Archive for October, 2007

Google and Halloween

google-halloween-logo Hey.. it is Halloween today and Google got new interesting logo as always for us. I always amazed by their creativity in decorating their logo, they also still preserve their official color!

Halloween

Holiday observed on October 31, the eve of All Saints’ Day.
Its pagan origins can be traced to the Celtic festival of Samhain, celebrated in ancient England and Ireland to mark the beginning of the Celtic new year. The souls of the dead were supposed to revisit their homes on Samhain eve, and witches, goblins, black cats, and ghosts were said to roam abroad. The night was also thought to be the most favorable time for divinations concerning marriage, luck, health, and death. The pagan observances influenced the Christian festival of All Hallows’ Eve, celebrated on the same date. The holiday was gradually secularized and was introduced into the U.S. by the late 19th century. Still associated with evil spirits and the supernatural, it is celebrated by children in costume who gather candy by ringing doorbells and calling out “trick or treat,” “trick” referring to the pranks and vandalism that are also part of the Halloween tradition.

You can also check out previous Google Holiday Logos and Events.

Happy Halloween all !

Can’t Download from Windows Live Gallery?

Anyone have problem downloading from Windows Live Gallery? I just tried to download acronym plugins for Windows Live Writer from there but when I clicked install button nothing happened, weird…

windows-live-gallery

I’m not sure when they got this verification, but I think last time I download there is no such thing there.

I tried with all browser I had, Internet Explorer, Maxthon and Firefox but still failed. In Maxthon and Internet Explorer, I got a couple of JavaScript error notification such as this:

Line:45
Char:1
Code:0
Error:’s’ is undefined
URL:http://gallery.live.com/search.aspx?q=acronym

and this…

Line:193
Char:67
Code:0
Error:Expected ‘;’
URL:http://gallery.live.com/search.aspx?q=acronym

Digging a little bit in the source code (I tried to find the download link actually) showing me this

<button class="default"
onclick="DownloadItem(this,'908829d1-f935-4084-bbe4-5e84afa784dc',14,1,'
wictorwilen','dc606024-0dd6-4761-9af8-1bf25f5e5b1a',0,0,8,
'httpx3ax2fx2fdownload.gallery.start.comx2fd.dll
x2f2x7e14x7e954x7e2273x2fAcronymsWLWPluginSetup.msi');
return false;" id="btnDownload" type="button"><div>Download
</div></button>

I don’t know if this is advanced technique or what but the URL look weird. Not resembling valid URL format, maybe they try to decode, encode, track or whatever.

//s.linkLeaveQueryString=true
s.trackDownloadLinks=true
s.trackExternalLinks=true
s.linkDownloadFileTypes="exe,zip,msi,gadget,cab,btn"
var PageName = 'LC_liveitemdetail';
var m_iMasterLiveItemTypeId ='';;
var m_bDoOmnitureTracking = true;

Did they track every click?

Back to topic, anyone else experience this or only me? I don’t think this is my fault because I can download from anywhere else just fine…

YouTube’s New Design Preview

youtube-sneak-preview

According to YouTube’s Blog they will make a number of large changes for the site over the next few months. For the time being they give sneak preview of the new YouTube’s video browsing page.

Some of their improvements:

  • Categories will now be found under the "Videos" tab.
  • Dropdown menus make for a smoother transition when clicking through popular pages, ie. "Most Viewed," "Top Favorites," "Recently Featured," etc.
  • Tabs and video browsing pages have a new overall look and feel.

This latest change will greatly improve video browsing experience with easy to access frequent used links.

While a lot of other blogger complained the too bright red color, I just love them, it really make the page stand out. Maybe this also to match YouTube logo color?

Firefox: Open Firefox Search Result in a New Tab

If you use Mozilla Firefox search bar a lot, you must be annoyed by the default behavior to open search result in the current page. That’s mean you will lost what ever you currently viewing, overwritten by the search result. Worry no more, here is a good news for you, you actually can change Firefox behavior to always open search result in a new page.

open firefox search result in a new tab

Good news by Firefox advanced configurations

As probably guess, ALL this secret functions nowhere to find in the normal options dialog, it is in hidden advanced configurations. Follow me.

  1. Click on the address bar (shortcut, CTRL + L), to change focus to address bar.
  2. Type about:config and press enter. A new page will open with bunch of things.
  3. Lets get rid of whatever we don’t need by typing search in the filter bar.
  4. Still a lot of things there but we are only interested with browser.search.openintab line.
  5. Double click that line and you will see the value changed to true (the default value is false, that’s mean search result will always open in current page)
  6. You will noticed the line will be bolded to give visual help that the default value has been changed.

Now we are done, the effect will be activate immediately. Try type something in the search bar and you will see Firefox open the search result in a new tab.

Another case closed :D

Firefox 2 Release v2.0.0.8

This is new minor release containing security updates, Mac OS X 10.5 (Leopard) support and some new language.

Fixed security issues:

  • URIs with invalid %-encoding mishandled by Windows
  • XPCNativeWrapper pollution using Script object
  • Possible file stealing through sftp protocol
  • XUL pages can hide the window titlebar
  • File input focus stealing vulnerability
  • Browser digest authentication request splitting
  • onUnload Tailgating
  • Crashes with evidence of memory corruption (rv:1.8.1.8)

As always, you can download latest Mozilla Firefox at official site or read version Mozilla Firefox 2.0.0.8 full release notes.

Google Analytics Team Announced New Features

Brett Crosby announced several new Google Analytics features that will be rolled out over the coming weeks at the eMetrics Summit in Washington, D.C. Here is the major changes: Tracking site search activity, Event Tracking capability, Outbound Link Tracking and new Urchin Software Brett Crosby announced several new Google Analytics features that will be rolled out over the coming weeks at the eMetrics Summit in Washington, D.C.

Here is the major changes:

  • Tracking site search activity - You can find out what people search for on your site and where these searches lead.
  • Event Tracking capability - New report option designed to help you understand how people use and interact with Ajax, Flash and multimedia on your site without artificially increasing your page view metrics.
  • Outbound Link Tracking - This feature will report on links visitors clicked on your site that direct them to another site.
  • Urchin Software - Urchin software from Google limited beta is a software product that you can run on your own servers. It got similar interface with previous Google Analytics interface.

By the way, one tracking site search feature will be available to public, the other two are limited beta test that you have to contact their Authorized Consultant to participate.

Joost Released Beta v1.0.2

Joost has released new minor version improvement mainly fixing bugs.

Official release: Joost Beta 1.0.2. Release date: October 17, 2007
Filename: JoostSetup-Beta-1.0.2.exe, Filesize: 10.1 MB.

This version still in beta 1.0 version and will also carry the old release notes.