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H: When sharing a Dropbox folder, whose quota is "billed"?
I shared a Dropbox folder with another user. Who "owns" the files there? Whose quota will this come out of?
AI: I'm afraid it comes out of both of your quotas: https://www.dropbox.com/help/59 |
H: Black-backgrounded pictures in Facebook. How can I disable it?
Possible Duplicate:
Facebook: Removing “&theatre” Mode
Recently Facebook has changed the way the photos are displayed, and I don't like it. This style has also ruined the tags in my photos. The tagging squares are not pointing the correct areas inside the photos.
I'd like to revert it to the good old way. Is this possible?
AI: There is no option to turn it off from Facebook side. But you can either use some script - http://www.sizzledcore.com/2011/02/21/get-old-facebook-photo-viewer-in-firefox-chrome/ or remove the parameter theatre from the end of the URL (https://i.stack.imgur.com/uScRX.jpg) or reload the photo or from the album view open the photo in a new tab (either by right click > open in new tab or middle click) |
H: Online free no-registration app that monitors websites?
A website I need to access is currently down (port 80 connection hangs).
Is there a free online no-registration-required service that monitors
websites that are down and then emails me when the site's back up?
I realize I could write this myself or use Nagios/etc, but it'd be
nice to have a quick-and-dirty website for this.
I also don't want to set up constant or repeating monitoring. I just
want to know when the site is up, and never hear from the app again
(unless I revisit it and ask it to monitor another site).
AI: There are a lot of uptime checkers. I use uptime.openacs.org because I like the clean interface. :)
It sends a request every 15 minutes. You get an email when your site is down and another one when the site is back again. On some sites I use the service as a poor man’s cron job. |
H: Why is Google maps enforcing the "sensor" parameter?
The Google maps geocoding API has a sensor parameter that is mandatory in V3:
sensor (required) — Indicates whether or not the geocoding request comes from a device with a location sensor. This value must be either true or false.
requests without it are denied:
"REQUEST_DENIED" indicates that your request was denied, generally because of lack of a sensor parameter.
Why is this? Why do they want to know so badly whether the request comes from a client with a sensor or not?
Is it for statistical reasons, or to be able to provide services in the future?
AI: The sensor parameter is required by Google as they need this information for statistics as part of their licensing terms with their data providers.
Taken from this Google Groups post (from a Google employee by the looks of it)
The sensor parameter doesn't give you
any geo location capabilities it just
lets us know as part of our licensing
terms with our data providers that the
map is being used in conjunction with
some sort of geo location
functionality. |
H: Why is the audio gone from a video I uploaded to Youtube?
I just made a video with Windows Movie Maker, and uploaded to Youtube, only to find the audio track totally missing. Is it because I chose a popular song as the audio track (DRM/licensing issues) ?
AI: Most likely yes. You can find out yourself by visiting the list of our videos "My Uploaded Videos" on youtube (you need to be logged in) and see if there is a Note about "Matched third party content". |
H: YouTube movie length limit
While uploading a family video to YouTube, I've noticed the following message:
Congratulations! Your account is now enabled for uploads longer than 15 minutes. Click the Upload button below to select a video.
It might be related to the fact that the accumulated view count of all my videos has just reached 5,000.
Do you have any idea what's the video length limit policy of YouTube?
AI: It is now officially 15 min but depending on when you created the account and its type, other rules can apply.
Source: http://www.google.com/support/youtube/bin/answer.py?hl=en&answer=71673 |
H: Where can I check the list of all sponsored stories I "liked"
Sometimes I see my friends associated to Facebook ads:
Sponsored Stories
John Doe likes SomeProduct.
I might have clicked "Like" on some things without being aware this would end up being used like this.
To avoid this, is there a place where I can see the list of all sponsored stories I "liked"?
I have looked here:
Profile > Info > Activities and Interests: Edit > Show Other Pages
But I am not sure if this the correct place?
AI: You can get this info using the Graph API. One way to do this is to go to the Graph API info page - http://developers.facebook.com/docs/reference/api/
Here you will see links to get information about yourself (Profile details, Likes, Photo Albums...). These links contain an access token which is only valid for a short time so you cannot bookmark these links. |
H: What is Jabber, and how is it related to Facebook chat?
What else uses Jabber besides Facebook chat?
AI: Jabber is the original name for Extensible Messaging and Presence Protocol (XMPP) an open-standard communications protocol for message-oriented middleware based on XML
Unlike most instant messaging protocols, XMPP uses an open systems approach of development and application, by which anyone may implement an XMPP service and interoperate with other organizations' implementations.
Some of the clients implementing Jabber. |
H: Can I link to Google Maps with the 'LatLng Marker' enabled?
Rather than explaining to my students how to enable the 'LatLng Marker' (Settings --> Maps Labs --> Enable LatLng Marker), I would like to just give them a link with the marker enabled. Is it possible to do this?
AI: I don't think there is an easy way to do this. Because the page uses AJAX you can not just use the URL of the Save Changes button from Google Maps Labs like in the old days.
Your best bet would be to tell your students to log in to their Google account and change the setting once. The setting would be saved for the following sessions. |
H: Don't Google profile links work as OpenIDs any more?
For years I've been using a http://www.google.com/profiles/name.surname link as my OpenID.
I've also used it to log in to StackExchange sites because If I've just pressed Google logo to log in there it used some weird digital-id instead of my name and surname and was unable to associate me with accounts I've created with the plain link (the one above) in this case.
But from today it doesn't seem to work any more. If I paste my plain OpenID link (the one above), it says "Unable to log in with your OpenID provider: No OpenID endpoint found."
Does it mean that my plain-looking, easily-memorizable Google-given OpenID is gone? Or is that just StackExchange to stop supporting it in favour to logo-click authentication?
AI: This was accidental breakage during the change to profiles.google.com/USERNAME; it should be fixed now. |
H: RSS for Slashdot mobile
I would like to subscribe to slashdot articles under mobile category only (http://mobile.slashdot.org/). But their RSS link (http://rss.slashdot.org/Slashdot/slashdot) gives articles from all categories.
AI: Slashdot's rss feed for the mobile section only:
http://rss.slashdot.org/Slashdot/slashdotmobile
For further reference on creating section-only feeds, refer to this page: http://slashdot.org/faq/feeds.shtml |
H: Can Google Calendar connect to a CalDAV server?
I know events added in Google Calendar can be accessed in other applications (e.g. iCal) by connecting to Google's CalDAV server. But I have my own CalDAV server to which people add events with a variety of applications, and I was wondering whether Google Calendar can automatically import (and stay in sync) with these events, presumably by connecting to my CalDAV server? I can't find any reference to this in Google's help pages.
AI: It looks like this has been requested as a feature, suggesting you can't: http://www.google.com/support/forum/p/Calendar/thread?tid=34e8c4dc6379472d&hl=en |
H: What happens to your Twitter account when you die?
What happens to your Twitter account when you die? Is it deleted after a certain period? Should your friends or relatives inform Twitter that you are dead?
AI: I have found the answer on the page of Twitter Help Center:
If we are notified that a Twitter user
has passed away, we can remove their
account or assist family members in
saving a backup of their public
Tweets.
Please contact us with the following
information:
Your full name, contact information (including email address),
and your relationship to the deceased
user.
The username of the Twitter account, or a link to the profile page
of the Twitter account.
A link to a public obituary or news article.
You can contact us at
[email protected], or by mail or
fax.
We will respond by email with any
additional information we might need.
Please note that we cannot allow
access to the account or disclose
other non-public information regarding
the account. |
H: How to delay Gmail send of messages to allow 'undo send' feature?
I hear that Gmail has ability to delay sending emails for up to 30 seconds so that you can undo the send, but I am unable to locate the setting.
Where does this setting exist in Gmail?
AI: Turn this on in the Settings (gear icon), in the General tab, see Undo Send: field which can be set at Send Cancellation Period to 5, 10, 20, or 30 Seconds:
Old solution that no longer is visible, replaced by above solution:
It is in the 'Labs' section of settings, you have to enable this experimental feature. Search for 'undo send' to find it. You can then configure the delay of send from 5 up to 30 seconds in the General tab of your settings. It defaults to 10 seconds. |
H: Any online application for personal life management
I am looking for some online app or website where:
1) When I open site I have page divided in hourly intervals and at the end of day I can write what I did on that particular day.
2) I can divide the tasks in categories like sleeping, work, study so that I can see how I am spending my day
3) I can go back on any day in history to see what I did on that day
4) I can see the graphs or charts to see my progress
Searching for long but could not find one. Google Calendar is but I can't make categories in that.
ToDoList doesn't work on daily basis.
AI: The nearest match to your requirements I could find was http://www.inboxjournal.com/
This lets you
post journal entries per day
tag entries so you could tag them as work, study etc
view history
post entries as private or public
However, it doesn't enable you to split them by hourly intervals or view charts. |
H: Can I have approve/deny wall postings on Facebook?
Is there a way for me to moderate what comments get on my wall? I'd like any comments posted to have to be approved or denied by me before they get posted. So if I give the OK they go, otherwise they never show.
AI: No that is not possible. There is the option to allow certain friend lists to comment. But you cannot moderate users to comment with approval/denial.
Update
Facebook has a feature coming soon for at least tagged posts. |
H: Is there a way to mark Facebook posts for later reading?
When scanning posts on Facebook, I'm wishing I could "Favorite" or "Star" particular posts so I can review them later. It's easy enough to do this on Twitter or Google Reader, and I'm surprised Facebook doesn't seem to have such a feature.
Is there a way to mark posts for later reading, whether it be direct or some workaround?
AI: One thing you can do is middle-click on the time (e.g. "18 minutes ago") on any post to bring up just that post and its comments in a new tab (depending on your browser and its settings). Then when you have some time you can go through the tabs you've opened. Alternatively, if you don't want to keep the tabs open, you could drag the time to a bookmarks bar in your browser or right-click and choose Bookmark This Link (if your browser has this option) to create a regular browser bookmark for the post. |
H: How can I delete a Yahoo account permanently, when I cannot access it?
I have an account of Yahoo mail.
I forgot my password and also I forgot my security question and answer for recovery.
It's so important for me to delete my account now because someone is abusing my account.
How can I ask Yahoo to delete my account or reset my password?
I have some information about my account like :
I know who are my Contacts
What emails I have in my inbox.
AI: Contact Yahoo! Customer Care and supply as much detail as possible regarding the problem. You can either fill in the help form or directly phone them.
If you're going to use the form, don't forget to select "My account has been hacked" under the subject part. |
H: How to add notes to a Facebook page?
Sorry if this is a dumb question, but I really can't seem to figure it out, and of course Facebook help is of... no help at all (as usual).
I manage a bunch of Facebook pages, but never had the necessity to add notes to them; now I have it. So I went to the page settings and enabled the "Notes" applications; and "Notes" actually showed up in the page's menu. But when I click on it, nothing happens: I just go back to my page's wall.
Is this some kind of strange bug or am I missing something?!?
AI: Try https://www.facebook.com/notes.php?id=[YOUR_PAGE_ID]
Or type Notes at the top then search on the left for your Page.
Or go to your Page and click "Use Facebook as [PAGE NAME]" then click Notes
If none of these work then I would contact support. |
H: Is it possible to see on which Google result page a website is?
I was just wondering whether or not it is possible to obtain information about the rank of a website for a given search term on Google, or on which page it is.
E.g. if you search for 'computer' then (currently) the website www.ehow.com/computers/ is on page 2.
Especially when you don't know on which page your website is, it is a painful task to check each page for a search term. So is there a general way to know on which page a website is for a given search term on Google?
AI: It sounds like you want to play with Google's Webmaster Tools which gives you an interface to see how Google ranks your site, and check out various statistics and optimizations. |
H: How can I search through the attendees of a Facebook event? (might need FBML)
Context: I administer a Facebook "event" to check whether my friends are safe after the Japan earthquake. People invited their friends and now with 10000 attendees it is impossible to browse through to check whether your friend is attending. We need a search feature.
Question: How can I search through the attendees of a Facebook event?
I can create a Facebook application if it is really necessary.
AI: You could start here https://graph.facebook.com/[USER_ID]/events?access_token=[ACCESS_TOKEN] in your browser
USER_ID is either the username (facebook.com/username) or their UID.
That should give you the most recent events of that user. Not a 100% method though (I guess if you made an app you would be able to get the correct permissions etc.)
The other way will be the FQL query way.
https://api.facebook.com/method/fql.query?access_token=[ACCESS_TOKEN]&query=SELECT rsvp_status from event_member where uid = [UID] and eid = 159815784072458
159815784072458 being the Event ID for your event. I tried it against users I know for events they attended and the fql seems to be working better than the Graph for now.
All of these queries were done though the browser. |
H: Limit access to certain Facebook photo albums
I know it is possible to define groups of friends. But how do I allow/exclude groups to see a photo-album? Is it possible?
AI: Create a list of the friends that you want to be able to include or exclude for your album.
Then you need to :
Edit your album
In the Privacy drop down select Customize
Then in the These people drop down select Specific people
Your friend list should appear as you type.
When I tested this initially my friend list did not appear but as it turns out you can add friend lists to the privacy settings.
You should be aware that is a friend is a member of two lists the most restrictive permissions are applied to your friend.
Further information on Friend Lists can be found here |
H: How to add a multiple choice question requiring a single selection?
I am creating a Google Form for company's internal survey.
Currently there are seven question types:
Text
Paragraph text
Multiple choice
Checkboxes
Choose from a list
Scale
Grid
I am looking to add a question with Yes/No options, like this one "Do you own an IBM PC?" which will have only one answer, either Yes or No.
One option is to use "Choose from list" which will render a dropdown list but tat seems awkward to me. I've checked "Make this question required" and by default 'Yes' will be displayed but there is no guarantee attendees will read all available options.
Is there any workaround to display two radio buttons, instead of a dropdown, to ask these kinds of questions?
AI: To get Radio Buttons on a Google Docs Form, you need set the Question Type to Multiple Choice |
H: How do 'Bulk' and 'Notification' labels work in GMail?
I didn't understand what do Bulk and Notification labels mean and how they work. Could you explain me which is their inteded behavior?
AI: These are Gmail smart labels, Gmail automatically categorises emails and assigns them these labels where appropriate.
The definitions of Bulk & Notifications are:
Bulk mail includes any kind of mass
mailing (such as newsletters and
promotional email) and gets filtered
out of your inbox by default (where
you can easily read it later)
Notifications are messages sent to
you directly (like account statements
and receipts)
Extracted from this Google Blog Post about smart labels |
H: How can I subscribe to a Google mailing list with a non-Google e-mail address?
Some projects host their mailing lists on Google Groups, like this: http://groups.google.com/group/mojolicious
I'm an old-fashioned guy, and I don't like reading mail on the web. I would very much prefer to get these mails in my normal inbox (which is also not hosted by Google).
Is it possible to subscribe to Google Groups mailing lists like they're normal, non-Google-hosted mailing lists? If yes, how?
AI: Yes, just click in Join this group and choose your preferences. Then you're set
Edit: I'm sorry I've misread your question.
You could try this trick, paste in your browser URL bar:
http://groups.google.com/group/mojolicious/boxsubscribe?email=myid
Replace 'mojolicious' with the name of the group you want to join, and replace myid with the email address you want to use. You should get a confirmation email (I've just tried it and it works with hotmail) |
H: App/API that takes in IP and spits out (longitude,latitude) coords or timezone
I'm looking for an app or API that allows me to input an IP. The app or API should spit out one of the following things:
A coordinate pair (longitude, latitude)
A timezone (preferably UTC integer format)
Services that output a city/town are not sufficient for this particular application.
AI: I use http://simplegeo.com/ and I have used http://www.maxmind.com. Maxmind's product is more geared towards scalability and absolutely minimizing the amount of time it takes to return a query, where as Simple Geo is geared towards being absolutely simple to implement and returning a rich amount of data for a given ip address. |
H: Automatically create events in Google Calendar from external source
When something happens on my Linux server (low disk space, problems, etc.) I would like to know how could to automatically access Google Calendar and create an event in a specific calendar.
Is this possible?
AI: Werner,
Using Google Calendar's API with JSON-C or ATOM seems to be a clean way to add events to your calendar. You may have to read up on how the authentication is processed, but the JSON code could be as simple as the following:
POST /calendar/feeds/default/private/full HTTP/1.1
Host: www.google.com
Authorization: ...
Content-Type: application/json
GData-Version: 2.0
Content-Length: 233
{
"data": {
"title": "Tennis with Beth",
"details": "Meet for a quick lesson.",
"transparency": "opaque",
"status": "confirmed",
"location": "Rolling Lawn Courts",
"when": [
{
"start": "2010-04-17T15:00:00.000Z",
"end": "2010-04-17T17:00:00.000Z"
}
]
}
}
Here's the blog post that will help you to do just that. |
H: Keep items permanently unread in Google Reader
I follow a number of feeds, and sometimes there are posts I want to save for a later date. I mark them Keep Unread, but the next time I go into the feed, as soon as I scroll past those posts, the Keep Unread flag is removed. Is there any way to keep a post unread until I explicitly mark it unread?
I do have "In expanded view, mark items as read when you scroll past them." checked in my settings, and generally this is the behavior I want. I just want posts that are explicitly marked as Keep Unread to stay unread until I uncheck the Keep Unread box.
AI: No, unfortunately. As far as I can tell the "Keep Unread" is only temporary and works while you are in that feed. As soon as you switch or reload feeds, clicking an unread item will make it read.
However, if you want to save some posts to read later, you should "star" them by clicking the star icon at the left of each post. Then click "Starred items" on the left to see them all. |
H: Speeding up the removal of pages of a deactivated website from Google cache
I just deleted a old blog from Blogger that barely got any visitors. How long will pages from it keep showing up in the Google cache?
Is there a way that I can I make Google forget about it faster?
AI: Make an URL removal request at https://www.google.com/webmasters/tools/removals
The few times i used the tool, it took less than a week for the requests to be processed. |
H: Problems after migrating from personal profile to a page on Facebook
I'm not sure if this is a right place to ask, but I don't know where else can I look for support
So I've used a new facebook feature which lets you migrate from a personal profile to a fan page. It saves all of the friends and a profile picture. Now, every time a photo gets commented, I get an email with a notification and a link to see the comment. But when I click it, I'm being redirected Basic Information tab in "Edit Info", and so I don't know what was commented.
I'm being redirected to the same Basic Information tab when I log in or click on the Facebook logo.
AI: The problem was that I had to assign another admin to the page, because the one that migrated (the same account split into an admin account(which was deleted) and the page itself). The problem arose, because the admin account was deleted after creating a page. |
H: Can I use an HTTPS connection for editing and posting on Blogger?
Is there a way to get an HTTPS connection when editing or posting on blogger?
AI: It seem like Google does not enable HTTPS for more than the login process on Blogger. The main reason for this seems to be that using HTTPS is very resource intensive. See this Google Blogger support tread. |
H: How can I stop the Tumblr HTML post editor from putting tags around my YouTube embeds?
I’m trying to embed a YouTube video in a Tumblr text post. I would use the Tumblr video post type, but that doesn’t give the post a title. I’ve pasted in the YouTube embed HTML into my post, using the HTML editing mode of Tumblr’s post editing textbox.
When I publish the post to my Tumblr, it puts <p> tags around YouTube’s embed code. This causes some style issues, and incidentally is invalid HTML.
How can I stop the <p> tags being inserted?
AI: You'll need to switch from the editor that you're using to one that allows you better control of the HTML.
Account > Preferences > Edit posts using > plain text/HTML
If you were using the rich text editor it would have automatically put in those <P> tags no matter how many times you edit them out.
Switching to another editor will give you the ability to now post without extraneous tags being put into your tumblr posts. |
H: How to fake the "via iPhone" status message in Facebook
Not beeing economically able to actually buy the new iPhone, how can I impress my friends and family by posting status messages with the "via iPhone" postfix?
AI: You would have to create a Facebook application. When you sign up for a new application using the Facebook API, I think the name you give your application will be the name that shows up in the "via" part of the post. I doubt you'll be able to register your application under the name iPhone, but you could maybe do one that is just as "cool".
See the status.set method on how to set the status using the API. This requires some programming, but the API has libraries available for most programming languages. |
H: Tweet responses
If I go to the twitter page of someone I'm following, and click one some of their tweets, on the right column I can see responses. However, when I click on some of their tweets, I don't see responses, I just see other tweets that they made and how many people retweeted that tweet. Does that mean that there were no responses to these tweets?
AI: Yes, it could either be that particular tweet is not part of a conversation (i.e No one replied to it or the tweet itself isn't a reply) or it maybe part of a conversation but the other person has protected their tweets.
EDIT
Protecting your Tweets
To protect your tweets Log in to Twitter and navigate to your Settings. Then scroll down and tick the check box Protect my tweets
Then click Save to confirm your changes. |
H: Burning money on Amazon EC2
Where on the AWS Management Console can I see how much money I'm burning per hour with my Amazon EC2 service?
AI: Navigate to:
Amazon Web Services > Account > Account Activity
Expand the entry under Amazon Elastic Compute Cloud
That will show the full breakdown of the hours used and the cost to you. Simply divide to find your hourly cost.
If you want to be more granular, you can download your Usage Report:
Amazon Web Services > Account > Usage Reports
https://aws-portal.amazon.com/gp/aws/developer/account/usage-report.html
Set report granularity to Hours and click 'Download Report'. However, this report does not include the costs. |
H: How to know the theme name currently used in my iGoogle page?
As we may know, iGoogle page has themes and there's a huge theme collection for iGoogle. I currently use Theme of the day theme and sometimes I like one specific theme but not knowing what its name is. Trying to view it in the page source not helping me at all.
How can I figure out the name of a theme?
AI: You should have a link/button in the top right area labeled: Keep this theme. When you press that button it changes the label to: Change theme from "themeName". |
H: Where can I upload my pictures?
I need to upload more than 800MB of pictures onto a photo sharing service such as Google Picasa, but I don't have space for it.
I was considering to use Flickr (can I upload 800MB at once ?) although I don't like the idea of splitting my pictures over multiple services.
Of course I don't want to pay.
AI: I'm not a Flickr user but from what I've read, Flickr offers 300 MB of free storage each calendar month with storage counter reset every month, so it's not an option.
If you want to stick with Picasa without paying the fee for 20GB storage, you need to resize your pictures to a resolution lower than 800x800 as pictures that size no longer count towards your storage limit, more infos here. |
H: What's the current time?
Is there a website that shows the accurate current time in the browser (should include seconds, GMT is OK)?
Of course to be accurate it would have to correct for transmission delays.
I found two sites timeanddate.com and greenwichmeantime.com but I have no idea if they are accurate. E.g. when you compare their times it is off by one second (your results may vary depending on network speed, your location, etc.).
AI: When it comes to time and accuracy on the web, like you mentioned, it's pretty much depending on network speed, location etc. So the options that you found is the most accurate that you can get from where you are.
You can also check the Network Time Protocol and maybe finding some public NTP servers closer to your area that you could use to get more accurate time. |
H: Your account is not in good standing - Unlisted YouTube videos
I uploaded a video to YouTube that had the name of a TV show in its title. The video itself did not contain any issues.
The video was pulled for copyright infringement. Which is fair enough, I guess.
When I now view my YouTube account details I get the message:
Your account is not in good standing
This seems to have a side effect to not allowing me to upload unlisted videos anymore. They have to be public or private.
Is there any way I can recover the ability to upload unlisted videos?
AI: According to threads in the YouTube's help forums, the copyright strikes are permanent and are not removed without filing a counter-notification".
Excerpt from the page:
If you believe your content was misidentified as infringing,
you may file a counter-notification. If you did not have all
of the rights to post the material at issue, you MUST NOT
submit a counter-notification.
Good luck! |
H: How can I get Gmail to make the default address I'm sending an email from be the same as the To address in a reply?
I have two email addresses that I use with Gmail, let's call them [email protected] and [email protected], the latter is integrated with SMTP and POP. When I want to send an email I can choose which email address I want to send from. Now let's say I receive an email to [email protected] when I reply I want that reply to come from [email protected] not [email protected], yet it always defaults to the @gmail.com address.
Is there any way to make it default to be from the "To" address in a reply?
AI: You can do that from Settings > Accounts and Imports and select Reply from the same address the message was sent to: |
H: Can I restore Google Analytics website profile which has been removed?
I was operating a web site profile using Analytics.
When I changed my site domain, I add new profile and deleted old one.
I want to restore the old one now. No way?
AI: Once you delete it, it's gone. |
H: Website for generating random names and addresses
Is there a website which can generate random (fake) names & addresses ?
If it can also provide random fake Credit Cards, SSN that would be great, as is the capability to generate a whole set of data which I can download in various formats
AI: Fake Name Generator is capable of creating entire fake identities, including nationality, phone numbers, credit card numbers, addresses, biometric info like height and weight and even blood type, and more.
Perhaps the best feature is the ability to download entire datasets of fake identities. This allows you to set which demographics you want included, how many entries you need, and a format to export in. The site will generate the identities for you, then email you when they are ready, with a link to download a zip file containing all of the entries. I've used this before for populating identity management software with data for testing, and it works great. Pretty much any personal info your database might need to hold will be available, and can easily be imported as you can download a csv, text, or even SQL file with the data. |
H: Embed image inside Gmail message, not as an attachment
How I can embed an image in a Gmail message body without appending or making it an attachment?
AI: You have to enable that option in Labs.
Gear icon > Settings > Labs > Insert Image (enable) |
H: Google Translate does not translate URL
As seen in the screenshot below, when I paste an URL into Google Translate, the translated version is just... the URL.
I would expect it to translate the web page that can be found at that URL. How to do that?
AI: Just click the url and you'll see that the page content has been translated. |
H: Looking for a secure and private web blog that I can use offline at times
Is there any web blog that I can use privately and securely? I would like to connect to my blog from any terminal and not risk losing it due to losing my computer. As a bonus is there any web blog within this set that somehow provides a capability for offline use in case I am unable to get to internet access for a while? Such a setup would be ideal for a world travel blogger.
AI: Maybe use use a little portable wiki like...
http://www.tiddlywiki.com/
...Which you can store/sync up with dropbox.
That way you can access it online and when you're offline, you can still access it and sync it back up to dropbox when you get the opportunity. |
H: Track any post with google analytics
I have posted a thread on a website forum. Is there anyway to track views of that post with google analytics?
I remember that there was a method in which a white small image was added and behind that image, google tracking code resides. But I don't know how to do that
AI: http://ga.webdigi.co.uk/
Use this page to generate code and post it anywhere |
H: Why can't Hotmail (or other providers) tell the difference between spoof and real emails?
Why can't Hotmail tell the difference between spoof and real emails from a domain (such as blizzard.com)? I get swamped with phishing emails from "blizzard.com" so I put it on my blacklist but then I can't get legitimate emails.
Is there no information in the headers that can be used to definitively determine where the email came from?
AI: SMTP is designed to allow any host relay messages originally sent by another host. For example, I could run a SMTP server for my own domain, but configure server B to accept mail whenever my server is down and forward it later to its destination.
Every hop, including the sender (whether legitimate or not), can add any header they wish; for example, a secretary can put the boss' address in From. And so can a spammer. It's not uncommon to see spam with spoofed Received or Date headers too.
SPF was created to allow a domain's owner to specify which servers are allowed to send messages claiming to be from that domain. blizzard.com has a SPF record, but either Hotmail does not check it at all or ignores the "reject" rule. Or the fake mail is being sent from an allowed host.
Some mail servers (especially the big ones, such as Gmail or Yahoo! Mail) attach a DKIM digital signature to all outgoing messages. However, while this can prove that a message is legitimate, it does absolutely nothing to detect fake messages, because the recipient just does not know whether DKIM was disabled intentionally or not.
When DNSSEC becomes widespread enough, it might be possible to check if the sender has published a DKIM key; however, this would cause other problems.
There exist ways to digitally sign single messages – PGP and S/MIME – but they, like DKIM, are equally useless against spam. |
H: Are YouTube codes guaranteed to always be 11 characters?
I'm writing code to validate YouTube URLs. Is it guaranteed that the video ID, such as oHg5SJYRHA0, is always exactly 11 characters long, or can it sometimes be shorter or longer? Is there any official documentation about this?
AI: They'll probably stick to 11 chars for a long time. Each character has 64 possible values:
2*26 letters (lowercase and uppercase) + 10 for
the digits, + 2 for "_" and "-" chars
2 * 26 + 10 + 2 = 64
Then 11 characters in total:
64^11 = 73786976294838210000 (or more or less "73,7e18")
Of course not all combination will be used, depending on their algorithm, but they are probably not going to change it anytime soon.
Words from a YouTube developer state that they do not guarantee, though:
I don't see anywhere in the documentation where we officially commit
to a standard length of 11 characters for YouTube video ids. It's one
of those things where we have a current implementation, and it may
stay that way indefinitely. But we're not offering any official
commitment to that, so proceed at your own risk.
A better approach, though one that's more involved, would be to take
each video id and make a request to the YouTube API to see if it's
valid. E.g., make an HTTP GET to
http://gdata.youtube.com/feeds/api/videos/VIDEO_ID
and see if you get back a HTTP 200 response. Of course, if you take
that approach, videos that have been removed from YouTube will come
back as invalid (which may or may not be what you want) and videos
that have been very recently uploaded to YouTube might also come back
as invalid.
Cheers,
-Jeff Posnick, YouTube API Team
Source: https://web.archive.org/web/20120306111051/http://osdir.com/ml/youtube-api-gdata/2009-10/msg00237.html |
H: Read Yahoo Chat history on web
Where is Yahoo IM history location? Yahoo saves history on his server.
Where can I see it?
AI: According to Yahoo! Help:
How to use Yahoo! Mail to access your Yahoo! Messenger 11 Conversation History Archives
Sign in to Yahoo! Mail.
Go to the "Search Mail" box in the Yahoo! Mail page.
Enter the Yahoo! ID, Name, or string of the conversation that you would like to find in the "Search Mail" box and click Go. The results will be listed in a new tab.
Once the search is complete, you can use the options under "Narrow Results" on the right side of the page to get more precise results. NOTE: You may need to click Retrieve Refinement Options in order to see the list to the right.
Click the @C@Chats folder from the options to display all of the Yahoo! Messenger archives. |
H: Where is Gmail's CSS?
I've been looking at view-source:mail.google.com/mail for a while, and can't seem to find GMail's CSS.
Does anyone know where to find it? I'm wondering if all the script in it "obfuscates" where the CSS is.
Just toying with the developer tools, Greasemonkey, GMail themes and such.
AI: As it has been already pointed out a couple of times Gmail uses a whole bunch of iframes for its interface. You can use Firebug to view the source code of Gmail, however Gmail is known to crash your browser and slow it to a crawl when inspecting the page with Firebug.
Although not only does Gmail use iframes, but it uses quite a lot of obfuscated (well, heavily compressed) Javascript code which modifies the DOM after the page has loaded, hence why you would not be able to see the proper contents of Gmail when using your browsers standard view source option.
I prefer using Dragonfly in Opera as it tends to be a bit more stable navigating the contents of Gmail, good luck. |
H: How do the deletion/deactivation policies of Yahoo, MSN and Gmail compare?
For example, if you don't access your account for a while will it be deleted or merely deactivated and how long before whichever happens?
AI: Hotmail
A free Hotmail account becomes inactive if you do not sign in for 30 days, or within the first 10 days after signing up for an account. Once an account becomes inactive, all messages, folders, and contacts are deleted, but the account name is still reserved. If the account stays inactive for a further 90 days, it is permanently deleted.
http://help.msn.com/(cHJvamVjdD1ob3RtYWlscGltX2ZhcSZtYXJrZXQ9ZW4tVVMmY3U9JnRtdD1Ib3RtYWlsUElNX0ZBUSZmb3JtYXQ9)/help.aspx?querytype=topic&query=PIM_PROC_CloseAcct.htm
Gmail
Account Inactivity
Google may terminate your account in accordance with the terms of service if you fail to login to your account for a period of nine months.
http://www.google.com/mail/help/program_policies.html
Yahoo Mail
Yahoo! Mail accounts are deactivated and removed after six months of not being used, plus an additional two months for each year you held the account.
When an account is deactivated, you can’t access it, regardless of whether an email has been received in the account during that time.
After an account is deactivated, Yahoo! can't retrieve any of the information that was formerly stored in that account, such as email and images.
Note: With Yahoo! Mail Plus, your account never goes dormant due to inactivity. Check it out!
http://help.yahoo.com/l/us/yahoo/mail/yahoomail/account/account-04.html |
H: Create an "@msn.com" email address
I want to create an email account in MSN that be like [email protected].
Is there any way to do that?
I found only a way to create @live and @hotmail.com email.
AI: You can create an @msn.com email address using this link to Account Services on Passport.NET |
H: What does shva=1#inbox mean when Gmail loads?
I recently noticed that when opening my Gmail account, the URL gets changed to ?shva=1#inbox at the end (this can be noticed in the address bar).
This happens not only to my Gmail ID, but to others as well. This make me think that Gmail provides a common interface to all its users and changes it accordingly.
What happens in the background, and what does the shva=1#inbox part mean?
AI: When you log in, the system wants to know if it's a valid account or whether it should kick you back to the login screen.
According to Mike Sego, a former Gmail engineer, "shva" is an acronym for "should have valid authentication". Apparently, the parameter is only included after a successful authentication.
The 1 is the default value applied to the parameter check. It's also a shorthand way for programmers to say true, like when you have successfully logged in.
The other part, #inbox, tells Gmail to load up your inbox as the first screen. You can change that to one of the other folders (or even labels you've created) to load them up.
E.g., https://mail.google.com/mail/?shva=1#sent will show your Sent folder items.
https://mail.google.com/mail/?shva=1#label/narwhals will load up your "narwhals" label.
Gmail, like many web services, serves a standard interface that will change to show only your information and data when you've logged in.
The particulars are referenced on their end through the use of an ID from the cookies or sessions generated after the login screen. |
H: Blocking Facebook Questions
Facebook has this new thing called Facebook Questions.
How do I block them? I cannot block them by clicking the 'X' sign and selecting hide all by this application, since they are by Facebook itself.
AI: Adding these to Adblock Plus (ABP) at least helps hide the bulk of it.
###pagelet_adbox
##.adsCell
facebook.com##.fbQuestionsPollClickTarget
facebook.com##.pas.fbQuestionsPollResultsBar
facebook.com##.pollResultsBar
facebook.com##.fbQuestionsBlingBox
facebook.com##.pollOptions
facebook.com##.fbEigenpollRow
facebook.com##A[title="Ask specific people to answer"]
facebook.com##[href*="/home.php?sk=question"]
facebook.com##.fbEigenpollPager
facebook.com##.fbQuestionFollowLink |
H: Why is Gmail using Yahoo! Mail certificates?
I just got an error in Firefox 4 when trying to log into Gmail:
mail.google.com is using an invalid certificate
This certificate is only valid for *.mail.yahoo.com mail.yahoo.com
I use webmail notifier, so it checks both Y!mail and Gmail accounts periodically. I was also checking in over port 443.
Why would Gmail be using a Yahoo! Mail security certificate?
AI: I find it very hard to believe that Google would ever make use-of yahoo servers. I may be wrong in this, but I suspect your browser may have run into some nasty bugs... or perhaps you have a yahoo-toolbar enabled that is doing some stuff behind-the-scenes. Can you give me an example of what you were doing/where you went... or what you were looking at? I do not see any yahoo certs in anything I do @ google. (and I manage several google-app enabled domains, use gmail, and many other things google offers.) |
H: Is it possible to ban an artist on Last.fm?
Is it possible to ban an artist on Last.fm?
AI: Nope. This has been a requested but unimplemented request for over three years:
http://www.last.fm/forum/21717/_/380227/8 |
H: How can I administer a VirtualBox Ubuntu server from host OS?
i am setting up LAMP on ubuntu server 10.10 on virtualbox install from a mac osx 10.5 host.
right now, i am using lynx to look at pages in /var/www/
but in setting up wordpress, i am having trouble using lynx to create the wp-config.php file.
i tried changing values in wp-config-sample.php then copying it to wp-config.php but this didnt work.
so i would like to go ahead and try from the host OS, the virtual network is on 10.0.2.0,
how can i get at this thing from the host?
AI: I use Parallels on Mac and VmWare on Windows for do something like that.
I put the virtual host in NAT mode and, for each domain that I create on Apache I write into my host file a redirect to the IP of the VirtualHost, so I have not to use Lynx.
In the same way I create an host entry called vm that point to the same IP of the VirtualHost so I can connect to it via SFTP (with the root or the user login) or SSH (if installed and configured) or just simple FTP.
In this way you can treat the VirtualHost like a real hosted website... or use 'nano' or 'vi' and edit files from the shell :D
You can also be interested in webapp like Webmin for "manage" the entire machine via web. |
H: How to switch off the message tone in Facebook
I want to switch off the message tone in Facebook. That is the beep sound that chimes when any of my friends messages me via chat. How can I do this?
AI: From Help Centre:
How do I turn off/on sound when I get an IM (instant message) in Facebook Chat?
To disable or enable the notification sound, please follow the steps below:
Select the "Chat" menu button in the lower right corner of any Facebook page.
Click the "Settings" link.
Check the box next to "Play Sound for New Messages."
If the sound setting has not changed when you receive chat messages, please log out of your account and sign back in. |
H: Can I use both SVN and WAMP?
I have used SVN when SVN was installed on remote machine. I am impressed how it makes revisions. Now I want to install SVN on my local machine. I use WAMP on Windows XP and want to install SVN with WAMP.
After some research I have found that CollabNet SVN is the best SVN around. I have downloaded it and installed it but it screwed up my WAMP installation.
Do I need WAMP once I get SVN installed because it also has Apache?
AI: Since it's just you and it's local, you could just install TortoiseSVN and use the "file://" method. Then you don't need the subversion service even running.
Otherwise you could also check out VisualSVN, which is free for personal use (on Windows). |
H: Rail/subway itinerary website for the UK?
I am planning an itinerary in the UK, and I am surprised Google Itinerary just proposes car or walk, no train.
Is there a website for finding the best train itinerary in the UK?
It must take into account most rail companies and all subway/tube/underground/overground/metro varieties.
AI: In addition to Mikes answer, you can also use:
thetrainline.com - Provides information for National Rail tickets and train times. It usually displays the cheapest ticket price available and also displays other specials offers on attractions, hotels etc
TFL Journey Planner - Provides a Journey Planner for use on the Tube network in London. If you are travelling around in London I would suggest you purchase an Oyster* card as it is significantly cheaper than buying tickets on the day.
*Oyster cards cannot be used on National Rail - there are only available for use on the London Tube Network. |
H: Claim "stolen" page on Facebook
I have a client with a company which wants to create a Facebook page. However, someone has already taken my clients company name on Facebook and established a page there.
The page has not been used for anything yet, but people have already started to "Like" the page, thinking it's the page of my client. The client has complained to Facebook and they have not considered this to be a violation. The company is a rather well established institution in my country.
Has anyone experienced the same issue and have advice on the next step to take in such a case?
Appreciate your help and advice!
AI: There's some information here on how to Report Claims of Intellectual Property Infringement;
http://www.facebook.com/legal/copyright.php
And a reporting form here;
http://www.facebook.com/legal/copyright.php?noncopyright_notice=1
Hope this helps. |
H: Facebook account got deleted for no reason, without warning or notification
I don't know if this is the right place to ask this, but my friends facebook account got deleted. Whats the best way of enquiring about this as they aren't replying to emails!
AI: See this Help Article on Facebook as to how your friend can contest this. You won't be able to do anything, it has to be the account owner that contacts Facebook.
Specifically they should read this section:
My Personal Facebook Account is
disabled
There are different reasons why you
may not be able to access your account
and unique ways to contact Facebook
for each case. Therefore, it is
important to be sure that you are
using the correct channel when
submitting a request for help. First,
identify the correct reason why you
are unable to access your account from
the three reasons that are listed
below. Then, follow the instructions
listed by the reason that pertains to
you.
Disabled for violating Facebook's Statement of Rights and
Responsibilities
Facebook accounts that have been reported or detected for policy
violations may be disabled by
Facebook. Possible reasons include,
but are not restricted to:
Continued prohibited behavior after receiving a warning or multiple
warnings from Facebook
Unsolicited contact with others for the purpose of harassment,
advertising, promoting, dating, or
other inappropriate conduct
Use of a fake name
Impersonation of a person or entity, or other misrepresentation of
identity
Posted content that violates Facebook’s Statement of Rights and
Responsibilities (this includes any
obscene, pornographic, or sexually
explicit photos, as well as any photos
that depict graphic violence. We also
remove content, photo or written, that
threatens, intimidates, harasses, or
brings unwanted attention or
embarrassment to an individual or
group of people)
Please review Facebook’s
Statement of Rights and
Responsibilities to learn more
about specific types of conduct and
content that are not permitted on the
site.
If you have not posted violating
content or otherwise violated the
Statement of Rights and
Responsibilities, click here. |
H: Email is not secure, but what about Gmail using HTTPS, and if sending to myself?
I sometimes send myself some notes using Gmail, but I think if it is regular email anybody on the Internet backbone or routing place can read your email, so it is not private. But Gmail uses HTTPS.
So what if I send an email to myself at Gmail, is it secure (nobody can eavesdrop it)?
And what if I send to my Yahoo or Hotmail account, or to mywebsite.com account?
AI: When you send an email to yourself (for example [email protected] to [email protected]) using HTTPS and a web browser, the email is not transmitted out over the internet "in the open". So someone would have to compromise either your computer or the Gmail servers to read your message. However, if you send the message to a different server, such as yahoo, hotmail, or mywebsite.com the message is transmitted across the internet and potentially vulnerable to interception.
Typically no one is going to intercept these emails so if you are concerned only about personal privacy (like the details of a relationship) you don't need to worry. However, if the information is very secret, politically sensitive, or very valuable (like the password to your $5 million Swiss bank account) it is good practice not to send this information in an email because it could theoretically be compromised. A tool such as GPG can be used to encrypt this type of information, or it can be sent by another trusted method. |
H: Feedburner does not get links right
Feedburner doesn't get my feed links right. I tried resyncing and pinging and everything at my disposal but it doesn't seem to work. Then I emailed my problem to [email protected] and I got no response. I just can't stand to see my feed getting wrong links.
e.g: http://www.codingtales.com/post/getting-started-with-mvvm is the link in the actual feed (http://www.codingtales.com/rss) while feedburner links go to http://www.codingtales.com/getting-started-with-mvvm.
AI: If you need Feedburner to link to the correct post, change your <guid> tag to one that matches what you already have in the <link> tag.
<link>http://www.example.com/post/bacon</link>
<guid isPermalink="true">http://www.example.com/post/bacon</guid>
That should make Feedburner have its rewriting of links back to your blog point to the correct location.
Or you can have it the other way:
<link>http://www.example.com/post/bacon</link>
<guid isPermalink="false">bacon</guid>
Where you tell Feedburner to not use the GUID tag as a permalink.
You may be using statistics tracking for clickthroughs and why the rewriting of the links is happening in the first place.
Why don't my feed content item links work?
By adding the isPermaLink attribute to your original feed's XML template as shown, FeedBurner will know to look in the element for the URL to rewrite and ignore the <guid>. |
H: Can I prevent people from commenting on my Facebook Photos?
I know you can prevent them from posting on my wall, but can I stop them from posting comments on pictures?
Alternatively can I make it so that no one can see my photo albums?
AI: It appears that this can be done if you do the following:
Click on the "Edit Info" link after
you log in
On the left nav bar click on "Apps"
Click on "Edit Settings" in your
Photos App
At the bottom of the dialog box in
TINY print you can click a link
called "modify privacy controls"
At the bottom of this page you can
click "Customize Settings"
FINALLY look for the heading titled
"Can comment on posts" and select
"Customize" in the drop down list.
From here you can select "Only me"
I'm not sure if I'm making this harder than it needs to be or if Facebook intentionally makes it this difficult... |
H: Find all Stumbleupon hits for a certain site?
How can I list all the StumbleUpon reviews for a certain site, such as webapps.stackexchange.com?
AI: You can't.
In short, the answer would have to be... No.
We offer some tools along these lines, to those interested in promoting their sites, via our StumbleUpon Advertising programm
- CH, StumbleUpon employee
Not unless you sign up with their Paid Discovery plan which should give you analytics for all the pages under your site(s) that have been stumbled.
Looks like it's a way for them to offer an upsell on the StumbleUpon service.
Otherwise, comb through your logs for something with stumbleupon in the referrer URLs. |
H: Chrome address bar Google search engine
I am using google chrome as a browser and fire up empty tags and type directly to the address the search query. The problem that raises is despite the fact that I had defined google.com as a default search engine for my browser, still it gets regionalized and I get results from google.dk. Any suggestions on how to set the address bar seach engine of chrome to google.com when I am outside of US?
AI: For this, follow these steps:
Click the wrench on the toolbar
Select Options (or Preferences or Settings depending on your OS)
Go in the Basics tab
Click Manage Seach Engines in the Search section
Go to the bottom of the page and add the correct settings for Google.com, ie http://www.google.com/search?ie=UTF-8&q=%s for the URL part.
Now select it and select Make default
This should do the trick. |
H: Is it possible to join Gmail with Google Apps?
I have my own domain and I'm pretty happy with using Google Apps on it. But, a lot of sites like Google Code and others need a Gmail account.
Is it possible to merge a Gmail account with a Google Apps account?
Also, since quick logins on various web pages don't support Google Apps, merging/linking them would be really handy.
AI: If it's a Google product which doesn't take Google Apps for your Domain accounts, then you're currently out-of-luck. You're waiting on Google to support that.
You can create a gmail account and forward the mail to your normal address. Make sure the secondary email address (the password-reset one) is pointed to a place you actually read and trust. The set up forwarding, inside Gmail. Then you can continue reading email in the one place and have an account to use for those products that specifically require a Gmail-account. |
H: Copy raw link found by Google search, not the one with extra redirect added
In Firefox, after searching for some keyword in Google and getting a list of results, I would like to copy the link address of a particular result. But I find that the link address is not the actual address, but some modification by Google to include some information about Google itself.
For example, search "regex Is it worth using Python re.compile" in Google, and the first result is "regex - Is it worth using Python's re.compile? - Stack Overflow" whose address is https://stackoverflow.com/questions/452104/is-it-worth-using-pythons-re-compile.
Right-clicking the result, and selecting "copy the location", I will get
http://www.google.com/url?sa=t&source=web&cd=1&ved=0CBoQFjAA&url=http%3A%2F%2Fstackoverflow.com%2Fquestions%2F452104%2Fis-it-worth-using-pythons-re-compile&ei=j-WXTdKjE8KZ0QH7hNGGDA&usg=AFQjCNGl8DlEwS7SQ8vWxBPyiZBUbUj0Yg&sig2=Mnnj7wRN1Z6on5hjIuq7FQ
But I wish to get just https://stackoverflow.com/questions/452104/is-it-worth-using-pythons-re-compile.
I remember Google search used to work in the same way as I wish, but now it has changed. I was wondering if I am missing something and how to do as I wish?
AI: There's a Greasemonkey script that can change the Google Search result links back to direct links, then you can simply copy and paste them like normal links on the web. |
H: Is it possible to merge two labels in Gmail?
I have too many labels and lots of rules that move email into these labels. Is there any ability to merge a label into another one and have all of the current rules follow so they will move email into this new label?
AI: There is no easy way to do that, except to create a third filter and apply it to mails with the existing 2 labels. |
H: How can I tweak my Google Maps app to display polygons/markers based on zoom level?
I've created a hideous and slow Google Map at:
http://test.barrycarter.info/gmap4.html
The markers represent temperatures at given locations, and the
polygons represent a Voronoi diagram of the temperatures (sample data:
not accurate).
Question: is there something Google Maps API can do automatically to
display less information at one time? For example, not displaying all
the markers or every single polygon, even the really small ones?
I realize I could tweak my app to display polygons/markers based on
zoom level, but is there a way to make Google Maps API do the work?
AI: You need to cluster your markers. It's tedious to do on the server side, but there are a few client-side clustering plugins you can use. The most popular one is MarkerClusterer.
MarkerClusterer v3:
http://groups.google.com/group/google-maps-js-api-v3/browse_thread/thread/142dbdf66a94a133/71ec7c5c84cb6cd8
http://googlegeodevelopers.blogspot.com/2009/04/markerclusterer-solution-to-too-many.html
Why many markers degrade performance, and how to improve it (MarkerClusterer comes out tops):
http://www.svennerberg.com/2009/01/handling-large-amounts-of-markers-in-google-maps/ |
H: Is there a way to permanently hide the "Chat" and "Invite a Friend" sections on left side panel of Gmail?
On the left hand column of Gmail I see my mailbox. Below the list of all my mailboxes, I get a section for "Chat" which lists my recent contacts, and below that, a section for "Invite a Friend".
I'd like to eliminate these. I can press '-' button to collapse them, but they remain visible and I think they reappear uncollapsed the next time you return to Gmail.
Is there a way to permanently delete these items, which I do not want to use, and do not want cluttering up my interface to Gmail?
AI: The best way of doing this is through add-ons or extensions.
Take a look at Better Gmail 2 for firefox or Better Gmail for Chrome.
These allow you to hide the chat and invite a friend blocks completely. They also can remove some other elements, and tweak some other ui elements as well. |
H: Where does the spell checking function comes from?
I am using Firefox. Whenever I type
my questions on Stack Exchange
sites, there will be automatic spell
checking.
Does this function comes
from Firefox, or from Stack Exchange
sites, or somewhere else?
If it comes form Firefox, why is
there no spell checking when I type
in some other websites?
Just off
your head, in what cases, will there will
be spell checking and in what cases not?
American English and British English
may spell some words in different
ways. For example, if I type
"optimization", it will be
automatically underscored to let me
know the spelling is wrong.
How can
I make the spell checking tool to
recognize American English spelling?
AI: As I type this answer on webapps.stackexchange.com, Firefox is providing the spell checking.
It depends on the website. I suspect that any site that uses standard textarea tags will allow Firefox to spell-check it. Google Docs, on the other hand, uses its own custom spell checker.
Right-click a misspelled word. Select "Languages" and make sure "English / United States" is selected. If you don't see it there, select "Add Dictionaries..." and install the "English (US)" dictionary. |
H: Downloading 270,451 pictures from Flickr
I need to download 270,451 pictures from Flickr. They are two years old (I have the IDs, and I need to download those specific pictures). I guess there is a download limit.
Do you think I can make it in few days?
AI: Take a look at Downloadr;
http://janten.com/downloadr/
http://www.makeuseof.com/tag/backup-your-flickr-photos-with-downloadr/
and Flickr Backup;
http://sourceforge.net/projects/flickrbackup/
Hope this helps. |
H: How to change Bugzilla change privacy notice?
How can I change the privacy notice in both the site and email messages? My instance is not public facing. I don't like this:
PRIVACY NOTICE: Bugzilla is an open
bug tracking system. Activity on most
bugs, including email addresses, will
be visible to the public. We recommend
using a secondary account or free web
email service (such as Gmail, Yahoo,
Hotmail, or similar) to avoid
receiving spam at your primary email
address.
AI: To change or remove this notice you need to amend the following Template files:
create.html.tmpl located in \template\en\default\account\
request-new.txt.tmpl located in \template\en\default\account\email\ |
H: RSS and cached values
How can I (or is it possible) to remove some blog posts out of a feed such as Google Feedburner? I have removed some from my blog but obviously looks like they are cached somehow. I just don't want some of the blog posts to be able to be read through anyone who subscribes...I don't want them to see those posts that I removed in the future in the feed itself.
Am I asking the impossible here? I don't know how RSS works in terms of cache/history.
AI: First you'll need to remove the item from the original feed from your site. Either delete it or hide it, whatever it takes to have it no longer show in the RSS that is generated directly from your site.
Then you can either:
Ping Feedburner so that it can refresh their copy of your feed
Resync the feed by going to the Troubleshootize tab in Feedburner and clicking the Resync Now button toward the bottom of the page
This only will work for those who have not already downloaded a copy of the feed.
If they have, you can't delete their copy and will only be able to prevent future readers of the feed from seeing the items you wanted deleted. |
H: Sending anonymous invitations to Google Calendar events
Is there a way to send invitations in Google Calendar without including yourself at all (either as a guest or as the organizer)?
AI: I have seen evidence that what you are asking is impossible. But you may be able to work around this by creating a generic, anonymous Gmail account and sending the invitations from that account. |
H: Analyse the packets from server to my machine
I recently read NS2, which is used to simulate the networks. Now I want to see how my packets are sent to the server and received from the server. Though I can make use of ping command, I want a browser specific application, that allows me to visualize it.
Where I can see how the packets are sent from one node to the other node, as NS2 NAM does.
Is there any application that is able to do this? Correct me if I am wrong.
AI: If your application uses the HTTP protocol, then you may use the Charles Web Debugging Proxy:
Charles is an HTTP proxy / HTTP monitor / Reverse Proxy that enables a developer to view all of the HTTP and SSL / HTTPS traffic between their machine and the Internet. This includes requests, responses and the HTTP headers (which contain the cookies and caching information). |
H: Why can't I change my password and login with Skype?
Why can't I change my password and login with Skype? I keep getting the following problem:
As you can see, the button is still "grayed-out" and even though both password combinations are the same, it won't work.
AI: Not being snarky - have you tried another browser? Perhaps it's not rendering quite right in Chrome but it might work in IE or Firefox. |
H: How do I restore the 'tasks' Gmail gadget?
I accidentally undocked then closed it, and I don't know how to restore it.
AI: Click on the location switcher above the left navigation (if you are in your inbox, it will say "Gmail ▼") and select "Tasks." |
H: Do Twitter accounts have a never-changing identifier?
On Facebook, you are identified by a number like 7435423976 that will never change, even after changing your name or your URL shortcut.
Does Twitter have the same never-changing identifier?
Twitter users have a name (for instance "JohnDoe4ever"), but they can change it, so it is not a good identifier. Is there a hidden, better one?
AI: Yes, each Twitter Account is assigned a user_id.
Taken from the Twitter API Documentation
user_id
The ID of the user for whom to return
results for. Helpful for
disambiguating when a valid user ID is
also a valid screen name.
http://api.twitter.com/1/users/show.json?user_id=12345
It's also useful to know that you can get the user_id by displaying a users tweet via the /statuses/show/{tweetId} API Call
This will display results similar to this:
As you can see the user_id is provided along with the individual tweet information.
The {tweetId} can be found by clicking on the time stamp of any tweet. The {tweetId} will be long number at the end of the URL. |
H: Hide my Twitter followers
For privacy reasons, I don't want everyone to be able to see who follows me on Twitter.
How to do?
I am OK with removing all of my followers if it is the only solution, but I hope there are more diplomatic solutions.
AI: This is not possible to do for people following you, it is only possible to do for people you are following. |
H: Is there a free web conferencing service?
I'm looking for a free service that will let me do one-on-one conferencing. I need something that will allow screen sharing that can be accessed by both host and visitor. I don't need to be able to record sessions, have integrated audio, or anything fancy.
I know Skype now has screen-sharing, but not all of the clients I need to do remote support for use Skype, and I can't force them to. It would make things much easier if I could just provide them with a conference URL to go to that would let me view their screen as they perform an action that's giving them trouble.
Remote control of the client's computer would be a plus, but is not necessary.
I know that most of the big services (WebEx, Live Meeting, GoToMeeting, etc.) have free trials, but I'm looking for a service I can stick with. It's fine if there's a limit to how many conferences I can have per week or month.
AI: I use http://join.me for ad-hoc screen sharing. It works like this:
Host visits http://join.me and starts a session by downloading and running a small program (does not require administrative privileges).
Host program generates a 9-digit code that must be given to visitor.
Visitor visits http://join.me and enters 9-digit code he received from host. The shared screen appears in the browser (I believe they use Flash).
If desired, host can grant control to visitor.
http://join.me supports multiple visitors on a single host. It does not include audio, but you said you didn't need that. |
H: How many pictures can I download from Flickr per day?
I need to download thousands of pictures for my thesis research and I was wondering if there is a Flickr download limit.
How many pictures can I download from Flickr per day?
AI: There is no download limit for Flickr. There is an upload limit. |
H: Finding the exact URL of a Flickr photo given its ID
How can I automatically retrieve the exact URL of a Flickr photo when I pass the ID to the API?
I have the IDs of all pictures and I'm currently using the flickr.photos.getInfo method that takes the ID as parameter and it gives me an XML file with the picture page URL as an answer.
However the picture page URL is not the URL of the picture (which is displayed in this page).
How can I automatically retrieve the exact URL of the picture?
AI: From the Official Flickr documentation:
Photo Source URLs
You can construct the source URL to a photo once you know its ID, server ID, farm ID and secret, as returned by many API methods.
The URL takes the following format:
http://farm{farm-id}.static.flickr.com/{server-id}/{id}_{secret}.jpg
or
http://farm{farm-id}.static.flickr.com/{server-id}/{id}_{secret}_[mstzb].jpg
or
http://farm{farm-id}.static.flickr.com/{server-id}/{id}_{o-secret}_o.(jpg|gif|png) |
H: Twitter clients that use alternative URLs to display/update status
I would like to use twitter at my work place where twitter site is totally blocked by the firewall.
We do have many desktop clients like tweetdeck, seesmic etc but each of these would inturn use the same twitter.com/status urls to fetch or update data due to which these desktop clients would also fail to work at my work place.
However the igoogle twittergadget works perfectly fine probably because of two reasons,
1) It would use an alternative url/way to update and fetch tweets instead of using a direct twitter.com/... urls that are blocked by the firewall. The usage of this alternative url/way would probably help in bypassing the firewall as it is not a direct twitter.com/.. url.
2) It would probably use the same twitter.com url but doesn't implement the logic of fetching/updating tweets on the client system, rather when it is done on a different system hosting the twittergadget because of which it is displaying and updating the tweets.
So either ways, I would like to know the list of such twitter apps that would tend to work even if twitter.com is blocked at workplace. Pls help!
AI: You could also try twittergadget.com. When you are at home you can set up an account with this site and it authenticates with Twitter. At work, it uses different URL's and you can use/manage your Twitter without actually accessing Twitter.com |
H: How do I stop SkyDrive events from appearing in my Messenger feed?
I have these "edited a file" and "share a photo" events in my messenger feed that I dont want to appear there.
How can I turn them all off?
AI: You can goto this page to change your settings - http://profile.live.com/WhatsNewWithYouSettings |
H: How to search for words only if they are at the beginning of a sentence?
Is there a way to specify the following in Google Search?
I want to search for a word only at the start of the sentences. So it should begin with a capital letter.
AI: Google case sensitive search;
http://case-sensitive-search.appspot.com/
This application will Google query terms (the first input box), scan through the results in a specific range (From:From+Limit) and filter out those results where the filter terms (second input box; if empty, then same as the query terms) does not appear exactly in the same case as given by the user.
Hope this helps. |
H: Google Talk is blocked, even inside Gmail
is it possible to block Google Talk inside Gmail? I have a friend that experience this at work and I wonder if someone has advice on how he can contact me considering that the service is blocked.
Is there some other web interface for Google Talk or some Jabber akin service that would make it possible to chat with me?
AI: If the IT dept is good then they won't leave any holes in their system because they obviously don't want him to do this activity. There are a few typical work-arounds.
Web service Meebo.com (Likely this will be blocked as well)
He could run
Pidgin
IM client from a portable drive.
He could use a smartphone app.
The latter is probably the least risky. |
H: How does Instapaper really work?
My company is considering adding an Instapaper button to our content-driven site, but we can't seem to find any information on how it really works. All the site says is that it "saves the page to your account."
Does it actually save the content of the page to an Instapaper server, or does it save a link to the URL somewhere and then fetch the URL live when you go to your account?
AI: As far as I know, Instapaper "reads" the website by stripping the content of all navigation elements, ads and images. The result is than saved on the the Instapaper servers for the user to read later.
Read more here: Information for Publishers |
H: I am looking for an RSS slide show service
I am looking for an service which will present me several RSS feeds (text+images) as an slide show. I would happily use Google Reader play, but I found no proper way, to control what feeds it will show.
AI: You can use your existing google reader feeds and play them in reader play. If you hover over the feed you want (or a whole tag folder) and click on the dropdown arrow, you have a choice to 'View in Reader Play'. |
H: How to reverse text on Google Spreadsheets?
When I enter data in a Google Spreadsheets cell, I would like the text to reverse itself.
For instance, I would like to put in a cell My text and get it converted to txet yM.
AI: You will need to install and use a script to do it.
In your spreadsheet, select Tools → Script Gallery → Insert....
Search for reverse. You should see String.reverse().
Click Install, then Authorize.
Close the Script Gallery.
To use the script, type =REVERSE(A1) where A1 is the cell with the text you want to reverse.
If you are using the new Google Sheets, the Script Gallery is not available. You will need to create your own custom function.
Select Tools → Script editor...
Select Blank project
Replace the code with:
/**
* Reverses the input text.
*
* @param {string} input The text to reverse.
* @return The input text reversed.
* @customfunction
*/
function REVERSE(string) {
if (typeof string != 'string') {
return null;
}
return string.split('').reverse().join('');
}
Save, return to your spreadsheet, and use =REVERSE(A1) as described above. |
H: Are deleted Gmail messages deleted from Google servers?
When I delete an email message from my Gmail inbox, is it also deleted and removed from the servers at Google?
This is to say that I deleted it knowing that I wanted to and was sure and that I don't also have a copy of it in another label/folder in my account.
What happens to the deleted emails?
AI: There are several levels of "delete" and you'd need to ask Google how far they went when you pressed the "delete" button.
The file (for that's what a mail message actually is) is moved from your inbox to a "trash" folder in your account. This removes it from your inbox but you can still recover it quite easily.
The file is completely removed from your account. In this case it might still exist somewhere on the Gmail servers but you'd have to contact Google for it to be restored. I don't know whether this is the case, but it's a reasonable assumption.
The file is removed from the Gmail servers. In this case it might have been backed up before deletion.
The file is removed from all backups. In this case the mail has, to all intents and purposes gone.
This doesn't cover the use of forensic data recovery to analyse the hard drive of the server to recover a deleted file - but with the volume of data passing through Gmail I'd assume that any deleted file would get overwritten quite quickly. |
H: A web application to receive feedback
I have set up a website and want people to post feedback on changes they would like to see. I'm looking for an app they could either send email to and it displays them for me to read and comment on or that I can link to on my site for them to post feedback. Ideally I'd like it to be free
AI: User Voice offers a free plan. Users get to suggest features/bugs and vote on them. Here's a sample one.
Also: not exactly what the question was asking for, but olark allows you to see visitors on your site and interact with them in real-time. When you are offline, they can leave a message which is forwarded to your email. It also keeps some handy statistics of when visitors are on your site. They offer a very minimal free version, as well. |
H: Can I add a description to a Gmail label?
Is it possible to add a description to a Gmail label, akin to the tag wikis of Stack Overflow?
AI: Unfortunately you cannot.
I don't think it is similar to StackExchange tags as these are used to describe to users not familiar to the tag, what it is about.
Using the right tags makes it easier for others to find and answer your question.
With gmail labels, normally there should be one user per account, thus that user should know the reasoning behind a certain tag.
If there is a label you forgot the purpose for, just click it or search label:yourlabel and you will see messages you previously tagged under that label. Then tag that label under something more familiar to you.
One other option would be to check your labels in
https://mail.google.com/mail/?shva=1#settings/labels
then manually transfer to a private Google docs and leave your information there to remind yourself about certain items pertaining to the label.
Or you could try searching for a user-script that achieves this.
Note that having many labels (100 +) will slow down your activity. |
H: Is there an advantage to using google.com rather than google.com.au as my search engine in Chrome?
I'm an Australian living in Thailand. I use Google Chrome as my primary web browser. Out-of-the-box, Chrome's combined address bar/search box will return results from google.co.th. That's fine but not optimal as my Thai literacy is fairly poor. Therefore I change my default search engine to google.com.au.
My question is: Should I instead be using google.com?
My two main concerns are that:
I may be missing out on some information by using the Australian engine
I may be getting slightly slower or faster search results (especially with Google Instant) depending on which engine I use
The types of searches I do are generally 'global' in nature (stuff about *nix, music, world events, etc.).
AI: if you use any country engine of Google it will try to relate your search to that locality.it depend on search query if the results will be same or a little different.
So if your query is global in nature you should use Google.com. but if you want to relate your query to your locality and want that Google bias your result a little you can use .au.
Speed is not a problem with any prefix you add with google search engine. |
H: Issues with Google Docs (in Google Apps) as a file server solution for startup
I'm having trouble with "google docs for google apps" for a new startup. I want the equivalent of a shared fileserver for employees.
Here are the issues:
0) Sharing collections within a google apps domain doesn't make them appear for other users. A workaround is to create a single root collection, under which all other collections exist. The idea is that you only need to make sure a new user becomes aware of the one thing.
1) Files in a shared collection sometimes don't show up for other users. I believe it's if the ownership of the file originally rested outside the domain. But it's hard to see what files won't show up, short of clicking on each one to look at ownership.
2) Trying to work around #1, there's no easy way to change file or collection ownership if it originally came from outside the domain.
3) I can't get the shared "root collection" to remain on a user's docs view. It doesn't show up as a "collection shared with me", and the user also can't drag the collection to their "My collections" list (has no effect).
4) sometimes users still can't access files I share with them, and can't add them to their collections, even if I share them directly. I just can't figure that one out at all.
5) Google doesn't provide any support beyond occasionally-monitored forums, even for paying customers, unless you have real downtime, making it hard to figure out #1-4.
I don't seem to be alone... several of these issues are discussed in a number of apps forum threads, but with no resolution. e.g. http://www.google.com/support/forum/p/Google%20Docs/thread?tid=7bcfcce456a744af&hl=en
Anyone have best practices that avoid these issues, or is this just a bad use of google docs for apps? I'm really worried that with the lack of support and list of issues so far, I would continue to hit weird problems.
I'm finding myself lusting after an anti-cloud, "old-school" MS SBS on-prem solution, which is really disappointing.
AI: Okay I had the same problems. Here's what you do.
Create a folder structure under your google apps docs account. For example
Admin
Website
Library
Meetings
WIP
Then select ONE folder by ticking the box next to that folder. Then edit the sharing settings and manually add one person in your domain and click "send this person an email"
Once they get the email, open the email and take the link from there. Give that link to everyone on your domain.
Now get everyone to click that link, it will open the folder. What you now need to do is favourite the folder by clicking the "star" that's next to the title.
That folder is now saved under their favourites in the google docs view.
Rinse and repeat.
Finally, make sure that you have configured your domain in the google apps management console such that documents are shared by default to everyone on the domain.
Good luck, let me know if you have problems. I searched for ages to get this working so I know your frustration |
H: Spoof sender through Gmail SMTP in Thunderbird
Gmail allows its users to send emails as though from another email address, as long as that address has been verified. Is doing so possible through Thunderbird and the Gmail SMTP servers?
AI: Yes, as long as the e-mail address is verified in your Gmail account and you can send messages from it using Gmail's regular web interface.
Just add a new email account to Thunderbird with the appropriate name and e-mail address and configure it to use smtp.gmail.com with your usual credentials.
This can be in a new Profile, or an additional Identity in the same Profile.
Using Identities
When you configure an account, Thunderbird creates a default "identity" for the account that contains information like your name, your email address, the location where your messages should be stored, signature, etc. You can manually create additional identities for your account (via Tools > Account Settings…, Manage Identities). When you create (or reply) to a message, you can specify any of the identities you have configured by selecting it from the From drop-down list.
Read more: Home / Thunderbird / Using Identities
Create a New Identity:
In Thunderbird, click Tools > Account Settings…
Select the desired account from the list on the left, then click the Manage Identities button in the bottom right.
Click Add
In the the identity dialog, you'll specify:
Settings: name, address, signature, etc
Copies & Folders: cc, bcc, and where to store messages
Composition & Addressing: text format, quote management, signature, etc
Security: digital signatures and encryption
Source: Thunderbird Support, Using Identities |
H: How do I switch phones while on a Google Voice call?
If I initiate a Google Voice call from one phone and want to switch midway through the call to another phone, how can I do it?
I heard there was some button combination I could press to make all my other phones ring while I'm on a call.
AI: There is no way of switching phones for a call you initiate. Per this Google Voice Help article:
Keep in mind that it's not possible to switch phones during calls you make through your Google number
You can switch phones for a call your receive though
To switch phones in the middle of an incoming call, just press * while you're talking, and your other phones will ring |
H: Organisation-wide email addresses in Google Apps
I'm just setting up Google Apps for my non-profit domain. I'd like to be able to have addresses such as [email protected] and [email protected] forwarded to certain Apps users. I can do this using the groups facility and have done so.
However, how can I allow each of these users to send email from these addresses?
As far as I can tell each email alias can only be associated with one user.
AI: Each user can add the group address to the list of accounts that they can send mail from. These steps will need to be repeated for each user.
In Mail Settings > Accounts, click Add another email address you own
Enter the group email address, and change the name to something appropriate for the group email address.
Send the verification email (it will be sent to everyone in the group).
Enter the verification code from the email that was sent.
When that user composes a new message, he can select the group email from the From: drop down list. |
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