The Wiert Corner – irregular stream of stuff

Jeroen W. Pluimers on .NET, C#, Delphi, databases, and personal interests

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Archive for the ‘Google’ Category

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Funny how Google Search tries to interpret version numbers as dates and totally misses the actual date (via: directx runtime – Google Search)

Posted by jpluimers on 2012/02/20

Funny how Google Search tries to interpret number sequences as dates:

Download: DirectX Redist (June 2010) – Microsoft Download Center …

www.microsoft.com/download/en/details.aspx?id=8109

29 Sep 1974 – The DirectX redist installation includes all the latest and previous released DirectX runtime. This includes D3DX, XInput, and Managed DirectX …

I almost skipped that search result, as the date was from 1974, but since back then DirectX didn’t even exist, I became curious.

This is the original text from the page that Google tried to interpret: Read the rest of this entry »

Posted in Google, GoogleSearch, Power User | Leave a Comment »

Chrome Google search URLs changed into a webhp redirect; no rootkit; Avast! and eggheadcafe seem involved; reproducible on one machine. What happened?

Posted by jpluimers on 2012/02/16

Somewhere the last couple of days, Google or Google Chrome has changed the default search URL.

I thought I had a webhp rootkit issue, possibly related to Avast, but it wasn’t (I posted at the Avast forums, and later replied the issue had solved itself, but I still wonder about the real cause).

What happened was that some page I had open in Google Chrome (all other web browsers were fine) forced the redirect.

I can only reproduce this on one system (that has both Avast! Antivirus installed, and Chrome open with the page http://www.eggheadcafe.com/searchform.aspx?search=Cross+Join+Excel) but not on other machines.

So far, it took me about a day of work (quarantining the machine, investigating if it was a virus, rootkit or otherwise, trying to verify this is a one off), and I still feel I don’t have the complete answer yet.

I still wonder if others have seen similar issues.

This is how it redirected

The defaults have a truckload of junk around them, but come down to the URLs below (lmgtfy is the search phrase)

It used to be of this form (which now again works, after I closed all Google Chrome pages)

The redirect made it into a longer webhp form:

The fun thing is, that if you enter the form

then you will end at the Google Search home page with the search phrase pre-filled in.
Now that is a pretty nifty “let me Google that for you” :)

–jeroen

via: Google.

Posted in Google, GoogleSearch, Power User | Leave a Comment »

Google Calendar: Quick Add to specific calendar? – Calendar Help – @google

Posted by jpluimers on 2011/12/27

It would be so cool if Google re-added this feature:

  1. Deselect all calendars but one
  2. Quick Add an event
  3. The event gets added to this one selected calendar

Now all events always get added to your default calendar. I remember this worked somewhere in 2010. But now it fails when adding about 200 events by hand on a secondary calendar :(

See this discussion thread:

tiburon200; 3/21/09

When using quick add, is it possible to place the new event on a specific calendar (ie, home, work) or is that only an option through the regular “Create Event” method?

Thanks for any insight… seems like it should be pretty easy, but I can’t find the right syntax.

rmorales2005; 8/17/11

This used to be possible by just hiding all other calendars, but this got broken some time ago…

–jeroen

via Quick Add to specific calendar? – Calendar Help.

Posted in Google, GoogleCalendar, Opinions, Power User | Leave a Comment »

About Gmail’s new look: a few comments

Posted by jpluimers on 2011/11/07

Not sure I really like the “all new” black and white look where all of the screen looks the same, so no emphasis on the things that really matter.

Over time, you won’t be able so switch back, so you have to adapt to the new look & feel, and try the options to make it work for you the best.

So far, I switched to the “Compacrt” view, and chose the “Blue” theme to make emphasis on the mail list/content.

–jeroen

About Gmail’s new look.

Posted in GMail, Google, LifeHacker, Power User | Leave a Comment »

How to disable Chrome PDF Viewer in Google Chrome and reenable the Acrobat Reader plugin

Posted by jpluimers on 2011/02/07

Google Chrome integrated a PDF viewer that is far less functional than Adobe Reader.

In fact: if you had Adobe Reader as PDF viewer, Google Chrome will just use their own.

One of the things I use a lot is the multi-page view (2 page next to each other; fits nicely on a 1920×1200 screen).

It is actually pretty easy to switch back: Read the rest of this entry »

Posted in Google, Power User, Windows, Windows 7, Windows Vista, Windows XP | Leave a Comment »

SQL Server: Google search tip for MSDN

Posted by jpluimers on 2010/09/07

When searching on MSDN for SQL Server syntax related things, you often get results matching other languages or frameworks.

For instance, searching for INSERT site:msdn.microsoft.com gets other results having to do with the .NET Framework. Those usually are not relevant to SQL Server.

Google search can be tweaked to limit your search results: there is a nice Google search help page on this.
The above search phrase already includes a the site: prefix to limit the results to the msdn.microsoft.com domain.

There are a few tricks to limit the search phrase even further:

  1. Add “SQL Server” to your search phrase:
    “SQL Server” INSERT site:msdn.microsoft.com
    Microsoft always had the “SQL Server” in their Books Online topics.
    This way, you will find SQL Server 2000 and SQL Server Compact Edition information now as well as more current SQL Server versions.
  2. Add “Transact-SQL” to your search phrase:
    “Transact-SQL” INSERT site:msdn.microsoft.com
    Microsoft started to suffix SQL Server T-SQL keywords with “(Transact-SQL)” for the Books Online in November 2008 (covering SQL Server 2005) to make finding results easier.
    This way you will favour topics for SQL Server 2005 and up.

Luckily the MSDN site has done a lot of SEO, so even if you don’t add these two to your search phrase, SQL Server relevant results end up pretty high in the result list.
They strive to get the SQL Server 2008 R2 Books Online topics as high in the ranking as possible.

If you want to search for specific versions of SQL Server, then it is easiest to use this Microsoft SQL Server Library page to begin your search.

Conclusion:

Depending on what kind of search results you are interested in, you might want to extend your search phrase a bit.

–jeroen

Posted in Database Development, Development, Google, Power User, SQL Server | Leave a Comment »

Session Buddy – Google Chrome extension gallery

Posted by jpluimers on 2010/09/03

Great Chrome extension: Session Buddy.
Not only great for saving and restoring sessions, but also for getting the URLs and Titles of your tabs (or single window with tabs).

Easy for collecting relevant information and saving it for inclusion in documentation (for instance: your blog ).

via: Session Buddy – Google Chrome extension gallery.

Posted in Google, Power User | Leave a Comment »

A few updates to: Google Calendar – printing multiple months or weeks to PDF

Posted by jpluimers on 2010/07/15

Thanks to Kilian Croese, I updated the Google Calendar – printing multiple months or weeks to PDF posting with this info:

  • No need to use Fiddler any more for obtaining the base printing URL.
  • Added information for these parameters:
    • pfs (font size)
    • po (page orientation)
    • pbw (black & white)
  • In addition, I improved the documentation on the parameter rand (which is a JavaScript EPOCH value)
  • Finally I dug a bit deeper into the page sources, and added information about these parameters:
    • pjs (PDF Printing Java Script)
    • pda (PDF download)

The original post is now both far easier to use, and much more complete.

–jeroen
Via: Google Calendar – printing multiple months or weeks to PDF « The Wiert Corner – Jeroen Pluimers’ irregular stream of Wiert stuff.

Posted in Font, Google, Google Apps, PDF, Power User | Leave a Comment »

Google Calendar – printing multiple months or weeks to PDF – URL parameter tips and tricks

Posted by jpluimers on 2010/06/28

Recently, I had to print multiple months or weeks from within Google Calendar.
The default UI does not allow that, but it is in fact pretty easy to do.

These are the steps to get PDF versions of a whole year.

Edit 20100714: thanks to Kilian Croese, I could explain a few more parameters, and cut out the steps for Fiddler, so it now works with most browsers on most platforms.
All text that is not relevant any more is marked deleted, so you can still read it if you want to use Fiddler.
It works from Google Chrome and Internet Explorer on Windows (FireFox works if you install FiddlerHook) Read the rest of this entry »

Posted in Development, Fiddler, Google, Google Apps, GoogleCalendar, ISO 8601, Power User, Software Development, Web Development | 19 Comments »

Adding wordpress.com blog as connected site in Google Buzz (thanks Pēteris!)

Posted by jpluimers on 2010/06/26

Pēteris wrote about Adding wordpress.com blog as connected site in Google Buzz.

Thanks – that saved me a lot of time!

–jeroen

Posted in Development, Google, Power User, Software Development, Web Development, WordPress | 1 Comment »

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