You can use this feature independently in any browser. This is especially useful if you’re ever on a PC with an older browser with older or no screening safeguards.

All you have to do is paste a specific URL, then add the domain at the end.

The URL is this:

http://www.google.com/safebrowsing/diagnostic?site=

After the equals sign is where you put the domain.

Using pcmech.com as an example:

http://www.google.com/safebrowsing/diagnostic?site=pcmech.com

From that link, Safe Browsing reports that pcmech.com is (obviously) not a "suspicious" web site.

If you’re using Firefox or Chrome now and haven’t turned the Safe Browsing feature off, simply leave your browser as is because you already have it.

For IE8 users out there, the SmartScreen filter is enabled by default which does a good job. IE7 does have a phishing filter in it, but it is not as intelligent as SmartScreen for IE8. The difference between the filters between 7 and 8 is that 8 also includes protection from socially engineered malware. IE7 users may want to periodically check sites using Google’s Safe Browsing just to be on the safe side.

Post from: PCMech. Helping Normal People Get Their Geek On And Live The Digital Lifestyle.

Quick Shortcut To Google’s Safe Browsing

Google Maps

This is the best mapping product on the internet due to the fact you can look up directions using very vague terms and still get what you’re looking for.

For example, if I go to Google Maps and enter a search term from tampa to orlando, the result will in fact show directions from Tampa, Florida to Orlando, Florida.

You may not see this as a big deal, but the fact that search even worked is a marvel of technology. I did not specify the state nor I did not specify the country. Google Maps simply knew what to do and delivered the proper result.

In addition, I can use other general regional designations and it will still work. If I enter the search from tampa to 32801 (an Orlando ZIP code), that works too.

Granted, Bing Maps will do most of what Google Maps can do, but it does so in a way that’s slower and not as intuitive. Google still rules the roost as having the best maps on the internet.

Google Docs

This may not be the best online document suite (I prefer ThinkFree when it comes to UI and feature set), but it is the fastest and easiest to share out content with. GDocs loads very quickly, imports nearly any type of document (even PDFs) and does so in a manner that’s completely safe being it’s online rather than on your local PC.

The collaboration tools within GDocs at present cannot be matched when compared to any other like free product. Share anything with anyone anywhere just with a few clicks. For a team of people, you can delegate who gets editing privileges and who doesn’t. The security of your data is also better than average; the security of your data is solid and sound.

Updated right-now Google search results

This is something that escaped most people’s radar, but you will notice since late 2009 that Google search results will show content posted to the internet even as little as 30 minutes ago. This was not present in G’s search results before. It used to be that the newest information you’d get was about a week old. But now you get results very close to the speed of Twitter – and that was no easy task on G’s part.

Picasa

Another very underrated product from the GOOG camp. This is the best free photo editor, period. No learning curve required, good solid photo editing options that people actually use (important), a wonderful UI design, super-easy import from any digital camera, the list goes on and on.

Picasa for all intents and purposes should be a paid product. It’s that good. This is a product that will make you happy.

Google Toolbar

I am very anti-toolbar by nature, but I understand a lot of people like to use them. And if you’re going to use one, G’s Toolbar is the best of the lot. Why? Because it has the features you’d use most often, such as a one-click solution for Translate. Add to the fact Google has a very powerful set of products that you can easily add into the toolbar, and you’ll quickly realize why G’s offering is the best you could use.

Strangely, it is not available for Chrome – and it should be. Granted, many of G’s toolbar features are in Chrome already, but it would be oh-so nice to get the full toolbar functionality in that browser, especially considering both are Google products. Maybe someday soon we’ll see it for Chrome?

Post from: PCMech. Helping Normal People Get Their Geek On And Live The Digital Lifestyle.

5 Things Google Is Doing Right

For you IE haters out there, I have alternatives. No, I’m not talking about Firefox, Opera or Safari because you already know all about those. What I’m talking about are different IE shells.

Windows Internet Explorer uses a rendering engine called Trident. Over the years there have been a few developers that have made web browsers using the Trident engine. This means it uses the same engine IE does (meaning the pages render the same as they would in IE), but the overall browser experience is different – and always better.

It’s entirely possible that if you don’t like IE, it’s because of the way Microsoft designed it. That being said, these alternative shells may be more to your liking.

Avant Browser
Web Site: http://www.avantbrowser.com/

This offering has the ability to store bookmarks and other items online, similar to the way Xmarks does it – except this is built-in. It also a Flash animation filter – a very desirable thing that people like quite a bit. This Flash filter I speak of literally is as simple as a single click to turn Flash on or off. Avant also has custom skins available. IE doesn’t have this on its own.

Lunascape
Web Site: http://www.lunascape.tv

This one will really raise your eyebrow because it has not one, not two, but three different rendering engines in it. Which engines? Trident from IE, Gecko from Firefox and Webkit from Safari and Chrome. Impressive? Yes. This is the only "triple engine" web browser in the world, and you can switch back and forth between engines at whim.

There is way too much to list that this browser does. It is by every definition a power user’s browser.

Firefox
Web Site: http://www.firefox.com

What? Firefox? Yes, it can use the Trident rendering engine from IE. All you need is IE Tab and ta-da, IE in Firefox.

Maxthon
Web Site: http://www.maxthon.com

Maxthon’s claim to fame is that it gave IE tabs way before IE7 ever existed, but that’s not obviously all it can do. It’s packed with features similar to that of Avant listed above (such as storing of online Favorites), but has other quite useful items such as:

• A better screen capture (full screen, selected area, selected window or entire page)
• Web sniffer (a way to direct-download FLV video file)
• Super proxy (a much easier way to switch between proxies, should you use them)

..and a lot more.

An alternative shell may get you to like IE again

I find the biggest reasons people can’t stand IE mainly has to do with the fact it’s not as easily extensible as Firefox, and that the feature set is limited.

The alternative shells above will give most people the features they so desperately want in IE that aren’t there.

For the IE haters, it will make the browser a lot more tolerable to use.

Or dare I say, enjoyable?

Have you ever tried an alternative IE shell? What did you think? Let us know by writing a comment.

Post from: PCMech. Helping Normal People Get Their Geek On And Live The Digital Lifestyle.

Hate IE? Use A Different Shell

It’s an unfortunate truth that there isn’t a simple 1-2-3 method for when you want to block.

Here are some of your options:

The router itself

On a basic level, a router allows you to block only ports. On an advanced level, you can block specific domains. However it’s all dependent on whether or not your router has a domain-specific block feature, which is most likely what you want to do. Unfortunately, most basic routers won’t do that per the administration program it uses.

Windows Firewall

The firewall used in Windows whether it’s in XP, Vista or 7 is application and port specific, but not domain specific to the best of my knowledge. What this means is that you can block specific ports, and block specific programs from network use, but cannot say "don’t load X web site" with it. It’s an "all-or-nothing" type of application-specific solution in most instances.

Windows MMC

The Microsoft Management Console (Start/Run/type mmc/click OK) is not easy to use for those who have never used network policies before.

To enable a policy for a specific network address in XP, you have to first add the Snap-in "IP Security Policies on Local Computer", then create a security policy. It is a difficult, tedious process that requires many steps, and it probably won’t deliver the results you’re looking for.

MMC by and large is better for managing other computers on your network instead of your own.

In Windows 7, the "Advanced" section of the Windows Firewall does in fact use MMC, but it’s still complete gibberish to those who have never used it. All you want to do is say, "I want X web site not to be available from any program on this PC, period." Not even in Windows 7 is this easy to do with its existing firewall software.

HOSTS file

Every modern OS has a HOSTS file where you can easily redirect specific domain names to root. This technically is not blocking a web site, but rather redirecting it. That’s fine since the end result is that the site won’t load, and that’s what you wanted to happen.

An example would be:

yahoo.com	127.0.0.1
www.yahoo.com	127.0.0.1

127.0.0.1 is root, as in your PC. On attempt to load either http://yahoo.com or http://www.yahoo.com (and yes the two are different), the browser will report that it cannot make a connection.

The biggest issue with a HOSTS file is that it doesn’t support wildcard entries. Or at least in Windows it doesn’t.

Using the above example, www.yahoo.com won’t load, but search.yahoo.com will.

If you added an entry of *.yahoo.com, that doesn’t work. Every subdomain must be entered manually to be redirected to 127.0.0.1.

The single largest drawback of the HOSTS method, particularly on XP, is that anybody that has access to the HOSTS file can simply delete it and remove all the redirects – and a reboot isn’t even required.

Browser add-on

One add-on that is positively genius in its simplicity is BlockSite for Firefox. And don’t worry, if you’re running 3.5 or 3.6, it’s available.

BlockSite does support wildcard entries. If you make an entry of:

*yahoo*

..any domain with yahoo in it will be blocked.

What’s even better is that you can configure the entries to be password protected, so if someone else wanted to go in and remove some of those blocks, they can’t unless they have the password.

If only this were available for IE..

Software-based firewall

This is usually the solution most people prefer because of the following reasons:

1. It’s the easiest to manage.
2. It will block all programs from accessing sites you block.
3. It (usually) does not slow down your internet connection at all.

There are many software firewalls available whether you’re using Windows, Mac or Linux.

On the Windows side, you can use the built-in Windows Firewall or any number of other 3rd-party software such as Agnitum, Comodo, Core Force, GhostWall, Kaspersky, Lavasoft, ZoneAlarm and several others.

The only real drawback to using a software-based firewall is that it will at times get in your way, so a key feature to look for is: How easy is it to turn it off temporarily?

Do you (or have you) use any of the above software-based firewalls?

How easy or difficult is it to block a specific web site? Is the feature even there? Is it as easy as using BlockSite for Firefox? Let us know by writing a comment or two.

Post from: PCMech. Helping Normal People Get Their Geek On And Live The Digital Lifestyle.

Blocking Web Sites 101

I’m not saying not to use Y! or WLive because they are arguably the two most-used when it comes to email and instant messaging. What I am saying is that these two companies could have designed their profile interfaces a whole lot better.

These two are so bad it even makes Facebook look easy – and Facebook is horrible to begin with.

See video for details, post a comment and tell us what you think.

Post from: PCMech. Helping Normal People Get Their Geek On And Live The Digital Lifestyle.

Rant: Microsoft And Yahoo Profiles (Video)

Dimdim allows you to host web meetings for up to 20 people (using the free edition) with no software required. The Dimdim client runs entirely through your browser via Flash with only a small client needing to be installed to share your desktop. Additionally, all services are hosted by Dimdim’s servers so all you have to do is just sign up and you are ready to go.

If all you need is to share your desktop for presentations, Dimdim is a viable replacement for GoToMeeting, WebEx and other self hosted products. Considering the price point of these solutions, Dimdim could literally save you hundreds to thousands per year.

Has anyone out there tried Dimdim? If so, what do you think about it?

Post from: PCMech. Helping Normal People Get Their Geek On And Live The Digital Lifestyle.

Host Your Web Meetings For Free

Ping.fm supports almost every social networking site out there, so no matter where your account is you are covered. I do not use any of these sites, but if I had multiple accounts I could see this as being useful in different scenarios.

Does anyone use Ping.fm or a service similar to it? If so, how do you like it?

Post from: PCMech. Helping Normal People Get Their Geek On And Live The Digital Lifestyle.

Update All Of Your Social Networking Accounts At Once

For most people, the only time Silverlight found a good legitimate use was on Microsoft’s own web site. If you’ve surfed around the microsoft.com domain enough, you’ve most likely ran into instances where the browser said "Best viewed with Silverlight" or something to that effect. If using Internet Explorer (of course) and Silverlight, yes it does make using microsoft.com easier. But that’s not enough of a reason to keep Silverlight installed.

Then I hear about this thing from Microsoft that’s an actual standalone client for Facebook, as in an app you can run off the desktop that will login to Facebook and utilize its features. And no, this is not some tiny-browser-in-an-app thing. This is a real true-blue app. On Silverlight no less.

(And by the way, it’s not Windows-only – it’s also for Mac OS X!)

I downloaded, installed and tried it out.

Here’s my report on it.

The Good

This Silverlight client does the one thing you wish the Facebook interface did – be easy to use. Seriously, it is. If Facebook’s interface were designed like Microsoft’s client is, nobody would complain about how bad the Facebook experience is.

Simple drag-and-drop for photos, the ability to sort your friends by letter (I know, so simple yet so awesome), absolutely zero learning curve whatsoever, no need to hunt around for specific functions.. it’s just all right there. So easy. So intuitive.

Yes, I know, I’m glowing over this. But if you use Facebook at all, you know how much their interface sucks. Nobody says it’s good. The Silverlight client on the other hand is.

The Bad

The client is a beta and acts like one. It’s very graphical (everything fades in/out) and will not work well on slower computers. On a netbook it probably wouldn’t work at all because of how much screen real estate it uses.

There are also no options to change how it looks. Some fonts are too big while others too small. And some may not go for the white-on-black look.

The Ugly

The installation process isn’t good at all. First you have to install Silverlight. Then you have to restart your browser, go back to the installation page, and run another installer. Dumb.

Why is this dumb? Using Adobe AIR as an example, if you want to install an AIR app but don’t have AIR installed, the process will actually do both in succession without you having to reopen anything. That’s easy. The installation for Silverlight and the Facebook app doesn’t do that without manually restarting the browser, unless you already have Silverlight installed.

This app is also a memory muncher. On my 32-bit Windows 7 it uses around 90,000 K in system resource according to the Task Manager when just sitting there. Periodically it will go over 110,000 but at least it "knows" enough to release memory to go back down to 90,000-ish.

Then again as most Facebook users are aware, when using the Facebook site itself, that is also a big memory hog for your browser and can use just as much memory if not more.

Verdict

Even with its flaws, this is definitely a killer app for the Silverlight platform, no question. You actually have a reason to install and use it just to get this client – if you use Facebook that is. The installation plops a nice easy shortcut icon on the desktop for quick access (or not, it’s an option), it doesn’t require the opening of the browser to use, it’s easy to use and the best part is that yes, it is better than the Facebook interface.

Whether you’re using Windows or Mac, if you’re a Facebook user, you owe it to yourself to try it. Remember however that it’s a beta. And although I typically do not recommend using beta software, this client is good enough to get two huge thumbs up from me.

Post from: PCMech. Helping Normal People Get Their Geek On And Live The Digital Lifestyle.

Silverlight 4 Beta Client For Facebook Is Awesome

What is 1e100.net? It’s Google. A WHOIS lookup for that domain reveals it’s owned by them.

Why would Google use an "weird" domain name like 1e100.net? It’s symbolic of a googol (10×10^100) which is where Google gets its name from.

Being that most people aren’t aware of this, the first reaction upon seeing this in a network management program, such as a software-based firewall, is to block it because they don’t know what it is. It further freaks people out if it shows up as a persistent connection that they can’t get rid of.

The 1e100.net domain will never show up by itself. It will always be a subdomain such as server-name.1e100.net.

Instances where you will see the 1e100.net connection

(By "see" I mean literally seeing this from a network utility that can closely monitor all network requests.)

Any web page that has embedded YouTube video

For YouTube itself (a Google property) or any other web site that has a YouTube video embedded in it, 1e100.net will show up even if the video isn’t loaded. When the Flash player first launches it makes a request to YouTube for the video thumbnail image and therefore requests 1e100.net for that data.

Firefox "safe browsing"

This feature by default is enabled and uses a Google server to check web sites you load to see if they’re in the "bad" list.

This is located from Tools / Options / Security:

The two checkboxes "Block reported attack sites" and "Block reported web forgeries" enable Firefox to check every single web site you load against the "bad" list Google has.

Uncheck these two boxes if you don’t want where you surf to be checked against the Google list.

If you want to see the actual configuration data for this, load the address about:config in Firefox, then search for safebrowsing, like this:

You don’t have to necessarily do anything here, but if you wanted to know "How much Google is in my Firefox?", there’s your answer.

Google Earth / Google Updater

Both Earth and Updater (which Earth installs by default) will make connections to 1e100.net to check for updates.

You can instruct Updater not to do that if so desired.

Other places?

As far as I’m aware, the three above instances are where you will see 1e100.net appear. Now that you’re aware what it is and its purpose, you now know it’s not spyware or malware. It’s Google. Using a weird domain because.. um.. well.. it’s a really long (but not really) story and we’ll leave it at that.

Post from: PCMech. Helping Normal People Get Their Geek On And Live The Digital Lifestyle.

The Mysterious 1e100.net

This essentially becomes a personal FTP site, without all the hassles of FTP. I previously used my Gmail drafts to upload files to myself when I did not have a USB drive handy, but Gmail imposes a size restriction much less that 250 MB.

Is anyone going to take advantage of this feature of Google Docs?

Post from: PCMech. Helping Normal People Get Their Geek On And Live The Digital Lifestyle.

Upload Any Type Of File To Google Docs