light-weight and fast notepad for Mac OS X
20 Great Google Secrets
Google is clearly the best general-purpose search engine on the Web
But most people don’t use it to its best advantage. Do you just plug in a keyword or two and hope for the best? That may be the quickest way to search, but with more than 3 billion pages in Google’s index, it’s still a struggle to pare results to a manageable number.
But Google is an remarkably powerful tool that can ease and enhance your Internet exploration. Google’s search options go beyond simple keywords, the Web, and even its own programmers. Let’s look at some of Google’s lesser-known options.
Syntax Search Tricks
Using a special syntax is a way to tell Google that you want to restrict your searches to certain elements or characteristics of Web pages. Google has a fairly complete list of its syntax elements at:
www.google.com/help/operators.html
Here are some advanced operators that can help narrow down your search results.
Intitle: at the beginning of a query word or phrase (intitle:”Three Blind Mice”) restricts your search results to just the titles of Web pages.
Intext: does the opposite of intitle:, searching only the body text, ignoring titles, links, and so forth. Intext: is perfect when what you’re searching for might commonly appear in URLs. If you’re looking for the term HTML, for example, and you don’t want to get results such as
www.mysite.com/index.html
You can also enter intext:html.
Link: lets you see which pages are linking to your Web page or to another page you’re interested in. For example, try typing in
link:http://www.hungry-hackers.com
Try using site: (which restricts results to top-level domains) with intitle: to find certain types of pages. For example, get scholarly pages about Mark Twain by searching for intitle:”Mark Twain”site:edu. Experiment with mixing various elements; you’ll develop several strategies for finding the stuff you want more effectively. The site: command is very helpful as an alternative to the mediocre search engines built into many sites.
Swiss Army Google
Google has a number of services that can help you accomplish tasks you may never have thought to use Google for. For example, the new calculator feature
(www.google.com/help/features.html#calculator)
Lets you do both math and a variety of conversions from the search box. For extra fun, try the query “Answer to life the universe and everything.”
Let Google help you figure out whether you’ve got the right spelling—and the right word—for your search. Enter a misspelled word or phrase into the query box (try “thre blund mise”) and Google may suggest a proper spelling. This doesn’t always succeed; it works best when the word you’re searching for can be found in a dictionary. Once you search for a properly spelled word, look at the results page, which repeats your query. (If you’re searching for “three blind mice,” underneath the search window will appear a statement such as Searched the web for “three blind mice.”) You’ll discover that you can click on each word in your search phrase and get a definition from a dictionary.
Suppose you want to contact someone and don’t have his phone number handy. Google can help you with that, too. Just enter a name, city, and state. (The city is optional, but you must enter a state.) If a phone number matches the listing, you’ll see it at the top of the search results along with a map link to the address. If you’d rather restrict your results, use rphonebook: for residential listings or bphonebook: for business listings. If you’d rather use a search form for business phone listings, try Yellow Search
(www.buzztoolbox.com/google/yellowsearch.shtml).
Extended Googling
Google offers several services that give you a head start in focusing your search. Google Groups
(http://groups.google.com)
indexes literally millions of messages from decades of discussion on Usenet. Google even helps you with your shopping via two tools: Froogle
CODE
(http://froogle.google.com),
which indexes products from online stores, and Google Catalogs
CODE
(http://catalogs.google.com),
which features products from more 6,000 paper catalogs in a searchable index. And this only scratches the surface. You can get a complete list of Google’s tools and services at
www.google.com/options/index.html
You’re probably used to using Google in your browser. But have you ever thought of using Google outside your browser?
Google Alert
(www.googlealert.com)
monitors your search terms and e-mails you information about new additions to Google’s Web index. (Google Alert is not affiliated with Google; it uses Google’s Web services API to perform its searches.) If you’re more interested in news stories than general Web content, check out the beta version of Google News Alerts
(www.google.com/newsalerts).
This service (which is affiliated with Google) will monitor up to 50 news queries per e-mail address and send you information about news stories that match your query. (Hint: Use the intitle: and source: syntax elements with Google News to limit the number of alerts you get.)
Google on the telephone? Yup. This service is brought to you by the folks at Google Labs
(http://labs.google.com),
a place for experimental Google ideas and features (which may come and go, so what’s there at this writing might not be there when you decide to check it out). With Google Voice Search
(http://labs1.google.com/gvs.html),
you dial the Voice Search phone number, speak your keywords, and then click on the indicated link. Every time you say a new search term, the results page will refresh with your new query (you must have JavaScript enabled for this to work). Remember, this service is still in an experimental phase, so don’t expect 100 percent success.
In 2002, Google released the Google API (application programming interface), a way for programmers to access Google’s search engine results without violating the Google Terms of Service. A lot of people have created useful (and occasionally not-so-useful but interesting) applications
not available from Google itself, such as Google Alert. For many applications, you’ll need an API key, which is available free from
CODE
www.google.com/apis
Thanks to its many different search properties, Google goes far beyond a regular search engine. Give the tricks in this article a try. You’ll be amazed at how many different ways Google can improve your Internet searching.
Online Extra: More Google Tips
Here are a few more clever ways to tweak your Google searches.
Search Within a Timeframe
Daterange: (start date–end date). You can restrict your searches to pages that were indexed within a certain time period. Daterange: searches by when Google indexed a page, not when the page itself was created. This operator can help you ensure that results will have fresh content (by using recent dates), or you can use it to avoid a topic’s current-news blizzard and concentrate only on older results. Daterange: is actually more useful if you go elsewhere to take advantage of it, because daterange: requires Julian dates, not standard Gregorian dates. You can find converters on the Web (such as
CODE
http://aa.usno.navy.mil/data/docs/JulianDate.html
excl.gif No Active Links, Read the Rules – Edit by Ninja excl.gif), but an easier way is to do a Google daterange: search by filling in a form at
www.researchbuzz.com/toolbox/goofresh.shtml or www.faganfinder.com/engines/google.shtml
If one special syntax element is good, two must be better, right? Sometimes. Though some operators can’t be mixed (you can’t use the link: operator with anything else) many can be, quickly narrowing your results to a less overwhelming number.
More Google API Applications
Staggernation.com offers three tools based on the Google API. The Google API Web Search by Host (GAWSH) lists the Web hosts of the results for a given query
(www.staggernation.com/gawsh/).
When you click on the triangle next to each host, you get a list of results for that host. The Google API Relation Browsing Outliner (GARBO) is a little more complicated: You enter a URL and choose whether you want pages that related to the URL or linked to the URL
(www.staggernation.com/garbo/).
Click on the triangle next to an URL to get a list of pages linked or related to that particular URL. CapeMail is an e-mail search application that allows you to send an e-mail to google@capeclear.com with the text of your query in the subject line and get the first ten results for that query back. Maybe it’s not something you’d do every day, but if your cell phone does e-mail and doesn’t do Web browsing, this is a very handy address to know.
Use
allinurl: +(chm|zip|rar|pdf|doc) book_name
To find ebooks on google!!!
But most people don’t use it to its best advantage. Do you just plug in a keyword or two and hope for the best? That may be the quickest way to search, but with more than 3 billion pages in Google’s index, it’s still a struggle to pare results to a manageable number.
But Google is an remarkably powerful tool that can ease and enhance your Internet exploration. Google’s search options go beyond simple keywords, the Web, and even its own programmers. Let’s look at some of Google’s lesser-known options.
Syntax Search Tricks
Using a special syntax is a way to tell Google that you want to restrict your searches to certain elements or characteristics of Web pages. Google has a fairly complete list of its syntax elements at:
www.google.com/help/operators.html
Here are some advanced operators that can help narrow down your search results.
Intitle: at the beginning of a query word or phrase (intitle:”Three Blind Mice”) restricts your search results to just the titles of Web pages.
Intext: does the opposite of intitle:, searching only the body text, ignoring titles, links, and so forth. Intext: is perfect when what you’re searching for might commonly appear in URLs. If you’re looking for the term HTML, for example, and you don’t want to get results such as
www.mysite.com/index.html
You can also enter intext:html.
Link: lets you see which pages are linking to your Web page or to another page you’re interested in. For example, try typing in
link:http://www.hungry-hackers.com
Try using site: (which restricts results to top-level domains) with intitle: to find certain types of pages. For example, get scholarly pages about Mark Twain by searching for intitle:”Mark Twain”site:edu. Experiment with mixing various elements; you’ll develop several strategies for finding the stuff you want more effectively. The site: command is very helpful as an alternative to the mediocre search engines built into many sites.
Swiss Army Google
Google has a number of services that can help you accomplish tasks you may never have thought to use Google for. For example, the new calculator feature
(www.google.com/help/features.html#calculator)
Lets you do both math and a variety of conversions from the search box. For extra fun, try the query “Answer to life the universe and everything.”
Let Google help you figure out whether you’ve got the right spelling—and the right word—for your search. Enter a misspelled word or phrase into the query box (try “thre blund mise”) and Google may suggest a proper spelling. This doesn’t always succeed; it works best when the word you’re searching for can be found in a dictionary. Once you search for a properly spelled word, look at the results page, which repeats your query. (If you’re searching for “three blind mice,” underneath the search window will appear a statement such as Searched the web for “three blind mice.”) You’ll discover that you can click on each word in your search phrase and get a definition from a dictionary.
Suppose you want to contact someone and don’t have his phone number handy. Google can help you with that, too. Just enter a name, city, and state. (The city is optional, but you must enter a state.) If a phone number matches the listing, you’ll see it at the top of the search results along with a map link to the address. If you’d rather restrict your results, use rphonebook: for residential listings or bphonebook: for business listings. If you’d rather use a search form for business phone listings, try Yellow Search
(www.buzztoolbox.com/google/yellowsearch.shtml).
Extended Googling
Google offers several services that give you a head start in focusing your search. Google Groups
(http://groups.google.com)
indexes literally millions of messages from decades of discussion on Usenet. Google even helps you with your shopping via two tools: Froogle
CODE
(http://froogle.google.com),
which indexes products from online stores, and Google Catalogs
CODE
(http://catalogs.google.com),
which features products from more 6,000 paper catalogs in a searchable index. And this only scratches the surface. You can get a complete list of Google’s tools and services at
www.google.com/options/index.html
You’re probably used to using Google in your browser. But have you ever thought of using Google outside your browser?
Google Alert
(www.googlealert.com)
monitors your search terms and e-mails you information about new additions to Google’s Web index. (Google Alert is not affiliated with Google; it uses Google’s Web services API to perform its searches.) If you’re more interested in news stories than general Web content, check out the beta version of Google News Alerts
(www.google.com/newsalerts).
This service (which is affiliated with Google) will monitor up to 50 news queries per e-mail address and send you information about news stories that match your query. (Hint: Use the intitle: and source: syntax elements with Google News to limit the number of alerts you get.)
Google on the telephone? Yup. This service is brought to you by the folks at Google Labs
(http://labs.google.com),
a place for experimental Google ideas and features (which may come and go, so what’s there at this writing might not be there when you decide to check it out). With Google Voice Search
(http://labs1.google.com/gvs.html),
you dial the Voice Search phone number, speak your keywords, and then click on the indicated link. Every time you say a new search term, the results page will refresh with your new query (you must have JavaScript enabled for this to work). Remember, this service is still in an experimental phase, so don’t expect 100 percent success.
In 2002, Google released the Google API (application programming interface), a way for programmers to access Google’s search engine results without violating the Google Terms of Service. A lot of people have created useful (and occasionally not-so-useful but interesting) applications
not available from Google itself, such as Google Alert. For many applications, you’ll need an API key, which is available free from
CODE
www.google.com/apis
Thanks to its many different search properties, Google goes far beyond a regular search engine. Give the tricks in this article a try. You’ll be amazed at how many different ways Google can improve your Internet searching.
Online Extra: More Google Tips
Here are a few more clever ways to tweak your Google searches.
Search Within a Timeframe
Daterange: (start date–end date). You can restrict your searches to pages that were indexed within a certain time period. Daterange: searches by when Google indexed a page, not when the page itself was created. This operator can help you ensure that results will have fresh content (by using recent dates), or you can use it to avoid a topic’s current-news blizzard and concentrate only on older results. Daterange: is actually more useful if you go elsewhere to take advantage of it, because daterange: requires Julian dates, not standard Gregorian dates. You can find converters on the Web (such as
CODE
http://aa.usno.navy.mil/data/docs/JulianDate.html
excl.gif No Active Links, Read the Rules – Edit by Ninja excl.gif), but an easier way is to do a Google daterange: search by filling in a form at
www.researchbuzz.com/toolbox/goofresh.shtml or www.faganfinder.com/engines/google.shtml
If one special syntax element is good, two must be better, right? Sometimes. Though some operators can’t be mixed (you can’t use the link: operator with anything else) many can be, quickly narrowing your results to a less overwhelming number.
More Google API Applications
Staggernation.com offers three tools based on the Google API. The Google API Web Search by Host (GAWSH) lists the Web hosts of the results for a given query
(www.staggernation.com/gawsh/).
When you click on the triangle next to each host, you get a list of results for that host. The Google API Relation Browsing Outliner (GARBO) is a little more complicated: You enter a URL and choose whether you want pages that related to the URL or linked to the URL
(www.staggernation.com/garbo/).
Click on the triangle next to an URL to get a list of pages linked or related to that particular URL. CapeMail is an e-mail search application that allows you to send an e-mail to google@capeclear.com with the text of your query in the subject line and get the first ten results for that query back. Maybe it’s not something you’d do every day, but if your cell phone does e-mail and doesn’t do Web browsing, this is a very handy address to know.
Use
allinurl: +(chm|zip|rar|pdf|doc) book_name
To find ebooks on google!!!
5 Best Free Antivirus Software for Linux
Antivirus software a must have software for any operating system. Today no computer is safe with Viruses whether it is Windows, Linux or Mac PC nothing is safe. To safeguard our computer we use Antivirus software. Antivirus software search viruses on our computer and delete them to safe our computer.
Linux is becoming popular day by day because it is available for free. As Linux is becoming popular as much viruses are infecting Linux computer. To prevent you Linux based computer you can use any of these free Antivirus software for Linux.
Free Antivirus software for Linux
1. AVG Anti-Virus Free Edition: Whether it is Windows or Linux AVG is always first choice for free antivirus software. AVG is most downloaded software on CNET’s download.com. It covers almost all things as paid software.
Easy to download, install and use
Protection against viruses and spyware
http://free.avg.com/download?prd=afl
2. Avira AntiVir Personal: Avira AntiVir Personal – FREE Antivirus is a reliable free antivirus solution, that constantly and rapidly scans your computer for malicious programs such as viruses, Trojans, backdoor programs, hoaxes, worms, dialers etc. Monitors every action executed by the user or the operating system and reacts promptly when a malicious program is detected.
AntiVir protection against viruses, worms and Trojans
AntiDialer protection against expensive dialers
AntiRootkit protection against hidden rootkits
Faster Scanning up to 20% faster
New User Interface
AntiPhishing protection against phishing
http://www.free-av.com/en/download/download_servers.php
3. avast! antivirus Home Edition includes ANTI-SPYWARE protection, certified by the West Coast Labs Checkmark process, and ANTI-ROOTKIT detection based on the best-in class GMER technology. Simple to use and automated Daily automatic updates ensure continuous data protection against all types of malware and spyware.
Anti-spyware built-in
Anti-rootkit built-in
Strong self-protection
Antivirus kernel
Integrated Virus Cleaner
Virus Chest
Network Shield
Web Shield
http://www.avast.com/linux-home-edition
4. Panda Antivirus: Panda Antivirus for Linux is an antivirus for Linux servers and desktops. It is an antivirus designed to be managed from the command line or console. To do this, an executable called PAVCL will be used.
The aim of Panda Antivirus for Linux is to scan and disinfect Windows and DOS workstations connected to a Linux server, as well as the Linux server itself.
Panda Antivirus for Linux scans files using both string searches and heuristic methods. The target files of the antivirus are Word documents, Java Applets, ActiveX controls and compressed files (ZIP, RAR, etc.). At the moment, it does not scan the boot sector or the partitions table.
http://www.pandasoftware.com/download/linux/linux.asp
5. Clam AntiVirus is an open source (GPL) anti-virus toolkit for UNIX, designed especially for e-mail scanning on mail gateways. It provides a number of utilities including a flexible and scalable multi-threaded daemon, a command line scanner and advanced tool for automatic database updates. The core of the package is an anti-virus engine available in a form of shared library.
http://www.clamav.net/download/
Linux is becoming popular day by day because it is available for free. As Linux is becoming popular as much viruses are infecting Linux computer. To prevent you Linux based computer you can use any of these free Antivirus software for Linux.
Free Antivirus software for Linux
1. AVG Anti-Virus Free Edition: Whether it is Windows or Linux AVG is always first choice for free antivirus software. AVG is most downloaded software on CNET’s download.com. It covers almost all things as paid software.
Easy to download, install and use
Protection against viruses and spyware
http://free.avg.com/download?prd=afl
2. Avira AntiVir Personal: Avira AntiVir Personal – FREE Antivirus is a reliable free antivirus solution, that constantly and rapidly scans your computer for malicious programs such as viruses, Trojans, backdoor programs, hoaxes, worms, dialers etc. Monitors every action executed by the user or the operating system and reacts promptly when a malicious program is detected.
AntiVir protection against viruses, worms and Trojans
AntiDialer protection against expensive dialers
AntiRootkit protection against hidden rootkits
Faster Scanning up to 20% faster
New User Interface
AntiPhishing protection against phishing
http://www.free-av.com/en/download/download_servers.php
3. avast! antivirus Home Edition includes ANTI-SPYWARE protection, certified by the West Coast Labs Checkmark process, and ANTI-ROOTKIT detection based on the best-in class GMER technology. Simple to use and automated Daily automatic updates ensure continuous data protection against all types of malware and spyware.
Anti-spyware built-in
Anti-rootkit built-in
Strong self-protection
Antivirus kernel
Integrated Virus Cleaner
Virus Chest
Network Shield
Web Shield
http://www.avast.com/linux-home-edition
4. Panda Antivirus: Panda Antivirus for Linux is an antivirus for Linux servers and desktops. It is an antivirus designed to be managed from the command line or console. To do this, an executable called PAVCL will be used.
The aim of Panda Antivirus for Linux is to scan and disinfect Windows and DOS workstations connected to a Linux server, as well as the Linux server itself.
Panda Antivirus for Linux scans files using both string searches and heuristic methods. The target files of the antivirus are Word documents, Java Applets, ActiveX controls and compressed files (ZIP, RAR, etc.). At the moment, it does not scan the boot sector or the partitions table.
http://www.pandasoftware.com/download/linux/linux.asp
5. Clam AntiVirus is an open source (GPL) anti-virus toolkit for UNIX, designed especially for e-mail scanning on mail gateways. It provides a number of utilities including a flexible and scalable multi-threaded daemon, a command line scanner and advanced tool for automatic database updates. The core of the package is an anti-virus engine available in a form of shared library.
http://www.clamav.net/download/
3 Firefox Tips You May Not Know About
1. Delete visited URL’s
When you drop down the box underneath the address bar, you can see your recent browsing history. But what if you want to remove one URL from that list? Maybe you’ve been looking at a naughty site and you don’t want your girfriend to know? Or maybe you’ve been shopping for your loved one online and you want to keep it a secret?
Just drop down the URL box, highlight the URL you want to zap then press the “delete” button on your keyboard. The URL will then be removed from the list.
2. Navigate to browser tabs using the keyboard
Instead of using the mouse to click on a tab, why not use the keyboard instead? Pressing CTRL + TAB together will bounce you from tab to tab, starting from the one in the far left and working its way along. Or if you want to go to a specifc tab straight away, you can do that too. CTRL + 2 will take you directly to the second tab from the left. CTRL + 5 will take you to the fifth tab from the left.
3. Grab files off webpages, even protected webpages
Have you ever wanted a picture, file or video off a webpage but you can’t, because it’s been protected? Just right-click on the page, choose “View Page Info” then the “media” tab. Find the file you’re looking for from the list and click on “save”. (note : this doesn’t work for everything but I have still had a pretty high success rate nonetheless).
When you drop down the box underneath the address bar, you can see your recent browsing history. But what if you want to remove one URL from that list? Maybe you’ve been looking at a naughty site and you don’t want your girfriend to know? Or maybe you’ve been shopping for your loved one online and you want to keep it a secret?
Just drop down the URL box, highlight the URL you want to zap then press the “delete” button on your keyboard. The URL will then be removed from the list.
2. Navigate to browser tabs using the keyboard
Instead of using the mouse to click on a tab, why not use the keyboard instead? Pressing CTRL + TAB together will bounce you from tab to tab, starting from the one in the far left and working its way along. Or if you want to go to a specifc tab straight away, you can do that too. CTRL + 2 will take you directly to the second tab from the left. CTRL + 5 will take you to the fifth tab from the left.
3. Grab files off webpages, even protected webpages
Have you ever wanted a picture, file or video off a webpage but you can’t, because it’s been protected? Just right-click on the page, choose “View Page Info” then the “media” tab. Find the file you’re looking for from the list and click on “save”. (note : this doesn’t work for everything but I have still had a pretty high success rate nonetheless).
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