Computer and Web Articles

Next time you have an extra 30 seconds, give this a shot.

Go to www.Google.com. Type “find Chuck Norris” into the search box. Now hit the “I’m feeling lucky” button.

You should receive an interesting note from Google.

Here’s a fun little distraction for you the next time you’re waiting for an email, watching a slooooow progress bar inch forward, or whiling away the time after that customer service representative says “May I put you on hold for a moment?”

Here’s what you do.

1. Go to www.YouTube.com
2. Type your birth year into the search box at the top of the page
3. Hit the Search button
4. Check out the videos of all that happened the year you were born

Whether you were born yesterday (in which case I must say, “Good job, you precocious youngster, for reading this article!”) or you were born long before video was around, I’d wager you’ll find the results quite entertaining.

(An alternative version of this game is to drop in the year you graduated from high school; that’s really a fun one.)

For our tech terminology talk today let’s discuss the difference between a blog and a blog post; I hear these two terms used interchangeably on a regular basis. Problem is, they’re not interchangeable. They’re not the same thing. If you say one and mean the other, you’re going to cause confusion at some point. So let’s clear this up; it won’t take but a moment.

A blog is a website where people publish thoughts, commentary, stories, and/or articles on a (hopefully) regular basis. The term blog came about from the smooshing together of the words “web” and “log”. Examples of blogs include:

• http://sethgodin.typepad.com (for marketing and business development)
• http://www.trainingbible.com/joesblog/blog.html (training guidance for serious cyclists)
• http://www.themovieblog.com (for all you movie lovers)

A blog post, on the other hand, is nothing more than an individual entry IN someone’s blog.

So blogs contain blog posts. Blog posts are what make up blogs. Simple as that.

To wrap this lesson up, let’s look at a few examples of terminology usage. It’s correct to say “Hey, check out the new post in my blog.” It’s correct to say “I just added a new blog post (to my blog) yesterday; it’s sweet.” It’s not correct to say, “I wrote a new blog yesterday” because you don’t actually “write” entire websites.

“Ever been annoyed by all those ads and banners on the internet that often take longer to download than everything else on the page? Install Adblock now and get rid of them.”

Here’s a quick overview video: http://tinyurl.com/bcajka, the link where you can download the Extension: http://tinyurl.com/2cd87q, and the official Adblock website: http://adblockplus.org.

Remember, this is a tool that you can take advantage of only if you’re using Firefox as your web browser.

Give it a shot and see if it makes your web-browsing experience more enjoyable. If you don’t like it, simply uninstall it in Firefox by going to Tools > Addons > Extensions and clicking “Uninstall.”

QUESTION: I’m not really sure how to get the most out of my LinkedIn account. Any suggestions?
- Lynn, Breckenridge

ANSWER: Well, it depends on what, exactly, you’re trying to achieve by having a LinkedIn account in the first place. Though I’m not aware of your goals, I can still point you in the direction of a great slideshow. (Tip: It’s easier to download it and view it on your computer than it is to try and zoom in and read its content in the little slideshow viewer on the website; you’ll need to create a free account to do this, though.)

Here’s the link: http://tinyurl.com/yh7jobv.

I use these two shortcuts just about every single day of my life. They help me move about the web quickly and efficiently, and I thought you might like to use them, too.

Shortcut #1: To the Next Site in the Blink of an Eye
Ctrl + L. Holding down the Ctrl key and then tapping the L key jumps my cursor up into and highlights the text in the address bar.  This allows me to immediately start typing the address of the next site I want to visit. No need to click in the address bar, no need to highlight the current URL with my cursor, no need to hit the Delete or Backspace keys to clear that text out. I just hit Ctrl + L, type the address of the next site I want to visit, hit Enter, and I’m at the next site in the blink of an eye.

Shortcut #2: Start Your Search with Lightning Speed
Ctrl + K. Like many web users, I have a Google search box in my browser’s toolbar so that I can conduct Google searches from whatever page I’m looking at; I don’t need to go to www.google.com every time I’d like to search the web. As I search many, many times a day, I find it wonderfully convenient to hold down the Ctrl key and then tap the K key to get my cursor sitting in the search box – no mouse necessary!

Your friend is sitting across the table from you, chatting away about the amazing new dish she made using kohlrabi last week. You smile and nod your head knowingly while you think, “Now wait a second, I know I’ve heard of kohlrabi before, but what in the world does it look like??”

Upon returning home you sit down at your computer, fire up Google, type “kohlrabi” into the search box, and hit the “Google Search” button. You click the first result and are taken to a webpage that has a description and one photo of the root vegetable.

You hit your back button. You click search result #2 and see another photo of the vegetable, then click the back button again to return to your search results once more. You’re starting to remember what the veggie looks like, but can’t remember if it comes in different colors or what it looks like when baked or fried. So you keep laboriously clicking through the results on the page, hoping one of the sites listed will have a variety of photos for you to look at.

Okay, stop. There’s a much better way to look for a variety of kohlrabi photos.

Let’s start over. Go back to www.Google.com. Now, in the upper left-hand corner, click the “Images” link. Done? Good work. Now back to business as usual – go ahead and type “kohlrabi” into the search box, then hit the “Search Images” button that’s appeared.

Boom. There you have it. Thousands upon thousands of photos of kohlrabi, lined up nice and neat for your viewing pleasure.

And so: whenever you want to look at images and photos of something in particular, using Google Images instead of Google’s standard search is the way to go. Have fun!

Over the course of the past few weeks I’ve found myself reminded of the fact that many people still find the concept of downloading to be mysterious and confusing. And so I dove deep into my article archives and found this June 2003 write up on downloads that’s just as accurate and helpful as ever. Enjoy…

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Today’s delightful discussion delves into downloading. Alright. So it’s not really a discussion; it’s more along the lines of me talking about it and you just reading about it but hey, I was feeling the need to start this article off with an alliterative bang.

“Downloading” is one of those terms you hear quite often but may not feel quite sure what it means. I mean, you kind of know. Sort of. But not exactly. Allow me to clear the clutter and clarify the confusion.

To download is “to transfer (data or programs) from a server or host computer to one’s own computer (or device)”. Blah blah blah, glazed eyes, technical babble, that definition didn’t do anything for you, right?

Well, since most of our download experiences deal with the Internet, I suggest you just think of downloading like this: Pulling something cool off of the Internet and saving it onto your computer. That’s it! For general purposes it’s much easier to think about it that way.

Okay, so you understand what downloading is. “Why should I care about it?!” you cry. “Because,” I respond, “there are lots of really neat things sitting out there on the Internet just waiting to be downloaded. And many of them are free!” Your eyes just got wider when I said free. I saw it.

When you pull something off the Internet and put it onto your computer, you usually need to save it in a specific location. Some people like to save downloads to their desktops, others like to save downloads into their “My Documents” folder. This way, once your downloads are transferred onto your computer, you can open them up and use them. After all, it would kind of defeat the purpose of downloading something if you couldn’t find the spot on your computer to where that something was downloaded.

“Alright,” you say hesitantly, “but then what does ‘uploading’ mean? Is it any different?” Why I’m so very glad you asked! Uploading is, not surprisingly, the exact opposite of downloading. It’s when someone takes something from their computer and pushes it up onto the Internet. Webmasters create websites on their computers and when they’re done, they upload the website to the Internet. Unless you’re editing a website or are a filesharing maniac, you most likely don’t upload things on a regular basis. That’s why we focused on downloading today.

And there you have it; you’re now an expert on downloading.  Keep up the good work.

I’ve always wished there was a way to sort my search results by date–a key factor that has always helped me determine relevancy within search results. So it’s now time to celebrate, as Google recently implemented functionality that allows people to filter search results by … time!

Give it a try.

Next time you conduct a Google search and find yourself reviewing the results page, click the Show options link (the one with the little plus sign in front of it) below the search box.

More filtering options will instantly appear on the left-hand side of your screen – and you’ll note there is now an entire category allowing you to filter your results by time. Cool!