Internet tips and trick

Internet Trick number 1 – Address bar magic.

If you are a touch typer and your typing speed is good, then you probably don’t need this. But, for some people, having to type the whole “www” and “.com” can be a little hassle. So, when you type in any word (or more than one word but written together) and press “Ctrl” and “Enter” at the same time, your browser will do it for you! Example: Typing “yahoo” and pressing enter will open up www.yahoo.com for you. Keep in mind that it will only work for .com domains. It’s an awesome feature to know, nontheless.

Internet Trick number 2 – Search term magic.

You read an interesting article a while back and you remember some words, but searching for them might not always bring out the result you want to see. If you want to utilize your search results, use the “AROUND” feature on Google. It allows you to find separate phrases, not just mentioned in the same article or page, but inside of a specific amount of words apart. For example, if you wanted to find writings about ‘Kanye West’ and ‘pizza’ within 12 words of each other, your search would look like this: “Kanye West” AROUND (12) “Pizza”. If you want to give it a try, just search for it and you will see the magic happen. The quotation marks, AROUND in capital letter and parenthesis are all necessary for this feature to work.

Internet Trick number 3 – The “minus” magic.

Another good use of Google search genius is taking advantage of the “minus” feature. Search for “Selena Gomez -Justin Bieber” and Boom! The magic happens. You will get all the search results about Selena Gomez that doesn’t include any of Justin Bieber.
I hope you’re enjoying it so far.

Internet Trick number 4 – The “disposable email”.

Need an email for a couple of minutes to register somewhere but also not receive any email or spam in the future? The 10 Minute Mail is right there for you. It’s pretty self explanatory what it does. But if you didn’t get it, then it will basically give you a 10 minute email address where you can receive messages (usually activation/confirmation emails) and view them. Try it.

Internet Trick number 5 – The “begging”.

This one here is not always effective, but it might come handy sometimes. If you are doing online shopping and if you don’t need the item you’re about to purchase that fast, try adding items to your cart and leave it.Eventually you might get some type of discount code in an email that gives off desperate ex vibes, borderline begging you to finish the purchase.

Internet Trick number 6 – The “Oh, no! My file is corrupted!”

Corrupt A File is an enabler that can be a procrastinator’s best (or worst?) friend, allowing them to corrupt a file and make it seem like they did their work on time, but it’s unfortunately malfunctioning.

Internet Trick number 7 – The “define:”.

If you type in “define:” and a word you don’t know in your address bar/search bar, you will get the definition of the word in a split second. For example, typing “define: douche” will bring out the following result:

Xbox one Skype

Tumblr user Andrea Lessi recently had an encounterwith one, which was “like chatting to a particularly dumb version of Cleverbot.” Here’s another fromTwitter user Dan Ramirez in which the bot asks “what kinda girls you into?” before he deftly sideswipes it.

Since two-thirds of the 17+ rated app’s users are in the U.S. and almost all of them are teenagers, porn bots have been having a field day on Kik. Many of the app’s users typically find one another on Instagram, where they post their profile names and invite people to “Kik me” if they want to chat. Sometimes they’ll get cold called with a nude photo they weren’t expecting, sometimes from a bot, and while they can block the random user they’ll still see the photo in clear technicolor on their lock screen.

“This became a serious problem over 18 months ago,” said Kik’s founder and CEO Ted Livingston. Of all the types of spam out there, it seemed porn bots were the most popular. “Their level of sophistication is incredible.”

Now, a year after Livingston raised $19.5 million in venture capital funding, he’s launching an update and a set of tools allowing Kik’s users to avoid the specter of porn bots.

- Now when someone receives a photo from a random Kik user, the image will be blurred by default.

- Kik is making the “block” button is more prominent.

- It’s also boiling each initiated conversation down to one notification, rather than a flood of notifications for every single message.

“We did a bunch of surveys,” says Livingston. The results showed that teens were using Kik to connect not just with others at school but with people on Tumblr, Instagram and Twitter, and they wanted more control. “People would put their Kik user name on their Instagram account and it’d get flooded with messages from new people… They’d send inappropriate stuff.”

Fortunately the next generation of mobile users who’ve grown up with the web in their pockets are savvy to the social engineering tactics used by bots. “It’s an annoyance, but nothing more than that,” Livingston claims. (The chat bots are eons away from the captivating discussions Joaquin Phoenix has with his operating system in “Her.”)

Still, the problem highlights a recurring problem for an app that can scale up quickly because anyone who joins can simply pick a user name, rather than link to others through cell phone number like  WhatsApp. “That makes fighting spam very tough from a tech point of view,” Livingston admits.

Keeping up with Kik’s porn bots turned into an arms race over the last 18 months as the spammers’ IP addresses constantly shifted across the world. When Kik’s engineers created an algorithm that blocked new users sending out messages to 1,000 users at a time, the spammers changed tack, and began messaging five people randomly every five minutes for two hours. As their tactics become more sophisticated, the spam became harder to detect.

A single criminal group is probably behind the porn bots on Kik, Cathal McDaid of security firm Adaptive Mobile says. “These groups tend to be among the most mobile of criminal groups operating on messaging, so they move once under pressure,” he added. “But they are one of the most innovative and likely to quickly enter any new messaging system that may not have protection, and which seems close to their target demographic. Apps like Tinder and Snapchat have experienced high-profile bursts encouraging users to come to Kik.”

Kik consulted with a handful of large internet companies on the problem. “If you operate a prominent service at a big scale you’re going to deal with this stuff,” Livinston recalls them telling him. “This is just part of how the open Internet works. We just look at this as part of the game, and a problem that we have to solve.”

Kik

How Kik Is Tackling Its Porn Bot Problem

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New features will let Kik's largely-teen user base filter what they see - including spam from porn bots.

Kik may be the most promising messaging app in the U.S. after WhatsApp, with 120 million registered users and bold ambitions to become a new kind ofbrowser, perhaps even the next Twitter.

It’s just got one tiny problem. Porn bots.

These are fake profiles that randomly message the app’s users with enticing, sexual come-ons that lure them onto a dating or cam site, in which they have to pay a fee. Cue thousands of dollars for spammers. Note that these seductive profiles are not real people but algorithmically-controlled chat bots.

Tumblr user Andrea Lessi recently had an encounterwith one, which was “like chatting to a particularly dumb version of Cleverbot.” Here’s another fromTwitter user Dan Ramirez in which the bot asks “what kinda girls you into?” before he deftly sideswipes it.

Since two-thirds of the 17+ rated app’s users are in the U.S. and almost all of them are teenagers, porn bots have been having a field day on Kik. Many of the app’s users typically find one another on Instagram, where they post their profile names and invite people to “Kik me” if they want to chat. Sometimes they’ll get cold called with a nude photo they weren’t expecting, sometimes from a bot, and while they can block the random user they’ll still see the photo in clear technicolor on their lock screen.

“This became a serious problem over 18 months ago,” said Kik’s founder and CEO Ted Livingston. Of all the types of spam out there, it seemed porn bots were the most popular. “Their level of sophistication is incredible.”

Now, a year after Livingston raised $19.5 million in venture capital funding, he’s launching an update and a set of tools allowing Kik’s users to avoid the specter of porn bots.

- Now when someone receives a photo from a random Kik user, the image will be blurred by default.

- Kik is making the “block” button is more prominent.

- It’s also boiling each initiated conversation down to one notification, rather than a flood of notifications for every single message.

“We did a bunch of surveys,” says Livingston. The results showed that teens were using Kik to connect not just with others at school but with people on Tumblr, Instagram and Twitter, and they wanted more control. “People would put their Kik user name on their Instagram account and it’d get flooded with messages from new people… They’d send inappropriate stuff.”

Fortunately the next generation of mobile users who’ve grown up with the web in their pockets are savvy to the social engineering tactics used by bots. “It’s an annoyance, but nothing more than that,” Livingston claims. (The chat bots are eons away from the captivating discussions Joaquin Phoenix has with his operating system in “Her.”)

Still, the problem highlights a recurring problem for an app that can scale up quickly because anyone who joins can simply pick a user name, rather than link to others through cell phone number like  WhatsApp. “That makes fighting spam very tough from a tech point of view,” Livingston admits.

Keeping up with Kik’s porn bots turned into an arms race over the last 18 months as the spammers’ IP addresses constantly shifted across the world. When Kik’s engineers created an algorithm that blocked new users sending out messages to 1,000 users at a time, the spammers changed tack, and began messaging five people randomly every five minutes for two hours. As their tactics become more sophisticated, the spam became harder to detect.

A single criminal group is probably behind the porn bots on Kik, Cathal McDaid of security firm Adaptive Mobile says. “These groups tend to be among the most mobile of criminal groups operating on messaging, so they move once under pressure,” he added. “But they are one of the most innovative and likely to quickly enter any new messaging system that may not have protection, and which seems close to their target demographic. Apps like Tinder and Snapchat have experienced high-profile bursts encouraging users to come to Kik.”

Kik consulted with a handful of large internet companies on the problem. “If you operate a prominent service at a big scale you’re going to deal with this stuff,” Livinston recalls them telling him. “This is just part of how the open Internet works. We just look at this as part of the game, and a problem that we have to solve.”

What's App

WhatsApp pulled from Windows Phone Store

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By Jane McCallion

Posted on 19 May 2014 at 11:04

WhatsApp has been yanked from the Windows Phone store due to “technical issues” when running on Windows Phone 8.1.

Developers testing the beta version of the app on the preview version of Windows Phone 8.1 have found it doesn’t run properly, or at all, on the operating system, although it still works on Windows Phone 8.

Searching the Windows Phone Store for WhatsApp now returns the message “We couldn't find a match. Try a different spelling or search term.”

It is suspected the company, which was recently acquired by Facebook, may have withdrawn the app as the updated mobile OS is expected to launch within the next five weeks.

A severely dysfunctional app could lead users to abandon the service, which would be bad news for Facebook, which is trying to break into the chat app market.

An email allegedly emanating from the WhatsApp team published on Spanish website Windows Phone Apps said the service would “not be available for the next few hours” as the company was updating the app.

However it seems this timescale was somewhat ambitious, as the email was sent two days ago.

PC Pro contacted WhatsApp for comment on the situation, but was yet to receive a response at the time of publication.

However, Windows Phone Central has been given the following statement: “Unfortunately due to technical issues, we have chosen to un-publish WhatsApp Messenger on the Windows Phone platform.

“We are working closely with Microsoft to resolve the issues and hope to return to the store shortly. We apologize to our users for the temporary inconvenience.”

Source from Pcmag

Google worker

Sacked Google worker awarded €110,000 for unfair dismissal

Former senior manager claimed executive chairman Eric Schmidt altered staff ranking

A former senior manager at Google in Dublin claimed staff rankings were being altered to fit a ‘bell curve’ template. Photograph: Cyril Byrne/The Irish Times

Tim O'Brien

• Topics:
• News

Tue, May 20, 2014, 19:04

First published:Tue, May 20, 2014, 19:01

A sacked Google worker who claimed the company’s executive chairman Eric Schmidt personally interfered with staff rankings has been awarded €110,000 by the Employment Appeals Tribunal.

Rachel Berthold, a former senior manager at Google in Dublin, was awarded the compensation after the tribunal rejected Google’s defence that it had dismissed her on competency grounds.

The tribunal said it was “not satisfied that fair procedures were used” and it ruled her dismissal was “procedural unfair”.

The tribunal dismissed a claim by Ms Berthold that she was entitled to an award under minimum notice legislation, pointing out that she had received payment in lieu of notice.

In her evidence to the tribunal last March Ms Berthold had claimed Google had a “unique” system of comparing performance of staff groups worldwide, in which each unit’s ratings were assessed by their likeness to a template “bell curve”.

Because of this, she said staff were ranked from one to five and someone at Google always had to get a low score “of 2.9”, so the unit could match the bell curve. She said senior staff “calibrated” the ratings supplied by line managers to ensure conformity with the template and these calibrations could reduce a line manager’s assessment of an employee, in effect giving them the poisoned score of less than three.

Ms Berthold told her counsel Christina Daly, instructed by Ewan Murtagh of Whelan Murtagh Solicitors, that she was present when the ranking of a staff member was reduced electronically by Mr Schmidt.

“It came from him,” she said. “ I saw it with my own eyes.” She said Mr Schmidt could not have known anything about the employee.

Ms Berthold said a reduced rating could block the payment of an employee’s bonus, affect their chances of transferring within the global company and curtail their chances of promotion.

Ms Berthold told the tribunal she began to get lower rankings herself and felt she was being unfairly treated by her London-based superior Anne-Catrin Sallaba. She said she was working very hard, but came to believe she “was Catrin’s 2.9”.

Deirdre Lynch of solicitors Matheson, representing Google, had claimed the process of terminating Ms Berthold’s employment had been thorough with a performance expectation programme, followed by a performance improvement programme and two final written warnings.

The determination issued by the tribunal said “it was claimed by the respondent (Google) that it is a fair dismissal and that it was linked to competency and the Tribunal does not believe this”.

The tribunal also found there was no evidence that Google “considered any other option than termination. Furthermore the tribunal is not satisfied that fair procedures were used and therefore it is procedurally unfair”.

The hearing was held over three days in May and July 2013, and March this year

Source from Irish Times

First published:Tue, May 20, 2014, 19:01

Google can't resist joining Instagram

Even Google can’t resist joining Instagram.

The search giant joined the Facebook-owned site today and posted its first ‘gram — a video of today’s Rubik’s Cube Google Doodle.

Virus for Mac

Virus Threats for Macintosh Computers

New Mac Flashback Virus

There is a virus for Mac that has recently started to pick up steam (infected over 600,000 Mac computers worldwide). It is called the Flashback trojan, and relies on a vulnerability in your computer's Java installation. This virus operates in the background, so many users don't know they are infected. Click Here for more details, and steps you can take to see if your computer is infected.

Other Mac Viruses

Currently there are multiple malware programs circulating designed to infiltrate Mac OS. These programs are similarly designed to look like legitimate antivirus programs and tell users that their Mac is heavily infected with viruses. The program then harasses people into providing credit card information to purchase fake anti-virus program to remove the infection. This is a ploy to get your personal information. 

Often times these programs are automatically downloaded but cannot be installed without the permission of the user, by way of an administrator password. People who are not aware of these malware threats can unknowingly install these programs on to their machines. ONLY install programs on your machine that are from trusted publishers and that you have knowingly downloaded. Also, make sure that you have an updated antivirus program on your Mac. Students and Staff of OSU have access to free antivirus programs. 

Here is some info from the Apple Support community about removing Mac Defender.

Source from Oregon