Which is better to use? "div" or "tables"

Hi all,

Im new here and I would like to know some doubts that I have. I observer that some websites are using "div" and other "tables".

What is the difference between those 2? What do I get or what results, if I use "div" or "tables" in my website.

To be honest, before I was using "tables" in my header and footer templates, and my site had a score of 95% SEO in whois.domaintools.com

But after I switched all things to "div", now my score had lowered to 85%, is that posible and could had been because of the changing code?

Some friends told me that using "div" is better for a fastest speed of the website...

I would like to hear some professional opinions.
Thanks alot to all,
___________________________________
Dont hardlink in your posts.

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Menu start dissapear and windows explorer automatically clos

huy guys...
Im a new member...I have a trouble, hope you can solve my problem...
windows explorer close when I open my folder and after that the taskbar dissapear...And when i want to refresh, i cant click right...I dont know the problem please help me...thanks..

I attach my log from hijack

Logfile of HijackThis v1.99.1
Scan saved at 23:16:50, on 10/02/2009
Platform: Unknown Windows (WinNT 6.00.1905 SP1)
MSIE: Internet Explorer v7.00 (7.00.6001.18000)

Running processes:
C:Windowssystem32taskeng.exe
C:Windowssystem32Dwm.exe
C:Program FilesASUSNet4SwitchNet4Switch.exe
C:Program FilesASUSASUS Live UpdateALU.exe
C:Program FilesMotorolaSMSERIALsm56hlpr.exe
C:Program FilesIntelIntel Matrix Storage ManagerIAAnotif.exe
C:WindowsRtHDVCpl.exe
C:Program FilesSynapticsSynTPSynTPEnh.exe
C:Program FilesPowerForPhonePowerForPhone.exe
C:WindowsASScrPro.exe
C:My Program FilesCD and DVD ToolsNeroNero 7Nero ToolkitNero 7InCDInCD.exe
C:My Program FilesMultiMediaCyberLinkPowerDVDPDVDServ.exe
C:Program FilesMicrosoft OfficeOffice12GrooveMonitor.exe
C:WindowsSystem32rundll32.exe
C:WindowsSystem32rundll32.exe
C:Program FilesCommon FilesSymantec SharedccApp.exe
C:Program FilesJavajre6binjusched.exe
C:My Program FilesMultiMediaiTunesiTunesHelper.exe
C:My Program FilesCD and DVD ToolsDAEMON Tools Litedaemon.exe
C:My Program FilesUtilitiesSpeedConnect Internet AcceleratorSpeedConnectStartUp.exe
C:Program FilesWindows Media Playerwmpnscfg.exe
C:My Program FilesUtilitiesRegistry Repair WizardRCHelper.exe
C:Program FilesInfineonSecurity Platform SoftwarePSDrt.exe
C:Program FilesInfineonSecurity Platform SoftwareSpTna.exe
C:My Program FilesUtilitiesStardockObjectDockObjectDock.exe
C:Windowssystem32Taskmgr.exe
C:WindowsSystem32rundll32.exe
C:Program FilesWindows Media Playerwmplayer.exe
C:My Program FilesBrowsers n PluginsMozila Firefox 3firefox.exe
C:My Program FilesBrowsers n PluginsInternet Download ManagerIDMan.exe
C:My Program FilesBrowsers n PluginsInternet Download ManagerIEMonitor.exe
C:Windowssystem32SearchFilterHost.exe
C:My DesktopDownloadHijackThis.exe

R1 - HKCUSoftwareMicrosoftInternet ExplorerMain,Search Page = http://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?LinkId=54896
R0 - HKCUSoftwareMicrosoftInternet ExplorerMain,Start Page = http://www.valbury.com/
R1 - HKLMSoftwareMicrosoftInternet ExplorerMain,Default_Page_URL = http://www.asus.com
R1 - HKLMSoftwareMicrosoftInternet ExplorerMain,Default_Search_URL = http://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?LinkId=54896
R1 - HKLMSoftwareMicrosoftInternet ExplorerMain,Search Page = http://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?LinkId=54896
R0 - HKLMSoftwareMicrosoftInternet ExplorerMain,Start Page = http://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?LinkId=69157
R0 - HKLMSoftwareMicrosoftInternet ExplorerSearch,SearchAssistant =
R0 - HKLMSoftwareMicrosoftInternet ExplorerSearch,CustomizeSearch =
R0 - HKCUSoftwareMicrosoftInternet ExplorerToolbar,LinksFolderName =
R3 - URLSearchHook: Yahoo! Toolbar - {EF99BD32-C1FB-11D2-892F-0090271D4F88} - (no file)
O1 - Hosts: ::1 localhost
O2 - BHO: IDM Helper - {0055C089-8582-441B-A0BF-17B458C2A3A8} - C:My Program FilesBrowsers n PluginsInternet Download ManagerIDMIECC.dll
O2 - BHO: &Yahoo! Toolbar Helper - {02478D38-C3F9-4efb-9B51-7695ECA05670} - (no file)
O2 - BHO: AcroIEHelperStub - {18DF081C-E8AD-4283-A596-FA578C2EBDC3} - C:Program FilesCommon FilesAdobeAcrobatActiveXAcroIEHelperShim.dll
O2 - BHO: (no name) - {1E8A6170-7264-4D0F-BEAE-D42A53123C75} - C:Program FilesCommon FilesSymantec SharedcoSharedBrowser1.5NppBho.dll
O2 - BHO: Windows Live OneCare Family Safety Browser Helper - {4f3ed5cd-0726-42a9-87f5-d13f3d2976ac} - C:Program FilesWindows LiveFamily Safetyfssbho.dll
O2 - BHO: (no name) - {5082B10B-12E8-4597-86EA-B1946B355627} - C:Windowssystem32nnnOIxUn.dll
O2 - BHO: Yahoo! IE Services Button - {5BAB4B5B-68BC-4B02-94D6-2FC0DE4A7897} - C:Program FilesYahoo!Commonyiesrvc.dll
O2 - BHO: Groove GFS Browser Helper - {72853161-30C5-4D22-B7F9-0BBC1D38A37E} - C:Program FilesMicrosoft OfficeOffice12GrooveShellExtensions.dll
O2 - BHO: Java(tm) Plug-In SSV Helper - {761497BB-D6F0-462C-B6EB-D4DAF1D92D43} - C:Program FilesJavajre6binssv.dll
O2 - BHO: Windows Live Sign-in Helper - {9030D464-4C02-4ABF-8ECC-5164760863C6} - C:Program FilesCommon FilesMicrosoft SharedWindows LiveWindowsLiveLogin.dll
O2 - BHO: Google Toolbar Helper - {AA58ED58-01DD-4d91-8333-CF10577473F7} - c:program filesgooglegoogletoolbar.dll
O2 - BHO: Windows Live Toolbar Helper - {BDBD1DAD-C946-4A17-ADC1-64B5B4FF55D0} - C:Program FilesWindows Live Toolbarmsntb.dll
O2 - BHO: Ask.com Toolbar BHO - {D4027C7F-154A-4066-A1AD-4243D8127440} - C:Program FilesAsk.comSupertoolbarGenericAskToolbar.dll
O2 - BHO: Java(tm) Plug-In 2 SSV Helper - {DBC80044-A445-435b-BC74-9C25C1C588A9} - C:Program FilesJavajre6binjp2ssv.dll
O3 - Toolbar: DAEMON Tools Toolbar - {32099AAC-C132-4136-9E9A-4E364A424E17} - C:Program FilesDAEMON Tools ToolbarDTToolbar.dll
O3 - Toolbar: &Google - {2318C2B1-4965-11d4-9B18-009027A5CD4F} - c:program filesgooglegoogletoolbar.dll
O3 - Toolbar: Yahoo! Toolbar - {EF99BD32-C1FB-11D2-892F-0090271D4F88} - (no file)
O3 - Toolbar: Windows Live Toolbar - {BDAD1DAD-C946-4A17-ADC1-64B5B4FF55D0} - C:Program FilesWindows Live Toolbarmsntb.dll
O3 - Toolbar: Show Norton Toolbar - {90222687-F593-4738-B738-FBEE9C7B26DF} - C:Program FilesCommon FilesSymantec SharedcoSharedBrowser1.5UIBHO.dll
O3 - Toolbar: Ask.com Toolbar - {D4027C7F-154A-4066-A1AD-4243D8127440} - C:Program FilesAsk.comSupertoolbarGenericAskToolbar.dll
O4 - HKLM..Run: [SMSERIAL] C:Program FilesMotorolaSMSERIALsm56hlpr.exe
O4 - HKLM..Run: [IAAnotif] "C:Program FilesIntelIntel Matrix Storage ManagerIaanotif.exe"
O4 - HKLM..Run: [RtHDVCpl] RtHDVCpl.exe
O4 - HKLM..Run: [SynTPEnh] C:Program FilesSynapticsSynTPSynTPEnh.exe
O4 - HKLM..Run: [PowerForPhone] C:Program FilesPowerForPhonePowerForPhone.exe
O4 - HKLM..Run: [IFXSPMGT] C:Windowssystem32ifxspmgt.exe /NotifyLogon
O4 - HKLM..Run: [ASUS Screen Saver Protector] C:WindowsASScrPro.exe
O4 - HKLM..Run: [ASUS Camera ScreenSaver] C:WindowsASScrProlog.exe
O4 - HKLM..Run: [Adobe Reader Speed Launcher] "C:My Program FilesVendorAdobeReader 9ReaderReader_sl.exe"
O4 - HKLM..Run: [NeroFilterCheck] C:Program FilesCommon FilesAheadLibNeroCheck.exe
O4 - HKLM..Run: [InCD] C:My Program FilesCD and DVD ToolsNeroNero 7Nero ToolkitNero 7InCDInCD.exe
O4 - HKLM..Run: [RemoteControl] "C:My Program FilesMultiMediaCyberLinkPowerDVDPDVDServ.exe"
O4 - HKLM..Run: [LanguageShortcut] "C:My Program FilesMultiMediaCyberLinkPowerDVDLanguageLanguage.exe"
O4 - HKLM..Run: [GrooveMonitor] "C:Program FilesMicrosoft OfficeOffice12GrooveMonitor.exe"
O4 - HKLM..Run: [NvSvc] RUNDLL32.EXE C:Windowssystem32nvsvc.dll,nvsvcStart
O4 - HKLM..Run: [NvCplDaemon] RUNDLL32.EXE C:Windowssystem32NvCpl.dll,NvStartup
O4 - HKLM..Run: [NvMediaCenter] RUNDLL32.EXE C:Windowssystem32NvMcTray.dll,NvTaskbarInit
O4 - HKLM..Run: [NSLauncher] C:Program FilesNokiaNokia Software LauncherNSLauncher.exe /startup
O4 - HKLM..Run: [ccApp] "C:Program FilesCommon FilesSymantec SharedccApp.exe"
O4 - HKLM..Run: [SunJavaUpdateSched] "C:Program FilesJavajre6binjusched.exe"
O4 - HKLM..Run: [QuickTime Task] "C:Program FilesQuickTimeQTTask.exe" -atboottime
O4 - HKLM..Run: [AppleSyncNotifier] C:Program FilesCommon FilesAppleMobile Device SupportbinAppleSyncNotifier.exe
O4 - HKLM..Run: [iTunesHelper] "C:My Program FilesMultiMediaiTunesiTunesHelper.exe"
O4 - HKLM..Run: [MSServer] rundll32.exe C:Windowssystem32vtUklmkk.dll,#1
O4 - HKCU..Run: [DAEMON Tools Lite] "C:My Program FilesCD and DVD ToolsDAEMON Tools Litedaemon.exe" -autorun
O4 - HKCU..Run: [SpeedConnectStartUp] C:My Program FilesUtilitiesSpeedConnect Internet AcceleratorSpeedConnectStartUp.exe -run
O4 - HKCU..Run: [WMPNSCFG] C:Program FilesWindows Media PlayerWMPNSCFG.exe
O4 - HKCU..Run: [Registry Repair Wizard Scheduler] "C:My Program FilesUtilitiesRegistry Repair WizardRCHelper.exe" /startup
O8 - Extra context menu item: &Google Search - res://C:Program FilesGooglegoogletoolbar.dll/cmsearch.html
O8 - Extra context menu item: &Windows Live Search - res://C:Program FilesWindows Live Toolbarmsntb.dll/search.htm
O8 - Extra context menu item: Add to Windows &Live Favorites - http://favorites.live.com/quickadd.aspx
O8 - Extra context menu item: Backward &Links - res://C:Program FilesGooglegoogletoolbar.dll/cmbacklinks.html
O8 - Extra context menu item: Cac&hed Snapshot of Page - res://C:Program FilesGooglegoogletoolbar.dll/cmcache.html
O8 - Extra context menu item: Download all links with IDM - C:My Program FilesBrowsers n PluginsInternet Download ManagerIEGetAll.htm
O8 - Extra context menu item: Download FLV video content with IDM - C:My Program FilesBrowsers n PluginsInternet Download ManagerIEGetVL.htm
O8 - Extra context menu item: Download with IDM - C:My Program FilesBrowsers n PluginsInternet Download ManagerIEExt.htm
O8 - Extra context menu item: E&xport to Microsoft Excel - res://C:MYPROG~1OfficeMICROS~1Office12EXCEL.EXE/3000
O8 - Extra context menu item: Si&milar Pages - res://C:Program FilesGooglegoogletoolbar.dll/cmsimilar.html
O8 - Extra context menu item: Translate into English - res://C:Program FilesGooglegoogletoolbar.dll/cmtrans.html
O9 - Extra button: Blog This - {219C3416-8CB2-491a-A3C7-D9FCDDC9D600} - C:Program FilesWindows LiveWriterWriterBrowserExtension.dll
O9 - Extra Tools menuitem: &Blog This in Windows Live Writer - {219C3416-8CB2-491a-A3C7-D9FCDDC9D600} - C:Program FilesWindows LiveWriterWriterBrowserExtension.dll
O9 - Extra button: Send to OneNote - {2670000A-7350-4f3c-8081-5663EE0C6C49} - C:PROGRA~1MICROS~3Office12ONBttnIE.dll
O9 - Extra Tools menuitem: S&end to OneNote - {2670000A-7350-4f3c-8081-5663EE0C6C49} - C:PROGRA~1MICROS~3Office12ONBttnIE.dll
O9 - Extra button: (no name) - {53F6FCCD-9E22-4d71-86EA-6E43136192AB} - (no file)
O9 - Extra button: Yahoo! Services - {5BAB4B5B-68BC-4B02-94D6-2FC0DE4A7897} - C:Program FilesYahoo!Commonyiesrvc.dll
O9 - Extra button: (no name) - {925DAB62-F9AC-4221-806A-057BFB1014AA} - (no file)
O9 - Extra button: Research - {92780B25-18CC-41C8-B9BE-3C9C571A8263} - C:PROGRA~1MICROS~3Office12REFIEBAR.DLL
O10 - Unknown file in Winsock LSP: c:windowssystem32nlaapi.dll
O10 - Unknown file in Winsock LSP: c:windowssystem32napinsp.dll
O10 - Unknown file in Winsock LSP: c:program filesbonjourmdnsnsp.dll
O11 - Options group: [INTERNATIONAL] International*
O13 - Gopher Prefix:
O16 - DPF: {30528230-99f7-4bb4-88d8-fa1d4f56a2ab} (Installation Support) - C:Program FilesYahoo!CommonYinsthelper.dll
O18 - Protocol: grooveLocalGWS - {88FED34C-F0CA-4636-A375-3CB6248B04CD} - C:Program FilesMicrosoft OfficeOffice12GrooveSystemServices.dll
O18 - Protocol: livecall - {828030A1-22C1-4009-854F-8E305202313F} - C:PROGRA~1WI1F86~1MESSEN~1MSGRAP~1.DLL
O18 - Protocol: ms-help - {314111C7-A502-11D2-BBCA-00C04F8EC294} - C:Program FilesCommon FilesMicrosoft SharedHelphxds.dll
O18 - Protocol: msnim - {828030A1-22C1-4009-854F-8E305202313F} - C:PROGRA~1WI1F86~1MESSEN~1MSGRAP~1.DLL
O18 - Protocol: wlmailhtml - {03C514A3-1EFB-4856-9F99-10D7BE1653C0} - C:Program FilesWindows LiveMailmailcomm.dll
O18 - Filter hijack: text/xml - {807563E5-5146-11D5-A672-00B0D022E945} - C:PROGRA~1COMMON~1MICROS~1OFFICE12MSOXMLMF.DLL
O23 - Service: ADSM Service (ADSMService) - Unknown owner - C:Program FilesASUSASUS Data Security ManagerADSMSrv.exe
O23 - Service: Apple Mobile Device - Apple Inc. - C:Program FilesCommon FilesAppleMobile Device SupportbinAppleMobileDeviceService.exe
O23 - Service: ASLDR Service (ASLDRService) - Unknown owner - C:Program FilesATK HotkeyASLDRSrv.exe
O23 - Service: ATKGFNEX Service (ATKGFNEXSrv) - Unknown owner - C:Program FilesATKGFNEXGFNEXSrv.exe
O23 - Service: Automatic LiveUpdate Scheduler - Symantec Corporation - C:Program FilesSymantecLiveUpdateALUSchedulerSvc.exe
O23 - Service: Bonjour Service - Apple Inc. - C:Program FilesBonjourmDNSResponder.exe
O23 - Service: Symantec Event Manager (ccEvtMgr) - Unknown owner - C:Program FilesCommon FilesSymantec SharedccSvcHst.exe" /h ccCommon (file missing)
O23 - Service: Symantec Settings Manager (ccSetMgr) - Unknown owner - C:Program FilesCommon FilesSymantec SharedccSvcHst.exe" /h ccCommon (file missing)
O23 - Service: Symantec Lic NetConnect service (CLTNetCnService) - Unknown owner - C:Program FilesCommon FilesSymantec SharedccSvcHst.exe" /h cltCommon (file missing)
O23 - Service: COM Host (comHost) - Symantec Corporation - C:Program FilesCommon FilesSymantec SharedVAScannercomHost.exe
O23 - Service: Intel(R) PROSet/Wireless Event Log (EvtEng) - Intel Corporation - C:Program FilesIntelWirelessBinEvtEng.exe
O23 - Service: FLEXnet Licensing Service - Macrovision Europe Ltd. - C:Program FilesCommon FilesMacrovision SharedFLEXnet PublisherFNPLicensingService.exe
O23 - Service: @gpapi.dll,-112 (gpsvc) - Unknown owner - %windir%system32svchost.exe (file missing)
O23 - Service: Intel(R) Matrix Storage Event Monitor (IAANTMON) - Intel Corporation - C:Program FilesIntelIntel Matrix Storage ManagerIaantmon.exe
O23 - Service: Security Platform Management Service (IFXSpMgtSrv) - Infineon Technologies AG - C:Windowssystem32ifxspmgt.exe
O23 - Service: Trusted Platform Core Service (IFXTCS) - Infineon Technologies AG - C:Windowssystem32ifxtcs.exe
O23 - Service: InCD Helper (InCDsrv) - Nero AG - C:My Program FilesCD and DVD ToolsNeroNero 7Nero ToolkitNero 7InCDInCDsrv.exe
O23 - Service: iPod Service - Apple Inc. - C:Program FilesiPodbiniPodService.exe
O23 - Service: Symantec IS Password Validation (ISPwdSvc) - Symantec Corporation - C:My Program FilesAntivirusNorton Internet Security 2007isPwdSvc.exe
O23 - Service: LightScribeService Direct Disc Labeling Service (LightScribeService) - Hewlett-Packard Company - C:Program FilesCommon FilesLightScribeLSSrvc.exe
O23 - Service: LiveUpdate - Symantec Corporation - C:PROGRA~1SymantecLIVEUP~1LUCOMS~1.EXE
O23 - Service: LiveUpdate Notice Service Ex (LiveUpdate Notice Ex) - Unknown owner - C:Program FilesCommon FilesSymantec SharedccSvcHst.exe" /h ccCommon (file missing)
O23 - Service: LiveUpdate Notice Service - Unknown owner - C:Program FilesCommon FilesSymantec SharedPIF{B8E1DD85-8582-4c61-B58F-2F227FCA9A08}PIFSvc.exe" /m "C:Program FilesCommon FilesSymantec SharedPIF{B8E1DD85-8582-4c61-B58F-2F227FCA9A08}PifEng.dll (file missing)
O23 - Service: NMIndexingService - Nero AG - C:Program FilesCommon FilesAheadLibNMIndexingService.exe
O23 - Service: Personal Secure Drive Service (PersonalSecureDriveService) - Infineon Technologies AG - C:Windowssystem32IfxPsdSv.exe
O23 - Service: @%SystemRoot%system32qwave.dll,-1 (QWAVE) - Unknown owner - %windir%system32svchost.exe (file missing)
O23 - Service: Intel(R) PROSet/Wireless Registry Service (RegSrvc) - Intel Corporation - C:Program FilesIntelWirelessBinRegSrvc.exe
O23 - Service: Cyberlink RichVideo Service(CRVS) (RichVideo) - Unknown owner - C:Program FilesCyberLinkShared FilesRichVideo.exe
O23 - Service: @%SystemRoot%system32seclogon.dll,-7001 (seclogon) - Unknown owner - %windir%system32svchost.exe (file missing)
O23 - Service: ServiceLayer - Nokia. - C:Program FilesCommon FilesPCSuiteServicesServiceLayer.exe
O23 - Service: spmgr - Unknown owner - C:Program FilesASUSNB ProbeSPMspmgr.exe
O23 - Service: Symantec Core LC - Unknown owner - C:Program FilesCommon FilesSymantec SharedCCPD-LCsymlcsvc.exe
O23 - Service: Symantec AppCore Service (SymAppCore) - Symantec Corporation - C:Program FilesCommon FilesSymantec SharedAppCoreAppSvc32.exe
O23 - Service: @%SystemRoot%System32TuneUpDefragService.exe,-1 (TuneUp.Defrag) - TuneUp Software GmbH - C:WindowsSystem32TuneUpDefragService.exe
O23 - Service: @%ProgramFiles%Windows Media Playerwmpnetwk.exe,-101 (WMPNetworkSvc) - Unknown owner - %ProgramFiles%Windows Media Playerwmpnetwk.exe (file missing)

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Computer Tricks

how to make folders invisible and how to password protect files

www.youtube.com

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[Source: Google Video - computer tricks - Posted by FreeAutoBlogger]

Network help

Im not to good with some things on computers, and setting up a network is one of them ... I just havent needed to as someones always done it for me. So, I have a laptop running Vista and I get net through a wireless router. I also have an old XP machine that I want to store files on, but I want to be able to connect to the net through that, too. Is there a way I can hook up my laptop and desktop so the latter gets net access through the former?

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How To Open Another Instance of an Application in Windows 7

Sometimes we need to open another instance of an application (as long as it supports multiple instances) that you are using. Instead of going to the Start menu, Windows 7 provides two simple methods to make it happen.

Method 1:

Find the application in the Taskbar.
Hold down the Shift key while left-clicking on the Taskbar icon.

A [...]


Related posts:

1. Demonid Registrations Are Open
2. How to Capture Screenshots from Windows Media Player
3. How to Capture Screenshots of iPhone 3G Screens

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Family pc and Craigslist - Weird event

ok that above is what shows when i type in craigslist. its my favorited stuff. but now something else showed up and that was not favorited


ok this pc is a winxp pro and is family used. we live in nyc. And basically no one uses craigslist except me. my parents dont even know how to use the pc well my dad just prints stuff out and my mom reads the news

OK LONG STORY SHORT

I just visited my family and used the computer, and i typed in firefox Craigs and then the listing came up. Then i see a damn listing of an oven in san diego penninsula? im like wtf? no one here can even remotely navigate that deep into the net especially craigslist and and yea i went to the add it didnt have a pic it was just talking about an oven in san diego...i am paranoid now

Then i clicked tools clear private data. and typed it in again and IT DID NOT appear. It was gone. Only my bookmarked urls from cragislist appeared

WTF? i scanned my pc and everything showed up clean. i use prevx too. scanned with dr web cureit, malwarebytes, what in the name was that?

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Mixing Oil and Water: Authorship in a Wiki World

When you visit Wikipedia's entry on asphalt, you get some reasonably reliable information about asphalt. What you don't get, however, is any indication of who the author is. That's because the author is irrelevant. Wikipedia is a community effort, the result of tiny slices of effort contributed by millions of people around the world. The focus is on the value of the aggregated information, not who the individual authors are.

But who is that community? According to Jimmy Wales, most of the work on Wikipedia is done by a tightly knit Gang of 500:

Wales decided to run a simple study to find out: he counted who made the most edits to the site. “I expected to find something like an 80-20 rule: 80% of the work being done by 20% of the users, just because that seems to come up a lot. But it’s actually much, much tighter than that: it turns out over 50% of all the edits are done by just .7% of the users … 524 people. … And in fact the most active 2%, which is 1400 people, have done 73.4% of all the edits.” The remaining 25% of edits, he said, were from “people who [are] contributing … a minor change of a fact or a minor spelling fix … or something like that.”

Stack Overflow has some wiki-like aspects, and even my limited experience with the genre tells me this claim is implausible. Aaron Swartz ran his own study and came to a very different conclusion:

I wrote a little program to go through each edit and count how much of it remained in the latest version.? Instead of counting edits, as Wales did, I counted the number of letters a user actually contributed to the present article.

If you just count edits, it appears the biggest contributors to the Alan Alda article (7 of the top 10) are registered users who (all but 2) have made thousands of edits to the site. Indeed, #4 has made over 7,000 edits while #7 has over 25,000. In other words, if you use Wales’s methods, you get Wales’s results: most of the content seems to be written by heavy editors.

But when you count letters, the picture dramatically changes: few of the contributors (2 out of the top 10) are even registered and most (6 out of the top 10) have made less than 25 edits to the entire site. In fact, #9 has made exactly one edit — this one! With the more reasonable metric — indeed, the one Wales himself said he planned to use in the next revision of his study — the result completely reverses.

Insiders account for the vast majority of the edits. But it's the outsiders who provide nearly all of the content.

Satisfying the needs of these two radically different audiences -- the insiders and the outsiders -- is the art of wiki design. That's why, on Stack Overflow, we mix oil and water:

1. There's a strong sense of authorship, with a reputation system and a signature block attached to every post, like traditional blogs and forums.
   
2. Once the system learns to trust you, you can edit anything -- and we sometimes switch into a mode where authorship is de-emphasized to focus on the resulting content, like a wiki.
   

I'm not sure mixing these opposing elements would work for a project on the scale of Wikipedia. But I think it works for us (and when I say us, I mean programmers) because it's analogous to the version control system baked into the DNA of every programmer. Communal ownership is all well and good, but sometimes you still need to know Who Wrote This Crap. Authorship matters, ownership matters -- and yet there's still something bigger, a larger goal we're all working toward, that trumps any individual contribution we might make. Both elements are in play.

Still, we absorbed a lot of tension with this design choice, because authorship and wiki are fundamentally opposing goals. How do you balance self-interest (vote for me) with selfnessness (vote for this content)? Sometimes it breaks down. There's a rough area around the edges where these two systems meet. For example, consider the Stack Overflow question titled Significant new inventions in computing since 1980.

If you knew this question was from Turing Award winning computer scientist Alan Kay, would it change the way you reacted to it? Of course it would!

But you'd never know that, because our wiki signature block only tells you:

1. The last editor (Out Into Space)
   
2. How many revisions there have been to this question so far (5)
   
3. How many users have created those revisions (4)
   

It's a lot of information, by typical wiki standards. Who cares who wrote the question, as long as it's a good question, right?

But that doesn't entirely work; we also need to know who the primary author is, because that information will color and influence our responses to the question. I'll grant you this is an extreme example; no disrespect to my fellow programmers, but you haven't won a turing award. Even in more typical cases, attaching authorship matters. It lets us know who we're talking to, what their background is, what their skills are, and so forth. Furthermore, how can you possibly form a community when everyone is a random, anonymous contributor?

So the challenge, then, is tracking authorship -- strictly for informational purposes -- across a series of edit revisions. Jimbo erred in tracking only edit counts. Aaron used Python's difflib.SequenceMatcher.find_longest_match to establish ownership across revisions. This is the basic technique visualized in IBM's History Flow.

Imagine a scenario where three people will make contributions to a Wiki page at different points in time. Each person edits the page and then saves their changes to what becomes the latest version of that page.

History Flow connects text that has been kept the same between consecutive versions. Pieces of text that do not have correspondence in the next (or previous) version are not connected and the user sees a resulting "gap" in the visualization; this happens for deletions and insertions.

It's very cool when applied to larger inputs; see history flow visualization of the Wikipedia entry on evolution.

Now, the differencing of text is, in itself, not exactly a trivial problem. I started by examining the Levenshtein Distance, but this algorithm is truly brute force. See if you can tell why, in this visualization of the Levenshtein distance between "puzzle" and "pzzel":

The levenshtein distance is a measure of how many insertions, deletions, or substitutions are required to transform string A into string B. The larger the number, the more different the strings are. We're comparing two strings essentially letter-by-letter, which means the typical cost is O(mn), where m and n are the lengths of the two strings we're comparing. That's why you typically see Levenshtein used for comparing words, nothing on the order of paragraphs or pages.

I played around with Levenshtein for a while, but even optimized implementations are brutally slow as the size of the input increases. I quickly realized that a line-based comparison was the only workable one. We used this C# implementation of An O(ND) Difference Algorithm and its Variations (pdf).

What I ended up implementing was nowhere near as thorough as IBM's history flow, although it's probably similar to the rough metrics Aaron used. I simply sum the total size of all line contributions (insertions or deletions) from any given author in a revision, with a small bonus multiplier of 2x for the original author. We report the highest percentage of authorship in the final revision.

The line-based diff approach for determining authorship is far from perfect; it'd be more accurate if it was per-word or per-sentence. But it's a fairly good approximation in my testing.

And most importantly, wiki posts by Alan Kay look like they're from Alan Kay.

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How to Get Windows 7 Beta Product Key (valid key)

Because of the overloaded Microsoft servers it can be hard to get a valid key. Because Microsoft Did Not Expect Such A High Windows 7 Beta Demand. To get a valid key the fastest just follow these simple step

Step 1: Log onto [technet.microsoft.com] by clicking on “Sign in” in the upper right corner with your [...]


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The Elephant in the Room: Google Monoculture

I was browsing the sessions at an upcoming Search Conference, which describes itself thusly:

The way to online success is through being easily found in search engines such as Google, Yahoo!, and Microsoft Live Search. While developers have historically thought of search as a marketing activity, technical architecture has now become critical for search success.

Anyone else see the elephant in the room, there? No?

Just two weeks after we launched Stack Overflow, I mentioned that search engines already made up 50% of our traffic. Well, not so much search engines as search engine:

I try to be politically correct in discussing web search, avoiding the g-word whenever possible, desperately attempting to preserve the illusion that web search is actually a competitive market. But it's becoming a transparent and cruel joke at this point. When we say "web search" we mean one thing, and one thing only: Google. Rich Skrenta explains:

I'm not a professional analyst, and my approach here is pretty back-of-the-napkin. Still, it confirms what those of us in the search industry have known for a long time.

The New York Times, for instance, gets nearly 6 times as much traffic from Google as it does from Yahoo. Tripadvisor gets 8 times as much traffic from Google vs. Yahoo.

Even Yahoo's own sites are no different. While it receives a greater fraction of Yahoo search traffic than average, Yahoo's own flickr service gets 2.4 times as much traffic from Google as it does from Yahoo.

My favorite example: According to Hitwise, [ex] Yahoo blogger Jeremy Zawodny gets 92% of his inbound search traffic from Google, and only 2.7% from Yahoo.

That was written almost two years ago. Guess which way those numbers have gone since then?

Now that Stack Overflow has been chugging right along for almost six months, allow me to share the last month of our own data. Currently, 83% of our total traffic is from search engines, or rather, one particular search engine:

Search Engine	Visits
Google	3,417,919
Yahoo	9,779
Live	5,638
Search	2,961
AOL	1,274
Ask	1,186
MSN	1,177
Altavista	202
Yandex	191
Seznam	103

Those 6x and 8x numbers that Rich quoted two years ago seem awfully quaint now. Google delivers 350x the traffic to Stack Overflow that the next best so-called "search engine" does. Three hundred and fifty times!

Now, I don't claim that Stack Overflow is representative of every site on the internet -- obviously it isn't. It's a site for programmers. And let me be absolutely crystal clear that I have no problem at all with Google. That said, I find it profoundly disturbing that if every other search engine in the world shut down tomorrow, our website's traffic would be effectively unchanged. That's downright scary.

Yes, I like Google. Yes, Google works great and has been my homepage for about eight years now. Google nailed search, and they deserve the leadership position they've earned. But where's the healthy competition? Where's the incentive for Google to improve? All I see is a large and growing monoculture that acts as the start page for the internet.

I'm a little surprised all the people who were so up in arms about the Microsoft "monopoly" ten years ago aren't out in the streets today lighting torches and sharpening their pitchforks to go after Google. Does the fact that Google's products are mostly free and ad-supported somehow exempt it from the same scrutiny? Isn't anyone else concerned that Google, even with the best of "don't be evil" intentions, has become more master than servant?

Calling the current state of search engine competition a horse race is an insult to horse races. No, what we have here is a one horse race where all the other horses were shipped off to glue factories years ago. Forget "search conference", you should be throwing a "Google conference", because there's no difference.

I don't know. Maybe that's OK. But it does mean that if Google, for whatever reason, decided to remove you from its search results, your website no longer exists. At least not as a viable business, anyway.

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Do you want to display lyrics on your iTunes or winamp when playing MP3? so you can read the lyrics while listening to your favorite song in your iPod. But the only problem is that iTunes store doesn�t provide lyrics, just like the way they provide album art. You�ll have to manually fetch lyrics for [...]


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