Top Google Search Tricks

While the search-engine competition is the hottest it's been since the early days (Remember Alta Vista and Hotbot?), Google remains king and is, arguably, as great as ever.

You don't become synonymous with the term "Internet search" by resting on your laurels, even if some pundits anecdotally believe the quality of Google's search results are declining as the company focuses on its other services.

Nevertheless, you're still using Google for search, right? And do you think you're using it to the best of your—and its—search abilities? Randomly typing in a word or phrase is good way to search. It's even better if you know to put the phrase in quotation marks, so Google will search for the exact term. But there's so much more you can do. Google has spent over a decade fine-tuning crafty tricks to help you search more efficiently.

With these ten tips, you'll be able to dazzle your friends by finding the most obscure information, long lost data, and that maddening bit of trivia no one else can score. Even just everyday information, like what time it is, becomes a power tool in Google search. To complete your search skills tutorial, we'll also show you how to rub your new mutant super-search ability in the faces of those around you.

The Best Google Search Tricks

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Ballmer: Office 365 to Launch in June

Speaking at the Confederation of Indian Industry Cloud Summit last Thursday, Steve Ballmer revealed that Microsoft's Office 365 cloud service will launch in June.

While there is still no firm official launch date from Microsoft, Ballmer said, "We're pushing hard in the productivity space. We'll launch our Office 365 cloud service, which gives you Lync and Exchange and SharePoint and Office and more as a subscribable service that comes from the cloud. That launches in the month of June."

Ballmer also spoke about Skype's position in Microsoft's cloud services. "...if about 200 million people who use Skype today to be able to talk to people at work and vice versa [you have to] be able to count on integration with your corporate systems when you're working inside the enterprise, to count on the security inside the enterprise, but then to be able to reach out in some of the same kinds of scenarios with your customers across Skype."

He stated that Microsoft has done a lot of work on cloud infrastructure particularly with Windows Azure and SQL Azure in the public cloud. He also spoke on the concerns of businesses with the cloud, "Many companies are saying, I can't go to the public cloud exactly yet or I can't go for all of my applications; we have too much concern about privacy and security and reliability." He addressed those concerns by pointing out the advantages of low-cost management and ease of deploying applications in the cloud back to the enterprise datacenter.

Ballmer reinforced Microsoft's focus on cloud computing. "This cloud computing phenomenon will drive growth, it will enable businesses to use IT more productively, and it will enable growth in the IT sector."

PCMag contacted Microsoft representatives to confirm the launch date of Office 365. So far there has been no comment, but representatives promised to look into it. This article will be updated with any new information.

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Survey Finds Cloud Computing Has Matured, But It Can Be a Pain

74 percent of enterprises are using cloud computing; a 25 percent growth since Avanade's September 2009 survey. Of organizations yet to adopt cloud services, three-quarters say it's in future plans.

60 percent of companies say cloud computing is a top IT priority for next year. The sentiment is even higher among C-level executives with 75 percent reporting cloud computing as a top priority.

43 percent of companies surveyed use private cloud services.

The United States has seen steady cloud computing adoption rates with a 19 percent increase since a survey conducted in 2009. The highest cloud adoption rates among those surveyed were in Italy, Canada, France, Germany, and Australia, respectively.

The survey also revealed cloud growing pains. One in five executives reports that it's impossible to manage all of the disparate cloud services within their organizations. About 60 percent are worried about unmanaged cloud sprawl.

The concerns about managing cloud services, especially employee access to public cloud services is well-founded. One in five respondents said they have personally purchased a cloud service without the IT department's knowledge. The reasons given were that many thought it takes too long to go through IT and that it's easier to provision cloud services themselves. About 27 percent say their company's cloud policy actually prohibits the cloud services they want to use.

While 60 percent of these companies do have corporate policies in place to prohibit such actions, those surveyed say there is no real deterrent for purchasing cloud services against policy guidelines. 29 percent reported there were no ramifications whatsoever and 48 percent say it is little more than a warning.

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BlackBerry 10 set for January release; phones will hit stores in February

After a lot of speculation regarding the dates, Research in Motion (RIM) has finally come out and confirmed that January 30, 2013 is when the company will officially release the BlackBerry 10 operating system. The same event will see the unveiling of the two smartphones as well, codenamed BlackBerry London and BlackBerry Nevada. We have already seen the two devices in a number of leaks recently. The release of the Blackberry 10 OS has been delayed quite a bit, and this will be the first major hardware and software announcement since the BlackBerry OS 7 smartphone range came out in late 2011.RIM is confident that the phones unveiled on 30th January will be available in stores within the next 30 days, and that includes the network tie-ups in certain markets. The handset codenamed London (also known as the L-series) is a full touchscreen phone, while the Nevada (also known as the N-series) sports a touchscreen plus QWERTY keypad combo, but does away with the optical trackpad considering the fact that the BB10 OS is meant for the touchscreen environment.In related developments, RIM is confident that the government customers in the U.S. will lead the BlackBerry 10 upgrade wave. RIM currently has more than 1 million government customers in the U.S., and about 400,000 customers got the OS 7 upgrades last year. The company’s BB10 devices were recently awarded the FIPS certification, giving them U.S. government security clearance for the collection, storage, transfer, sharing and dissemination of sensitive information.We believe that the BlackBerry 10 operating system and smartphones are the very last chance for RIM to survive in the smartphone business. Based on the kind of performance and multi-tasking capabilities we saw in the PlayBook OS (which is what the BlackBerry 10 is built upon, step by step), we expect a lot of good things from the new OS. Also, the leaked information about the London and Nevada handsets indicate that RIM’s smartphones will now match the rivals spec for spec, something they had not done till now. We are fairly confident that RIM has used the time well to engage developers, because the app ecosystem needs to be in place at the time of the launch itself, rather than promises of more applications later.

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Citrix Co-Founder Launches VirtualWorks to Combat Data Sprawl

Citrix co-founder and software industry veteran, Edward Iacobucci, along with a seasoned team of executives, have just launched VirtualWorks Group.

The company has developed an innovative enterprise framework, the Virtual Index Architecture (VIA). VIA works by indexing all types of data virtualizing the content amassed by companies. This is to enable employees to securely and quickly retrieve files from any application, location, or device—whether that data is structured, unstructured, resides in the cloud, or is hosted locally. Users are presented with a real-time image of relevant content from across the entirety of the enterprise.

VIA is a pre-integrated, plug-and-play framework that leaves data where it lives with no need for costly system integrations. A huge potential benefit is to increase employee productivity and provide deeper information insight. Uses for it include reporting, auditing, search, or creating new applications based upon a common index.

Engineered to handle both static and dynamic data, VIA is an extensible framework. It works seamlessly with any SQL-based application through Cross-Indexers that plug into the framework with no custom integration required. It's been designed to make it fast and easy for developers to create new Index-Enabled Applications that optimize the value of information for organizations.

"The exponential growth of data is only matched by its value to the enterprise," said Iacobucci, chairman and CEO of VirtualWorks. "With the rise of the mobile workforce, new digital media channels and a ten-fold growth of data in the last five years, organizations of all sizes are overwhelmed by data sprawl. It's clear that a radical new approach is required. Our new VIA framework is radical in that its non-disruptive: it doesn't require end-user or organizational changes or custom system integration efforts. VIA indexes the entire information stack, wherever it lives, to create more productive, nimble and competitive organizations."

VirtualWorks is backed by private and institutional investors. The company raised $8 million in first-round funding, which is being used as operating capital to execute on the company's vision and strategy. The company's technology is currently being used by more than 300 private and public sector organizations in Norway, Sweden, and the United States.

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Windows boss Steven Sinofsky out of Microsoft

Barely two weeks after playing a prominent role in Microsoft's launch of Windows 8 and the Surface tablet, Redmond veteran Steven Sinofsky is out as head of the Windows Division, effective immediately. Sinofsky, who led development and marketing of Microsoft's flagship product for more than three years, joined the company as a software design engineer in July 1989. His departure, announced late Monday, was abrupt and took the tech and business worlds by surprise, with All Things D likening the suddenness of the news to Apple's ouster of iOS chief Scott Forstall late last month.The tech site cited unnamed sources as saying that the Microsoft executive's departure "came amid growing tension between Sinofsky and other top executives." "Sinofsky, though seen as highly talented, was viewed at the top levels as not the kind of team player that the company was looking for," according to All Things D's Ina Fried.Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer addressed Sinofsky's departure in a company statement, describing the move as a "leadership change" without explaining why such a prominent and out-front executive was leaving the company so close to the roll out of its biggest new product in years."I am grateful for the many years of work that Steven has contributed to the company. The products and services we have delivered to the market in the past few months mark the launch of a new era at Microsoft," Ballmer said."We've built an incredible foundation with new releases of Microsoft Office, Windows 8, Windows Phone 8, Microsoft Surface, Windows Server 2012, and 'Halo 4,' and great integration of services such as Bing, Skype, and Xbox across all our products. To continue this success it is imperative that we continue to drive alignment across all Microsoft teams, and have more integrated and rapid development cycles for our offerings."Sinofsky took over the Windows Division in July 2009 after more than a decade contributing to and leading the development of Microsoft's Office products. He was also heavily involved in recruiting talent to Redmond over the years."It is impossible to count the blessings I have received over my years at Microsoft. I am humbled by the professionalism and generosity of everyone I have had the good fortune to work with at this awesome company," Sinofsky said in a statement.Julie Larson-Green has been promoted to lead Windows software and hardware engineering, while chief financial officer and chief marketing officer Tami Reller will lead the business side of the Windows operation while retaining her current positions at the company, Microsoft said."Leading Windows engineering is an incredible challenge and opportunity, and as I looked at the technical and business skills required to continue our Windows trajectory—great communication skills, a proven ability to work across product groups, strong design, deep technical expertise, and a history of anticipating and meeting customer needs—it was clear to me that Julie is the best possible person for this job, and I'm excited to have her in this role," Ballmer said of Larson-Green's new role. 

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Netgear N750 Wireless Dual Band Gigabit Router (WNDR4000)

Pros Record-fast throughput at the 5 GHz band. Multi-OS support. Stress-free setup. Has USB port for NAS functionality Cons USB support is limited only to storage devices. Lacks robust NAS capabilities. Bottom Line Netgear's N750 is a throughput thoroughbred in the 5 GHz band. Performance at the 2.4 GHz band is slightly above average with other top 2.4 GHz routers on the market. Advanced features and easy setup makes the N750 a router to easily recommend, despite anemic NAS capabilities.

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Microsoft releases Internet Explorer 10 preview for Windows 7

Microsoft has officially released Internet Explorer 10 for Windows 7. The preview build of the IE10 browser can be downloaded today, with the final build launching some time next year. Those interested in giving IE10 for Windows 7 a try can download the preview here.On the official IE blog, Rob Mauceri, Group Program Manager, Internet Explorer says, “IE10 on Windows 7 has the same standards based platform for developers to target as IE10 on Windows 8. We built an entirely new browser with Windows 8, with more performance and developer capabilities. IE10 brings improved real-world site performance and additional standards support to Windows 7 that Web developers have been asking for. We look forward to getting your feedback on IE10 on Windows 7, and will provide another update when the preview is available.”IE10 was originally designed for Windows 8 with touchscreens and tablets in mind and it will be interesting to see how the new browser translates on Windows 7.IE10 claims to bring with it a bunch of new features such as a faster and more fluid browsing experience, more interpolated HTML5 support, rich visual effects, enhanced web programming model, privacy with “Do not track” on by default and an overall smoother browsing experience. You can read the complete features of the IE10 on the official Microsoft IE blog here.So, will you download the new browser for Windows 7? Do let us know what you think of its performance and interface, in the comments section below.

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Tip: Give Your Browser a Windows 8 Look

You'll have to wait a year for the real thing, but in the meantime, if you want a dash of Windows 8, here's a little sustenance for you. A clever Czech Web programmer/designer named Ľubomír Krupa has come up with a way to give your browser the tiled Windows 8 Metro UI look. Of course, this tip won't give you the full Windows 8 tile functionality—it won't update the current weather or stock prices in tiles, but if you crave the Metro look, it's a start. Krupa offers the customization under the MIT license, which means it's free to use, copy, modify, merge, publish, distribute, sublicense, and/or sell, as long as the copyright info stays intact.

To start your move toward a Windows 8 look, you first need to download the zipped folder contents used by the start page. You can get it from this DeviantArt download page. Next, just unzip all the contents of the download archive to a folder under your My Computer folder, say to Downloads/Win8Start.

Next, copy the full pathname by clicking in the Windows Explorer address bar: on my PC, this was

C:

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Google Nexus 4 goes out of stock in a matter of minutes

Google’s fourth flagship smartphone, the Nexus 4 went out of stock in a matter of minutes after being launched on the Google Play store.

Google opened its online hardware Play store to sell the Nexus 4 in select countries like the US, UK, Canada, Australia and Germany, and the smartphone was out of stock in a matter of minutes after its launch yesterday.

The 16GB Nexus 4 was sold out in a mere 22 minutes in the Australian Google Play store, whereas the 8GB variant of the smartphone barely lasted for 2 hours. The 32GB Nexus 10 tablet too went out of stock in about five hours where as the 16GB variant is still available.

Countries such as the UK, France, Germany, and Spain also saw similar demand for the smartphone where it was sold out in 35 minutes.

The US and Canada got the device last on Tuesday, and the Nexus 4 was sold out in 20 minutes of its availability.

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