"I have accepted a job offer and will go back to a full time job in a few months. To avoid speculation and rumours: I am going to work for Google in Zurich. Fortunately I can spend part of my time on Vim." says Bram Moolenaar, author of Vim, the most famous text editor for Unix (you can also download the Windows version).
Other famous people hired by Google:
* Vint Cerf, internet "founding father"
* Guido van Rossum, creator of Python
* Ben Goodger, lead software engineer on Mozilla's Firefox development team
* Sean Egan, lead developer for Gaim
* Adam Bosworth, senior manager at Microsoft
* Udi Manber, chief executive of Amazon's A9 online search unit
Check The New Google Design
If you want to see the new look of Google SERPs, go to Google.com and paste this JavaScript code in your browser's address bar:
javascript:document.cookie= "PREF=ID=fb7740f107311e46:TM=1142683332:LM=1142683332:S=fNSw6ljXTzvL3dWu; path=/; domain=.google.com";top.location="http://www.google.com/preferences"
Then click "Save Preferences" to make the new design permanent.
To revert to the old design, just delete the cookies for google.com.
Via Digg
javascript:document.cookie= "PREF=ID=fb7740f107311e46:TM=1142683332:LM=1142683332:S=fNSw6ljXTzvL3dWu; path=/; domain=.google.com";top.location="http://www.google.com/preferences"
Then click "Save Preferences" to make the new design permanent.
To revert to the old design, just delete the cookies for google.com.
Via Digg
Google Is Not A Portal
Garett Rogers asks: "Is Google already a portal?".In 1998, when Google was getting started, Scott Rosenberg speaked about Google as a better search engine:
"Google ... is important -- as a sign, amid the profusion of look-alike portals, that there's still plenty of room for improvement in the basic technologies we use on the Web every day. If the portals themselves don't generate innovation, smart people elsewhere will. Commerce is a big driving force in how the Web evolves, but creativity is another. Just as imaginative marketers will keep finding ways to sell us more stuff, inventive programmers will keep finding ways to reduce noise and confusion online and help us all find what we're looking for. ... The irony here is that the big portal sites are the ones, increasingly, making it harder to use the Web: They're under such pressure to turn a profit to justify their market valuations that their pages have become crowded, blinking arrays of commercial distractions. Meanwhile, they're failing to drive forward the technology at the root of their business.
That a couple of grad students could build a better search engine than a whole raft of media and technology companies with stock-market valuations in the billions does not speak well of how these firms are spending their budgets. ... Which is one more reason to distrust the conventional view that the portals have the future of the Web sewn up. There's something ultimately dumb about these all-things-to-all-people sites in a medium whose greatest strength is the ability to be specific things to specific people. If the portals can't even build a better search engine, I am not betting on their ability to control an industry as fast-moving, innovative and metamorphic as the Internet -- next year or any year."
Google is not a portal, it's a homepage for the web, a door for information. It has a personalized home feature, but that's not a collection of links that promote other services or articles like: "Should I Forgive Her For Cheating?" (see the screenshot from msn.com).
If they are not already a portal, how will we know if it actually does become one? When the screenshot that illustrates this post will be from google.com.
Python: PageRank vs ExpertRank
If you search for [python] on Ask.com and Google, you will see Google has the first 10 results about the programming language called Python, while Ask has a one-box results that features a picture of a python (snake) and a definition and also alternates results about the two meanings of the word.
Of course, most of the pages that contain the word "python" will be about the programming language (you can check that, searching for [python snake] that gives 2,310,000 vs 234,000,000 results for [python]). That's why Google will consider these pages the most relevant. In fact, none of the first 100 results for [python] in Google is about the snake (few of them are about Monty Python).
Ask.com uses ExpertRank, finds clusters for the query you entered and returns the most authorative sites for each cluster.
ExpertRank: Authoritative Search
After retiring Jeeves, Ask also retired Teoma, a search engine started in 2000 by Apostolos Gerasoulis and later acquired by Ask Jeeves.The algorithm behind Teoma was rebranded ExpertRank: "Ask's ExpertRank algorithm provides relevant search results by identifying the most authoritative sites on the Web. With Ask search technology, it's not just about who's biggest: it's about who's best. Our ExpertRank algorithm goes beyond mere link popularity (which ranks pages based on the sheer volume of links pointing to a particular page) to determine popularity among pages considered to be experts on the topic of your search. This is known as subject-specific popularity. Identifying topics (also known as "clusters"), the experts on those topics, and the popularity of millions of pages amongst those experts -- at the exact moment your search query is conducted -- requires many additional calculations that other search engines do not perform. The result is world-class relevance that often offers a unique editorial flavor compared to other search engines."
ExpertRank is an evolution of IBM's CLEVER project, a search engine that never made it to public. "Clever attempts to ensure that the information it retrieves is useful by pointing people toward either of two classes of sites: authorities and hubs. An authority is a site to which many other sites have links, which Dom sees as implied endorsements of the site's usefulness. A hub is a site that has links to many other sites, and is therefore a potentially good reference. Clever's job is to identify the best hubs (those that link to the best authorities) and the best authorities (those that are linked to by the best hubs)."
The difference between PageRank and ExpertRank is that for ExpertRank the quality of the page is important and that quality is not absolute, but it's relative to a subject.
"Clever starts with 200 pages that are the result of an ordinary keyword search. It then adds all pages that link to, or are linked to by, one of those 200 pages. This step typically swells the set of pages to 1,000 or more. Clever initially assigns each page a hub score of one and an authority score of one. It sums up all the authority scores to get a page's hub score, and sums up all the hub scores to get a page's authority score. Then it repeat the process some five times until the system has identified the hubs that link to the top-scoring authorities and the authorities that are linked to by the top-scoring hubs."
Hacking Google
McAfee's senior vice president for Risk Management George Kurtz demonstrated at a RSA conference in February that there are many interesting things to be found in the Google database.If you search for sites with "Remote desktop web connection" in the title, you'll find... remote desktops that you can take over: [intitle:"Remote Desktop Web Connection"]
During a series of demonstrations, Kurtz showed how fairly straightforward queries will bring up user names and passwords as well sensitive information such as social security numbers. Just search for [ssn 111111111..999999999 death records].
If you type inurl:robots.txt in Google, you might be able to see the contents of that file and subdirectories that weren't meant to be public. For example, you can find Google MBD.
Read more:
Get sensitive information using Google
Google Hacking Database
Google April Fool's Day 2004: Google Lunar Jobs
Google April Fool's Day 2004: Google Lunar Jobs"Google is interviewing candidates for engineering positions at our lunar hosting and research center, opening late in the spring of 2007. This unique opportunity is available only to highly-qualified individuals who are willing to relocate for an extended period of time, are in top physical condition and are capable of surviving with limited access to such modern conveniences as soy low-fat lattes, The Sopranos and a steady supply of oxygen.
The Google Copernicus Hosting Environment and Experiment in Search Engineering (G.C.H.E.E.S.E.) is a fully integrated research, development and technology facility at which Google will be conducting experiments in entropized information filtering, high-density high-delivery hosting (HiDeHiDeHo) and de-oxygenated cubicle dwelling. This center will provide a unique platform from which Google will leapfrog current terrestrial-based technologies and bring information access to new heights of utility."
If you emailed Google about the supposed jobs, you would've got an auto-reply:
"Thank you for contacting Google about our Copernicus Research Center.
We've received an overwhelming response to this opportunity and are not currently accepting additional resumes. We will, however, keep your information on file should we have an opening in the future. At the current staffing levels, we anticipate that we may need additional applicants on or around April Fool's Day in 2104. Until then, we appreciate your interest in Google and your taking the time to write us.
Sincerely,
The Googlunar Recruiting Team"
More:
Google April Fool's Day 2000: Google MentalPlex
Google April Fool's Day 2002: PigeonRank
Google April Fool's Day 2005: Google Gulp
Google April Fool's Day 2006 - Take A Guess
Google April Fool's Day 2005: Google Gulp
We'll begin a recap of Google's April Fool's Day pranks in reverse chronological order.April Fool's Day 2005: Google Gulp
"At Google our mission is to organize the world's information and make it useful and accessible to our users. But any piece of information's usefulness derives, to a depressing degree, from the cognitive ability of the user who's using it. That's why we're pleased to announce Google Gulp (BETA)™ with Auto-Drink™ (LIMITED RELEASE), a line of "smart drinks" designed to maximize your surfing efficiency by making you more intelligent, and less thirsty.
Think a DNA scanner embedded in the lip of your bottle reading all 3 gigabytes of your base pair genetic data in a fraction of a second, fine-tuning your individual hormonal cocktail in real time using our patented Auto-Drink™ technology, and slamming a truckload of electrolytic neurotransmitter smart-drug stimulants past the blood-brain barrier to achieve maximum optimization of your soon-to-be-grateful cerebral cortex. Plus, it's low in carbs! And with flavors ranging from Beta Carroty to Glutamate Grape, you'll never run out of ways to quench your thirst for knowledge. "
Related:
Google April Fool's Day 2000: Google MentalPlex
Google April Fool's Day 2002: PigeonRank
Google April Fool's Day 2004: Lunar Jobs
Google April Fool's Day 2006 - Take A Guess
60% Of Vista Code Is Broken, While Office Is Delayed Too
Up to 60% of the code in the new consumer version of Microsoft Vista operating system is set to be rewritten, announces Smarthouse. In an effort to meet a dealine of the 2007 CES show in Las Vegas Microsoft has pulled programmers from the highly succesful Xbox team to help resolve many problems associated with entertainment and media centre functionality inside the OS.On a related note, Microsoft confirmed that it is also pushing the mainstream launch of Office 2007 to next year. The reason is that Microsoft wants to launch Office and Vista in tandem.
So the word of the week for Microsoft was DELAY. But what if the problems are so difficult to solve that they need another year? They're working for Windows Longorn since 2003, that's 3 years ago, and 60% of the code they wrote needs to be rewritten. I think this needs almost 2 years, so the best thing to do is set a new deadline: December 2007.
Related:
Vista Launch Delayed One More Time
Office 2007 Screenshots
Multiple live CDs in one DVD
Remember I talked about a very nice system rescue live CD? There are many Linux distributions available as Live CDs: Knoppix, Kanotix, Adios, PCLinuxOS, MandrakeMove, Gnoppix, RiP, SystemRescueCD, Ultimate Boot CD and others. What if you want to create a bootable DVD that contains more Live CDs and lets you choose between them? You can do that using a script developed by Nautica.net, where you can find a list of Live CD distributions.
Search out-of-copyright books with Google Books
Google Books (former Google Print) allows you to see books in the Full Book View if the book is out of copyright. This way you can view any page from the book. Now the home page of Google books includes an option to search only for full view books.
Patent For Advertising On Google WiFi
"The field of invention relates generally to wireless data communication, and more particularly, to provide advertisements based on wireless access points."
Google’s patent filing on advertising funded WiFi is available."[0046] In stage 610, the first entity, in turn, credits the WAP provider with a portion of the advertisement revenue. The portion of the revenue may include a flat rate, a percentage of the advertisement revenue, or a combination thereof. In one embodiment, the first entity identifies the WAP to be credited via the IP address.
[0047] As a result of receiving a portion of the advertisement revenue, the WAP provider is may cover the expenses of providing the WAP and may recoup a profit, while providing end-users with access to the WAP at a reduced rate.
[0048] In alternative embodiments, data other than advertisements could be inserted by the first entity into the view presented to the end-user accessing a WAP. For example, the data could in the form of a message, or a static advertisement that does not include a hyperlink.
[0049] Furthermore, the processes and architecture described above may be used to provide wireless access at a reduced rate for multiple WAPs, including multiple disparate WAPs."
It will be interesting to see if the advertising-based WiFi will be a viable solution. Google might combine this with Web Accelerator and distribute the content via a proxy.
Interesting reading:
System Rescue Live CD
SystemRescueCd is a Linux system on a bootable CD/DVD for repairing your system and your data after a crash. It also aims to provide an easy way to carry out admin tasks on your computer, such as creating and editing the partitions of the hard disk. It contains a lot of system utilities (parted, partimage, fstools) and basic ones (editors, midnight commander, network tools). The kernel of the system supports most important file systems (ext2/ext3, reiserfs, reiser4, xfs, jfs, vfat, ntfs, iso9660), and network ones (samba and nfs).What the disk contains?
* GNU Parted - a tool editing your disk partitions under Linux
* QtParted - Partition Magic clone for Linux.
* Partimage - Ghost/Drive-image clone for Linux
* File systems tools (e2fsprogs, reiserfsprogs, reiser4progs, xfsprogs, jfsutils, ntfsprogs, dosfstools): they allow you to format, resize, debug an existing partition of your hard disk
* Sfdisk allows you to backup and restore your partition table
The download ISO is 123 MB and is based on Gentoo Live CD.
Firefox Bug Causes Break-up
"This privacy flaw has caused my fiancé and I to break-up after having dated for 5 years."
Bugzilla Bug 330884:Summary: When different users on one system choose to save or not save passwords for sites, any other user can see sites they not only saved passwords for but can also see what other users have been saving/never saving passwords for.
Reproducible: Always
Steps to Reproduce:
1. Create 2 unique user accounts (for steps sake, let's call the two accounts Joe and Mary) in Windows XP Home.
2. Logout and sign-in under Joe.
3. Open Firefox and go to an e-mail site or to jdate.com or wherever.
4. Attempt to log-in to the site so that Firefox will ask whether or not you want your password saved.
5. Choose not to save the password.
6. After successfully logging in and having selected the "never save password" option, logout.
7. Log-in as Mary and open Firefox.
8. Browse, browse, browse ... but you don't really have to. Just go to "View Saved Passwords," click on the tab that will show you sites to never save passwords for, and you'll see whatever painful site Joe denied to save a password for.
9. Break-up with fiancé.
More at Bugzilla [ via Digg ].
New Google Calendar Screenshots
Some new screenshots for the long-delayed Google CL2 Calendar were posted on Flickr [UPDATE: the pictures were removed at the original location].
Other Google Calendar screenshots.
Update: Google Calendar is live.
Other Google Calendar screenshots.
Update: Google Calendar is live.
Google.com Is Number Two In Alexa Rankings
Google.com had a steady increase in traffic in the latest months. So it managed to overtake the previous number two msn.com. And that's a big thing if we think that both yahoo.com and msn.com are portals, while google.com is just a search box.
Emerging Technologies: Epigenetics
Sequencing the human genome was far from the last step in explaining human genetics. Researchers still need to figure out which of the 20,000-plus human genes are active in any one cell at a given moment. Chemical modifications can interfere with the machinery of protein manufacture, shutting genes down directly or making chromosomes hard to unwind. Such chemical interactions constitute a second order of genetics known as epigenetics.In 1998, Alexander Olek founded Berlin-based Epigenomics to create a rapid and sensitive test for gene methylation, a common DNA modification linked to cancer. The company's forthcoming tests will determine not only whether a patient has a certain cancer but also, in some cases, the severity of the cancer and the likelihood that it will respond to a particular treatment.
Philip Avner, an epigenetics pioneer at the Pasteur Institute in Paris, says that Epigenomics' test is a powerful tool for accurately diagnosing and understanding cancers at their earliest stages. "If we can't prevent cancer, at least we can treat it better," says Avner.
From: Techology Review
Read more about epigenetics: Epigenetics Changes in Cancer Cells
Yahoo Messenger with VoIP
Yahoo launched a VoIP service in the United States that lets people make phone calls through the company's instant messaging software.Available in several other countries since December, the service allows users to make calls from their computers for 2 cents a minute or less to the top 30 national phone markets, including the United States.
Here are the new features of the VoIP service:
- Phone Out: Calls within the U.S. and to more than 30 other countries can be made for two U.S. cents a minute or less.
- Phone In: For $2.99 a month or $29.90 a year, people can select a personal phone number, and receive incoming calls free. In the beta service, country-based phone numbers are initially available in France, the United Kingdom, and the United States with additional country-based numbers available in the coming months.
- Free Voicemail. Additionally, Yahoo! Mail now includes useful links to Yahoo! Messenger with Voice, enabling people to easily check their voicemail directly from Yahoo! Mail.
More at Reuters.
Google Calculator
Google Calculator is a hidden feature of Google search. You can type math expressions, unit conversions and many other questions that have a unique answer.
What's the answer to life, the universe and everything?
Answer: 42 (see Hitchhiker's Guide To The Galaxy)
How many seconds in a decade?
Answer: 315 569 260 seconds
Speed of light
Answer: 299 792 458 m / s
17 to binary
Answer: 0b10001
e^((pi)*i)+1
Answer: 0
10th root of 1024
Answer: 2
Half a cup in teaspoons
Answer: 24 US teaspoons
Ounces in a shot
Answer: 1.5 US fluid ounces
When is Easter 2006?
Answer:
(Western) April 16, 2006
(Orthodox) April 23, 2006
Earth mass in kg
Answer: 5.9742 × 1024 kilograms
What's the answer to life, the universe and everything?
Answer: 42 (see Hitchhiker's Guide To The Galaxy)
How many seconds in a decade?
Answer: 315 569 260 seconds
Speed of light
Answer: 299 792 458 m / s
17 to binary
Answer: 0b10001
e^((pi)*i)+1
Answer: 0
10th root of 1024
Answer: 2
Half a cup in teaspoons
Answer: 24 US teaspoons
Ounces in a shot
Answer: 1.5 US fluid ounces
When is Easter 2006?
Answer:
(Western) April 16, 2006
(Orthodox) April 23, 2006
Earth mass in kg
Answer: 5.9742 × 1024 kilograms
New Google SERP Really Soon
As mentioned here, Google will change the layout of their SERPs (Search engine results pages). They've experimented with many designs and it seems they chose the most simple one, the layout that uses more space for the results.
There is a similar screenshot on Flickr, where the ads are put at the bottom of the page.
Google Annual Report Is Pessimistic
Google published its financial annual report. Some interesting excerpts:
Major competitors
"We face formidable competition in every aspect of our business, and particularly from other companies that seek to connect people with information on the web and provide them with relevant advertising. Currently, we consider our primary competitors to be Microsoft Corporation and Yahoo! Inc. Microsoft has announced plans to develop features that make web search a more integrated part of its Windows operating system or other desktop software products. We expect that Microsoft will increasingly use its financial and engineering resources to compete with us. Both Microsoft and Yahoo have more employees than we do (in Microsoft’s case, approximately 11 times as many). Microsoft also has significantly more cash resources than we do. Both of these companies also have longer operating histories and more established relationships with customers and end users. They can use their experience and resources against us in a variety of competitive ways, including by making acquisitions, investing more aggressively in research and development and competing more aggressively for advertisers and web sites. Microsoft and Yahoo also may have a greater ability to attract and retain users than we do because they operate Internet portals with a broad range of content products and services. If Microsoft or Yahoo are successful in providing similar or better web search results compared to ours or leverage their platforms or products to make their web search services easier to access than ours, we could experience a significant decline in user traffic. Any such decline in traffic could negatively affect our revenues."
The revenue growth will decline
"We expect that our revenue growth rate will decline over time and anticipate that there will be downward pressure on our operating margin. We believe our revenue growth rate will generally decline as a result of increasing competition and the inevitable decline in growth rates as our revenues increase to higher levels. We believe our operating margin will experience downward pressure as a result of increasing competition and increased expenditures for many aspects of our business."
Ad-blocking may kill Google
"Technologies may be developed that can block the display of our ads. Most of our revenues are derived from fees paid to us by advertisers in connection with the display of ads on web pages. As a result, ad-blocking technology could, in the future, adversely affect our operating results."
Major competitors
"We face formidable competition in every aspect of our business, and particularly from other companies that seek to connect people with information on the web and provide them with relevant advertising. Currently, we consider our primary competitors to be Microsoft Corporation and Yahoo! Inc. Microsoft has announced plans to develop features that make web search a more integrated part of its Windows operating system or other desktop software products. We expect that Microsoft will increasingly use its financial and engineering resources to compete with us. Both Microsoft and Yahoo have more employees than we do (in Microsoft’s case, approximately 11 times as many). Microsoft also has significantly more cash resources than we do. Both of these companies also have longer operating histories and more established relationships with customers and end users. They can use their experience and resources against us in a variety of competitive ways, including by making acquisitions, investing more aggressively in research and development and competing more aggressively for advertisers and web sites. Microsoft and Yahoo also may have a greater ability to attract and retain users than we do because they operate Internet portals with a broad range of content products and services. If Microsoft or Yahoo are successful in providing similar or better web search results compared to ours or leverage their platforms or products to make their web search services easier to access than ours, we could experience a significant decline in user traffic. Any such decline in traffic could negatively affect our revenues."
The revenue growth will decline
"We expect that our revenue growth rate will decline over time and anticipate that there will be downward pressure on our operating margin. We believe our revenue growth rate will generally decline as a result of increasing competition and the inevitable decline in growth rates as our revenues increase to higher levels. We believe our operating margin will experience downward pressure as a result of increasing competition and increased expenditures for many aspects of our business."
Ad-blocking may kill Google
"Technologies may be developed that can block the display of our ads. Most of our revenues are derived from fees paid to us by advertisers in connection with the display of ads on web pages. As a result, ad-blocking technology could, in the future, adversely affect our operating results."
Vista Launch Delayed One More Time
Microsoft said on Tuesday it plans to delay the launch the consumer version of Windows Vista until after this year's holiday shopping season. Microsoft pushed back the consumer version of Vista until January 2007 from an earlier target for the second half of 2006 and pledged to ship the next version of its operating system to business customers in November.
"It is a critical eight- to 10-weeks for retailing and for the producers. The retailers and PC hardware manufacturers work on razor-thin margins, so the impact there could be pretty severe," said David Smith, analyst at Gartner.The explanation for the delay is that Microsoft wants to improve overall quality, particularly in security, and that PC makers didn't want the operating system introduced in the middle of holiday sales, because a new version would create instability in the market.
It's not the first time Microsoft delays the launch of Vista (previously codenamed Longhorn), 2005 was another deadline.
Press:
New York Times: Microsoft to Delay New System
Google Health Database?
Who is Adam Bosworth? Wikipedia says:
"Adam Bosworth is a Vice President of Engineering at Google Inc. He was previously VP Engineering at BEA Systems and was responsible for the engineering efforts for BEA's Framework Division. Prior to joining BEA, Bosworth co-founded Crossgain, a software development firm acquired by BEA in 2001. Crossgain's "Cajun" project developed into BEA's WebLogic Workshop product. At BEA, Bosworth also developed the Alchemy intelligent caching framework in a team consisting of Bosworth and his son, Alex.
Known as one of the pioneers of XML, Bosworth previously held various senior management positions at Microsoft, including General Manager of the WebData group, a team focused on defining and driving XML strategy. While at Microsoft, he was responsible for designing and delivering the Microsoft Access PC database product (codenamed 'Cirrus') and assembling and driving the team that developed Internet Explorer 4.0's HTML engine (codenamed 'Trident')."
According to Garett Rogers, it seems that Adam Bosworth is working on a new Google project, known as Google Health. His title is "Architect, Google Health". Maybe Google Health is the same thing as Google MDB (Google Medical and Biological Database).
"Adam Bosworth is a Vice President of Engineering at Google Inc. He was previously VP Engineering at BEA Systems and was responsible for the engineering efforts for BEA's Framework Division. Prior to joining BEA, Bosworth co-founded Crossgain, a software development firm acquired by BEA in 2001. Crossgain's "Cajun" project developed into BEA's WebLogic Workshop product. At BEA, Bosworth also developed the Alchemy intelligent caching framework in a team consisting of Bosworth and his son, Alex.
Known as one of the pioneers of XML, Bosworth previously held various senior management positions at Microsoft, including General Manager of the WebData group, a team focused on defining and driving XML strategy. While at Microsoft, he was responsible for designing and delivering the Microsoft Access PC database product (codenamed 'Cirrus') and assembling and driving the team that developed Internet Explorer 4.0's HTML engine (codenamed 'Trident')."
According to Garett Rogers, it seems that Adam Bosworth is working on a new Google project, known as Google Health. His title is "Architect, Google Health". Maybe Google Health is the same thing as Google MDB (Google Medical and Biological Database).
Google Embed
What services does Google let you embed in your site?Embed Google Maps
Go to this Google Maps page to sign up for an API key. Then you can visit Google Maps EZ to get some code to insert in your page.
Embed Google Videos
Go to Google Video, search for a video, and click "Put on a site" on the right sidebar to get the code.
Embed Google Search
If you want to make your site searchable, you can include a Google search box. You can even customize your search results to look more like your site.
Google MBD
Google changed their robots.txt and included entries for finance, extern_js and MBD.
Old robots : 72.14.203.104/search?q=cache:4 ...
New robots : www.google.com/robots.txt
It's weird to see that www.google.com/mbd resolves correctly. Google actually serves a blank page.
What could mean MBD? Maybe "million barrels per day", or "minimal brain dysfunction"? Don't think so. Maybe Google Embed, a service that lets you create mashups using Google services.
Update: Peter Dawson suggests in Blogoscoped Forum that the acronym may mean "medical and biological database".
Old robots : 72.14.203.104/search?q=cache:4 ...
New robots : www.google.com/robots.txt
It's weird to see that www.google.com/mbd resolves correctly. Google actually serves a blank page.
What could mean MBD? Maybe "million barrels per day", or "minimal brain dysfunction"? Don't think so. Maybe Google Embed, a service that lets you create mashups using Google services.
Update: Peter Dawson suggests in Blogoscoped Forum that the acronym may mean "medical and biological database".
Google Finance Launched
Google (NASDAQ:GOOG) launched Google Finance, a product that offers "information about North American stocks, mutual funds and public and private companies along with charts, news and fundamental financial data".You can search for stocks, mutual funds, public and private companies, find news about companies and even blog posts, see related companies, company summary and management information.
You can create a portfolio, if you have a Google Account. Google Finance portfolios allow you to keep track of financial information, including how many shares you own and at what price, for up to 200 stocks or mutual funds.
But probably the best feature of Google Finance is the interactive charts, that correlate market data with corresponding dated news stories to help you determine if there is a relationship between them.
Of course, the product is far from perfect if you compare it with Yahoo! Finance: it doesn't have real-time quotes, statistics, SEC fillings, list of competitors, analyst estimates, list of major holders, income statements, option to compare stocks and many other features. So I think Google Finance can't be considered real competition for sites like fool.com or finance.yahoo.com. Yet...
Update: Google Blog says that Google Finance "started as a small project led by a few engineers in Bangalore and later joined by more engineers and finance enthusiasts in Mountain View and New York".
Identity Crisis For Google Software
Google Video Player has been updated to version 1.1. The improvements are: support for DirectX, true frame-by-frame display and some rendering optimizations.There is also a funny bug in the installer. If you rename GoogleVideoPlayerSetup.exe to GoogleVideoPlayer.exe, and run the setup, it will give you an error: "Google Video Player is running. Please close it to continue." even if the player isn't started. That only means one thing: the setup checks if there's a file called GoogleVideoPlayer.exe running (that's the name of the Google Video Player main exe). It checks for the file, and the file found is exactly the installer. That's a really dumb way to check if the player is running. I'm sure Googlers have heard about mutexes (even InnoSetup supports that). You can even rename ANY executable to GoogleVideoPlayer.exe and try to run the setup. The same error message.
That reminds me of another error message from Google Desktop. I had a version downloaded from 11 March, I downloaded the latest version when Desktop got out of beta (on 15 March) and I couldn't install it: "A newer version of Google Desktop is already installed." It's also interesting to note that, although, Google Desktop reached version 3, the software presents itself as "Google Desktop 4.2006.306.1208-en".Related:
Google Video Store is live
Google Desktop Should Reinvent Itself For Vista
Mathematicians vs. Programmers
Steve Yegge thought about math and programming and reached some interesting conclusions:
"
A solid math background can give you a wider perspective when you try to create an algorithm, you can find interesting ideas and connections that will make your code shine (not just because it works fast and reliable, but because it contains hidden treasures).
"
- Math is a lot easier to pick up after you know how to program. In fact, if you're a halfway decent programmer, you'll find it's almost a snap.
- They teach math all wrong in school. Way, WAY wrong. If you teach yourself math the right way, you'll learn faster, remember it longer, and it'll be much more valuable to you as a programmer.
- Knowing even a little of the right kinds of math can enable you do write some pretty interesting programs that would otherwise be too hard. In other words, math is something you can pick up a little at a time, whenever you have free time.
- Nobody knows all of math, not even the best mathematicians. The field is constantly expanding, as people invent new formalisms to solve their own problems. And with any given math problem, just like in programming, there's more than one way to do it. You can pick the one you like best.
- Math is... ummm, please don't tell anyone I said this; I'll never get invited to another party as long as I live. But math, well... I'd better whisper this, so listen up: (it's actually kinda fun.)
"
He thinks "the best way to start learning math is to spend 15 to 30 minutes a day surfing in Wikipedia".A solid math background can give you a wider perspective when you try to create an algorithm, you can find interesting ideas and connections that will make your code shine (not just because it works fast and reliable, but because it contains hidden treasures).
Google Mobile Search
Google dives deeper into the mobile area. It seems there is a new GoogleBot that spiders the web and optimize the content for mobile phones. The Google spider has the User Agent; "Nokia6820/2.0 (4.83) Profile/MIDP-1.0 Configuration/CLDC-1.0 (compatible; Googlebot-Mobile/2.1; +http://www.google.com/bot.html)"."Google Web Search on mobile phones allows users to search all the content in the Google index for desktop web browsers. Because this content isn't written specifically for mobile phones and devices and thus might not display properly, Google automatically translates (or "transcodes") these pages by analyzing the original HTML code and converting it to a mobile-ready format. To ensure that the highest quality and most useable web page is displayed on your mobile phone or device, Google may resize, adjust, or convert images, text formatting and/or certain aspects of web page functionality." (from Google).
The problem is that, most of the times, Google removes ads from the sites and that makes the publishers angry.
You can test the transcoded version of a page online, if you go to http://www.google.com/gwt/n?u=[url address] and replace [url address] with the URL of the site. For example, CNN (mobile version).
Google has been partnering with cell phone hardware manufacturers: Sony Ericsson, Motorola, Benq. For example, Motorola phones will feature a Google button for direct access to Google's site.
As for content, Google delivers mobile search (web search, image search, local search), news, personalized homepage, Gmail mobile, Google Talk for Blackberry.
TouchGraph GoogleBrowser: Visualize Related Sites
GoogleBrowser is an interactive Java applet that shows a graph with related websites for a given site. Double clicking adds more nodes to the screen by retrieving similar-page results from Google. By highlighting a link on the graphical web, you can gain more information, and visit the site.
Google Desktop Should Reinvent Itself For Vista
Google Desktop is a nice piece of software that combines a good local search engine, with web search and some useful sidebar gadgets (or panels, like Google likes to call them).
Unfortunately for Google, the new Windows Vista will include most of these features:
* Windows Search. As you edit and create files in your filesystem, based on settings, it will index your files automatically in the background, making search easier and faster.
* Windows Sidebar. It includes support for Desktop Gadgets, you can download from the Microsoft Gadgets homepage.
* Windows Live Toolbar. Although Internet Explorer 7 will include a search box, Windows might push the Live Toolbar as a nice addition for the browser to boost MSN Search (rebranded as Live Search) share. The toolbar will integrate with the desktop search and the Live products.
So unless Google Desktop reinvents itself, it will be completely useless in Windows Vista which will become the default operating system in the next couple of years.
More about Google:
Google Desktop is back
Google Desktop As Data Recovery Software
Google Strategy In 2006
Google Desktop Is Google Operating System Kernel
More about Windows:
Windows Live Toolbar shines
Road to Internet Explorer 7 Beta 2
Next challenges for Microsoft in 2006
Unfortunately for Google, the new Windows Vista will include most of these features:
* Windows Search. As you edit and create files in your filesystem, based on settings, it will index your files automatically in the background, making search easier and faster.
* Windows Sidebar. It includes support for Desktop Gadgets, you can download from the Microsoft Gadgets homepage.
* Windows Live Toolbar. Although Internet Explorer 7 will include a search box, Windows might push the Live Toolbar as a nice addition for the browser to boost MSN Search (rebranded as Live Search) share. The toolbar will integrate with the desktop search and the Live products.
So unless Google Desktop reinvents itself, it will be completely useless in Windows Vista which will become the default operating system in the next couple of years.
More about Google:
Google Desktop is back
Google Desktop As Data Recovery Software
Google Strategy In 2006
Google Desktop Is Google Operating System Kernel
More about Windows:
Windows Live Toolbar shines
Road to Internet Explorer 7 Beta 2
Next challenges for Microsoft in 2006
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