Sunday, May 16, 2004
Longhorn Search
![[Googlesoft]](/files/googlesoft.gif)
“Bill Gates’ dream of an end-to-end search tool for corporate networks remains just that: a dream, at least until the end of the decade.
Advanced search features that Gates has termed the “Holy Grail” of Longhorn, the next major version of Windows, won’t be fully in place until 2009, Bob Muglia, the senior vice president in charge of Windows server development, told CNET News.com.
The technology, called WinFS, is an add-on the Windows file system that Microsoft says will make it easier for users to find data such as documents, e-mail messages and multimedia files--no matter what their format--on local PCs and across the network.”
– Mike Ricciuti and Martin LaMonica, Longhorn goes to pieces (CNet), May 13, 2004 [Via Gadgetopia.]
Check Gmail Name Availability
There is a web service which lets you check if your GMail name is still available... and it’s already being sold at eBay for $3.
GMTV (Spoof)
“Google, the InternetÂ’s premier search engine, today announced its plans to enter the television market with the Google Broadcasting Company (GBC).
GBC will present tech-targeted sitcoms, dramedies and biopics beginning with Larry’s Kinky Keyword Day, a film starring Jack Black as Google co-founder Larry Page. The star-studded movie will feature the popularity of search phrases such as Britney Spears lesbian kiss, Janet Jackson exposed nipple and George Bush clown school.
In addition, GBC will debut its Searchable Airwave Satellite Software Integration (SASSI) system accessible only through thought-activated mini-transponders now being tested at Google Labs. This state-of-the-art technology allows viewers to keyword-search cached versions of every television show ever broadcasted including all episodes of Friends and The Smothers Brothers Comedy Hour. GBC spin-off channels will be GMTV, Geek Music Television, and GNN, the Google News Network.”
– EJ Moore, Google fans want their GMTV (The Spoof), 5/16/2004
Google Beta
Several days after having signed up for Google Groups 2 Beta I have to say this is the first service Google should not have released so early on. It’s terribly broken in several ways rendering it unusable:
Another person was able to invite me to sign me up for his group with no agreement of my own. (Afterwards I found the default setting is for others to directly add one to their groups.)
I cannot leave the group I was forced to sign up for now, as there is no way to find any unsubscribe button. (There is an unsubscribe link which however takes me to a page where there only is a “Join this Group” button.)
As soon as you post a message to a group, you will find the message repeated half a dozen times, just as if you would have clicked “Submit” over and over (which clearly, you haven’t).
Though there is an interface available, you cannot add your own group to a category.
These are no trivial bugs. These are not beta bugs. These are keep the product behind closed curtains until it’s finished bugs. These are the kind of bugs to appall trusted communities.
I’m writing this post after my Gmail account could not be reached for two consecutive days. (It’s finally back up again.) After Google removed the “Report a Bug” in Gmail, which makes it look like they stopped having interest in feedback. I’m writing this after 10 large domains, including Microsoft, were removed from the Google index by outsiders exploiting a security hole. I’m writing this after Orkut data got grabbed by a bot and released to the public. After knowing it was briefly possible for others to make me join their Orkut community without agreement of my own.
The following Google products are currently in Beta phase, whatever that means:
- Orkut
- Gmail
- Google Groups 2
- Froogle
- Google News
- Google Catalogs
- Google Local
- Google Web APIs
Google should know better than to risk their good image. Sticking a Beta label on everything is no solution; if you don’t have a working product, don’t release it. As much as I love seeing new things coming from Google, it would be in their own interest to not make any moves for a while and instead fix what they got (like they did with Blogger.com). I’m really starting to wonder if they are suffering early signs of portalitis. (Image ads, anyone?)
Google has some of the greatest web services available already – just why do they feel they are forced to go into such a product release frenzy lately?
Google Translator
Google really does not understand, how one?ersetzt text. M?licherweise daily, becomes it, but f? now it mostly is stupid exit. If you take this point, which was written in English, then?ersetzt to the German, and schlie?ich?ersetzt zur?k in English. Much the urspr?glichen idea?erlebte, it seems.* [Via Google’s Translator.]
*Google does not really understand how to translate text. Maybe some day, it will, but for now it’s mostly silly output. Take this paragraph, which was typed in English, then translated to German, and finally translated back into English. Not much of the original idea survived, it seems.
Disney Number One
Can you imagine why the following three phrases all have Disney Online rank top in Google?
The answer lies hidden within the world of adult entertainment...
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