Monthly Archives: March 2011

Tales From The Terminal Room

Latest issue of Tales from the Terminal Room available

The March 2011 issue of Tales from the Terminal Room is now available. It includes articles that have already appeared in this blog but many people prefer to read the information in newsletter form.

In this month’s issue:

  • Search tools
    • Google decides that coots are really lions
    • Google includes your social circle in search
  • UK crime data as clear as mud
  • Business Information
    • M&A Portal – free information from BvD
    • Company registers: Slovenia and Croatia
  • Twitter Notes

The new Twitter Notes section is a summary of some of my recent tweets and retweets. They are selected because they contain links to resources or announcements that may be of general interest.

Google

Google lets you create your own naughty list

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You may have picked up the news that both Google and Bing have admitted to having whitelists of  ‘nice’ sites that manually override their search and ranking algorithms (Google, Bing Have White Lists Of Sites Not To Be Impacted By Algo Changes http://blog.searchenginewatch.com/110310-175043 and Google contradicts own counsel in face of antitrust probe http://www.theregister.co.uk/2011/03/11/google_admits_search_algorithm_whitelists/). No big surprises there, as many of us have suspected that was the case for some time, but Google now also lets you set up your own naughty list and block selected sites from your search results. (We’ve already been able to set up nice lists for about a year – Google SearchWiki replaced with starred results http://www.rba.co.uk/wordpress/2010/03/12/google-searchwiki-replaced-with-starred-results/)

You first need to sign in to your Google account and then run your search as normal. For each entry in your results list there should now be a ‘Block’ option for the site.

Google Block Sites

Click on the block option and you will no longer see pages from that site in future searches. If you carry out a search that would normally contain pages from a blocked site you will see a message saying how many results were blocked. You can manage your naughty list and unblock sites by going to your Search Settings or clicking on the “Manage blocked sites” link that appears when you block a domain. Google says that it is not currently using blocked domains as a signal in search ranking but it may do so in the future.

Yet another way for Google to thoroughly mess up our searches.

Firefox

Firefox eQuake Alert

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As I write this the media have moved on from the 8.9 magnitude earthquake that hit Japan earlier today and are now concentrating on the tsunami that is moving across the Pacific. But those in the area originally affected by what is being called a “superquake” now have to endure aftershocks. I discovered a long time ago from friends living in earthquake zones in New Zealand, China and Turkey that the initial quake is often only the beginning of their troubles. Aftershocks can have a devastating effect on weakened buildings, infrastructure and on morale. Those of us living far from the area and who have never experienced such a disaster cannot begin to comprehend what it must be like, despite the horrific images appearing on our TV and computer screens. If you use Firefox you can at least begin to appreciate the frequency of aftershocks and their strength.

eQuake Alert (https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/2239/ or http://www.freebookzone.com/exec.php?cmd=firefox_addon) uses USGS (US Geological Survey) data and adds an alert to the status bar of Firefox showing you the magnitude and location of the latest event.

eQuake Alert in Firefox Statius Bar

Right click on the alert and you can choose to view a list of recent quakes that also gives you date and time.

eQuake Alert list

There is an additional option to “Shake browser on earthquake”. This makes your browser screen wobble when news of a quake comes through and you can set it to shake proportional to earthquake magnitude. So set your options to check the data every 1 minute and to shake your browser as part of the alert every time there is a USGS report. You may also want to set the alerts only for quakes above magnitude 5. Yes,  it  is extremely irritating but leave it on for 15 minutes. At least you will have an idea of  what is happening and perhaps begin to understand what it must be like for those trying to survive in the quake zone.

Update: Two people have got back to me reporting that when they try to install eQuake Alert  they are told that it has not been updated for their latest version of Firefox. I forgot that I have the Nightly Tester Tools add-on installed, which lets me “Force Addon Compatibility”. If you want to give eQuake Alert a try the Nightly Tester Tools is at https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/nightly-tester-tools/. I have not so far experienced any problems by forcing eQuake Alert compatibility with the latest version of Firefox.