While we don't know if the figure is exactly $1 million we do know that DuckDuckGo has raised a substantial sum of money in its first round of financing UPDATE: the grand total was $3 million. So now that DDG has raised VC money... what's next? Will the Duck continue its champion message of privacy or have the ‘seeds of evil' been planted?

The fact is, DDG success to date is largely based on privacy - so there's no reason to assume the roots of this operation will go evil. In fact, if you know just one thing about founder Gabriel Weinberg you should know this: he is perhaps the most principled, friendly, fast thinking entrepreneur in tech today.

Do you ever notice when you need to search the web for something - it's a two step process? Step1: load internet browser. Step 2: type query in a search box.

Opening the internet browser is actually a cumbersome step. Particularly for nerds, who do this a million times a day.

Here's an easy hack on how to eliminate an entire step to more intuitively search, instantly.

In this example, I want to find out about dogs and want the results asap. Type this:

;s dogs

Here's what happens on my system… regardless of what programs are running or what I may be doing - anytime I type this command a prompt automatically loads with my query.

Formatting and installing Windows is a routine thing. More so back the days of Windows XP and 98, but even today it's occasionally necessary to format Windows 7 to keep things running lean.

And so - regardless of your OS - it's helpful to have a checklist of programs and tweaks that you use to setup your optimal working environment. It's handy for when you format and do fresh installs. But also, in case of a hardware failure - it's good to have a reference to how you have things setup at any given time.

Here's my list of programs and tweaks I use to get Windows 7 setup the way I want it.
A 'guide' if you will. I'm a designer, so my setup may differ significantly from that of a programmer - but regardless, there may be something here you can add to your own 'fresh install' checklist.

DuckDuckGo is awesome. Here are 10 reasons why.

10. !bang

DuckDuckGo has its own syntax. The !bang command allows you to search another site directly. For example, if you wanted to find out how bad the new Tron movie is you can type: !imdb Tron and you'll instantly see the results on IMDb.

Need some quick comedy? Type !youtube funny cats and you'll see the results directly on YouTube. Or use !yt for short.

Troubleshooting python code? Add !python to your query and it will automatically search the official Python documentation.

For every query there is usually a vertical search engine somewhere that answers that query better than a general search engine.