According to the ICT World, there is a new malware program  called Zcodec roaming around on unsuspecting people’s PCs changing the way search results are displayed from the search engines, including Google. The program installs itself as part of an innocent multimedia codec support file to allegedly help the computer user playback different media formats.

However the program also installs a second executable program that changes DNS setting on the target PCs and serves up search result pages from the program creators own web servers in order to profit from a pay-per-click play.

You can download a Free program here called rootkit by Sysinternals that will check your PC for the presence of such programs.

The Washington Journal reports the founders of Google got themselves into a nasty lawsuit over a private “party plane” makeover. The contractor hired to design and manage the Boing 767 interior conversion project named Leslie Jennings now suing the holding company Google setup over his premature contract termination. The apparent spat started over some bizarre request by the Google founders for king size beds and a hammock hanging from the airplane’s ceiling. As bizarre as this may sound, it’s not that uncommon for company executives and celebrities with gabs of cash to indulge in the finer things in life. What probably makes this news more interesting is the fact that the founders of Google are very low key and private. Of course we can’t forget about their famous mantra:

‘Don’t be evil,’ which is to do the best things we know how for our users, for our customers, for everyone.” -Larry Page

Retrofitting a Boing 767 as a “party plane” may just qualify as the “best thing for everyone”, but trying to keep the information about the lawsuit in fear of revealing their own human fallibility to the public is less than impressive.

Searching just got easier thanks to Quintura’s new free search tool. This downloadable windows based program helps searchers create better search queries by finding through word association semantically related words. With a clever visual interface the word connections can be seen as a map and added or removed from your search query.

In some ways this tool is similar to Wordtracker or the Google Adword keyword suggestion tools without the visual mapping. After taking the tool for a test around the block I was pleasantly surprised to find out how simple and easy it is to build search queries. The Quintura search tool finds relevant keyword terms and maps them on your screen, which allows for easy search query building.
(Read on …)

It’s a race to the finish.who will take home the gold. With all the top search engines scrambling to get a product out by year’s end, Google, Yahoo, MSN and Ask Jeeves all trying to out do the other and vying for loyalty retention of their existing users. In a step to keep pace with chief rival Google who release their beta desktop back in October, Yahoo plans to start testing a downloadable desktop search application in early January and Microsoft is laying the groundwork for future battles with Google, Yahoo by releasing their beta desktop search in December.

In my opinion this technology is probably one of most ludicrous developments I’ve come across or heard of. Why would I want my computer to run several background processes that are going to slow my performance down to a snails pace.

Also, all I have been reading about is what a security threat these new desktop tools can be especially if you’re sharing a computer which of course means anyone can access your files. Whether or not Google intended this, I take great pause at knowing any e-mail I write or read on a PC with Google Desktop Search could be called up and read by a complete stranger. Oh and let’s not forget the possibility of spyware, they can break security patches and cause other spyware to break, ceasing internet connectivity.

Plus why do I need a search engine built into my desktop Isn’t that what shortcuts are for. I still haven’t found a practical reason to install this software. It would appear to me the technology giants are telling us since you can’t remember where you posted a file on your computer, well then you dummy let us do it for you. Reminds me of the of the famous line in the movie Field of Dreams, build it and they will come, does every search engine believe by building a desktop application everyone will do cartwheels and flock to them, I think not. Do we really need something else to clutter up our desktops and eat more system resources.