Day: March 26, 2007

What search engines find?

I am the treasurer for the National Consortium for Instruction and Cognition. Our organization has a web site and sometimes I am asked a question (e.g., where do I find the dues statement) that requires I provide an address for the web site. Much to my frustration I have great difficulty locating this site using search engines. I can locate those individuals who have presented at paper sessions (part of AERA) hosted by NCIC and I can locate individuals who claim on their vitae to be members of NCIC. I just can’t find the organization’s web site.

This probably one of those situations in which a site must be linked to by someone before the site becomes visible to the search engines. So this is an experiment. This post provides a link to the NCIC site and hopefully in a day or so I will be able to locate the site through Google.

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ShieldsUp!

I have discussed computer security and open ports in previous posts. I worry about open ports (and so do the university folks of monitor my activities) because I operate servers and must allow for interaction (port 8o for HTML, 22,23 for FTP and 25 for Email). You may have other ports open on your equipment if you do things like share iTunes. I happen to be listening to one of Leo Laport’s podcasts and he was interviewing Steve Gibson. Steve participates from time to time on this program and is a security expert. Steve has a business related to security and storage systems and offers some free resources. Try ShieldsUP! to evaluate the port security of your computers. The link I provide is from the home page and will have to navigate from this page to the ShieldsUp! page (expect some ads and product pitches). What you are looking for is a site that will evaluate the port security on your machine. This is good information.

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