Bristle Software Internet Tips

Details of Tips:

Fred Stluka's Links Page

Last Updated: 4/23/2000
Applies to: Internet, World Wide Web

Check out my links page for links to lots of useful Web sites.

--Fred

Beware Hoaxes and Scams

Last Updated: 12/4/2007
Applies to: Internet, World Wide Web

Beware of hoaxes and scams, especially those leading to identity theft.

Here's a fun cartoon video that is worth watching every now and then to remind you not to fall for these things.

http://info.org.il/irrelevant/may02-smilepop-soapbox4.swf

On a more serious note...

There are tons of hoaxes circulating via e-mail these days. No, you probably didn't win the UK lottery, if you'll just send them your name, addresss, age, ... No, it is probably not a good idea to send bank account info to that friendly Nigerian official so he can use your account to transfer massive amounts of money out of the country before the rebels get it. Etc...

Here's a typical one that arrives by phone, not e-mail:

Jury Duty Scam

The phone rings and the caller says you missed jury duty and a warrant has been issued for your arrest. When you say you never got any notice of jury duty, he asks for more info, so he can check the records, clear up the confusion, and get the warrant cancelled. He asks for your SSN, birth date, etc.

You just got scammed and gave away the info he needs to steal your identity.

For more info, see:
    http://www.snopes.com/crime/fraud/juryduty.asp
    http://www.truthorfiction.com/rumors/j/jury_duty_scam.htm
    http://www.fbi.gov/page2/june06/jury_scams060206.htm

Here's a really common e-mail one:

Identity Already Stolen Scam

You get an e-mail that seems to be from your bank, claiming someone may already have stolen your identity, and asking you to login to your bank account to confirm that fact, and to get started resolving the problem.

The e-mail looks real, because it uses the bank's graphical logos, and has lots of links to the real bank site (its privacy policy page, its page for changing your password, etc.). It is also full of warnings to not fall for scams. However, the one link it asks you to click to login is a bogus link that takes you to a page that looks exactly like the login screen of the bank, but which collects your username and password for its own purposes. After doing so, it may even use the username and password to log you in to the real bank site, so you never notice that you were scammed.

The one thing to watch for in advance is the status bar at the bottom of your e-mail window that, when you hover over a link before clicking on it, shows the URL that the link will take you to. You may notice that it says something like:
       http://225.142.76.88/citiback.com/login.jsp
or:
        http://something.ru/citibank.com/login.jsp
or something, instead of just:
        http://citibank.com/login.jsp
However, not all e-mail programs show such info, and even that can be faked sometimes.

For more info, see:
        http://millersmiles.co.uk/identitytheft/citibank-email-verification-hoax.htm

The best way to be safe is to NEVER give out personal info and NEVER log into a Web site, unless you initiated the contact. If you called them at the standard phone number, or you went to the standard Web site to do your on-line banking, fine, but if they called you, or they sent you an e-mail with a link, beware!!

If anyone contacts you, via e-mail or phone, asking you to login with your username and password, or asking you for info like account number, age, address, username, password, PIN, SSN, credit card number, etc., no matter how plausible the context, ask yourself:

What proof do I have that they are legit?

Does it sound too good to be true?

Wouldn't the real agency/company/whatever already have that info about me?

If you want to check out a particular e-mail or phone call to see if it's a hoax, check any of the hoax-debunking sites listed at:
http://bristle.com/~fred/#hoaxes

Thanks to Carol Hebert for sending me the warning about the jury duty scam, and to Mary Neviska and Carol Stluka for sending me the video!

Feel free (but not obliged:-) to forward this warning to your friends.

--Fred

Running Javascript from Address bar

Last Updated: 6/16/2000
Applies to: Netscape 3+, IE 3+

You can run simple Javascript programs directly from the Address bar of the browser. For example, to find out the date that a Web page was last modified, type the following URL into the Address bar while viewing the page:

javascript:alert(document.lastModified)

For convenience, I added this URL to my Netscape Bookmarks.

--Fred

Changing font size in Web browsers

Original Version: 10/22/2004
Last Updated: 7/5/2007
Applies to: Firefox 1.0+, Netscape 3+, IE 6+

Hard to read the tiny font size at some Web sites? (Happens to me more and more lately, as I get older!) Even if you can read it okay, do you sometimes need a larger font during presentations and demos?

In recent versions of Netscape (6, 7, 8, 9, etc.), and in all versions of Mozilla Firefox, simply hit:

Ctrl-Plus or Ctrl-Minus

a few times to grow or shrink the text to the size you want, from absurdly huge with one word filling the entire screen (2000%) to nearly microscopic (5%). In older versions of Netscape (4, 3, etc.), grow or shrink with:

Ctrl-] or Ctrl-[

If you forget these key combinations, check the Netscape menu:

View | Text Zoom

which offers these same features, plus 7 preset sizes, plus the ability to type in a custom zoom factor directly. It also remembers the custom zoom factor you chose, so you can quickly revert to that exact zoom factor after a temporary zoom in or out.

In Firefox, it's the menu:

View | Text Size

which offers options to increase, decrease or reset to default size (Ctrl-Zero). In Firefox (and Netscape 8 and 9, which use the Firefox engine internally), you can also grow or shrink the text size via:

Ctrl-Wheel

That is, by holding down the Ctrl key and using the mouse wheel.

Internet Explorer 6.0 offers a limited version of this feature, but no shortcut keys, no custom zoom, and only 5 preset sizes, ranging from 100% to 175%. Use the menu:

View | Text Size

It also supports Ctrl-Wheel, but again only for the 5 preset sizes. It also remembers your current zoom setting and continues to use it if you close the browser and re-open it later.

I haven't tried it yet, but I hear that Internet Explorer 7.0 supports Ctrl-Plus and Ctrl-Minus in a different and perhaps better way. There is a problem with simply growing or shrinking the text on a Web page. Depending on how well the Web page was written, simply changing the text size may or may not cause other page elements to move out of the way to make room for the text. Therefore, poorly written pages may not look good at different text sizes. For example, text may grow to overlap other text or pictures, or things may get chopped off if they do move to avoid overlap. Also, images (GIF, JPEG, etc.) do not grow and shrink with the text. This can make the page look bad, and can also be confusing when what looks like text is actually a picture of text and so doesn't grow or shrink with the rest of the text on the page. Internet Explorer 7.0 solves these problems by growing and shrinking the entire page, not just the text. As I said, I haven't tried it yet, but it sounds good.

So, why haven't I tried it? Microsoft doesn't make it easy. I can install Netscape 3, 4, 6, 7, 8, 9, Firefox 1.0, 1.5, 2.0 etc. all on the same box for testing purposes, but I need a separate box (or at least a separate Windows installation) for each version of Internet Explorer. Each new install wipes out the older version. If I don't like the new version, there is no way to get back to the old version without re-installing the entire Windows operating system and reinstalling and reconfiguring all of my installed applications. I asked a friend at Microsoft about this, and he says their current answer to this problem, for testing a Web application on multiple browsers, is to download free temporary versions of Windows pre-installed with various versions of Internet Explorer. See:

http://blogs.msdn.com/ie/archive/2007/04/17/ie7-virtual-pc-image-and-ie6-virtual-pc-image-refresh.aspx

Not exactly what I was after. What I'd really prefer is to be able to flip back and forth between versions, on the same PC, the same Windows installation, etc. With all of the other browsers, I can write a simple batch file to load a page into multiple browsers and do a quick manual test on each. Or I can write a full fledged regression test suite and run it on each browser. Having to stop the automated tests, boot to a new Windows installation, and resume testing on that Windows installation (where I would also have had to install all of my testing software) is a major bump in the road.

Anyhow, things seem to be changing fast in the browser world, with the various vendors copying each other's ideas, and leapfrogging each other with new and better features. Competition is good!

Thanks to the following for their contributions to this tip!

        James Higgins
        Alex Leshinsky
        Tom Stluka
        Joe McPeak
        Mark Georg

P.S. I finally managed to get Internet Explorer 7.0 installed and tried it out. I decided to bite the bullet and take the irreversible step of upgrading a computer from IE6 to IE7. I went to the Microsoft site to download IE7.

Oops! It requires WinXP, not just Win2K. I prefer Win2K, so I decided to not upgrade that computer. However, I do have a WinXP computer around here somewhere, so I decided to install there.

Oops! It requires WinXP Service Pack 2, not just Service Pack 1. I did a full backup, just in case, then downloaded the 200MB SP2 for an hour and installed, and allowed it to reboot. Now, on to IE7.

Oops! It requires me to install the "Genuine Windows Validation Component" ActiveX control first, before it will let me do the download. OK, I guess... (What am I getting myself into? I've spent most of a day on this already, and I just keep getting in deeper. Yesterday, I installed and tested my software against Firefox 1.0, 1.5, and 2.0, and Netscape 3, 4, 6, 7, 8, and 9, all in one day, with no reboots and no problems.)

Finally, do the download, install it, and let it reboot.

Oops! Computer won't reboot. Totally black screen! Glad I did that backup! Tried a couple more times, powering off and on and eventually got lucky. I wonder what broke it? WinXP SP2, the ActiveX control, or IE7? It managed to boot OK during the WinXP install, but then the install continued. Who knows?

I wonder what else is now broken, or modified to suit Microsoft's interests, on that computer? Who knows... Things generally seem to be working. So, let's try out the Zoom on IE7.

Oops! Bugs. IE 7 does support Ctrl-Plus, Ctrl-Minus, Ctrl-Zero, and Ctrl-Wheel. However, on most pages, zooming in or out also jumps to the top of the Web page, so you have to page back down to find the thing you were trying to zoom in on. It doesn't happen with all pages though. It jumps to the top when viewing the main Microsoft page, for example, but not when viewing the AOL page.

Also, incompatibilities. For some reason, IE7 uses Ctrl-Wheel to zoom in the opposite direction from the other browsers that added this feature years ago. Up zooms in, and down zooms out. Oh well, back to Firefox...

--Fred

Mozilla Firefox

Intro to Firefox

Original Version: 4/15/2007
Last Updated: 6/6/2008
Applies to: Firefox 1.0+

Firefox is a very fast, powerful, secure Web browser. I recommend it strongly over Microsoft Internet Explorer. It has much better features and much better security. With Firefox, it is very unlikely that your computer will become infected with a virus as you browse the Web. Also, it is more compliant with Web standards than any other browser, so it works at pretty much any Web site.

You can download and install it for free from:

    http://mozilla.org

Firefox is derived from the older browsers "Mozilla" and "Netscape", sharing much of the source code with them, but adding lots of new features. Its popularity has been growing rapidly for the past couple years. According to the Web site:

    http://www.w3schools.com/browsers/browsers_stats.asp

its share of the browser market has grown from:

    5.5% in Jan 2004 (as Mozilla), to
    16.6% in Jan 2005, to
    25.0% in Jan 2006, to
    31.0% in Jan 2007, to
    36.4% in Jan 2008

and still growing strong. I started using it in 2004 and have never looked back (and never had a virus).

Firefox is "open source", so anyone can look at the source code, find bugs, and add new features. Hundreds of people have written useful add-ons that you can download and install for free. There are plugins to support: Adobe Acrobat, Flash, RealPlayer, Shockwave, Windows Media Player, etc. There are also tons of extensions for searching, calendars, photo organizers, map lookups, debugging JavaScript code, etc. See the list of add-ons at:

    https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/

Try it! You'll love it!

--Fred

Firefox Shortcut Keys

Original Version: 4/15/2007
Last Updated: 2/6/2008
Applies to: Firefox 1.0+

Here is a list of some of the more useful shortcut keys in Firefox.

Key	Function
Ctrl-Plus / Minus / Zero	Larger/smaller/default font size
Ctrl-Wheel	Larger/smaller font size

F11	Toggle full screen mode

Shift-Click	Open link in new window
Ctrl-Click	Open link in new tab
Alt-Enter	Open typed address in new tab
Alt-F4	Close browser window

Ctrl-N	New window
Ctrl-T	New tab
Ctrl-F4	Close current tab
Middle Mouse Click	Close tab

Alt-Left / Right	Back/Forward
Backspace / Shift-Backspace	Back/Forward
Alt-Home	Home page
Esc	Stop loading page
F5 / Ctrl-R	Reload page
Ctrl-F5 / Ctrl-Shift-R	Force reload page (bypassing cache)

' (apostrophe)	Incremental Find Link
/	Incremental Find Text
Ctrl-F / Ctrl-G	Find / Find Next
F3 / Shift-F3	Find Next/Previous

Arrow Keys	Scroll down/up/right/left
PageDn / PageUp	Page down/up
Space / Shift-Space	Page down/up
Home / End	Go to beginning/end of page
Ctrl-Home / End	Go to beginning/end of page

Tab / Shift-Tab	Go to the next/previous clickable link, text input field, button, checkbox, etc., wrapping around as necessary.
Enter	Click the current link
Space	Click the current button, checkbox, etc.

F1	Help

Drag	Select
Ctrl-Drag	Rectangular Select

Ctrl-A	Select All
Ctrl-C	Copy
Ctrl-V	Paste
Ctrl-P	Print
Ctrl-O	Open File

Ctrl-D	Bookmark this page
Ctrl-Shift-D	Bookmark all tabs
Ctrl-B / Ctrl-I	Manage Bookmarks

Ctrl-K / Ctrl-E	Select Web Search Bar
Alt-D / F6 / Ctrl-L	Select Location Bar
F10	Go to menu bar
Shift-F10	Pop up right mouse menu
Alt-Space	Open the system menu (restore, move, size, minimize, maximize, close)

Ctrl-Left / Up	Move Tab Left (when tab is focused)
Ctrl-Right / Down	Move Tab Right (when tab is focused)
Ctrl-Home / End	Move Tab to Beginning/End (when tab is focused)

F6 / Shift-F6	Next/Previous Frame
Ctrl-Tab / Ctrl-Shift-Tab	Next/Previous Tab
Ctrl-PageDn / PageUp	Next/Previous Tab
Ctrl-1/2/3/4/5/6/7/8/9	Select tab 1/2/3/4/5/6/7/8/9

Ctrl-Z	Undo
Ctrl-Y	Redo

F7	Toggle "cursor browsing mode" (so you can move a cursor around the page via the arrow keys, follow links via Enter, etc.)

Shift-Del	Delete selected Autocomplete entry.

Ctrl-U	View Page Source

Ctrl-Shift-I	DOM Inspector

Note that these keys are defined for Firefox on Windows. The keys are similar but different on other platforms (Linux, Mac) to conform to the conventions on those platforms.

Also, Firefox on Windows supports other keys that are common to many Windows applications. See: Windows Shortcut Keys.

For a complete list of Firefox keys (tailored to your platform), see the Firefox on-line help: Help | Help Contents | Keyboard Shortcuts.

Many of these keys are also supported by other browsers. Even if you're not using Firefox, try them in your browser. You may be pleasantly surprised.

This list is far from complete. Please feel free to mail me your favorite shortcuts. I'll add to this list as time permits. Contributors so far include:
Andriy Palamarchuk

--Fred

Changing font size

Last Updated: 4/15/2007
Applies to: Firefox 1.0+

Firefox allows you easily change font size. See:

Changing font size in Web browsers

--Fred

Multiple Home Pages

Original Version: 4/15/2007
Last Updated: 4/24/2007
Applies to: Firefox 1.0+, IE 7.0+

Firefox allows you to have multiple Home pages, so that each page opens in a separate tab when you open the browser or click Home. To set this up, go to:

Tools | Options | General | Home Page | Location(s)

and put multiple names separated by vertical bars, as:

http://bristle.com|http://google.com|http://yahoo.com

Alternatively, you can open the pages as multiple tabs and then use:

Tools | Options | General | Home Page | Use Current Pages

Or you can choose a folder of your bookmarks to be the tabs via:

Tools | Options | General | Home Page | Use Bookmark...

You can also maintain multiple sets of tabs for easy access without making them your home pages. You simply group them as folders of bookmarks, and access them via any of the following:

I haven't tried it yet, but I hear that Internet Explorer 7.0 also supports multiple tabs and multiple home pages.

Thanks to the following for their contributions to this tip!

        Mark Georg
        Joe McPeak
        Tom Stluka

--Fred

View Live Source

Last Updated: 4/15/2007
Applies to: Firefox 1.0+

Firefox allows you to view the "live source" of a Web page. See:

http://bristle.com/Tips/JavaScript.htm#firefox_view_live_source

--Fred

Microsoft Internet Explorer

Autocompletion of typed URLs in IE 4.0

Last Updated: 10/10/1999
Applies to: IE 4+

Microsoft Internet Explorer has a feature that is usually, but not always, convenient. As you type a URL into the Address box, it searches the list of URLs that you have previously typed and completes the URL with any matching one it finds. This can be a problem, if you ever typed a URL that was slightly wrong. It keeps insisting on completing the URL incorrectly. For example, if a URL is case sensitive, and you once typed it with the wrong case, how do you get IE to leave the case the way you want it? Even if you type it exactly right and hit Enter, it converts it to match the incorrect one. One solution is to leave a space in the URL while typing it, then go back and delete the space just before hitting Enter. Tedious, but it works.

--Fred

History of typed URLs in IE 4.0

Last Updated: 10/10/1999
Applies to: IE 4+

The list of "typed URLs" (the ones you have manually typed into the Address box) of Internet Explorer is stored in the Windows registry, at:
```
	[HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Internet Explorer\TypedURLs]
```
At startup, IE reads named values from this registry key with the names url1, url2, url3, ... url25, stopping at the first one that is not defined. You can use the registry editor to delete or modify these URLs.

--Fred

Google

Google Web Apps, no login required

You can run the following free applications directly at the Google Web site, using any Web browser. You don't have to download or install any software, and you don't need a Google login.

Google Search

You are probably already familiar with the basics of Google Search. Go to:

http://google.com

type in words, and see a list of links to Web pages containing those words. However, there may be more features than you realize.

Google Search Basics
Last Updated: 11/6/2007

At the Google Search web site, you can also:
1. Put multiple words in quotes to search for an exact multi-word phrase, as:
  "java programming language"
2. Do more complicated searches like:
  (java OR j2ee) programming -island -country
  to specify words where one or the other must be in the Web page, and other words must not be in the page.
3. Click the "Advanced Search" link to be prompted for details of more advanced searches.
  Or go directly there via: http://google.com/advanced_search
4. Click the "Preferences" link to specify personal preferences like how many matches to show on each results page (default is 10, but I prefer 100), whether to open a new browser window (or tab) for the results instead of using the same browser window, etc. These preferences are saved on your computer and remembered next time you use Google Search from the same computer.
5. Click "Language Tools" for language translation (English to French, etc.)
  Or go directly to the translation page via: http://translate.google.com
For more info, see:

    http://google.com/help/features.html
    http://google.com/help/cheatsheet.html
        - Thanks to Thor Collard for pointing me to this last one!

--Fred

Google Search Synonym

Last Updated: 11/18/2007

You can tell Google to search for synonyms of the word you specified, by prefixing the word with tilde ("~"),as:

~garden design

which finds pages containing "design", as well as any of "garden", "plant", "landscape", etc.

For more info, see:

http://www.google.com/help/cheatsheet.html

--Fred

Google Search Number Range

Original Version: 11/18/2007
Last Updated: 11/30/2007

You can tell Google to search for any number in a specified range by specifying an ellipsis (with 2 dots or 3 dots), as:

        2004..2007
        2004...2007
        DVD player $100..150

This last one searches for the words DVD and Player, along with any dollar amount in the range $100-150, so it tends to find DVD players for sale in that price range.

For more info, see:

http://www.google.com/help/cheatsheet.html

Thanks to Carol Hebert for advice on clarifying this tip!

--Fred

Google Search Calculator

Original Version: 11/1/2007
Last Updated: 11/13/2007

At the Google Search web site, you can enter an arithmetic expression instead of words to search for. Google evaluates the expression and shows you the answer. For example:

1+2 (shows 3)
2.5*1.9 (shows 4.75)

It also converts between different units and currencies as:

5 pounds in kg (shows 2.26796185 kilograms)
6 tsp in tbsp (shows 2 US tablespoons)
5 currency of Brazil in Malaysian money (shows 5 Brazil reais = 9.37128344 Malaysian ringgits)
Note: The currency conversions are not guaranteed to be absolutely current. However, they are probably pretty good since Google pulls them from CitiBank.

It handles a wide variety of mathematical functions like sin(), cos(), sqrt(), log(), ln(), etc., and constants like pi, e, c, etc.

It supports decimal numbers, as well as octal, binary, hexadecimal.

For more info, see:

    http://google.com/help/features.html#calculator
    http://google.com/help/features.html#currency
    http://google.com/help/calculator.html
    http://www.google.com/help/cheatsheet.html

--Fred

Google Search Movie

Original Version: 10/27/2007
Last Updated: 2/1/2009

To limit a Google search to pages about movies, include the special word:

    movie:

including the colon, among the search words. This is an easy way to find a movie when you can only remember what it was about, or an actor who was in it or something.

Alternatively, you can find show times for movies at nearby theaters, by including any of the special words:

    movies
    showtimes

You will be prompted for a zip code or city name, and can ask to have that saved for future searches. Or you can specify the zip code on the search as:

    movies 19355
    showtimes 19355

You can also search for the name of a movie and get a list of show times for that movie at nearby theaters.

For more info, see:

    http://google.com/help/features.html#movie

--Fred

Google Search Define

Original Version: 11/3/2007
Last Updated: 2/1/2009

To use Google Search to find the definition of a word, include the special word:

define:

including the colon, among the search words. Google will show you a list of definitions of the term along with links to more detailed definitions in WikiPedia, various dictionaries, and other sites.

For more info, see:

http://google.com/help/features.html#dictionary

--Fred

Google Search Phonebook

Original Version: 11/2/2007
Last Updated: 2/1/2009

You can use Google Search to look up phone numbers. Just search for any combination of:

first name (or first initial), last name, city (state is optional)
first name (or first initial), last name, state
first name (or first initial), last name, area code
first name (or first initial), last name, zip code
phone number, including area code
last name, city, state
last name, zip code

Then click the Map link to see a map to their house. Then click the Satellite link to see a satellite photo of the house. Zoom in and you may even see them working in the back garden. :-)

You can also do reverse lookups. Search for a phone number and see who has that number.

For more info (and to remove yourself from the Google phone book, if you like), see:

http://www.google.com/support/websearch/bin/answer.py?hl=en&answer=9112

--Fred

Google Search Area Code

Last Updated: 11/2/2007

Search Google for a 3-digit telephone area code. It shows you a link to a map of the area covered by the area code. The link takes you to the right map in http://www.whitepages.com.

For more info, see:

http://google.com/help/features.html#number

--Fred

Google Search City

Last Updated: 11/2/2007

Search Google for a city name to see a link to a Google Map of the city.

Include a city name among your Google search terms to limit the search to the specified city. This is useful when searching for local businesses, schools, etc.

For more info, see:

http://google.com/help/features.html#local

--Fred

Google Search Zip Code

Last Updated: 11/2/2007

Search Google for a zip code to find out what city and state uses it, and a link to a Google Map of the area.

Include a zip code among your Google search terms to limit the search to the specified zip code. This is useful when searching for local businesses, schools, etc.

For more info, see:

http://google.com/help/features.html#local

--Fred

Google Search Address

Last Updated: 11/3/2007

Search Google for a street address to see a link to a Google Map of the address and a button to get directions to/from the address.

Just type the address into the Google Search text box, in ordinary format, as:

1011 West King Rd, Malvern, PA

--Fred

Google Search Site

Original Version: 11/2/2007
Last Updated: 2/1/2009

To limit a Google search to a specific Web site, specify the site name prefixed with "site:" among the search words. For example, to find all occurrences of the word "reload" in any of the pages at the Bristle Software site, search for:

site:bristle.com reload

You can also get a complete list of the pages from a Web site that have been indexed by Google. For example:

site:bristle.com

For more info, see:

http://google.com/support/websearch/bin/static.py?page=searchguides.html&ctx=advanced#domain

--Fred

Google Search Spell Checker

Last Updated: 11/3/2007

Google Search checks not only for the exact words you specify, but also for slight misspellings that occur more often than the spelling you used. Therefore, it makes a great spell checker. If you are not sure whether the word is spelled:

occurrence

or:

occurrance

try searching Google for each one. The wrong one (occurrance) will come back with fewer matches and prompt you:

Did you mean: occurrence

This is not based on a dictionary. It is based on the number of matches on all of the Web pages indexed by Google. Therefore, it is better than a dictionary in that it reflects common usage in the modern world, not only at the time a dictionary was written. It finds new slang terms before they are added to any dictionaries, and finds common misspellings that are becoming generally accepted, etc.

For more info, see:

http://google.com/help/features.html#spell

--Fred

Google Search Stock Ticker

Last Updated: 11/3/2007

Search Google for a stock or fund ticker symbol (like YHOO, HD, or GE) and it shows you a graph of the stock or fund value for the past day, along with links to the stock or fund at various financial Web sites, like Google Finance, Yahoo Finance, MSN Money, MarketWatch, CNN Money, and Reuters.

If you don't know the exact stock ticker symbol, search for the company name (like Yahoo, Home Depot, or General Electric). You'll get a brief description of the company, a link to its Web site, and a link like:

+ Stock quote for GE

that expands to the daily graph and links you'd have seen for the stock ticker.

For more info, see:

http://google.com/help/features.html#stock

--Fred

Google Search Weather

Last Updated: 11/3/2007

Search Google for the special word "weather" followed by a city name, like:

weather malvern

and it shows you the current temperature and weather conditions for that city, along with a 4-day forecast, all pulled from http://wunderground.com. If necessary to get the right city, throw in a state, zip code, or country name also.

For more info, see:

http://google.com/help/features.html#weather

--Fred

Google Search Travel

Original Version: 11/3/2007
Last Updated: 2/1/2009

Search Google for the special word "airport" preceded by an airport 3-letter code, like:

phl airport

and it shows you the current conditions at that airport, pulled from http://www.fly.faa.gov.

Search for a flight name and number, like:

united 134

and it shows you links to track the status of that flight at various travel sites, like Travelocity, Expedia, etc.

For more info, see:

http://google.com/help/features.html#airline

--Fred

Google Search Date

Original Version: 11/13/2007
Last Updated: 12/11/2007

Want a way to restrict a Google search to recent info?

According to the Google Cheat Sheet:

http://google.com/help/cheatsheet.html

you can add the special word "date:" followed by a number, to restrict a Google search to pages first found by Google within that many months of today. However, I can't quite get it to work. I've tried with and without a space after the colon. Instead, it searches for the word "date".

However, at the Google Advanced Search page, you can choose any of the following from the "Return web pages first seen in the" dropdown:

        past 24 hours
        past week
        past month
        past 2 months
        past 3 months
        past 6 months
        past year

and it works just fine. If you look closely at the generated URL for the search results page, you'll notice a parameter added to specify the date range:

&as_qdr=d past 24 hours

&as_qdr=w past week

&as_qdr=m past month

&as_qdr=m2 past 2 months

&as_qdr=m3 past 3 months

&as_qdr=m6 past 6 months

&as_qdr=y past year

Apparently, "as_qdr" stands for "advanced search query date range", and the values (d, w, m, m2, m3, m6, y) are obviously days, weeks, months, and years. I tried a few that were not available via the drop down, and they worked also, so it seems like a general purpose mechanism:

&as_qdr=d2 past 2 days

&as_qdr=d3 past 3 days

&as_qdr=w2 past 2 weeks

&as_qdr=m4 past 4 months

&as_qdr=y3 past 3 years

Anyone know the syntax to do it from within the Google search box, instead of having to use the Advanced Search page or edit the URL directly?

Wait a minute! What am I thinking? Why ask all of you? Just Google it! Duh...

OK. Searching for:

google search date range

shows interesting results:

http://reviews.cnet.com/4520-10165_7-6206764-2.html
An article about how to restrict a search to a starting and ending date via the syntax:
daterange:startdate-enddate
Unfortunately, startdate and enddate must be expressed as "Julian dates" like 2454445 for 12/11/2007, and 2454438 for 12/4/2007. Julian dates (a counter of days since a specific day long ago) are great for computers, but not easy for people.
http://www.gmacker.com/web/content/gDateRange/gdr.htm
A page that offers a friendlier user interface and then uses the above syntax behind the scenes for you. You specify the number of days into the past or choose the start and end dates from a dropdown calendar, and it computes the Julian dates and does the Google search for you.

Still seems like there should be an easier way to do it directly with a Google keyword...

--Fred

Google Search Pics

Original Version: 10/27/2007
Last Updated: 2/1/2009

At the Google Search web site, you can search for images without switching to the Google Image Search site, by entering a word like "images", "pictures", "pics", etc as one of the search words.

However, this is less useful recently since Google started including some images among regular search results by default. Also, you don't get as many images as at the Google Image Search site. Finally, since they've now added an "Images" link to the results page, it is easy to click that link to flip to the Google Image Search site, without even retyping your query.

When doing a Google Image Search, you can limit the search to images of an exact size. Specify the image size prefixed with "imagesize:" among the search words. For example to find pictures of sailboats that are exactly 1152 pixels wide and 864 pixels tall, search for:

sailboat imagesize:1152x864

For more info, see:

http://images.google.com/advanced_image_search

Thanks to Jim Gadrow for telling me about "imagesize:"!

--Fred

Google Search Link

Last Updated: 11/5/2007

It is supposed to be true that if you search Google for a site URL prefixed by "link:", it will show you a list of pages that link to the specified site. However, I can't quite get it to work. I've tried with and without a space after the colon. Without the space, I find very little. With the space, I find pages that mention the URL and the word "link". Anyone know how to make this work?

--Fred

Google Search Info

Last Updated: 11/19/2007

At the Google Search web site, you can ask for the information Google has stored about a specific Web page, by prefixing the URL with "info", as:
        info:bristle.com
        info:http://bristle.com/Tips/Internet.htm
        info:bristle.com/Tips/Internet.htm

This shows you links to useful info about the page, like:

Google's cache of the page
Pages that Google considers similar
Pages that link to it (doesn't seem to work any better than "link:")
Pages from the same site
etc.

For more info, see:

http://google.com/help/cheatsheet.html

--Fred

Google Search Shortcut

Last Updated: 11/3/2007

Want to save your most common Google searches?

You can include the search terms for a Google search in a URL, using the standard URL parameter syntax and the parameter name "q" (which I assume stands for query). For example:

http://google.com/search?q=Fred+Stluka

You can save such a URL as a Windows shortcut, or a browser bookmark/favorite, etc.

Since I spend most of my time at the Windows command line, I save many of my favorites URLs (for Google and other sites) as one-line batch files. I also have a one-line batch file called google.bat that I can use to quickly do Google searches, specifying the search terms as batch file parameters on the command line. The entire contents of google.bat is:

@start http://google.com/search?q=%1+%2+%3+%4+%5+%6+%7+%8+%9

This allows me to type things like:

        google 5 pounds in kg
        google showtimes
        google define:altruistic
        google 1-610-555-1234
        google Malvern, PA
        google 19355
        google site:bristle.com reload
        google occurrance
        google 1011 West King Rd, Malvern, PA
        google weather malvern

at the command line, without having to start a browser and navigate to Google first. This makes it much easier to use Google for the various purposes mentioned in my previous tips, in one simple step without even leaving the command line.

In case you are not familiar with Windows batch files and/or the URL parameter syntax:

The "@" sign causes the command in the batch file to not echo to the command window.
The command "start" causes your default browser to be launched at the specified site.
For more info, see:
http://bristle.com/Tips/Windows.htm#START_File
http://bristle.com/Tips/Windows.htm#START_URL
The %1 through %9 values are replaced by the command line parameters of the batch file.
The "?" and "=" are the standard way to specify a parameter on a URL.
The "+" signs cause the entire URL, including parameters to be treated by Windows as a single parameter of the "start" command. Otherwise, it would search for only the first word. The "+" signs are treated like spaces once they are passed to the Web site.

--Fred

Google Maps

You are probably already familiar with the basics of Google Maps. Go to:

http://maps.google.com

type in an address and see a map of the area. Then drag the map to scroll it left, right, up, or down. Click "Get directions" to get directions from one address to another. However, there may be more features than you realize.

Google Maps Navigation
Original Version: 11/11/2007
Last Updated: 1/27/2008
At the Google Maps web site, you can navigate (browse around in) a map by doing the following:
1. Double-click to zoom in. The zoom is done intelligently.
  1. Common zoom techniques: Whenever you zoom in on anything in any computer program, some stuff stays on the screen and other stuff gets pushed off the sides to make room. Many computer programs use a simplistic zoom algorithm that keeps the center of the screen fixed, pushing the edges out uniformly, or keeping the top left corner fixed and pushing the rest down and to the right.
  2. Google's zoom technique: Google Maps does it more intuitively, moving the point you double-clicked to the center of the screen and then pushing the edges out uniformly. Most people don't even notice exactly what is happening. They just find it very easy to use because it happens to do exactly what they want.
2. Zoom in and out with the mouse wheel. Again, it is done intelligently. Move the mouse to the point of interest and scroll in or out. No need to even click the mouse button. The point stays put and the rest grows or shrinks around it.
3. Zoom in and out with the Plus and Minus keys.
4. Zoom in/out quickly by dragging the displayed slider, not just by clicking the displayed + and - buttons.
5. Scroll left, right, up, and down by holding down the keyboard's arrow keys.
6. Page left, right, up, and down with the Home, End, PageUp, and PageDn keys.
7. Zoom out with the Insert key. (Hey, why not? If your hand is over there by the Home, End, PageUp, and PageDn keys, the nearby Insert key may as well do something useful too!)
8. Click the little arrow button at the bottom right of the map to see a small overview map showing the mapped area in a purple rectangle, in the context of the surrounding area.
9. Quickly scroll the main map by dragging the purple rectangle in the overview map.
10. Return to the location and zoom level you started with, by clicking the small square with 4 tiny arrows that is displayed in the middle of the displayed arrow buttons above the zoom slider.
For more info, see:

http://maps.google.com/support/bin/answer.py?answer=68259
http://maps.google.com/support

--Fred

Google Maps Searching

Original Version: 11/11/2007
Last Updated: 1/27/2008

At the Google Maps web site, you can search for a new map by doing the following:

Type 2 street names or highway route numbers separated by the word "and" to find the intersection of the roads. For example:
king street and us 30, malvern
Type 2 addresses separated by the word "to" to get directions from one place to another without having to click "Get directions" first. For example:
malvern pa to breeze way circle olney md
Type in a business name and city to find directions to the business, like:
primavera pizza kitchen, downingtown PA

For more info, see:

    http://maps.google.com/support
    http://maps.google.com/support/bin/answer.py?answer=68474
    http://maps.google.com/support/bin/topic.py?topic=10780

--Fred

Google Maps Routing

Original Version: 11/11/2007
Last Updated: 1/27/2008

At the Google Maps web site, there are lots of ways to get more than simply the default route from one starting location to one final destination. You can also:

Drag the blue route line on the map to force it to take a different route.
1. Very useful if you prefer to use US 1 instead of I-95 to get from Pennsylvania to Maryland, for example.
2. The distance and time estimate are constantly updated as you drag, so you can quickly consider and discard alternatives.
3. Use Alt-Left or the Web browser's Back button to return to the previous route.
Click on a step number in the directions to see a blowup of that turn.
Click "Add destination" to add an additional destination. You can use that to plan out an entire delivery route or series of errands, with directions from each stop to the next. Or just drag the blue route line to an intermediate destination to insert another stop.
Drag a destination up or down in the list of directions to change the order of your stops.
Click the Edit button next to the starting point or a destination in the list of instructions to change to a different address.
Type 3 or more addresses separated by the word "to:" (with a colon) to quickly create a route from one place to a second, to a third, etc. For example:
malvern pa to: breeze way circle olney md to: annapolis md
Click "Avoid Highways" to take the scenic route.
There used to be some fun things at Google Maps, also. A while back, I was directed by my brother Tom, and by Lorri Benyaker, and by Helen Loiacono, to check out step #23 of:
        http://maps.google.com/maps?q=new+york+to+paris
where it said:
        22. Turn right at Long Wharf 0.1 mi
        23. Swim across the Atlantic Ocean 3,462 mi (29 days 0 hours)
        24. Slight right at E05 0.5 mi (2 mins)
However, someone has since removed that, and you now get a much more boring page that says:
        We could not calculate driving directions between new york and paris.
For a complete copy of the old directions, see:
        http://hubpages.com/hub/Driving_directions_to_Paris__France
Anyone know of any fun ones that are still in there?

For more info, see:

http://maps.google.com/support
http://maps.google.com/support/bin/answer.py?answer=68475

--Fred

Google Maps Satellite View

Original Version: 11/11/2007
Last Updated: 1/27/2008

At the Google Maps web site, you can:

Click "Satellite" to see a satellite photo of the area.
Click the "Show labels" checkbox that drops down from the "Satellite" button to hide/show street names and other labels superimposed on the photo.

For more info, see:

http://maps.google.com/support/bin/answer.py?answer=68476

--Fred

Google Maps Street View

Original Version: 11/11/2007
Last Updated: 1/27/2008

At the Google Maps web site, you can:

Click "Street View" to see a draggable, zoomable, rotatable view of what it looks like as you drive along that route in your car.
1. This is similar to Google Earth, except that it uses photos taken by an actual car driving around, not taken from a satellite, so the detail is much better.
2. Blue outlines on the map show which areas have Street View data. It is not yet available in all areas.
Use the regular Google Maps navigation features to drag, zoom, etc.
Pivot to look in a different direction via the curved arrow buttons above the zoom slider.
Click the white arrows laid along the street to move along the street as though driving.

Note: Street View is not yet available in all areas. Blue outlines on roads in the map show where it is available. For Philadelphia, see:

http://maps.google.com/maps?q=phila&layer=c

For more info, see:

http://maps.google.com/support/bin/answer.py?answer=68476
http://maps.google.com/support/bin/topic.py?topic=11640

--Fred

Google Maps Traffic View

Original Version: 11/11/2007
Last Updated: 1/27/2008

At the Google Maps web site, you can:

Click "Traffic" to see color-coding of roads based on current traffic conditions:
1. Red = heavy traffic (0-25 25 mph)
2. Yellow = slow traffic (25-50 25 mph)
3. Green = normal speed (50+ mph)
4. Gray = no traffic information is currently available

Note: Traffic info is not yet available in all areas. Small traffic light icons with red, yellow and green lights show areas where it is available. For Philadelphia, see:

http://maps.google.com/maps?q=phila+&layer=t

For more info, see:

http://maps.google.com/support/bin/topic.py?topic=11430

--Fred

Google Maps Terrain View

Original Version: 11/11/2007
Last Updated: 1/27/2008

At the Google Maps web site, you can:

Click "Terrain" to see a view that emphasizes the hills, valleys, and other terrain.

So far, this view is pretty high level, and not all that useful, but stay tuned...

--Fred

Google Maps Search Nearby

Original Version: 11/11/2007
Last Updated: 1/27/2008

At the Google Maps web site, you can search for restaurants or other businesses near a certain location. I do this often to choose a restaurant for lunch near where someone works, or any other location of interest.

You can:

Type a class of business, the word "near" or "in" and a location. For example:
pizza near malvern pa
pizza in malvern pa
Or, click "Search nearby" or "Find businesses" after viewing a map.
In either case:
1. The list of nearby restaurants includes their addresses and phone numbers.
2. Each restaurant is shown on the map via a location tag.
Click on the location tags or the listed restaurant names to:
1. See a link to their Web site, to find menus, hours of operation, etc.
2. See reviews written by other people
3. Write a review
4. See Web pages (food magazines, etc.) that talk about the restaurant
5. Get free printable coupons for discounts at the restaurant
6. etc.

For more info, see:

http://maps.google.com/support/bin/answer.py?answer=17106&topic=10780

or the hokey video at:

http://google.com/help/maps/tour/

--Fred

Google Maps Shortcut

Original Version: 11/11/2007
Last Updated: 1/27/2008

Like my google.bat file described at Google Search Shortcut, I have a one-line batch file called maps.bat that I use to quickly access Google Maps, specifying parameters on the Windows command line. The entire contents of maps.bat is:

@start http://maps.google.com/maps?q=%1+%2+%3+%4+%5+%6+%7+%8+%9

This allows me to type things like:

        maps king street and us 30, malvern
        maps malvern pa to breeze way circle olney md
        maps primavera pizza kitchen, downingtown PA

at the command line, without having to start a browser and navigate to Google Maps first. I can use Google Maps in one simple step without even leaving the Windows command line.

I also have a batch file called traffic.bat that I use to quickly check traffic conditions. It looks like:

        @echo off
        rem Note: Need quotes to hide ampersand from Windows command line interpreter
        rem          that would otherwise interpret it as a command separator.
        rem Note: Need quoted name ("dummy") to provide a dummy name to the START
        rem          command which always treats the 1st param as a name instead of a
        rem          command if it is enclosed in quotes.
        start "dummy" "http://maps.google.com/maps?layer=t&q=%1+%2+%3+%4+%5+%6+%7+%8+%9"

and it lets me type commands like:

traffic phila
traffic malvern

Any other favorite Google Maps tricks to share?

--Fred

Google Finance

Original Version: 11/11/2007
Last Updated: 11/29/2007

Google Finance is a great financial Web site. Lots of useful info, and the typical Google flair for making it interactive and easy to use. Go to:

http://finance.google.com

The main page shows the day's graphs of Dow Jones, Nasdaq, etc, as well as recent news headlines, sector summaries, top movers, etc. It also shows quotes for specific stocks and funds you've searched for recently, as well as news headlines about them, etc. It's a great one-page summary of your personal financial interests.

Enter a stock or fund ticker symbol or company name to see the graph of its price, along with news headlines plotted along the graph to perhaps explain the ups and down. Also, financial summary, links to discussions, blogs, list of related companies and their prices, etc.

Drag the graph to see a larger, smaller, or different date range of prices. Or click the various presets (1 day, 5 day, 1 month, 3 months, 6 months, YTD, 1 year, 5 year, 10 year, max).

Click "Historical Prices" to see tables of price data, showing open, high, low, close and volume, daily or weekly. Click "Download to spreadsheet" to download the data in CSV (comma-separated values) format, saving it to disk, or opening it directly in Microsoft Excel or your favorite spreadsheet.

Click the checkboxes to see comparative graphs with various indexes, and with up to 4 other companies. Or enter multiple stock or fund ticker symbols in the main search box to see a comparative graph of more than 5 companies.

You can also log in with a username and password to create and edit portfolios of stocks and funds that you want to track.

Like my google.bat file described at Google Search Shortcut, I have a short batch file called finance.bat that I use to quickly access Google Finance, specifying parameters on the batch file command line. The entire contents of finance.bat is:

@if not "%1"=="" start http://finance.google.com/finance?q=%1+%2+%3+%4+%5+%6+%7+%8+%9
@if "%1"=="" start http://finance.google.com

This allows me to type things like:

        finance
        finance brk.b
        finance goog
        finance general electric

at the command line, without having to start a browser and navigate to Google Finance first. I can use Google Finance in one simple step without even leaving the command line. I can also pass it multiple ticker symbols, as:

finance goog yhoo ebay cmcsa

to compare multiple companies.

Similarly, I can use this syntax in Unix scripts, Windows batch files, browser bookmarks/shortcuts, desktop shortcuts, etc. to do my favorite combinations of companies.

Any other favorite Google Finance tricks to share?

--Fred

Google Alerts

Last Updated: 11/18/2007

Google Alerts is a great way to keep informed about a particular topic. Go to:

http://google.com/alerts

Here you can enter the search words for any Google search. Instead of doing the search immediately and only once, it does the search continuously and e-mails you the results. Each time the Google search engine finds a new page that matches the search, it mails you a link to the new page.

You can specify whether such additional matches should be sent to you as soon as they are discovered, or batched up into daily or weekly messages. You can also limit the search to news sites, blogs, video, etc.

You don't need a Google account, and don't have to specify a Google GMail address. You can use Google Alerts with any e-mail address. Each arriving e-mail comes with a link to click if you want to cancel the alert. However, if you do create a Google account and log in to it, there are additional tools for managing your alerts: changing the frequency, switching between HTML and plain text e-mails, etc.

You can use Google Alerts to watch a developing news story, do a continuous "vanity search" (search for your name on the Web), monitor a local sports team, etc.

You may want to set up a filter for the incoming e-mail though, as it could be a lot of mail.

So that other people can't set up alerts for your e-mail address and flood you with unwanted messages, there is a confirmation step. When you create a new alert (or someone else creates one for you), it immediately sends you an e-mail containing a link you must click on to confirm that you really want the alert. Furthermore, once you have received 10 such confirmation messages for 10 different alerts, and have not confirmed them, it won't bother you any more.

For more info, see:

http://www.google.com/support/alerts/bin/static.py?page=faq.html

--Fred

Google News

Last Updated: 11/18/2007

Google News is a great way to see the latest news of the world, or one of 40-50 specific countries. Or you can search for news on a city or smaller region. I haven't compared it much with other news sites and news aggregators, but I'm impressed. Check it out, at:

http://news.google.com

The main page shows recent top stories, as well as categories like: World, US, Business, Sci/tech, Sports, Entertainment, Health, etc. It is offered in dozens of languages.

It also offers RSS and Atom feeds for those who prefer their news in that format. And a link to Google Alerts, which sends you e-mail when a new Web page is found that matches the Google Search criteria you specified.

Any favorite Google News tricks to share?

--Fred

Google Groups (coming soon...)

Last Updated: 10/27/2007

Coming soon...

--Fred

Google Suggest (coming soon...)

Last Updated: 10/27/2007

Coming soon...

--Fred

Google Trends (coming soon...)

Last Updated: 10/27/2007

Coming soon...

--Fred

Google Froogle (coming soon...)

Last Updated: 10/27/2007

Coming soon...

--Fred

Google Web Services, no login required

You can invoke the following services from your applications, pulling data from tem to use internally or to display in your own applications, etc. You access them directly from the Google Web site. You don't have to download or install any software, and you don't need a Google login.

Google Search API (coming soon...)

Last Updated: 12/12/2008

Coming soon...

--Fred

Google Maps API (coming soon...)

Last Updated: 12/12/2008

Coming soon...

--Fred

Google Chart API

Original Version: 12/12/2008
Last Updated: 6/13/2010

The Google Chart API is a service that generates charts, graphs, plots, maps, etc. from your data.

You invoke it via a URL with the data as URL parameters. It returns a PNG image file of the chart. If the data is static, you can store the generated chart in a PNG file for repetitive use from a Web page later. If you don't want to store the file locally, or if the data is dynamic, you can have Google generate the chart on the fly as you display it. Generation of a chart takes a small fraction of a second.

The base URL is:
http://chart.apis.google.com/chart
and you follow it with URL parameters that specify:

Required parameters:
- Chart width and height, in pixels
- Chart type (line, bar, pie, 3D pie, Venn, Scatter, Radar, Geographic map, Speedometer, etc.)
- Chart data (one or more sets of data points to be plotted, etc.)
Optional parameters:
- Chart title text, font size, color, etc.
- Data labels, legend position
- Data colors
- Data scaling to fit the chart size
- Chart axes, ranges, labels, etc.
- Axis label font sizes, colors, alignments, etc.
- Background and data fill patterns, stripes, gradients, etc.
- Line widths and styles, dash lengths, blank lengths, etc.
- Data point markers (arrow, cross, x, diamond, circle, square, text, etc.)
- Priority of data, labels, markers, etc. (when overlapped, which hides which)
- Fill effects (fill with color or pattern above, below, or between data lines)
- Bar spacing, space between groups of bars, etc.
- Continents to show in geographic maps
- Countries to highlight in geographic maps
- States to highlight in US geographic maps
- etc.

Note:

There is a very similar product called the Google Visualization API. Unlike the Google Chart API, it executes locally within your Web page to generate the image, it allows the user to interact with the image, and it can pull its data directly from a variety of data stores. For more info, see:

http://code.google.com/apis/visualization/interactive_charts.html

For a comparison of the two APIs, see:

http://code.google.com/apis/charttools/docs/choosing.html

The Developer's Guide for the Google Chart API, with lots of examples, is at:
        http://code.google.com/apis/chart/
Take a quick peek at the pictures on the following pages to get an idea of the types of charts it will do:
        http://code.google.com/apis/chart/types.html
        http://code.google.com/apis/chart/colors.html
        http://code.google.com/apis/chart/labels.html
        http://code.google.com/apis/chart/styles.html

Here are some of the examples:

Right click on any of these examples and choose "Copy image location" to copy the exact URL used to generate the chart. (Or if you are still using Microsoft Internet Explorer, right click, choose Properties, and copy the text of the Address property.)

Since Google Chart API is a Web Service that you can call from a program, there are already lots of Web Apps out there that use it. Some of these exist specifically to provide a simple user interface for you to chart data with. These make it much easier to chart data on the fly without writing a program. They are also useful for experimenting, to decide the exact URL to use within any program you do write. See:
http://www.clabberhead.com/googlechartgenerator.html
http://almaer.com/chartmaker/

There are also lots of sites doing cool things with it. You may want to browse these to get some idea of the power behind the simple URL interface:

50 cool things you can do with Google Charts API
http://www.collegeathome.com/blog/2008/06/05/50-cool-things-you-can-do-with-google-charts-api/

Bullet graphs
http://dealerdiagnostics.com/blog/2008/05/create-bullet-graphs-with-google-charts-in-7-easy-steps/

Calling Google Chart API from Excel (to do types of graphs that Excel doesn't support)
http://www.tushar-mehta.com/publish_train/xl_vba_cases/excel_google_chart_api/index.htm
Pie charts scattered across a world map
http://blog.thematicmapping.org/2008/04/using-google-charts-with-kml.html
Pie charts generated when you click on a state in a map of the US
http://www.tetonpost.com/sc/

Here's a link to my own cryptic cheat sheet documenting (very concisely) many of the features:
GoogleChartAPICheatSheet.htm

Thanks to Matt Brophy for telling me about the new Google Visualization API!

--Fred

Google Web Apps, login required (coming soon...)

Google Apps (coming soon...)

Last Updated: 10/27/2007

Coming soon...

--Fred

Google Calendar (coming soon...)

Last Updated: 10/27/2007

Coming soon...

--Fred

Google Docs (coming soon...)

Last Updated: 10/27/2007

Coming soon...

--Fred

Google GMail (coming soon...)

Last Updated: 10/27/2007

Coming soon...

--Fred

Google Talk (coming soon...)

Last Updated: 10/27/2007

Coming soon...

--Fred

Google Installed Apps (coming soon...)

Google Pack (coming soon...)

Last Updated: 10/27/2007

Coming soon...

--Fred

Google Desktop (coming soon...)

Last Updated: 10/27/2007

Coming soon...

--Fred

Google Earth (coming soon...)

Last Updated: 10/27/2007

Coming soon...

--Fred

Google SketchUp (coming soon...)

Last Updated: 10/27/2007

Coming soon...

--Fred

Google Phone Services (coming soon...)

Google 1-800-GOOG-411 (coming soon...)

Last Updated: 10/27/2007

Coming soon...

--Fred

Google.org -- The Philanthropic Arm of Google

Last Updated: 12/4/2007

Have you seen the "Philanthropic Arm of Google"? Check out:

http://google.org (.org, not .com)

It was founded by Google in Oct 2005 with an initial grant of $90 million and is now funded with $2 billion in Google stock. Fits nicely with Google's corporate philosophy of:

Do no evil

I find it amazing that Google has poured $2 billion into this without any fuss. Other big companies that have created charitable foundations have named them after their CEOs, and make a big fanfare each time the company gives money to the foundation, as well as each time the foundation gives that SAME money to a charity. Double-dipping!

Google just keeps adding money to the foundation, and adding features to their free tools and Web sites, without patting themselves on the back. Word gets around on the merits, not the marketing.

Very admirable!

In case you're wondering, yes I do own Google stock (and you should too), but that's not why I'm such a fan. I was a fan years before the stock became available. I wish I'd bought a whole lot more when I did buy.

Admirable and profitable both -- amazing in today's world!

--Fred

Mozilla Thunderbird

Intro to Thunderbird (coming soon...)

Last Updated: 10/31/2008
Applies to: Thunderbird 1+

--Fred

Thunderbird Shortcut Keys (coming soon...)

Last Updated: 10/31/2008
Applies to: Thunderbird 1+

--Fred
Changing font size (coming soon...)

Last Updated: 10/31/2008
Applies to: Thunderbird 1+

--Fred

Thunderbird RSS feeds

Last Updated: 10/31/2008
Applies to: Thunderbird 1+

Like most advanced mail readers these days, Mozilla Thunderbird supports RSS and Atom feeds.

This is a relatively new (since early 2000's or so) way to subscribe to newsletters, blogs, tip-of-the-day services, etc. Instead of one person mailing ("pushing") a copy of each message to all subscribers, each subscriber configures his feed reader to occasionally check for new messages and "pull" them in to the reader. Typically, the message stored in the reader is just a link to the real message, not an actual copy, so if it gets updated before the subscriber sees it, he'll see the latest copy when he does see it. To learn more about such feeds, see:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rss

Thunderbird makes RSS as easy as e-mail. Once you subscribe to a feed, it checks periodically for new messages posted to the feed, and shows them to you just as though a new e-mail had arrived, showing a one-line header for each message consisting of the name of the person who posted the message, the subject line, date/time, etc. You can see the full body of the message just like a mail message in the Thunderbird preview pane, or by double-clicking on the header line to open a new window.

To subscribe to an RSS feed in Thunderbird, simply create a new "account" of type RSS instead of type e-mail, and specify the URL of the feed. For example, to see the daily Dilbert comics from the official Dilbert site, as though they were being mailed to you, specify the URL:

http://feeds.feedburner.com/DilbertDailyStrip

BTW, yes, I have created RSS and Atom feeds for some (but not yet all) of my Tips mailing lists. A while back I took on a big project to convert all of my Tips pages from HTML to XHTML, and use XSLT to automatically generate the TOCs, as well as RSS and Atom feeds. It's mostly working, but I haven't yet converted all the pages, and switched to that mode. Hopefully, some day soon...

--Fred

View Message Source (coming soon...)

Last Updated: 10/31/2008
Applies to: Thunderbird 1+

--Fred

Address Completion Speed

Last Updated: 1/29/2009
Applies to: Thunderbird 1+

Is Thunderbird getting to be slow at auto-completing addresses?

I've used Thunderbird for years, but recently it is sometimes very slow (10+ seconds) to auto-complete an e-mail address that I've started typing. Here's the fix.

Apparently, there was a bug in Thunderbird 1.5 that is fixed in 1.5.0.8 and later versions, so I suggest you upgrade to the latest version at:

http://mozilla.com

However, it may still be slow until you clean up your Thunderbird config file (prefs.js).

The bug was writing bogus lines to the config file. Over time, you may have accumulated hundreds of such lines. The delay occurs as Thunderbird (even the latest version) scans all of these bogus lines and tries to look up addresses in the non-existent address book files and LDAP servers they refer to. To speed it up, delete all lines in your prefs.js file that contain either of the strings:

servers._nonascii_
servers.user_directory_

Ah... Much better... Now very snappy again!

Details at:

http://kb.mozillazine.org/Long_time_to_open_address_book

--Fred

Internal Revenue Service (IRS) documents

Original Version: 3/25/2008
Last Updated: 3/3/2009
Applies to: Internet, World Wide Web, IRS

You can directly download documents (publications, forms, and instructions) as PDF files from the IRS Web site. This is handy if you prefer paper to electronic filing. No more running to the Post Office for paper copies of various forms.

Also, the forms are typically editable PDFs, so you can fill them out electronically, then print them and mail them in. This is handy if you prefer paper, but want to keep an electronic copy of the form you filled out, rather than just a paper copy. It also makes them more legible, and saves you from having to start over if you make mistakes that you can't erase.

Warning: Save your changes via the Adobe Reader toolbar button, not the browser File | Save Page As menu. See details below.

If you know which documents you want, you can choose from the list at:

http://www.irs.gov/app/picklist/list/formsInstructions.html

Otherwise, you can browse by category, get forms for previous years (back to 1990), etc., at:

http://www.irs.gov/formspubs/

You can view the instructions as regular Web pages (HTML) instead of PDF, at:

http://www.irs.gov/instructions/

The filenames of the PDF files are mostly systematic, with prefixes "p", "i" and "f". For example:

p526.pdf Publication 526: Charitable Contributions

f1040.pdf Form 1040

i1040.pdf Form 1040 -- Instructions

f1040sab.pdf Form 1040 Schedules A&B

i1040sa.pdf Form 1040 Schedules A&B -- Instructions (OK, some inconsistencies...)

f8889.pdf Form 8889: HSAs

i8889.pdf Form 8889: HSAs -- Instructions

etc.

Therefore, you can bypass the list pages and create bookmarks, favorites, desktop shortcuts, etc. that link directly to specific documents, via URLs like:

        http://www.irs.gov/pub/irs-pdf/f1040.pdf
        http://www.irs.gov/pub/irs-pdf/i1040.pdf
        etc.

See the complete list of filenames at:

http://www.irs.gov/pub/irs-pdf/

Since I generally prefer to work from the command line, I wrote a batch file called irsdoc.bat that I use as:

        irsdoc f1040
        irsdoc i1040
        etc.

Here is the compete contents of irsdoc.bat:

@echo off

if "%1" ==""   goto USAGE
if "%1" =="-?" goto USAGE
if "%1" =="/?" goto USAGE
if "%1" =="*"  goto LIST

start http://www.irs.gov/pub/irs-pdf/%1.pdf
goto :EOF

:LIST
start http://www.irs.gov/app/picklist/list/formsInstructions.html
goto :EOF

:USAGE
echo Usage:    %0 irs_doc_name
echo Examples: %0 *             To see names of all IRS docs
echo           %0 ?             To see filenames of all IRS docs
echo           %0 p526          Publication 526: Charitable Contributions
echo           %0 f1040         Form 1040
echo           %0 i1040         Form 1040 -- Instructions
echo           %0 f1040sab      Form 1040 Schedules A/B
echo           %0 i1040sa       Form 1040 Schedules A/B -- Instructions
echo           %0 f8889         Form 8889: HSAs
echo           %0 i8889         Form 8889: HSAs -- Instructions

Thanks to Wayne Keyser for reminding me that there are a couple of forms that you cannot get this way. For some reason, they use special ink and/or paper, and you must order them from the IRS by telephone two weeks before you need them. For example: Form 5500 and Form 1096. You can download copies, but you are immediately warned that you are not allowed to use them. What a drag!

Thanks to Geoff Rhine for the warning about saving from the browser menu instead of the Adobe Reader toolbar. Here's some more detail.

If you have the Adobe Reader plugin installed, the PDF document may open directly in the browser instead of prompting you to open it with Adobe Reader or save it to disk. In that case, after making your changes, be sure to save via the Adobe Reader toolbar button, not via the browser's File | Save Page As menu or Ctrl-S, because that may save only the original page, not the edited version, so you may lose your edits. This seems to be a problem with browsers like Firefox and Netscape that go back to the server for a fresh copy of the page before saving. Internet Explorer saves the local copy, which does include your changes.

I didn't notice this problem myself because I generally download a file first, put it in a known location on my hard drive (where it will be found by my backup software), then edit it outside of the browser. It is generally a good idea to take these explicit steps when working with Web stuff because you're not safe till you have a local copy in a known location. Otherwise, things sometimes save back to the Web cache, where you may not be able to find them, and where they are subsequently deleted without warning to make room for new temporary files. Or they try to save into a readonly e-mail attachment, or the temporary file created for that attachment. Always save the attached file or downloaded file first, then re-open the file directly, and edit it.

--Fred

Audio/Video Tips

Pause while downloading to fill the buffer

Last Updated: 4/26/2008

Problem: Tired of having audio or video streams start and stop during playback?

Solution: Pause it until the buffer is full, then resume playing.

When you are playing streaming audio or video from a Web site like YouTube, the data begins downloading and is buffered locally. Meanwhile, the playback begins immediately, playing the buffered data. If the download is too slow, the playback runs out of buffered data and pauses for a while, until the buffer begins to fill up again. This can lead to an erratic, annoying, start, stop, start, etc. during the playback.

If this happens, click the pause button that most players display on the screen, and watch the graphical indicators. Often there are two. On YouTube, there's a slider that shows haw much has been played, and a red bar underneath it that shows how much has been downloaded. Pause until the red bar gets well ahead of the slider. Then resume for a smooth and continuous playback.

--Fred

Internet Music

Pandora.com custom streaming radio

Last Updated: 11/14/2008

Pandora.com is a Web site that allows you to easily create and listen to your own music mix. It's like having your own custom radio station, for free.

Check it out at: http://www.pandora.com/

No special software required. Use any browser that supports the Adobe (was Macromedia) Flash Player.

You start by seeding it with the names of a few artists and/or songs you like, and it starts guessing what else you'd like, and playing it while showing you the title and artist. As it's playing, you can give each song a thumbs up/down to tune your preferences.

You can create multiple stations with different preferences, for your different moods.

You can share your radio stations with other people, so they can listen to them, browse your initial seeds and your thumbs up/down. When they start voting, it offers to let them create their own station which is initially a clone of yours. They can not vote on your copy of the station.

You can search for a station created by a friend, and listen to it, browse their initial seeds and their thumbs up/down, and make your own copy, even if they never explicitly shared it with you. For example, under the Share menu, you can search for a shared station, and enter my e-mail address to see my stations. Right now, I'm starting to tune a clone of a friend's station, so it doesn't necessarily reflect my tastes yet, but hopefully soon...

You can search for existing stations that contain a specific artist or song, browse the settings of that station, and make a copy.

Pandora does keep track of which songs it plays, so that it can make the appropriate payments to the artists, but they claim to not sell any personal info about you. They are supported by the ads they display in their window, which I typically have minimized, except when I'm voting on a song.

According to James Higgins (I haven't tried it yet), you can use a free Pandora iPhone app to stream the same stations to your via cellular or WIFI network.

For more info, see:
http://blog.pandora.com/faq/

Thanks to Jim Gadrow for pointing me to Pandora, and sharing his station with me!

BTW,

--Fred

Internet News Sites

US Newspaper Front Pages

Last Updated: 2/2/2009

Want to see the local news in a US city?

By now, everyone knows the URLs of USA Today, the Washington Post, New York Times, etc. Also, most of us read our news at Web sites like CNN.com that have no printed newspaper, or at other sites more focused on our specific interests. But, what if you want to see the headline news in a specific city and don't know the URL? Sure you could Google it pretty quickly, but the following link is even easier, especially if you are interested in a general region of the country, not just a particular city:
http://www.newseum.org/todaysfrontpages/flash/

Click on the cities in the US map to see the front page of the printed newspaper of each city.

All you get is a JPEG image, so you can read the front page, but can't flip to other pages to finish the articles, can't copy/paste text, etc. Still it's a quick way to see what's going on in a specific city, and the front page usually contains the URL of the newspaper, where you can probably see more.

Thanks to Frank Stluka for this tip!

BTW, if you don't know the URLs of the papers mentioned above, they're on my links page:
http://bristle.com/~fred/#news

--Fred

&as_qdr=d	past 24 hours
&as_qdr=w	past week
&as_qdr=m	past month
&as_qdr=m2	past 2 months
&as_qdr=m3	past 3 months
&as_qdr=m6	past 6 months
&as_qdr=y	past year

&as_qdr=d2	past 2 days
&as_qdr=d3	past 3 days
&as_qdr=w2	past 2 weeks
&as_qdr=m4	past 4 months
&as_qdr=y3	past 3 years

p526.pdf	Publication 526: Charitable Contributions
f1040.pdf	Form 1040
i1040.pdf	Form 1040 -- Instructions
f1040sab.pdf	Form 1040 Schedules A&B
i1040sa.pdf	Form 1040 Schedules A&B -- Instructions (OK, some inconsistencies...)
f8889.pdf	Form 8889: HSAs
i8889.pdf	Form 8889: HSAs -- Instructions
etc.

Bristle Software Internet Tips

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