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Google has launched a new set of features to their search engine which they call “Search Options”. It bring a collection of tools that lets us slice-and-dice our search results to find what we want faster.

The new features includes the ability to filter a search by types such as Forums, Videos, Reviews, etc. We can also filter the results by time, show more description text, and even show thumbnail images from the page. But the best feature has to be the Wonder Wheel - a diagrammatic way to represent related keywords.

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It would seems that Google is as fallible as the next company. Right at this moment (which is 31 Jan 2009, 3.15pm GMT) Google is labelling every site in their search result listing with a “This site may harm your computer”. And what irony, Google’s own Anti-Malware page is potentially harmful!

So, has Google been hacked, or is this the result of a careless mistake? Which ever way this goes, this is a serious serious problem for Google, since no one can go to any listed site, it’s going to impact the search referrals, and the traffic to these sites.

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Awhile back, I wrote about what it takes to start your own blog. Unless your blog is only meant for your private circle of readers, in most cases, you’ll want people to read what you have penned down, and even make some money from it.

The most effective way to do that is to get it listed in Search Engines.

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It’s been a month since Google pushed out their Google Chrome browser. In that short time, the initial buzz about the shiny new browser has slowly being taken over by reports of crashes and security flaws.

NetApplications also just released a report that the market share for Google Chrome since the launch has dipped but holding steady at 0.7%.

Does this put a kink in the Google world domination plan? Probably not, it’s more like a minor setback.

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If you’re a Blogger blogger, you’re in for a treat. It’s now possible to add Google Gadgets straight into your blogspot site to spice things up.

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Lately, I’ve been kind of swept up by this craze to own one of those ‘netbooks’, those ultra-portable and cheap notebooks. I was keeping my eye on getting an MSI Wind, and hoping to get in touch with various PC providers to find out when the product will be available.

So I went to check out three retailers and their website and found their published email contacts. Instead of calling them on the phone, I decided to drop them an email instead. Imagine my surprise when two out of the three got bounced for various reasons, and one just went missing into the ether.

Let’s look at where each of these companies went wrong.
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Designing and building a website is one thing, but maintaining the site is definately something else. I’ve met many website owners who thought that getting someone in to build up a website and turn it on is all there is to running a website.

What a hard lesson that was for them when it turns out that getting a website started was the easiest part of running your own website. Thankfully, there are a great many wonderful tools out there that webmasters have been using to help them manage their sites.

Here are some of the webmaster tools that I use everyday and definately can’t live without.

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It a real challenge to get your own website going these days, especially when you’re clueless about the website ’stuff’. Gone are the days of just creating some HTML pages, put in some graphics, and linking the pages around. These days you’ll be bombarded with so many acronyms and technologies you probably don’t even know where to start.

So what do you need to know if you’re planning to start a blog site?

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The other day, a friend of mine told me that she’s looking to setup a website for her small business in adventure trekking. She asked me to help her look at some website quotations she received from a few local web design companies. Promptly after I agreed, 2 quotes and her to-be-website sitemap arrived by email.

In her email, she asks which is the better quotation? When I went through what she sent me, immediately alarm bells were ringing.

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One of the most frustrating thing about using open-source applications is that you never know what are some of the default obscure settings the application comes with. It doesn’t help when I add my own stupidity into the equation.

I found out today, 3 months after this site went live, wondering why it still hasn’t been indexed by the big ‘G’. It turns out that Wordpress, by default, has the privacy setting turn on, preventing search engines like Yahoo and Google to index the pages on this site! Doh!

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