Now days we all are addicted to Google let it be a developer, businessman, architect, engineer or any other professional person. Its use has been intensified in every walk of life. Also with its massive data chunk and billions of indexed web pages, one has to effectively provide a search query (keywords) to get the desired search results.

So the question arises what are the different techniques rather ways to specify a search query. Let’s dig into some points in this regards:

Using the Keyword ‘Site’:

This keyword restricts the search to particular site type like .com, .edu, etc. It can also be used to narrow down search on a particular site like google.com. Let’s have some examples:

• We need some important contact information of “AIIMS” educational institute. To narrow down the search we can employ the help of ‘site’ keyword as given below:
  Phone aims site:edu
• We need to find tuition fees of MIT university
  Tuition fees site:mit.edu

Searching for exact phrase:

To get an exact search result, one can specify a phrase (search keywords between quotes “”) instead of using separate words. These search keywords inside quote (“”) are presented as a single unit to Google search algorithm, enabling it to narrow down our search results. Here are some examples:

• Need Google API wiki page. Using phrases the search can be narrow down to results which contains words “Google API wiki”, eliminating results with separate words
  “Google API wiki” page – Returns 37,000 results
  Google API wiki page – Returns 54, 800, 000 results
• Need use case diagram of ATM machine
  “use case” diagram ATM

Excluding some terms from search results:

The Hyphen (-) is used to exclude a particular term from search keywords. Google by default uses ‘AND’ operation on all the keywords provided, that is in short it matches all keywords provided. But when we append hyphen operator with any keyword, Google simply excludes the term. Let’s have some examples to get a detailed picture:

• Suppose we need information on photography but excluding Wikipedia photography -site:wikipedia.org, Google presents us search results with excluded Wikipedia info

Search results with similar keywords:

When we need search results to be more generic and should cover words similar in meaning to the keywords, we can use negate (~) sign to indicate it. This can be demonstrated by the search term given below:

• ~college pune , the negate sign appended before the keyword ‘college’, enforces Google to include similar terms like ‘higher education’, ‘school’, ‘university’, etc in it.

Search results with particular document type:

Sometimes we need information in particular document format like pdf, excel, doc, etc. To scrutinize are search results for particular document type use ‘doc:’ keyword. Its use can be demonstrated by:

• “robotics controller” doc:pdf , Google find all pdf document which
  contains words robotics controller.

Using logical operators:

Google also allows us to use various logical operators like OR, AND, wildcard, parenthesis or ranges. Let’s check how it goes:

• “NASA discovery shuttle” 1999..2006, Google finds all info about discovery shuttle which were published or occurred from 1999 to 2006
• Nasa (*earth like planets OR discovery mission) 1999..2006, Google searches info about NASA’s discovery mission or NASA’s mission to find another earth.

Google as a calculator:

Google’s special query is so versatile that there is no need to open calculator for numeric expressions, just enter your expression (3892 / 89 * (90 + 23)) in Google search bar and your result will be ready.

Some other quick searches:

• Finding definition: Use keyword ‘define:’ Example: define: constipation
• For unit conversion: 1$ in INR or 400 gram in kilograms
• Search a book by author:  use keyword ‘author:’ Example: triton author:Randolph Lalonde

What’s your favourite Google search technique? Tell us about it in comments.

Ever wondered whether you can access Facebook via command line? Is there any command line interface (CLI) available for those people who like to stick with terminal window? The answer is fbcmd.

fbcmd is command line application available for Linux flavours as well as Windows. I admit, accessing Facebook through browser window or mobile devices is a lot easier. but, what’s the typical use-case of fbcmd is- you can now schedule your status updates to be published at particular time with help of cron jobs. Sounds cool..isn’t it?

Installation and use is very simple for those who love to fire commands in their terminals.

Prerequisite

You must have PHP5 installed on your system to install fbcmd. To check whether PHP is already installed on your computer type “php -v” in terminal. If installed, the output will be the version installed on your computer else use the command below to install PHP.

If Linux flavour is Ubuntu,

sudo apt-get install php5

If you are using centos,

yum install php5 php-cli

Installation

Obtain the fbcmd_udpate.php program by executing:

curl -O https://github.com/dtompkins/fbcmd/raw/master/fbcmd_update.php

Execute the following two commands:

curl -O https://raw.github.com/dtompkins/fbcmd/master/fbcmd_update.php
sudo php fbcmd_update.php
sudo php fbcmd_update.php install

Initial Test

1. Try the command:

fbcmd

The output should be-

Welcome to fbcmd! [version 1.0-beta5-dev1]

This application needs to be authorized to access your Facebook account.
You are almost done! This application needs to be authorized to access your Facebook account. This is a one time process.

2. Allow basic (initial) access to your account via this URL:

fbcmd go access

3. Generate an offline authorization code

fbcmd go auth

4. Obtain your authorization code (XXXXXX)

fbcmd auth XXXXXX

5. Grant additional permissions to fbcmd

fbcmd addperm

Commands:

To get syntax of any command in fbcmd use-

fbcmd help

Set your status update

fbcmd status “Accessing FB through console”

Get your profile ID

fbcmd whoami

Fetch (and optionally save) profile pics of all the friends

fbcmd ppics =all /tmp/fbcmd/ppics/

Export all your friend’s B’day date in csv format

fbcmd finfo birthday_date -csv

Get list any friends who are currently online

fbcmd fonline

There are many other commands available, all of them are listed on fbcmd wiki page.
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When going from one language to another, some things have to be unlearned. What you know from other languages may not be always useful in Python. Over time, a lot of idioms and ideas arose in the Python community about what the right way to use Python is, and also what would be a wrong way. One of the major part of “pythonic” way of coding is making code more readable. In this article, we will discuss the various tools available online/offline for formatting python code according to international standards (See Pep8)

Eclipse (Pydev):

Eclipse has a very useful plugin – Pydev, for python development. The recent release of Pydev comes with code formatting and style guide. Pydev also includes Pep8 validations for your code. If properly configured, eclipse can be used to code in python with international standards (like pep8).

1. To configure Pep8 within Eclipse follow the steps below-
2. Open your Eclipse
3. Go to Help and select Install New Software
4. Click the Add button and a “Add Repository” Dialog box will appear
5. You can use any name you like for it.
6. For the location, enter “http://pydev.org/updates”
7. Click Ok.
8. You are now in the process of installation. Just wait for it to finish.
9. After the installation, close Eclipse and Open it again.
10. Now that PyDev is installed in your Eclipse, go to Window->Preferences
11. Choose PyDev->Editor->Code Analysis
12. Go to pep8.py tab
13. Choose the radio button for warning and click Ok.

The code style warnings will be shown, if any, each time you do the code analysis (Right click on project folder ->Pydev -> Code Analysis)

Pylint:

Pylint is a lint-like tool for Python code. It performs almost all the verifications that pychecker does, and additionally can perform some stylistic verification and coding standard enforcements. The checked code is assigned a mark based on the number and the severity of the encountered problems. The previous mark of a given piece of code is cached so that you can see if the code quality has improved since the last check.

PythonTidy:

A command line utility for beautification and formatting of Python code. It’s a simple python program which indents your code. If you need consistent indentation across all the python files in project this PythonTidy is best utility.

Pyindent:

Another command line utility for indenting python code. This file performs three basic operations on python programs. When called as “pindent -c”, it takes a valid Python program as input and outputs a version augmented with block-closing comments. When called as “pindent -d”, it assumes its input is a Python program with block-closing comments and outputs a comment-less version. When called as “pindent -r” it assumes its input is a Python program with block-closing comments but with its indentation messed up, and outputs a properly indented version.

Reindent.py:

Command line utility for indenting has a tokenizer allowing it to do smart reindenting based on the indentation level rather than on the number of spaces osed per level (which can vary in bad code)
It comes with following options-

reindent [-d][-r][-v] [ path ... ]

-d (–dryrun) Dry run. Analyze, but don’t make any changes to, files.
-r (–recurse) Recurse. Search for all .py files in subdirectories too.
-v (–verbose) Verbose. Print informative msgs; else no output.
-h (–help) Help. Print this usage information and exit.

Do you know any other better python code formatters? Feel free to share it with our readers in comments.

Have you noticed that blank status on friend’s profile? or someone in your friend’s list tagged with some different name?

Curious..? Well, here are those awesome tricks..

Tag someone with different name

It’s simple-

Copy and Paste the below line in your status or comment box

@@[0:[235959506635:0: Any text you like Here]]

Where,

235959506635 : Replace this with the profile ID or page you wish to Tag. But, now a days most of the profiles and pages have set their custom usernames, page/profile ID is not available that easily. You can use Facebook’s Open Graph API to find ID. Simply add ‘graph’ before www in your address bar and hit Enter. You will get a JSON response with parameters like “id”, “name”, “picture” etc.

Copy the number next to “id” field which is a profile/page ID.

Any text you like Here: Replace this text with any other text you would like to display for that link.

NOTE: After recent changes, Facebook removed support for this trick.

Blank Status on Facebook

Facebook users can update their status as blank by following trick.

• Copy paste @[0: ] to your status bar
• Click update.

Your Facebook status will be now updated with blank message.

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Facebook recently launched a bunch of enhancements that impressed most of us. The series of changes like smart lists, chat, timeline just put Facebook ahead of it’s competitors. But, there are few bugs in new interface which Facebook team might have missed.

I have already reported these to Facebook and probably they might have started working on them. but, I thought you might be interested in what are those bugs.

Bug #1

Smart lists allows us to merge custom lists into those created by Facebook with the help of your profile information. For Ex. previously before smart list rolled out for me, I had created a custom list of those people who graduated with me from PICT. Now, after Facebook introduced Smart lists, I have an option to merge my existing custom list, i.e. “PICT”, into the one created by Facebook, say “Pune Institute of Computer Technology, Pune”.

Merging custom list will move all your friends to new list and will delete custom list. So, after merge my new list is “Pune Institute of Computer Technology, Pune” and the older one was scrapped by Facebook.

Problem here is, the new “Smart” lists are not yet integrated with Facebook chat, the result is you cannot chat with all of your friends in that new list.

Bug #2

Now, after loosing a way of contact with those friends you might be thinking of restoring your existing custom list. But, Facebook haven’t gave you copy or delete rights of these smart lists yet. So, the only way of restoring a custom list is to create one and one by one add your friends in it, a tedious task!

Bug #3

Even complete strangers can also view partial contents on someone’s wall; like comments by that person on friend’s status updates, photos in which he is tagged in, his posts on friend’s wall etc etc. This might evade privacy, though Facebook provides an option to hide all the comment activity from wall but, this will hide it even from your friends.

Bug #4

Old interface allowed us to filter by “Only Status Updates”, which was indeed very useful in reducing noise in updates stream. In new interface, that option just disappeared. This might not sound like a bug but, yeah I feel most of the people will be missing that option.

Hope someone from Facebook team take a note of these. The new features like timeline look equally promising, I wonder where they are going to integrate it though.

As an “addicted” Facebook user you might have noticed some bugs or some features that need enhancements. Feel free to share ‘em here.

Often when develop a code with team, you face the problem of swapping the files either using email or FTP. But this doesn’t make sure that every developer has the updated piece of code or everybody is in sync with each other. Thus version control systems are introduced, to explain it in simple words, there is one repository every developer updates the code, thus repository having all the latest code. Following are list of few version control system which are being widely used.

CVS

CVS(Concurrent Version System) is father of all revision system. It was developed back in July 1986. It is installed virtually everywhere. Learning curve in CVS is not steep. Using CVS it is simple to be sure files and revisions are kept upto.

SVN

SVN is software versioning and revision control system. It is mostly compatible with CVS. It has been widely used for open source projects like Apache Software Foundation, GCC, FreeBSD, Django, etc. It has also been accepted into corporate world.

Git

Git is a free and open source, distributed version control system that can be used to handle small to very large projects with speed and efficiency. Every git directory is a full-fledged repository with complete history and full-fledged revision tracking capabilities. Git has been designed with keeping certain criteria like like support for distributed system, high performance, very strong safeguard against corruption, either accidental or malicious.

Mercurial

Mercurial is again open source distributed version control system like git. It was mainly intended for large projects. Learning curve for Mercurial is much easier as compared to Git. The functions of Mercurial is very much similar to that of CVS.

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This is a guest post from Michelle Foster who writes about cheap web hosting at Web Hosting Search.

Facebook haѕ grown from a small project bу somе college kids іntо а billion dollar company. Yes, іt іs thе story of dreams аnd super success. It haԁ the rags tо riches story and no wonԁer the Facebook story has bеcоme so popular thаnks to movies likе “The Social Network”.

Facebook іt ѕeems wіll ѕoоn challenge Google or mауbе еvеn eclipse it. That might be interesting but I dо feel thеre аre 3 reasons, Facebook wіll nеver reach thе size аnd mоre importantly the influence that Google has.

#1. A Closed Environment

No, I do not mеan the work culture. I guess thе work culture of bоth companies іs pretty open and fun. Closed environment for me, means the lack of outward innovation. Google wants to bе thе company that manages уour online data. That goal іs simple yеt open.

For Facebook, іt wаntѕ tо replicate your social life оn thе web. Great іt hаѕ achieved that; but now what? More connections and mоrе friends, along wіth mоre options tо share content form the web. That iѕ great but othеr than that, Facebook doеs nоt seеm tо hаvе а open-ended aim.

With а faster web wе mіght share photos anԁ videos and mаybе buy movies anԁ services from our Facebook account.

#2. Lack of clarity оn data management

For ѕоme reason Facebook messed uр wіth privacy last year. It changed the privacy policies anԁ made people uneasy аbout thе intentions of Facebook. About a year ago, I had manу friends оn Facebook whо werе therе bесаuse thеy loved it, nоw theу аre on it оnly bесausе аll thеir friends arе on it.

Facebook can take users fоr granted but оnly tо аn extent. At sоme point оf time, MySpace prоbаblу ԁiԁ the ѕаme anԁ іs now a dying service.

Google on the other hand haѕ а reputation, whiсh iѕ morе reliable at-least whеn іt comes tо handling оur data.

#3. Content creation Vs content sharing

Google encourages creating new content mаinly becаuѕe it wаnts people to search for newer and more uр to date content. Facebook basically encourages sharing content thаnks tо links and photos but ԁoеs nоt necessarily encourage creation of new content.

Facebook to rеаlly challenge Google’s influence оn the internet wіll рrobаbly nееԁ to sort оut thеsе issues. They are nоt еxасtly issues or problems аѕ Facebook stіll seеms tо be finding а purpose аfter 7 years of existence whіle Google аlwaуѕ hаd a purpose well bеfоrе it wеnt live.

In Short..

Conclusion

The current trends for front end development are mainly jQuery, Python, Scala. Though some companies use Microsoft technologies but, the percentage of such companies is very less. Although MySQL and Cassandra has been favorites databases but few are moving to MongoDB which is a NoSQL database. Back end of these high scaling sites run on variety of different technologies such as Django, python, RoR, Closure, C++, Java, Scala etc.

I’ve written this post to give insights about which technology combinations are preferred by websites with high user base, you might want to consider these points while choosing platforms and programming languages for your start-up.

Like this article? or have some thing to say? Comment down your opinions.

• Open URL: chrome://settings/searchEngines
• Add new entry with following values

Search in posts

1. Column 1: Google+ Posts
2. Column 2: post
3. Column 3: {google:baseURL}search?q=site:plus.google.com inurl:posts/* %s

Search for profiles

1. Column 1: Google+ Profiles
2. Column 2: profile
3. Column 3: {google:baseURL}search?q=%s&tbs=prfl:e

For more such tricks follow us on Twitter at @tutkiun

1. Create a post. I suggest something that explains that the post is being used to invite them to Google+, also explaining that invites are being limited. (They will get that post in an email with the first few words as the subject line)

2a. Inviting by suggested contact list: Create a circle with everyone you want to invite in your contact list (I created one called, creatively, “Invitees”). Add that circle under “Share”
2b. Inviting by email: Typing their names directly into the box under what you want to share, where it says “+Add more people.”

3. Hit share.

Note, I’ve been informed by a Googler+ that invites are rate limited by hour. So if they can’t click through that first time, they can try again later with same link. (You don’t need to resend it)

Update: If you are still not on Google Plus and need an invite to join then, please signup from here