Author Archives: DJS

Yahoo! Search now with predictive input

Yahoo! Search today announced Search Assist, the most advanced assistance technology available on the Web, and the integration of audio, video and photos directly into the search results to help make Web search effortless for consumers. The new Yahoo! Search was designed to better understand user intent and get consumers to the results they are looking for in one search.

Recent research conducted by Harris Interactive on behalf of Yahoo! on the state of the Web shows that consumers are suffering from “Web search fatigue.” The study revealed that while 99 percent of online adults use a search engine to find information on the Internet, a mere 15 percent of them find what they’re looking for with their first search, with most needing to conduct three to four searches.

“The new Yahoo! Search is focused on getting consumers the most relevant information as well as providing the best user experience. We know that consumers want a complete answer, not a bunch of links, and the changes we’ve made are focused on getting people to the best answer — whether it be a Web link, photo, video or music clip — in one search,” said Vish Makhijani, general manager and senior vice president of Yahoo! Search.

Only available from Yahoo!, Search Assist goes beyond basic search “suggestions” and gives consumers real-time query suggestions as well as related topics and concepts, which is especially valuable when a person is searching on an unfamiliar topic.

Yahoo! Search Assist is there for consumers when they need it and is out of their way when they don’t. Yahoo! Search Assist senses when a consumer needs help with their search and opens a drop down menu of suggestions and related concepts (see diagram 1) that enables further exploration around their search topic.

 

In addition to the new Search Assist feature, Yahoo! Search has also introduced multimedia integration including video, audio and photos (see diagram 2) directly into the search results, allowing consumers to get their answer — whether it’s a Web link, photo, video or music clip — without leaving the page.

 

As part of the new Yahoo! Search, consumers will also see new Yahoo! Search Shortcuts, with the most useful information found on the Web and contributed by other online users. The new shortcuts were designed to help consumers save time when searching for popular categories such as events, music, movies, travel, sports, health, shopping, businesses and restaurants (see diagram 3). Yahoo! Search Shortcuts integrate ratings and reviews, photos, official websites and other useful information, giving consumers a complete answer for their search.

 

The new Yahoo! Search features are available immediately at yahoo.com in the United States, and Yahoo! Search Assist will also be available in the near future in the United Kingdom.

Timaru teen skates into Playboy magazine

Nicole Begg

Playboy magazine is chasing Timaru speedskater Nicole Begg – but not as a centrefold.

Playboy photo editor Matt Steigbigel said the magazine was preparing its annual pop culture ‘News in Review’ feature for the January edition and would like to use one or two photos of Nicole.

The photos will appear only in the United States edition of the magazine.

In April the 19-year-old world champion appeared on the front page of The Timaru Herald with one of her series of “sexy” shots undertaken for overseas magazines and websites.

Begg had stripped off in an attempt to lift her international profile and that of her sport by undressing and she has allowed Playboy to use two of them in their ‘News in Review’ section.

The revealing photos had an immediate impact, with some of the websites carrying the photos crashing due to surge in demand.

Interviewed on radio stations around the world, Begg was bagged by a fellow Chilean competitor, who claimed the shots were vulgar – and immediately did a series of her own photographs.

At the time the world champion said she was a bit nervous at the start of the shoot but decided it was no worse than what could been seen on most European beaches.

“Lots of sports stars, both male and female, have done this sort of thing before.”

Often they have done it for big money offers from magazines, but Begg’s motivation is simply to increase her profile in the hope of attracting a sponsor and also increase the profile of inline skating.

Playboy magazine is likely to fulfil both those aims as it is the largest monthly men’s magazine in the United States and has a circulation around 3.25 million readers.

In June, United States Olympic swimmer Amanda Beard posed nude.

Beard, who won three medals in the 1996 Olympics at the age of 14, had previously appeared in the Sports Illustrated Swimsuit Issue and in FHM.

Begg, who was nominated for the Halberg Awards but missed the finals, will again be in contention after grabbing her second world title in Columbia last month.

She also performed well on the road in Germany at the weekend winning her second World Inline Cup race of the season to lift her to fourth overall in the championships.

Source: http://www.stuff.co.nz/stuff/4215540a1823.html

New Flash Player 9 Beta For Linux Is Out!

This release codenamed “Moviestar,” includes new features, enhancements and bug fixes for Windows, Macintosh, and Linux versions of Flash Player 9.

This update, codenamed “Moviestar,” includes new features, enhancements and bug fixes for Windows, Macintosh, and Linux versions of Flash Player 9, including:

  • Support for H.264 video and HE-AAC audio codecs.
  • Multi-core support for vector rendering.
  • Full screen mode with hardware scaling.
  • Flash Player cache for common platform components, such as the Flex framework.
  • Support for Microsoft Active Accessibility (MSAA) in the Windows plug-in.

See the release notes for more information regarding this prerelease technology.

Task Manager has been disabled by your administrator

Summary: Task manager can be disabled manually, but more commonly it’s disabled by a virus. It’s easy to re-enable once you’re virus-free.

IMPORTANT: If this restriction was enabled in your system without you doing anything or without your knowledge, then it’s highly likely that a Virus has blocked the usage of Task Manager in your system by enabling the DisableTaskMgr policy via the registry. I strongly suggest that you perform a thorough checkup of your system immediately. Steps listed in the Resolution section of this article helps you unblock the Task Manager, but that does not remove the Virus (if any) from your system.

Method 1

Click Start, Run and type this command exactly as given below: (better – Copy and paste)

Method 2

  • Click Start, Run and type Regedit.exe
  • Navigate to the following branch:

HKEY_CURRENT_USER \ Software \ Microsoft \ Windows \ CurrentVersion \ Policies\ System

  • In the right-pane, delete the value named DisableTaskMgr
  • Close Regedit.exe

Method 3: Using Group Policy Editor – for Windows XP Professional

  • Click Start, Run, type gpedit.msc and click OK.
  • Navigate to this branch:

User Configuration / Administrative Templates / System / Ctrl+Alt+Delete Options / Remove Task Manager

  • Double-click the Remove Task Manager option.
  • Set the policy to Not Configured.

How to delete over 100,000 files with rm

Ever tried to delete 100,000 files with rm? Got the following error message?

/bin/rm: Argument list too long.

Heh yeah me too.

Here is the solution: (lets say you want to delete all files that end with .mbox)

find . -name ‘*.mbox’ -print0 | xargs -0 rm

Recently my mail server went out of control, the end result, thousands of duplicate emails.

Tips, Articles & Reviews of WORDPRESS 2.3

To all WORDPRESS ENTHUSIAST, below are some of the links we have collected to help you find what you need to know most about the new functions of wordpress 2.3.

  1. Summarized key changes and feature improvements in WordPress 2.3 by Aaron Brazell
  2. Very helpful step-by-step guide to changing your WordPress Theme to include the new tag templates tags.
  3. How to reduce number of 404 Page Not Found Errors on your blog.
  4. More detail explanations on using the new tag template tags.
  5. More feed control through AtomPub support

Long awaited WORDPRESS 2.3 has been released !

WordPress 2.3  has been released 2hours ago.

What’s New in WordPress 2.3

  • A new Tagging system similar to the Ultimate Tag Warrior WordPress Plugin.
  • Link and Post Categories have been separated.
  • Post and page management Administration has been improved with the introduction of Filters. See it here
  • All the JavaScript Libraries included in WordPress have been updated to the latest versions.
  • The files in WP-Admin have been reorganized and Code formatting and style is also being cleaned up.

Source: http://wordpress.org/development/2007/09/wordpress-23/

Download link: http://wordpress.org/latest.tar.gz