And here are the results:

Bing:
1. FriendFeed profile page - 1
2. FriendFeed post - ½
3. LinkedIn directory - ½
4. Completely unrelated - 0
5. Completely unrelated - 0
6. Orli Yakuel’s following page on SoundCloud - ½
7. Completely unrelated - 0
8. Completely unrelated - 0
9. TheNextWeb.com post on which I never commented - 0
10. A page with my name that is not related to me - 1

One noticeable bug is that the page returns only 9 results instead of the configured 10 = -1

TOTAL SCORE: 2½

Google:
1. FriendFeed profile page - 1
2. FriendFeed post - ½
3. FaceBook profile page - 1
4. White Pages - 1
5. rssmeme.com - 1
6. TechMount Blog post - ½
7. FriendFeed profile page through proxy - ½
8. TechMount Blog post - ½
9. Comment on ReadWriteWeb - ½
10. Comment on TheNextWeb - ½

GOOGLE TOTAL SCORE: 7

Clearly Google wins in that match, but it is important to remember that Bing is only in the very early stages of it’s public beta. And regardless of the poor results in this specific search it does a fair enough job to become a serious competitor to Google.

Tags: bing, google

When you need to image on your Windows Vista or Windows 7, but do not want to install one of the huge application bundles that enable such mounts, you can use a little free utility called Virtual CloneDrive.

Virtual CloneDrive mounts most common disk image types such as ISO, CCD, DVD, IMG, UDF and BIN. Once it’s installed mounting a disk image is as simple as double-clicking the image file.

The two major advantages of Virtual CloneDrive is it’s size and simple of use. The application is very small and have a very small footprint on your system. It is as easy to use as any built in Windows function and requires no technical knowledge to use and operate, it does it’s job without overbearing.

If you already use applications such as Daemon-Tools, Alcohol 120%, UltraISO or others, there is probably no reason to switch, but if you want an application that doesn’t have any overhead (such as adware or virtual drivers) and simple to use, Virtual CloneDrive is the better choice.

Installation is very simple after you downloaded the installation file and decided if you want to associate the images file extensions. Once the installation is complete, you should be able to mount image files by just double-clicking on the file. You can also right-click on the virtual cd-rom drive to mount or unmount an image.

Tags: CD+mount, Virtual+CloneDrive

Software and Services

• 50 Useful Twitter Tools for Writers and Researchers - Twitter is a wonderful social tool, but did you know that it’s also a goldmine of information? You can use Twitter to get the latest scoop on current events as well as topical interests.
• 35 Online Tools That Make Your Freelance Career Easier - Over the years the appeal of freelancing has grown tremendously. Some are drawn to freelancing to enjoy the freedom of choosing their own work hours, some as a way to stay ahead during times of recession. Today, there are many individuals on the web pursuing their career as a freelancer. Bloggers, web designers, social media strategists and many others have found that freelancing is a great way to utilize their skills and sell their services through the wonderful medium we call the internet.

Information

• Why text messages are limited to 160 characters - Alone in a room in his home in Bonn, Germany, Friedhelm Hillebrand sat at his typewriter, tapping out random sentences and questions on a sheet of paper. As he went along, Hillebrand counted the number of letters, numbers, punctuation marks and spaces on the page. Each blurb ran on for a line or two and nearly always clocked in under 160 characters. That became Hillebrand’s magic number — and set the standard for one of today’s most popular forms of digital communication: text messaging.
• Mozilla ponders policy change after Firefox extension battle - The NoScript Firefox extension faced a major backlash last week when users discovered that it was surreptitiously disrupting the operation of AdBlock Plus. The developers behind the two extensions turned the browser into a battleground as their conflict escalated. Mozilla has responded by proposing a new policy that sets boundaries for appropriate extension behavior.
• Researchers hijack botnet, score 56,000 passwords in an hour - The Torpig botnet was hijacked by the good guys for ten days earlier this year before its controllers issued an update and took the botnet back. During that time, however, researchers were able to gain a glimpse into the kind of information the botnet gathers as well as the behavior of Internet users who are prone to malware infections.
• How Kevin Bacon sparked a new branch of science - The theory that everyone in the world is six friendships away from everyone else is regarded by many as a myth. So what happens when the theory is put to the test?
• The New York Times envisions version 2.0 of the newspaper - The New York Times Co.’s research and development group has some of the best views in their midtown skyscraper — 24 floors above the newsrooms, higher even than the executives’ suites. Developers in the core R&D group — with titles like “lead creative technologist” and, my favorite, “futurist-in-residence” — are charged by the brass 14 floors below them with anticipating how news will next be consumed.

Web development

• Non Profit Website Design: Examples and Best Practices - Non profit websites share many of the same best practices as any website. They need to be user friendly, easily navigable, and use appropriate fonts, colors, and other design elements. But often a non profit website needs to offer more than your typical corporate site. A non profit’s website needs to make it easy to find out more about their cause, to donate money, and to become more involved. It needs to make it easy for media contacts to find the information they need and the contact information of key personnel. And it needs to do all this in a way that’s inviting to the organization’s targeted donors and/or volunteers.

By writing about and linking to the articles/products/software on this page I do not endorse or testify to the reliability of them in any way or form.

Tags: Twitter, Freelance+Career, Mozilla

Software and Services

• Bittorrent DNA is evil - Bittorrent DNA is generating GOBS of unneeded traffic.

Hardware

• Apple Builds Its Own Team to Design Chips - Apple is building a significant capability to design its own computer chips, a strategy shift that the company hopes will create exclusive features for its gadgets and shield Apple’s work from rivals. The Silicon Valley trend-setter has been hiring people from many different segments of the semiconductor industry, including engineers to create multifunction chips that are used in cellphones to run software and carry out other chores.

Information

• The economy tanks, Intel Party - The economy is in the tank. PC sales are in a funk. And Intel shares have lost more than a third of their value over the past year. So why is Stacy Smith, the chip giant’s chief financial officer, smiling?
• How your search queries can predict the future - Real-time web search – which scours only the latest updates to services like Twitter – is currently generating quite a buzz because it can provide a glimpse of what people around the world are thinking or doing at any given moment. Interest in this kind of search is so great that, according to recent leaks, Google is considering buying Twitter.
• NASA may abandon plans for moon base - NASA will probably not build an outpost on the moonMovie Camera as originally planned, the agency’s acting administrator, Chris Scolese, told lawmakers on Wednesday. His comments also hinted that the agency is open to putting more emphasis on human missions to destinations like Mars or a near-Earth asteroid.
• How to trace a mobile phone location with Google Latitude - The cool thing about Google Latitude is that there are really no fancy, expensive gadgets required. All you need is a mobile phone and you can build what’s essentially a GPS network of friends, without the need for GPS technology. Wondering whether your buddy Jim is still at work? Just log onto Google Latitude, or check Google Maps on your phone, and sure enough, Jim’s icon shows up on the map where he works. Did your best friend go missing after her date the other night? If she left her phone on, all of her friends can check out where she’s currently located.

Wed Development

• 7 Totally Unique Flickr Search Tools - Sometimes it’s simply overwhelming how many gorgeous photos there are on Flickr - sifting through them to find a picture to use on your blog or to just admire can be a chore. Luckily for us however, Flickr has an API, meaning that some creative developers have built alternative Flickr search engines.

By writing about and linking to the articles/products/software on this page I do not endorse or testify to the reliability of them in any way or form.

Tags: Flickr, Bittorrent, Apple

Software and Services

• Ubuntu Studio 9.04 Released - Ubuntu Studio is a multimedia editing/creation flavor of Ubuntu, built for the GNU/Linux audio, video, and graphics enthusiast or professional.
• Top 10 Ubuntu Downloads - The reviews are in, and the just-released Ubuntu 9.04, i.e. “Jaunty Jackalope,” rates as a slick, fully-formed Linux desktop. Looking to get started or upgrade your system? Here’s 10 recommended downloads for everyone to try.
• Wine 1.1.20 Released - The Wine development release 1.1.20 is now available. What’s new in this release: Show a dialog on application crashes, much improved OLE copy/paste support, various listview improvements, more Direct3D code cleanups and various bug fixes.

Hardware

• Alpha 680 - The first Android netbook to cost about $250 - The first netbook computer running the Google Android mobile operating system on a low-cost ARM chip could become available to customers within three months, the maker’s co-founder said this week.

Information

• Essential tips to get the best from iTunes.
• $62,000 movie download a result of poor travel planning - $62,000 to download a movie? That’s what happened to a caller named Alberto, who told his data roaming tale of woe on the air to HLN “money expert” Clark Howard on CNN. Alberto made the grave mistake of downloading Wall-E for his nephew while vacationing in Mexico over his data card and was slapped with a $62,000 bill from his wireless carrier when he returned home. Alberto tried to contest the charge and the carrier reduced the bill to $17,000, arguing that the five-figure charge was what it cost them to deliver the movie.
• Worm Solves Gmail’s CAPTCHA, Creates Fake Accounts - A Vietnamese security company has detected what it believes is a new worm that thwarts Google’s security protections in order to register new dummy Gmail accounts from which to send spam.

By writing about and linking to the articles/products/software on this page I do not endorse or testify to the reliability of them in any way or form.

Tags: Ubuntu, Wine, Android, iTunes, Gmail

Software and Services

• Nitrogen player is a native Windows Mobile application that allows you to play MP3 songs stored on your Pocket PC device.

Hardware

• PlayStation 3 Hard Disc Drive Swap To Larger Size How To Video For PS3 - Eventually even your 80GB PlayStation 3 will fill up with movies and PS3 games. All that available hard-disk space quickly disappears once you start downloading games, demos, and HD videos. Fortunately, Sony has designed the PS3 to allow console owners to perform their own hard-drive upgrades.

Information

• The difference between PR and publicity - Publicity is the act of getting ink. Publicity is getting unpaid media to pay attention. PR is the strategic crafting of your story. It’s the focused examination of your interactions and tactics.
• Essential Qualities of a Home Office - Being able to earn a living working from home is a great privilege, and something in which most freelancers and web workers invest a great deal of effort. Part of being successful in this setting is creating a work space that is conducive to getting things done, and that will help to keep you relaxed and at peace when things can get stressful.
• 10 ‘innovations’ that should have changed the world – But didn’t. - Scientists have compiled a list of the top 10 things that should have changed the world but have failed to make much of an impact.
• Oops, we did it again - Why we make mistakes - Why do we make stupid mistakes? A new book says people have design faults that inevitably lead to slip-ups – but we can train ourselves to avoid them.

Wed Development

• Hey SEO Community, Adapt or Die! Google Branding Update - It’s time to reconsider a lot of what we do. In the wake of Vince, the recent Google update that rewards big brands with better rankings for competitive keywords, we all need to think about the future of SEO.

By writing about and linking to the articles/products/software on this page I do not endorse or testify to the reliability of them in any way or form.

Tags: PlayStation+3, PR, publicity, SEO, home+office

Software and Services

• 29 Music-making Apps for Linux - There is a long list of excellent music applications available for Linux, many of them come preinstalled.
• 5 Apps to Check the Speed of Your USB Flash Drive (Windows) - So how do we go about checking the speed of USB flash drives? Maybe the following light and free software can lend a hand?

Hardware

• Power-Hog is a power consumption metering piggy bank designed to sensitize kids to energy cost associated with running electronics devices. Plug the tail into the outlet and the device into the snout; feed a coin to meter 30 minutes of use.
• Kindle 2 Usability Review - Amazon’s new e-book reader offers print-level readability and shines for reading fiction, but it has awkward interaction design and poor support for non-linear content.
• Siftables, the toy blocks that think (Video).

Information

• Does the broken windows theory hold online? - The Economist reports that experimental tests of the controversial “broken windows theory” of social behavior indicate that the theory is correct.

Wed Development

• Adobe Photoshop Cheat Sheets - Cheat sheets for all versions of Photoshop starting from version 5 all the way to the current Photoshop CS4.
• 40 Useful JavaScript Libraries - Popular JavaScript libraries such as jQuery, MooTools, Prototype, Dojo and YUI can be great for accomplishing common JavaScript tasks. These libraries provide many functions, whether the matter is related to events or effects or AJAX. And if one of these libraries can’t do the job, a plug-in probably exists that can.

By writing about and linking to the articles/products/software on this page I do not endorse or testify to the reliability of them in any way or form.

Tags: Linux, USB, Kindle+2, Siftables, Photoshop

Hardware

• Seagate Introduces Constellation Hard Drives With The World’s Highest Capacity And Power Efficiency - Seagate today introduced its Constellation family of new enterprise storage solutions for Tier 2 nearline storage applications. The two new drive models, the 2.5-inch Constellation and the 3.5-inch Constellation ES hard drives, include a combination of features that enable high capacities, increased power efficiency, enterprise-class reliability, and data security.
• Only the Rich Can Afford It. Should Taxpayers Back It? The Tesla Roadster is an electric car that goes fast, looks sensational and excites envy. The seductive appearance, however, obscures some inconvenient truths: its all-electric technology remains woefully immature and don’t-even-ask expensive. If enough billionaires step forward to inject additional capital to keep the doors of its manufacturer, Tesla Motors, open, I’m happy for all parties.

Information

• Why the Wii Could Win the World (but Probably Won’t) - with a few savvy improvements to the Wii system, the company could turn it into the living room Net appliance of choice. But despite the opportunity Nintendo has with the Wii, the company seems determined to let it remain a mere video game console.
• IBM Offers To Move Laid Off Workers To India - The climate is warm, there’s no shortage of exotic food, and the cost of living is rock bottom. That’s IBM’s pitch to the laid-off American workers it’s offering to place in India. The catch: Wages in the country are pennies-on-the-dollar compared to U.S. salaries. Under a program called Project Match, IBM will help workers laid off from domestic sites obtain travel and visa assistance for countries in which Big Blue has openings. Mostly that’s developing markets like India, China, and Brazil.
• US Orders Massive Supercomputer to Manage Nuclear Stockpile - The U.S. government has commissioned IBM to build a massive supercomputer that will have 1.6 million processor cores and be 15 times faster than today’s most powerful machine. The “Sequoia” supercomputer is scheduled for operation in 2012 and will be able to perform at 20 petaflops, or 20,000 trillion [T] floating point operations per second, IBM said.
• IE slips further as Firefox, Safari, Chrome gain - The amount of market share commanded by Microsoft’s Internet Explorer browser has dropped for the seventh consecutive month. Internet Explorer now has 67.55 percent of global browser market share, a drop of over seven percentage points in a year, according to figures from Web metrics company Net Applications.

Bargains

• Remember: Many of these bargains may be discontinued hours or less after they are announced, check the specified price to see if you arrived on time.
• BlackBerry Curve 8330 Phone - Free with Verizon Wireless contract.
• SanDisk Sansa Express 1 GB MP3 Player ($29.99).
• Sennheiser PX 100 Collapsible Headphones ($30.90).
• Panasonic RP-HC-55 Noise Cancelling Earbuds ($60.10).

By writing about and linking to the articles/products/software on this page I do not endorse or testify to the reliability of them in any way or form.

Software and Services

• Tapping Your Inner Freeloader: 11 Tried and True Tips to Get Things Free - Looking to get stuff for free? Become the ultimate Freeloader with these 11 tried and true tips. Learn how to score hookups from your friends, get free music, and score free money with our guide to freeloading.
• How To Download Music From Deezer, Pandora And More - Websites such as Deezer, Pandora, imeem, Last.fm (and others) all serve free streaming music - often bundled with certain restrictions that reduce their convenience to users. A number of separate various applications exist to download from specific sites.

Hardware

• TrueMotion’s Way-Better-Than-Wii Game Controller - TrueMotion uses a base station that creates an electromagnetic field to provide more precision than the Wiiremote.

Information

• Mobile internet usage on the rise - Mobile internet use is growing while the number of people going online via a PC is slowing, analyst firm Nielsen Online has found.
• How to Stop Accumulating Books - Sometimes you’ll get a new book, glance through a few chapters, put it on the coffee table for later indulgence, and get back to whatever you were doing. You don’t have time to actually read your new book yet. You’ve got a lot of work to do, and you’re already part way through a couple other ones, so it’ll have to wait. But then a strange thing happens: Over the next couple weeks, you’ve done it again. You’ve bought another must-have book, and the last book, the one that was waiting for you on the coffee table, has silently migrated to your bookshelf, without ever getting read.

Wed Development

• 27 Places to Find Web Design Jobs - With the current economic conditions many people in just about every industry are looking for jobs. Web designers and web developers have the advantage of having some great resources to help them find work.

By writing about and linking to the articles/products/software on this page I do not endorse or testify to the reliability of them in any way or form.

Tags: Daily+Friction, Free+Stuff, Web+Design+Jobs

Hardware

• Lego loses EU trademark on bricks - The EU ruled that the beloved Lego brick design was not a corporate trademark. While Lego imitators still can’t use the name, they can now replicate the exact measurements and design of Lego bricks with impunity. No doubt the original Lego brick are of the highest quality, but I can never imagine them ever being as pricey as they are today.

Information

• A feature guide to current-generation gaming consoles - The holiday season is always an exciting time for gamers. This is the time of year when the best games are lining store shelves in mass quantities, the console manufacturers are putting together the best hardware deals of the year, and all the guns are ablaze in the glorious console war. This year in particular is special, though, as both the PlayStation 3 and Wii are two years old this month, and the Xbox 360 is about to undergo a substantial refresh.
• Security software one step closer to being a core unit - Much of the core components like the Windows Kernel32 has always had a weak spot in that it had to provide hooks to allow third party vendor access into this core so their products could work. This is why there was such a stink raised before Vista was release. At that point Microsoft wanted to totally lock down the Kernel from any outside access through PatchGuard.
• A Sea of Unwanted Imports - Gleaming new Mercedes cars roll one by one out of a huge container ship here and onto a pier. Ordinarily the cars would be loaded on trucks within hours, destined for dealerships around the country. But these are not ordinary times.
• Google Seduces With Utility - My increasingly exclusive relationship with Google started with search, of course, when I switched from Yahoo years ago. Eventually I accepted an invitation to Gmail, with its oodles of storage and very granular search function, and it has oddly become my default database — deep, rich and personal.

Wed Development

• 15 Helpful In-Browser Web Development Tools - There are many useful Web development tools that integrate in your browser. These in-browser tools are commonly known as add-ons or extensions. Though add-ons and extensions aren’t just for Web development, many of them out there are designed specifically for Web developers.

Bargains

• Remember: Many of these bargains may be discontinued hours or less after they are announced, check the specified price to see if you arrived on time.
• Panasonic KX-TG9361B DECT 6.0 Drop & Splash Resistant Cordless Phone ($37.55).
• Canon Digital Rebel XTi 10.1MP Digital SLR Camera with EF-S 18-55mm f/3.5-5.6 Lens ($499.95).
• SanDisk Sansa e280 8 GB MP3 Player ($144.95).
• Logitech QuickCam Pro for Notebooks ($69.99).

By writing about and linking to the articles/products/software on this page I do not endorse or testify to the reliability of them in any way or form.

Tags: bargains, gaming, Security, Google, Wed+Development

At some stage, it sounds like bloggers are trying to defend their turf, discouraging new bloggers from entering the field in a professional way, thinking they are guarding their status and income. There are two main problems with that line of thought.

One, all those myths that are being debunked don’t really exist. I doubt there is any substantial number of web users thinking blogging is the key to fortune. Those who do are either talented enough to not be moved by debunking articles or those who are ignorant enough to never be successful.

The second problem is that by raising the issue over and over again, some people conclude that there is a hidden interest behind those articles, other than explaining the real difficulties behind running a successful blog. To add sin on sin, most bloggers do not explain any of the real life difficulties, but make do with brief unexplained statements that do not shade light on the real efforts that go behind every blog post.

Next time you are going to debunk a “blogging myth”, make sure this myth really exists, and make back your debunking with real substance. Writing it is or isn’t so, is not enough.

Tags: blogging, myths