Google's New Favicon

I noticed a while ago that Google changed its favicon on most of its pages (that little icon that shows up to the left of the URL in the address bar and in the bookmarks list if you bookmark the page), but I didn't know why until a few minutes ago. It used to look like this:



but now it looks like this:



So, you ask, why did they change the icon? I thought it was fine before. Apparently, their reason was that they wanted icons that "would scale better to some new platforms like the iPhone and other mobile devices." Okay, fair enough. But was all this really necessary?



Stop screwing around with all these little 16 by 16 pixel images: just pick one that you like and move on to bigger and better things, Google!

Firefox 3 Download Day

Mozilla will soon be releasing version 3 of their award-winning web browser, Firefox. Although the official release date has not been published yet, that day will be "Download Day", in which Mozilla wants to set a world record for most software downloaded in 24 hours. They also have a pledge button at the download day page, for people to pledge that they will download Firefox 3 when it is released. When you enter your email address with your pledge, they'll let you know when version 3 is released so you can be sure not to miss Download Day!

In the spirit of Download Day, I will now post this button at the bottom of my sidebar on the right.

Gmail Labs

Google introduced a new feature for Gmail today called Gmail Labs. It's not really a feature in the traditional sense; instead, it's a new area for Gmail engineers to put their own experimental add-ons for Gmail, which haven't gone through design reviews, product analysis or thorough testing, and the Gmail team is still deciding whether to introduce them as official features. In Gmail under the settings, there is now a new Labs tab, where you can enable or disable the experimental features (by default they're all disabled). The ones that get a lot of usage may eventually be implemented as real Gmail features, and of course there is a feedback link for each one.

Right now there are 13 experimental features, only 4 of which I have enabled (Quick Links, Superstars, Signature Tweaks and of course, Old Snakey -- that game is so addictive!).

Read more about Gmail Labs at http://gmailblog.blogspot.com/2008/06/introducing-gmail-labs.html

Google Treasure Hunt Week 3 Problem/Solution

Google is hosting a puzzle contest called the Treasure Hunt, testing knowledge of computer science, networking, problem solving, etc. It is free and open to anybody, and there are prizes for those extraordinary people who can get all of the questions right.

Go to http://treasurehunt.appspot.com/ to see the questions and enter the contest.

Here is the networking question (week 3) http://treasurehunt.appspot.com/historic/network:

Below is a diagram of a computer network. The nodes are hosts on the network, and the lines between them are links. A packet is sent out from host P with a destination of 106.5.163.253. Which nodes does the packet pass through on its way to the destination? (include start and final node in your answer)

Here is a network routing table you'll need to determine the path taken:

Node	Ip address	Routing table entry	Routing table entry	Routing table entry	Default route
A	41.2.90.147	15.248.192.89 => 59.17.173.9	106.5.163.253 => 184.195.111.249	184.195.111.0/24 => 118.52.102.45	168.179.92.1
B	168.179.92.1	69.245.219.240 => 118.52.102.45	41.2.90.147 => 184.195.111.249	148.75.75.0/24 => 41.2.90.147	50.193.16.193
C	50.193.16.193	168.179.92.1 => 10.182.187.92	184.195.111.249 => 168.179.92.1	48.13.8.0/24 => 15.248.192.89	171.222.55.228
D	171.222.55.228	219.192.84.234 => 69.245.219.240	41.2.90.147 => 173.46.61.110	106.5.163.0/24 => 10.182.187.92	48.13.8.8
E	48.13.8.8	171.222.55.228 => 171.222.55.228	106.5.163.253 => 106.5.163.253	173.46.61.0/24 => 229.217.5.126	148.75.75.148
F	106.5.163.253	59.17.173.9 => 48.13.8.8	168.179.92.1 => 229.217.5.126	184.195.111.0/24 => 148.75.75.148	69.245.219.240
G	69.245.219.240	59.17.173.9 => 106.5.163.253	15.248.192.89 => 171.222.55.228	168.179.92.0/24 => 173.46.61.110	15.248.192.89
H	173.46.61.110	15.248.192.89 => 229.217.5.126	219.192.84.234 => 69.245.219.240	48.13.8.0/24 => 15.248.192.89	171.222.55.228
I	229.217.5.126	15.248.192.89 => 173.46.61.110	41.2.90.147 => 106.5.163.253	69.245.219.0/24 => 148.75.75.148	48.13.8.8
J	148.75.75.148	229.217.5.126 => 15.248.192.89	118.52.102.45 => 229.217.5.126	106.5.163.0/24 => 48.13.8.8	106.5.163.253
K	15.248.192.89	106.5.163.253 => 148.75.75.148	41.2.90.147 => 69.245.219.240	229.217.5.0/24 => 10.182.187.92	173.46.61.110
L	10.182.187.92	148.75.75.148 => 171.222.55.228	118.52.102.45 => 219.192.84.234	106.5.163.0/24 => 15.248.192.89	50.193.16.193
M	118.52.102.45	118.52.102.45 => 41.2.90.147	50.193.16.193 => 10.182.187.92	48.13.8.0/24 => 168.179.92.1	184.195.111.249
N	184.195.111.249	184.195.111.249 => 168.179.92.1	41.2.90.147 => 41.2.90.147	106.5.163.0/24 => 219.192.84.234	118.52.102.45
O	219.192.84.234	173.46.61.110 => 10.182.187.92	219.192.84.234 => 59.17.173.9	48.13.8.0/24 => 184.195.111.249	50.193.16.193
P	59.17.173.9	50.193.16.193 => 50.193.16.193	106.5.163.253 => 41.2.90.147	171.222.55.0/24 => 10.182.187.92	219.192.84.234

Enter the nodes the packet passes through below
(Note: Answer must start with P, end with the destination node name, and contain only node names.)

Spoiler: to see the answer, click here!

To re-hide the answer, clear your browsing history and reload this page.

All you have to do for question 3 is read the network routing table, start at the designated starting node, and under the table entries see what IP address it goes to for the destination IP address. In the above example, we start at node P, then find the routing table entry for 106.5.163.253, and there is an entry 106.5.163.253 => 41.2.90.147. This means that to get to 106.5.163.253, it will first go to 41.2.90.147, which in the table resolves to node A. Then find the entry under node A for 106.5.163.253, which is 106.5.163.253 => 184.195.111.249, and 184.195.111.249 resolves to node N, etc.

Google Treasure Hunt Week 1 Problem/Solution

Google is hosting a puzzle contest called the Treasure Hunt, testing knowledge of computer science, networking, problem solving, etc. It is free and open to anybody, and there are prizes for the first person who can get all of the questions right.

Go to http://treasurehunt.appspot.com/ to see the questions and enter the contest.

Here is the robot in a grid question (week 1) http://treasurehunt.appspot.com/historic/robot/:

A robot is located at the top-left corner of a 58 x 48 grid (marked 'Start' in the diagram below).

The robot can only move either down or right at any point in time. The robot is trying to reach the bottom-right corner of the grid (marked 'Finish' in the diagram below).

Note: The grid below is 7x3, and is used to illustrate the problem. It is not drawn to scale.

How many possible unique paths are there?

Spoiler: to see the answer, click here.
To re-hide the answer, clear your browsing history and reload this page.


For question 2, you just have to think about the basic concepts of probability and combinatorics. Let's use the example with the 7 by 3 grid. In this case, the robot has to go 6 units to the right and 2 units down. This is a total of 6+2=8 steps the robot will end up taking. Using the counting principle/permutations, the number of ways of ordering these 8 steps is 8! (8 factorial, or 8*7*6*5*4*3*2*1). I thought about it like the permutations of this set of characters: R R R R R R D D (6 steps right and 2 steps down). But, we need to divide out the repetition here. Think of the option R R R R R R D D: this is one path the robot can take. But with 6 Rs that are all the same, it doesn't matter if we switch them around a little, like the first and last R switch places. So, we have to divide out the repetition: the number of ways of ordering all the right steps and all the down steps: this is 6!2!, so our final answer is 8!/(6!2!)=28 for the 7 by 3 grid example. I used the same method for the 58 by 48 problem.

The Funny Trip

A couple days ago, I went on a trip and did a little sightseeing. Now, of course, I didn't know exactly where everything was, so every once in a while I had to get directions. Luckily, there's always the trusty information booth!



I hope he had a good nap.