Archive for March, 2007

some website tricks

Saturday, March 31st, 2007 -- By ET

zz

1. <body oncontextmenu=”window.event.returnvalue=false” >  file://将彻底屏蔽鼠标右键
<table border oncontextmenu=return(false)><td>no</table> file://可用于Table
2. <body onselectstart=”return false”>        file://取消选取、防止复制
3. onpaste=”return false”                    file://不准粘贴
4. oncopy=”return false;” oncut=”return false;”         file://防止复制
5. <link rel=”Shortcut Icon” href=”favicon.ico”> file://IE地址栏前换成自己的图标
6. <link rel=”Bookmark” href=”favicon.ico”> file://可以在收藏夹中显示出你的图标
7. <input style=”ime-modeisabled”>             file://关闭输入法
8. 永远都会带着框架
<script language=”****”><!–
if (window == top)top.location.href=”frames.htm”; file://file://frames.htm为框架网页
// –></script>
9. 防止被人frame
<SCRIPT LANGUAGE=****><!–
if (top.location != self.location)top.location=self.location;
// –></SCRIPT>
10. <noscript><iframe src=*.html></iframe></noscript>  file://网页将不能被另存为
11. <input type=button value=查看网页源代码
onclick=”window.location = ”view-source:”+ ”http://www.csdn.net/”;”>
12. 怎样通过asp的手段来检查来访者是否用了代理
<% if Request.ServerVariables(”HTTP_X_FORWARDED_FOR”)<>”" then
response.write “<font color=#FF0000>您通过了代理服务器,”& _
“真实的IP为”&Request.ServerVariables(”HTTP_X_FORWARDED_FOR”)
end if
%>
13. 取得控件的绝对位置
file://****
<script language=”****”>
function getIE(e)
var t=e.offsetTop;
var l=e.offsetLeft;
while(e=e.offsetParent){
t+=e.offsetTop;
l+=e.offsetLeft;
{}
alert(”top=”+t+”\nleft=”+l);
}
</script>
file://VBScript
<script language=”VBScript”><!–
function getIE()
dim t,l,a,b
set a=document.all.img1
t=document.all.img1.offsetTop
l=document.all.img1.offsetLeft
while a.tagName<>”BODY”
set a = a.offsetParent
t=t+a.offsetTop
l=l+a.offsetLeft
wend
msgbox “top=”&t&chr(13)&”left=”&l,64,”得到控件的位置”
end function
–></script>
14. 光标是停在文本框文字的最后
<script language=”****”>
function cc()

var e = event.srcElement;
var r =e.createTextRange();
r.moveStart(”character”,e.value.length);
r.collapse(true);
r.select();
{}
</script>
<input type=text name=text1 value=”123″ onfocus=”cc()”>
15. 判断上一页的来源
asp:
request.servervariables(”HTTP_REFERER”)
****:
document.referrer
16. 最小化、最大化、关闭窗口
<object id=hh1 classid=”clsid:ADB880A6-D8FF-11CF-9377-00AA003B7A11″>
<param name=”Command” value=”Minimize”></object>
<object id=hh2 classid=”clsid:ADB880A6-D8FF-11CF-9377-00AA003B7A11″>
<param name=”Command” value=”Maximize”></object>
<OBJECT id=hh3 classid=”clsid:adb880a6-d8ff-11cf-9377-00aa003b7a11″>
<PARAM NAME=”Command” value=”Close”></OBJECT>
<input type=button value=最小化 onclick=hh1.Click()>
<input type=button value=最大化 onclick=hh2.Click()>
<input type=button value=关闭 onclick=hh3.Click()>
本例适用于IE
17.
<%
”定义数据库连接的一些常量
Const adOpenForwardOnly   = 0 ”游标只向前浏览记录,不支持分页、Recordset、BookMark
Const adOpenKeyset     = 1 ”键集游标,其他用户对记录说做的修改将反映到记录集中,但其他用户增加或删除记录不会反映到记录集中。支持分页、Recordset、BookMark
Const adOpenDynamic     = 2 ”动态游标功能最强,但耗资源也最多。用户对记录说做的修改,增加或删除记录都将反映到记录集中。支持全功能浏览(ACCESS不支持)。
Const adOpenStatic     = 3 ”静态游标,只是数据的一个快照,用户对记录说做的修改,增加或删除记录都不会反映到记录集中。支持向前或向后移动
Const adLockReadOnly    = 1 ”锁定类型,默认的,只读,不能作任何修改
Const adLockPessimistic   = 2 ”当编辑时立即锁定记录,最安全的方式
Const adLockOptimistic   = 3 ”只有在调用Update方法时才锁定记录集,而在此前的其他操作仍可对当前记录进行更改、插入和删除等
Const adLockBatchOptimistic = 4 ”当编辑时记录不会被锁定,而更改、插入和删除是在批处理方式下完成的
Const adCmdText = &H0001
Const adCmdTable = &H0002
%>
18. 网页不会被缓存
HTM网页
<META HTTP-EQUIV=”pragma” CONTENT=”no-cache”>
<META HTTP-EQUIV=”Cache-Control” CONTENT=”no-cache, must-revalidate”>
<META HTTP-EQUIV=”expires” CONTENT=”Wed, 26 Feb 1997 08:21:57 GMT”>
或者<META HTTP-EQUIV=”expires” CONTENT=”0″>
ASP网页
Response.Expires = -1
Response.ExpiresAbsolute = Now() - 1
Response.cachecontrol = “no-cache”
PHP网页
header(”Expires: Mon, 26 Jul 1997 05:00:00 GMT”);
header(”Cache-Control: no-cache, must-revalidate”);
header(”Pragma: no-cache”);

19.COOKIE脚本记录,有很大的用处哦。
function get_cookie(Name)
var search = Name + “=”

var returnvalue = “”;

if (documents.cookie.length > 0) {

offset = documents.cookie.indexOf(search)

if (offset != -1) { // if cookie exists

offset += search.length

// set index of beginning of value

end = documents.cookie.indexOf(”;”, offset);

// set index of end of cookie value

if (end == -1)

end = documents.cookie.length;

returnvalue=unescape(documents.cookie.substring(offset, end))

{}

}

return returnvalue;

}

function loadpopup()

if (get_cookie(”popped”)==””){

openpopup()

documents.cookie=”popped=yes”

{}

}

smackbook (SmackPad) and macsaber (ThinkSaber) for thinkpad

Friday, March 30th, 2007 -- By ET

This is a video from YouTube showing how a software called smackBook allows people to switch virtual screens on a MacBook. The idea is very cool, it relies on a new hardware device on MacBook laptops to sense the motion of the laptop.

macsabericon.jpgAnother idea is called MacSaber, which gives you the full Jedi Knight experience. Move your Mac from side-to-side or backwards and forwards to duel the foe of your choice.

My 3-year old ThinkPad has the same hardware, it is generally used to prevent the Hard Drive from being hurt by impacts. So, my question is: can I do the same thing with my ThinkPad. It turned out that I can! :-)

Let me first put down the Perl code below.

use Win32API::File qw(:ALL);
use Win32::Sound;

Win32::Sound::Volume('100%');
Win32::Sound::Play("on0.wav");
Win32::Sound::Stop();

my ($meanx,$meany)=(641, 634);

while(1){
		my $pos=get_pos(0);
		my ($x,$y)=split(/,/,$pos);
		print "$xt$yn";

		if ( abs($x-$meanx)>5 ){
	    Win32::Sound::Play("swing2.wav");
  	  Win32::Sound::Stop();
		} elsif (($x-$meanx)<-5){
			Win32::Sound::Play("swing3.wav");
  	  Win32::Sound::Stop();
		} elsif (($y-$meany)>5){
			Win32::Sound::Play("hit1.wav");
  	  Win32::Sound::Stop();
		} elsif (($y-$meany)<-5){
			Win32::Sound::Play("hit4.wav");
  	  Win32::Sound::Stop();
		} 

		sleep(1);
}

sub get_pos {
    my $base = shift;
    my $file = createFile("//./ShockMgr", "r ke") or die "Can't get ShockMgr device";
    DeviceIoControl($file, 0x733fc, [], 0, my($buf), 0×24, my($bytes), []);
    my @data = unpack “x4s*”, $buf;
    return join “,”, ($base ? @data[3, 2] : @data[1, 0]);
}

In the above code, you may need to change your “meanx”, “meany”, I suspect that this is different across different laptops. I only included 4 sounds in the list, but you can feel free to add more sounds depending on the subtle changes in position. For convenience, I’m putting the zipped perl code here: sound.zip.

I realized I don’t have a program for whackbook after posting this blog, the main reason is that I don’t really have a good virtual screen application. I’ll post something very cool next time, say, how about navigating through Word or FireFox with tilting your computer? :-D

phpmyadmin display utf8

Friday, March 30th, 2007 -- By ET

Took me a whole afternoon to figure it out.

MySQL used non-utf-8 encoding, so when I use phpmyadmin to interpret it, the returned result is messed up.

mysql> show variables like ‘character_set%’;
+————————–+——————————–+
| Variable_name | Value |
+————————–+——————————–+
| character_set_client | latin1 |
| character_set_connection | latin1 |
| character_set_database | latin1 |
| character_set_filesystem | binary |
| character_set_results | latin1 |
| character_set_server | latin1 |
| character_set_system | utf8 |
| character_sets_dir | \mysql\share\charsets\ |
+————————–+——————————–+
8 rows in set (0.00 sec)

mysql> show variables like ‘collation%’;
+———————-+——————-+
| Variable_name | Value |
+———————-+——————-+
| collation_connection | latin1_swedish_ci |
| collation_database | latin1_general_ci |
| collation_server | latin1_general_ci |
+———————-+——————-+
3 rows in set (0.00 sec)

I wrote a program to query the DB and used the following code to check if the characters are indeed utf-8:

use strict;
use Encode;
my $iftest=1;
my $ifpause=1;
use DBI;
my  $conn = DBI->connect     ("DBI:mysql:ki","","")     or die("Cannot connect: $DBI::errstr");
$conn->{RaiseError} = 0;
my $sql;
my $query;
my $row;
my $id=1;
$sql=qq(select * from categorylinks );
$query = $conn->prepare($sql);
$query->execute 		or print("n[Select ID]Error executing SQL statement! $DBI::errstrn”);
while ($row = $query->fetchrow_arrayref){ 		my $line=@$row[1];
$line=decode(”utf8″,$line);
$line=encode(”gbk”,$line);
print “$linen”;
}  $conn->disconnect;
exit;

Turned out that the output are correct.

By phpmyadmin still outputs messy code for Chinese, so I modified the following file

/phpMyAdmin/libraries/select_lang.lib.php

Under “// MySQL charsets ma”
Changed from
‘utf-8′ => ‘utf8′,
To
‘utf-8′ => ‘latin1′,
Voila, it worked

Happy feet

Thursday, March 15th, 2007 -- By Jade

自打薇薇学会走路以后, 用这个happy feet 形容她是再合适不过了. 每天小同学都会扭着小胖身子在家里不停的视察转圈. 有时自己遛达累了, 还会过来拉你的手, 和她一去.

小脚丫现在最喜欢去的地方是洗手间. 因为她最钟意的活动之一就是趁人不备, 跑道马桶边去冲水. 一按就是几十下.如果没有人制止这个小家伙,她就会将按马桶进行到底, “咣当咣当”的, 幸好偶们家马桶的冲水把手不是那么灵敏, 要不我得多交很多水费啊. 

其实她要是只冲冲水也就罢了. 可是小孩子啊! 不好说, 外一她哪天象豆豆哥哥学习, 就是粉喜欢在马桶里洗洗手,涮涮玩具的 就不太好了. 说起这个豆豆来, 一般是很吵的, 要是他一转眼儿,不见了, 两个地方准保找着他: 洗手间和厨房. 所以为了避免此种情况, 偶们家的洗手间的门都是关着的. 这个薇薇只要知道那里面有人, 那是一定要奋不顾身的冲过去的. 所以她对从洗手间方向的局势是相当敏感的.

昨天, 萱萱姐姐回家, 去了厕所, 一会而在里面大喊: 妈妈, popo拉. 那意思是让偶过去帮她XXXXX(此处省略见3个字).我还没从椅子上站起来, 小妹妹薇薇就已经闪电般速度扔下手里的玩具, 从地上 “噌” 的站起来, 一路摇晃着小跑着过去, 冲到厕所, 去冲水了. 感动的姐姐直说: 妹妹(拖长音), 你在帮姐姐, 谢谢. 妹妹则边按冲水把手, 边冲我咧着还是只有半颗小牙的嘴, 冲偶得意的乐着, 那意思偶也明白: 别看平时你们都把这儿的门都关着, 这不偶还是能抓紧机会玩到这个超好玩的大玩具.

薇薇的牙, 还是只有半颗. 可是她很明白那是她的小牙. 每次偶问她: 薇薇, 你的牙呢? 薇薇的小手都会在自己的嘴里来回摸摸, 然后还会抓起偶的一个手指放她的嘴里用她仅有的半颗小牙咬偶一下. 小同学每次看见姐姐刷牙, 都会发出很好奇的”哦, 哦”声. 大概很期待自己也快快长出很多牙来. 你说, 薇薇这牙都藏哪儿去了? 还不长.

小同学先在都鼻子, 眼睛, 嘴巴那是门儿清. 你要是问她你的鼻子呢? 她们恨不得把整个手指头都塞到自己小小的鼻孔里去.  要是问她:妈妈的嘴呢? 那就惨了, 小同学的整个小手都会塞到偶的嘴里.

Attitude

Thursday, March 15th, 2007 -- By ET

It is very hard to communicate with people who do not share your way  of thinking.  Sometimes, you call it an “attitude problem”.

Below, the problem/solution log is extracted from the Quantas airline.

Key:

P: Problem logged in by the captain.
S: Solution provided by the technicians.

P: Left inside main tire almost needs replacement.
S: Almost replaced left inside main tire.

P: Test flight OK, except auto-land very rough.
S: Auto-land not installed on this aircraft.

P: Something loose in cockpit.
S: Something tightened in cockpit

P: Autopilot in altitude-hold mode produces a 200 feet per minute descent.
S: Cannot reproduce problem on ground.

P: Evidence of leak on right main landing gear.
S: Evidence removed.

P: DME volume unbelievably loud.
S: DME volume set to more believable level ..

P: Friction locks cause throttle levers to stick.
S: That’s what they’re there for.

P: IFF inoperative.
S: IFF always inoperative in OFF mode.

P: Suspected crack in windshield.
S: Suspect you’re right.

P: Number 3 engine missing.
S: Engine found on right wing after brief search.

P: Aircraft handles funny.
S: Aircraft warned to straighten up, fly right, and be serious.

P: Target radar hums.
S: Reprogrammed target radar with lyrics.

P: Mouse in cockpit.
S: Cat installed.

poor childern

Tuesday, March 13th, 2007 -- By Jade

萱萱的学校时常不短的进行些慈善捐款活动. 为了培养小同学们的爱心, 我每次也都要意思意思. 大概学校的老师也会趁此对小朋友们进行爱心教育.

上次学校举行春节party前, 萱萱很是严肃的对老妈偶说: 妈妈, you need bring some money with you to give those poor children. 他们很poor, 没有钱. 我只好连连称是, 你说难得娃娃有点这个同情心, 难得啊! 于是到处搜刮了翻零钱, 拿去给萱萱发善心.

春节时, 外公, 姨 和几个好友自然少不了给几个红信封,萱萱, 薇薇. 看到萱萱捧着外公, 姨给的大红包, 偶突然想起了poor childern. 于是对萱萱说: 萱萱, 你把你的钱给那些poor 小朋友好不好? 我满以为这么有爱心的萱萱一定会双手赞成的.  萱萱那着爱不释手的红包, 听了偶的话, 小脸儿立刻变的严肃了, 沉思片刻, 说到: 妈妈啊, 不行, 这是我的钱啊!

我顿时明白了, 只有妈妈的钱才可以那去发善心哦. 狡猾的小东西.

娃娃们的红包自然妈妈妥善的保管了. 过了着十天半个月想来她们也都记忆模糊了.

一日, 萱萱小姐在翻腾一本玩具广告. 突然跑过来, 指着广告上的一个玩具说说: 妈妈我要买这个. 我一看, 又是粉红色的小公主之类的玩具, 家里都已经一堆了, 自然不会同意了. 很自然的答到: 哎, 不能买啊. 家里已经有这种玩具了. 再说妈妈现在也没有钱啊. 萱萱显然有备而来, 说到: 妈妈, 那我的钱呢? 就是那天那个阿姨给的啊. 我当时就要晕倒, 看样小东西一点儿也不能呼悠啊, 人家心里门儿清. 于是只好清清嗓子, 开始长篇大论的给大小姐讲这个有钱要花到刀刃上的道理, 要买些有意义的书啊, 或着存起来啊 什么的. 反正这次是对付过去了. 不知道明年呢?

唉! 娃娃们的教育很是难啊.

 

 

Web 2.0 Search

Friday, March 9th, 2007 -- By ET

Published on Tuesday 6th of February, 2007 by Online Education Database.
Online search is now a multi-billion dollar industry, with Google alone grossing over $3.5 billion in profits last year. It’s no wonder why so many newcomers are hopping on the search bandwagon, hoping to become the next Google. And those new search engines that may stand the best chance to become the next Google all share one common element — the use of Web 2.0 technology that they hope will increase search result relevance.

Here are 25 such engines. Some offer functionality that’s slowly making its way into traditional search engines. Others further the attempt to traverse the invisible Web and index other previously unsearchable research sources.

Mashups and Tagging

Many of the new search engines use the modular functionality of Web 2.0: mash together several services and add new features.

  1. AjaxwhoisAjaxwhois.
    Doing a little domain name research? Ajaxwhois takes an existing protocol, WHOIS, and wraps it with a more responsive one. It’s not a traditional search engine per se, but does make finding domain registration information faster. Start typing, and if you stop, it sends out a query. Add a few more characters to the domain name, and the query starts fresh. Results include links to hosting plans, the site (if it’s registered), and Alexaholic, which is a mashup of Alexa, a Web traffic rankings service.
  2. FlickrStormFlickrStorm.
    FlickrStorm provides a nice mashup for flickr images. Enter a tag and it comes back with square thumbnails. Scroll through the array, click on images, and they’ll be displayed larger. Add the ones you like to your own “tray”, for later download. It’s a simple but effective interface for consuming photos. An “advanced” feature filters images by license types, including Creative Commons.
  3. FundooWebFundooWeb.
    FundooWeb is a multi-mashup, incorporating results from Yahoo!, Flickr, Yahoo! News, Yahoo! Answers, Amazon, and Yahoo! Maps images. If you search all sources, the results are presented in a couple of formats, including collapsible headlines and a Flickr photo strip, partitioned by source. There’s obviously a heavy leaning to Yahoo, but it’s not a bad way to conveniently compartmentalize several search result sets.
  4. KeotagKeotag.
    Keotag’s initial face looks quite simple, with font sizes large enough for the dead to read. Type in a keyword or phrase and a line of favicons appear for Google, Technorati, and Bloglines, as well as over a dozen social bookmarking and community news sites. At far left is a Technorati chart showing the number of blog posts containing the key phrase over the past 30 days. Clicking on a particular favicon reveals result headlines for that source, which can be subscribed to through the resulting RSS feed.
  5. WhonuWhonu.
    Whonu is arguably one of the very first semantic Web search engines available. It offers over 300 search sources and a smart interface that contextualizes what you enter. For example, enter a US ZIP code and whonu presents a set of links to geocode tools including maps, weather maps, and even public events in Google Calendar. There are so many features that the demo screencast video is 26 minutes long. Information is double partitioned by file type and source. The variety of options might be a bit intimidating, but for power research, whonu looks like one of the most promising search tools available, with an effort made to present structured meaning. Killer feature — saved query history using a row of dots.
  6. similicio.usSimilicio.us.
    Similicio.us is mashup of del.icio.us which tries to find sites related to a user-entered URL. In other words, “people who liked this site also liked”. This recommendation engine idea is so basic in functionality that it’s a surprise someone didn’t think of it before. The creator of the site admits that similicio.us currently uses shallow searching on del.icio.us to keep queries to their service at a minimum. This is no doubt an engine that could prove useful in other mashups, were it to be extended in scope. (One possibility is to team up with del.icio.us and have access to their full database and engine.)

Rich Internet Application Search Interfaces

The “rich” in RIAs is a matter of personal definition, but engines in this category offer a little something extra in terms of the interface, sometimes employing AJAX.

  1. HuckabuckHuckabuck.
    On the surface, Huckabuck seems like any other text search engine, but click on the “search tuner” button and a neat little “equalizer” panel reveals itself. You can use it to give more weight to the different sources — Google, Yahoo, MSN, Technorati, Digg, del.icio.us - as well color-code results, set the slider for results per page, turn on auto-completion on or off, and more. Click on the Presets arrows to reveal predefined equalizations for Research, Shopping, Blog search, Metasearch, Technology Research, and Social Search. Not a bad start to partitioning search results meaningfully.
  2. KartOOKartoo.
    Kartoo is yet another search engine that partitions results into several categories, some serious, some frivolous. The presentation, however, is quite different, displayed in little clusters using Flash and icons of a sheet of paper for each result. Some results are more relevant than others, and clicking on an icon takes you to a deeper level of results. This paradigm might be a little confusing at first, but hovering your mouse over a result produces a result summary at left, including a screencap of the result page.
  3. KwMapKwMap.
    KwMap touts itself as “a keyword map for the whole Internet”. Type in a keyword or phrase, and an unusual interface appears. At right is an alphabetical list of related keyphrases. At left is a visual component showing two axes that resemble an insect’s antennae, dotted with nodes representing related terms. Clicking on a term’s node takes you to another layer of loosely-related terms. This is a new search paradigm, but it offers the opportunity to explore related concepts in small leaps. Thus, a search for the word “tree” could lead you to “tea tree oil” or to a study of ancestor worship (via “family tree”). Hyperlinking mimicks hyper-thought.
  4. mnemomapMnemomap.
    Mnemomap uses multiple components to display search results. Topmost is a hierarchical graph with nodes branching off the search term. Non-clickable secondary nodes are “Token”, “Tags”, “Translations” and “Synonyms”. Tertiary nodes are search results and can have either a tight relationship to the original search term or a tenuous relationship. Clicking on a tertiary node either adds it to a bar below for a refined search, or produces a new graph, depending on where you click. Below is a section displaying relevant results from Mnemo, Yahoo, flickr, and YouTube. Mnemomap, currently in Alpha 0.2, is a fascinating paradigm for searching, but more suited to power researchers than to the average search engine user.
  5. PreFoundPreFound.
    PreFound, which is powered by Eurekster Swicki, is a simple search engine on the surface, but contains a little slider “equalizer” panel similar to the one in Huckaback (above). PreFound’s panel has settings for music, movies, TV, xBox, etc., instead of search engines. You do have to register to see and use the equalizer (which they oddly call a social search equalizer) but you do not have to ask a question, view previous answers related to your search, or to promote up a search result.
  6. QuinturaQuintura.
    Quintura, who recently received funding, presents text or image search results in a minimalist but graphic form resembling a freeform tag cloud. Holding your mouse cursor long enough over a term in the cloud causes new, related terms to appear in the vicinity of the cursor. While the no click interface is a bit disconcerting at first, you can start over by holding the cursor over the original search term, displayed in red text. Any term in focus (hovered over) generates search results in a scrollable panel below.
  7. UjikoUjiko.
    Ujiko has an interface reminiscent of some sort of a video game, presenting results in both a central circle as well as in rows surrounding the circle. The setup allows you to drill down into the categories in the circle or click on actual results on either side, which can be marked as favorites. Ujiko makes a commendable attempt in presenting meaningful results in digestible bites, with a constantly updated interface.
  8. TagnauticaTagnautica.
    Tagnautica starts off with a minimalist interface: a black background and a “CLICK HERE” message. Click and enter your search term, then wait for the strange revolving circle containing numerous spheres on the circumference, which undulate up and down in size. Talk about organic search results. Each result represents a relate term, which can be drilled down into. Or you can click whatever term is in the center (initially the original search term) to get a page of flickr images. Tagnautica is a fascinating photo search parardigm that’s lots of fun and definitely visually inspiring.
  9. TopixTopix.
    Ever want to search for topical Web pages and wish you could easily narrow the search to a certain time period? Topix offers just that ability with a neat little interactive timeline map. Clicking on a particular day produces results ordered reverse chronologically from that day backwards. Definitely a handy tool for research, and would be killer mashed up with other functionality.

Social Aspects: User Contribution, Recommendation, Social Networks

Social networks are a hot Web application space, and now they creeping into search engines.

  1. ClipfireClipfire.
    Michael Arrington of Techcrunch gave Clipfire his blessing, saying how much he likes this ecommerce deal-finding search engine. Sometimes all you need is a simple interface; it’s the members that matter here. The idea is that members submit Web sites, Clipfire searches them, then presents later searchers with product and service deal info. Members are encouraged to use their own affiliate links so that they’re motivated to find good deals and share them. This is a unique idea that’s unlikely to remain so for much longer.
  2. OmgiliOmgili.
    Omgili is a discussion-based engine. In addition to standard search results, a list of links to members is provided who have answered questions relating to a given search term. You can also ask a question, which another member might answer for you with relevant links. Recommendation engines such as omgili have their value in end applications, possibly those similar to the music recommendation site iLike (not to be confused with shopping engine, like).

Visual Search

Engines in this category allow you to search using images and similarity algorithms.

  1. LikeLike.
    Like is a “visual shopping” engine that starts off with images of products. Click on an image to get an array of related product images. Use the interface to select a focus area of one image to find similar products by shape or color - say similar sunglasses. Like also lets you filter brands and price ranges. It’s one of the more sophisticated ways to do affiliate marketing. Of course, while you don’t have to enter any text at all to surf’n’shop, the option is there as well.
  2. PixsyPixsy.
    Pixsy is a visual search engine for pictures or videos selected from several sources including Buzznet, flickr, iStockphoto, Fotolia, YouTube, and others. Clicking on an image takes you to the source page. For stock photo sites, this might provide copyright and license details. A handy tool for online publishers looking for suitable images to reprint.
  3. RetrievrRetrievr.
    Retrievr is a visual search engine in the truest sense of the term, offering the choice of starting with an image (via URL or uploaded) or a sketch from the user, which can be customized by line thickness and color. Images are then retrieved from flickr. Brilliant concept. The honest truth is that very few of the images in the matrix of results have much resemblance to drawn sketches, but those that do are uncanny. An engine like this is only as good as its algorithms (though it uses brainiac wavelet transforms rather than the traditional neural network algorithms). Still, retrievr is an exciting early- generation advanced search engine offering.
  4. RiyaRiya.
    Riya visual search, who also offer Like, lets you search amongst people, objects, tags, and photos, as well as gives you a portal to Google, Yahoo, MSN, and flickr. You can browse broadly across the results or drill down through a specific photoset. Results can be emailed, embedded into Myspace or Blogger pages, or subscribed to via the dynamic RSS feed.
  5. TiltomoTiltomo.
    Tiltomo is yet another flickr mashup that offers a few search options. Enter a single flickr tag or ask for random images. Once you have an array of images, you can find similar images either by theme or by color/ texture. Tiltomo seems to produce slightly more relevant secondary results than some of the other visual search engines.
  6. XcavatorXcavator.
    Xcavator is another flickr-based engine in its early stages. Currently, it seems a bit limited, as there are only five tags from flickr that can be searched. Selecting one brings up an array of images. Dragging and dropping one of these to the xcavator search box and then selecting a point of interest produces a second, more refined image result set. While these sorts of engines have a ways to go before they’re highly accurate, it’s the promise of what’s to come that’s exciting.

Audio/ Video Search

Up until a few years ago, finding specific music or videos online was a difficult task. Then video search started appearing in traditional search engines. Now, it’s creeping into engines with some advanced features.

  1. LiveplasmaLiveplasma.
    Liveplasma is a music and video search and discovery engine tied to Amazon.com. Enter an artist, band, movie, director, or actor of interest, and up pops an unusual result set paradigm: floating spheres clustered in overlapping orbits. Each sphere represents information related to the search term. Clicking on a result produces an Amazon summary in the left panel, sometimes with CD/ DVD cover art. Clicking on the summary takes you to its Amazon page. Liveplasma is the type of affiilate marketing search engine that can wag the long tail.
  2. VDoogleVdoogle.
    Vdoogle is a video search engine that draws its sources from 14 video sharing sites such as YouTube and DailyMotion, as well as veteran sites such as iFilm. Vdoogle is based on Google’s new roll-your-own custom search engine, which is similar to Rollyo. Its Web 2.0 pedigree is tenuous, though it does mashup other Web 2.0 user-contributed services. The accuracy of Vdoogle relies on the proper tagging of source videos, so the engine could do with its own tagging and recommendation engine as an additional layer.

Google Super Close-up

Friday, March 9th, 2007 -- By ET

google-maps-higher-zoom.jpg

Don’t know how people found this level of zoom on google:

http://maps.google.com/maps?f=q&hl=en&q=15.298683+19.429651&layer=&ie=UTF8&z=23&ll=15.298684,19.429651&spn=0.001291,0.002698&t=k&om=1&iwloc=addr

Yes, it turns out that you can zoom in much more deeply onto Google Maps by doing this:

  1. Select a location and switch to satellite view
  2. Zoom in as far as you can, and click “link to this page” at the top right
  3. Now replace the “z” parameter in the URL with a higher value, e.g. 20, 22, or 23, and wait. Some locations will now show more detailed imagery

Tried some places I know, can not get the level of 23.

花生骚

Wednesday, March 7th, 2007 -- By Jade

刚到香港, 一日在地铁上看到不记得是哪个歌星的演唱会广告了. 之所以不记得歌星的名字了, 是因为我被一行字吸引: XXX(名字忘了)某月某日(日期也忘了)某地(地点忘了,大概是红馆)行骚.

 我一路上这个纳闷啊. 这个”骚”怎么能这么大的字满街贴呢? 这个字在我们的字典里是不很雅的. 难道是此歌星得罪人了, 所以被黑社会满街贴的骂人的广告? 鉴于萱萱当时在场, 偶都没有好意思问小豆, 生怕这个不雅的词又被小同学听到. 可是这也不太象是那种广告啊, 要是黑社会满街都贴这么印刷精良的广告, 那这势力也是够大的了. 什么意思呢, 怎么也参不透. 终于一日, 得到个机会问问小豆同学, 原来他也不知道.

终于这个字谜, 在我买了几本八挂杂志后解开了.

不来香港不知道, 香港的八挂杂志实在是其一大文化特色. 八挂杂志一般是周刊, 大盖每天都有不同的周刊发行, 什么东周刊, 西周刊, 一周刊, 三周刊, 快周刊, 明报周刊…..等等. 各个周刊摆7-11店里任君选够. 周刊里, 东家长西家短, 城里的名门望族里的老爷太太,二太太,三太太…. 阔少小姐, 男女明星, 星爸星妈, 吃什么饭, 穿什么衣, 带什么金银珠宝, 换什么男朋友, 交什么女朋友, 买什么楼……轮流上镜. 每种周刊都是厚厚一大本, 可见香港的娱记有几多勤奋了.

终于在偶闲来无事是, 看了几本周刊后恍然大悟, “骚”就是”show”, 按普通话说就是”演出”了. 就是这么简单哦.

花生骚: Fashion Show. 

 

新相机, 丢了

Sunday, March 4th, 2007 -- By Jade

 花了港币2,750, 才买了不到一个月, 只觉得一点儿可惜, 立刻就觉得幸好丢了, 可算是解了偶的心头恨. 因为:这个相机实在是……太差,太太太…..差了!

Panasonic DMC-FX07S 7.2MP Digital Camera with 3.6x Optical Image Stabilized Zoom (Silver)
千万别买! 据说还是7.2 MP的, 照出来的照片, 那简直是一个盗版光碟, 还是影院搬的. 好好的一个可爱的薇薇和萱萱, 两张光滑的小脸, 用这款相机, 即使是大晴天照的,也是满脸马塞克. 哎! 更别说偶了: 2个孩儿的妈, 简直没法看的说, 看上去就象哪个卖盗版光盘的一样沧桑, 脸色蜡黄. 气死偶了!

这个FX07必须在阳光非常好, 既不很亮也不阴的时候才能偶尔得到你想要的效果, 凡是阴天,室内, 光线稍有不完美, 那么这个相片就不能看.(行话就是:noisy, noisy, too  noisy)  总只, 我每看一次, 就得一肚子气. 连偶们以前用过的佳能300万相素的都不如. 一度认为又买了个假的, 跑到店里去研究, 发现点里的也这个样子, 不关是松下的还是佳能的, 效果都一样. 哎! 看样子, 就是质量不过关啊.

偶还是决定从amazon上买一个 Cannon的, 加上运费, 也是比这里的价钱便宜的, 或者最多价钱一样.

 


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