Microsoft Webmaster Tools and Blogger

Lots of people who run a blog also use other Google tools such as Analytics and Webmaster tools. I was curious to see what Microsoft had to offer.

You go to webmaster.live.com and sign in using your Windows Live credentials, and then you can start the process.

You need to choose the meta tag option. So get this and then in Blogger go to Layout> Edit HTML add it right after the "head" tag.

The tools themselves are somewhat rudimentary, and the documentation is laughable. Obviously I wanted to know where to place their meta tag. The process of getting a meta tag does not tell you where to put it. So I looked at http://help.live.com/help.aspx?mkt=en-us&project=wl_webmasters

In the FAQ it mentions "How does Live Search know that I own a site?" and the talks about using a .xml file or a meta tag to show you own the site. And then it says "Use the to submit or update your verification method."

Umm use the what? This whole project seems to not have a name. This happens elsewhere. For example "Once you have decided on your verification method, use the to make sure Live Search knows what it is."

What am I supposed to be using??

Using Preview to adjust photos

If you need quick and dirty image adjustment, and don't want to load iPhoto or even a shareware application like GraphicConverter, you can use Preview.

You can crop


Adjust image properties such as hue, saturation, exposure, brightness, in fact all of the same properties as from inside iPhoto


and others such as resize.


These features and the ability of Image Capture to download selected images means quick for some jobs you just don't need iPhoto or Photoshop. These tools load quickly, are very lightweight and take very little RAM.

Image Capture to download selected items from your camera

Rather by luck I discovered that Image Capture can download selected items from your camera ie if you have a camera that does not mount to the desktop so you cannot just drag the photos over.

To me this is a better option than using iPhoto for just grabbing images. Of course I can still use iPhoto to manage images and adjust them.

Replace WiFi card and HD MSI Wind / Advent 4211

Replacing the WiFi card and the hard disk in the Wind / Advent is straight forward.

After undoing all the bolts on the bottom, and easing off the bottom case, you will see the bolt that holds the WiFi card in. Undo it and the card slips out. Remove the aerial leads, and to put in a new card, do it all in reverse.

To replace the hard disk first of all remove the WiFi card.

You need to do this to get access to the retaining bolt for the HD. With the WiFi card removed, you get access to the HDs bolt, undo and pull the HD out.

OSX Hackintosh - You Need to restart your computer

I installed 10.5.5 on my hackintosh, but it crashed, and I had to hold the power key down to shutdown and then restart.

On restart I got the message "You Need to restart your computer. Hold down the power button for several seconds or press the Restart button".

When you do this you get the same message all over. If you look at the top of the screen in the boot messages you'll see "Unsupported CPU \n" and "AppleIntelCPUPowerManagement".

Whats happened is that the updater has installed the kernel extension (kext) AppleIntelCPUPowerManagement.kext so you need to remove it.

To do this boot from the DVD.

On my MSI Wind / Advent 4211:

- hold down F11 on boot
- select 'boot from DVD'


after the usual whirring away you'll get the start of the installation.

- select you language. I selected English
- click 'continue' at the welcome message
- click Agree when asked

At the 'select destination screen' go to the Utilities menu and select Terminal.

When the terminal window opens type:

cd /Volumes/HardDisk/System/Library/Extensions
rm -rf AppleIntelCPUPowerManagement.kext

Quit from terminal
Quit from the installer and click restart.

Opera - sends all queries to sitecheck2.opera.com

I don't generally use Opera, and I also I use a web filter service, the rather excellent ScanSafe, I feel fairly safe against web based threats.

If you have a similar service you may not need the free service from Opera that sends all your DNS queries to a 3rd party, Seattle-based Haute Secure.

The Opera Fraud Protection can be enabled/disabled from Tools > Preferences > Advanced > Security by checking/unchecking the box marked "Enable Fraud Protection."

You will see the protection operating by querying your firewall for requests to http://sitecheck2.opera.com.

The Washington Post has an article about this, and also some weaknesses, like sending the query clear text, having a weak HMAC so you can reverse engineer the process, or, if you are a malware / phishing 'vendor' querying to see when you need to change hostnames.

It seems performance is not very good. The report says that on a sample page with nearly 3 dozen bad links, the browser blocked just two.

Sharing Google Sites outside your domain

Previously I wrote about one way to do this. Having experimented, I've found another. You start by sharing your site.


The person gets an email with the link in it


If they do not have an account, and the presumption is they don't, then they need to create one, so they click the 'sign in with a different account link'.


On the next screen they click 'create an account now'

This takes them to the new account screen. Fill in the details - use your own email address, the one the invite was sent to

do the captcha and it takes them to the Site

Future Logins

When returning to the Site, the visitor does not need to create an account, they login by clicking 'sign in with a different account'. Even if you share multiple Sites with them, a single login only is required.



Also, if you have shared multiple Sites with the same person, they can navigate around by clicking the 'Sites' link at the top right



which takes them to a summary page