Useful Google Hacks

Google’s vision is to organize the entire world’s information. The most search savvy of us would probably think that information is just a few queries away. The art to master in Google is in constructing the search query. Looking for very exotic information is a little difficult without a well-formed query. There’s more, with a well formed search query, you could actually search sites that will list the contents of unprotected directories on the internet. You’ll be able to play the music files, watch the videos, look at photos and more. I have to say, it’s really addicting.

First thing first, I got this idea from Googletutor. Its very simple and easy to understand especially if you are well-versed in Google query syntaxes.

(Following ideas were taken from Google tutor)

First of all, what’s an unprotected web directory? It’s one that does not have an “index” file created for it–index.htm, index.html, index.php or some other more rarely used file types. If you try to access a non-password controlled directory that does not have an index file, the system will build a listing of files that are within the directory. If you get that, you can then click on the files and run them with a viewer or player or even download them.

I have to say I have not had this much fun with Google for a while! It’s just plain crazy seeing what people have stashed away in their web sites. (Please, don’t steal copyrighted steal music–I’m really against that. You can buy it for a buck a song anyway.) I think the absolute most fun you can have with this is to watch the movies you run across. I watched a hilarious British TV commercial, some interesting home videos, and some, well, you know, very interesting other types of videos.

So let’s get to the nitty gritty details. We need to construct a Google search query that searches for and recognizes these system built directory pages. Here’s what one looks like:

The words “Index of /” are common to these pages, and they end up in the “title” of the page. Unfortunately, Google sees the slash is a “stop word” so we cannot search for that. But, the problem is that without the slash there are all sorts of other pages that have the words “Index of” that are regular web pages. So, we need to find something else that is common. Within the page there are the headings of “name,” “last modified,” “size” and “description,” followed by the word “Parent Directory.” The combination of these words in the page body, and the “Index of” in the title should provide a pretty clean search, especially when we use the -inurl operator to exclude regular web pages that might have the same wording in them. (If all this has you confused, please read the Google Tutor Google Search Manual while referencing the sample queries below.)

So, for starters here is a query that will give you a search results page of unprotected directories:

[-inurl(html|htm|php) intitle:”index of” +”last modified” +”parent directory” +description +size]

But, this is kind of boring. Too many unknown program files, text files, web pages etc. Let’s narrow it down. You can narrow it down by looking for something in the name of a file in the list, or by the file type, or both.

For example, this query tries to find any types of files about Jennifer Lopez. Within the directories I found music, image and movie files.

[-inurl(html|htm|php) intitle:”index of” +”last modified” +”parent directory” +description +size +”jennifer lopez”]

Let’s say that we wanted to find any movie files in WMV or AVI format:

[-inurl:(htm|html|php) intitle:”index of” +”last modified” +”parent directory” +description +size +(wmv|avi)]

Or audio files in WMA or MP3 format:

[-inurl:(htm|html|php) intitle:”index of” +”last modified” +”parent directory” +description +size +(wma|mp3)]

Or images in JPG or GIF format:

[-inurl:(htm|html|php) intitle:”index of” +”last modified” +”parent directory” +description +size +(jpg|gif) ]

You can get more specific by specifying both the file types and a search word to hopefully find in the name. For example, the following will attempt to find the infamous Paris Hilton video tape:

[-inurl:(htm|html|php) intitle:”index of” +”last modified” +”parent directory” +description +size +(wmv|avi) “paris hilton”]

Or, you can even take a guess at the file name someone might call it:

[-inurl:(htm|html|php) intitle:”index of” +”last modified” +”parent directory” +description +size +(”paris_hilton.wmv”|”paris_hilton.avi”)]

So there you go. You can combine various search terms and experiment with this. As you’ve seen, this is not an exact science. The directory pages you bring up may have many or even all files which are unrelated to what you are looking for. But, it does make some good hits very often.

I find the most fun searching for movies with an interesting or provocative search term and seeing what comes up. The samples in this article are rather safe and boring, but I’m sure you all have some good ideas of what to try and search for. Do me a favor and post a comment with some interesting queries you’ve had success with, or crazy files that you’ve found (as long as nothing private is given out). ]

Fresh Devices - Fresh and free utilities!

Fresh Devices - Fresh and free utilities! 

For those of us like me who likes everything cheap, I stumbled upon these softwares a longtime ago and swear I have installed it on every PC I have laid hands on. From system optimizer to a complete download manager, everything is free! Its GREAT!

Fresh Download is an easy-to-use and very fast download manager that turbo charges downloading files from the Internet, such as your favorite mp3 files, software, picture collections, video, etc. Unlike other similar utilities, this software is 100% free, no banners, no spyware.

Fresh UI is a fresh solution for configuring and optimizing Windows. Loaded with hundreds of useful settings for Windows XP/2000/ NT4/98/95/Me, it covers the customizing techniques that you'll be glad to know. This software is 100% free, no banner, no spyware.

Fresh Diagnose is a utility designed to analyze and benchmark your computer system. It detects many kinds of hardware, such as CPU or hard disk performance, video or motherboard information, and much more. This software is 100% free, no ads, no spyware.

Fresh View is a multimedia browser that makes organizing image, audio and video files much easier. Use it to watch movies, listen to music, view graphics in a slide show, print, create an HTML album, and more. This software is 100% free, no ads, no spyware.

Electronic Reusable Paper

Researchers are striving to make dynamic sheets of electronic reusable paper no thicker than a standard transparency.

Electronic reusable paper is a display material that has many of the properties of paper. It stores an image, is viewed in reflective light, has a wide viewing angle, is flexible, and is relatively inexpensive. Unlike conventional paper, however, it is electrically writeable and erasable. Although projected to cost somewhat more than a normal piece of paper, a sheet of electronic reusable paper could be re-used 1000s of times. This material has many potential applications in the field of information display including digital books, low-power portable displays, wall-sized displays, and fold-up displays.

Read more...

Firefox - An amazing extension!

 


Scrapbook is one of those firefox extension you would be missing if you dont have it. According to the developers website, Scrapbook is a Firefox extension, which helps you to save Web pages and easily manage collections. Key features are lightness, speed, accuracy and multi-language support. Major features are:

* Save Web page
* Save snippet of Web page
* Save Web site (In-depth Capture)
* Organize the collection in the same way as Bookmarks tree
* Highlighter, Eraser and various page editing tools
* Full text search and quick filtering search
* Text edit feature resembling Opera's Notes

Another thing I would have to add is the way they are able to mantain the archived web pages' formatting and layout. Have you at one time or another try to save a web page while browsing using the default File--> Save As menu and later when you try to open it offline, the web page's appearance is different. Scrapbook amazingly preserves the formatting, flash animations and even java snippets.

Check out the Scrapbook extension, it could be downloaded from here,
. Of course you have to have firefox to use it. To download firefox, click the shiny firefox button at the top of this site.

Happy archiving!!! 

Skype 2.0 Beta Released

 

Popular internet telephone service Skype has just released version 2.0 beta and is now readily available for download at www.skype.com. Skype is one of those travel handy applications you should never go without. It has voice quality at par with the best digital voice lines we have today.

The most striking change in version 2.0 is the addition of video capabilities. Some of the new features includes a redesigned and sleeker interface, intuitive menus, a new searchbar ala spotlight that will instantly go to the matched contact as you type, and many more. Skype now also integrates well with Outlook via the Skype toolbar for Microsoft Outlook.

Left image shows Skype running on my laptop. 

My WinMac Desktop

 


As promised, here is a snapshot of my Flyakite-modded desktop. 

Flyakite OSX 3.0 is coming!

FlyakiteOSX - Modify . Simplify . Aquafy [The Official Site]



While browsing through the web, just found out that my favorite Windows skinner Flyakite OSx is going to present an early Christmas gift by releasing Flyakite OSX 3.0. To those who doesn't know what the heck Flyakite is, it's an application that will make your Windows OS look like a Mac Tiger. To memory freaks out there, don't be afraid it will consume very little memory resources since Flyakite will not run as a separate Windows process, it will just patch Windows system files to change the look of Windows borders, titlebars, menu and icons to look like one on Steve Jobs' apple computer.

For more details go to http://www.osx-e.com and download Flyakite OSX 2.0. Dont worry, its a good primer for 3.0. 2.0 is very pleasing and stable. I'll be releasing a snapshot of my Flyakite OSX 2.0 modified desktop later.