Big google search improvement: date range

Matt Cutts tells us that Google's advanced search now offers real date range search -- but then tells the real secret -- how to craft URLs that embed time-based searches:

Useful Google feature: better date search:

...This little tweak is as handy as “&strip=1″ on cache: queries and “&filter=0″ on site: queries. Why? It’s an easy way to see new urls that Google has just discovered in the last few days.

For example, there’s been a lot of fast progress on iphone stuff recently. A query such as http://www.google.com/search?q=iphone+source+code&as_qdr=d1 would show all the new urls for the query [iphone source code] within the last day, because d1 stands for 1 day.

Suppose you wanted to see all the new urls that Google found on your site within the last 7 days. For the domain mattcutts.com, I’d use a query such as http://www.google.com/search?q=site:mattcutts.com&as_qdr=d7 to find those urls (remember, “d” stands for days and “7″ stands for, well, 7).

Previously, you could check whether Google had indexed a new url by (say) searching for content from that url, so this isn’t completely new, but it still simplifies life for site owners.

Honestly, this is big. The one thing I most wanted from Google search was date range information; many technical searches are frustrated by scads of outdated articles. The challenge will be to see if they can keep this working despite the best efforts of the usual parasites ...

PS. The iPhone source code example is cute.

Google is indeed working on the broken Picasa Web Album iPhoto plug-in

They could do a better job of communication, but Google's photo sharing site has apparently not abandoned their OS X (iPhoto) customer base:

Picasa web albums: not for OS X

... A Google Picasa [web album] developer commented ... The good news is that he's actively working on an update that will announced on the Google Mac blog....

Update 10/15/07: It took two months and Google never changed their download page to notify users it didn't work, but the new version is out.

Picasa web albums: not for OS X

I'd been very fond of Google's Picasa web albums, but about a month ago the iPhoto '08 broke the Google (Picasa) Export Plug-in. It's been a month now and there's been no official admission from Google of the problem and no fixes.

It's time for OS X users to look somewhere besides Google. Too bad the .Mac photo sharing doesn't support full res upload/download. I'll be looking around, suggestions welcome!

Update 9/15/07: A Google Picasa developer commented on my blog, see comments. The good news is that he's actively working on an update that will announced on the Google Mac blog. I don't agree that a single, increasingly buried, comment on the help forum counts as sufficient notification of the problem -- Google should have updated their download page. I haven't come across any alternative I like as much as Picasa web albums, so with this additional notificaton I'll keep waiting.

OS X users: How to get your NBC

I don't watch network TV.

Well, that's not completely true. The other night I was stuck in a Hilton DoubleTree, and, as is often the case with Hilton, their Net access was down. My only reading material was densely technical, so, for the first time in years, I turned on a television. In 30 channels, there was nothing I could tolerate for more than 30 seconds.

So I don't care whether or not NBC's TV shows are available for me to watch. Some Mac users, however, are probably annoyed that NBC's solutions are strictly for Windows.

In that spirit, CNET tells us how to pirate how to pirate NBC. I'll shed no tears for NBC ...

10 Immutable Laws of Security (Microsoft)

An excellent Coding Horror post, about which I'll comment later, pointed to a handy (Microsoft?!) set of security principles. I omitted the stupidly obvious ones that were added so they'd have a list of 10 (Microsoft!):

Microsoft TechNet: 10 Immutable Laws of Security

Law #1: If a bad guy can persuade you to run his program on your computer, it's not your computer anymore
Law #2: If a bad guy can alter the operating system on your computer, it's not your computer anymore
Law #3: If a bad guy has unrestricted physical access to your computer, it's not your computer anymore Law
Law #4: If you allow a bad guy to upload programs to your website, it's not your website any more
Law #5: Weak passwords trump strong security
Law #6: A computer is only as secure as the administrator is trustworthy
Law #7: Encrypted data is only as secure as the decryption key
Law #8: An out of date virus scanner is only marginally better than no virus scanner at all
Law #9: Absolute anonymity isn't practical, in real life or on the Web

There's nothing here that should be novel to any geek, but it's a nice set to be able to reference. Law #3 is the one most people forget. Even Macintouch fell into the trap of thinking a hack that allows admin access to any OS X machine was a major security breach. That hack requires physical access, so the admin workaround is a trivial security breach. (OS X user account encryption will provide decent security, provided you don't put the password in your keychain!)

Also, Law #8 is a bit dated. Most geeks are giving up on virus scanners for XP/Vista, and OS X doesn't need one (yet).

What is the FullCircle folder doing in my OS X Application Support Folder?

In the process of debugging some very, very annoying Firefox 2.0/Adobe behaviors, and purging my MacBook of anything to do with Adobe (more on that later) I came across a folder called "FullCircle" within my "Application Support" folder. It had MozillaCamino strings in it. What the heck is that, I wondered ...

It's part of the Mozilla feedback/crash reporting system, and it's used by both Camino and Firefox (and probably Mozilla/Netscape too). For example:

Mac OS X 10.4.2: Questions And Answers:

To troubleshoot, I would delete the Firefox and FullCircle folders from / Users / [user] / Library / Application Support, and search for a Mozilla folder or files (on the entire boot drive) and delete them, too. Repair Permissions again, reboot, and then the same problem.

This was surprisingly hard to uncover!

A blog dedicated entirely to calendar interoperability

This guy's been beating the drum for calendar interoperability in a dedicated blog since June 2005!

Calendar Swamp: Calendar swamp is born

When you're up to your necks in appointment alligators, it's hard to remember the original job was to drain the calendar swamp.

Wow, this guy is persistent! I truly sympathize, though I don't have his endurance. I'll definitely add him to my bloglist.