Google Algorithm 10 Changes

http://googlepublicpolicy.blogspot.com/2011/11/ten-recent-algorithm-changes.html

Google Algorithm Tweaking; the canonical tag

Search quality highlights: new monthly series on algorithm changes
http://insidesearch.blogspot.com/2011/12/search-quality-highlights-new-monthly.html briefly; 


Multiple URLs, one page
Duplicate content comes in different forms, but a major scenario is multiple URLs that point to the same page. This can come up for lots of reasons. An ecommerce site might allow various sort orders for a page (by lowest price, highest rated…), the marketing department might wanttracking codes added to URLs for analytics. You could end up with 100 pages, but 10 URLs for each page. Suddenly search engines have to sort  through 1,000 URLs.

This can be a problem for a couple of reasons.

• Less of the site may get crawled. Search engine crawlers use a limited amount of bandwidth on each site (based on numerous factors). If the crawler only is able to crawl 100 pages of your site in a single visit, you want it to be 100 unique pages, not 10 pages 10 times each.
• Each page may not get full link credit. If a page has 10 URLs that point to it, then other sites can link to it 10 different ways. One link to each URL dilutes the value  the page could have if all 10 links pointed to a single URL.

Using the new canonical tag

Specify the canonical version using a tag in the head section of the page as follows:

http://www.example.com/product.php?item=swedish-fish"/>

That’s it!

• You can only use the tag on pages within a single site (subdomains and subfolders are fine).
• You can use relative or absolute links, but the search engines recommend absolute links.

This tag will operate in a similar way to a 301 redirect for all URLs that display the page with this tag.

• Links to all URLs will be consolidated to the one specified as canonical.
• Search engines will consider this URL a “strong hint” as to the one to crawl and index.

Canonical URL best practices

The search engines use this as a hint, not as a directive, (Google calls it a “suggestion that we honor strongly”) but are more likely to use  it if the URLs use best practices, such as:

• The  content rendered for each URL is very similar or exact
• The canonical URL is the shortest version
• The URL uses easy to understand parameter patterns (such as using ? and %)

https://developer.mastercard.com/portal/display/api/Payments

Visa opens API to developers

https://www.v.me/

Visa Developer Center

GMail New Display Density Not Found - Trouble Finding it ?

GMail has a news look and is quite refined, great job. They have a new feature they are touting called Display Density, trouble is - I could not find it.

The help says the Gear Option Icon should be to the top right of email list when you are on the Inbox link? Well where is it? Its not there. It makes sense when your look at a list of emails you should be able to format the list at this point ?

Turns out, it's only when you COMPOSE a new message that you see the Gear Option Icon and then can change the  Display Density. Just a helpful hint and design quark. See image below.

Hope this helps.




UPDATE NOV 14, 2011 - this has been corrected @ 

http://requestreduce.com/

RequestReduce allows any IIS based website to automaticaly sprite background images into a single optimized PNG as well as combine and minify javascript and CSS with absolutely no coding beyond a few config tweaks

Vulnerability in ASP.NET Could Allow Information Disclosure (2418042)

http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/security/bulletin/MS10-070
updated to include applicability for .NET Framework 4 on Windows Server 2008 R2 for x64-based Systems

Microsoft Security Bulletin MS10-070 - Important

Vulnerability in ASP.NET Could Allow Information Disclosure (2418042)

Published: September 28, 2010 | Updated: October 26, 2011

Version: 4.2

General Information

Executive Summary

This security update resolves a publicly disclosed vulnerability in ASP.NET. The vulnerability could allow information disclosure. An attacker who successfully exploited this vulnerability could read data, such as the view state, which was encrypted by the server. This vulnerability can also be used for data tampering, which, if successfully exploited, could be used to decrypt and tamper with the data encrypted by the server. Microsoft .NET Framework versions prior to Microsoft .NET Framework 3.5 Service Pack 1 are not affected by the file content disclosure portion of this vulnerability.

This security update is rated Important for all supported editions of ASP.NET except Microsoft .NET Framework 1.0 Service Pack 3. For more information, see the subsection, Affected and Non-Affected Software, in this section.

The security update addresses the vulnerability by additionally signing all data that is encrypted by ASP.NET. For more information about the vulnerability, see the Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ) subsection for the specific vulnerability entry under the next section, Vulnerability Information.

This security update also addresses the vulnerability first described in Microsoft Security Advisory 2416728.

Expanding Virtual PC VHDs using VHD Resizer and running Windows Server 2008 R2

This is for folks without access to Hyper-V, but want to learn it in a free Virtual PC 2007 emulator, which can run Windows 2008 R2 and Windows Sever 8, with a few tricks.

http://kb.dutchalps.com/microsoftvirtualpc.htm

Tips: VHD Resizer took an really long long time to start ~15mins, and then finally it progressed quickly.

Windows Explorer Most Recent List or Pinned Jump List Items do not appear in Windows 7

Fixing Stuck Explorer Items

Windows Explorer always seems to use the same exact filename to store the pinned/recent items: 1B4DD67F29CB1962.AUTOMATICDESTINATIONS-MS

So you can try this command, which will wipe out all the pinned and recent items for Windows Explorer only:

del %appdata%\microsoft\windows\recent\automaticdestinations\1B4DD67F29CB1962.AUTOMATICDESTINATIONS-MS

BONUS : Enabling last active windows with ALT-TAB order.
http://www.techrepublic.com/blog/window-on-windows/quick-tip-change-stacked-window-behavior-in-the-windows-7-taskbar/3959?tag=content;siu-container

Evolutionary equations, apply the biological feedback loop (learning) to derive new mathematical formulas!

Hod Lipson on The Robotic Scientist: Mining Experimental Data

TVO show "Big Ideas" presents Hod Lipson of Cornell University speaking about his amazing working in using evolutionary algorithms.

Through trial and error, robots learn how to walk (@ 9:49).  This was achieve by give the robot basic motor commands, then the robot learns how to walk by try every combination of possible movements until it moves forward reaching its goal.

This same technique was used for evolutionary equations, by giving basic math primitives (+,-,/,*, sin,cos, etc) equations are built to match and model a best fit to an observable outcome. Hod calls this Symbolic Regression, and through millions of trials, a perfect and sometimes previously unknown equation will emerge!

Hod also points out, that trials with the most disagreement (@ 11:38) yields the most information! A new perspective the next time you get into an argument;)

This has huge ramifications for in area of robotics, programmable self-assemblies and AI. See my article on the prediction an AI God (a multi-consciousness AI), including Steven Hawking's (the smartest man in world) thoughts on warnings against the rise of AI.

Lipson lecture is entitled "The Robotic Scientist: Mining Experimental Data for Scientific Laws, from Cognitive Robots to Computational Biology."


(@ 21:43 section, using math primitives (+,-,/,*) this will evolve and find fitting equations)

http://creativemachines.cornell.edu/eureqa - A program for you to use to try evolutionary approach and was open source (now gone).

How to Clear Windows 7 Temporary Files in the Temp Folder

How to Clear Windows 7 Temporary Files in the Temp Folder - where .tmp, .docx, .xlsx, .pptx and .pdf are shadowed

Update - Sept 2017 - Do not use CCleaner its been hacked
Read my post on CCleaner containing malware and an alternative.

Information

The Temp folder is where Windows 7 and programs sometimes store temporary files. Sometimes these files are not deleted after Windows 7 or the program is finished with them. This can cause the temp folder to fill up with junk temp files which may cause Vista to take longer to access the Temp folder and create a slight delay.

This will show you how to clear the Windows 7 temporary files through Disk Cleanup or manually in the Temp folder.   

Note

The Windows 7 Temp folder is located at:

C:\Users\(UserName)\AppData\Local\Temp
or
cd %HOMEDRIVE%%HOMEPATH%\AppData\Local\Temp

You can obtain you current logged on UserName,
if you are not sure by Start->Run->Cmd and type 

whoami 

will return domainname\UserName

If you are browsing to this folder, you may need to show AppData and other hidden files, folders and drives. See image below.

click for larger

 Warning

While it is safe to delete these files, it is best not to do this while installing or uninstalling anything.

Tip

BleachBit is a free program that is great at keeping the temporary files cleaned up and more.

Example: Windows 7  User Account Temp Folder Location

click for larger

METHOD ONE

---

Thorough Disk Cleanup (PREFERRED METHOD)

 Note

Disk Cleanup will only delete Temporary files that have not been modified in 7 days. To clear everything, see METHOD TWO below.

1. Open Disk Cleanup.

2. Check Temporary files. (See image below) 

3. Review Files to delete at my post Windows 7 Disk Cleanup - What File Categories to Delete - A detailed look  

4. After, Click on Delete Files to confirm the action.

click for larger image

METHOD TWO

---

Manually Clear the Temp Folder

 Note

The Temp folder is located at the hidden system folder:

C:\Users\(Your Username)\AppData\Local\Temp

If you are browsing to this folder, you may need to show Appdata and other hidden files, folders and drives.

click for larger

1. Open the Start Menu.

2. Search for Run and click.

Type %temp% and press Enter  and then do  

Type %windir%\Temp and press Enter. 

Select all files and click Shift + Del key.

NOTE: This is a shortcut and opens the Temp folder.  

3. Delete anything you want in this folder. (See image below) 

click for larger

  Warning

If you delete the Low folder, it can prevent you from printing from Internet Explorer. To fix this, close all Internet Explorer windows and reopen Internet Explorer to recreate the Low folder.

You can also manually fix this by recreating the Low folder in the Temp folder below, open a elevated command prompt (Start->Search for "CMD.exe", right-click and run as Administrator.                                                                                

click for larger

Then Copy and Paste the command below in the command prompt and press enter.

Code:

 Note

If you receive a File In Use pop-up error message while the files are being deleted, then this just means that one of the temp files is in use by a program right now.

PGP for Outlook Open Source with Source Code

Prerequisites for Outlook 2007 (see 2010, 2013 below)

First of all, get a working copy of GPG is required, so visit the GnuPG download page, scroll down and download the Windows installer version or windows version. 

Windows installer version is located here https://www.gpg4win.org/download.html, you can install PA (personal Assistant), but it never worked on my computer. But this is a GUI to your user keys.

If everything has gone correctly, you can now open a command prompt and type gpg --version and gpg --list-keys to see the version and your keys (which would be empty if you're using it for the first time).

Visit the Getting Started section of the GnuPG handbook to generate your own key if this is your first encounter for instructions. You need a private public key for latter in the install.

gpg --gen-key

To install this quickly, 

choose 4) RSA and key size of 2048 default will do, or 4096 for better security, and continue, it's pretty logical.

OutlookGnuPG

There are two main areas in the plugin, functionality for sending a mail (sign/encrypt) and for retrieving a mail (verify/decrypt).

At the moment only plain text emails are supported. No HTML mail or attachments, that's for a future version :)

See Cumps Consulting blog for the remainder of the install article ...
https://cumps.be/en/blog/2009-04-15-gpg-in-outlook-2007-outlookgnupg/

GnuPG addin for Outlook 2007

Here is the Github project :
https://github.com/twalrant/OutlookGnuPG

NOTE: To get this to work in Vista/7 you have to run the installer as administrator. Find your command shell in the run menu, right click and select run as administrator. Then do msiexec -i "path\and\filename.msi". That should get you past the impersonation difficulties.


PGP for Outlook 2010, 2013 
A simple OpenPGP encryption plugin for Outlook 2010 and 2013.
https://github.com/dejavusecurity/OutlookPrivacyPlugin