The following real-time search engines are my choice go-to places for the latest news about the Chilean quake and tsunami happenings.

Surchur - http://surchur.com/ "The dashboard to right now"

OneRiot - http://www.oneriot.com/ "Search the realtime web"

Topsy - http://topsy.com/ "A search engine powered by tweets"

Caveat: Unfortunately, there are people that exploit disaster situations and spam real-time search. Fortunately, there are many genuine people who are sharing information on-the-spot and serving as citizen journalists.

Bing is the default search engine in IE8. A Twitter friend, @nofussacctng, recently offered advice when I was struggling with upgrading QuickBooks. Today she asked me how to change the settings in Internet Explorer 8 to enable Google as her default search engine.

Below are the steps to set Google, or another search engine, as default:

1.      In Internet Explorer 8, click on "Tools" located on the far right of the menu bar.

2.      Select "Internet Options" in the pull-down.

3.      Under the General tab, locate Search, and select "Settings."

4.      The Change Search Defaults window opens with a list of Search Providers.

5.      Select (highlight) your desired default search engine, and select "Set Default."

6.      Select "OK," which will close the window. Select "OK" again to exit the Internet Options window.

Sharing tips and helping others represents some of the beauty of social media!

Attempting to login to Twitter via the Web. Screen says "You have chosen to open... a JSON file"

I am hesitant, especially given all the recent hacking of Twitter accounts.

A search revealed that others had the same issue:

Twitter results for json file twitter

Be afraid?

A JSON file, as explained on Fileinfo.com http://www.fileinfo.com/extension/json, is often used in Ajax APIs as an alternative to XML files.

I'd prefer a better explanation, yet I'm not afraid. BUT, I decided not to login via the Web.

Hesitant.

Twitter Services

This is a good time to evaluate which services you allow to have your Twitter password. Twitpic.com, for example. I now prefer to use Posterous to post pictures from now on. But, oh... I gave them access to my Twitter account as well.

Point: Be careful about any file you download and any application you allow to access your Twitter account.