PCWorld is evil, Google is not

Exclusive from PCWorld: winners and losers of 2005.

WINNER: Google

Meet your new best friends, Sergey and Larry. Want a free e-mail account? No problem. A blog? Satellite maps? How about a searchable library of every book ever written? Here, have some free Wi-Fi. Oh, and don't forget to enter the stuff you want to sell into Google's new classified ad/online garage sale/whatever-you-want database. No charge, and no need to say thanks. Remember that silly dot-com-era notion that you could make money by giving things away? Guess what? It actually works!

LOSER: Google

What does a company with staggering amounts of computing power, the world's best brains, and a share price north of $400 do? Anything it darn well pleases. But the next thing you know it's getting sued for copyright violations by the Association of American Publishers and becoming part of the hacker's tool kit. Google's seemingly unquenchable ambition and near-monopoly on everything it touches--otherwise known as "Microsoft Syndrome"--is making more and more people nervous.


This is the last post in 2005. Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year. May your hearts be filled with joy and warm love. May your ideas sparkle in 2006.

Happy New Year, Google!

What's your personality?

Take the Jung test to find out.

That's what I found about me.

INTJ
"Mastermind"

Introverted intellectual with a preference for finding certainty. A builder of systems and the applier of theoretical models. 2.1% of total population.

Create your own shortcuts on Yahoo

Yahoo extended their Search Shortcuts that allowed you to go to trigger shortcuts to special searches (news, video, image), simple answers (zip code, weather, calculator, definition) or interesting facts (information about patents, vehicle history using the 17-character Vehicle Identification Number, book price finder using its ISBN, manufacurer of a product using its 12-digits UPC code).

Now you can define your own shortcuts. Open Shortcuts are custom keywords that take you directly to a site, a search, or start a task right from the search box. In Unix speak: if the search box is the command-line of the web, shortcuts are aliases.

To use an Open Shortcut, you type ! (exclamation point) followed by the name of the shortcut in the Yahoo! Search box. For example, type: !ebay lamps. This takes you directly to www.ebay.com and searches for lamps.

You can create your own shortcuts to:

* Instantly navigate to any URL on the Internet
* Easily recall common searches on Yahoo!
* Quickly search favorite sites
* Jump start frequently used Internet applications

To create a navigational shortcut, use the keyword: !set with your shortcut name and destination URL.

!set shortcut_name URL

Try this
!set gops http://www.google.com/search?&q=%s+site%3Agooglesystem.blogspot.com

to set a shortcut for a search in this blog.

Some cool examples:

!mail sergey@google.com -- Compose a mail to Sergey Brin.
!wiki Sergey Brin -- Find information about Sergey Brin from Wikipedia.
!news Sergey Brin -- Search latest news about Sergey Brin.


The complete list of shortcuts.

Will Google fall in 2006?

David Kirkpatrick, senior editor at Fortune, says that Google will falter in 2006.

Yes, I love Google, but my first prediction is that a year from now we won't think that the search company is the invincible behemoth that we do now.

Take a new concept known as "community-powered search." Yahoo is forging an early lead over Google in this fast-evolving technology with its acquisition last week of del.icio.us for a rumored $35 million (the actual amount was undisclosed). Del.icio.us operates on principles similar to the popular MySpace. But whereas that social network site helps members find dates, form groups, and share music picks, del.icio.us helps members find hot information--websites that others have found useful.

Soon we will see a new form of results, like "What Others Liked," on all search engines. It's how Amazon tells its customers what others have bought, except that these search results involve information. In many cases, community-powered searches will let members find what they're looking for more quickly than they would on a purely computerized type of web search, which Google does so superbly. Yahoo was already introducing community-based searches with >My Web 2.0. Of course, Google is surely working on its own alternatives.


Google's response to Yahoo's My Web is Personalized Search, but the current implementation makes it hard for a user to rate a website or to categorize it. The bookmarking system is quite feeble. Integration with Google Toolbar and creation of a community with trusting hierarchies will be next challenges for Google.

Google Labs Aptitude Test

Last year, Google published a booklet of 21 problems, called the Google Labs Aptitude Test. Readers of several technology magazines were asked to mail in their answers and promised that Google would get in touch with them if they scored well.

Judy Gilbert, Google's staffing programs director, says that the questions weren't really used for hiring. In any case, smart alecks soon posted the answers online so that they could be easily found by cheaters.

"It was a great PR move, and we got a lot of interest from it," Gilbert said. "As far as using those kinds of things to decide who becomes part of our team, we typically use more traditional processes."

Here are the questions from Google Labs Aptitude Test:

Solve this cryptic equation, realizing of course that values for M and E could be interchanged. No leading zeroes are allowed.
WWWDOT - GOOGLE = DOTCOM

Write a haiku describing possible methods for predicting search traffic seasonality.

What's the next line?
1
1 1
2 1
1 2 1 1
1 1 1 2 2 1

You are in a maze of twisty little passages, all alike. There is a dusty laptop here with a weak wireless connection. There are dull, lifeless gnomes strolling about. What dost thou do?
A) Wander aimlessly, bumping into obstacles until you are eaten by a grue.
B) Use the laptop as a digging device to tunnel to the next level.
C) Play MPoRPG until the battery dies along with your hopes.
D) Use the computer to map the nodes of the maze and discover an exit path.
E) Email your resume to Google, tell the lead gnome you quit and find yourself in a whole different world

What's broken with Unix?

How would you fix it?

On your first day at Google, you discover that your cubicle mate wrote the textbook you used as a primary resource in your first year of graduate school. Do you:
A) Fawn obsequiously and ask if you can have an autograph.
B) Sit perfectly still and use only soft keystrokes to avoid disturbing her concentration
C) Leave her daily offerings of granola and English toffee from the food bins.
D) Quote your favorite formula from the textbook and explain how it's now your mantra.
E) Show her how example 17b could have been solved with 34 fewer lines of code.

Which of the following expresses Google's over-arching philosophy?
A) "I'm feeling lucky"
B) "Don't be evil"
C) "Oh, I already fixed that"
D) "You should never be more than 50 feet from food"
E) All of the above

How many different ways can you color an icosahedron with one of three colors on each face?

What colors would you choose?

This space is intentionally blank. Please fill it with something that improves upon emptiness.










On an infinite, two-dimensional, rectangular lattice of 1-ohm resistors, what is the resistance between two nodes that are a knight's move away?

It's 2pm on a sunny Sunday afternoon in the Bay Area. You're minutes from the Pacific Ocean, redwood forest hiking trails and world class cultural attractions. What do you do?

In your opinion, what is the most beautiful math equation ever derived?

Which of the following is NOT an actual interest group formed by Google employees?
A) Women's basketball
B) Buffy fans
C) Cricketeers
D) Nobel winners
E) Wine club

What will be the next great improvement in search technology?

What is the optimal size of a project team, above which additional members do not contribute productivity equivalent to the percentage increase in the staff size?
A) 1
B) 3
C) 5
D) 11
E) 24

Given a triangle ABC, how would you use only a compass and straight edge to find a point P such that triangles ABP, ACP, and BCP have equal perimeters? (Assume that ABC is constructed so that a solution does exist.)

Consider a function which, for a given whole number n, returns the number of ones required when writing out all numbers between 0 and n. For example, f(13) = 6. Notice that f(1) = 1. What is the next largest n such that f(n) = n?

What's the coolest hack you've ever written?

'Tis known in refined company, that choosing K things out of N can be done in ways as many as choosing N minus K from N: I pick K, you the remaining.

Find though a cooler bijection, where you show a knack uncanny, of making your choices contain all K of mine. Oh, for pedantry: let K be no more than half N.

What number comes next in the sequence: 10, 9, 60, 90, 70, 66, ?
A) 96
B) 10 to the 100th power
C) Either of the above
D) None of the above

In 29 words or fewer, describe what you would strive to accomplish if you worked at Google Labs.

Gaim 2.0: multi-protocol instant messenger


Gaim is a multi-protocol instant messaging (IM) client for Linux, BSD, MacOS X, and Windows. It is compatible with AIM and ICQ (Oscar protocol), MSN Messenger, Yahoo!, IRC, Jabber (for example, Google Talk), Gadu-Gadu, SILC, GroupWise Messenger, and Zephyr networks.

Gaim users can log in to multiple accounts on multiple IM networks simultaneously. This means that you can be chatting with friends on AOL Instant Messenger, talking to a friend on Yahoo Messenger, and sitting in an IRC channel all at the same time.

Gaim supports many features of the various networks, such as file transfer, away messages, typing notification, and MSN window closing notification. It also goes beyond that and provides many unique features. A few popular features are Buddy Pounces, which give the ability to notify you, send a message, play a sound, or run a program when a specific buddy goes away, signs online, or returns from idle; and plugins, consisting of text replacement, a buddy ticker, extended message notification, iconify on away, spell checking, tabbed conversations, and more.


Gaim runs on a number of platforms, including Windows, Linux, and Qtopia (Sharp Zaurus and iPaq).

The last release of Gaim is Gaim 2.0 Beta 2 (Windows download).

For other platforms, download Gaim from here.

To configure Google Talk to work with Gaim, check this guide.

Google close to a deal with AOL

Time Warner Inc. ended talks with Microsoft Corp. Friday and entered exclusive negotiations with Google Inc. over a $1 billion investment and a broader advertising partnership with America Online, executives close to the talks said.

Shutting out Microsoft sets the stage for a high-profile agreement between two titans of the Internet.

Under the deal, expected to be announced as early as next week, Google would get a 5 percent stake in AOL, implying a $20 billion value for the unit, said one official with direct knowledge of Time Warner's negotiating position.

Google, which operates the Internet's dominant search tools, also agreed to highlight AOL's Web properties as sponsored links and integrate AOL's video clips in its fledgling Google Video service. In exchange, AOL will continue providing Google's search engine to its subscribers.

Officials described the negotiations on condition of anonymity because no agreement has yet been formalized. The deal could be finalized next week, when Time Warner's board meets in New York.

The deal shows that Google is willing to pay to preserve its lucrative relationship with AOL and prevent Microsoft from becoming a bigger provider of Internet search tools. A deal between Microsoft and AOL would have made Microsoft's own advertising network more attractive.

The struggle over AOL reflects the larger competitive landscape between rivals Google and Microsoft, said Internet analyst Scott Kessler of Standard and Poor's.

The proposed agreement with Google gives AOL more flexibility to sell Google search ads, and have them appear only on AOL sites. The online service currently directs advertisers to Google and cannot limit search ads to its own sites.

AOL is Google's biggest customer, accounting for about $420 million, or about 10 percent, of Google's revenue during the first nine months of this year, according to regulatory filings.

Most of the $420 million came from the ads Google distributes on AOL's Web site. The two companies first began working together in 2002 when Google wrestled away AOL from another online advertising network currently owned by Yahoo Inc.

Microsoft, which increasingly views Google as a fierce rival, has been negotiating with Time Warner since early this year but did not propose any cash investment in AOL, officials said.

AOL is shifting its business model from selling dialup Internet access to selling online advertising, which is booming. Google, Microsoft and earlier Yahoo Inc. all expressed interest in some kind of partnership with or stake in AOL to harness its reach among Internet users.

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