Month: October 2004

Google has some more big news, introducing a beta version of Google Desktop Search yesterday. As its “about” page explains, “It’s a desktop search application that provides full text search over your email, computer files, chats, and the web pages you’ve viewed.” It sounds very promising, and by most of the accounts I’ve read so far does a much better job than Micro$oft’s built-in search. Unfortunately, for now it only indexes M$ Internet Explorer’s cache and Outlook’s mail, so those two portions of its functionality won’t be of much use to me at this time. 🙁 Still, I’m sure they have plans to expand to other browsers, and I can’t imagine them restricting themselves to just Outlook mail. kottke.org has some interesting remarks about this product, especially concerning his earlier prediction of a Google Operating System, definitely an interesting idea if it ever happens…

Check out the addictive Flash game Motherload (better server here?). As the description suggests, the game is reminiscent of Dig Dug and Boulder Dash, but the modern interface and engrossing gameplay kept me coming back… 🙂

Update: Before you get too into it, I suggest you register at XGenStudios (free) so that you can load and save games. I just lost my first game because I hit “quit” by accident (moron!), so that sucked. Since I hadn’t registered yet, I couldn’t have saved the game anyway, but at least I would’ve had the option… :-p

The latest cool offering by Google is Google SMS, which allows you to:

1. Enter your query as a text message. See some sample queries.
   
2. Send the message to the US shortcode 46645 (GOOGL on most phones).
   
3. Receive a text message (or messages) with your results, usually within a minute. Results may be labeled as “1of3”, “2of3”, etc.
   
4. To get Google SMS help info sent directly to your phone, send the word ‘help’ as a text message to 46645.

Some of the uses for this service include local business listings, product price comparison, and dictionary definitions, but it seems like the possibilities are nearly endless. I need to try this out for myself, as it might actually make SMS useful for me…

It’s hard to believe that 10 years have passed since Netscape released its first web browser. On October 13, 1994, Marc Andreesen made Netscape Mosaic available for download, and it quickly became the de facto web browser of choice, the first to include “image” tags for easy display of graphics and the first to use hyperlinks as we think of them today. I remember playing with earlier versions of Mosaic when Andreesen still worked at the NCSA, but it is the official dawning of the Netscape era that is being celebrated in a feature by CNet, and for good reason.

It still irks me that Micro$oft, using its operating system monopoly and predatory practices, was able to undercut Netscape with its inferior products to achieve its overwhelming browser market share. However, for the first time in many years, that share is shrinking now that browsers like Firefox and Opera are finally recognized as more innovative, useful, and perhaps most importantly, more secure that M$ IE. I hope that 10 years from now we can celebrate the beginning of the Mozilla era… 🙂

It looks like comments weren’t working quite right after I switched my hosting providers. I discovered the problem and fixed it, so you should be able to see the comments posted recently. Hopefully the confusion didn’t dissuade anyone from commenting… 🙂

NFG Games has a pretty cool history of the Mario video game character’s appearance, starting with his initial pixelated rendering in Donkey Kong (1981) and ending with his most recent, surprisingly crappy-looking incarnation in Mario vs. Donkey Kong (2004). Now this brings back some memories…

Oh, c’mon, like you weren’t thinking it too… 😉

At one point during Tuesday night’s vice presidential debates, Cheney referred viewers to FactCheck.com as a rebuttal to one of John Edwards’ statements. For those of you who missed my first post about this site or aren’t familiar with FactCheck, it is:

a nonpartisan, nonprofit, “consumer advocate” for voters that aims to reduce the level of deception and confusion in U.S. politics… [by monitoring] the factual accuracy of what is said by major U.S. political players in the form of TV ads, debates, speeches, interviews, and news releases.

I highly recommend visiting the site to see how both campaigns distort and manipulate the facts to their own advantage.

However, the actual URL of FactCheck is FactCheck.org. Viewers that went to FactCheck.com as Cheney instructed were instead forwarded to George Soros’ site, which was definitely not what Cheney intended. George Soros is one of W’s most vocal opponents and has vowed to use his vast resources to ensure that he is not elected. Oops. 🙂

“Anheuser-Busch says it will introduce a caffeinated, sweet-flavored beer for twentysomething club goers to compete with the flavored rums and vodkas gaining ground on the dance floor.” The new “beer” is called B^E and is infused “with caffeine, guarana and ginseng, along with berry aromas for a sweeter, yet more tart taste at 6.6 percent alcohol by volume.” I don’t know about this. Call it a malt-flavored beverage or whatever, because this does not sound like real beer to me…

I think that this NBC News image of W with the letters “ILIE” next to him is deliciously ironic, although more than likely unintentional. The Media Research Center compares this cropping of the word “families” to a similar 2000 incident in which NBC News displayed an image of Gore with the letters “RATS” (from “bureaucrats”) in the background.

OK, so maybe this isn’t as interesting a post as I had originally intentioned… :-p