Bing Cashback is Microsoft’s weapon against Google and it’s working. Have you explored what Bing Cashback can do for you?

Some users are still unaware what Bing Cashback is and what makes it such a great advantage over Google search. Bing cashback offers further savings on products you find using the Microsoft Bing search engine!

It’s a very simple process, just navigate to Bing.com and search a product you’re looking to buy. In the top results, look for a gold $ sign and click on the link to be eligible for a % of cash back on your purchase. There are reports of users who reach as high as 30% cash back on their purchases!

Whenever I decide to make my purchases or even search for a product for that matter, Microsoft has definitely swayed my business over to them.  How about the rest of the users out there?  What is everyone else using?

Yahoo! has been experimenting with some changes within the past couple years including their aesthetics on their homepage.  Most websites are constantly trying to stay updated with the times, including looks, and are making a push to become more web 2.o.  Yahoo! has been in competition with Google and Microsoft for their search engine efforts and their other marketed homepage features, so staying current with better features and better improvements is always on the agenda.

What you are referring to is just one of the new homepages they have been testing out.  I believe it is the one that they are looking to replace the homepage with permanently, but to be honest, my research shows most people are against any new homepage entirely!

It’s tough to ask Yahoo! to stay old in these times where other companies are trying to stay young and more sleek looking.  Yahoo! also has tried to improve their features and services they offer.  To do this, they had to change around the look of the old website they offered.

Many of us do not like change, and it took me a while to get use to the new Yahoo! homepage but I offer a few suggestions that might help you get use to the new homepage:

• Explore the features of the new Yahoo!  Take some time and find out what has changed and what else is there to offer.
• Customize your experience.  Yahoo! allows each user to customize what shows up and what news feed are available on the screen specifically to what you like.  Set up what is on the left task bar to have the buttons and features you want most easily accessible.
• Keep an open mind.  These people have been in the web industry for a while and their ultimate goal is to make you happy so they have reasons for change.  They don’t want to lose you!

You covered the first suggestion that I would have made with the MicroSD card slot.seems your phone is either razor thin or pretty outdated if it does not have one of those slots!

If you do not have a MicroSD card or are not sure if your phone has that feature, there are other options to send items to your phone from your computer.

Personally, I like to use Beam it Up Scotty.  Beam it Up Scotty is a fast, free and easy way to send pictures, videos, music, documents or any other file to your cell phone within seconds.

To use Beam it Up Scotty, upload your file with the “Browse” button.  Hit the “Upload File” button and it will begin the process.  It will compress your file to fit on your phone but anything after 5 minutes will be cut off (video and audio).

After the compression, it will prompt for your cell phone number and send you a SMS/text message with a download link to download the files to your phone!

I’ve been scouring the web the past couple days looking for the most popular stories/rumors/news/facts and have compiled a list of some bullet points I thought the readers would find interesting to read.

Check out some of these cool facts and tidbits, they make great conversation starters and are cool oddities to know to increase your computer protection/user knowledge!

• Jessica Biel recently was named the most “dangerous” celebrity to search on the web.  Research has shown that her name/pictures/videos/screensavers come attached with the most amount of malware and viruses.  I guess her good looks come at a cost. (Brad Pitt was the previous name holder and now holds his spot in second followed by former ex Jennifer Aniston)
• The recession has created a further rise in cybercrime around the world.  Apparently, the more attention given to prevent local crime as well as world terrorism takes away efforts to prevent cybercrime. Social sites have also given more room for these criminals to increase there electronic scams.
• The United States was ranked the 28th fastest in Internet Connection Speed.  A report by the Communications Workers at America said the top download speed is in South Korea with an average of 20.3 mbps.the US average is 5.1 mbps.  Japan, Sweden and the Netherlands hold the next three spots following South Korea respectively.

I hope you enjoyed the tech gossip from this week, submit your own gossip via our ASK button.  I’ll try my best to include all the submitted stories!

There’s no denying the success Twitter has had in the recent year as its grown astronomically in its users and readers.  Many of our readers and users on this forum use the website as a status update or even as a “messaging” service from time to time.  For those of you who “tweet” and would like to share a file with your audience there are many means for doing so but there’s one that I particularly found to be the best.

TweetaFile.com is one of the easiest ways to share a file over Twitter.  As it states, really the only thing that sets a batch email or announcement apart from Twitter is the ability to share files and now that gap is slowly closing.  TweetaFile is very easy to use, utilizing your Twitter login name and password to login so you do not have to create a seperate registration!

I really like the integration that TweetaFile has to offer.  The more registrations I have to make for a given website or purpose, the more annoyed I get.  The website is very simple in its layout but one of lifes cardinal lessons states: KISS (keep it simple *silly*).

As you said in your post, I highly advise against posting any material that could have a copy write on it or has been obtained through illegal means.  If the source or use of the material is in question, I suggest you do not try and share it.  Any illegal file sharing is strictly prohibited so do not involve yourself in the scheme!

Everyone carries tons of separate accounts with regards to email.  Whether you have a platter filled with Hotmail and Yahoo or Gmail and other personal work addresses, everyone has more then one account.

Surprisingly enough, I think that if possible, people would want to simplify all addresses to one destination.  While there are solutions such as Outlook or other email clients, I believe everyone would want to have just two accounts.  One for real email addresses and one for spam mail.

If you’re looking to get rid of the Gmail account, I highly recommend you do so, just verify that you do not have any contacts sending important or regular email there.

There is no “cancel” button in Gmail, but through some trickery we can use to cancel the account.

Login to your account and at the top right, click on Settings and then choose the Account and Settings.

Navigate to the middle of the page to find look for the Google Account settings tab which lets you reset your password or change your security question.

On the My Products, select the Edit option and choose the last option which is to: Close account and delete all services and info associated with it.

Read the very serious and frightening disclaimer.  Select your options and choose to “Delete Google Account.”

Your done.now celebrate your liberation!

I admire your passion to join the right site of the fight, not to mention the wonderful credentials you bring to the table!  Joining the fight to protect users is a noble effort and can be taught from our forums!

The way to join the fight against malware victims at What the Tech is in our classroom.  This classroom is made available in order to train malware fighters who will volunteer to help victims in the forums.

Check out how to sign up and get started today!

The Classroom was founded in 2003 as part of the Tom Coyote Classroom!  It has a rich history and comes with a technical prestige!  Beware that not all are made for the Classroom but we haven’t lost a single man/woman yet!

The Classroom is not intended for self help lessons or commercial purposes.

Trainees are required to participate in answering practice logs and posting to receive feedback from the volunteer Classroom Teachers. This free interactive educational program does require that participation, therefore inactive students will be removed from the Classroom.

A new student should not apply to and enroll in more than one school at the beginning of their training, this is to ensure the trainee is actively participating in the programs and avoid overload in their learning. We want you to enjoy and successfully complete the program.

Note:
If you have sought assistance for a PC in any malware removal forum, please do not apply to the Classroom until the machine has been cleaned and the thread closed.

Please apply here if your intention is to be trained in order to help victims of malware in the forums.

One will usually hear from the Classroom Team no later than one week after your application is received to notify you of your status.

*The above has been taken from a tutorial and post made by Tashi, a valued member on the Administrative Team of the forums.

The domain business is a booming industry with some domains selling for millions and millions of dollars.  If you have a knack for finding good domains, you can make some very serious money, but it is not for everyone.

Searching for new domains is always tricky, but there are sites to use that will allow you to instantly determine if a domain is available without the need to type in any security codes, image verifications nor need to be a member to use.

I recommend Instant Domain Search for all your domain-ing needs.  If you are someone who likes to play with words for the domain, its a perfect site that allows you to type in letter by letter searching if that specific domain is available and it tells you..well.instantly!

Instant Domain Search displays the prices of each major domain company such as GoDaddy, 1 & 1, Network Solutions and provides the availability of the .net and .org extensions.

If you’re a big domain’er and are constantly searching for domains on the fly, Instant Domain Search is a great website to keep bookmarked for your domain needs.

Pulling videos off YouTube can be a fantastic tool so long as the video poster has granted access to its rights or the video does not have copy written material.  I’ve posted a previous entry about pulling some Do-It-Yourself videos off YouTube here but never included information on how to through it on an iPod for the gym.

I found a site that I use personally to help me with this.  I love downloading videos on tips and tricks to watch while on the treadmill for the reasons you said above; it saves time and makes working out much more fun.

Locate the video you want to copy and then keep it on your clipboard (CTRL+C).  Open ConvertMyTube and paste the link in the open space for the URL.  If you’d like to change the format to an .mp3, .wav, .mov (MAC) or an .mp4 (iPod or iPhone) click on the circle that follows the end of the blank spot for the URL.  Select the designated format and click Convert and Download.

You can specify the download location during the download, and after add the file into iTunes to drag over to your iPod.  For other videos, as stated in the previous post,  the best universal video player I’ve found out there is VLC Media Player- which is free!  At the download page,  choose your operating system and install.  After the program is on your machine, you should be able to double click your downloaded YouTube video and start watching it.

When anyone remotely can access your computer at any time, you don’t have a firewall. It seems time after time; I am lurking around malware removal forums here at WhatTheTech or GeeksToGo, to find that a lot of users are missing a firewall. Even basic firewall protection is better than nothing.

I was on my XP test box a few weeks ago, and turned off the firewall and started browsing bad websites, and started downloading neutral programs. By the time I was done with that, I had acquired such a mess, as nine Trojans, and 4 spyware programs. One of the Trojans was a downloader of malware. My machine was not shot, as I was able to remove/delete all of the threats. A normal user cannot do this, and needs the assistance of malware experts who can help remove it.

After I had removed the malware, I restarted my computer to find it back to normal. It was fine, and running smoothly. I turned on Comodo Firewall, and again browsed bad websites, and downloaded bad programs. First of all, the bad programs would not start, because Comodo had a lock on them. Whenever I went to double-click on one, an error popped up, and said: “you do not have sufficient privileges to start this program.” The title-bar was labeled as “Comodo Internet Security.” The firewall event log had over 20 events of just those ten minutes of browsing bad websites. 20 events of threats trying to enter my system, I knew Comodo protected me.

Although hardware firewalls are much better, software firewalls are what I am talking about today.
We will start with the tested best of the best. Tallemu Online Armor. The personal edition is just as good as the Pro. Features boasted include keylogger protection, autoruns management, mail and web filter, anti-spyware, and HOSTS and DNS checker. The only reason why Online Armor did not score a 100% on the tests is because they were not able to stop viruses from executing via internet query.

Then, Comodo Firewall is the next impressive piece in software firewall technology. Its technology is much different than most firewalls. It boasts its features as Defense+ HIPS protection – which alerts you when an application is not on the list of good applications, Defense+ is also considered Anti-spyware, highly extended firewall policy. Although they offer antivirus protection, the firewall policy stops viruses in their tracks. The only reason that Comodo did not score a 100% was because of the inability to stop bots from being queried on a machine.

The last one I will review is ZoneAlarm. ZoneAlarm boasts full stealth mode, protection from hijackers, OS file protection, MD5 (program key) spoof protection, rootkit detection, and dynamic inbound/outbound protection with hyper threat checking.

What all three of these have in common is they deal with threats. They all have a specific protection that is different than each other. Tallemu Online Armor, and Comodo firewall both had anti-spyware protection, but ZoneAlarm did not. ZoneAlarm has rootkit detection, whereas Tallemu and Comodo do not. Firewalls are one of your best Operating System Defense Weapons. You can be secure from most online threats by using a firewall. The three reviewed above, are the most protective and the highest rated. All three protect from severe threats, and all three passed rigorous testing on blocking threats.

Being a state that is the leader in technology development this is a great initiative and the rest of the country is watching very closely. Schwarzenegger is quoted in the San Jose Mercury News saying… “California is home to software giants, bioscience research pioneers, and first-class university systems known around the world. But our students still learn from instructional materials in formats made possible by Gutenberg’s printing press,”…

Now ditching the printing press may not be the end all be all, checking out E-Booksdirectory.com is a good start. They are an online resource that contains links to freely downloadable eBooks, technical papers, and documents, as well as user-contributed content, articles, reviews, and comments. The service is free for students, educators, researchers, and eBook lovers. With this site, Wikipedia, and other web 2.0 websites, there are various ways schools can start cutting costs.

How are eBooks a great start? Instead of having to check in/out textbooks every year a librarian or teacher can spend more time working with the students. Districts would no longer have to worry about replacing torn and marked up books and lost and forgotten texts can easily be downloaded again with no cost at all. And all of those parents who complain about 50-60 pound backpacks… Well a digital file has no weight other than the media it is stored on, say a thumb drive… Which is probably less than an ounce.

However the future still looms for some digital text. Google Books, announced in 2003, Google’s plan is to digitize the worlds books and have information become searchable, indexed, and displayed on the Internet. However lawsuits are holding back this project. You can though, check out the books that have been allowed to be digitized over at books.google.com.

Once again the Internet is changing our way of life. This time it is in the classroom. And it could not be at a better time. Green is the new future and digital textbooks are a good start. If you have any ideas on ways to help cut classroom costs post them in the comment section and maybe you will see an article about it!

What is it with countdowns? Just today on Digg I have found, 9 Video Games That Went Too Far, Top 10 Grocery Coupon Websites for Cheapskates, 7 Ways Recessions Impact Your Health, 10 Hollywood Cliche’s Which Can Go Either Way, Top 10 Most Ridiculous Transformers Ever, 10 Droolworthy Eco Structures, The 6 Most Horrifying Medical Malpractice Cases, The 10 Worst Work Habits … And there are still many, many, more! I really don’t have that big of a problem with these lists as it is relatively easy to ignore them and read the good articles. It is just that I cannot figure out what is up with the obsession with these list/countdowns… They are everywhere it seems. I seriously can turn on the T.V. and switch over to VH1 or another cable channel and find myself watching a countdown show about child stars, eighties music, pop culture and more! There is no escaping the list! Matter of fact the movie and music industry is all about whom the best is and what is number one and so on. Even David Letterman has his Top 10 list on his show. Where does this madness end?!?

All jokes aside, like I said I do not have that big of a problem with putting together a list of this type it is just something I have noticed becoming more and more popular on the net and my point of this post is that there is this weird obsession with these types of posts and the newspaper industry is wondering why they are losing sales… You can get a half witted writer who can compile some list and post it on the internet and low and behold 1,000,000 readers later you’re the stud of some unknown website because of your countdown/listing skills. This is not real journalism (I am not saying I am a real journalist either) but people are addicted to these lists and I believe it is hurting our ability to write actual articles. Humans are the ones who invented the technology we use to create these lists, isn’t there something better we could write about instead of reading about the 13 Top-Earning Dead Celebrities? All I am saying is let’s put forth effort into something more productive than a countdown/list. Let’s see some more original reviews, or some more biographies. Let’s report on some hometown heros… The Internet is such a powerful tool that we can do so much more than just listing some items and calling it a post.

End rant.

Ask and HotBot both have a selectable skin interface. Bing may have that soon, also. Ask manages their engine’s content database by indexing “smart” sites. Smart sites are considered websites that deliver content worth looking at. While some content may not be so good, Ask wants better. The only improvement of Ask.com is the skin interface and the preview thumbnails in search results. Ask is all about CONTENT. Ask.com is a big engine, which is based off of the Lycos engine. Both Ask and HotBot are based from the Lycos engine. HotBot is now based off of Yahoo! and Bing/MSN.

Bing’s search engine has a skin that changes daily. Instead of a selectable skin (which may change), you see a nice, comfortable image. Critics respond aggressively at Microsoft for allowing video preview thumbnails for adult content. Let us hope Microsoft changes that soon, to help improve child safety. Just over a week of big time Bing boom, Norton has child safety tools available. Bing is a copycat, in my opinion, as if you type in a specific term, like turkey, and get semi-different results all down the page. The semi-different results help distinguish what you are looking for. However, showing images first, before results should be changed to showing images after the results – or, how about hiding images, because they may contain objectionable content. Nonetheless, Bing definitely has the ball on showing enhanced results. Just click enhanced view on a search result, and get an i-framed page of code-modified, scripted content. Wait! Microsoft warns about accessing content through i-frames. Is this really possible to have a safe search engine, with i-frame capability? I am not so sure it is a big deal, but a script based attack is possible.

Cuil places an edge that Google has gotten a tiny bit jealous of. The hovering search results. Hovering search results, emphasizes a preview thumbnail of a search result, for search terms on the right side of the page. This helps the user get what they need faster. The headers on the right side of the search results are typical narrowed down results that contain links – with the ability to preview the links. Search results are gathered if they are a same subject, and separated if they are different.

Dogpile has a force behind it that it will find every relevant result based on the search terms only. In gathering the results, it makes sure the results are worth looking at and see if they actually relate to each other. Most commonly, a search result does not appear, until another search engine has that result. In general, the compatibility of the engine is so strong, it can search fast all the time. Because, it does not have a bot-centered interface, Dogpile has more to offer than just its original results.

Grokker and kartOO have visual search interfaces that can show you two to three different visual views, and can provide a database for you to expand. You can capture other links, and select for yourself what looks the best.

What may seem like great technology – it truly is worth checking out. Many of the sites explained have a similar philosophy: get the information to the user as fast as possible, as long as it is relevant.

Here are two real life examples of how web 2.0 is extending the classroom…let us know how do you think the benefit of the internet has impacted the classroom?

Joey who is a senior has been really sick lately. He is getting close to endangering himself to where he won’t be able to graduate. But there is one thing that is going to help Joey pass, his school’s requirement for all teachers to post notes, projects, and homework on the Internet daily. All of his teachers have a website where notes and more are posted each and every day. Some of the more advanced teachers have even used discussion boards on their websites to answer questions on homework and notes after school. So instead of leaving Joey on his own he now can follow along and keep current without falling behind.

Mr. Smith is a computer applications teacher who spends most of his day showing his students how to use office applications. The school district also just recently updated to the latest version of Microsoft Office. With many new features and a new layout, several students and other teachers where having a tough time figuring things out. So Mr. Smith and the technology department figured out that they could use some special software (in this case Camtasia Studio) to record the computer screen during Mr. Smith’s lessons and then the technology department can rebroadcast those screen recordings to the rest of the staff as training tutorials. Using sites like Youtube, TeacherTube, or even the district’s own SharePoint server Mr. Smith is extending his classroom to anyone who wants to learn about the new Microsoft Office program. The best part of what Mr. Smith is doing is the user can watch the lesson over and over again. Pausing when needed, rewinding, fast forward. If allowed the user can download the video and put it on an iPod, or a DVD and take the lesson off the Internet and on the road, on the couch, wherever is best of the user. And since the video is now digitized it can be used over and over again without the need to re record every semester, or at least until the next version of Office comes out.

There are tons of examples of how teachers all over the globe are using new technology to extend their classroom beyond the regular school day. Teachers are connecting globally with each other, exchanging ideas with other teachers, and even more importantly students.

With every good thing however there is always bad. Urge students to take responsibility online and to learn proper web 2.0 etiquette. Include things in lesson plans such as cyber bullying, plagiarism, pirating software and other media, and viruses/malware.

Get creative and see what other ways a classroom can be extended outside of the school yard. The possibilities are only limited to the imagination.

With Google’s popularity, the billions Microsoft invested are thought of as wasted billions. Google cannot be harmed. Without even thinking about it, people turn to Google for answers. No matter what, Google is at the top of the mountain.

Peter Sealey, a former chief marketing officer at the Coca-Cola Company, said Microsoft should have picked a name that more directly connotes search.

“Bing has no equity; it signals nothing,” Sealey said. “It is going to be an enormous expense to create an image for this thing called Bing.”

Microsoft’s thoughts about an opponent to Google are better than ever, as Microsoft is not allowed to buy Yahoo! The plans to build a strong search engine are to play copycat. Don’t tell Microsoft I said this, but I think Microsoft is referencing off of a lot of search engines for ideas. Especially: Cuil, Yahoo!, Google, Dogpile, kart00, and many more. As these ideas just appeared on Live search and now Bing, it gives evidence the ideas were referenced. Not to say that they were stolen, but just used as a reference for a good idea.