quotation

How to access Google's new Verbatim search feature

Google removed the "+" operator from searches a few weeks ago, but the replacement hasn't been received with open arms.

According to Google, the plus operator was being used incorrectly and was used in a very small amount of searches. In its place, double quotation marks were implemented and seen as operators that would be used more efficiently. However, a lot of users were not excited by this alternative.

To please the masses, Google is rolling out another way to make sure you're searching for something worded in the exact way that you typed it in: meet … Read more

Twitter gets even more quotable

Since quoting Twitter posts is all the rage in journalism these days, Twitter's launching an official way to do it.

According to its Twitter Media blog, on Tuesday, the company will either unveil, launch, or roll out (they're being awfully coy about it) a way to embed tweets on third-party sites with a bit of HTML.

"No, really. It's very simple," the blog post explained. With "just a snippet of code, you'll be able to use to generate simple, selectable flat-HTML tweets."

It'll look like a screen-grabbed image of a tweet, … Read more

Scripture reader

BiblePromise gives you a fresh Bible passage every day, and boasts a very intriguing extra option. With a layout that could not get much simpler, you can easily receive daily inspiration on your desktop.

The program is so focused that there is very little room for anyone to get confused. BiblePromise offers a few customizations, but it basically runs itself. The Help file reflects this, as it focuses mostly on religious topics and very little on overcoming any hurdles in the program. The program simply appears when a computer is started. The image is a small rectangular box filled with … Read more

Google gets political with quotation tool

Just in time for the home stretch of the U.S. presidential showdown, some crafty engineers at Google have created a tool to compare quotations from candidates Barack Obama and John McCain. Called "In Quotes," the Google Labs project lets you search for a given term (say, "economy") and Google will bring up a quotation from each presidential candidate that mentions the term.

Hit the "spin" button to display different quotations, all of which have been pulled from recent Google News stories.

You can also compare quotations from U.K. prime minster Gordon Brown … Read more

Say what? When it comes to uptime, 'Second Life' founder is on cloud nine

Virtual world Second Life, the centerpiece of this weekend's Second Life Community Convention in Chicago, has occasionally come under fire for its outages. Scheduled downtime, unpredicted outages, server crashes due to onslaughts of thousands of Super Mario graphics flooding the tubes (those are from griefers, natch)--it's a headache for newbies and avid residents alike.

But in his keynote at the convention on Saturday morning, Philip Rosedale, the founder and CEO of Second Life parent company Linden Lab, suggested that we all look on the bright side. The virtual world is active about 90 percent of the time, … Read more