Manage Blocked Sites? Thanks, Google!

Google recently unveiled a tremendous new feature which allows you to block sites from their search results.

A feature previously only available as an extension for Chrome, users with a Google Account can now maintain their own, personal blacklist of sites whose search results aren't useful.

The original entry about this release on the Google blog tells the story, and you can click the following link to actually access your very own Manage Blocked Sites screen (assuming you're signed in to your Google account).

I mainly use Google, Bing, and Ask for my searches, but now Google is in my top spot solely for this feature. Too often I've submitted a query to a search engine only to be bombarded by useless results consisting of anything from advertising to porn to advertising about porn to malware, and habitually I'd just click the third or fourth page of results in the hope that I'd find some worthwhile content. Now I can shape my search results by eliminating much of the fluff, which translates into much more productive searches.

Creators of fluff are on notice:

"Sites will be blocked only for you, but Google may use everyone's blocking information to improve the ranking of search results overall."

Content is king, as the saying goes, and this is one big step in helping us mere users leverage the system by enabling us to trim away the fluff as we find it.

Well played, Google!

Why You Need TeraCopy.

It's late, and you need to copy a bunch of files from one folder to another, one drive to another. Whatever the case, you select your folder, copy it (Ctrl-C is my favorite), then navigate to the destination and paste (Ctrl-V, here). 

Then begins the waiting game. 

Windows Explorer, in all its minimal uselessness

If you're copying thousands of files in thousands of folders, and the process stops somewhere along the way, you're stuck digging through all those files, all those nested folders, trying to find out where to resume.

 

Enter TeraCopy.

TeraCopy is without a doubt one of the best utilities I have ever used. It easily enables you to copy a large number of files and folders with the ability to verify whether the copy process completed successfully or not for each and every item in the list. Furthermore, it lets you retry any failed items individually or en masse.

TeraCopy can optionally show you the entire list of files as they're being copied.

Another feature I enjoy is that TeraCopy dynamically adjusts buffers while copying to speed up the copy process, making Windows Explorer crude in comparison. It even provides you with a live view of the data transfer speed in the title bar!

The thing I like most about TeraCopy, though, is that once installed it can completely replace Windows Explorer for all your file and folder copying needs. Given that I can copy and paste a huge number of files, and then be met, say, the next morning with a detailed report showing me details about any items that failed to copy, it really does help me sleep easier.