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Filed under: Search, Microblogging

Twitter takes deleted tweets out of search results

Even before Twitter purchased Summize and turned it into Twitter Search, users started to realize that a deleted tweet was never truly deleted. If you knew what it said, you could easily find it by searching for some of the words, and even if you didn't, you could see someone's deleted tweets in the results for "from:username." M.G. Siegler over at TechCrunch noticed that after Twitter made high-profile search deals with Google and Microsoft, they also decided to clean up the problem and stop indexing deleted tweets.

This is a big win for personal privacy, because although Twitter Search is relatively low-volume and you'd have to know where to look to find a deleted tweet, the sheer number of Google searches that happen every day would inevitably result in people seeing tweets they weren't meant to. I think it's great that Twitter has closed this privacy loophole, but it's also important to think before you post anything, because with retweets, third-party aggregators and the like, your tweets aren't always going to be isolated to your Twitter page. Treating them as public, Google-indexable info is probably the best policy.

Filed under: Utilities, E-mail, Productivity, iPhone

reMail 2.0: keep your entire email archive in your pocket

I have to admit that I was wrong about reMail. When I wrote about version 1.0, I assumed that nobody would have a problem trusting reMail's secure servers to store and index their email messages for faster searching, and that nobody wanted to download an entire Gmail archive to an iPhone. Wrong, and wrong again. However, version 2.0 of reMail addresses these issues by eliminating the need to trust reMail with your email passwords and letting you carry your whole email account in your pocket.

On another positive note, reMail is getting rid of its subscription fee and charging a flat fee of $4.99 for the app. Before you pay that 5 bucks, you'll probably want to know what reMail does that the combination of Apple's built-in Mail app and Gmail's mobile version doesn't do. Aside from the ability to download your archive (attachments included), you get full-text search instead of just subject lines, and search speeds that are reportedly 5 times faster than the other options.


Filed under: Windows, Productivity, Freeware, Search

Windows Search Bites - Locate and Agent Ransack Don't

Microsoft built a lot of new functionality into Windows Vista's search feature, but what about those of us that are still sticking with our trusty old XP installs? Our default search is a decrepit old fart of a program, and one that still resembles the version from a decade ago.

Well, it's time for a change. Two great freeware programs do the job much better, so why keep dealing with a slow, lackluster search?

Portable application buffs should check out Locate32. When you launch the app for the first time, you'll need to tell it to build a database file. After that, it'll take a seat in your system tray and run updates on your specified schedule. You can further tweak by specifying a maximum CPU usage before starting the job to ensure indexing doesn't bog down your system during busy periods.

Indexing took just a minute and a half on my notebook's 120GB hard drive, and subsequent searches displayed results in a flash. Searches you want to execute frequently can be added to the presets button.

Read more →

Filed under: OS Updates, Features, Windows, Microsoft, DLS Podcast

Switching to Vista: Download Squad Switcher Podcast #3

VistaMicrosoft threw a curve ball to PC users who have spent the last five years getting to know the ins and outs of Windows XP. Windows Vista promised enhanced security, new and improved graphics, and a redesigned start menu and file explorer.

But Vista also suffers from backward compatibility problems and some design changes that seem to value flash over function.

Is it worth upgrading your computer, or are you better off waiting for Service Pack 1, or Vienna, the next version of Windows due out in 2009?

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Featured Time Waster

Graveyard Shift - zombie-busting Time Waster

With Halloween fast approaching, it's a great time to get in some practice defending your territory against zombies. In Graveyard Shift, you take aim at zombies and other creepy-crawlies, blasting them into splatters of cartoony green guts. It's a casual first-person shooter, and it's very easy to get the hang of - use the mouse to aim, click to fire. Graveyard Shift has at least 15 levels, and it might even have some secret stages I haven't unlocked yet. They key to getting good at Graveyard Shift is learning to use ...

View more Time Wasters

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