IT Masala

Oh! what a challenge..Make website Rank High on Google and get $10 million.

The topic — Can a poker Web site rank high on a Google search using purely white hat tactics — meaning no spamming, cloaking, link farms or other frowned-upon "black hat" practices. Fishkin answered yes, provided the site also added other marketing techniques and attracted some media attention.

But one poker Web site owner was intrigued, and he later approached Fishkin. "He said, 'If you can get us a search ranking in the top five for online poker or gambling [using white hat methods], we'll buy that site from you for $10 million,'" recalls Fishkin, president and CEO of SEOmoz in Seattle. Intrigued but skeptical, Fishkin consulted other gambling site owners at the conference. "They said, 'If it really does rank there, we might be interested in paying you $10 million more.'"

If at all a single online gambling customer brings in at least $1,000 in revenue. With a recent Google search of "Texas Holdem Poker" yielding 1.64 million results, so there is no doubt that the site owners would pay millions to crack the code for Google's PageRank algorithm.

The poker owners would pay anything to get the Google PageRank algorithm cracked ! 

Continue Reading…. 

A nice article by Neal Krawetz on extreme tech on how to improve the performance of your Ubuntu system. He speaks of fine-tuning of your system, about the understanding of the processes which are running,  and resource availability and process start up. Tweaking configurations, about how to disable undesirable processes, enable necessary housekeeping, and adjusting your kernel to better handle your needs to give you the best performance !

We know different versions of Ubuntu (and Linux) use different startup scripts and run different support processes.He nicely quotes :

[ Hacking Ubuntu to Improve Performance ] 

I don't own ipod.Two days ago i had borrowed my friend's and it got stuck..completely frozen. Then i tried out these to get it back….

If your iPod is frozen or won't turn on, it may be because iPod is paused or the Hold switch is in the locked position. If so, a lock symbol appears on the screen. Slide the Hold switch to the unlocked position and check the screen.

If your iPod is frozen or won't turn on, the steps to reset it vary by model. But this works with most of them.

Steps :

1. Toggle the Hold switch on and off. (Slide it to Hold, then turn it off again.)
2. Press and hold the Menu and Center (Select) buttons simultaneously until the Apple logo appears, about 6 to 10 seconds. You may need to repeat this step.
3. After a few seconds, your device will reboot.

As i have to buy a Laptop very soon , i was going through some tips on how to use it efficiently,mainly on battery back up .. etc and fumbled upon this article by Jeremy Toeman .

Some of his tips are : 

• Brightness: how low can you go?
• Don’t use any external devices.
• Single-task, not multi-task.
• Keep it cool.
• Shut down unused services.
• Do Hibernate, Do Not Suspend
• Tweak advanced settings.
• Choose Wisely.
• Watch That Hard Drive.
• Like a Boy Scout, Be Prepared.

via [ 10 Tips on Maximizing Laptop Battery Performance ]   

Windows/Mac/Linux (All platforms): Free, open source application Shoka is a PDF library manager with a difference.

Shoka has been designed to perform full text searches on all documents in your Shoka library and share documents over LAN, it comes with a simple and attractive graphical interface.

Shoka has some nice features like tagging and smartlists. There is something wrong with the windows version of Shoka. I am not able to use it properly. Tools like Google Desktop already do similar thing of indexing but for exclusive managing of pdf's Shoka is great.

Note : It needs JavaWebStart.  

[ Shoka ] [ Download ] [ Java ]

Since the day i saw Nithin running his newsletter succesfully , I also wanted to run my own newsletter. But never got anything right to make my own newsletter which would look good,elegant and appropriate. Then i came across Letterpop. With Letterpop you can make extremely creative newsletters in minutes. And all this for FREE !

Now with Letterpop you could have your professional newsletter made in just minutes. There are over 70 beautiful templates currently listed on the web site and it literally takes about 20 minutes to create a perfect looking professional newsletter! The interface is completely based on Web 2.0 with drag and drop and automatic pop up windows to add text, etc.

What you need to do is just select the theme you want , add images and text. Letterpop has integrated Flickr , you can now easily add images from Flickr into your newsletter. You just need to authorize letterpop to access your flickr account and your are done !

There are many added features when upgraded.For personal use this might not be necessary. Free is sufficient. 

Checkout some users newsletters:

You can use Letterpop to make nice newsletters for your family photos,Announcements for birthdays, weddings, small business,updates for your club,latest news for your mom's group and lot more..

Now i will also have my own newsletter..Nithin i am coming ! ..

[ Letterpop ] [ SignUp ] 

An Australian teenager had hundreds of clips removed from Internet video-sharing site YouTube by pretending to be an employee of the state broadcasting network, the Australian Broadcasting Corporation.

The 15-year-old sent a signed letter to YouTube saying he represented ABC, the owner of the copyright to a popular local comedy series, and asked the site to remove clips from the series that users had posted on it, local media reported.

After being contacted by lawyers for the ABC, the boy apologised, Australian Associated Press reported on Saturday.

"Everyone does dumb stuff when they are 15," the head of ABC television comedy, Courtney Gibson, told ABC Radio. She said it wasn't immediately clear why the teenager took the action he did.

"We really appreciate that he's apologised and we'll be following up with him next week," Gibson said.

Note : YouTube does not prevent copyrighted content from being uploaded, but will take material down at the request of copyright owners.

via [ china daily ] 

Research going on at Rochester Institute of Technology is helping keep troops in Iraq and Afghanistan safer.

Kevin Hand is an engineering student at RIT working a very big project. "It’s really kind of neat," he said.

Student Peter Weisberg said, "It’s cool that we have a plane here…right down the hall there's a jet!"

RIT research is also helping to prolong the life of aging vehicles and aircraft.

In another research area, a special laser attached to a $250,000 computer system scans part of a gear box for a transmission– and then digitally re-creates it at the speed of 23,000 points a second.

In some cases the specialized parts used are manufactured in Rochester, providing not only research opportunities for students but real jobs in the community. RIT received its first military contract in 2001.

via [ 13wham ] 

I use Sygate personal Firewall. Its really the best one i have ever used. But still getting your pc checked by an external device or tool is very much necessary. Use Shields Up to check whether your ports are open or closed. Many hackers run automated port scanning tool which scans your pc for open ports and if found any , then you are gone.

On the first page it identifies your connection.Once you're at that page, click Proceed to get started. On the next screen, you'll have the open to choose which type of scan you want like to perform: File Sharing ports, Common ports, All ports, Messenger spam, and browser headers.

Go ahead and click on File Sharing to run the test and you should get something similiar to this:

After the test runs, you should get a report with a big FAILED or PASSED.

Many a times some of your ports are open like FTP,Telnet , HTTP , if you running some webservers etc ..  So it might show failed.

They have a very nice Messenger Spam Test. Do you get any random authentic Windows popup messages telling you signup for something, etc? Well that's because the spammers are using the Windows Messenger service on your computer to send you messages directly from Windows itself!

Use this Messenger Spam test to see if your UDP port 135 is open through which this message comes.

If some problem occurs while running these port checks , check your Personal Firewall on your PC. 

Happy Securing !

via [ Shields Up ] 

A new Skype worm that displays an image of a scantily clad woman wearing stilettos (shown left) has been identified by security companies F-Secure and Sophos.

The worm has been named “IM-Worm:W32/Pykse.A” by F-Secure and Mal/Pykse-A by Sophos.

How Does it Affect ? 

Pykse-A is most likely to be installed by clicking on a link contained in a received Skype message. It sets the Skype user’s status to DND (do not disturb) before sending a message with a malware link to all online friends in the Skype contact list.

If the recipient clicks on the link, a Trojan dropper (detected as Troj/Dropper-OI) is downloaded. When Troj/Dropper-OI is executed, an enticing image(scantily clad model wearing stiletto heeled shoes) is displayed, and Pykse-A is dropped and silently executed.

The image of the woman is displayed in a bid by the malware creator to cover up the true purpose of the download.

Where does the link in the message lead to ? 

The link (contains ”The Living Africa” content , which has been ripped from a legitimate site: library.thinkquest.org.) also directs users to at least eight Web sites with information about Africa. It's not clear what type of scam or harm those pages intend, but some of the sites have advertising on them, indicating that it might be a click-fraud scam, said Graham Cluley, senior technology consultant for Sophos PLC.

Whats Click Fraud - Click fraud refers to the various tricks used to get clicks on advertising banners, which generate revenue for Web page owners.

Please follow the instructions for removing worms