Google Knol is now available

Google yesterday released its Knowledge Sharing Platform, Knol . With the release of Knol, Google plans to put a tough competition with Wikipedia and win a better share of the Internet.

Recently, there was a lot of buzz about this new Knowledge Bank, but the initial Buzz was lost and the official release of Knol took more than 2 months.

Coming back, Every post written in Knol is called a 'Knol'. Google has a tie up with New Yorker magazine which will let a author use one Cartoon per post (to illustrate the post) from their Extensive Cartoon Gallery.

Why Knol..?

"Everyone knows something. See what people are writing about, then tell the world what you know"

Read What Google has to Say | Sign-Up For Knol
 

Gmail is not 100% Safe! And we have got proof

Gmail is fast, but we just found out how insecure it is. The standard Gmail loads into a java applet which gives Gmail all the so called, cool features. Each time you open a mail, Gmail creates an executable file named ‘mail.google.com’ in the Internet Explorer Cache (usually in Temporary Internet Files folder). This file cannot run on windows, if you try opening it you get an error message:

We opened the file in the best ever hacking tool, Notepad. As expected we got a scramble of text. Some lines of the text looked like html code, so we thought of opening the file in Internet Explorer. For this we saved the text file as ‘mail.html’ and opened it in Internet Explorer hoping to find some effect of the html. The result was negative. Then we opened the file in Microsoft FrontPage and switched the view to HTML (refer image)

In the HTML view, the text was organized and comprehensive. And we got the answer. Gmail is not 100% safe. We could make out the mails that we had previously opened on our computer from the html. Here is an example:

Original Mail:

HOW TO DETECT A 2-WAY MIRROR?
When we visit toilets, bathrooms, hotel rooms, changing rooms, etc. How many of you know for sure that the seemingly ordinary mirror hanging on the wall is a real mirror, or actually a 2-way mirror i.e., they can see you, but you can’t see them. There have been many cases of people installing 2-way mirrors in female changing rooms or bathroom or bedrooms. It is very difficult to positively identify the surface by looking at it. So, how do we determine with any amount of certainty what type of mirror we are looking at?
CONDUCT THIS SIMPLE TEST: Place the tip of your fingernail against the reflective surface and if there is a GAP between your fingernail and the image of the nail, then it is a GENUINE mirror. However, if your fingernail DIRECTLY TOUCHES the image of your nail, then BEWARE; IT IS A 2-WAY MIRROR! (There is someone seeing you from other side). So remember, every time you see a mirror, do the fingernail test. It doesn’t cost you anything. It is simple to do.
The reason there is a gap on a real mirror, is because the silver is on the back of the mirror UNDER the glass. Whereas with a two-way mirror, the silver is on the surface. Keep it in mind! Make sure and check every time you enter in hotel rooms. May be someone is making a film on you.

Ladies: Share this with your friends.
Men: Share this with your sisters, wives, daughters, friends, colleagues, etc. Pass this message to all Ur friends in the Contacts

Take care.......
luv
GTM

The Scramble we found from Cache:

[[["v","1mq71lcaz8ekj","5259372521f1cec4","41","1","vaknsvbtjz8a"]
,["gn",""]
,["cfs",[]
,[]
]
,["i",100]
,["st",1211373576]
,["qu","32","6745","0","#006633",0,0,0,"0","6.6"]
,["ft","Add a personalized \u003cspan style\u003d\"color:#0000CC;text-decoration:underline;cursor:pointer;cursor:hand;white-space:nowrap\" id\u003d\"prf_g\"\u003e\u003cb\u003esignature\ u003c/b\u003e\u003c/span\u003e to all your outgoing messages. \u0026nbsp; \u003ca style\u003dcolor:#0000CC target\u003d_blank href\u003d\"http://mail.google.com/support/bin/answer.py?ctx\u003d%67mail\u0026hl\u003den\u0026answer\u003d8395\"\u003eLearn more\u003c/a\u003e"]
,["cs","112276a993ec9903","2 way mirror","2 way mirror","",["^i"]
,[]
,0,1,,"112276a993ec9903",[]
,1,"4",0,0]
,["mi",8,1,"112276a993ec9903",0,"0","GTM JS","GTM","4gtmjs@gmail.com",[[]
,[]
,[]
]
,"4/25/07",[]
,[]
,[]
,[]
,"Apr 25, 2007 11:55 AM","2 way mirror","",[]
,1,,,"Wed Apr 25 2007_11:55 AM","On 4/25/07, GTM JS \u003c4gtmjs@gmail.com\u003e wrote:","On 4/25/07, \u003cb class\u003dgmail_sendername\u003eGTM JS\u003c/b\u003e \u0026lt;4gtmjs@gmail.com\u0026gt; wrote:","gmail.com",,,"","",0,,"\u003caab366660 704242325y38b5aab4q2dace5d9177108a0@mail.gmail.com\u003e",1177482336000,,0,"2 way mirror",0]
,["mb","\u003cstrong\u003e\u003c u\u003eHOW TO DETECT A 2-WAY MIRROR?\u003cbr\u003e\u003 c/u\u003e\u003c/strong\u003e\u003cbr\u003eWhen we visit toilets, bathrooms, hotel rooms, changing rooms, etc.,\u003cbr\u003eHow many of you know for sure that the seemingly ordinary mirror\u003cbr\u003ehanging\u003cbr\u003eon the wall is a real mirror, or actually a 2-way mirror \ni.e., they can\u003cbr\u003esee you, but you can\u0026#39;t see them. There have been many cases of people\u003cbr\u003einstalling 2-way mirrors in female changing rooms or bathroom or\u003cbr\ u003ebedrooms. It is very difficult to positively identify the surface by \n\u003cbr\u003ejust\u003cbr\u003elooking at it. So, how do we determine with any amount of certainty\u003cbr\u003ewhat\u003cbr\u003etype of mirror we are looking at?\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\ u003e\u003c strong\u003e\u003cu\u003eCONDUCT THIS SIMPLE TEST:\u003cbr\u003e\u003c/u\u003e\u0 03c/strong\u003e\u003cbr\u003ePlace the tip of your fingernail against the reflective surface and if \n\u003cbr\u003ethere is a GAP between your fingernail and the image of the nail, then\u003cbr\u003eit is a GENUINE mirror.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eHowever, if your fingernail DIRECTLY TOUCHES the image of your nail,\u003cbr\u003ethen BEWARE, IT IS A 2-WAY MIRROR! (There is someone seeing you from \n\u003cbr\u003ethe\u003cbr\u003eother side). So remember, every time you see a mirror, do the\u003cbr\u0 03e\u0026quot;fingernail test.\u0026quot; It doesn\u0026#39;t cost you anything. It is simple to do.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThe reason there is a gap on a real mirror, is because the silver is on \n\u003cbr\u003ethe back of the mirror UNDER the glass.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eWhereas with a two-way mirror, the silver is on the surface. Keep it in\u003cbr\u003emind! Make sure and check every time you enter in hotel rooms. May be\u003cbr\u003esomeone is making a film on you. \n\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eLadies: Share this with your friends.\u003cbr\u003eMen: Share this with your sisters, wives, daughters, friends,\u003cbr\u003ecolleagues, etc.\u003cbr\u003ePass this message to all Ur friends in the Contacts Take care.......n\u003cbr\u003edo test\u003cbr\u003eit....\n\u003cbr\u00 3e\u003cbr\u003e\ u003cstrong\u003eluv GTM\u003c/strong\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\n",0]
,["ce"]],"0"]

See for yourself, the whole of the mail is in the cache. We tried with many such files. We found lot of mails in bits and pieces along with a bunch of email addresses. Now that’s solid proof.

If you are someone who uses public computers or shares a computer with someone, it would be good for your privacy if you clear the cache after logging out of Gmail every time. Some public computers do not give access to the cache, in that case use the ‘Basic html view’ available in Gmail. We recommend Firefox to use Gmail. It does not have this problem of privacy.

And for the Google guys: Time has come to solve this Privacy issue.

Access All your Google Services from a Single Place

Google has got a very good way of giving off its services to its users. With a single Google account every Google service can be used without any further sign up of formality.

You can also log in to those services from a single place. If you use gmail, orkut and blogger, you need not sign in separately each time. Go to Google.com and click the sign in on the right top corner. Now sign in to your google account. Once you do that you will have a link named ' My Account ' on the top right region of your window. Click that and all your google services will be displayed. Just click the required service. But before you do that remember to hold on the shift key else the page will load in the same window and you will have to do all this again.
eg. When you click Gmail by pressing shift it loads in a new window. Now if you wish to use ur orkut, go to the previous  window and click orkut ( again with shift key pressed ).

This way Google.com can be your ultimate central to access all your Google services.

b.

Have you seen the Google Doodles ?

Google is very creative ! Creativity extends even upto the logos of Google. To commemorate a very special event Google uses a cutomised and artistic logo. If you happen to visit Google.com on that day you can see that special logo. This customised logos built to commemorate a special event is often called as Doodle.

For eg : Last year (2006) on Louis Braille's ( The man who created Braille - The print language of the blind !. He is the one who brought light into the minds of millions of blind people worldwide ) Birthday on January 4 Google was written in braille.

Google uses such logos to grab the attention of its users to the special event. As google.com is a neat and clean website a minute change is easily noted.

To see the logos for yourself vist the following places ! You can see logos that they have used, right from their start in 1999 !
Official logos : http://www.google.com/stickers.html
Fan Logos : http://www.google.com/customlogos.html
Holiday Logos : http://www.google.com/holidaylogos.html

Have a nice time
b

Use Google™ search as your dictionary

Google™ search can work as a dictionary as well. To make it work so you need to add " define: " before the word.

For eg: Typing in define:culture give you some definitions for culture found on the web. You can also fine some Related phrases that include your keyword.
Google also offers to give you the definitions in a lot more languages.

To try it out go to : www.google.com

b

I'm Feeling Lucky™ search service From Google™ search

Google's homepage , one of the smallest pages on the internet , gives you a text field to input your query and adjacent to that you will see 2 buttons. One button is to search for the query. The second button is named "I'm Feeling Lucky" This is a special service from Google.

Clicking on the "I'm Feeling Lucky" button takes you directly to the webpage that comes first in the search results. The page that comes first on the list will be that page with the maximun PageRank™ in the search results.

This button might prove useful when you need the results in fewer clicks. To try using it go to : www.google.com

b

Note : All the TradeMarks used here are the property of respective owners.

Make sure that you have loged out of your google account while using multiple google services

Google offers its users a lot of facilities like a fantastic search engine, an even better Gmail, Google Talk, Online community - Orkut and lot more. To have a synchronisation with all these services Google uses a single user account for all Google services for a user. i.e with the gmail account infromation you can sing up with orkut, or talk in Google Talk or log in to the personalised home page of Google search.
In other words signing in to one account means all the other open automaitcally. For example after logging on the Google Talk you can read mails directly without logging in again by clicking the new mail indicator to the bottom of the window. This also means that signing out of Gmail does to essentially close your Google account. You have to sign out completely.

This is very important when you are accesing the interntet from a public place like an internet cafe. An open account can be operated by anyone and can cause anything. So you have to make sure that before you leave, you have logged out of all the individual services.
To ensure this just go to the homepage of the services you have used. For eg. If you used Gmail, then try going to Gmail.com. If the page asks you the username and password, then you have logged out. If you havent logged out you will be direcly taken to your inbox.

Take care.b

The Google Toolbar

An integral part of the Google pack and a must have for interntet users. The google toolbar has got a whole lot of Google services budled on to a small horizontal strip. As google always is, this too is aimed to DO NO EVIL, the award winning policy of Google.

The google tool bar has got..
* The google search box to serach for online content. You can also do ' I am feeling Lucky ' search, so that you can go directly to the first site that appears in the google search.
It also offers search site, Search froggle , Image search, news search and Google groups search.
* The google toolbar displays the page rank of the current page. So you can always see how the google search pods rank the current page.
* It has got pop-up blocker which plays a sound when a pop-up is blocked and also displays the number of blocked pop-ups.
* It can translate the current page using its transalator.
* It can check for spelling and grammar errors on the page using its spell and Grammar check.
* You can blog pages directly using the ' blog this ' button on the toolbar. You will need to sign up with blogger to do that.
* The toolbar has got the normal naviagation buttons of a browser and offers to remember search history. There is a whole lot of options waiting for the user.
* And most importantly The Google toolbar has got a auto fill feature which can fill forms on the web page. You have to once give the details and when relevent forms are found on the webpage the autofill highlights the fields in yellow and on clicking autofill the feilds gets filled up, automatically.
* You have got a word transalator .
* You have a autolink function that links to the postal addresses on the web page to google maps directly.

This tool bar can be freely downloaded from the google website.
Go to google.com > click 'more>>' > choose google pack > and choose the google toolbar.
Google also offers this tool bar along with its serach results.

( Instead go dirctly to the google pack from the productivity center on the right sidebar )

b

Image Searches might give you the results you expected and can prove to be more useful than the normal search at times

Most of the famous search engines like Google or Yahoo! offers an image search option. This is a useful feature that can bring the pictures in the world wide web to your fingertips.
Image searches can prove useful not only while searching for images but also while mining data on the net. Here is the ' How ?' answered.

Websites post images of the most relevant topic of the content. If somone is writing an article on a 'benz' automobile the author will post a picture of the featured car and not the picture of some beach. So the pictures most often come with the most relevant matter. But the search based on the page rank system of Google or Yahoo! might prove to be useless at times. At those times doing an image search and navigating to the website with the help of the image might give you the required result.

Why dont you give it a try..?
Good luck!

b

Why do the World Consider Google as the Best..?

Google is the worlds best company that provides quality services to Internet users. Started in 1996 as the part of a college paper for their Ph.D , google was basically aimed to aid people searching data on the net.
But before google came too we had search engines like AltaVista, yahoo and a lot, but these are used very rearely these days. For them search was not in the forefront. For them search was a part of the many services they gave . So the people searching for data couldnt find what they needed as the searches were not focussed and specific as their creaters gave serch engine lower pirority.

But google came up with a search engine. Thats the main job of google.com even to this day. Because Page and Brin knew that data mining was a very important part and was unavoidable in the internet.

But what makes google the best? Its googles policy to "DO NO EVIL", that always kept them on top. They were not two kids who wanted to become billionares all of a sudden. They aimed at solving the problems of the people. To this day, they are doing the same. Making money to help more people without disturbing the uses and there by giving quality service.
For instance visit google.com. You will find a neat and clean page, whcih must be the neatest and the cleanest page online. A page that loads fast with just the google logo coming up in bright colors and a search box. Google could have placed some adds there as they are having more than a billion visitors daily. This could have brought them millions of dollars a month. But they are sacrificing these dollars to give its users more comfort. If it had lots of adds its visitors would be surely disturbed and distracted.

This mentality of google to solve problems of the people by providing fast and quality service keeps them on top. This policy applies to gmail, orkut, blogger and lots of services that they give us, all for free. Can you find a better e-mail service better than gmail on the net?

Long live Google. Lets wish them all the best.

b

Google Search Can be your Calculator too..

Google, the word relates to the fastest search engine online. Go to google.com and you can see a textfield patiently waiting for your query. The neatest and the cleanest and may be the smallest webpage on the internet, google.com can serve as an arithmetic calulator too!

Try typing in 100+2 and within a click you will get the result ( and that is 102! ).
Instead you can try typing "hundred plus two" and see the same results coming up. You can also try a combination of words and symbols like "hundred + two". At google everything is admitted.

Go to www.google.com and make sure this is right, right now!

 

To see the Google calculator help vist this link:

http://www.google.co.in/help/calculator.html

b

 

What does Google Really Mean..?

Ask any internet user 'what is google' and he will say that it is a search engine. Ask him' what do you know more about google', and he might say it is the fastest search engine and google offers a lot of services like gmail, orkut and so on...

That is the popularity google has got today. With over a billion visitors daily, google.com is one of the websites visited by almost all the internet users.

But the word google means something else. Actually it is not supposed to be spelled g-o-o-g-l-e. Instead the right spelling is g-o-o-g-o-l. But when Brin and Page, the makers of Google, were renaming BackRub ( the initial name of google ) they misspelled googol as google.
Googol means a very large number. To be precise it is 1 followed by a 100 zeros.
They chose this name as google was basically to deal with a large amount of information online.

b

Inviting all your Gmail Contacts To Orkut

Eventhough Orkut and Gmail are from the same 'server' of Google, they didnot provide any provision to invite the gmail contacts to orkut as the provision in the Google talk to invite gmail contacts. But orkut do provide an option to invite multiple friends. Here is a simple way by which you can add your gmail contacts.

Method 1:
If you wish to invite all your gmail contacts, open gmail and go to your contacts. There you have an option to export the contacts. Export the contacts and you will get a file with all your contact information. Save that file to local disc and open it with notepad. In the friends section or orkut there is an area where you can invite friends ( on the left hand side of orkut window ). Below the box to enter the friend's email address, there is a link to 'invite multiple friends'. Click that and you will get a text area to enter all the e-mail addresses. Copy and paste the contents from the previously exported contacts file there. You will also have to do the random word verification so as to make sure that you are a human being. That's it.

Method 2:
If you do not wish to invite all your friends but only a selected few, open gmail and go to your contacts. Select those contacts whom you wish to invite and click compose button ( on top row ). This will open the mail composer with the selected contacts in the 'to' section. Copy those address from the 'to' section and paste it in the same text area as mentioned in method one.

b