I never worked inside a tech support department, but I do imagine the crazy stuff that must go on there, especially when these guys need to interact with clueless people from non tech-savvy departments.
I came across this video last week, and given its popularity you might have crossed it already. If you not, please take 10 minutes to watch it, it is just brilliant!
Everyone uses Google these days and often multiple times each day. We use it for work, for fun and for general interest. It has made our researching so much easier. Google makes looking up the most mundane detail simple. Need a phone number for the pizza place down the street? Google it. The possibilities are endless. However, did you know you can get more from your Google searches? It’s true and here are six tips to achieving more productive Google search results:
1. Don’t leave out synonyms. Suppose you want to perform a search but wish to broaden your search to include similar words to your initial keyword. To achieve optimum results, place the “~” symbol in front of the synonym. For example: “baseball” is your keyword and you want to include “pitchers” in your search. Type in: baseball ~ pitchers.
2. Find out who called you. If an unfamiliar number calls you on your cell phone you can use Google to find out who called you. For example: this number (555-555-5555) called you and you don’t have the number in your list of contacts. All you have to do is search this number in Google by typing: phonebook 555-555-5555. This is the Google phonebook feature.
3. Narrow down your search. Suppose you want to search movies but want to exclude horror movies from your search. When you type in “movies” in your search bar, add “-horror.” Your search will look like this: movies – horror. This will refine your search and eliminate searches yielding any reference to horror.
4. Zero in your search on a specific site. Suppose you want to find out what a particular site has to offer about baseball. Use the “site:whateversite.com” modifier. For example: “baseball” site:whateversite.com. This will search your specific site for references to baseball. This works even if the specific site doesn’t have a search option.
5. Search by file type. The file type modifier allows you to search for documents fitting a particular file type. Suppose you want to find files about baseball that are in PowerPoint. All you have to do is search: “baseball” filetype:ppt.
6. Search by numeric ranges. This feature is rarely utilized but can be very useful. This is perfect if you’re searching a range of years or prices or whatever you want to narrow your search by. For example: Massachusetts governors 1900..1990. This will yield a search of governors in Massachusetts from 1900 up to 1990.
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Last week we covered the Helicopter game, and this week we have another classic of the online flash games: Desktop Tower Defense.
On this strategy game your mission is to build a defense that will be able to kill all the incoming creatures, not allowing them to reach the other side of the map. You have several towers at your disposal, each with certain attributes. Not recommended if you have a lot of things to do for work today…
Once in a while I get bored from work, and my favorite time waster are online flash games. They are available on any browser, fast to load, funny, and usually it is pretty easy to get aware from them when you need to go back to work (the same cannot be said about Counter Strike and other games…).
For this reason, we will create a weekly column here mentioning the best online flash games around the Web.
The first mention goes to the HelicopterGame.net. Now, I said that for most flash games it is easy to get away when you need to, but this one might be an exception.
When I started played this game I was immediately hooked. I played for 30 minutes without a break, until I reached over 1000 points of distance.
What is the game about? Well you just need to click on your mouse to make the helicopter go up, and release the buttom to make it go down, while avoiding obstacles on your way.
Sounds boring? Go try for yourself then!
One popular image of the internet is of a wonderful utopia, allowing creators worldwide to share their genius without “The Establishment” holding them back. The only problem is that most people aren’t geniuses, and huge sections of that “Establishment” are filters designed to protect the innocent public from a never-ending torrent of terrible music, garbage writing and – worst of all – comics so bad they’d make Marvel back off and re-launch as a house painting firm.
While some simple rules can help you avoid the worst of the filth (e.g. “If it’s a gaming comic not called Penny Arcade then it sucks”), finding the few nuggets of gold can be hard work. Which is why we’ve done it for you, sifting some high-quality but lesser-known strips out for you. You’re welcome.
Basic Instructions, a weekly humor strip, has two things most web “comics” don’t have. One: An actual comic – author Scott Meyer spent several years as a professional comedian before turning his hand to webcomickry, meaning he has actual knowledge of “comic timing” and “being funny” that most hopeful-humorists lack. Two: a valid excuse to use copy and paste, the cardinal sin of comic laziness. In the fake-printed-instructions style of the strip the repeated graphics are actually appropriate, and new graphics are drawn when needed.
There’s a clear feeling that Scott actually cares about the audience – since he used to work in a field where they could physically attack him that’s unsurprising – and with recent extensions into newspapers and a book in the works, it seems the audience cares back.
Dr McNinja achieves the impossible and makes internet memes funny. He doesn’t make them funny because they’re memes – he makes them funny despite being memes, with an incredible internet alchemical ingredient known as “great writing”. Most “jokes” based on pirates, zombies or ninjas are the desperate recycling of attention-starved idiots (with some honorable exceptions like Real Ultimate Power and Dinosaur Comics).
Chris Hastings and Kent Archer produce fast-paced and funny action stories containing every single one of those elements (and a few robots, lumberjacks and vampires besides) which somehow never feel less than fresh. Another strip that’s made the difficult transition to “Actually asking people to pay for it”, with two volumes available for sale: “The Adventures of Dr McNinja” and “Surgical Strike”. One volume means the makers thought people might buy it – two means those people did. You should too.
Freakangels is one of the wonderful and diseased brainchildren of Warren Ellis, comic writer extraordinaire. Some comic shops have sections devoted entirely to him, he produces umpty-billion actual-for-sale comics for Marvel, Avatar and others – and he decided to do one completely for free online. Because he could. A post-apocalyptic tale with steampunk elements and the well developed characters that populate all Ellis’s stories, rendered in rich, full-color art by Paul Duffield.
Sidestepping the usual “one page per whatever” web schedule that destroys dramatic tension (or leads to a cliffhanger every four panels), they upload an episode of six pages every Friday. This is a free comic by master professionals who could have charged for it if they wanted, but they decided not to. You should decide to read it.
There is talk that author Richard Stevens is not of our Earth, but has been sent back in time from a hyper-productive future to embarrass the hell out of the lazy “When I feel like it” crowd. Since starting pixel-art humor strip Diesel Sweeties in 2000, he has never decided “I’m playing Grand Theft Auto instead”, never run a “Dead Pixels Day” of filler, and as well as maintaining a rich cast of characters and comics over two leap years has tripled his output over that time.
As well as expanding into newspapers (the real acid test of any newly popular comic strip), books, t-shirts and even socks. The trademark aspects of Diesel Sweeties, fantastic punchlines and the lost art of punning, translate well to almost anything that can be written on.
Brandon Seifert and Lukas Ketner. Finally, two aspiring creators who understand how the web should be used to break into an industry. Witch Doctor, a medical horror comic, is clearly designed with the goal of being picked up and printed by a publisher. But rather than running around with cards clutched to their chest and demanding “IF we get a deal THEN we’ll do some actual work”, Messrs Seifert and Ketner thought “Well, how can we prove we can produce a full high quality comic?”
Simple. By making an full, high quality comic. And releasing it entirely online, for free, in a single great big burst – instead of holding the readers hostage for more pageviews, trickling out bits and pieces over a period of months, they wrapped it all up in one big ball of awesome and said “Here! Enjoy!” I did.
With classic high-detail black & white art (reminiscent of the good old days of 2000 AD) and a story combining characters, action, imaginative ideas and a very undignified use for the Holy Grail it’s a terrific read. It’s clear right from the get-go that there’s more here than is written on the pages. These guys aren’t scraping the barrels of their brains trying to fill up an issue; there’s obviously an entire imagined world hovering just behind the page, evolving all the time, and hopefully we’ll get to see more. Go enjoy your first incision.
Not sure your to point your mobile browser? We can help!
10. BBC News
An oldie but still a goodie. If you want to learn the latest news, you can alwas get it from BBC News. It has its top three news first, followed by other top stories around the globe, followed by features, sports, place-specific, and field-specific news. Simply the best news website for your mobile! And it helps your mobile for being text-based, as loading and functionality is efficient. BBC News is really a staple for news on-the-go.
9. Doppler
Relatively new but making its mark in the Web 2.0 space, Dopplr helps you with your travels through sharing it with your friends and colleagues online. Interestingly, it also tells you if some of your friends are on the same area as where you plan to be, aw if by coincidence. It manages online calendars and your social networks to let you know where everyone you know is. This is a definite must for globetrotters and sightseers alike.
8. MySpace
Many of us knows about MySpace, the social network that almost every one around the world is a member of. Handsome and clean as it may seem on your regular desktop browser, mobile MySpace doesn’t look as stylish as its desktop counterpart. Almost typically text-based, mobile MySpace offers menu in an orderly manner, expanding and contracting links much like your regular website sitemap, giving it a very simple look. But don’t get me wrong. MySpace’ simple interface still gets the job done despite the simpleton look.
7. Amazon
From the simplistic MySpace, I now give you a somewhat heavy loader for your mobile web surfing: Amazon. But despite taking some time to open the website, Amazon’s main purpose—online purchasing, can really be done in a breeze after logging in. It’s the best mobile web store for impulse buyers and window shoppers alike.
6. Facebook
Facebook isn’t another of your mobile social networking sites, as it offers more than any regular social websites can. What sets it apart from others is the options it gives you when using Facebok on-the-go. Mobile Texts utilizes your mobile phones’ sending and receiving capabilities, but I personally think it isn’t as efficient as the other two options. Mobile Upload allows, well, uploading photos and files from your mobile phone straight to your Facebook account. And, lastly, Mobile Web is simply the mobile version of your regular Facebook site. It’s like Facebook compressed into your mobile phone’s screen, but just as functional as your browser version. I think this is the best option of the three as it can be used to check for all updates for utilizing content.
5. Yahoo
In a simple interface, Yahoo didn’t deny us surfers the full functionality and service that it has been offering us. From Yahoo News, Sports, Weather, to even Mail and Messenger services, it continues to give users the assistance that they have always been known for. Also, its purpose as a search engine is still in the picture. At the expense of an attractive interface, mobile Yahoo still is the same Yahoo that we’ve learned to love.
4. Google
Unlike Yahoo that gives you everything, mobile Google is in pursuit of giving you your personalized search engine page. Though not as wide-ranging as Yahoo, you are sure that you get in your personalized Google page everything you want, be it news or sports update, minimizing clicks, loading time, and visits to unnecessary pages. Although you can also use bookmarking for other websites, Google stands out as they made the bookmarking function a feature in their mobile version.
3. Flickr
Flickr, the online photo management and sharing website, is not what you may call a mobile website. It only shows a few thumbnail photos per search result, and it looks quite monotonous, if you ask me. The reason why it is one of my top mobile websites is because, like Facebook, it has a direct upload capability, from mobile to their server. The reason why it is above Facebook is that it is quite straightforward: one click and you’re there in your destination. No bookmarking or winding menu levels! For a website that manages pictures, Flicker is more than optimized for the mobile phones, if you ask me.
2. Twitter
Twitter has already been discussed in “5 Terrific (and Unusual) Twitter Uses” (link: http://www.dailybits.com/5-terrific-twitter-uses/) by fellow writer Luke, and surprisingly, it is one of those growing and top-notching mobile websites in my list. With above par interface to answer its intriguing “What are you doing?” and other questions, Twitter really rocks your mobile web experience, which is why it is my top two on this list. Being innately text-based, Twitter doesn’t have a problem adapting to the small screens of mobile phones, and with a clear layout, reading updates from your friends have never been easier and more fun.
It seems like Google Reader is the talk of the Web 2.0 town! Similar to the Google search engine (which happened to be my top four), it allows you to check your favorites. But this time, the reader allows you to check your RSS feeds! It doesn’t really put a lot of effort in offering you a multitude of services, but with the birth of RSS, your one-stop shop for updated online content, there’s really no need for repetitive checking of your favorite websites elsewhere. Google Reader really focuses on giving you the latest and the most updated, so there’s really no thinking twice with this mobile feed reader.
