Monthly Archive for May, 2007

Drawloop

Published
by
Ian Smith
on May 25, 2007
in Author-Ian Smith and Internet tools
. 0 Comments

In last week’s Gadget of The Week, I mentioned Neevia, an online tool that permits you to convert your files into .pdf if you do not have the luxury of accessing Adobe Acrobat.

Well, this week’s Gadget of The Week will provide you with a similar tool but with one an extra feature.

Drawloop will allow you to convert all file types, including websites. The tool is web-based and free…for now. Here is an example of how to transfer a website into a .pdf.

Once completing the registration and login process, you will be ask to select the file type or add an URL. The two options can be seen in the screenshot below.

drawloop1.gif

After selecting the option of adding an url, you will be asked to enter the address of the site that you wish to convert into a .pdf. The address of the Ford Motors Company’s website for the purposes of this post.

drawloop2.gif

The end product is shown below.

drawloop3.gif

Drawloop is available at http://www.drawloop.com/

Google To Improve Reader Service

Published
by
Ian Smith
on May 24, 2007
in Friday Afternoon Reading
. 0 Comments

As reported by TechCrunch, Google is expected to acquire Feedburner, a RSS management company. Feedburner will supply Google with access with a great outlet to push content support their existing service, Google Reader.

Searching The Web - Getting All The Results That Fits

Published
by
Ian Smith
on May 23, 2007
in Author-Ian Smith and Internet tools
. 0 Comments

So many of the major search engines have the ability to retrieve content in difference formats and from different sources. The problem is that you have to find the specific tool on the engine’s website, enter keyword(s) and then scroll through the results.

Well, some of the major search engines have arrived with a solution to the problem stated above.

Users can now plug in their keyword(s) into the main search box and obtain all the results on one page. An example can be seen below in the screenshot of Google’s SearchMash for the keywords, ‘ “Montreal Canadiens”.

searchmash.gif

Web, Image and Video Results

Other similar tools include:

Gadget Of The Week: Neevia Document Converter eXpress

Published
by
Ian Smith
on May 18, 2007
in Author-Ian Smith and Internet tools
. 0 Comments

Here is a gadget for those who do not have access to Adobe Acrobat to convert files into .pdf.

Neevia Document Converter eXpress allows individuals convert files such as MS Word, MS Powerpoint, etc into .pdf and images.

Neevia Document Converter eXpress is available at http://convert.neevia.com/

Example #99999 of What Is Not Competitive Intelligence

Published
by
Ian Smith
on May 17, 2007
in Author-Ian Smith and Competitive & Internet Intelligence
. 0 Comments

Yet another article dealing with corporate espionage. Spies, Lies and KPMG profiles another case where a firm undertakes unethical methods to collect information. Precisely, in early 2006, a consultant from a private intelligence firm had misrepresent himself to gather information from an accountant at KPMG.

It is truly amazing to see that firms are still willing to risk the money, time, reputation and most of all, the chance of obtaining inaccurate information when deciding to use deceitful means to collect data.

Be sure to read the comments at the end of the article, especially the comments made by Den Taylor of Strategic Insights.

Google v2.0 - A New Face & Search

Published
by
Ian Smith
on May 17, 2007
in Uncategorized
. 0 Comments

If you have not visited Google today, expect a slightly modified look to it. Here is a list of the cosmetic changes applied to www.google.com only for the time being:

  • The links to the main Google search applications that were located above the search box are now located in the left handside in the corner.
  • A drop down menu to access other search tools and applications that may not be known to casual usual users.
  • The results page appear much cleaner. Gone is the blue bar that stretched accross the screen before the result listings.

These changes are just a large part of Google Universal Search plan.

How Willing Are You To Change Search Engines?

Published
by
Ian Smith
on May 15, 2007
in Friday Afternoon Reading
. 0 Comments

We all have our favourite search engines that we love to use however; what will prompt you to change engines? Will an advertising campaign change your mind? Ask.com hopes it does.

A few weeks ago, I spotted a 30-second commercial on CNN for Ask.com which I found quite odd because search engines usually does not spend the cash for television ads, unless they are Microsoft and Yahoo. It seems that Ask.com are trying to turn some heads and steer internet users to their search tool. According to a report, Ask.com is set to invest $100 million in advertising in the hopes of capturing some attention in cyberspace.

Thomson Acquires Reuters

Published
by
Ian Smith
on May 15, 2007
in Uncategorized
. 0 Comments

The financial news segment of the information industry is about to change with Thomson purchase of Reuters as reported this morning. The merger will lead to fierce competition between the newly created entity and Bloomberg.

Only time will tell if any of the information products from Reuters and Thomson will be modified to reflect any syngeries.

Trivia Time: Name The First Search Engine?

Published
by
Ian Smith
on May 11, 2007
in Friday Afternoon Reading
. 0 Comments

If your answer is Yahoo, you are absolutely……………WRONG!

The first search engine of the internet age was called, “Archie”.

During my research for an upcoming article, I stumbled on a site that documents the history of search engines. History of Search Engines: From 1945 to Google 2007 claims that Archie was buiilt first to “solve data scatter problem by combining a script-based data gatherer with a regular expression matcher for retrieving file names matching a user query. Essentially Archie became a database of web filenames which it would match with the users queries”.

Google Docs & Spreadsheets

Published
by
Ian Smith
on May 11, 2007
in Author-Ian Smith and Internet tools
. 0 Comments

A few months ago, one of my friends went through a nightmare of a time when Excel crashed on his computer and could not get the application running in time to finish off a project. Little did he know of Google Docs & Spreadsheets.

Yes, Google has their own versions of word processing and spreadsheets applications. Each tool is web based and compatible with other similar software packages including their respective basic functions (ie, bolding, font adjustment, etc.) A screenshot of the two applications are shown below:

googlewp.gif

Google Docs

googless.gif

Google Spreedsheets

Google Docs & Spreadsheets are available at http://docs.google.com/ .