New Google 'puts Bing in shade'

Google has lifted the lid on its updated search engine, which developers have nicknamed "Caffeine".

Although still in the testing phase, the firm says it is the "first step in improving the speed, accuracy and comprehensiveness of search results".

The new engine will replace Google's current one after tests are complete.

Martin McNulty of search marketing specialist Trafficbroker said the upgrade threatened to put Microsoft's new engine, Bing, "in the shade".

"Google have let Caffeine quietly slip out. It talked about vertical specific searches while quietly doubling the speed and starts introducing real-time results and news feeds," he said.

"Bing was launched with a massive media budget.

"Trouble is, Bing presents itself as an alternative to something that users are still - for now - happy with," he added.

Virtual monopoly

Google is still the dominant search engine. According to market research firm Hitwise, Google accounted for more than 87% of the UK search market in 2008.

However, in recent months, the search engine market has got a little busier. As well as Microsoft's Bing.com - which saw a tie-up between Microsoft and Yahoo - the "computational knowledge engine" Wolfram Alpha and a revamped Ask Jeeves have also entered the fray.

Google is also facing competition from Facebook, which has just acquired FriendFeed, praised for its "real-time" search engine.

This type of search is valuable because it lets you know what is happening right now on any given subject.

Back in May, Google founder Larry Page admitted that the search giant had fallen behind other services like that of Twitter, which boasts nearly 45 million users worldwide.

Fresher content

Google's head of Webspam, Matt Cutts, denied that Caffeine was launched in response to competitive search engines.

"I love competition in search and want lots of it, but this change has been in the works for months," he wrote in his blog.

"I think the best way for Google to do well in search is to continue what we've done for the last decade or so: focus relentlessly on pushing our search quality forward. Nobody cares more about search than Google, and I don't think we'll ever stop trying to improve."

Alex Watson, editor of Custom PC magazine, said Caffeine was reflecting a general trend to what he calls "the real-time web".

"Caffeine now picks up news stories and puts fresher content higher up the search results," he said.

"That said, it's likely that most people won't notice the change. It still looks the same, it's the algorithms that have changed.

"However, it is now doing things that would never be possible a few years ago and knowing Google, this would have been in the works for some time."

by: bbc

Disable Program Has Stopped Working Error Dialog in Windows Server 2008

One of the most important thing when hosting a game server such as Counter-Strike Source is to make sure that the server is able to automatically restart itself when it crashes. It is perfectly normal for a CSS server to experience crashes when it is running a system-intensive mod such as ZombieMod and like all software they might not be free of bugs.

If you are hosting your game server on a linux or unix server, then you do not need to worry about auto restarting when crash because by default it can already do that via a script file. However for Windows, it cannot auto restart. If you check the srcds.com windows server tutorial, there is a part where it teaches you to create a batch file that monitors the srcds.exe process and if it is terminated, the batch file will run the specified command line to restart the CSS server.

Sorry to say that the batch file will not work because by default Windows shows an error window when it crashes. It will require someone to click on the “Close the program” button in order to restart via batch file. Here is how to disable the ErrorMode window so that you can use the batch file to auto restart CSS server when it crashes.
When the game crashes, the srcds.exe process is still running in background because of the error popup that says “srcds.exe has stopped working. Windows can check online for a solution to the problem.”.









If you disable Error Reporting, you will still get a similar error window that says “srcds.exe has stopped working. A problem caused the program to stop working correctly. Please close the program”.









To disable Error Reporting in Windows 2008 Server, just run the command below.

serverWerOptin /disable

I found another guide from MSDN on how the user can suppress system and application error messages from occurring on an embedded system. The registry location is at the following, by default the value data is 0 and we should change it to 2 to set all messages to invisible.

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\ControlSet001\Control\Windows\ErrorMode.

Weirdly even after doing all that, it’s still not enough to disable the error window when the game server crashes. So I continue digging and I found that there’s another important registry key which you need to modify in order to totally suppress the “.exe has stopped working” dialog.” Go to the following registry location and change the value data to 1.

HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\ Microsoft\Windows\Windows Error Reporting\DontShowUI

Now you can run the batch file to monitor the srcds.exe process and it will auto restart when it crashes. I just can’t understand why there are no complete tutorials for running a CSS server. The information had to be scattered around and the server admin had to spend hours looking it up. By the way, there is a free software called ServerChecker which is able to restart your game server if it has crashed. It actually can automatically configure the registry to disable Windows Error Reporting and ErrorMode but it doesn’t support Windows 2008 Server.

Serif Pageplus X4

Serif PagePlus X4 delivers power, performance, and flexibility, allowing easy creation of attractive print or Web-based documents.

Serif PagePlus has long been a respected desktop publishing program for designing attractive print and Web-based material. The latest version, PagePlus X4 ($100 as of 8/3/09), represents a significant upgrade, with substantial new productivity and creation tools.
Primarily for small-business and home use, PagePlus is known for its ease of use and its large library of fully editable templates for a wide range of purposes--newsletters, business cards, Web sites, greeting cards, and so forth.

In a move to make PagePlus a more comprehensive, stand-alone program, Serif has added both integrated photo editing and extra draw capabilities. For instance, the new PhotoLab is a full-featured tool that allows you to edit placed photos within PagePlus, rather than requiring you to launch a separate image editing program. PhotoLab provides simple-to-use, single-click thumbnail-based effects and adjustments, as well as more advanced tools to control lighting, tonality, color, and other aspects.

Some of the new features are ones we've been looking for in this program for quite a while. For instance, PagePlus’s LogoStudio was already a fun tool for editing and creating logos and other design elements, but previously it was missing all-important Boolean commands (add, subtract, combine). Now, with Boolean commands, developing complex, interesting shapes from basic ones is much easier.

Other added features improve productivity and overall ease of use. You can now anchor pictures, shapes, and text frames to text so that they flow and stay in place relative to copy. For instance, you can put a shape in-line as though it were a character within a sentence. Edit the copy, and the shape remains in the same position in that sentence, wherever your edits take it. Similarly, the new dynamic guides take the work out of aligning elements to one another, making items snap automatically to designated object edges or centers. In addition, X4 offers more control over editing and saving formats for tables and calendars.

Text handling has been enhanced as well. You can place Word or other documents directly from the files, rather than merely copying and pasting the material from another application. PDF import has been improved for greater control, allowing you to import individual pages and to use embedded Type 1 fonts. On top of that, linking text boxes so that copy flows from one to another (regardless what page it is on) is now easier too.

In our hands-on testing, we were generally impressed with PagePlus X4. We were able to go from a blank page to a fully customized, template-based newsletter in short order. The instructional videos in the new Learning Zone were informative and useful, and they helped us get a jump start on our project.

We encountered some annoying quirks, however. For instance, importing pictures over a network tended to be slow, bogging down the workflow, so we ended up copying the photos we wanted to use in our publication to a local hard drive. Also, the program's use of the word “flash” to describe a new gallery of shapes and objects was initially confusing; here, the term refers to static shapes (such as stars or pointing fingers), not animated Adobe Flash elements. What’s more, when we placed “flash” shapes, only three of the many color-set schemes were available, requiring us to perform some complex editing to make the shapes match the rest of our document.

Despite those quirks, we recommend Serif PagePlus X4 highly. With its new integrated PhotoLab, enhanced drawing tools, and direct import of text from files, PagePlus X4 is a comprehensive, worthwhile upgrade that can stand on its own.

Paragon Software Group Hard Disk Manager 2009 Suite

Hard Disk Manager 2009 Suite is a welcome upgrade of an already capable partitioning and imaging suite from Paragon Software. The latest version includes updated driver support and a slew of new features. Two of the additions--the ability to back up individual files and folders, and diverse hardware restore--are particularly useful.
File-level backup means you can avoid imaging an entire partition if you simply want to back up My Documents, for instance. Previously you could use Hard Disk Manager only to create an image of your hard drive. The addition of file backup makes Hard Disk Manager a more well-rounded offering that can better compete with dedicated backup programs.

With diverse hardware restore, if your old PC dies, you can restore a backup image from it to your new PC without worrying about hardware driver conflicts that can prevent Windows from booting. The hardware-independent restore also makes it easier for IT types to roll out a standard image across a range of different PC models.

One of Hard Disk Manager Suite's enduring selling points is that it houses core disk chores within a single program. Whereas competitors such as Acronis force you to switch back and forth between separately purchased applications for partitioning and imaging chores, Hard Disk Manager 2009 Suite puts both under one easy-to-learn-and-navigate roof.

That all-in-one appeal extends to the Linux/Windows Preinstallation Environment recovery CDs provided with the program. The boot CDs are based on the latest OS builds, which now support more devices than previous versions and hence will boot on more computers. Though I'm a Linux fan, I had better luck with the Windows PE version (which you can download from Paragon Software's site after you purchase the program), as it allows you to load drivers post-boot--a priceless feature when you're dealing with oddball storage controllers.

Hard Disk Manager 2009 Suite is a versatile application that's now virtually dead-even with Acronis software in useful features. The new additions make it a worthy choice for your local-backup needs.
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