bradKELLETT

I’m sure most of us have had the problem – search for something with Google, see a search result appear that is exactly what you’re looking for, only to find that when you click through to the page you get told that you must log in to see the content or (gasp!) pay to see it in full. Well, there is a simple way around this: pretend to be Google!

Sites like these detect when Google is crawling their site and show the full content, but don’t give regular people the same luxury. Sites generally detect this by looking at the user agent, which is a string that identifies what kind of browser/device is requesting the page. Therefore, if we change our user agent string to match that of the Googlebot (the system Google uses to find content on the web), we can see the content that was indexed to make the search result we found.

There are various ways to change the user agent that your browser is reporting, including the great User Agent Switcher extension for Firefox, or the IE7Pro plugin for Internet Explorer 7.

Whichever way you go about it, you want to change your user agent string to:

Googlebot/1.0 (googlebot@googlebot.com http://googlebot.com/)

You may have to restart your browser for the change to take effect, but after that you should be able to go back to the site you were trying to access and see exactly what Google does – the content!

[Update: Thanks Kent and Richard. Keep it coming!]

[Update 2: Jenith (a former MobileBurn employee and fellow Australian) weighs in, as does James Kendrick.]

Today is a travel day, as Ze Frank would say, and while packing up for the impending journey I am faced with the decision of what gadgets to take with me. It’s only the essentials that are coming this time, so the list includes:

1. HP dv2040XT notebook computer
2. Nokia N73 smartphone
3. Motorola MOTOKRZR K1
4. Sandisk Cruzer Titanium thumb drive
5. HP iPAQ h1940 PDA in a GPS car holder for directions
6. Sony CyberShot DSC-W7 digital camera
7. mVox MV900 Bluetooth speakerphone for in the car
8. Assorted memory cards, cables, and chargers for the above

Sitting the trip out that would otherwise be coming is the iMate JAQ I will be reviewing, for the simple reason that it hasn’t arrived yet.

So, if you’re reading this, I would be very interested to hear what gadgets you take with you on a trip. Let’s try and start a meme: post your travel gadgets list to your blog, and be sure to ping me so I can find you. Kent Newsome, Robert Scoble, Richard Querin – I’m looking at you!

Following the break-in of my house on Saturday night, I went out yesterday and purchased a new notebook computer. I am now the proud owner of an HP dv2040XT – Intel Core Duo 1.6GHz, 1GB RAM, 14.1″ widescreen display, nVidia GeForce Go 7700, and an 80GB SATA hard drive. The hard drive is a little on the small side, but everything else is top notch – I think it is actually as fast as my old Pentium D 3.0GHz desktop that was stolen, plus it is small and has pretty good battery life.

Also, another new addition that I forgot to mention is the Motorola MOTOKRZR K1 that arrived for review the other day. I have mixed emotions about the device, as the build and feel is excellent, but it still runs only a slightly updated version of Motorola’s classic UI, rather than the funky new Java Linux UI that is on the ROKR E2. I will try to do a short video overview of the device today and post it up here.

Edit: I should mention that I’m not getting a kick-back from Orb or affiliated with them in any way, this is just personal experience.

After we did the video demo of the Sling Media mobile beta running on a Motorola Q for MobileBurn, it got me thinking about place shifting. Things like the SlingBox aren’t available in Australia at the moment, so I didn’t really give it much more thought. Until I was contacted by the PR guy for Orb, that is.

Orb is a free (!) application for Windows boxes that will stream media over the Internet to pretty much any device you can think of. It supports WMV, Real, WinAmp, and 3GP formats, and runs though a personalized web page that works great even on small (read: mobile device) screens.

Having just received the Nokia E61, I thought I would check all this out. I loaded Orb onto my Windows Media Center box, and after a few configuration jitters, I was streaming both live TV and recorded TV to my Nokia. Orb plugs into Media Center perfectly, showing guide listings, program descriptions, everything. It also handles music and photos just as well.

If you are into place shifting, check it out, and kudos to Orb for making such a cool free application.

Every day I hear something about gadgets (and generally mobile phones, more than anything else) being bad for my health. You want to know what I have decided? I don’t care anymore.

I look around my house and see so many things that are probably hurting me: the cordless phone, WLAN, microwave, cell phone, Bluetooth connections, and that’s just electro-magnetic type stuff.

Do I worry? Not anymore. Should I? Probably.

The truth is, I probably could not live without these kinds of things. It’s terrible, I know, but that’s just the way it is. We are all part of generations that are testing whether things like this can hurt us – as the only way we can be sure is through long-term exposure.

I’m betting on the fact that they won’t cause any harm in the long run – I’m screwed if they do.

MobileMag is reporting on an update to the Sony PSP, the PSP2 as it is calling it, which adds some tasty features while leaving the core system without change.

Probably the most interesting feature that the update is rumored to have is 4GB of NAND flash memory, but in addition to this, the PSP2 may have an internal digital camera – though there is no word on resolution. The PSP2 is rumored to also come in at a quarter-inch thinner than its predecessor.

[Read] – via MobileMag

Sandisk has today busted out the first 4GB Memory Stick PRO Duo card into its Ultra II range. The 4GB Ultra II is designed for photographers mainly, with 9MB per second minimum write and 10MB per second minimum read rates.

The card will be in shops during March, and retail for US$293.99.

Scoble has been talking about websites rendering on a cellphone screen lately (here and here), but has been looking at it a bit one sided. It isn’t always the website designers fault that a site looks terrible on the small screen (though admittedly, most of the time it is).

I would suggest to Scoble, and indeed everyone using a small screen to surf, either the Opera Mobile browser for smartphones/PDAs, or the Opera Mini browser for standard handsets. My site looks great on Opera Mobile/Mini.

P.S. Yes, I am back blogging again, I promise!

Kevin, a MobileBurn reader, sent this in to me the other day, and I thought I might share it around (with his permission of course).

I was playing around on the internet and noticed Motorola has created the product page for the V3x. I was also wondering what you thought of the phone if you have had the chance to use it. The phone book in the original RAZR is awful in my opinion. I was hoping they have made some improvements in this department.

Read on for my reply. Continue Reading

While I do like the idea of the new iMac and Front Row software, I wish it was a little more robust. Can anyone tell me if I can watch TV on it? I would love to have this as a full PVR media center, but I doubt that is ever going to happen.