Google search sometimes requires the ‘scanning’ of many entries. There is no need to step page by page looking at just 10 results at a time. The following will display 100, which is the maximum number:

http://www.google.com/search?q=Your_Search_Term_Here&num=100

To get a more concise view containing just the page titles:

http://www.google.com/ie?q=Your_Search_Term_Here&num=100

It truly is a powerful option.

Several sites are running an article on the recent statistical figure: laptops sales surpassed desktop sales in the States.

Will it take another 5-10 years until PDA‘s outsell laptops? Hardware is becoming smaller and cheaper; CPU speed increases rather slowly; RAM matters very little at this point where the O/S just doesn’t require it. So, smaller units might be equally good. To get a convenient workspace, one can attach an external monitor and other peripherals to the PDA while having the choice to just pull the PDA out of the pocket.

Where there’s smoke, there must be a fire. The streets of Manchester are full of smoke at the moment so there must be a large-scale wildfire. There was no evidence of a fire while I was walking home for breakfast; only half an hour later (now), the streets are foggy with smoke.

As it occurred around 5-6 in the morning, there is no word yet from the BBC. Google News can indentify no source either.

9 AM update: there is no longer a trace of smoke. Good riddance.

his entry does not concern spam, but rather the management of mail which belongs to a different ‘classes’, e.g. academia, work and play. It is a simple efficiency tip.

Experience has taught acquainted folks and I the value of possessing several E-mail addresses (7 in my case), which can be checked at different intervals (varying from minutes to days or weeks). Different accounts are designated for mailing lists, subscriptions, people and so forth. This reduces the number of disturbances since there is always a choice as to which account/s to check.

Broader E-mail messages often have labels such as [Linux-Group] which ease the process of flitering. Several mailing lists can reside on the same E-mail account; by defining rules for re-direction to boxes, all messages wind up in the right place automatically.

click image to view in full size

Above is an example from Horde. Messages initially appear in Inbox and only new ones get listed. Once read, a single click on the filter icon will archive them in the right box. Messages marked as spam will wind up in Trash. With this strategy, one can read the subject of — and archive dozens of messages in just a few seconds. Personal messages go to separate accounts which can be checked every 1 minute using POP.

A hardware fault in outdated Palm devices is now forcing PalmOne to pay. An enormous number of people are entitled for a replacement. The wording in Slashdot:

After years of denying the problem with bad backup capacitors, Palm is settling a class action suit. If you have a dead Palm m100, m105, or m125, fill out the paperwork, and send it in, Palm will replace it with a new unit…

You can get all the necessary papers as PDF‘s from this site. Does that open to doors to similar exchange policies? Ones involving other Palm models with other known defects?

Have you ever carefully thought about your Google cookie? It can perpetually keep information about:

• Your address/es
• When you are logged on if you Google frequently enough
• What you search the Web for
• Which sites you enter (from SERP‘s)

That is an excess of information, so where has privacy gone? I used to block the Google Cookie, but it resulted in inconveniences when using AdSense. The blocking was matter of principle; there was nothing particular to disguise.

Google co-founder was once asked about the information bound to each cookie identifier. The answer is still unknown. Microsoft are doing something evil by sharing the information listed above across their empire (see related item).

eer-to-peer (P2P) and the World Wide Web (which we most commonly perceive as hypertext — HTTP) are separate. When one uses an Internet connection to directly communicate with a remote machine, then traffic is uncensored, often not monitored, and there are no restrictions imposed on the exchanged material. This justifies the potential illegality of P2P networking.

There are less controversial ways of obtaining media. When it resides on the World Wide Web and hosted by a trusted source, it is then subjected to copyright laws. For this particular reason, it is safer to download MP3 files from trusted Web sites, many of which distribute music for free in interests of self-promotion. Downloads are also far faster because data is delivered by a Web server. An older item explains how to automatically (READ: recursively) download music from the Web.

I have just discovered an inexhaustible source of music, which is also delivered as an RSS feed. That source is the MP3Blogs Aggregator. You must read this entry on the subject in order for everything to make sense. The gist: infinite amount of freely-distributed music reaching your hard-drive on a daily basis.