Google is full of useful functions and search tricks that you probably don’t know. I recently spent some time with Google engineers Jake Hubert and Dan Russell, learning ways to get more out of Google search. These are tips you’ll find useful, whether you’re wondering how to convert Centigrade to Fahrenheit before you head for the beaches in the south of France, or need to look at a patent for a technology innovation.

We had hardly started our conversation, when Russell gave me his first, and over-arching, tip: If you want to know something about Google search, simply search for it. “Don’t bother to remember a URL. I don’t,” he said…..

Let’s say you want to know something about a patent. Simply type “Google patents” in a search bar, and the first hit you get will take you to Google Patent Search. Google and the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office have struck an agreement, and you can now have access to more than 7 million patents, including drawings.

The Internet promises unlimited connectivity, but such connectivity requires that computers and devices find one another through a common address plan. The current plan, in place since the late 1970s, is running out of open addresses, and a new scheme called IPv6 is being put in place to power the Internet’s next stage of growth.

For small businesses that plan ahead, this shift can enhance computing security and application reliability and performance. But waiting until the last minute could leave you scrambling for costly equipment updates, missing an opportunity to turn a necessary change into a business boost…..

Ministry of Information Technology and Telecom has confirmed that it has received ban orders from Lahore High Court on Thursday to ban Google, Yahoo, Hotmail, MSN, Bing, YouTube, Amazon etc , reported BBC Urdu, citing unnamed sources in the Ministry.

It merits mentioning here that inter-ministerial committee of IT Ministry decides on how to and why to ban or not to ban a website. Committee is reportedly meeting today to discuss the implication, execution and procedures of the ban.

IT Ministry has an option of getting stay-order from Supreme Court against LHC’s decision; however, all these options will be discussed in today’s meeting.

Unlike Facebook’s ban previous month, LHC’s current ban orders for search engines were not welcomed by the masses.

Earlier this week, Lahore High Court had ordered to immediately block nine websites for publishing and promoting sacrilegious material while hearing a writ petition filed by a citizen, Muhammad Sidiq, seeking a ban on the websites for publishing blasphemous materials and twisting the facts and figure of Holy Quran.

PTA  has already sent a summary to Prime Minister of Pakistan to discuss ban options of offensive websites – summary has details on implications of banning search engines and social media.

Ban includes 9 websites, which are considered as backbone of internet, blocking them will mean a total internet blackout in the country.

Update:

Inter-Ministerial committee has decided to ban all those URLs containing blasphemous content, as directed by LHC, however, search engines won’t get blocked in accordance to decision that was earlier taken by Federal Cabinet.

In this regards, Ministry of IT and Telecom will send a list of 17 websites to PTA for a permanent ban.

Moreover, Ministry in its letter will ask PTA to keep monitoring the web for any occurrence of blasphemous content to block them immediately.

Search Engines won’t get Banned:

Committee decided not to ban search engines, as they don’t host or store any content. However, options are considered to make it impossible to search for certain keywords on search engines..

Punjab Police has registered an FIR against three Facebook owners Mark Zuckerberg, Dustin Moskovitz, Chris Hughes and a lady named as Andy who had moved draw Mohammad campaign on Facebook, told deputy attorney general of Pakistan in Lahore High Court during Facebook case hearing.

He presented register of Civil Lines Police Station, Lahore, before the court and said that an FIR has been registered against the four foreigners, however it got sealed, for publishing blasphemous content under blasphemy ordinance section 295-C.

You’ve undoubtedly seen advertisements running down the right-hand side of your Facebook page (as in the example at left). Chances are some of them have promised you that “Hot singles are waiting for you!”

But is the hot girl winking at you from the ad an actual user of the site? Probably not.

Dating advertisements on Facebook often promise to connect you with good-looking singles; and as if to prove that they’ve got the goods, they feature photographs of fit, attractive people flashing a coy smile.

In a typical photo, the subject looks pretty casual, lounging in a T-shirt at home. In some instances they hold a camera out in front of them, as if they snapped the shot themselves.

Google is under global scrutiny for its “accidental” gathering of wi-fi data while driving about photographing the world with its Street View camera cars. In the court of public opinion Google’s actions cross ethical boundaries, but whether or not the activities were illegal depends on the laws in place for the given jurisdiction. Businesses in the United States should understand that the interception of publicly available data traversing the airwaves is probably not illegal.

Granted, “probably” is not a very legally precise term, but the reality is that publicly-available wireless networks fall into a legal gray area that isn’t defined very well. Google didn’t “steal” anything, or even violate any expectation of privacy per se. All Google did was intercept airwaves that were trespassing in its vehicles.

The lesson for businesses and IT administrators is that you have to put forth some effort to at least give the appearance that you intend for the information to be private in order for there to be any inherent expectation of privacy. The burden should not be on Google, or the general public to have to determine whether the data you let freely fly about unencrypted is meant to be shared or is intended for a specific audience…..

Some will equate Google’s actions to someone taking property from a business with an unlocked door. The comparison is not apples to apples, though. If a business has an unlocked, or even a wide open door, passersby still know that entering it would be trespassing, and that taking property from inside would be stealing.

However, in Google’s case, it is more like the business took its property and set it out in the middle of the street. In fact, it might not even be in front of the business, or even on the same street–since the wi-fi signal from the wireless router is broadcast for a respectable distance in all directions. If someone were walking down the street and found a laptop, or a copy machine in the middle of the street, taking it would be neither trespassing, nor stealing–just serendipitous.

There have been cases where individuals have been fined or prosecuted for accessing open wireless networks. A Michigan man was fined and forced to perform community service for accessing a local café’s wireless network without being a customer. An Illinois man plead guilty and received a fine after being caught riding on the wireless network of a non-profit agency from his parked car.

I would argue that even those actions were not technically illegal. If I am out in public with my laptop or iPad, and it detects an available, unencrypted network to connect to, there is no way for me to know whether the owner meant for that network to be private, or if it is intended as a public hotspot. A wireless network is a wireless network, and some devices are configured to connect to any available wireless signal.

Google, however, did not “access” the open networks. It simply intercepted the unencrypted data that businesses and individuals beamed through the air willy-nilly. The data was left in the middle of the street so to speak, and Google gathered it as it drove through collecting photograps.

In Google’s case, the legal issues may just be beginning, though. Some countries, like Germany, have a much different opinion of privacy and different laws in place. Even in the United States, there may still be legal avenues for pursuing Google. But, if Google simply collected data that was publicly available, and never even accessed or used the data in any way as they claim, I fail to see where it did anything wrong.

If you want to stay out of the legal gray area, and protect your data you must turn on encryption for your wireless network. WEP encryption is pathetically simple to crack–trivial for anyone interested, but even WEP at least implies that you intended the data to be private. For better protection, you should employ WPA, or better yet WPA-2 encryption.

If you have a business–like a coffee shop or book store–where you want to share a public wireless network, but only with patrons and only under certain conditions, then you should implement some sort of initial notice or login screen that explains the policy for acceptable use of the wi-fi connection.

I am not a lawyer, and I don’t play one on TV–or even on the Internet, but the bottom line is that if someone walking or driving by can intercept your unencrypted data as it trespasses into their airspace, it’s not your data any more.

RIKSOF (Private) Limited announced, today, the launch of VCred.com an online service for verification of degrees and professional qualifications.

VCred.com provides a convenient and costeffective platform for businesses to make better informed decisions.

Representatives of businesses can quickly signup as professionals by visiting http://VCred.com . Once signed up, users will be able to request verification of qualification for any individual. Average cost of verification is only Rs 300.

Vcred.com said that customers can pay through credit card, alert pay. Degrees of all universities (in Pakistan) can be verified through this. In future Vcred.com will cover international universities’ degree verification as well.

Verification is done by authorized staff at the educational institute that issued the degree or certificate. Institutes are able to make use of digital signatures for enhanced security and legal protection. RIKSOF is approaching leading educational institutes in Pakistan for adoption of VCred.com. This service is free for all institutes.

“VCred provides a secure platform for exchange of information between academia and industry,” said Khurram Ali, Chief Executive Officer at RIKSOF. “People are our main asset. Through this service we hope to build trust and confidence between the people and businesses.”

Internet users have been hit by a widespread Web attack that has compromised thousands of Web sites, including Web pages belonging to the Wall Street Journal and the Jerusalem Post. Estimates of the total number of compromised Web sites vary between 7,000 and 114,000, according to security experts. Other compromised sites include Servicewomen.org and Intljobs.org.

Cisco Systems’ Web-tracking subsidiary, ScanSafe, started following the incident two days ago, said Mary Landesman, a senior security researcher with Cisco. Somehow, the hackers have posted malicious HTML code on the affected Web sites that redirects victims to a malicious Web server. This server tries to install software on Web visitors’ computers. If it’s successful, the software gives the criminals a way to remotely control their victims’ PCs.

Earlier today Ufone launched Self Care Portal to help out its customers in maintaining their account. People can now select from a wide range of products offered.

You can find out or change any information required. From viewing CDRs to changing VAS subscriptions, from switching tariffs to maintaining FnF, everything is now just a click away – no need to walk into a customer Support Center or to make a call to avail such services.

Wi-tribe, a Qtel Group Company, has today announced its alliance with a top WiMAX customer premises equipment (CPE) manufacturer to give its customers a top of the line branded device.