Chipbit.com

Today Google is finally rolling out its long-promised and long-tested by a large group of randomly-selected users SearchWiki functionality - this time for everyone to see and use. The functionality allows any Google user to customize search results for any search query by moving results up or down according to their relevance (as viewed by this user), deleting certain links from results if deemed not relevant, adding sites that are not in the results pages and also adding notes for various sites - for example, to describe why you think this particular website is helpful for a user doing a search on this query.

The functionality will be available to all signed in Google users and the changes we make will be stored in our Google account histories. Unfortunately there is no opting out available so you will either have to ignore the voting icons if you don’t like SearchWiki or log out to be able to search Google without seeing the icons at all.

full post here

Surfing the internet, playing games and hanging out on social networks are important for teen development, a large study of online use has revealed.The report counters the stereotypical view held by many parents and teachers that such activity is a waste of time.More than 800 teenagers and parents took part in the three-year US project.

"They are learning the technological skills and literacy needed for the contemporary world," said the report’s author, Dr Mimi Ito.

"They are learning how to communicate online, craft a public identity, create a home page, post links.

"All these things were regarded as sophisticated 10 years ago but young people today take them for granted," Dr Ito told the BBC

Full story

Windows Vista Aero is the premium user experience in Windows Vista and the one most
users will want to access. It provides a number of unique features.
First, Vista Aero enables the new Aero Glass look and feel in which the Start Menu,
taskbar, and all onscreen windows and dialog boxes take on a new glass-like translucent
sheen. In Figure 4-5, you can see how overlapping objects translucently reveal what’s
underneath.

Like Windows XP, Windows Vista includes a user experience called Windows Classic that
resembles the user interfaces that Microsoft shipped with Windows 95, 98, Me, and 2000
(it most closely resembles Windows 2000). This interface is available on all Windows Vista
product editions, including Starter edition. Classic is included in Windows Vista almost
solely for businesses that don’t want to undergo the expense of retraining their employees
to use the newer user experiences.

Even though Microsoft markets Windows Classic as being identical to the Windows
2000 look and feel, the truth is that there are numerous differences, so users will still
require some training when moving to Windows Vista and Classic mode. For example,
the Start Menu and Explorer windows still retain the layouts that debuted with
Windows Vista, and not the styles you might be used to in Windows 2000. However,
you can fix this somewhat. To use the old Start Menu, right-click the Start button and
choose Properties. Then, select the option titled Classic Start menu and then click OK.
It’s a bit more complicated to use a Windows Explorer look and feel that is closer to
that of Windows 2000. To do so, open Computer from the Start Menu and then press
the Alt key to display the Classic menu (which is disabled by default in Windows
Vista). Select Folder Options from the Tools menu to display the Folder Options dialog.
Then, select the option titled Use Windows classic folders and click OK. Voilà!
Your system should now look a bit more like Windows 2000, as Shown below

(Secret) 

If you work in the IT department of a business that is considering deploying
Windows Vista, you can actually roll out a feature called Classic Mode via Group
Policy (GP) that does, in fact, configure Windows Vista to look almost exactly like
Windows 2000. Classic Mode essentially combines the Classic user experience with
the secrets mentioned previously.

Even if the Vista Upgrade Advisor tells you that you need new drivers, and that they
aren’t known to be available, you still may have something that will work.
That something is called an XP driver. Yep, a driver that works fine under Windows XP
may also work fine under Vista, even though the Upgrade Advisor doesn’t say so.
Table 3-1 shows scores of drivers that Microsoft developers refer to as “XP drivers for
legacy devices which we believe to function well on Windows Vista.” These drivers, however,
won’t be included with Vista and the Upgrade Advisor may or may not say that
they’re compatible, in case your system already has one or more of them.
Sources within Microsoft report that, “For various reasons, these drivers will not be ‘in the
box’ for the final version of Vista.” If you’re having trouble getting Vista to work well with
a particular piece of hardware, and you can’t find a Vista-specific driver for it, you could
try locating and installing an XP driver as a last resort.
To install an XP driver, you’ll need to download it from a manufacturer’s site or have a
copy of the driver on a CD, a USB drive, or some other medium. You can then use Vista’s
Add Hardware control panel to try to write the new driver to your hard disk.
Be sure to copy the old driver to a safe location, such as a USB drive, in case the new
driver works worse than the old one did and you need to switch back.
The list in Table 3-1 includes drivers for a lot of Ethernet cards and Wi-Fi adapters, for
some reason. If your PC can’t connect to a wired network or can’t see your wireless router
after installing Vista, this list of XP drivers that Microsoft developers believe will work
under Vista could help you find software to correct the situation.
Our thanks to Wendy Stidmon of Microsoft for assembling the list of XP drivers that work
in Vista.

The list in Table 3-1 includes drivers for a lot of Ethernet cards and Wi-Fi adapters, for
some reason. If your PC can’t connect to a wired network or can’t see your wireless router
after installing Vista, this list of XP drivers that Microsoft developers believe will work
under Vista could help you find software to correct the situation.
Our thanks to Wendy Stidmon of Microsoft for assembling the list of XP drivers that work
in Vista.