Thursday, November 11, 2004
Microsoft Web Searcher Isn't as Good as Google, But in Time It Could Be
"Facts do not cease to exist because they are ignored."-- Aldous Huxley
As the prostitute said, "It's not the work, it's the stairs." As told to me by Elaine Stritch, star of stage, screen, & TV, right after she won her 1st Emmy. Ago 79.
By WALTER S. MOSSBERG
Microsoft, the giant software maker, has a split personality. In product categories where it has already crushed the competition, like Web browsers and word processors, it acts like a classic monopoly, rarely introducing real innovation. But in categories where it is challenging a technology leader, the Seattle superpower can act like a scrappy, innovative contender.
Today, Microsoft is due to unveil its long-awaited new Web search service, and the product bears all the hallmarks of the feisty, upstart side of the company. I've been testing this new version of the company's MSN search service, and, while it isn't yet as good as Google, the search leader Microsoft is targeting, it shows all the signs of becoming a very serious challenger.
The new MSN Search is still a "beta," or test, product, and it will undergo a lot of tweaking before its planned formal release in January. For instance, Microsoft isn't finished perfecting the relevancy of search results. And one major new feature, the ability to search files on your own computer, is still a few weeks away from even emerging in beta form. This is clearly a work in progress, but it's already pretty good.
You don't have to be an MSN member to use the new search service. Anyone can try it, free of charge, at beta.search.msn.com. I tested it on both Windows PCs and Macintoshes, using multiple browsers, including Internet Explorer, Firefox and Safari, and it worked on all of them.
Microsoft has done three major things in developing the new service. First, it built its own search engine -- the combination of hardware and software that combs the Web and ranks results. (It used to use a search engine from Yahoo.) Second, it has made changes intended to catch up with Google. Third, it has introduced some new features Google lacks.
In my tests with a variety of search terms, Google was better overall than the MSN beta, often finding more pages and more relevant results. But MSN was equal or close in many cases, and in some instances it actually gave what I considered more relevant results.
Microsoft claims its new search engine is fast and robust, and is based in part on research the company has done for years on helping computers parse human language. At launch, the MSN beta will feature an index of more than five billion pages, more than the 4.3 billion pages Google has recently been claiming it indexes. But Google isn't standing still, and it has suddenly upped its index to more than eight billion pages, a staggering total.
Microsoft's search service now has a clean front page, stripped of the former welter of links and ads. The search-result pages no longer feature long lists of paid links that sometimes made it hard to get to the real search results. Instead, like Google, Microsoft now shows just a few paid listings at the top of its results, and others down the side. There are still more paid listings than Google features, because Microsoft also places several at the end of each page of results.
Like Google, the new MSN Search now has a calculator built into its search box. You can enter math problems, equations and weight-and-measure conversions, and get quick answers. MSN also lets you see a cached version of the Web pages it finds, as Google does. But MSN still doesn't match some of Google's neatest tricks, such as showing a map when you type in an address or a name when you type in a phone number.
The best thing about the new MSN Search is a set of features absent from Google. Especially nice is the ability to get actual answers -- not just Web links -- when you enter fact-based queries. Microsoft draws these answers from its Encarta encyclopedia, including lots of material that was formerly provided only to paid subscribers.
For instance, I typed "birth of Lincoln" into MSN, and was given his birth date on top of the usual long list of Web results. The same query typed into Google yielded no direct information, and the first few Google results pertained to birth control and maternity services in Lincoln, Neb.
I also got quick answers from MSN to questions like "population of Copenhagen," "what is an arthropod?" and "GDP of Bulgaria."
MSN Search also has a button called "Near Me" that's designed to show results relevant to any major city you specify, without requiring you to switch to a separate local search service. But in my tests, this feature failed abysmally on topics like "pizza" and "cigars." It still needs work.
MSN also includes -- buried in a feature called "search builder" -- a set of slider controls that allow you to adjust a number of search parameters, such as how exact or approximate a search should be.
Searching for music is also much better in MSN. I typed in "Rolling Stones" and was able to click on, and hear, previews of several Stones songs right from the search result. I was also able to go directly to a page in the MSN music store where I could buy the songs.
By WALTER S. MOSSBERG
MY ADVICE endeavors at keen.com. The number is 1-800-275-5336 (800-ask-keen) + ext. 0329063 for tech stuff, 0329117 for running a small business, and 0329144 on investing. Want to CHAT, I use Yahoo's IM as the_web_ster. View me in the Friends & Family part of webcamnow.com, just click on "view cams", then in the Java window click on WebcamNow Communities drop down arrow & select Friends & Family. Under the live webcams look for & click on me "the_webster".
Tuesday, November 09, 2004
Hear it from CNBC about how FireFox is moving.
"Facts do not cease to exist because they are ignored."-- Aldous Huxley
As the prostitute said, "It's not the work, it's the stairs." As told to me by Elaine Stritch, star of stage, screen, & TV, right after she won her 1st Emmy. Ago 79.
Between 10:30 & 11 AM Pacific time today.
MY ADVICE endeavors at keen.com. The number is 1-800-275-5336 (800-ask-keen) + ext. 0329063 for tech stuff, 0329117 for running a small business, and 0329144 on investing. Want to CHAT, I use Yahoo's IM as the_web_ster. View me in the Friends & Family part of webcamnow.com, just click on "view cams", then in the Java window click on WebcamNow Communities drop down arrow & select Friends & Family. Under the live webcams look for & click on me "the_webster".
Wanta watch movies on your computer? Internet Movies
"Facts do not cease to exist because they are ignored."-- Aldous Huxley
As the prostitute said, "It's not the work, it's the stairs." As told to me by Elaine Stritch, star of stage, screen, & TV, right after she won her 1st Emmy. Ago 79.
Dan Tynan of PCWorld
I love movies, but I'd rather eat stale popcorn than wait in line at Blockbuster. So I joined Movielink and Starz Ticket on Real Movies. Both let you download films from the Internet and watch them on your PC. CinemaNow has a similar service, but a fellow can watch only so many movies. All have Free trial deals going. But I don't think I want watch movies on my computer. I spend enough time on this thing now. But I'm not you & yes, you can download to your laptop and take that where ever you want to. But that's it, the movies download to your harddrive and their program and not to a disk.
My quest: to find out if they're a better deal than Netflix, my DVD-by-mail service of choice. Here's how they stack up.
Selection: Browsing Starz's 150-odd movie titles is much like cable surfing at 3 a.m.--not surprising, since the films are also part of the Starz movie library. Who can forget Two of a Kind, starring John Travolta and Olivia Newton-John, or Smokey and the Bandit III? (Answer: everyone but Starz subscribers.) Movielink, in contrast, serves up 900 films, including recent Oscar winners like Cold Mountain. Netflix offers a whopping 25,000 DVD choices. Game over.
Price: Starz's $13 a month for unlimited downloads may seem like a bargain, but what do you do once you've rented the five flicks worth watching? Movielink charges $1 to $5 per film--but mostly $5. That's about $4.99 more than I am willing to pay for movies like Bio-Dome. With Netflix, I can rent up to three DVDs at a time for $22 a month. We'll see 12 to 15 movies in a good month. It's a much smarter deal.
Convenience: With Netflix, you add movies to your list, and the discs are sent to you as they become available. Movielink and Starz let you download movies to watch later (or alternatively, in Movielink's case, as they download; Starz expects to offer streaming). That's more convenient, right? But the services are hobbled by the studios, which give movies to them a month after they hit the video stores, and impose silly rules on when you can watch films.
On Starz, for example, you can watch a movie at any time, provided you do it while the film is still available on the site and within 24 hours of starting it, but not more than three times, except during a blue moon in months that end in "r." (Okay, I made up that last bit.) Starz lets you burn films to disc, but you can only play that CD on up to three PCs. Movielink gives you 30 days to watch a movie, but you must finish it within 24 hours of starting it or pay $1 for another 24-hour license--no burning allowed. You can keep a Netflix DVD for weeks and watch it a hundred times. That would be stupid, but you could do it.
Playback: To simulate a real movie-theater experience, I connected my notebook to a digital projector and watched Blue Crush (from Starz) on the wall of my living room. The picture was almost as good as with a DVD. But Movielink was a mess. One file that I downloaded was corrupted and wouldn't play. I had to reinstall Movielink's media software and download Bride of Chucky all over again. When the film did finally play, it stuttered and dropped frames. Netflix DVDs do have a high schmutz factor, and this can cause playback problems, but a quick wipe with Windex and a tissue usually fixes them.
The verdict? Movie download sites are a good idea done poorly, at least so far. But when Netflix launches its own download service next year, in partnership with TiVo, I'll be one of the first in line to sign up. And I won't even have to get off the couch to do it.
PC World contributing editor Dan Tynan really wants to direct.
MY ADVICE endeavors at keen.com. The number is 1-800-275-5336 (800-ask-keen) + ext. 0329063 for tech stuff, 0329117 for running a small business, and 0329144 on investing. Want to CHAT, I use Yahoo's IM as the_web_ster. View me in the Friends & Family part of webcamnow.com, just click on "view cams", then in the Java window click on WebcamNow Communities drop down arrow & select Friends & Family. Under the live webcams look for & click on me "the_webster".
Monday, November 08, 2004
Bugs Caught in the Web
"Facts do not cease to exist because they are ignored."-- Aldous Huxley
As the prostitute said, "It's not the work, it's the stairs." As told to me by Elaine Stritch, star of stage, screen, & TV, right after she won her 1st Emmy. Ago 79.
Web bugs are special links in Web pages that collect much more detailed information about your online activities than a simple cookie can. Bugs then feed all that information about you directly into a database containing tons of other information about you that has been gathered and stored by other Web bugs.
Many sites use Web bugs to help track how many people have visited a particular Web site or to track what kinds of browsers are being used. For advertisers, the really exciting news is that Web bugs can be used to collect information — about you! — such as what sites you're visiting, the contents of the pages you read, and how long you looked at that page before clicking to another page.
MY ADVICE endeavors at keen.com. The number is 1-800-275-5336 (800-ask-keen) + ext. 0329063 for tech stuff, 0329117 for running a small business, and 0329144 on investing. Want to CHAT, I use Yahoo's IM as the_web_ster. View me in the Friends & Family part of webcamnow.com, just click on "view cams", then in the Java window click on WebcamNow Communities drop down arrow & select Friends & Family. Under the live webcams look for & click on me "the_webster".
Sunday, November 07, 2004
OK, I blow it the other night while I was out to dinner and thought I should pass this on
"Facts do not cease to exist because they are ignored."-- Aldous Huxley
As the prostitute said, "It's not the work, it's the stairs." As told to me by Elaine Stritch, star of stage, screen, & TV, right after she won her 1st Emmy. Ago 79.
Saving you 7%! - For the rest of your life.
OK, I don't get out much. So lets just get that out of the way now. But what I did was NOT look at my rec. closely enough.
I tip at 20%. And that's because I've been there and hope I never have to go back. And I understand that resturants figure the paid of the wait staff getting that. Any way what's where life is. But it's the # that you figure the 20% off of that's what I want to talk about. Don't figure your tip off the figure that includes the TAX. That's what I did when my Rec. came. I'm not sure why, but I've got an idea, the resturants are gaveing you or me, last night, a rec. with just a GRAND TOTAL on it, this includes the TAX and if you figure your tip off of that number your going to over tip by something like 7%. Or whatever you tax rate is. They did gave me a detailed slip but I looked at the other one to figure my tip from this time anyway. And maybe I loss well save you for the rest of your life 7%.
So, adjust your % on how much you tip and tip off the Grand Total or the other way around.
MY ADVICE endeavors at keen.com. The number is 1-800-275-5336 (800-ask-keen) + ext. 0329063 for tech stuff, 0329117 for running a small business, and 0329144 on investing. Want to CHAT, I use Yahoo's IM as the_web_ster. View me in the Friends & Family part of webcamnow.com, just click on "view cams", then in the Java window click on WebcamNow Communities drop down arrow & select Friends & Family. Under the live webcams look for & click on me "the_webster".
