Happy Star Wars Day

Yesterday, May 4, was "Star Wars Day," a day fans of the franchise's movies and books take the time to celebrate it. The date is a play on "May the Force be with you," fans often saying "May the Fourth be with you." On Google, typing "may the fourth be with you" in search then pressing "Return" resulted in confetti and various pictures flying across the screen momentarily. A little search engine funnery.  
  

Google Plus to Close Down On April 2

On October 8 2018, Google announced it would be shutting down Google Plus, it's social network program, some time in the future. On January 30, it gave a date for the close: April 2.

On April 2nd, your Google+ account and any Google+ pages you created will be shut down and we will begin deleting content from consumer Google+ accounts. Photos and videos from Google+ in your Album Archive and your Google+ pages will also be deleted. You can download and save your content, just make sure to do so before April. Note that photos and videos backed up in Google Photos will not be deleted.

The process of deleting content from consumer Google+ accounts, Google+ Pages, and Album Archive will take a few months, and content may remain through this time. For example, users may still see parts of their Google+ account via activity log and some consumer Google+ content may remain visible to G Suite users until consumer Google+ is deleted.

The announcement went on to say ''As early as February 4th, you will no longer be able to create new Google+ profiles, pages, communities or events." As mentioned, Google Plus account owners acn download and save content such as photographs and videos. Google Plus community owners and moderators can also download and save content.

There is a Frequently Asked Questions page for answers to the most common questions about the shutdown.


Source: Google.com

Bixyl Shuftan

Man Buys Google.com For $12, Rewarded by Company

This Internet news story is several weeks old, but still worth talking about. It seems Google briefly lost the ownership of it's Internet domain name to a man in India, albeit for just a minute.

"I was learning more about the Google Domains interface," Sanmay Ved of Mandivi India would write in LinkedIn, "and typed google.com and clicked search domains. To my surprise, Google.com was showing as available!" He then used his credit card to purchase the domain, documenting his transactions on screenshots, and his transaction was confirmed, making him the new owner of Google's web domain.

But his ownership was brief. A minute later, he received an email stating his purchase was canceled, which Google could do as they owned the registration service, unlike a similar incident with Microsoft and it's domain in the United Kingdom. Some days later, he was contacted by their security team, stating he would get a reward for finding the error. Ved requested the reward go to charity, an educational group that runs 400 schools in India, "providing free education to more than 39,200 children in the slum, tribal and rural belts where child labor and poverty are widespread." Google agreed and doubled the amount.

"I can't shake that feeling that I actually owned Google.com," he was quoted as saying.

Reprinted from "Food on the Table"

Sources: LinkedIn, Business Insider, BBC News, PCmag.com

Bixyl Shuftan

Reader Submitted: Goodbye Google-Plus

I have deleted my google plus profile. If you were following me there, I've just poofed.

Google sold it as a new Social Media setup. And the circles idea was really really good. And I had hoped that Google would actually do things right for once instead of falling flat on its billion dollar face, as they did with Buzz. And as they did with Lively. And Wave. Lather rinse repeat.

But it is NOT a social media center to compete with Facebook. That is not Google's aim at all. Google wants to become the world's only database for... reputation. They want to be able to sell people the knowledge that if a person says they are X, that they are X. They want to be able to tell advertisers that you make Y amount of money, own a home in Z, and are looking for a new BMW, just like Facebook does. But unlike facebook, they will allow any swinging d*** anywhere in the country to verify you are who you say you are, just by checking with them (and presumably paying a small fee).

Now what the f*** does this have to do with Social interaction? I don't need Google to verify a person's identity -- I already know who is who. I don't need google removing everyone's fandom name -- 80% of you I ONLY KNOW via your nethandles and fandom pseudonyms. So by throwing all my friends out and making it not a social network, what possible use do I have for the thing?

They said they would start allowing some screen names, so I stuck around. But they just canned a friend for having "a silly name" one time too many, especially after stating they would stop doing it. If my admission to the cool club of Google Plus depends on some teenager in California snickering at the name or not, then f*** them and f*** Google. I don't have any objection giving my RL name to Google to create the account. But there's no way they can prove I'm telling the truth to begin with. So what's the harm in allowing us to have different nicknames for the different circles?

Google, you have now done something I thought only one company in the world could accomplish -- you've pulled a Linden. I would say congrats, but it's truly not something to be proud of. And it's very difficult to recapture the old excitement and good will of the folks after they are gone. Once gone, they are gone, and they'll be very descriptive to everyone else on the web about how quickly you went from internet darling to Darth Vader so everyone they know can stay as far away from you as possible.

Linden -- (verb); netglish. From the Internet group called Second Life. To take an unbeatable winner of a product and manage it so badly that it fails.

Shockwave Yareach