Google Takes over the Desktop

Google (god, I love them) has just released a new piece of great software, Google Desktop Search. The software, still in beta, is designed to allow searching of your local PC as easily as you can Google up a webpage. You download the program to your computer and it runs in your taskbar so that you can seach your PC at any time with a single click. Initially, it must index your files, which can take some time if you’re sporting a 250 GB hard drive like I do. Once finished indexing, you are ready to Google your computer.

The Google Desktop Search page looks very similar to the regular Google page, so to say it’s easy to use is quite the understatement.  You can officially say goodbye to Window’s built-in search technology now, because this is much, much better. (Never again will a stupid little dog ask you what you are looking for today!) Also, unlike Windows’ search, Google Desktop Search not only indexes your Word and Excel documents and the like, it will pull up your emails, pages from your browser’s cache, and your chat sessions. (For the complete list of what it indexes, click here).

To some its ability to pull up a personal email or a cached website is a privacy concern.  People who share a computer with others may not want them looking at their files, emails and chats, and should probably steer clear of using this program. However, personally, I have no problem with my husband reading any of my emails or viewing my web history, so I’m looking forward to using this program.

In addition to my joy over this program, I also just discovered Google Scholar, which is a free
service that helps you search scholarly literature such as
peer-reviewed papers, theses, books, preprints, abstracts and technical
reports. Where was this when I was in college?! I’m so jealous!

Truly, the world of Google simply amazes me. Not only does the technology impress, function, and delight, it’s incredibly useful, and there is always something new being released. Google is the future of the internet, the future of search, and, quite frankly, I don’t know how I ever lived without it. That’s it, I’m off to by some Google stock.

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I just got an email from PC World about a new site called PlaylistMag.com. The email read that PlaylistMag.com is "a new site dedicated to the world of digital music & digital music
technology. Register now, and access free music downloads, share your playlists
with others, participate in the forum, read product reviews, and learn about the
ground breaking technologies that are revolutionizing the music industry."  Oh yeah, these are LEGAL downloads, folks.

And because the email said "free music," which I’m a sucker for, I checked it out. I was pleasantly surprised! The site is well designed, colorful, and easy to navigate. From the downloads section, I downloaded (for free!) live Pearl Jam, The Ramones, Weezer, and this band I saw on The O.C. last night, The Walkmen. Very cool.

The icing on the cake of this new discovery was the XML feed of the available downloads. Just add http://playlistmag.com/downloads/rss.xml to your newsreader. I think it’s going to be a good Friday.

WARNING! It’s a political post!

I don’t normally do political, but this was interesting so I figured I would pass it on. An old friend forwarded me an email with the usual "you gotta see this site" tag line. Curiousity won out, and I looked. It’s the Sorry Everybody website and it’s pictures and letters from people apologizing for the results of the election. It’s not just U.S. citizens’ pictures, but also pictures from people from around the world accepting those apologies. There are currently 536 pages of photos! It’s pretty fun to just click around in there, see all the people, and read their messages.

In some small way, it’s starting the healing process between us and the world. A good part of the world doesn’t like the U.S. as much as they used to, and I don’t mean the terrorists. It’s easy enough for us to sit on our couches and cry, "I don’t care what Europe thinks!" but it’s not that simple. We don’t live on this planet alone, so when we tell the world to kiss our ass, they answer back. Just watch the decline of American corporations’ sales overbroad; enjoy your next romantic honeymoon in Paris…just make sure to say you’re from Canada. Anyway, since when did it become civilized is it to basically stick out our tongues and go "nah-nah-boo-boo, we don’t care!"?

When a country was as divided as it was this past election, you have to see the big picture…Bush won, but it wasn’t a landslide. A lot of people felt differently about the way the country was being run and the choices that were made. We can agree to disagree, my friends, but let’s be grown up about it. Let’s forgive each other and make some peace with this. And that’s how that website made me feel: connected to a bigger, greater world where people still care about other people. It was a good feeling.

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According to this article  at PCWorld.com, the two biggest anti-virus companies, Symantec & McAfee are raising their rates for renewals. I realize that anti-virus is important, but I wonder if people know that they have other options? AVG and Avast have FREE versions of anti-virus software available for home users. I’ve used AVG in the past, but currently I’m trying Avast. I must say, I like AVG better. I absolutely detest Avast’s user interface. It’s designed as if they are trying to be some sort of cool media player instead of what it is, an anti-virus program. Do they think they’re special because it’s skinnable? Honestly, I could care less about skinning my anti-virus program. I just need it to work. The interface is not user-friendly AT ALL, and I know my way around a computer. I can’t imagine how your average joe could use it. On top of everything, by default it loads two icons into the system tray. You have to right-click one of them and choose "merge with main Avast icon" to get rid of the 2nd icon. Annoyance. Still, it’s free, and free is good. Especially if you’re cheap like me.

Thanks to Tyler’s website I just learned something really cool! You can get an Atom feed of your Gmail! Now I have an RSS feed that I can use in my reader (Sharpreader, by the way…hey, it’s free and it’s good). Only new, unread messages show when you add the feed for the first time, but, from then on, you are good to go. Now, you can check your Gmail on the sly at work, when it looks like you’re just reading your newsfeeds. Hee hee. The feed to add is
https://gmail.google.com/gmail/feed/atom.

Thanks, Tyler!

Did you see this over yonder at MSNBC? The CEO of Amazon.com, Jeff Bezos, funded a company called Blue Origin, which is now a start-up in Seattle. There, engineers are
working to build low-cost vehicles that would send passengers into space for
short flights. Umm…low-cost? "Then you would proceed from there to other steps, such as perhaps orbital space flights," he says. I’m not so sure about the low-cost part, but still, cool! It’s hard to believe that space tourism may become a reality in our lifetime. Would you go? How much would you pay for that experience? I’m not sure if I could handle it, what with the anti-gravity and all. I’m not even so good on roller coasters anymore. However, it would be an unforgettable experience, and quite possibly worth the nausea it would induce. Now, if we could just get the transporters and tractor beams working, we would be all set! (Oh yeah, and figure out how to travel at the speed of light).

I just got an email from the editors of PCWorld to let me know about this new website: Networking for Small Business. The site " will help guide you through
the sometimes complex world of the networked business, with the news,
analysis and reviews you need to help you make the right decisions."  The site’s areas include hardware, software, security, wireless, and broadband. There are articles, news, reviews, and blogs (with XML feeds, natch). Not too bad…I guess…..just maybe a little…I don’t know…boring. I mean, I know it’s about business and computers and all, but I think it needs a little pizazz. Headlines include things like "Buffalo charges Citrix GoToMyPC" and Vodafone launches new 3G phones, services.  All this in a boring brown font on a white background. The banner is shades of gray with white text. Except for the bright orange XML buttons, the site would be totally drab. Ho hum. There is some good content on the site, but I just wasn’t enthused to read it.

I just noticed on Google’s site this software called Keyhole. (Yes, I’m posting about Google stuff again.) Touted as the "ultimate interface to the planet," Keyhole offers satellite imagery for only $29.95 (personal use). With Keyhole, you can zoom to street level, tilt to view the terrain, measure the distance between two points, and email and print the view.

Pretty cool, I must say…but, I’m cheap. So, on the rare occasion I want a satellite photo (or just want to look for my house), I go over to TerraServer.com instead. For free, I can view the satellite photo of my street…at least, I think that’s my street…hmmm…

From Google:
 
Some words, when followed by a colon, have special meanings to Google. One such word for Google is the link: operator. The query link:siteURL shows you all the pages that point to that URL. For example, link:www.google.com will show you all the pages that point to Google’s home page. You cannot combine a link: search with a regular keyword search.

So, just for fun, I decided to see how many links I had. Here are my results:

Results 1 - 10 of about 430 linking to http://hyperculture.typepad.com.
Results 1 - 4 of 4 linking to www.sarahintampa.com.

That’s a grand total of 434 links! Cool, huh?

How many links do you have?

From Reuters,
Updated: 3:51 p.m. ET Nov. 4, 2004

"LOS ANGELES - Movie studios and the Motion Picture Association of America said Thursday they would sue individuals suspected of illegally distributing movies over the Internet. The music industry has led the way with such lawsuits targeting major traders of song files who use Kazaa and other programs to swap songs on the Web. The MPAA, the trade group representing Hollywood’s major studios, said its members would launch suits claiming copyright violation on Nov. 16. The civil suits will seek to stop trading as well as damages of up to $30,000 per film, the MPAA said, adding that damages could reach $150,000 if the infringement was deemed willful."

Is this file-swapping backlash starting to get a little ridiculous? What 16-year-old kid is going to get sued for $30,000 now? (There goes college…) Let me give the MPAA a better idea: after you walk out of a movie, how about having a place where you can buy the DVD right there in the theater? The DVD could be sold for less than the DVD that would come out later in the stores, because this DVD would be just the movie itself. Later, a second DVD could be sold containing bonus features like the director’s commentary, deleted scenes, trailers, etc. This would allow a film to be sold, not once, or twice, but, potentially 3 times to the same person (theater, $5 gotta-have-it-now DVD, $20 collector’s edition).

This, of course, wouldn’t eliminate file-swapping, but it would help get the MPAA a piece of the action, and people would get what they want, too - a DVD sooner rather than later. Granted, not all file-swappers are trading the bootleg, handheld-camera-in-the-theater DVDs…but many do. However, trading those crappy copies, replete with people sneezing and walking in front of the camera, would lose its tempation once there was a "real" version available for the low, low price of $5.00 at your local cinemaplex.