La Piazza

A few years ago a friend told me that he was surprised that an antivirus company was called “Panda” because he associated the name with that of a loving and cute animal.

Okay, a panda bear may seem loving and cuddly, but let’s not be fooled, it is also is fierce and with a strong capability to attack. So, in my opinion, the name reflects perfectly on one hand, our passion for the customer and the desire to make him feel satisfied, cared for and protected and at the same time, the name represents the effectiveness of the security solutions the company offers to combat all types of cyberattacks and threats.

But why the name Panda for a security company? Have a guess! Is it:

a. Because the panda bear is not native to China, as believed, but to Spain, the country of origin of Panda Security.
b. Because the company was founded by a bunch of friends, and bunch of friends in Spanish translates as “panda”.
c. Because one of the creative’s favourite stuffed animal was a panda.

Send us your comments and next week we will announce the correct answer.

The truth is that the origin of the names of some of the most emblematic companies in the technology industry, for example, is somehow curious.

For example:

• Google: The Google case is well known. It was named in honour of the googol, which is a one followed by one hundred zeros, referring to the number of pages you would be able to find when the famous search engine was created.
• Hotmail: It was called so because it included the letters HTML, the language used to program web pages.
• Linux: It is named in honor of its first developer, Linus Torvalds. They changed the “x” for the “s” in honor of Unix, the operating system from which it originates.
• Apple: I have read several theories regarding the name of Apple and it is still not very clear to me what inspired Steve Jobs. Apparently, Jobs decided to sell computers with the name of this fruit paying homage to the Beatles’ record label named alike. Others suggest that Macintosh is a Californian apple variety. Others say that Jobs actually had a good memory of a summer he spent working at an apple farm in Oregon.But other theories suggest that Steve Jobs said to his colleagues, when they were thinking of the product name:”If by 5 pm, we don’t come up with anything better, the company name will be anything that I like. ”

  By 5 pm, no one had thought of a good name, and Jobs was eating an apple … so he called the company Apple Computers.

  However way the true story goes, it turned out to be a cool, fun, and innovative name!!

Know more curious names? We would love you to share them with us!

And remember, next week, we tell you a bit more about the history of Panda Security.

Published by Leyre Velasco, 25th May 2012

In La Piazza, we insist that it is important to keep an eye on your teenager’s online practices despite how difficult it is sometimes to strike a balance between trust and authority, as explained in Mom, were you spying on me?

Well, sometimes, even the most cautious parents and kids get unpleasant surprises when simply searching for information on the Internet. Usually, search engines crawl for websites and then use advanced techniques to determine search results. The fact is that no human categorisation or intervention is involved, as web spidering is bot-based.

Safe search

Therefore when you are searching pages or images, for example, the most innocent keywords could return results related to explicit sexual matters, pornography, violence, drug use, gambling etc..

A friend of mine recently told me that this type of situation happened to her once when her 13 year-old daughter was doing her homework. She had to do a project on the food pyramid. In order to illustrate the subject, she decided to prepare a Power Point presentation containing images of the different types of foods. There she was googling words like cereal, vegetables, bread, fish, etc.. Fair enough, the basic nutrients.

However, when she went looking for specifics and typed in certain type of vegetables or fruits, the returned results were not, let’s say, as expected. Luckily, my friend was sitting next to her daughter and was quick to press the Back button. Although my friend told me she had the feeling this could have happened, deep down she was hoping for a filter of some kind to be applied by default. Wrong!! As far as I know, you do have to change the default configuration of the search engine or else opt for other alternatives, so here go some of them:

• Apply child filters in your usual search engine. If you use Google, check the SafeSearch Filtering section.
• Get your child to use search engines which offer child-friendly content only. They achieve this by filtering out inappropriate content which you, as a parent, would find offensive for your child. In general, this is done by using human beings to filter out the unsuitable sites. Check out article Which Search Engines are Safe for Kids? for further information.
• Install Parental Control applications on your computer. The 2012 Panda Security products which feature this type of protection.

And keep an eye on the Internet history, and temporary Internet files to ensure that only what you want seen is viewed on your home computer.

Please share your comments with us and tell us if you found this article useful!

Published by Iñaki Gorostiza,  January 2011

SEO is an attractive area of e-marketing, as soon as you start to get into it you realize that it requires very little theoretical technical knowledge, and that a little common sense will take you a long way.

In fact, this gives us a clue as to why there are so many self-proclaimed ‘gurus’ in this field.

I for one believe that a company can deal with SEO in-house, and that there is no need for external gurus to tell you how to ‘train’ your websites to jump through hoops for Google; trust in your own people, who know your market and your clients, and are more than capable of doing the job.

While it’s true that 80% of the positioning of a Web page is determined by factors such as domain authority and the popularity of back-links (off-page factors) the rest is down to the editor of Web content.

That’s right, I’m talking about you!

So here I would like to offer a series of ‘on-page’ tips. A few observations to remember when editing content for search engines:

• “He who does not think much of himself is much more esteemed than he imagines”. -Goethe
  As I said before, there is no one in the world that knows your company and clients better than you. If you learn from your clients by thinking like they do, you have achieved the most difficult part of your job.
• It is important to know how to write for search engines, but it is more important to know how to write for people.
• There is nothing more damaging for a website than the soulless contributions of a SEO technician who does not understand the above premise.
• The work of SEO technicians has two objectives:
  1. To position the Web page ABOVE the competition.
  2. To create an effective SNIPPET.
• Whether a user reaches your Web page or that of the competition depends therefore on VISIBILITY: appearing BEFORE and appearing BETTER!
• The title of a page is the main source of information for search engines.
• A good title can be enough to correctly position the page.
• A bad title can bring down any SEO strategy.
• Each page of your website should have its own unique and non-transferable title.
• Always display your brand in the title.
• Include the most important keywords in the title.
• And if you can achieve all the above in 65 characters or less, all the better.

I’ll continue in the next article! Until then…

============================================================================

Other articles published by Iñaki Gorostiza:

• An instant with Google Instant

• SEO & hackers, an odd couple

• Google Instant revolutionizes the SERP

You can contact Iñaki Gorostiza on his blog http://www.hellogoogle.com, where he publishes articles that help companies grow on Internet, and at http://twitter.com/hello_google.

Published by Ana Etxebarria, november 2010

I spent my whole childhood learning English. I’m not exaggerating; I started when I was three years old in the kindergarten, doing gym class and singing “head, shoulders, knees and toes…”

When it came to deciding which degree course to go for, I opted for my best subject and chose one of those courses that will guarantee you a place in the dole queue: English Philology.

At university I had to choose a second foreign language. I chose German. I didn’t learn very much, though I did get to spend an unforgettable year living in Munich, so I think that was the right decision.

Some years on, I feel I can say that my English is decent enough and in German I would be able to order a taxi, book a table in a restaurant and not much else.

But we are in 2010, and my linguistic limitations are no longer an obstacle to reading a Web page in German. Let’s take my company’s Web page as an example. It seems as if there is some kind of special Panda Security 2011 product discount, but I couldn’t tell you much more. Now, if you look closely, Google is kindly asking if we would like the page translated. So, would we? Yeah, why not?

The result is not great, but it may be good enough depending on what we’re looking for.

Let’s keep testing. I have copied a complete paragraph describing one of our products, Panda Global Protection 2011, into Google Translator.

The result is spectacular. It really is good. My conclusion is that you no longer need to know a language to be able to read newspapers, Web pages, etc.

Of course, these types of tools would never be able to tell us how to pronounce the words, or maybe they would?

Forvo (http://forvo.com/) offers the pronunciation of more than 700,000 words in the most common languages and in some that are not so common:

I could go on indefinitely about the countless translation applications that exist for iPhone or iPad, but I think we can leave it there for the moment.

To finish, I would say that it is no longer necessary to know a language in order to read it, but of course it would always be necessary in order to have a coffee, exchange ideas, or tell someone who doesn’t speak your language how you feel. I still think I chose a wonderful course at university, and although it has had nothing to do with my professional career, the memories I have from those years will be with me forever. Bye, Tschüss, Adiós!

Published by Iñaki Gorostiza, september 29,  2010

This follow-up to the piece An instant with Google Instant furthers the analysis of this issue.

The SERP has changed, or better still, the SERP now changes with every keystroke:

• The first page is now the key component of the search. Where before it was already unlikely that a user would go beyond the second or third page of results returned, Google Instant brings the relevance of the Top 10 results into even sharper focus.

• The visual content fully captures the user’s attention. The SERP becomes a kaleidoscope where Web maps, images and videos stand out against any text content.

• Google Instant minimizes bad searches due to spelling or grammatical errors, and this has a direct impact on those pages that feed off such mistakes.

• The space on the SERP dedicated to organic results is reduced in favor of suggestions. This can lead to a page where there is just one organic result for every eight sponsored links. Let’s take a look:

• Now more than ever, webmasters will have to draw Google users’ attention with the title and snippet (the brief text below the title describing the Web page).

• Interestingly, adult pages are ignored by Google Instant. Try searching, say, for “sex” and you’ll see that the search engine does nothing. Of course certain search terms may suffer collateral damage, careful if you’re looking for “Whorfian hypothesis” for example.

• The influence of the ‘long tail’ is questionable:
  • The long tail can be partially cannibalized by head terms, as before a long search term such as “Antivirus in Spanish compatible with Windows 7″ is entered, a ‘good enough’ result may be displayed.
  • It’s also true that simple searches, such as “Antivirus” will generate more specific suggestions such as “Free antivirus in Spanish”.

• Well known brands will benefit: after entering just one or two letters, don’t be surprised to see the name of a famous company.

It only takes an instant to forget a lifetime, but sometimes even a lifetime isn’t enough to forget an instant.

In a few months we will know exactly the impact that Google Instant has on the search trends of users, as well as on Search Marketing strategies. For the moment, we just have to make educated guesses.

While it’s true that Google Instant represents a significant step forward, it shouldn’t really alter the fundamentals of SEO/SMO, at least not to the extent that some fear. Sleep tight everyone.

==============================================================================

You can contact Iñaki Gorostiza on his blog http://www.hellogoogle.com, where he publishes articles that help companies grow on Internet, and at http://twitter.com/hello_google.

Published by Ana Etxebarria, May 5th, 2010

For work reasons, I need to have my BlackBerry turned on in a 24x7x365 mode. But when did my BB and I become one?

Recently, while I was away with my family for a few days, my BB passed away. It was terrible! I didn’t know what to do! My friends tried to revive it: some of them said it was best to reset it, others wanted to throw it down the toilet and a few suggested taking the battery out, but they all agreed that a couple of days without a BlackBerry would do no harm. They even suggested I should try to enjoy the peace and tranquility. What peace?  I couldn’t read my mail, receive or make calls, send text messages, access Twitter or Facebook…

I finally gave up and accepted my new 1.0 situation, and I must admit that once the initial shock was over, it wasn’t that bad. However, I began to realize that I had probably become a CrackBerry addict, that what I had seen on TV was true and that the number of times a day I checked whether the red light was on exceeded health & safety limits.

I will not part from my BlackBerry (I can’t and don’t want to), but I think we should reach a deal by which we both have our own space and a bit of privacy.

If it hits home, I would like to receive your comments. I also admit constructive criticism. Finally, here is an instructive video which I hope makes you smile

Publicado por David San José

Con este post pretendo presentarme para que cuando veáis un comentario mío veáis algo más que mi nombre en verde y el logotipo de  “El Santo”

Mi nombre es David San José,  nací en 1979 en Bilbao y que yo sepa desde siempre he sido un apasionado (incluso un poco obseso) de la tecnología y de todas aquellas cosas “que se enchufan”. Mi primer ordenador me lo regalaron cuando tenía 9 ó 10 años y fue un Spectrum +2A ¡¡de cintas!!

En cuanto me canse de jugar empecé a programar en Basic y desde entonces siempre tuve bastante claro que quería trabajar con ordenadores. Unos años después, creo que fue en 1996, descubrí Internet y aquello cambio mi forma de hacer muchas cosas. En aquella época, la mayoría de mis amigos y familiares no sabían encender un ordenador por lo que podéis imaginar su cara cuando yo les decía que tenía un correo electrónico en usa.net, que buscaba información en www.altavista.com (no, Google no existía), que tenía una Web en geocities.com, que hablaba con amigos que estudiaban fuera de España mediante el IRC, que…

No os creáis que me paso 24 horas conectado, tengo más aficiones como por ejemplo: el snowboard, viajar, la música, cocinar (y comerme lo que cocino), la fotografía, ir de acampada, el cine, … bueno lo típico solo que por mi perfil de tecno-adicto compagino muchas de mis aficiones con mi gran pasión, la tecnología ¿Cómo lo hago? Pues, por ejemplo: participo en foros de temas que me interesan, encuentro recetas en Internet, gestiono mis viajes en páginas especializadas, encuentro información sobre películas, nuevos grupos musicales,…

Quiero añadir que algunas veces soy un poco caótico y por eso hace unos días publiqué mi primer post sobre la importancia de hacer copias de seguridad en vez de presentarme como es debido, os pido perdón.

Aunque se supone que este post es mi presentación no puedo evitar comentar que gracias a la colaboración de La Guardia Civil española, el FBI, Panda Security, Defence Intelligence y el Georgia Tech Information Security Center ha sido posible la desactivación de la mayor red de ordenadores zombis descubierta hasta la fecha, Mariposa.

Es sin duda una de las noticias más importantes del los últimos tiempos. ¿Os imagináis que se puede hacer con casi 13 millones de ordenadores zombis?

Según la web Internet World Stats en 2010 hay aproximadamente 1.774 millones de PC’s conectados a Internet de los cuales unos 100 millones son zombis, es decir los ordenadores de 6 de cada 100 personas que lean este artículo serán parte de una botnet. 

Tras esta operación “sólo” quedan 87 millones… Pero aún así creo que siguen siendo demasiados como para estar tranquilos ¿verdad?

It comes as no surprise that social networks can offer a wonderful opportunity to express your views and even to transform the world. Think of how politicians found a way to get their messages across through Facebook, Twitter and other platforms. Remember the Yes, you can campaign?? Or think of celebrities using these platforms to manipulate their already distorted image or sometimes to destroy it altogether

For all of them, Internet access is easy; they all have computers connected to the net or even whole infrastructures to mold their target audiences as they please. Ok then, being politically correct, to get their point across

However, today we would like to pay a little homage to those people with difficulties when communicating online either because of lack of resources, economic problems, and so forth and how through imagination, all these obstacles were overcome. For example, see how Yoani Sánchez, an incredibly talented Cuban writer, has made true the saying Imagination gone wild! Yoani found a way of publishing her own blog, Generation Y, despite the censorship in her country. How? Well, by recording her webcasts in tapes and giving them away to people with no resources, by asking people to create Twitter accounts with the names of Cuban bloggers from their mobiles phones and then resending the SMS messages sent by them, by sharing the very few allowed Internet connections with others, etc.

The same situation is also present in Africa. As Hindu Mint Ainina, editor of the French edition of Calame, an independent weekly magazine several times banned by the Mauritanian government, explains when talking about the use of Internet in this continent: ‘As for the question of whether illiteracy is a barrier to Internet access, you soon realize that this problem is very quickly overtaken by events. There is always somebody in the cybercafés who can type messages for those who cannot write…’ ‘… Or Development associations in villages where there are no telephones communicate via the Internet. Either they go up to the capital city, or they leave a message with a driver who goes into town and sends e-mails while he picks up the post.’ (read the full article at Unesco.org)

Even corporations have devised innovative means to bring the net closer to the people! Yes, you got it! Google have developed a really fun and brilliant initiative which will leave you speechless!
Check out the Google Internet bus!!

Can you tell us of more examples that exemplify how imagination can exploit the vast potential of social networks?

Posted by david, June 30th, 2009

I’d like to present myself so that when you read my comments posted on the new Technical Support Forum, you know more about me than my name in green and The Saint logo.

My name is David San José. I was born in Bilbao in 1979 and as far as I know I have always liked (or have been a bit obsessed with) technology and all sorts of plug-in devices. I was given my first computer when I was 9 or 10 years old. It was a Spectrum +2A which used cassette tapes. As soon as I got tired of playing, I started programming Basic and since then I have always known that I wanted to work with computers. 

A few years later, I think it was 1996, I discovered the Internet, which changed my way of doing several things. Back then, most of my friends and family did not know how to turn a computer on. Imagine their faces when I told them I had an account in usa.net, I searched for information on www.altavista.com (no, Google did not exist), I had a website on geocities.com, I spoke with friends who studied abroad through IRC, etc.

Don’t think I’m connected 24 hours a day, I have other hobbies as well. For example, I like snowboarding, traveling, music, cooking (even eating what I cook), photography, going camping, going to the cinema… typical things, it’s just that due to my techno-addict profile I combine many of my hobbies with my great passion, technology. How?  By taking part in forums I am interested in, searching for recipes online, organizing my journeys through specialized pages, searching for information about movies, new bands, etc.

Cheers!