Google.bt is finally here!

Since it is not yet April Fools' Day, I guess my discovery is not a prank: google.bt has now been launched! Two years ago, we posted on ThimphuTech.com a request for "a small favour from Google", asking Mr. Larry Page to consider purchasing and activating google.bt. Our wish has been granted!

I discovered this while performing my usual searching business on google.com, when suddenly a message popped up:

And indeed, the URL www.google.bt takes you to a legal Google site (the domain was purchased by Google in May 2012). Searching via google.bt will (likely) give more localized results. For example, searching for "Ministry of Education" brings www.education.gov.bt as the first result.

Quick update: it looks like Google's move to google.bt is still in progress. For instance, books.google.bt is still not functional. Let's see how fast the update takes!

Hackers enjoy a free ride using RGoB, OAG, TCC, and other Bhutanese websites

It is not a secret that many websites in Bhutan are prone to hacking. Some hackers just enjoy showing off their abilities, and leave a noticeable trace on the website - perhaps a militant message accompanied by loud and scary music. Other hackers are more subtle. They take advantage of a vulnerable website by adding or changing its content in a way that is beneficial to them, but is not easy to detect by a casual visitor.

Case in point: The main portal of the Royal Government of Bhutan, www.bhutan.gov.bt. The portal has a pretty good page ranking by Google (6 out of 10). When a website with a good ranking has links to other websites, Google sees these links as recommendations, and so it improves the ranking of the linked sites.

Apparently, hackers were eager to take advantage of RGoB's ranking. So what did they do? They silently broke into the website and changed the content of pages to include links to websites that they wish to promote.

Take a look at the following source code snippet from RGoB's home page (by the way, if you want to view the source code of any web page, open that page in Google Chrome or Mozilla Firefox, then click Ctrl-U. If you are using Internet Explorer, click on View, then Source).

Hackers are taking advantage of RGoB's portal

As you can see, there are some strange links in this page (that's the web addresses starting with http://). Just by looking at the domain names, it is apparent that these links point to websites that are - well, how to put it gently - not very "family-friendly". And there are many more similar links in this page, as well as on many other pages in the RGoB portal. The hackers, by the way, cleverly made sure that these links are readable by search engines, such as Google, but are not visible to humans (that's the style="display:none" part). So just by browsing the page you will not see anything special.

Here is a partial list of other Bhutanese websites that are currently being used in a similar manner, and serving as hosts to parasite links. All these hidden links, by the way, point to Turkish websites.

• Office of the Attorney General
• Thimphu City Corporation
• Bhutan Climate Summit
• BCCI
• National Soil Services Centre
• Local Developent Learning Intitute
• Department of Trade
• Bajothang HSS
• Yangchenphug HSS
• Agriculture Marketing and Enterprise Promotion Program

Bhutanese websites continue to be highly vulnerable to outside attacks. And as more and more websites, databases, and other systems are coming online, the potential harm that can be caused by malicious hackers increases.

Hat tip to our reader Anonymuse , who provided the impetus for this post.

Upgrade your Google Search skills in an upcoming free online course!

Looking for something interesting and useful to do during the long holiday? Power Searching with Google, a free online course by Google, opens September 24. In this course you'll learn tips and tricks for finding what you're looking for using Google Search.

The course is two weeks long, with three 50-min classes per week. You can take the classes according to your own schedule during the two-week window. An official certificate is provided upon completion.

This course can be useful to teachers, librarians, school and college students and to anyone who uses Google to find answers to simple questions or conduct deeper research.

This is the second offering of the course. According to the Google Blog, the first offering in July was quite successful:

During the course’s first run in July, people told us how they not only liked learning about new features and more efficient ways to use Google, but they also enjoyed sharing tips and learning from one another through the forums and Hangouts

Register to join!

Google Services, Facebook outage in Bhutan

Starting at around 8pm this evening, it seems that broadband and mobile users in Bhutan cannot access many Google services, including Search, Gmail, YouTube, Google Maps, Google Sites, Google Apps, and more. Blogger is also out, so many popular blogs - including this one - are currently not accessible. And, worst of all: Facebook seems to be inaccessible as well!
Good thing Bhutan's economy is not ICT-centric, or the financial consequences of such an outage would be substantial.

Update: At around 10pm, the problem seems to have been fixed. It would be nice to get an update from Bhutan Telecom regarding the causes of this major outage.

Google Plus, and more (K2 #21)

Questions of the Week
What is Google Plus?
-- R. Chhetri

Answer
Dear R.,
We are all familiar with Facebook, the social network service, and arguably the most popular website in Bhutan. Facebook currently has more than 750 million users, with around 60,000 of them in Bhutan. Chatting on Facebook has become a popular pastime here. It's so popular, in fact, that many organizations block it during office hours! Google, which many of us use for searching the internet as well as for email (Gmail), has been trying to compete with Facebook.

Launched about two months ago, Google Plus (plus.google.com), also known as Google+, is a new social network run by Google. In many ways it is similar to Facebook: You can update your status, share photos with friends, see updates from your friends, recommend items, etc. But there are also differences. One of the most important features in Google+ is "Circles", which allows you to organize the people you know into different groups. For example, you can put your relatives in one circle, your colleagues in another, etc. When you share something, you can decide which circle to share it with. After all, there might be some photos which you'd like to share with your charos, but prefer your uncles not see (and vice versa!). Google+ also has a terrific mobile app for the iPhone and Android phones.

How to register to Google+? You can currently join Google+ only by invitation from a member. If you're interested, ask someone who's already on Google+, or drop me an email.

How can I convert a .MOV video file to a .WMV file?
-- Rinzin Phelgay

Dear Rinzin,
MOV and WMV are two different video file formats. MOV is the standard Apple format known as QuickTime, and WMV ("Windows Media Video") is a popular Microsoft Windows format. To play a MOV file, you need a QuickTime player, which is standard on Apple computers, but is also available for Windows. (www.apple.com/quicktime/download). If you need to convert between the two, try Super C, a free program which you can download from www.erightsoft.com/SUPER.html. Check out http://goo.gl/fYM7P for more information on using Super C for video file conversion.

It takes more than 6 minutes for my Acer Aspire laptop to boot. How can I fix this problem?
-- Sonam Dorji

Dear Sonam,
Many things can cause a slow boot, including a hardware malfunction, a device driver issue, or even a virus. Sometimes the computer is just not fast enough to handle the many programs that are part of the start-up process. Diagnosing slow reboots is not a simple task, but you might give Soluto (www.soluto.com) a try. Soluto is a free utility that is designed to diagnose and speed up sluggish Windows systems.

Readers are encouraged to submit technology-related questions to boaz@thimphutech.com

Searching for Information (K2 #18)

Question of the Week

I was searching for the 2010 cordyceps auction results on the MoAF website but to no avail. I know it's there. Why can't I find it?
-- P. Y., Bhumthang

Answer

Dear P.Y.,
Finding information is sometimes harder than finding cordyceps... I went in search of your lost page and eventually found it (www.moaf.gov.bt/moaf/?wpfb_dl=123). How did I find it? I first tried navigating the website (www.moaf.gov.bt), but that was too complicated. I then searched for cordyceps auction 2010 using the site's own search function, but I got back a "No posts found" message. The websites of the various government agencies host plenty of useful and interesting content, but the information often resides in PDF, Excel and Word files. Unfortunately, the website's own search function does not search these files. My solution is to resort to a good old friend: Google. When you search using Google (www.google.com), it searches for your keywords also within files. If you’d like to restrict your search to a particular website, say, MoAF, you can use the special keyword "site". You do this by adding site:moaf.gov.bt to your search query. I entered cordyceps auction 2010 site:moaf.gov.bt in the Google search bar and found the PDF file that contained the auction results. You can of course replace moaf.gov.bt with any other website. You can also try replacing site:moaf.gov.bt with site:gov.bt to search in all of Bhutan's government websites, or even site:bt to search all websites ending in .bt.

Tip of the Week Have you ever received emails from friends who lost their wallet while travelling in Bangkok or London (or some other exotic destination), and are pleading to send them money by wire transfer? Before you run to the bank, give your friend a call, and you'll most likely discover that s/he's still here in Bhutan. Here's what happened: A hacker broke into your friend's account and sent the fraud email to the entire contact list, hoping to get rich by all these wire transfers. To prevent someone from hacking into your own account, the single most important defence is selecting a password which will be hard for the hacker to guess. There are a few ways to choose passwords that are both strong and easy to remember. Here is one: Choose a name or phrase that is least 8 characters long. You can choose a village name, your favourite football team, or any other phrase that will be easy for you to remember. Now take the phrase and substitute some of the letters with symbols. It makes sense to substitute "i" with "!", "s" with "quot;, the letter "o" with the digit "0" etc.  That's it! Here an example: If I start with the phrase thimphutech.com, after substitution it will become th!mphutech.c0m, which will be my password. This password is virtually impossible to break (unless I foolishly publish it in a national newspaper...)

A small favour from Google

From Afghanistan to Zimbabwe, search giant Google has online presence in over 180 countries, including Bhutan's long-time football rival, tiny Montserrat at google.ms.

Thus, the obvious question: Isn't it prime time for www.google.bt? Surprisingly, the domain is currently available for purchase, arguably one of the last Google domains still not taken. Yes, I know: International companies have to pay a hefty Nu 3,000 per year (around US$70) to register a .bt domain ("exclusive of bank transfer charges"), but with Google's last year's revenue at around Nu 1.3 trillion (!), I have a gut feeling the company can afford this lavish expense.

So please, if you happen to meet Google's CEO, Mr. Larry Page, kindly ask him to consider google.bt. And please let him know that these types of things are better resolved in a civil manner, or else Google might be running the risk of a well-organized campaign via a Facebook page... ;-)

Artist's rendition of Google Bhutan's future home page © 2011 ThimphuTech.com

Google ignores Bhutan's national dish

The ever-innovative geeks at Google have recently launched Recipe View, an advanced search service which helps find recipes on the web, with options to filter results by ingredients, caloric value and cook time. Pretty nifty - at least in theory. While the new service is able to find almost anything, from falafel to pavlova, it failed miserably when I searched for ema datsi. Too spicy?

Searching for the hospital

Bhutan's national hospital - officialy JDWNRH - is one of the capital's landmarks, and very much part of daily life here in Thimphu. Go to the hospital, and you're likely to run into someone you know. From the infamous "cough and cold" to more serious conditions, people arrive for treatment at the country's flagship medical facility.

A few days ago I had to find information about the hospital, and so naturally turned to all-mightly Google to locate the hospital's homepage. Google usually does a fantastic job with such searches. Surprisingly, this turned out to be quite a challenge.

Seven free online tools

ThimphuTech.com co-blogger Galit Shmueli was recently covered in Business Bhutan, sharing her favourite free online tools with readers. Here's the online version.

Four ways to share files - without getting infected

In a interesting recent PaSsu Diary post, Passang Tshering wrote about his USB flash-drive being infected by a rather nasty virus after inserting the drive into a student’s laptop. Since so many laptops and desktops in Bhutan are infected with viruses, exchanging flash-drives is extremely risky. In fact, this is the most common way by which viruses are spread.

Here are four ways which enable file exchange with a very low risk of infection. They might need a bit more work that just swapping the flash-drive, but they will save your laptop.

When will Google Street View reach Bhutan?

Yak at Pele La

Google Street View is the technology used in Google Maps and Google Earth which provides panoramic street-level views in various cities and towns across the world. Large parts of the U.S., Western Europe, Australia and New Zealand are covered, in addition to parts of South Korea, Japan, South Africa and Brazil (and then a few other countries).

To use Street View in Google Maps, drag and hold the little orange man (just above the zoom slider) over the map. The areas where Street View is available are then highlighted in blue. Drop the man at the desired location and use your mouse to watch the magic. For example, if you want to wander the streets of Paris in your pyjamas, here's a good place to start (don't forget to drag-n-drop the little man!). Alas, buttery croissants and bitter espresso are still beyond Google's technological wizardry.

While privacy is a major concern (especially in Germany, for obvious historical reasons), Google keeps expanding its Street View program. A couple of years ago there were rumours about starting the program in India, but this has not materialized. Google doesn't make its plans public. So it may take a good number of years - and Bhutan's government co-operation - until Street View is available in Thimphu and other towns in the Kingdom.

Until we'll be able to see roaming yaks when zooming on Pele La, take advantage of the most recent addition to Street View - Half Moon Island, Antarctica - and enjoy the penguins.

How to subscribe to Bhutan holidays & festivals calendar

If you're using the free Google Calendar or any other product which supports the iCalendar format, it is now easy to subscribe to the Bhutan's holidays & festivals calendar. Just copy and paste the following link into your calendar product:

http://www.google.com/calendar/ical/edh3gvjiflpu65edqd0u0biea4%40group.calendar.google.com/public/basic.ics

If you're using Google Calendar, follow these instructions.

If you're interested in helping with contributing holiday & festival information to the Bhutan calendar, kindly send me an email (boaz@thimphutech.com)

Choosing an email provider

(Posted by Galit)

Many people opt for a free webmail account with Yahoo!, Gmail, Hotmail, etc. A webmail account allows you to access your email from any computer that is connected to the Internet. Although Hotmail was the first to offer free webmail accounts, these days the real competition is between Gmail and Yahoo!. Before making your choice, and aside from the look-and-feel which you should check out yourself, here are a few features to consider:

• Mailbox size (storage): Gmail currently gives a huge space (7GB), and this increases over time. Yahoo! responded by offering "unlimited storage". Hence, you will most likely never reach the limit in either.
  
• Ability to forward to another address: Yahoo! requires a paid subscription in order to forward your email to a new address. This means that once you have an email account with them you are "trapped". In contrast, Gmail does allow free forwarding.
  
• Mobile phone interface: Gmail has a neat interface for mobile phones. Similarly, Yahoo! has Yahoo! Mobile Services.
  
• Attachment type and size limit: If you plan to attach large files, this is something to consider. In Yahoo! the limit is 10MB. In Gmail it is 20MB. Also, Gmail does not allow attaching executable files (such as .exe), to avoid viruses. Both providers scan attachments for viruses.
  
• Searching your mailbox: Both providers have search functions to search your email. I've found the Google search to be quite powerful. Yahoo! had a glitch in 2008 where searches were not retrieving any email or only a small subset (this can be fixed by emailing their support -- see this thread)
  
• Dormant account: If you will not have any activity in your account for long periods, you should consider the duration before the account will be deleted. In Gmail the duration is around 9 months. Yahoo! (and Hotmail) delete dormant accounts after 4 months.
  
• Building up your address book: Gmail automaticlly adds the email addresses of those who you reply to. Yahoo! requires you to enter them yourself.
  
• Organizing your emails: Yahoo! uses folders, where you can file an email to a folder. Gmail uses a different system called "labels". You can give an email one or more labels, thereby "filing" it into one or more "folders". These are not really folders although the operation is similar but more flexible.