How can I get quick Flight Status while i'm mobile?

So this nifty obscure use of Google really helps us out on the go. We fire up our mobile browser (whose home page is Google) and type in our Airline and flight number like so:


And Google does the hard work and gives you what you need to see! This will work from any Internet terminal and not just your mobile. For more obscure uses of Google like currency and metrics conversion check out this LifeHacker post. Do you have any other Google tricks or hacks? Put us on! Let us know in the comments!

_TheGoogleLovingAdmiN_

How to let Google do your Googling!

So you have the same repetitive searches you run every day? How about you let Google run the searches for you and hit you with any new sites that have popped up since your last search? This is great for almost anything! All the PR companies we deal with use this habitually.

Just go to http://www.Google.com/Alerts and sign up for an "Alert". this is what will be searched and returned to you via email:

As you can see by the above screen shot - we have daily updates hitting us on the hip whenever someone posts something about AskTheAdmin. Works great for watching people talk shit and such :)

This is just one of Google's many untapped resources. Check out this great article from Lifehacker on the top 10 Google Products you probably forgot about!

_TheGoogleThisAdmiN_

Can Google News Help My Site?

Hey everyone! Scott here from AndroidGuys, doing a little guest blogging today for AskTheAdmin. Thanks to Karl and the other guys for allowing me the opportunity to reach out and talk with his audience.

A common concern with bloggers is where they show up on a Google search and there’s a good reason for this; If you don’t show up on pages 1 or 2, then you run the risk of not getting the exposure you want. Well there’s another option out there for traffic potential that might be available to you and it’s offered by Google as well. If the subject of this article wasn't a dead giveaway, it’s called Google News.

Take a minute to have a look… I’ll wait for ya.

Pretty sweet huh? It has become my preferred place to search for news and late-breaking announcements. What they do is combine news from thousands of sources and give you a one-stop-shop to find what you’re looking for. Why bother going to CNN, FoxNews, and MSNBC when you can see what each of them are saying at once?

One of the best features about Google News is that you can subscribe to news feeds. Let’s say you want to be alerted anytime a news article goes up on “Roger Clemens”. Right now, if you did a news search for him, there are articles listed by FOXSports, NY Times, etc. Did you know that you could probably have your baseball blog listed right next to them?

That’s right, depending on what your blog/site is about, you stand a decent chance of getting it listed under Google News. At AndroidGuys, we write about Android, the Open Handset Alliance, and all the other cell phone stuff in between. To compile our articles, we used Google News to gather sources of information and we subscribed to keywords that were relevant to our site. After a few weeks, we realized that we were consistently seeing the same sites showing up, including tech blogs. After reading a few of them we realized that our opinion pieces were just as well written as some of these “news sources” so we naturally started wondering how we could get our articles in there too. It didn’t take a lot of work as Google makes it very easy to submit your site as a source.

The Benefits
Getting your site listed on Google News brings you and your site a few advantages. Here are three big ones.

1. Traffic – Number one on everybody’s list. You gain yet another place to show off your name and writing skills.
2. Credibility – Having your name show up next to PC World, ZDNet, and InformationWeek gives off the impression that you know what you’re talking about.
3. Delivery – Ok, so maybe you don’t have a ton of subscribers to your site. That’s okay because someone might be subscribed to Google News under the term “Barry Bonds Steroids”. Your opinion piece on whether or not he should go into the Hall of Fame might show up in someone’s inbox next to a Sports Illustrated article. Your content is pushed out to people through RSS. In fact, depending on the focus of your site, people can be inadvertently subscribed to your site. The right mix of keywords could have your message delivered to thousands of people at one time.

Sign Up
It’s simple to submit your content for consideration. Just head to the bottom of Google News where it says “Help for Publishers” and check out the topic that might be best suited for your needs. If all you want to do is recommend your site for inclusion, then just click here. It’s pretty easy from there! Google will take a look at your site and find out whether or not it might a good fit to have you in there. An actual person will get back to you if they have questions so don’t worry about trying to win over a computer’s heart.

From the day I asked to be considered, it was less than 10 days before our site received traffic from Google News. A large chunk of our referrals come from here and we get the sense that it is much “better” traffic as it is from people looking for news and not just whatever shows up under searches. Every so often, we’ll get a visitor searching the news for a term that we never even realized we wrote about. This traffic was all free too, courtesy of Google.

What are you waiting for? Submit your site for consideration! If your writing is good and your site is appealing, then you’ll be getting subscribers, referrals, and return visits like never before.

If you're interested in Google Android and/or cell phone news, please head over to AndroidGuys or subscribe to our feed! Thanks again to AskTheAdmin for letting me drop by today.

Adobe Air steals the show on my desktop - Analytics Users Rejoice!

Commodore 64 here to report on the next big splash on the scene. First some history.

If any geeks out there remember a time when it was actually a plus for things to run in a browser - along came Macromedia with its FLASHy browser plugin that seemed to work consistently everywhere and broke the boundaries of old-fashioned HTML forever, although still stuck in the 4 walls of a browser.

This was when I was Foxin with the Flash back in '99. Admin and I used to sit and try to dream up the next big way to take over the world and Flash was AWESOME, but not everybody knew what a "Browser" was.

To combat this obvious blasphemy, Macromedia added a cute little feature to it's Flash app which is still one of my favorite old-school, quick and easy, in your face, ad deployment methods - the Flash Player embedded .exe file that ran smoothly and humbly on your desktop with no need for a browser, or fonts, or drivers, or anything really. And your stuff always looked the way you intended it to look. I'm not talking about the Flash plugin - that was, and remains, a pretty reliable medium and is commonplace today in most people's "Browsers."

No, I'm talking about that little, self contained .exe file that basically consisted of your Flash creation embedded in an executable wrapper that played consistently; at least among all the different PC's and versions of Windows on the market. Deployment was the goal of this little self contained nugget of interactive animation, and for the most part, it succeeded.

Now - fast forward to 2008 - in a quick recap - Adobe has acquired Macromedia and all of its Application Library - re-brands all the goodies and resells them, along with a bunch of integration with Adobe's flagships: Photoshop and Illustrator. All in all a pretty nice package. But through all the hustle and bustle, acquisitions and years of development, the good old Macromedia Flash Player got lost in time.

Today the browser is king of the PC as a deployment medium, which would explain why the self contained .exe Flash Player got lost. In the wilderness of browser wars, plug-ins, add-ins, widgets and the such, emerges a reversion back to the desktop, breaking out of the browser once more, as history kind of repeats itself in a sick, geeky way. This time it breaks out on a caveat.
Take me for example. I work day in and day out, mostly with at least 3 browser instances open and I don't always want applications that only run in a browser. Especially when that browser does a poor job of memory management and tends to slow to a crawl. One of my favorite applications to have running in a browser tab is Google Analytics. Being a long-time sociology buff and front end web developer, I'm sure many like myself would agree that Google Analytics is a plethora of insight and information. And in the position of a front-end guy, I can actually do something with this info.


Bear with me, here's where it all ties together.

Adobe has re-released (in my opinion) the self-contained .exe Flash player, but gave it a complete facelift and a few power-ups. This comes in the form of Adobe's new out-of-browser deployment environment called Adobe Air. And, oh yeah, did I mention it's FREE, as in F R E E, just the way we like it - read on.
From the Adobe website:

The Adobe® AIR™ runtime lets developers use proven web technologies to build rich Internet applications that deploy to the desktop and run across operating systems. Adobe AIR offers an exciting new way to engage customers with innovative, branded desktop applications, without requiring changes to existing technology, people, or processes.

Now kiddies, if that wasn't enough, they have a crapload of super-widget like plug-ins to totally deck out your desktop here and here.

Now, the cherry on the cake. While perusing through the catalog of plug-ins I found the sickest, sweetest app for Air.

Anybody out there who uses analytics would agree that it is already one of the most feature-rich FREE applications out there. Now it's even faster, smoother, and graceful due to the efforts of one very enterprising Adobe (ColdFusion, I believe) developer who calls himself septek.

Septek developed an app for Adobe Air that seamlessly integrates Air with Google Analytics. Words can't describe how tight this little app is, though here I am trying to. In the end you have a smooth, clean, ultra fast version of analytics that runs right off of your desktop, rather than your browser. Which can free you up to use your browser for other things that don't have an Air counterpart. Let's see if the author's description does this gem any justice:

The Google Analytics Reporting Suite brings Google Analytics to the desktop, with a host of features that help you understand how your website is performing and where you can improve. From tracking your visitors, referrals and campaigns to viewing your AdWords ROI metrics, the Google Analytics Reporting suite is a must-have for every web business.

In my opinion that description only scratches the surface of what Analytics can do in general. But this front-end for Google's reporting suite really makes the experience that much more pleasing. Here's an example:
Personally, I've been waiting for a slick new front-end for analytics and this little Air app is the answer to my wish. Anybody out there who uses analytics will be pleasantly surprised by the sleek, smoothness of this new UI front end for an application that was already pretty far up on the road to perfect.

Kudos to septek for a sensational app for Adobe Air, and kudos to Adobe for opening up this development environment for everyone.

On a side note, AskTheAdmin has hit an all-time milestone in its growth.

As of now, if you search Google for simply the word "admin" we come up as #4 in the search result. Check it out for yourself if you dont believe me.

You think your big time!?! #4 on any natural Google search is BIG time. Props all around!

Peace
Commodore 64 (The one you used to play Bruce Lee on)

How can i get more traffic to my blog-site? I have tried everything - i think.

How can i get more traffic to my blog-site? What attracts readers to a blog? Will you look at my site Mr. Admin?

This one I'll field myself right off the bat because I have tried everything, and I mean everything. I have stayed up late nights and worked on traffic, and only traffic, for days on end. Mind you, we are talking free traffic not pay per hit or anything that costs money.

Of course, your first course of action should be to learn about tracking your new website's traffic via some sort of analytics program. We use Google Analytics and Statcounter; which seems to be one hundred percent free. Next, after you see your traffic and where its coming from and going to you should get some meta tags into the html on your site so people can find you via search engines. This is the same reason you should label your posts.

Next, make sure you have lots of solid, original content up before you start hitting up search engine submission sites. If someones first impression of your site is "sucks", they will never be back even if you totally revamped it the next day. How would they know?

Now you have a informative or entertaining site you would like to read. Get your RSS feed functioning and download your feed.

Ask your self these questions:

1. Is it interesting?
2. Do you like it?
3. Is it attractive?
4. Would you read it on a daily basis?
   

Make sure you get some images up there. Just text is always boring. And then, young blogger, you can start submitting like crazy to all the free search engine submission sites, rss submission sites and blog submission sites. Just Google it, they are out there! It wont help right away, but in a few weeks hits will start flowing in.

Now you should start spreading the word however you can. Start the hype. Believe the hype.

Join http://www.stumbleupon.com/. Join http://www.digg.com/ and those types of Social link sharing websites. Another word of advice: wait to hit up Stumpleupon until your site is really ready for prime time. You can only introduce a site once, and that is when you get a solid flow of traffic from them. We did it prematurely and wish we could have taken it back.

Now we know you can't post on the big boy sites that you want to grow up and be just like, but chances are you can comment. Get known.

Speak to the community you want to win over. Show them you have something to offer. Be helpful and witty. Don't put people down, it wont help you be liked unless you are trying to get down with some sort of underground faction where that's liked.

Above all else DON'T SPAM! Don't just blatantly post your URL.

This is important because you don't want to alienate your public. You can link to posts or have a signature containing a link.

Make sure you have lots of stuff people want to read and come back to read some more.
Vary your topics and get guest bloggers on your site. Have friends that run other sites? Exchange links. Cross post. The more links back and forth the better for the spiders.

Spiders are what the search engines use to absorb your website. They are who you need to appease to get a GREAT ranking. What they do in essence is follow all of your links to other sites and then do the same there. The more references to your site the more time the spider will spend with your site ultimately leading to better rankings. Programs like Internet Business Promoter can help you pin down what you need to do to make the spiders work for you. IBP also grabs the meta tags from your competing sites and emulates spiders which never hurts.

Give your users free tools and resources they can't readily get elsewhere. Keep updating that content and don't flood your users with ads. You wont get rich off of ads. And especially if you have no traffic.

Would you want to visit your site if you were not affiliated with it? Would you be hitting up your mobile RSS reader to keep up with your site while your out and about?

Googling your search terms from different IP's and then choosing your website will slowly bring your ranking up as well. This is not a myth this makes your site seem relevant to the search terms.

Be diligent and don't give up, because that's when your results will start to come in. Its like when you stop looking for your lost glasses and find them on your head - well kinda.

I have given up before, on several sites, early on in the decade. And then a few years later, check out some stats to see a hundred thousand hits a quarter. Unreal. Keep your head up and stay at it.

Now Go Blog!

Anyone have any other tried and true solutions??? POST EM! Don't Be Shy!

Karl L. Gechlik

_AskTheAdmiN.Com_

Oh and if you do happen to join StumbleUpon - show some AtA love and give our site a thumbs up! Every little bit helps.

Google's Android Not Just for Phones

Hey everyone, it's Scott from AndroidGuys here. Thanks to Karl and the other Admins here, I’m back with another article!

Yesterday, we put an article up on AndroidGuys where we talked about Google’s foray into the television world. I’d like to expound upon that piece and explain how open source could radically change the television and advertising industry.

Google’s $10 Million Android Developers Challenge is not only the open source platform that will help change the way mobile devices are designed and used. It is my opinion that it is more specifically the basis for the way people will stay in touch and get information. Google was never really going to come out with the iPhone killer. I think they have their sites on much bigger things. They’d rather change the way you receive your content, be it television, web, email, photos, etc. Instead of focusing on entirely on the mobile industry, Google is also evaluating the television industry. That's right, we're already talking about AndroidTV. Is the day that far off where you will be able to sync your favorite shows, emails, and notes between your TV and your mobile device? I don’t think it is. There are already plenty of ways hardware devices can sync up; Bluetooth, Wi-Fi, Wi-Max, and of course using the trusty data cable.

By asking developers to write programs around their open source backbone, Google will be able to seamlessly integrate the best features between your phone and television. Today’s cable boxes are more or less computers. They come preloaded with a few limited API’s like a menu setup, a program guide, the DVR software, and a few customer service feature, like account information. Now imagine what you could do with that box if it were open source. There are already scores of "roll your own" DVR interfaces that you can make using your PC or Mac.

Let’s imagine a scenario here. You’re in a fantasy football league and are following your players as closely as possible. Why shouldn’t you be able to watch a pre-recorded program on your TiVo and, at the same time, have a widget display your players’ performances at the bottom of the screen? Stock tickers, real-time weather conditions and traffic are the tip of the iceberg. In the age of micro-blogging, wouldn’t make sense to be able to see what your friends are doing right now without having to log online? Your Twitter widget tells you that Craig is on his way home from work. Maybe a notification when Ted is logged into Facebook. Maybe a popup that alerts you to the fact that someone just left you feedback on eBay. Folks, it’s all going to happen. And very soon.

Need more convincing? The guy behind Android? Andy Rubin. Take a look at his past endeavors. You might recall a little project he was involved in a few years back called WebTV. Oh yeah, for those of you who are currently unemployed, Google's hiring for a television technology software engineer position in Mountain View, CA.

My grin is bigger than yours.

Scott | AndroidGuys.com | chewie77@gmail.com

How can I view a web page that used to be there but isn't anymore?

Don't you just hate those Four Oh Four errors? This page can not be displayed...

We wont judge you. Whether it be porn or work related. For good or evil...


The page used to be there. But where did it go? Who cares - We are going to show you how to bring it back!

After being overwhelmed with emails, from amazed readers, after we resurrected the website about the torrent tracker infiltration by a security company. Reader after reader sent us emails inquiring about this magic cache and how to access it.

See the black circle around the word cached? Yup that is your time machine. You will get a snapshot of the page the last time Google crawled it.

Hit this trick/feature up after take down notices or the dig effect hit you with a big 404. Its not always 100 percent functional but it will get you the guts of the site.

How long before google gets those take down notices for their cache?

_TheAdmiN_

Google to give away free Cell Phone Service?

Hey Boys and Girls,

Shhh, this one is a little secret for all you hardcore aTa fans...

We here at www.asktheadmin.com have an inside scoop that is sure to be the talk of the (virtual) town about Google and their new Gphone.

We all know it's reality that Google is, in fact, working on their own phone. It's been buzzing for months. Can you say G-Phone?

We also know, for fact, that The Big Goog have been trying to get their hands on their own cell-radio frequency from the FCC. This has been old news for months. Can you say 700 Mhz?
We also know that GOOG have been working heavily on an operating system for phone hardware. Can you say Android?

But what we have also cleverly found out, from a source who REALLY prefers we leave her name and whereabouts undisclosed, is that Google really is looking to move in on, and compete with, all the other big cellphone companies.

Our source works for a sub-contractor for one of the PR companies working for Google, and while details are shaky at best, I did catch something about new branding, FREE cell service, and one of the biggest, single-handed emergences of a ridiculously strong competitor, and more importantly a huge threat, to EVERY cellphone service provider in the NATION.

What was more important than the facts themselves are the details. How about the fact that it was requested that these new branding schemes be done with great haste, and that a considerable amount of money was spent into developing these new brand schemes quite richly and deeply. Almost like they paid extra, like a rush fee, to be sure the whole idea gets pushed to it's end, and double time!

I don't know about you Boys and Girls, but this sounds like Google is about to make some serious moves towards becoming their own, end to end, cellphone company, from the phone right down to the airwaves. Whats craziest is that they want it to be free (and ad-based, of course). Not only will it be their own cellphone service, and harware manufacturer, but they are essentially BUILDING their own ad-market from scratch. POOF!

Can you say anti-trust? Can you say market upturn?
Can you dare to say free cellphone service and wireless internet?

Google dares!

In the immortal words of William Shakespeare, and later Aldous Huxley - "Oh Brave New World that has such people in it."

Chew on that.
Peace

Commodore 64 (the one you used to play Bruce Lee on)
1

Edit - As Reader Gavin pointed out Google is laying their own fiber under the ocean see here.

Googles Free 411 service just got better with text messages and maps!

We read about Googles free 411 service 1.800.goog.411. And its great as we have been using it for some time now. Now we see it has the ability to text you the address and phone number of your query as well as send you a link to a map! This is great to save to your phone book forward to someone else - whatever we like options! Below find Google's info followed by the original article we read from a few months back. Thanks BoyGenius!

Welcome to Google Voice Local Search Google Voice Local Search is Google’s experimental service to make local-business search accessible over the phone. Using this service, you can:

search for a local business by name or category.You can say "Giovanni's Pizzeria" or just "pizza". get connected to the business, free of charge. get the details by SMS if you’re using a mobile phone.Just say "text message". Dial from any phone1-800-GOOG-411(1-800-466-4411) And it's free. Google doesn’t charge you a thing for the call or for connecting you to the business. Regular phone charges may apply, based on your telephone service provider. Note: Google Voice Local Search is still in its experimental stage. It may not be available at all times and may not work for all users. We’re fine-tuning the service to get better at recognizing your requests. It’s currently only available in English, in the US, for US business listings. To find out more about getting GOOG-411 and other Google products on your mobile device, visit

Google Mobile web site.

Google's free 411 business search (Goog-411) is up, running, and receiving mass praise. A week later, Microsoft's accusation, TellMe, has launched their own version of business search. Simply call 1.800.555.TELL to get business listings throughout the United States. You can also send a text message with the business information to "TELLM", and receive the information back via SMS. Third, they have a mobile java-based client that will give you a map, and interface to search for the business listing. BlackBerry users have had a similar service, Beyond411 (formerly Berry411) for local searches for some time now. The war to deliver information via a mobile device is on. The good news is that TellMe and Goog-411 are both free services, saving you from spending money using your phone's costly 411 service. Viva la 411!

_TheUpToEarlyAdmiN_

Google says Go To Hell Microsoft we are giving away free versions of Office Alternatives!

This one is BIG! I don't know how long it's been out there for but Google has a little know program that lives on lots and lots of computers worldwide. It is their update system called Google Updates that updates and/or installs Google components. Now there is also something called Google Pack that is accessible and downloadable from Googles update servers.

So big deal - woo hoo! another updater app. Who Cares?

How about Microsoft for one? As they wipe the spittle out of their eyes they have to have noticed that you can now download and update all of StarOffice components! That's right for the low low price of ABSOLUTELY free. For those of you that don't know StarOffice is SUNS answer to Microsoft Office. But it is open source and normally costs 70 buckaroos to download directly from SUN.



Now lets think about this. You buy a new DELL desktop with a crappy trial version of office on it that expires after a month or so and you also have this fancy smancy google update program that can give you GREAT alternatives to MS programs - for free? Sounds like a no-brainer eh?

Are you seeing what I'm seeing? Google is trying to bully in on the Gouch AKA Microsoft!
(BTW: Anyone know if its true that Dave Chapelle was the Gouch or is it Gooch?) Gotta Love The 80's! [Via GoogleSystems]

_TheAdmiN_

Blocked from P2P? Here is an easy alternative. Crafty Googling to find the good stuff. G2P instead of P2P?

So does the mean RIAA, The Feds and crew got you scared? Have you ceased and desisted with your bit torrent download for fear of the MAN watching you? Well if you want to try out a method that is not being monitored (Currently!) Check out this website http://www.g2p.org/. They offer up a search engine that finds shared files or files otherwise available for you to grab.

What does G2P do?-G2P (Google to Person) uses some crafty Google searches to help locate open directories or otherwise shared files. These searches are nothing secret (In fact, take a look at the results, so you can see how it is done. However, it is much easier to remember g2p.org than these complex searches. Really I put this site together to make it easier on me, and then shared it with you.

Why use G2P instead of P2P or BT? -P2P/BT is being monitored -- Using Google we can download a lot more safely. We are simply just following a link -- curious how it leads directly to the file we are looking for. =)

and a little more information from the forums:

What is G2P.org?

Think of P2P file sharing, except google is one of those
people. Using some very special searches, we are able to search for specific
files (and file types) using google. We have covered most of the searches this
in the previous article Google
Hacking. What G2P is currently tuned to find is MP3s, Ebooks, and gives the
ability to use google
as a Proxy. These searches alone are nothing secret, but G2P puts them easy to
use (and remember) interface.Oh, and yes you do truly become elite by
simply finding passwords using google. =)More to come..

Current Issues with
G2P

I searched for a Band / Song and it returned a bunch of results,
however none of the links work. G2P is utter crap!

G2P can only return
the results that Google has. Sometimes the files were there when Google indexed
it and now they are removed, other times they are sites that are trying to
profit from your google hacking-ness. Keep trying all the links, hopefully you will
find at least one that works!

I searched for a
Band / Song and it didn't return any results, G2P is CRAP!
Life sucks, see the entry above

How
do I use G2P to find Warez, Porn, Passwords, Credit Card #'s or anything else it doesn't
currently do?
Well, I might implement it, I might not. G2P was
just a side project for me so I wouldn't have to remember the long search strings.
If you have a good google search you would want included let me know.
(g2p@i-hacked.com Subject=G2P Suggestion:)

God, G2P is ugly.
Well make me a
new design then. Let me know when it is completed. =)

Is There an easier way to zoom out of google maps on the iphone?

In the iPhone Google Maps application, it's pretty obvious how to zoom into maps. You double tap the screen. The map readjusts, zooming further in. So how
do you zoom out? Sure you can pinch your way back but there's a far easier way. Use a single multi-touch tap instead. That is, tap with two finger at once. Separate your fingers so it's clear that you're making two contact
points and...tap. Google Maps obediently zooms back out, one zoom stage for each multi-touch tap. Give it a try. It's a great tool to bring into your Google Maps vocabulary [TuAw]

And for those of you who haven't been double tapping and getting your swerve on with the iPhone - even if you DON'T want one I suggest you stop by an ATT store and just hold it look at it and play with it. I walked out of the
store after the first time I played with it and I was giddy. Calling all my Windows and Linux loving friends proclaiming in amazement how great the iPhone is. Then they would ask me are you getting it... And my response?

HELL NO! It doesn't have POP3 email... It doesn't do MMS or voice recording among other stuff? Why would i want to go backwards to the time before windows mobil.... Hmm now WM always did all that shit! But it sure is purr-tttty.

_TheAdmiN_

Rumor: Google Phone will use a new OpenMoko Linux Based Phone!

We don't know substantiated this is but we read it and had to share it with you. I am sure it will make you all warm and fuzzy inside that is if you are a fan of Google Mobile Phones and Linux

There has been a new batch of rumors swirling about Google
producing a "gPhone" mobile telephone after a Reuters reporter stated High Tech Computer Corp would be designing the Linux phone for Google.

A friendly penguin has told us at Phoronix that Google is looking to team up with OpenMoko for their "gPhone". Google will not be using the FIC Neo1973 GTA01, but they will be bringing the open-source OpenMoko platform to their own hardware, which looks to be manufactured through HTC, and making a few changes along the way.

The Google gPhone reportedly uses mobile advertising to credit time (gMinutes?) for phone calls and text messages, but this source did not say how Google would be handling these functions through the open-source platform or exactly how much work they are putting into OpenMoko, but is confident that OpenMoko is involved with the gPhone. [Phoronix]

Microsoft agrees to make changes in Vista after lawsuit from Google

From The AP:

1:05 a.m. ET June 20, 2007
SEATTLE - Microsoft Corp. will make changes to the program that helps Windows Vista users search their hard drives, in response to antitrust complaints from Google Inc., according to a U.S. Justice Department report issued late Tuesday.

Google filed a 49-page document with the Justice Department in April claiming Vista’s desktop search tool slowed down competing programs, including Google’s own free offering, and that it’s difficult for users to figure out how to turn off the Microsoft program.

Finally, somebody that's willing to throw down against M$.

_TheAdmin_

Quick Poll

What do you admins out there use for analytics? I used to be a 100% supporter of Google Analytics but it has been giving me problems lately. I tried Statcounter.com which seems pretty good but no option for campaigns and if you want more than 500 hits collected without dumping to csv or xls it costs $$$.

So what are your guys using to analyze web hits??? Answer me damn it! Post it in the comments.

_TheAnalyticAdmin_

Windows Update Broke My Machine (svchost.exe -- application error), and How to Fix It Kinda...

One of my Windows XP SP 2 machines on my domain started spitting the following message at me after logon. Any choice this dialog gives me that I choose, the machine becomes unusable. If I move the box out of the way the machines operation continues normally. The dialog just hangs there

svchost.exe -- application error the instruction at "0x745f2780" reference memory at "0x00000000". the memory could not be 'read'

Looking into the event log yielded the following:

Faulting application svchost.exe, version 5.1.2600.2180, faulting module msi.dll, version 3.1.4000.2435, fault address 0x00012780

I Googled it and searched around some other sources and found others with similar issues. Now, how I fixed it and why it broke in the first place are two very separate things.

First I read alot about it having to do with WSUS and Office updates which we are doing. So this is what I did:

1. Reboot into safemode
2. Rename the directory SoftwareDistribution to SdistOLD (In your \windows directory)
3. Delete the files in your prefetch folder also in windows.
4. Turn off auto update service (disable)
5. If you are using WSUS turn off classifications for Office products.
6. Reboot normally and if the error does not show up do a windows update from the website.
7. If the error came back reboot and try again.
8. Turn auto updates back on... Leave off office updates.

This has solved my problems but I now do my office updates via script or manually.

If I figure anything else out I will post it. But at least now the problem is gone.

Questions? Comments? Hit em up in the comments kiddies!

_ThesvchostAdmiN_