Search Engines

How do search engines rank the stuff they find on the internet?
Google is an example of this. The heart of Google's software is PageRank™, a system for ranking web pages developed by our founders Larry Page and Sergey Brin at Stanford University. PageRank relies on the uniquely democratic nature of the web by using its vast link structure as an indicator of an individual page's value. In essence, Google interprets a link from page A to page B as a vote, by page A, for page B. But, Google looks at considerably more than the sheer volume of votes, or links a page receives; for example, it also analyzes the page that casts the vote. Votes cast by pages that are themselves "important" weigh more heavily and help to make other pages "important." Using these and other factors, Google provides its views on pages' relative importance.

Of course, important pages mean nothing to you if they don't match your query. So, Google combines PageRank with sophisticated text-matching techniques to find pages that are both important and relevant to your search. Google goes far beyond the number of times a term appears on a page and examines dozens of aspects of the page's content (and the content of the pages linking to it) to determine if it's a good match for your query.

Some of my favourite search engines include Google, Yahoo, altavista, and hotbot. For myself Google and Yahoo are the ones I use the most. Mostly for the reason where they have given me better and more relevant results for searches. I think that such search engines as hotbot and what ever are quite underrated though and with more user awareness would strengthen their database and provide better results for searches.

Scavenger Hunt

1. Who was the creator of the infamous "lovebug" computer virus?
Onel de Guzman a computer school student, 24 y.o.
http://archives.cnn.com/2000/TECH/computing/06/29/philippines.lovebug.02/index.html

2. Who invented the paper clip?
Johan Vaaler, a Norwegian inventor with a degree in electronics, science and mathematics, invented the paperclip in 1899. He received a patent for his design from Germany in 1899, since Norway had no patent laws at that time. Johan Vaaler was the first person to patent a paperclip design, although other unpatented designs might have existed first.
http://inventors.about.com/library/inventors/blpaperclip.htm

3. How did the Ebola virus get its name?
Ebola virus was named after a river in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (formerly Zaire) in Africa, where it was first recognized.
http://www.cdc.gov/ncidod/dvrd/spb/mnpages/dispages/ebola/qa.htm

4. What country had the largest recorded earthquake?
The largest recorded earthquake in the world was a magnitude 9.5 (Mw) in Chile on May 22, 1960.
http://earthquake.usgs.gov/learning/facts.php

5. In computer memory/storage terms, how many kilobytes in a terabyte?
There are 1000 000 000 kilobytes in one terabyte
http://www.riverland.net.au/text/look_first/gloss2.html

6. Who is the creator of email?
Computer engineer, Ray Tomlinson invented internet based email in late 1971.
http://inventors.about.com/od/estartinventions/a/email.htm

7. What is the storm worm, and how many computers are infected by it?
"Storm worm" is a backdoor trojan horse viruses that affects computers running Microsoft Windows. Some experts have put the number of Storm-infected PCs at close to 10 million, but most estimates are more conservative, pegging the infected pool at between a few hundred thousand and a million or so machines.
http://blog.washingtonpost.com/securityfix/2007/10/the_storm_worm_maelstrom_or_te.html?nav=rss_blog

8. If you wanted to contact the prime minister of australia directly, what is the most efficient way?
Vist the PM page of the Australian Government and email him there.
http://pm.gov.au/

9. Which Brisbane-based punk band is Stephen Stockwell (Head of the School of Arts) a member of?
The Black Assassins
http://www.griffith.edu.au/school/art/staff/stockwell.htm

10. What does the term "Web 2.0" mean in your own words?
Web 2.0 is a trend of technology that envolved on the internet such as email, blogs, and other internet communication based technologies. It is a web platform that can be altered. It is the concept where "anyone" can lodge information and such media on the internet with little limitations.
http://webdesign.about.com/od/web20/a/aa021306.htm

You can never really know whether or not your source is an accurate one. Most people regard political, gorvernment, media, scientific related sites as accurate sources. Contrastly these sites can be altered as easily as wikipedia can be altered and changed by anyone.