Google Social Search: Customer Connections Now Important for Google Search Results

In spite of having the beta tag on, Google Social Search obviates any doubts about how important the business uses of social media are. If searchers were already seeing different search engine results page (SERP) from one another based on location (client IP), that’s gonna be real, now that searcher’s social circle is consequential.

Since the introduction of Social Search experiment, demoed at the Web 2.0 Summit by Marissa Mayer, Google’s Vice President of Search Products & User Experience, it was obvious that SEO is changing, and it would appear that any business hoping for a gimmick in SERP appearance, would need to have as many connections set up as possible, via various social networking sites.

Once logged in to Google, Social Search combines results from your friend’s blogs, Picasa Web Albums, Flickr, Twitter, FriendFeed, and a wide variety of other social media sites with Google’s regular search results—so long as your friends have connected their social accounts to their Google Profiles.

It pulls connections from your Google Contacts, and any services you have listed on your Google Profile—assuming you have services listed on your profile. As opposed to social networking websites boasting private connections such as Facebook, if you have Twitter listed for example, anyone you are connected to through one of those services is a fair game for potential search results.

With this, Google’s also aiming at the social networking corner of the market, obligating web users to pay strict attention to Google Profiles, thus they may find themselves getting sucked into using Google as more of a social tool, rather than just search.

Added to Google Images, and who knows what else, Social results might always be marked as such and listed under results from your social circle at the bottom of SERP, yet sounds like one more thing to compete with for traditional SEO.

Tips for Appearing in Social Search Results

1. Make sure you have all of your important links listed on your Google Profile.
2. Make as many connections as possible.
3. Encourage customers to follow you via social networks.
4. Participate in social media so people will engage with you.
5. Encourage sharing of content using social media buttons.
6. Include social network information on online advertising, business cards, and signage.

Sony VAIO SZ Series Bluetooth Driver Knocked Down by Windows Update “IVT Corporation - Other hardware - Bluetooth USB Controller (ALPS/UGPZ6)”

Sony VAIO SZ Series has been one of my favorite laptops ever, and in its heydays, given the choice between a “Made in Japan” VAIO VGN-SZ650N and say anything else, I’d choose the VAIO every time.

Microsoft has released an update yesterday, titled “IVT Corporation - Other hardware - Bluetooth USB Controller (ALPS/UGPZ6),” and if you own one of these incredible machines, you should be careful with that.

VGN-SZ650N’s built-in Bluetooth is in fact an ALPS PCI-based Bluetooth adapter. Listed under Bluetooth Radios in Device Manager, Windows 7 detects it as Generic Bluetooth Adapter, and if you dig inside, it’s functioning based on Microsoft Bluetooth driver 6.1.7600.16385 (6/21/2006).

The hardware IDs for the SZ’s BT adapter are USB\VID_044E&PID_300D&REV_1915 or USB\VID_044E&PID_300D in general, with the vendor ID of 044E belonging to ALPS • Alps Electric Co., Ltd.

Installing the 38 kB update titled “IVT Corporation - Other hardware - Bluetooth USB Controller (ALPS/UGPZ6)” published 1/14/2010 will update the driver to your ALPS BT adapter, but Windows 7 default Microsoft Bluetooth Stack would become paralyzed. The Bluetooth icon will disappear from the Notification Area, and you won’t be able to use Microsoft Windows Bluetooth Stack anymore.

To fix that, the dumbest act would be to install some other stack, including Toshiba Bluetooth Stack, Widcomm Bluetooth Stack, or the bloated BlueSoleil.

So, VAIO SZ owners, stay away from the aforementioned update, hide the update, and let your Sony live happily…

How to Acquire Your Symbian Smartphone’s Certificate (.cer) and Private Key (.key) from OPDA

Nokia Symbian Certificate Closed since June 23, 2011^{[Updated August 25, 2011]}

Bad news are aplenty for Symbian users these days, the latest one being that OPDA (and countless similar sites) has stopped working since June 23, 2011 to give them an IMEI-specific cer/key file, required to sign an unsigned app sis/sisx file. This is because some now rules and procedure is used by Symbian certification.

The following article is a step by step picture guide on how to acquire the certificate and private key for your Series 60 Smartphone using OPDA free service.

This article describes how to sign/unsign S60 Symbian SIS/SISX package files with your own certificate signature using SISContents by Aquarius.

The prerequisite to signing S60 Symbian applications (.SIS/.SISX files) is to have both your phone’s certificate (.CER) and private key (.KEY) files in hand.

One of the reliable free services around to obtain your CER/KEY is using cer.opda.cn service.

Step by Step Picture Guide

View screenshots album here.

Here’s your comprehensive step by step guide on obtaining your OPDA CER/KEY:

Step 1: Opening cer.opda.cn in Chinese Browse http://cer.opda.cn/, so it shows the website in Chinese.
Step 2: Changing cer.opda.cn’s Language to English Click on the UK flag on the upper right corner, so it changes the language to English.
Step 3: Register Click on “Register” on the upper right corner, so it shows the registration form.
Step 4: Registration Data Entry Fill in your desired username, password, email, and the CAPTCHA, and click “Submit and register.”
Step 5: Registered Successfully If your information is correct, it should display “Registered successfully.”
Step 6: Login Now it will automatically redirect you to the login form.
Step 7: Login Data Entry Fill in your username and password, and click “Login.”
Step 8: Login Successfully If your information is correct, it should display “Login successfully.”
Step 9: Certificates Table Now it will automatically redirect you to your empty certificates table. Click on the “Apply cer” button.
Step 10: Apply for Certificate Now it shows apply for certificate form.
Step 11: Apply for Certificate Data Entry Fill in your cellphone brand/model, its IMEI (dialing *#06# on your cellphone), and a short remark of your phone, and click “Submit application.”
Step 12: Operation Successfully If your information is correct, it should display “Operation successfully!”
Step 13: Applying State Now your certificates table contains your S60 Smartphone’s certificate in “Applying” state.
Come back in a while (a few hours or more), and follow steps 1 and 2. Then click on “Login” on the upper right corner, so it shows the login form. Now follow step 7 to login.
Step 14: Normal State Now if the certificate is ready, the state should be changed from “Applying” to “Normal”.
Step 15: Download CER file Click on “.cer” to download your phone’s certificate.
Step 16: Save As CER File Save the certificate, selecting a proper filename with “.cer” extension.
Step 17: Download KEY file Click on “.key” to download your private key.
Step 18: Save As KEY File Save the private key, selecting a proper filename with “.key” extension.

Fixing Broken MPEG-2 and MPEG Transport Stream (MPEG-TS) Files

Standard-definition (SD) and high-definition (HD) video data, packed as MPEG-2 and MPEG-2 TS or just TS in short, are transmitted digitally according to DVB-S and DVB-S2 specifications. Once received, the data is decoded to the moving picture frames displayed on the screen of the SDTV or HDTV.

The digital data packed in MPEG-2 or TS format can easily become broken during transmission and/or storing processes. A broken MPEG-2 or TS file could become quite disturbing when it’s being played or converted. Media players crash, pause, or get out of synchrony, and media converters refuse to open, partially convert, or get out of sync when dealing with such files.

Broken MPEG-2 or MPEG Transport Stream (MPEG-TS) video files are not necessarily transmitted or stored erroneously, since I’ve come across many MPEG2/TS files which are OK by the needs of say Media Player Classic - Home Cinema (MPC-HC), but have stuttering async frames when analyzed seriously.

To fix broken MPEG-2 or MPEG Transport Stream files, follow the instructions for the tools described below:

MPEG2Repair

MPEG2Repair is the lightest and fastest solution around.

Browse for the broken file, hit Find PID's, select an output file, and hit Start.

There are rare cases where its Find PID's button complains about the file being seriously broken, damaged, or incomplete: “Failed to find video PID. Try different program number or video track.” This is when you need to take DGIndex or Project-X steps.

VideoReDo Plus / VideoReDo TVSuite

VideoReDo Plus is proprietary software not specifically targeted to repair TS or MPEG-2 streams; a DVD authoring and editing tool, but able to do the repair as well.

Open the broken file, and from File menu, hit “Save Video As…” Then answer Yes to the dialog asking “There are no cuts defined. Do you wish re-mux the entire input file?” Now select your demanding output type from MPEG Program Stream (*.mpg), Elementary Streams (*.mpv), or Transport Stream (*.ts), and hit Save.

There are rare cases where VideoReDo Plus and VideoReDo TVSuite export only a portion of the stream, or misplace portions of the stream along the generated file, this is also desperately in need of DGIndex or Project-X to get fixed.

DGIndex

DGIndex, part of DGMPGDec package, is a powerful yet easy-to-use tool primarily designed to index MPEG video streams. DGIndex is able to decode and index most MPEG1/2 streams including elementary streams, program streams, VOBs, VCDs, SVCDs, PVA files, and transport streams. More importantly—at least to us—it supports video demuxing (m1v/m2v) and audio demuxing (ac3, dts, aac, mpa, and lpcm) as well as optimized iDCTs, luminance filtering, cropping, and more.

Open the broken file, and from File menu, hit Save Project and Demux Video. For a given MPEG2-TS containing MPEG-2 video and MPEG-1 Audio Layer II, DGIndex will generate an M2V video file, plus an MP2 audio file, also kindly providing you with the audio/video delay in milliseconds as a portion of the audio file name!

The only downside to DGIndex for the rookies is DGMPGDec DGIndex demuxes container’s video and audio apart, which is actually appropriate if you’re going to open it in VirtualDub. The M1V/M2V file feeds the VirtualDub’s “Open video file…” and the audio file—after it’s converted to a VirtualDub-friendly format—feeds VirtualDub’s “Audio from other file…”

To convert the MP2 file into a VirtualDub-friendly WAV file, use FFmpeg as follows:

ffmpeg.exe -i "input.mp2" -f wav -acodec pcm_s16le -y "output.wav"

The name of the audio file generated by DGIndex contains the audio PID, format, channel count, sample rate, bit rate, and generally ends to DELAY -{delay in milliseconds}ms (e.g., Cascada - Dangerous PID 060 L2 2ch 48 256 DELAY -362ms.mp2)

You need to put the delay preserving its sign inside VirtualDub’s audio option here: Audio \ Interleaving… \ Delay audio track by

Project-X

Project-X, a free DVB demux tool written entirely in Java, tries its best to handle and repair many stream types. Many users are looking for a Windows application, and ignore it just because it’s a Java executable (JAR), but believe me, it’s the most powerful MPEG/TS repair tool around supporting the vastest stream types.

If you’re looking for a Windows portable edition of ProjectX, just because you’re not willing to install Java Development Kit (JDK) or Java Runtime Environment (JRE), ProjectX 0.90.4.00.b32 Portable created by Dirk Paehl is downloadable here.

Please note under Aero-enabled Windows Vista, Windows Server 2008, Windows 7, and Windows Server 2008 R2, the JRE behind Project X disables Windows Aero temporarily while it’s running, imposing Windows to show “The color scheme has been changed to Windows 7 Basic.” The reason is behind JRE’s incompatibility with Windows Aero’s composition.

Open the broken file, and on the upper-left corner of the GUI, hit QuickStart. This will demux the DVB file to a video (e.g., M2V) and an audio (e.g., MP2) file. An advantage of ProjectX over DGIndex is the demuxed audio file using ProjectX is artificially synchronized against the demuxed video stream, so there’s no need to specify a delay value when remuxing audio/video streams together.