Cuil Launches Biggest Search Engine
MENLO PARK, Calif. - July 28, 2008 - Cuil, a technology company pioneering a new approach to search, unveils its innovative search offering, which combines the biggest Web index with content-based relevance methods, results organized by ideas, and complete user privacy. Cuil (www.cuil.com) has indexed 120 billion Web pages, three times more than any other search engine.
Cuil (pronounced COOL) provides organized and relevant results based on Web page content analysis. The search engine goes beyond today’s search techniques of link analysis and traffic ranking to analyze the context of each page and the concepts behind each query. It then organizes similar search results into groups and sorts them by category.
121,617,892,992 web pages and this is what I get: We didn’t find any results for “0092ff”
I may have to keep an eye on this search engine. It might just be the next big thing.
We’ll see…
Google PageRank is updating soon
Over at his blog today, Google staffer Matt Cutts has revealed that Google is about to roll out an update to their Toolbar PageRank values.
Hey folks, I wanted to let you know that new toolbar PageRank values should become visible over the next few days. I’m expecting that also in the next few days that we’ll be expiring some older penalties on websites.
Firefox 3 Easter Eggs
There are some amusing easter eggs in Firefox 3. Simply type one of the following into the address bar and you’ll get a message:
about:robots
about:mozilla
about:credits
Firefox is cool… go buy a shirt at the Mozilla Store!
Spoofing your MAC for wireless
I was recently at a very expensive hotel that charged $12.95/day for wireless access in the rooms. I couldn’t believe that I could go to a Red Roof Inn and get free wireless, yet at this 4-star hotel/casino, I had to pay that much for wireless access. With the amount of money that I donated to the casino, I felt that I could just “bypass” that for a couple days and it wouldn’t be a big deal.
My laptop picked up the wireless network right away and it seemed like I was connected, but when I opened Firefox, I got the hotel’s page instead of my homepage. I got to thinking about how they could track who has paid and who hasn’t and I figured that it had to be the MAC address of the wireless adapter. Couldn’t I just change or “spoof” my MAC address and get in? Unfortunately, I didn’t have any software with me that would allow me to do anything like this. So, I paid for the first 24 hour period in order to do some research and get some software that would allow me to do what I wanted.
My first step was to get some sort of scanner that would allow me scan the network and get the current MAC addresses that were on the network. I came accross a free tool called Find MAC Address.
After you install and open the program, you’ll see that it’s not that complicated. It picked up the range of IP addresses and I just hit the scan button.
Once the scan was complete, I had a list of MAC addresses that I could just export as a text file and refer back to later. The next step was to find out how to temporarily change my MAC address. After a quick Google search, I found Technitium MAC Address Changer.
Technitium MAC Address Changer allows you to change Media Access Control (MAC) Address of your Network Interface Card (NIC) irrespective to your NIC manufacturer or its driver. It has a very simple user interface and provides ample information regarding each NIC in the machine. Every NIC has a MAC address hard coded in its circuit by the manufacturer. This hard coded MAC address is used by windows drivers to access Ethernet Network (LAN). This tool can set a new MAC address to your NIC, bypassing the original hard coded MAC address.
Not only is it free, but it’s easy to use. Once you open it up, you’ll see a list of network connections towards the top of the screen. All you have to do is click on the wireless connection and then click on “Change MAC”. After that, it gives you a place to insert your new desired MAC address. That’s where that exported list from the other program comes in to play. Type in the MAC you want and hit “Change Now!”. (Don’t worry because you can change it back when you’re done.)
After my MAC address had been changed and I opened Firefox, I was taken to a page similar to the one that required payment, but now it just had a link to activate the wireless. If a password is required after you click that link, I can’t help you there. I knew my password because it was the same as the wireless connection that was used in the conference room.
Warning: Don’t blame me if get into trouble using this technique!
Strange computer noise
Let me start off with a little background information…
On 5/21, I installed two new 500Gb SATA hard drives in my machine. I reinstalled Windows XP and everything was going smooth. The drives were not only bigger than my old drives, but they were faster too. Once I got all my programs reinstalled, all was good and I was back to normal operations.
Around 6/17 (Firefox 3 download day), I started noticing a strange buzz/squeal/whine noise every once in a while. At first, I didn’t think much of it, but after some time, it started to get on my nerves. My first thought was that my primary hard drive had something wrong with it. I thought I had the issue figured out.
About a week ago, I realized that it was making the noise only when there was increased CPU activity. When my computer is idle, there’s no noise at all except for the fans. When the processor activity goes up, I hear the squealing noise (ie: screensaver starts, open program, move scrollbar in web browser). I know that CPU has no moving parts so this didn’t make any sense.
This past weekend, I took the side of the case off in hopes of determining where this annoying sound was coming from. When I put my ear near the side, I could only narrow it down to the area indicated below:
Yesterday, upon further investigation, I determined that the noise was coming from the bottom of the power supply. Then, when I pulled the computer away from the wall and put my ear to the rear power supply fan, it was very apparent that the power supply was the cause.
This morning, I sent an email to tech support at Ultra and their response was: “If the power supply is doing this, it needs to be replaced.”
So, it looks like I’m going to be ordering a new power supply today. That sucks!
X-Connect® 500W ATX PSU - Titanium
Purchased on 10/28/2006
Useful Link: Power Supply Calculator
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