Really folks, I’m not usually someone who posts rabid tirades against companies.  Well, I did work very hard to debug the 1969 bug (and several subsequent bugs) for BitDefender, who did not appreciate the publicity despite my best intentions.

But my forays into these arenas are the exception.

However, this whole Facebook Privacy Issue really has me going (see previous posts Eroding Privacy, Info are now Connections and your friends are sharing your info).

I found another privacy issue with Facebook I’ve not seen addressed elsewhere about the information it saves, but I’m guessing on a hack to address it.  The We Save Information Forever issue.

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In the last post, we explored the cause of Cincinnati’s sweltering 222°F forecast.  After I mused about variable declarations and improper usage that we saw with the 119° snow day, reader John offered a different idea - that 222° was simply a typo for 22°.   I think he’s right, but we didn’t fully test the hypothesis against the original symptoms.  My bad.

And as software debugging usually goes, testing and fixing one bug opens the doors for more of their friends to come out and play.

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So my faithful little Dell Inspiron 700m laptop finally waved the white flag in the face of burgeoning memory requirements from many  programs that shall remain nameless, rude programs, Microsoft saying What The Hell to a zillion instances of the same program, and ramping memory leaks from other commonly used programs.

If I leave my computer for a while, that whole glacial crawl thing happens, and I finally got sick of apologizing for the wait when attempting to show pictures to my family.  Horrible.

So, how much memory can you put in an Inspiron 700m?  I didn’t realize it would be a difficult and contentious question.

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Did you know Googling “movie: Star Wars” will give ONLY movie reviews and info about each Star Wars film and movie times if appropriate? Or that “phonebook: John Smith NJ” lists public phone numbers for all John Smiths in New Jersey? You don’t need a calculator anymore - find the cube root of 109 or convert three quarters of a cup in teaspoons. Just type either phrase into Google. Neat!

Check out the Google Guide Cheat Sheet, and also the Google Calculator Cheat Sheet.

More advanced options can be found in the Search Operators Guide. Great hints for searching within only one or two websites and for removing the zillions of stores selling the same product from the results.

You can also access info from old or removed pages by searching cached (previously saved) pages. If a search result produces an error or the content isn’t there, click the “Cached” link.

The cache trick can also bypass restrictions on certain sites. One company I worked for slammed me with a huge red “BLOCKED - ATTEMPT TO ACCESS WEBSITE CONTAINING NUDITY” when I searched for a hand x-ray of a hand? Nudity???? (What did you think I meant, anyway?)

Lots of cool stuff. Check it out at GoogleGuide.com.

More helpful advice from product manuals and company websites to meet all your technical needs.

Symptom: No sound.
Try this: Increase the volume.

[REF]