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Archives for November, 2006.

Archive for November, 2006

Highlight: George Michael Contest

5:54 pm - November 29, 2006 in Google Video Blog
Today I'm going to share a George Michael moment with you.

When my cousin and I were little kids, we'd crimp our hair, roll on our neon legwarmers, and put on our favorite jellies and scrunch socks to perform George Michael's endearing hit "Last Christmas" for our parents.

I wish I had taped our little performace. If I did, it'd be uploaded faster than you can belt out "I'll give it to someone special!"

Are you, your mom, your aunt, or sister a George Michael fan? If so, I've got a terrific holiday present for you.

To celebrate the release of George Michael's album "Twenty Five," RCA Label Group is inviting fans from all over the world to upload their version of the classic video "Last Christmas". Every video that is submitted will go into a random draw to win George Michael merchandise!

For more details, please visit http://www.rcalabelgroup.co.uk/google/us/



Click here to watch "George Michael - Last Christmas"
The classic video to another of George Michael's hits... George Michael Twenty Five is out on 13th Nov 2006
4 min 38 sec

Share these videos with your friends using the "Send link to a friend" feature! Learn how here!
 

Search Robots in Disguise

2:57 pm - November 29, 2006 in Live Search

There are plenty of bots out there and, as a result, some conventions have arisen.  Well-behaved bots identify themselves with a unique user-agent.  They also follow the robots.txt conventions, which allow webmasters to control how their sites are crawled.

Here at Live Search, our crawlers are identified by the user-agent ‘MSNBot’.  This may seem a little non-intuitive, but many webmasters depend on this, and so we chosen not to change it.  In order to make things a little more transparent, we also identify our different types of crawlers.  The complete list is as follows: 

                MSNBot                                        Main web crawler (www.live.com)

                MSNBot-Media                               Images & all other media (images.live.com)

                MSNBot-NewsBlogs                         News and blogs (search.live.com/news)

                MSNBot-Products                           Products & shopping (products.live.com)

                MSNBot-Academic                          Academic search (academic.live.com)

But what about crawlers that aren’t so well-behaved?  After all, anyone could call themselves ‘MSNBot’, and proceed to be as rude and aggressive as they like.  Fortunately, there is a way you can catch these impersonators. Here is how it works: 

  1. When you get a page view request, it specifies a user-agent and an IP address.  As I described above, all requests from Live Search use a user agent starting with the word ‘MSNBot’.
  2. If you see the MSNBot user-agent, it’s time to check the identity of the bot.  Starting with the IP address (i.e. 207.46.98.149), you can use reverse DNS lookup to find out the registered name of the machine.
  3. Once you have the host name (in this case, livebot-207-46-98-149.search.live.com), you can check that it really is coming from Live Search.  The name of all live search crawlers will end with ‘search.live.com’.  If the name doesn’t end with ‘search.live.com’, you know it’s not really our crawler.
  4. Finally, you need to verify that the name is accurate.  In order to do this, you can use Forward DNS to see the IP address associated with the host name.  This should match the IP address you used in Step 2 – if it doesn’t, it means the name was fake.

By verifying the crawler’s identity, you can catch masquerading crawlers.  When you do catch one, you can simply return an HTTP Error, thus blocking them from seeing your content.  

We are constantly looking for your feedback to help improve our engine – please send it our way using this link.

Brent Hands, Program Manager, Live Search

 

Highlight: WatchMojo.com

8:52 pm - November 28, 2006 in Google Video Blog
What is WatchMojo.com?

With more and more people turning to their computers for entertainment rather than their television sets, WatchMojo.com strives to produce original content for said people to watch. Their mission is to create informational and entertainment videos for the world wide web's growing audience.

So kick back, relax, and get your mojo here.

Today's Highlighted Videos


Click here to watch "Guide to Ties - The Windsor Knot"
Most men have no idea what they're doing when it comes to tying a tie let alone fashion in general. This guide shows you how to tie them properly and this clip shows the classiest knot of all, The Windsor.
1 min 20 sec



Click here to watch "Guide to Belly Dancing - Part 1 Introduction"
An introduction to the art of belly dancing and some of its history and definitions.
59 sec



Click here to watch "Fashion Faux-Pas for Women - Part 4"
A look at some common fashion mistakes that women make, and some suggestions for remedying them.
47 sec



Click here to watch "Bartending Tips - How to make a Mountain Dew drop shot"
Bartending Tips: A bartender shows you how to mix a Mountain Dew drop shot!
40 sec



Click here to watch "Guide to Drums - The Double Stroke"
A drummer demonstrates how to properly execute a double stroke.
1 min 48 sec

Share these videos with your friends using the "Send link to a friend" feature! Learn how here!



 

Videos to make your Monday better!

7:02 pm - November 27, 2006 in Google Video Blog
Got the Monday blues?

Fret not! Here are my picks from the Google Video Top 100 to help you get through today.

Today's Highlighted Videos


5. Click here to watch "Sneak peek at Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix"
From HPANA.com
3 min 50 sec


9. Click here to watch "Panda Sneezes"
Sneezing panda, priceless!
13 sec


97. Click here to watch "Shark vs Seal"
A great white shark attacks a seal from below.
20 sec

Think you have an even cooler video? Upload it!
 

Updates to Live.com

3:44 am - November 11, 2006 in My.live.com blog

Yesterday, we released a small update to Live.com, intended to fix a number of bugs and improve the overall experience. While there aren't too many drastic changes that you can see, a number of items are worth calling out:

  • Performance Improvements - We told you that we were serious about performance, and we still are. Every time we release an update, the team makes sure that the site is only getting faster. We made several improvements with this release that should make things snappier. Speed is our priority, and we hope you're feeling the benefits. Watch for even more improvements coming soon!
  • Rename Your Gadgets - You can now rename any of your gadgets right on the page. Simply use the "Edit" menu (found on any gadget), select "Rename" and type in any name you would like.
     
  • Start Over - Is "My Stuff" stuffed? Want to start customizing Live.com all over again? We now offer an easy way for you to start from scratch, and erase any changes you have made to your page. When you are signed in, simply click the "Start over" link that can be found next to your name (we'll ask if you're really sure before we change anything). Erasing is forever... be sure you truly want a fresh start before clicking that link! We will not be able to recover you data once it is gone. This functionality was previously offered to our anonymous users, but we're happy to now give our signed in users a chance to start over as well.
  • Stock Gadget Enhancements - In addition to making this gadget more accessible for users using assistive technologies, we've added some nice new features as well. First, you can now add mutual fund symbols as easily as stock symbols - this was a frequent user request, so thanks for the feedback! Additionally, the stock gadget now offers selectable period charts from within the gadget. Expand a quote, and use the arrows under the chart to cycle between 30 day, 90 day, 1 year and intra-day charts!

  • New Gadgets - Just in time for the holiday season, the Windows Live Shopping team has released some fun new gadgets to help with your gift buying (even if you're buying for yourself). Click "Add Stuff", select "Gadgets" and then "Shopping" to discover the Gift Buying Guide, Shopping Price Watcher, Window Shopping, Shopping Search Gadget, and more! Have fun with these new gadgets, and keep watching Windows Live Gallery for new user-created gadgets to add to your page!

 

As always, we love hearing your feedback and want to hear your thoughts! You can email the entire team at livefb-at-microsoft-dot-com. Enjoy the new release!

 

Updates to Live.com

9:42 pm - November 10, 2006 in My.live.com team's space

Yesterday, we released a small update to Live.com, intended to fix a number of bugs and improve the overall experience. While there aren't too many drastic changes that you can see, a number of items are worth calling out:

  • Performance Improvements - We told you that we were serious about performance, and we still are. Every time we release an update, the team makes sure that the site is only getting faster. We made several improvements with this release that should make things snappier. Speed is our priority, and we hope you're feeling the benefits. Watch for even more improvements coming soon!
  • Rename Your Gadgets - You can now rename any of your gadgets right on the page. Simply use the "Edit" menu (found on any gadget), select "Rename" and type in any name you would like.
     
  • Start Over - Is "My Stuff" stuffed? Want to start customizing Live.com all over again? We now offer an easy way for you to start from scratch, and erase any changes you have made to your page. When you are signed in, simply click the "Start over" link that can be found next to your name (we'll ask if you're really sure before we change anything). Erasing is forever... be sure you truly want a fresh start before clicking that link! We will not be able to recover you data once it is gone. This functionality was previously offered to our anonymous users, but we're happy to now give our signed in users a chance to start over as well.
  • Stock Gadget Enhancements - In addition to making this gadget more accessible for users using assistive technologies, we've added some nice new features as well. First, you can now add mutual fund symbols as easily as stock symbols - this was a frequent user request, so thanks for the feedback! Additionally, the stock gadget now offers selectable period charts from within the gadget. Expand a quote, and use the arrows under the chart to cycle between 30 day, 90 day, 1 year and intra-day charts!

  • New Gadgets - Just in time for the holiday season, the Windows Live Shopping team has released some fun new gadgets to help with your gift buying (even if you're buying for yourself). Click "Add Stuff", select "Gadgets" and then "Shopping" to discover the Gift Buying Guide, Shopping Price Watcher, Window Shopping, Shopping Search Gadget, and more! Have fun with these new gadgets, and keep watching Windows Live Gallery for new user-created gadgets to add to your page!

 

As always, we love hearing your feedback and want to hear your thoughts! You can email the entire team at livefb-at-microsoft-dot-com. Enjoy the new release!

 
 
 
 
 
 
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