老黃賣瓜::自打嘴巴

剛剛寫完 gmail 完全開放註冊後一篇後，發現 Google 的 Logo 今天好像有點不同，看起來好像少了一個”L”變成 “Googe”。在 googleblog 上有一篇 Strawberries are red, stems are green… 解釋並沒有少了一個”L”，並祝大家有一個 Happy Valentine’s Day。

以下節錄自 googlebog：

When you look at the logo, you may worry that we forgot our name overnight, skipped a letter, or have decided that “Googe” has a better ring to it. None of the above. I just know that those with true romance and poetry in their soul will see the subtlety immediately. And if you’re feeling grouchy today, may I suggest eating a strawberry.

A very happy Valentine’s Day to everyone!

Update: 16/02/2007
今次 Google 的 Valentine’s Day Logo 引起在 slashdot.org 及 digg.com 很多討論，今天連明報也有報導，但報章的報導只有三數行，也沒有提到其他問題，他們好像也不知道 Googe 這個字的意思﹗香港報章的水準……

如果想知道 Googe 這個字的意思可以到 urbandictionary 看看 [warning] http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=googe [warning]，也可以到這裡看看以往 Google 在節日的 Logo 可以到 Google Holiday Logos 看看。

Google 在 2004年4月1日愚人節推出 Gmail Beta，如要使用Gmail必需要有Gmail 使用者的 invitation 才能註冊使用，在差不多三年後的2月14日情人節 Gmail 正式全球同步開放註冊，如你還沒有 Gmail account 的話可以到 http://www.gmail.com/ 註冊。

P.S. 看來 Google 喜歡在節日推出服務

Google 炸彈﹗？

根據 wikipedia 的解釋﹕

A Google bomb or Googlewash is Internet slang for a certain kind of attempt to influence the ranking (called PageRank) of a given page in results returned by the Google search engine, often with humorous or political intentions. Because of the way that Google’s algorithm works, a page will be ranked higher if the sites that link to that page use consistent anchor text. A Google bomb is created if a large number of sites link to the page in this manner. Google bomb is used both as a verb and a noun. The phrase “Google bombing” was introduced to the New Oxford American Dictionary in May 2005.

原來連 Oxford 字典也有收錄 “Google bombing”，事情是由於看到一則台灣東森網上新聞，提到台灣有人利用 Google Bomb，把「無能無恥」與陳水扁的簡介連在一起﹐在美國也有人把 failure and miserable failure 與 George W. Bush 連在一起﹐當有人在 Google 打入 failure, miserable failure, George W. Bush 的 Link就會出現在第一位，因有很多人在網頁上或 Blog 上加入連結。

但網上新聞卻寫﹕

有網路駭客設計了個網路炸彈程式，只要在搜尋網站上打「無能無恥」，就會連結到總統府網站

這位記者﹐如果你想寫關於 Internet 的報導時﹐麻煩你先到 http://en.wikipedia.org 上查一查， 再作報導，以免誤導大眾。原來台灣記者和香港記者的水準也差不多﹗

作為一個 Blogger，當我有懷疑的時侯也會上網查一查，但一位職業記者竟然寫出這樣的文章﹗再這樣下去﹐記者將會被 Blogger 所取代﹗

Google China moved to their new home at 4th Sept. A 10-story Google building(Satellite Image) in TsingHua Science Park. Here are some photos from googlechinablog. More photos can be found here.

Google China

Sofa area

Working area

Dance and Billiards Table

We always said that Google is your friend when you search information on the Internet. However when it comes to privacy, Google is not always your friend. It is because Google stores a cookie on your PC expiring in 2038. If you are a paranoid person like me. Then you should considered using the following method to protect your privacy.

Using anonymous proxy is one of the solution to solved the above problem and surf the web anonymously, but this solutions has it’s own drawback, it will slow down your connection to the outside world(internet). Then I come across this small how-to page in the internet. If you are using a decent and resonable morden web browser (read mozilla firefox), then you can redirect all your google search request to anonymous proxy, while still surfing the web at full speed.

The following steps demostrate on a ubuntu 6.06 Dapper LTS computer:

1. Install tor
   • Do not use the packages in ubuntu’s universe. They are not maintained and most likely old and therefore miss out on stability and possibly security fixes. Add the following two line in /etc/apt/source.list
     

     deb http://mirror.noreply.org/pub/tor dapper main
     deb-src http://mirror.noreply.org/pub/tor dapper main

   • Verifying signatures with apt 0.6.x
     

     # gpg –keyserver subkeys.pgp.net –recv 94C09C7F
     # gpg –fingerprint 94C09C7F
     # gpg –export 94C09C7F | sudo apt-key add -

   • Inatall tor
     

     # apt-get update
     # apt-get install tor

2. Install foxyproxy extension for your firefox, restart firefox.
3. Configure FoxyProxy
4. Delete cookie from Firefox
5. Set Firefox so that it only keeps cookies till you close Firefox (Edit/Preferences/Privacy/Cookies)
6. Surf the Internet