SquirrelNet

Google Books is offering free downloads out-of-copyright books, including the complete works of Shakespeare!

Google, perhaps the world's most modern comp any, has just enabled the ability for anyone to download and print out most of the least modern books in existence.  Said another way, a search feature called Google Books allows users to download and print out-of-copyright books that it has scanned.  Google has active participation of a number of leading libraries has been scanning entire books that are now available online.  These libraries include the University of California, Harvard University, University of Michigan, The New York Public Library, Oxford University, and of course Stanford University (which is where Google was born).

The format of the downloads is PDF, which can be stored on your hard drive and read at your leisure.

This is a novel feature for anyone interested in learning more about books written a long time ago.  For instance, as a mathematician I enjoy looking back at how math books looked 100 years ago.  On a related note, Google's Google Books Blog says:

The Free Library – access to large collections of books was the privilege of a wealthy minority. Now, with the help of our wonderful library partners, we're able to offer you the ability to download and read PDF versions of out-of-copyright books from some of the world’s greatest collections.

And, by the way, chances are that you'll find Google Books' interface to these books sufficient for reading.  So do the environment a favor and refrain from printing out the books.  The environment thanks you!

Here's a link to the complete works of Shakespeare on Google Books.  By the way, this is a rare link embedded deep within Google, so please either bookmark it or this article.

Here are some other books available on Google Books that you can download, read and print if needed:

Ferriar's The Bibliomania
A futurist from 1881's 1931: A Glance at the Twentieth Century
Aesop's Fables
Shakespeare's Hamlet
Abbott's Flatland
Hugo's Marion De Lorme
Dunant's Eine Erinnerung an Solferino
Bolívar's Proclamas
Dante's Inferno

Of course, there are hundreds of thousands if not millions of books in Google Books.  You can try out a search here:

How to turn off track changes in Microsoft Word under Windows XP

Have you ever received a Microsoft Word document from someone else in which there were all kinds of crazy blue lines through many words with strange comment boxes to the side with lots of additional dotted lines?  This is called track changes and is a way that people who are co-editing a paper can suggest and approve of various changes.

In my 37 years of life, I've discovered many things - and one of those things is that there are two kinds of people in the world.  The first kind is the average kind of person who hates additional complexities built into software.  These people are the norm.  Then there are the rare birds who really seem to enjoy track changing.

Not me!  I hate track changes and would love to permanently turn it off on my computer.  Of course, even if this were possible, it wouldn't be practical since I do still occasionally receive Word documents in email that have the annoying track changes feature.

How to Turn Off Track Changes in Microsoft Word
(aka: Getting Rid of All Those Track Changes Lines)

To get ride of all the blue lines and dotted lines and other annoyances in your document related to track changes:

1. Make sure you can see your Reviewing toolbar.  If you're not sure, go to View > Toolbars and make sure that Reviewing is checked.  If it isn't checked, check it.
2. As the illustration to the right shows, click on the checkmark dropdown and choose 'Accept All Changes in Document'.  (Click to enlarge picture for better viewing if necessary.)

That should clear off all the cobwebs left by Microsoft Word's track changes feature.  However, these tips were meant to turn off track changes in Windows XP.  If the tip didn't work for you, try visiting this how to turn off track changes in Microsoft Word tutorial or visit a similar description page at Princeton University's Helpdesk.

By the way, now that you've passed the tutorial on how to turn off track changes in Microsoft Word, let me share a few gripes with you.  You see, I really hate track changes.  First, to turn off all the crazy lines permanently, you have to go through the steps I mentioned above.  Second, for some reason Microsoft Word calls their track changes toolbar as the "Reviewing Toolbar" rather than being the "Track Changes Toolbar".  Third, the most obvious thing to do in the toolbar (the dropdown on the far left which shows "Final Showing Markup" in the illustration above) doesn't turn off all the crazy track changes line.  Instead, it just changes the perspective of the view that Microsoft Word is showing you.  Trying to get rid of the track changes lines here will only superficially get rid of them.  Word is still tracking changes and you may see yet even more lines the next time you open the document.  Finally, while this article is about how to turn off track changes in Microsoft Word, the truth is that what we really did was to "accept all of the changes".  In technical jargon, turning off track changes really means just stopping the tracking mechanism - which wouldn't get rid of all the crazy track changes lines.  In short, there are so many ambiguities and inconsistencies that it makes it very frustrating and almost impossible to learn.  Microsoft needs to make track changes easier to use!

I'll stop there.  Just wanted to gripe for a minute to let you know that I share your pain.  Thanks for listening!  By the way, one other way to reduce the number of times you have to turn off all those crazy track changes lines is to let your coworkers and teammates know how much you hate track changes.  Perhaps the indirect approach would be to refer them to this article.  :)

List of best sites for tracking tropical storms and hurricanes

As a resident of Florida, I've been able to find the best sites to help me track tropical storms and hurricanes.  Here's an article on OrlandoNouveau.com that lists the best sites for tracking tropical storms and hurricanes.

Use Google's synomyms feature ("~") to help when multiple words can be used for your search terms

Do you ever find yourself frustrated when doing a search where some of your search terms could easily be other search terms?  Google has multiple solutions for this.

The easiest is to use Google's synonym feature ("~") as shown in the example below.  Let's say I'm interested in searching for houses in Orlando.  Instead of "houses", I could also want to look at "homes" or even "real estate".  Rather than create a complex query string, Google lets me type in the following:

~homes orlando

The "~", which is likely a symbol in the top-left of your keyboard, tells Google to include synonyms in your search.  The search phrase above is obviously simpler than:

(homes OR houses OR "real estate") orlando

Other examples where synonyms would work well include the following:

~bicycle trips   
~health ~fitness   
~food ~facts   
~disney ~myths   

Please note, there is no space between the "~" and the word for which you want to find synonyms.

Feel free to give this a try in the search box above!

Disney portal site called TheDisneyPortal.com launches

Just ran across the following Disney portal site, appropriately called TheDisneyPortal.com.  Not much on it now, but it does pull together various feature articles and headline news on Disney.

What to try to do if you computer is constantly rebooting itself

A few weeks back I ran into the strangest problem.  My PC would shutdown and reboot after only being on a minute.  I'm sure you can see that a PC doesn't do a person much good if it can only be turned on for one minute at a time.

I ran all kinds of diagnoses using Microsoft's "debug" tool that pops up when a computer reboots for unnatural reasons (or when a program needs to abruptly shut down) as well as diagnostic tools from Dell, the manufacturer of my PC.

None of this worked.

So I began to think what software turns itself on after the computer has been operating for about one minute.  And my mind turned to Microsoft since they are pretty good with screwing things up.  I hypothesized that the problem could be with Microsoft's own "update" which I had set to automatically download updates.  I thought that maybe if I'd turn automatic updating off, then my computer would work once again.

I was right!

If you have this same problem, you can go to update.microsoft.com and click on "turn off" automatic updates (it's on the right side of the screen).

Search for Disney topics on SearchDisney.com

I've reported on SearchDisney.com before because I love Disney and this site is a Disney search engine.  Well, the site has revised their search methodology and have switched over from a trial proprietary algorithm to using Google's "site-flavored search".  This means that SearchDisney.com is using a service from Google that will learn what topics the users of SearchDisney.com want to read about.  Since the site is about Disney, this means that the search results will be relevant and obviously focused on Disney.

In addition, SearchDisney.com uses Google's SafeSearch, a feature that is only available in the US.  This means that the results on SearchDisney.com will not contain adult material and, as such, SearchDisney.com is a safe to use for kids.

So if you want to search on Disney, you should search on SearchDisney.com.

10 tips on how to fix an overly slow computer

Don't you hate it when your computer begins to run very slow?  I mean, when it takes a long, long time just for your cursor to become active, or when it takes 90 seconds to open up a Microsoft Word document.  Besides making sure your computer doesn't have any viruses (for which I recommend using Ad Aware SE Personal Edition, which is free and is also what Google recommends), there are a variety of other reasons that will slow down a PC. 

Of course, what I'm talking about is slowing down beyond what a normal person is willing to accept.  I have a $2500 laptop and it was ridiculous for Internet Explorer or Outlook to bring the system to a crawl.  If none of these work, you may want to try to get professional help.  I'm not an expert, but Id did note that these fixes helped fix my XP machine.  Some of these tips from a very skilled computer support person where I work.

Here's what I recommend:

1. Empty your trash.  To do this, right-click on the Recycle Bin on your desktop and then choose Empty Recycle Bin.
       
2. Clean out your cookies and temporary internet files.  The easiest way to do this is with Clean Up!  It's free.
    
3. Tell Internet Explorer not to store so many Temporary Internet Files.  Go into Tools > Internet Options and you should be in the General tab.  In the Temporary Internet Files section (in the middle), click on Settings.  At the bottom, you'll see a section entitled "Amount of disk space to use".  If it's set very high (500 megabytes or higher), I recommend resetting this to 250 megabytes.  (Mine was originally set to over 1 gig so it's no wonder why having an extra gig of temporary files on my PC was bogging things down.)
    
4. Tell Internet Explorer to delete all temporary internet files each time it closes.  To do this, go to Tools > Internet Options and then click on the Advanced tab.  Scroll to near the bottom under the Security area.  Here, look for "Empty Temporary Internet Files when browser is closed".  Put a checkbox next to this.  Then click Apply and OK.
               
5. Remove unnecessary files from the System Tray, which are the programs that automatically load into memory upon startup.  You won't be deleting these files, just preventing them from loading into memory at startup.  But please be careful and only remove those that you're sure you don't need.  To do this, go to Start and click on Run.  In the text box, type in "msconfig" (without the quotes).  Then go to the Startup tab and uncheck what you want to uncheck.  After you are done, hit Apply then OK.  I removed things such as iTunesHelper and various programs that load into memory that I don't need to have there (now they won't load into memory until I manually open the programs).
                  
6. Assuming you may still have some slowdowns, use Task Manager to help speed up your programs.  This was a golden fix for me.  Open up Task Manager by hitting CTRL-ALT-DEL at the same time followed by selecting Task Manager in the window that pops up.  Click on Processes.  There will likely be so many that you'll want to sort by "Mem Usage" (click on "Mem Usage" and then click on it again to sort by memory required in descending order).  To set a priority, right-click on the program of interest, then go to Set Priority, then set an appropriate priority (I recommend "high").  From time to time, my Internet Explorer or Outlook turns to a crawl.  This is the method I use to fix that.
    
7. Control the number of icons on your desktop.  If you have 40 icons on your desktop, then your PC has to refresh 40 icons every time any part of the desktop is showing.  This can slow things down.  For those icons that don't need to be on the desktop, create a folder (right-click on desktop then choose New > Folder).  Then open the folder and move some of the icons to this folder.
      
8. If you use Google Web Accelerator and web pages are loading much slower than normal, turn off Google Web Accelerator.  Sometimes I think Google's servers are working slowly.  Either that, or something with their local software gets in a funk and becomes useless and a hindrance.
      
9. If you don't need them, make sure IIS and SQL Server are turned off.  This probably only applies to advanced users who at one point turned these off.  One way to try to turn them off is to go to Start > Run > type in "msconfig" > click on Services tab and then turn them off here.  If this doesn't work, consult Google or your manual on how to proceed.
      
10. If all else fails, get yourself an Apple/Mac computer or anything that doesn't run on a Windows operating system.  I know this is extreme, but I like to take my jabs at Microsoft when I can.  I've had many hundreds of headaches over the past 20 years that I can attribute to Microsoft.  Apparently, Mac users are happy with their machines and these things never happen to them.  Given so many people hate Microsoft and alternates are becoming more prevalent, I wouldn't be surprised to see their market share begin to shrink.  At the very least, I don't think many (if any) of PC's sold in places like China or India will have Microsoft on them.  Anyway, blame Microsoft.

Finding the best search engines

Here are a variety of

The Top 20 Best Overall Search Engines

Looking for the best overall results? This is the best list for you. Search engines are ranked by their overall consistency in finding relevant results. The current leader is Google.   Here are SquirrelNet's Top 20 Search Engines:

1. Google
2. Answers.com
3. Yahoo!
4. Clusty.com
5. MetaCrawler
6. MagPortal
7. ixQuick
8. Netcraft
9. Kartoo.com
10. Teoma
11. About.com
12. MSN Search
13. Mamma.com
14. BlogDigger
15. AOL Search
16. AllTheWeb
17. Search.com
18. Lycos
19. AltaVista
20. AskJeeves

The Best Search Engines for Kids

We reviewed dozens of search engines for kids and have determined that few are worthy of recommendation. While several candidates that didn't make the list are child-appropriate directories, few achieve high-quality search results. Google SafeSearch for Kids is our favorite.

Simple and Concise 3-Step Guide to Searching

Despite a market collapse, our top picks continue to thrive.  Also, the market collapse is favoring special purpose search engines.  Let SquirrelNet show you the way.

Finding quality in your search

The idiot's guide to difficult searches

What to do if all else fails

SquirrelNet Users Prefer Google Over Yahoo

When asked which site best helps to find internet information, about two-thirds preferred Google over Yahoo. This indicates that Yahoo is still an information-rich resource, but a search engine like Google is needed to expand the information reach.

Google Helps with Difficult Searches

Google has displaced AltaVista in our favorite search engine for difficult searches. They have a large database and their relevancy ranks second only to Overture.

Is Ask Jeeves Intelligent?

Yahoo Remains near Top

Although Yahoo is almost too big for effective searching, they are an information-rich resource which should not be overlooked. We have links that will help simplify your Yahoo experience.

MagPortal

MagPortal provides a unique service in that is searches from a wide range of magazines.

AltaVista Used to be Better

AltaVista has had so many major strategic changes that it's hard to keep track of why to use this site. Their most recent change voided their unique advantage in helping with difficult searches.

Thai students first to get MIT's $100 laptops

About 500 students in Thailand are the first to get MIT's $100 laptops.  These $ 100 laptops are courtesy of the One Laptop Per Child program which has several sponsors such as Google.  For more information, see the official $100 laptop website.  The laptops are small, sturdy (hard to break), are powered by a hand crank or foot pedal (quickly recharges), and look to be fun to use.  The cranks are useful because they allow the laptops to run in villages where there is no power.  In addition, the laptops automatically establish local area networks.

Incidentally, some time ago SquirrelNet predicted that PC's or "NetPC's" in the price range of $50 will someday be available to third world and developing countries.  The $100 laptop program is a sign that we are right in making this prediction (just to toot our own horn).

As you can see, the laptop can be easily folded to be used just like a book.  A similar twist of the laptop makes it function like a photo album.