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A Peek at Personalized Google

Posted by timothy on from the must-resist-comment-about-evil dept.

Seoulstriker writes "Sci-tech Today is describing how Google will be offering customized homepages as seen here. Is this one step closer to Google becoming a web portal like Yahoo? Although it is not currently in Beta, it is only available through the Google Labs site. It definitely doesn't look like Yahoo yet, but I don't want my search site to be any more cluttered than it is now."

260 comments

  1. Google by XanC · · Score: 5, Funny
    They just seem to be everybody's best friend. Google can do no wrong!

    I just hope they don't execute Order 66...

    1. Re:Google by bryan8m · · Score: 0

      Order 66 being the empire's command to destroy all Jedi, correct?

    2. Re:Google by 3770 · · Score: 1, Informative

      Yes.

      --
      The Internet is full. Go Away!!!
    3. Re:Google by XanC · · Score: 1
      Right, it's the one that suddenly turned the clone army from "good" to "evil".

      Like the Krusty doll in that Simpson's episode!

    4. Re:Google by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0, Insightful

      Archimedes helps invent modern mathematics,
      Modern math (after surviving the Dark Ages) enables modern science,
      Modern science gives us nifty toys like particle accelerators...
      ...which we're using to read Archimedes' writings.

      I can't help but think the guy would really get a kick out of that.

      --
      [-(friend^2)]^(1/2)

    5. Re:Google by Anonymous Coward · · Score: -1

      we have it!

      "What is Six Times... NINE?"

    6. Re:Google by Anonymous Coward · · Score: -1

      I watched a program about the amazing discoveries uncovered through the painstaking analysis of this parchment.

      One of the most stunning discoveries was the description by Archimedes of his method for finding the area under a curve though a rudimentary form of integral calculus, 2000 years before Newton or Leibniz!

      He established the law of levers, found the relationship of the area of a cylinder to a sphere (which he believed to be his greatest discovery and he directed a model of which to be inscribed on his tomb), described the relationship of volume and buoyancy in water (his eureka! moment), among many other mathematical and mechanical discoveries.

      A true genius that stands with Newton, Pascal and others.

    7. Re:Google by Anonymous Coward · · Score: -1
      Although many will be quick to jump on the damn monk that wrote over one of the most important texts in history, that is what saved it from destruction and damage.

      PBS did an AWESOME ducomentary on it.


    8. Re:Google by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0, Funny

      Clearly this is a violation of DCMA... ;)
      --
      http://www.hawknest.com/

    9. Re:Google by Anonymous Coward · · Score: -1

      Not only was a lot of the knowledge preserved, much of what was lost was destroyed by secular forces. Archimedes was killed by a Roman soldier who grew impatient when the inventor didn't come quickly enough. The Library of Alexandria was burned down by the Romans.

      I must say, if the Church ever did anything right, it was preserving the works of the great masters. Sure, they may not have been complete, and they may have destroyed some other works that they disagreed with, but all in all, it was the Church that made the Renaissance possible.

      I think the grandparent poster was really just taking advantage of Slashdot's antireligious bias to score some karma.

    10. Re:Google by Anonymous Coward · · Score: -1

      Well sure, but sites that are likely targets of DDOS attacks tends to be larger, more commercial sites. Microsoft.com or Yahoo.com or Ebay or whoever CAN disallow Tor traffic (using blacklists) without really inconveniencing a significant portion of their users. And that's fine for me - why would I want to hide the fact that I'm downloading patches from MS? However if I'm looking at sites that may flag my IP with the CIA or FBI or whoever, it's likely that those sites will be fairly low on the list of likely DDOS targets. So it's not really and issue for me. Maybe others out there has different ideas of how they would like to use an anonymous browser, but I'm happy with what it is. In short: Meh.
      --
      I am a jelly donut.

    11. Re:Google by Anonymous Coward · · Score: -1

      With Tor, you can flood sites and services such as IRC, web boards, instant messaging, and so forth. You could possibly use it to spam as well. All of this would be done by seemingly random IP addresses. In essence, it is an inflated case of Open Proxy Syndrome.

      I'm sure dissidents in the PRC or other dictatorships, who look forward to a way of publishing things that go against their governments without losing their heads, are happy to hear you're worried about IRC crapflooding...

      That's the price of freedom: preserving it comes at a cost, something citizens in the America of the DHS should remember too one of these days, incidentally.

      --
      "A door is what a dog is perpetually on the wrong side of" - Ogden Nash

    12. Re:Google by Anonymous Coward · · Score: -1, Offtopic

      Zero Knowledge systems made their anonymizng network pseudonymous instead of truly anonymous, and (here's the good part) you had to pay for a pseudonym.

      If you acted like a jerk people would block you, your pseudonym would become useless, and replacing it would cost actual money.

      I don't know how they avoided making the nyms traceable via the payment system. There is high magic in the crypto world that might have made it possible to break that linkage.

      BTW I bow with respect toward your low user id.

      --
      "Freedom of the press is a security measure." - Bruce Schneier

    13. Re:Google by Anonymous Coward · · Score: -1

      The point of this post seems to be that TOR now has 100 verified nodes. But the Wikipedia article at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Onion_Routing [wikipedia.org] that this points to says they had 100 nodes as of February 2005. Is TOR no longer growing, or is the math off somewhere?
      --
      Damn you Bill Gates!(TM)

    14. Re:Google by Anonymous Coward · · Score: -1, Troll
      Like the Krusty doll in that Simpson's episode!
      Dude! Stop talking about your mom that way, else she won't let you back into the basement!
    15. Re:Google by nevdullc · · Score: 1

      These aren't the droids you're looking for ... move along. ;)

      --
      Cthulhu Saves -- in case He's hungry later.
    16. Re:Google by PsychicX · · Score: 5, Funny

      I'm so confused:
      Google
      Yahoo

    17. Re:Google by moosesocks · · Score: 1

      and let the meme begin.....

      --
      -- If you try to fail and succeed, which have you done? - Uli's moose
    18. Re:Google by derfy · · Score: 1

      What low id?

    19. Re:Google by derfy · · Score: 1

      Bah, nm. Stupid crapfloods.

      (btw, anyone else getting a capchta image whether or not they're logged in?)

    20. Re:Google by zonker · · Score: 0

      depending on your point of view, order 66 could also be interpreted as plan 9...

      --

      Large print giveth, and the small print taketh away

    21. Re:Google by Momoru · · Score: 1

      It is ugly and cluttered....but more then that, its mostly useless. Take for example the stock quotes. On my.yahoo.com, it shows me my stocks...if i click one of the ticker symbols it shows me detailed data about the stocks from finance.yahoo.com . If i click on in google it does a web search for the ticker symbol ??? And shows an undetailed chart of the stock which is completely useless. If i then click that chart it takes me to finance.yahoo.com for the stock anyways. I think this is an example of where yahoo has the upper hand because they own the content they are providing. Google is so insistent that everything be done via a web search that things often take two or three more steps then they need to be. Another good example if the public domain books....why can't they have a button or directory somewhere that i can browse through these? I need to KNOW what book i'm looking for... And finally, this personalization, while i'm sure will be held as the greatest tech achievment in the world by the Google fans here, its 7 years behind yahoo and msn's idea, and a severely poor implementation compared to either of theirs.

    22. Re:Google by Anonymous Coward · · Score: -1, Troll

      Its a good chance thats because its not even in beta currently. But hey whatever... ALso Yahoo and MSN invented having users login. what ever fucker. ...

      Damn where did that come from. fuck its early

    23. Re:Google by Momoru · · Score: 1

      I've said this before, and i'll say it again...if they put it out there, its fair to be judged. They have the beta tag on almost every single thing they offer. Just because they type "beta" at the top of one of their pages does not make it immune to criticism. In the past they have even issued press releases for new products which are "beta". Also beta or no beta, that still does not address the issues i complained about, unless magically by the final version they will author their own content and have a less reliance on searches for everything

    24. Re:Google by PMuse · · Score: 1

      I just hope they don't execute Order 66...

      Which begs the question: "what were the other 65 orders?"

      --
      "We reject as false the choice between our safety and our ideals." --The American President (20.1.2009)
    25. Re:Google by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      In what way does it beg the question?

    26. Re:Google by PMuse · · Score: 1

      Why, in that embarrasing way that the phrase doesn't really mean, of course. ;) Thanks for the link.

      --
      "We reject as false the choice between our safety and our ideals." --The American President (20.1.2009)
    27. Re:Google by joshuao3 · · Score: 1

      Apparently Google can do wrong, after all. Google's RSS feed reader got the ban from SLASHDOT! So much for the latest 9 headlines.

      --
      Monitor bandwidth usage on IIS6 in real-time: http://www.waetech.com/services/iisbm/
  2. a dupe by Anonymous Coward · · Score: -1, Redundant

    Thanks for the dupe.

  3. You know it's a dupe when... by The+Hobo · · Score: 4, Funny

    One of the links on the story shows up darker than the rest. (For those who don't get it, firefox shows visited slashdot links as darker)

    --
    There is another kind of evil which we must fear most, and that is the indifference of good men. -- Boondock Saints
    1. Re:You know it's a dupe when... by Cruciform · · Score: 1

      I don't mind dupes so much.

      The bitching that follows is natures way of telling us other people spend a hell of a lot more time on here, and that maybe there's hope for some of us yet :)

    2. Re:You know it's a dupe when... by LouisZepher · · Score: 1

      I know IE isn't on the ball with W3C compliance, but I think it recognizes a:visited{} just the same.

    3. Re:You know it's a dupe when... by pdbaby · · Score: 5, Funny

      You know it's slashdot when we rely on our browser first to tell us that the story's a dupe before we bother using our memories

      --
      Global symbol "$deity" requires explicit package name at line 2. - If only $scripture started "use strict;"
    4. Re:You know it's a dupe when... by justforaday · · Score: 4, Funny

      I restarted my computer between that story and this one, so it's not in my memory anymore...

      --
      I'll turn into a supernova and burn up everything. Well I'll turn into a black little hole and you'll turn into string.
    5. Re:You know it's a dupe when... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: -1, Offtopic

      This story deserves telling in the full, especially on a site like Slashdot where people have the background to appreciate the nuances involved

      M$Winblows is teh sux. The gummint is out to get us. Dumbya sux0rs. Gentoo is l337. Star Wars rules.

      Yup, we appreciate it.


    6. Re:You know it's a dupe when... by IO+ERROR · · Score: 4, Insightful

      Next we'll be having /. stories covering the /. stories about the /. stories about the /. stories...

      A good point, though, is that since the rise of Google, most of the other search engines have de-cluttered their search pages, removing almost everything from them.

      --
      How am I supposed to fit a pithy, relevant quote into 120 characters?
    7. Re:You know it's a dupe when... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I like blaming religion for stuff too, but in this case, you can't really pin it on them.

      A lot of monks basically spent their lives copying and recopying texts. There wasn't anything else to do with them, really. Without them, a lot more information would have been lost. ALL of Archimedes works would probably be gone. With them would likely go Socrates, Aristotle, Plato, Homer, etc. etc. Only the rich Arab kingdoms preserved more knowledge through the Middle Ages than Christian Monks, and even there, it was religion at work, not society in general.

      A lot was lost in that time. Libraries and monastaries burned down, taking God knows how much knowledge with them. Some books were lost, damaged by accident, and some were even destroyed intentionally, but imagine how much survived, and remember that it would all have been gone without the Christian and Muslim clergy that preserved them. The Rennaisance would have been a blank slate without them. We'd be lucky to have rediscovered all of it by now. Heck, we probably wouldn't even have realized it was lost yet.

      I think this situation comes down to pure carelessness. A monk needed parchment, and the only way to get it was to erase something. Because they spend their lives copying text, many monasteries would have multiple copies of any given text on hand. I think it most likely that the monk assumed another copy existed, and that one could be sacrificed for the need at hand, and be replaced later when paper was available.

      Think of it sort of like back in the old days when floppy disks served most people's removable storage needs, and there never seemed to be enough of them around. You needed an extra 250 kb on your hard drive (back when that was a lot of space), and you noticed an old document you hadn't touched in months. "Oh, yeah, I've got that backed up on a floppy disk, I can delete that." So you do. What happens later when you realize that you didn't have it backed up, but that you'd erased the disk you'd stored it on in order to back up some other file? You've just lost that file.

    8. Re:You know it's a dupe when... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: -1

      It's the GREEKS, Mr Bush.
      --

      $G_{\mu\nu} = k T_{\mu\nu}$

    9. Re:You know it's a dupe when... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: -1

      I suppose they use other wavelengths, longer ones (they're not trying to tell the position of each atom in their artefact, just the density variations -- I suppose). Longer wavelengths -- lower frequencies -- lower energy of the photons -- less damage.
      --

      $G_{\mu\nu} = k T_{\mu\nu}$

    10. Re:You know it's a dupe when... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: -1
      Lord knows I've been burned by that assumption!
      ...shoulda used lube, man, shoulda used lube.


      --

      Mac Mini Topics [allmacmini.com]

    11. Re:You know it's a dupe when... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: -1, Offtopic
      After 600 years in the hands of the Catholic Church, European civilization had lost most of its heritage of learning and rationality it inherited from the Grecoromans who produced it.

      So what do you call all the Platonists and Aristotelian Catholic philosophers? St. Augustine was a definite Platonist, using it to explain Christian ideology in a manner that (attempted to be) rational. Same with St. Aquinas, who was an Aristotelian and hailed as the greatest philosopher of the Catholic Church. Whatever you might think of their Scholasticism, they were trying to be as hyper-rational and logical as one could imagine. Yes, they had definite agendas in mind (i.e. justifying Christianity), but you can't just dismiss them and say that Grecoroman learning and rationality "disappeared."

      If you know any of your art history, Grecoroman culture was also preserved to a certain extent (hence, Romanesque art), but it was later pushed aside by more German and French styles (Gothic), which were in vogue because people liked windows (which Romanesque styles didn't really support) in their Cathedrals.


      --
      Such irE
      "It's hard to be religious when certain people are never incinerated by bolts of lightning." - Calvin
    12. Re:You know it's a dupe when... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: -1

      "Be sure... To drink... Your Ovaltine..."

    13. Re:You know it's a dupe when... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: -1
      I've been using Tor as only a client for a while now, and I have to say that it seems maybe a bit overloaded; I ran into a LOT of latency on interactive sessions; anywhere from 3 to 30 seconds or more would be normal. It could just be that intermediate routers were having trouble, but it's not yet something I can use daily for interactive sessions.

      Normal web browsing is fine, albeit quite a bit slower than you're used to. Then again, that's the price of anonymity, I suppose.

      As far as contributing, if I had the bandwidth to spare, I'd set up a Tor server and contribute. I do have Tor linked from my web site, though, for what that's worth.


      --
      Latest: Can you believe the media? [ioerror.us]
    14. Re:You know it's a dupe when... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: -1

      I suspect it will work.
      And what I did was to turn on my proxy settings in Firefox and then go to an IP check site. My current IP is being reported as other than any in the range of my ISP.

    15. Re:You know it's a dupe when... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: -1, Offtopic

      Yes anonymous internet use should be banned. Thank you for your insightful post Mr. Coward.

    16. Re:You know it's a dupe when... by Fortyseven · · Score: 1

      I noticed that instantly. :D

      --
      BytesTemplar.com
    17. Re:You know it's a dupe when... by R.Mo_Robert · · Score: 1

      Slashdot's using HTML 3.2--you don't expect them to be using CSS, do you? :) It's VLINK that they're using.

      --
      R.Mo
    18. Re:You know it's a dupe when... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      you forgot msn

    19. Re:You know it's a dupe when... by nokilli · · Score: 2, Funny

      And what is especially dispiriting about this dupe is that I submitted a completely different story about Google yesterday and it gets rejected.

      I don't know, maybe my story wasn't really very relevant. You tell me. Google is tracking which search results you click on now. This is new, right? I don't know whether this is necessarily an invasion of privacy or anything, but it seems to be something they should have been more upfront about.

      "Don't be evil" is slowly morphing into "It's OK to be just a little evil."

    20. Re:You know it's a dupe when... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Funny

      >For those who don't get it, firefox shows visited slashdot links as darker

      Welcome to the World Wide Web.
      Let me show you around a bit. Over here we have what we call a "Hyperlink". A hyperlink has a number of features.
      Hyperlinks are usually underlined, and usually a different colour to the rest of the text (blue by convention, unless the web site design specifies otherwise)
      When you click on a hyperlink, you web browser will take you to the page it references.
      If you have already been to that page, the hyperlink will be a different colour to one that refers to a page you have not visited (purple by convention or sometimes red, depending on the browser, unless the web site design specifies otherwise).

      This is standard behaviour in all graphical web browsers, and has been since HTML was invented, around about 15 years ago. I appreciate that you probably weren't born then, and so therefore may think this is a new feature, or one limited to Firefox.

    21. Re:You know it's a dupe when... by roastedMnM · · Score: 1

      Unfortunatly this is not news. It was simply brushed under the rug as a feature.

      roasted

    22. Re:You know it's a dupe when... by Jeremiah+Cornelius · · Score: 1

      The culture was preserved better by the Arab and Seljuk empires. They preserved libraries (after the admitted burning of Alexandria) for their later introduction to Europe during the Crusades, and to a greater extent via Florentine/Venetian trade with the Ottomans - producing the Rennaisance.

      --
      "Flyin' in just a sweet place,
      Never been known to fail..."
    23. Re:You know it's a dupe when... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Funny

      Welcome to the World Wide Web.
      Let me show you around a bit. Over here we have what we call a "Hyperlink". A hyperlink

      Welcome indeed. Nice to see he got a simple explanation instead of rude barbs from some condescending pedant. Oh wait...

    24. Re:You know it's a dupe when... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      The point makes sense. But... I dont see how it pertains to the parents post. Did I miss something?

    25. Re:You know it's a dupe when... by speedog · · Score: 1

      now it's time for My Yahoo! to simplify its pages now

    26. Re:You know it's a dupe when... by ginotech · · Score: 4, Funny

      Welcome to Slashdot...over here we have a pedant...and over there, too...and there. oh wait, there's another one.

    27. Re:You know it's a dupe when... by ozmanjusri · · Score: 1

      Its a crapflood. Trolls copying comments from old stories and pasting them into this one.

      --
      "I've got more toys than Teruhisa Kitahara."
    28. Re:You know it's a dupe when... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Do other people find jokes in the parent funnier when the Oh wait.. is left out?

    29. Re:You know it's a dupe when... by ThJ · · Score: 1

      Since when is Slashdot a news site?

    30. Re:You know it's a dupe when... by CUGWMUI · · Score: 1
      Hmm.. you also know its a dupe when 40% of comments posted are about the story being a dupe !

      And heaven forbid, if you hadn't read the original, you'll find a link to the original, go through it and then come back to the dupe.

      Or is that just me ;-) ?

    31. Re:You know it's a dupe when... by Compact+Dick · · Score: 2, Funny


      Do other people find jokes in the parent funnier when the Oh wait.. is left out?

      Yes!

      Oh, wait...

      --
      Use ISO 8601 dates [YYYY-MM-DD]
    32. Re:You know it's a dupe when... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Windows user, eh?

  4. Cluttered search engine? How about crap editors? by furiousgeorge · · Score: 4, Funny

    Would you want it cluttered enough so it could spot the dupe story? I could see that being useful to the lazy editors.

  5. Dupe by cipher+uk · · Score: 0, Redundant

    Yeah its nice and all but i already know about it from the last time u told me.

    First ?

    1. Re:Dupe by Anonymous Coward · · Score: -1

      Whoever rated this post as insightful? It's just ignorant. Vellum was a highly costly resource in medieval society because it's obtain from the skin of a young, animal - usually a calf. As generally speaking a cow would only produce one calf per year the cost of producing a calf's worth of vellum is the cost of keeping a cow alive over the winter needed to produce the calf - which was more difficult at the time because in the abscence of root feeds most cattle were slaughtered and salted in the autumn, plus the loss of revenue from allowing the calf to grow.

      Although it's true that there does appear to have been periods when medieval society was relatively affluent - the 12th Century in particular - famine was never far away and the grinding poverty should not be underestimated. There are even accounts of periods where it is remarked by chroniclers that it was not uncommon for peasants to own just a single garment or even none at all. This cannot have been the norm as otherwise the chroniclers would not have remarked upon it, but nevertheless, in a society which is living as close to the edge as medieval europe managed to do it is not suprising that vellum for books was a costly and rare resource


  6. first poast by looneyboy784 · · Score: -1, Redundant

    yay

  7. pmg by Anonymous Coward · · Score: -1, Troll

    MUHAHAHA GOOGLE WILL TAKE OVER THE WORLD!! Why doesnt slashdot like yahoo? (first comment...)

  8. So.... by xiphoris · · Score: 5, Interesting
    It definitely doesn't look like Yahoo yet, but I don't want my search site to be any more cluttered than it is now.


    So don't use the personalized webpage, then? Or personalize it so it's simple?
    1. Re:So.... by Omnieiunium · · Score: 5, Insightful

      I agree. I happen to like the extra features. If I didn't I would simply switch it off. I don't get why people are complaining

    2. Re:So.... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: -1

      They will turn the accelerator to more useful purposes, like seeing all the women in the Sears catalog without their underwear.
      --
      Always going forward, 'cause we can't find reverse.

    3. Re:So.... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: -1

      The Grecians were famed for fine art,
      And buildings and stonework so smart.
      They distinguished with poise
      The men from the boys,
      And used crowbars to keep them apart.

    4. Re:So.... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: -1

      archaeologists are wary of anything that can damage an ancient find

      The funny thing is, I use a synchrotron regularly to study protein crystals, and we're always freaked out about radiation damage to our proteins. All of our crystals are frozen in liquid nitrogen, and kept cool in a cryojet while collecting data. (At room temperature, crystals fry extremely fast.) I'm curious how they protected the document while doing this study. It wouldn't be hard to burn it, unless they're using extremely short exposure times or a very diffuse beam.

    5. Re:So.... by Threni · · Score: 2, Interesting

      > So don't use the personalized webpage, then? Or personalize it so it's simple?

      Or create two bookmarks, one customized and one plain google.

    6. Re:So.... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0, Informative

      I'm not a protein crystallographer, but I do work at a synchrotron and do lots of x-ray absorption and diffraction experiments. I've never had a problem with x-ray damage to my samples (mostly inorganic solids). Susceptibility to radiation damage varies from material to material. From my understanding, protein crystals are particularly bad, presumably because they not respond well (in a chemical sense) to the large numbers of electrons generated after an x-ray absorption event. This basically causes impurities in the crystal (local changes in the structure factor) that degrade the diffraction measurement. Also, in your typical protein diffraction experiment, you irradiate a particular spot on the crystal for a very long time. I would guess that this is not so much an issue in this case, because (1) no one is really interested in the chemical structure of the parchment itself, and (2) a particular spot on the sample is exposed only for a very short time. Incidentally, there's a better write-up of this at Stanford: http://news-service.stanford.edu/news/2005/may25/a rchimedes-052505.html [stanford.edu]

    7. Re:So.... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: -1

      Somewhere, a communications major in a dream job is writing:

      "There is no better example of how theft dims the magic of history for everyone than this report today regarding SLAC providing users with illegal copies of Archimedes' ancient work. The unfortunate fact is this type of theft happens on a regular basis using particle accelerators all over the world."

    8. Re:So.... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: -1

      Here, I'll try and do it again right now.

    9. Re:So.... by NanoGator · · Score: 4, Insightful

      "I agree. I happen to like the extra features. If I didn't I would simply switch it off. I don't get why people are complaining"

      Complaining earns you karma and it makes you look smart. I know that's why I do it. Heh.

      --
      "Derp de derp."
    10. Re:So.... by Aeros · · Score: 2, Insightful

      Exactly..why are people so afraid of change? If you dont like the personalized page dont use it. Some people just gotta bitch about anything and everything

    11. Re:So.... by wheany · · Score: 1

      Actually, I don't really care if the front page gets cluttered, since I do practically all my searching using Opera's address bar.

      Now one feature that DOES annoy me is Google's click-tracking. If I search something using google, check the top three results and figure out that my search terms are wrong.

      So I use some other terms and notice that the three results are the same that I got from the last query after clicking them, because the urls are not he same in google because they track clicks.

      I've made a privoxy filter that works unless the target url has special characters. So it looks like a job for user javascript.

    12. Re:So.... by Gentlewhisper · · Score: 2, Funny

      Complaining earns you karma and it makes you look smart. I know that's why I do it. Heh.

      Yeh, it gives you the big penis kinda feeling eh?

      --
      Online backup with Mozy, sounds like Ozzie, but more!
    13. Re:So.... by fishbot · · Score: 1

      Now one feature that DOES annoy me is Google's click-tracking. If I search something using google, check the top three results and figure out that my search terms are wrong.

      So I use some other terms and notice that the three results are the same that I got from the last query after clicking them, because the urls are not he same in google because they track clicks.

      From what I can see, it's only the sponsored links that are tracked (by mediafarm?). If they are sponsored links, then surely you want to track how much that sponsorship is worth?

      Your normal search results seem unaffected.

    14. Re:So.... by wheany · · Score: 1

      Sometimes Google tracks normal search results. The urls are of the form "http://www.google.com/url?sa=U&start=1&q=your_url _here&e=some_number".

  9. strange by ganesh129 · · Score: 0

    huh.....i swear i read this somewhere before..:)

  10. Clutter... by oneiron · · Score: 3, Informative

    It definitely doesn't look like Yahoo yet, but I don't want my search site to be any more cluttered than it is now.

    Fortunately, you can edit all of the clutter out of the interface, if you want to.

    1. Re:Clutter... by Jeremi · · Score: 1
      Fortunately, you can edit all of the clutter out of the interface, if you want to


      Better still would be clutter-free by default (as it is now) and you can add clutter to the interface, if you want to.

      --


      I don't care if it's 90,000 hectares. That lake was not my doing.
    2. Re:Clutter... by LiquidCoooled · · Score: 5, Insightful

      This is exactly what it is.

      Google.com will remain as standard.
      Google.com/ig will result in custom versions.

      Its very nice, the custom versions simply occupy the otherwise blank google space below and are customisable enough for most users.

      --
      liqbase :: faster than paper
    3. Re:Clutter... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: -1

      as Archimedes Plutonium [wikipedia.org]. According to the aforelinked repository of unblemished truth that is Wikipedia, Archimedes has since discovered

      1. Plutonium Atom Totality theory. According to this theory, there was no Big Bang, but rather growth from a "Hydrogen Atom Totality" into the present "Plutonium Atom Totality", in which "the galaxies are dots of the electron dot cloud".

      2. Fusion Barrier Principle. Quoting Plutonium, "Fission energy is the highest form of energy that is able to be controlled and surpass breakeven".

      3. Unification of the Forces of Physics as a Coulomb Unification.

      4. Stonethrowing theory. This theory states that the difference between apes and humans resulted some 8 to 10 million years ago from a solo quadruped ape that "started throwing rocks overarm and overhead". This activity gave the ape advantages in getting food and more females for mating purposes "by killing other rivals using throwing".

      5. Possibility of global warming reversal. According to Plutonium's theory, there exists a CFC variant or methyl molecule that when produced and released will act as an "upper atmosphere earth air conditioner and reverse global warming"."      "

      Despite that the brilliance of his ideas so obviously extended the work of Archimedes the Greek, it took the reincarnated Archimedes 44 years to realize that he was in fact Archimedes:

      In autumn of 1994 he claims to have realized that he was the reincarnation of the great early Greek scientist Archimedes, and so once again changed his name to Archimedes Plutonium.

      What I want to know is why we continue to dwell so much on Archimedes' old work when he has been producing so much insight as of late and it has yet to be properly appreciated.

    4. Re:Clutter... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: -1

      Boy, this really puts my efforts to retrieve my old Amiga files off 10 year old 8mm Exabyte tapes in perspective. ;)

    5. Re:Clutter... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: -1

      Archimedes last words were: "You may take my life, but I will take my mind" thereby indicating his retention of intellectual property rights.
      --
      I'm not a journalist, but I play one on slashdot

    6. Re:Clutter... by BinLadenMyHero · · Score: 4, Informative

      In fact, I never go to google.com. I use the "Quick Search" feature of Firefox to do all my searches (g for google l for google/linux img google images def for google define fm for freshmeat man for man pages cpan for perl modules w for wikipedia and so on..)

      There's also a handy extension that allows me to select text and open a right-click menu with all those searches for that text.

  11. fist fucking poososot by Anonymous Coward · · Score: -1, Troll

    first ufcking postes

    DUUUUPE!!!!

  12. Awesome! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: -1, Redundant

    Wow, personalized Google? I wonder if this is anything like personalized Google?

    1. Re:Awesome! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      So if I copy and paste the entire filtered original thread here, will I get +(5 * 35)?

  13. bad idea by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0, Flamebait

    bad idea, google is good because it is simple

    1. Re:bad idea by ganesh129 · · Score: 0

      you make a good point....but the nice thing about personalized, is that its, well personalized. so im thinking it could remain simple. just a thought

  14. first by Anonymous Coward · · Score: -1, Offtopic

    yeah

  15. Greasemonkey oportunity by Jesse_132 · · Score: 4, Informative
    I know several people are already working on adding stuff to this using Greasemonkey!
    • Have your persistant searches there
    • Delicious popular
    • Integrate TadaList
    It is using tables and shouldn't be to hard to monkey up.
    1. Re:Greasemonkey oportunity by Anonymous Coward · · Score: -1

      you fought it at the time, and twenty years later you know the retail value of what you lost.

      Of course if most people's mums hadn't thrown out their baseball cards they wouldn't have been worth much.

    2. Re:Greasemonkey oportunity by IHateEverybody · · Score: 1

      This is off-topic but I tried Greasemonkey recently. While I really liked it at first, Greasemonkey has one huge flaw under Windows XP. When it is enabled, Firefox uses up 100% of my CPU time. It really hurt my computer's stability (yeah I know, runnings XP doesn't help either). Have other people run into this problem or is it just me?

      --
      Does this .sig make my butt look big?
    3. Re:Greasemonkey oportunity by Jesse_132 · · Score: 1

      Greasemonkey can cause mozilla to eat 100% when the running a script that is badly coded.

      When I developed book burro, I frequently caused firefox to hit 100% and had to kill my browser.

      An infinite loop in javascript will kill your browser (although firefox is good at eventually asking if you want to terminate the script since it is taking so long (30 seconds or so).
      So, yes, you can get these issues with greasemonkey, but it is more than likely an issue with a specific userscript, not greasemonkey itself.

    4. Re:Greasemonkey oportunity by quick9vb · · Score: 1

      I just installed Gresemonkey because I wanted to look at integrating TaDa lists, I haven't had any stability problems. Firefox is starting to take up quite a bit of memory due to the numerous extensions I am messing with, but processor time hasn't been affect. I'm using XP Pro. I have encountered similar behavior with Firefox before, it would constantly take up over 70% of processor time. I'm guessing it had more to do with the ridiculous number of extensions and environment(XP died soon after) versus Firefix itself. I completely uninstalled it, installed with minimal extensions and everything works fine.

  16. Depends. Define "web portal" by Weaselmancer · · Score: 4, Interesting

    If by web portal you mean your first stop on the way to doing something useful, then it already is.

    --
    Weaselmancer
    rediculous.
    1. Re:Depends. Define "web portal" by Anonymous Coward · · Score: -1
      Yes, similar techniques to the X-Ray fluorescence are being used on a wide range of archaeological finds, from illegible scrolls found in Italy to manuscripts found in various rubbish tips from the dark ages and before.


      Actually, the idea seems to have started about 15-20 years ago, of using various attributes to read xsuch documents. A technique was developed in the UK - I believe it was called ESDA - which used magnetic fields and extremely fine iron dust to detect indentations left in paper when layers further up had been written on.


      The technique hit the news during the West Midlands Serious Crime Squad fiasco, when it was demonstrated, by use of this technique, that "confessions" had been altered after they had been signed by the supposed confessee. It led to a lot of cases being thrown out on appeal, and a subsequent inquiry as to what had happened.


      Other popular techniques include the use of various frequencies of light and/or UV, to reveal marks that wouldn't otherwise be visible, which is how some of the more "legible" parts of the palimpset of Archimedes were photographed prior to this.


      Chemical techniques exist, but archaeologists are wary of anything that can damage an ancient find, unless it is so far beyond salvage that preservation of the original would be impossible anyway. Even then, they don't like it and try to avoid it.


      --

      What do we need to make our world come alive? What does it take to make us sing? (SoM // Vision Th

  17. serparate from the homepage by Spydr · · Score: 5, Insightful

    as long as it's a separate page from the google.com homepage, i'm cool with it.

    it's when they stop offering the lightweight search page by default is when it starts to suck.

    1. Re:serparate from the homepage by Anonymous Coward · · Score: -1
      It was Archimedes who was quoted as saying,
      Give me but one firm spot on which to stand, and I will move the earth.

      That got translated from the original Attic Greek into common Greek, then into High Latin, then Vulgar Latin, and then into Old French, then soon after that into Old English. When William the Conqueror took over England in 1066, the new language that got created got it a little mixed up at first:

      Give me but one firm spot on which to sit, and I will move my bowels.

      Somehow it doesn't seem to mean quite the same thing, but I can't quite figure out where the difference is.


    2. Re:serparate from the homepage by Anonymous Coward · · Score: -1
      It's crossed my mind to run a Tor node myself, but I do have some questions/concerns.

      Particularly related to situations where my node ends up last in the chain for given http hits.

      From a low enforcement point of view, I am accountable for any and all outbound http hits from my network.

      At worst case, if my node does the actual http hits to sites like www.some-secret-kiddie-pr0n-site.com or www.some-phishing-victims-bank.com, then in all likelihood I'll be getting a visit from the police.

      In such a case, there's no acceptable outcome:

      If I encrypt my disks and refuse to hand over keys, I'm looking to do time for accessing the sites.

      If I tell cops about the Tor node, and mount a 'plausible deniability' defense, there's the possibility of 'accessory' or 'contributory negligence/liability' charges.

      Even if I beat all these charges and escape conviction, I still have to suffer:
      • stress from police harassment
      • time wasted in police interviews and court appearances
      • loss of my PC for a year or more, while computer forensics cops go through my hard disks with a fine tooth comb
      None of these outcomes are very appealing.

      Any thoughts on this?
      --
      -- In the beginning was the WORD, and the WORD was UNSIGNED, and the main(){} was without form and void...
    3. Re:serparate from the homepage by scrapeYurShoos · · Score: 1

      I can't remember the last time I went to Google's homepage. The address bar in Firefox works just as well. I've got quick searches setup for Google News(n), Google Groups(r), and of course Google(g).

      --
      /nowplaying/index.html
    4. Re:serparate from the homepage by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Sigh... I understand that this is sorta relavent but if you actually try it you find that yes it's optional and if you wanted it to be your customized page is basically as stark as your standard google home plus "Further personalize your Google homepage".

      I guess technically they could force you to have something else but as it stands now they dont

  18. Dupe! by sammykrupa · · Score: 5, Interesting

    Dupe anyone???!?!

    --
    Dashboard Widgets
    1. Re:Dupe! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: -1

      Virtuous act? My ass.

      There are plenty of twelfth-century scholars in the West and in the Greek East who read and appreciated ancient Greek and Latin texts; and the vast majority of these were churchmen. Their reaction to a 12th-century monk scraping off Archimedes and copying down a prayer-book would be much like ours, as in "Hey Rube, WTF are you doing?" But well, not everybody is educated to the same degree, and a poor monastery may indeed find the parchment more valuable than the indeciphrable gibberish written on it.


      For those of you who can't grasp the concept, it's like when ma threw out all the old baseball cards; you fought it at the time, and twenty years later you know the retail value of what you lost. Ignorance spans all periods; but in spite of what crap 19th-century progressivism may make you think about the middle ages, medieval people didn't hate and seek to destroy antique texts; quite the contrary, they liked them, and they found ancient science very useful. Remember this text was copied in the 10th century by a monk as well.

    2. Re:Dupe! by metlin · · Score: 2, Funny

      > Dupe anyone ???!?!

      Oh yeah, the Slashdot Editors dupe us on all days and twice on Sundays.

    3. Re:Dupe! by ucblockhead · · Score: 2, Funny

      You must be new here. The rule is that each editor submits his own version of the story.

      They found that this was a lot easier than actually reading their own site.

      --
      The cake is a pie
    4. Re:Dupe! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Funny

      Not fair... that implies timothy knows how to read!

  19. Fixing dupes... by The+Hobo · · Score: 4, Interesting

    Perhaps we should all be trying to submit stories that have already appeared on the front page in an effort to force the editors to scrutinize harder, and maybe, just maybe, it'll stick....

    --
    There is another kind of evil which we must fear most, and that is the indifference of good men. -- Boondock Saints
    1. Re:Fixing dupes... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: -1

      "Have you ever read Slashdot, man?"
      "Well, yeah, uh I guess..."
      "But have you ever read Slashdot -- on weed."

    2. Re:Fixing dupes... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: -1

      I have to disagree with this. The Internet, as it was invented, intended, and as it has been adopted ... none of these things ever included regulation. All efforts are being, and have been made to work around network problems.

      The fact that the Internet exists doesn't translate to a need for the government or anyone else to guarantee that it operates without hiccups. I tire very easily of those that take the stance that the Internet and services based on the Internet should work flawlessly, and if needed, the network should be regulated to ensure that they do.

      This kind of thinking is socialist in nature, and the Internet (as it is now defined) is totally antihtesis to this notion.

      There is no current methodology for regulating a global phenomenon. No single government, despite their aspirations, can achieve regulation of a global network. Spam comes from every corner of the globe, and like fire ants, when you think you have eliminated it, it will show up from some other spot you have no control over.

      Anonymity, or stealth on the Internet is part and parcel of what it is. Tracing someone's work over the Internet necessarily should be difficult. That people have made efforts to make it even more difficult is nothing more than living in the spirit of free flow of information without retribution.

      While some of you might feel that this is not needed, there are disidents in some countries that really would like to have this kind of anonymity. Who are we to deny it to them on the basis of our view of the world?

      Liberty and freedom only happens when you truly are free to say and do as you please (so long as you don't violate anyone else's freedom) and publishing what you think and feel is not against that. There are actual valid reasons for ultra privacy.

      To say that netizens or Internet users should be responsible is to intimate that there is a set of regulations that they should abide by that is significant and pertains only to the Internet.

      There are laws and social norms of decency that all should abide by whether they are on the Internet or in the local convenience store.

      Sure, there will be those that abuse any leniencey, but there always is, no matter what the law or social morality says. Those that think there should be more regulation on the Internet might be better off staying off of the Internet... go get an AOL subscription... or something like that.

      Just two cents worth
      --
      Change: the only constant unless you're a mushroom when the only constant is BulI$h1t, the only change is color/smell

    3. Re:Fixing dupes... by Sparr0 · · Score: 2, Funny

      Yes, because that worked so well with the US patent system :)

    4. Re:Fixing dupes... by chill · · Score: 3, Insightful

      Perhaps we should all be trying to submit stories that have already appeared on the front page in an effort to force the editors to scrutinize harder, and maybe, just maybe, it'll stick....

      We've been doing exactly that for over a year and see where it has gotten us so far?

      -Charles

      --
      Learning HOW to think is more important than learning WHAT to think.
    5. Re:Fixing dupes... by Tim+C · · Score: 1

      Knee-deep in dupes, that's where it's gotten us.

      --
      It's official. Most of you are morons.
    6. Re:Fixing dupes... by maxwell+demon · · Score: 1

      Maybe they should get their own section at dupe.slashdot.org (after all, you can already read this article there.).

      --
      The Tao of math: The numbers you can count are not the real numbers.
  20. They already are one step closer by HG2 · · Score: 2, Funny

    http://yagoohoogle.com/

    --
    My hacked site
    1. Re:They already are one step closer by Anonymous Coward · · Score: -1, Offtopic

      Dude, wouldn't be crazy if like... Archimedes was stuck in a time loop, and he's all not really alive and shit? You know, like... What if we invent a time machine and bring Archimedes back, and he's all like "what the fuck? You idiots this time machine is the shit that resets everything!" and then the scientists all bust out laughing and shit, but then when they try to send him back in time the time machine all starts smoking and shit, really crazy you know, and civilisation gets set back to the time where Archimedes wrote that crazy ass formula down! Then he's all like, shaking his head, because he knows it will happen again in a few thousand years.

      Woudln't that be some crazy shit yo?
      --
      Stab yourself to sleep, and wake up dead :)

    2. Re:They already are one step closer by Anonymous Coward · · Score: -1
      The text is not going to be "partly censored" as the Dead Sea Scrolls were until the 90's.

      Dead Sea scrolls [wikipedia.org]


      --

      The Raven

    3. Re:They already are one step closer by Anonymous Coward · · Score: -1
      To put this in perspective, traditonal goatskin parchment currently sells for about $17 USD a square foot. Pergamena [pergamena.net]

      Take goatskins ( 1 ) and stand them in water for a day and a night. Take them and wash them till the water runs clear ( 2 ). Take an entirely new bath and place therein old lime (calcem non recentem) and water mixing well together to for a thick cloudy liquor. Place the skins into this, folding them on the flesh side. Move them with a pole two or three times each day, leaving them for eight days (and twice as long in winter) ( 3 ). Next you must withdraw the skins and unhair them ( 4 ). Pour off the contents of the bath and repeat the process using the same quantities, placing the skins in the lime liquor, and moving them once each day over eight days as before ( 5 ). Then take them out and wash them well until the water runs quite clean ( 6 ). Place them in another bath with clean water and leave them for two days ( 7 ). Then take them out, attach the cords and tie them to the circular frame ( 8 ). Dry, then shave them with a sharp knife, after which, leave for two days out of the sun...( 9 ) moisten with water and rub the flesh side with powdered pumice ( 10 ). After two days wet it again by sprinkling with a little water and fully clean the flesh side with pumice so as to make it quite wet again ( 11 ). Then tighten up the cords, equalise the tension so that the sheet will become permanent. Once the sheets are dry, nothing further remains to be done ( 12 ). Parchment, the recipe [dedas.com]


    4. Re:They already are one step closer by Anonymous Coward · · Score: -1

      No, no... the revealed text on the first page so far consists of:

      "F1RSTUS P0STU5"

      --
      Want to improve your Karma? Instead of "Post Anonymously", try the "Post Humously" option.

    5. Re:They already are one step closer by Anonymous Coward · · Score: -1

      then how do we know there are a hundred nodes?

      Seriously, think about it for a moment: If it's completely anonymous, then how can we count the nodes. By counting a node, we now know where it is, virtually speaking, and can translate that into a physical location.

      So either we don't know where all the nodes are, or this isn't really anonymous.
      --
      How do we sleep when our beds are burning?

  21. torrent.google.com by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    When is Google torrent coming out?
    Now that would be a service I could really use.

    No more of these filetype:torrent searchs. Just quality work like maps.google.com.

    1. Re:torrent.google.com by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      torrentspy.com

  22. Slashdot option by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0, Informative

    I think it's great that one of the choices is "Slashdot"

    1. Re:Slashdot option by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Yeah, I have Slashdot and Google as my homepages on Firefox, having Slashdot integrated into Google would cut down on the tabs.

  23. How long until... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Funny

    We get personalized Slashdot dupes?

    1. Re:How long until... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: -1
      yea, wont somebody please think of the children?

      Terrorism Networks like this would make it easy and untracable for terrorists to send their commuinications without being traced to a location.
      Do you not want to help civil rights campaigners in China defeat political suppression? Do you not want to help the Iraqi people fight against American terrorism and get their country back from the evil empire?


    2. Re:How long until... by Durinthal · · Score: 1

      Considering that one of the links on my Google page is to this story, I guess we already have them.

  24. Slashdot... by dj245 · · Score: 2, Funny

    News by Timothy. Stuff that matters... to timothy

    --
    Even those who arrange and design shrubberies are under considerable economic stress at this period in history.
    1. Re:Slashdot... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: -1

      - International Treasure -

      From the hidden writings of archmides to the hidden messages found in the back of euro notes. Ancient tunnels under ancient cities open up to reveal secrets nobody has seen for millenia...
      Until NOW...

      Coming soon to a theater near you,

  25. YAWN by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    how fucking old is this news?

    christ, i think i read about it like 3 days ago.

    1. Re:YAWN by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      It's been resurrected.

  26. Here is a hint: by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    If you don't like google additions, DONT USE THEM. full stop. One of google's best "features" is that as they add new features they don't force them down your throat. All of their additions are on seperate pages, google suggestions, ig, gmail, etc. So you can still have the old stuff and you have to go out of your way to use the new things.

    I don't want people complaining to google about new things so that they don't stop developing them, people who are complaining just need to ignore any new google news, I bet they wont notice any new features.

  27. So far, so good by ShatteredDream · · Score: 5, Interesting

    I tried it out and actually like it for the most part. The thing that's particularly nice IMO is that all of the personalized content appears below the search feature so that the top looks more or less like the old Google. The interface seems to be the standard Google through and through and it does a pretty good job of showing you only the stuff you want when you take the time to customize it.

    The only thing that they really need to do is add a feature to let you add custom news feeds based on RSS you specify or by creating Google News searches. Good News already lets you add your own categories based on search criteria so My Google needs that too.

    --
    Click here or a puppy gets stomped!
    1. Re:So far, so good by Anonymous Coward · · Score: -1

      http://www.thewalters.org/archimedes/frame.html [thewalters.org]

    2. Re:So far, so good by Anonymous Coward · · Score: -1
      Have to agree here. I don't want to sound like an RIAA or MPAA lawyer, but I see like 100 methods of abusing anonymity for each valid reason to have anonymity.

      Aside from stuff like rape victims posting to support group boards with anonymity (one of the justifications people used for the old anon.penet.fi anonymizers) or protecting whistle blowers, I'm not getting the need for a public anonymizing network or how it will benefit us more than it hurts us.

      What stops all sorts of jerks from trying to abuse it for spam, slander, harrassment, hacking, etc.? And if there are no safeguards, then how does the benefit of this outweigh the harm?

      Seems to me like a bunch of geeks doing something because it can be done and worrying about the consequences later.

      - Greg (who once used the anon.penet.fi server to post alt.personals ads from "Heddy", a disembodied head looking for people to chat with after the scientists left the lab for the night)


      --
      Check out funbabyclothes.com [funbabyclothes.com]
    3. Re:So far, so good by RobertLTux · · Score: 1

      the thing i like is if you have a google login cookie set then it pops up automatically (note if you use GMail and have the box checked..) with your settings intact.

      --
      Any person using FTFY or editing my postings agrees to a US$50.00 charge
  28. drag the section box by Maxhrk · · Score: 0

    the useful stuff about personalized google is that you can drag the section on it! try that one!

    cool.

  29. I have a solution by python_kiss · · Score: 0

    "but I don't want my search site to be any more cluttered than it is now." Don't personalize it!

    --
    Science without religion is lame. /. without me is lamer
  30. What happened? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    I missed the daily Google Slashdot advertising and saluting.

  31. Am I the only one... by nxtr · · Score: 1

    Are others getting the Slashdot option? Or is Google spying on me?

    1. Re:Am I the only one... by swansmt · · Score: 0

      Yes and yes. Google tracks your IP address's search history.

    2. Re:Am I the only one... by swansmt · · Score: 0

      I don't know. Maybe you should google it.

    3. Re:Am I the only one... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: -1

      The image graphs can be found here [noreply.org].
      --
      Latest: Can you believe the media? [ioerror.us]

    4. Re:Am I the only one... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: -1

      This is the same problem Mixmaster has, along with any anonymizing network that hides you by mixing you with a crowd.

      The more people you mix with, the longer you have to wait for enough to show up to confuse an attacker. If you had zero latency,then timing alone would identify your traffic.

      --
      "Freedom of the press is a security measure." - Bruce Schneier

    5. Re:Am I the only one... by chesterjosiah · · Score: 1

      I'm getting the Slashdot option too. Slashdot was one of the few feeds included in the personalized Google page.

    6. Re:Am I the only one... by hapdiddesigner · · Score: 1

      I got the Slashdot option but never even heard of Slashdot before then. So I came to check it out. As for Google spying... I've tried the "gmail" service and it is really eerie having ads show up that directly apply to the content of emails.

    7. Re:Am I the only one... by Kerno · · Score: 1

      I tried to get the feed from Slashdot but it seems Slashdot have banned the Google RSS Headline reader - for sucking up too much bandwidth. Was this on purpose?

  32. It's all about choice! by Bifurcati · · Score: 5, Insightful
    Google's doing the right thing - some people (I presume!) actually like having everything together on the one page. And in many ways, it could be nice - if with a simple, uncluttered interface I can see the day's weather and some of the top news stories from my slected news site when I load up my browser to my default page, then that's good. It's only when the page starts being cluttered by dating services and offers for stuff that doesn't apply to non-U.S.ians that it gets annoyed.

    And, of course, if I decide I don't like it, I can simply revert back to the simple interface. As long as I can do that, I'm happy.

    Anyway, who has time to think about Google when there's Star Wars to think about?!

    --

    Physicist, consultant, science communicator
    1. Re:It's all about choice! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: -1

      Were any Alias fans (or just Jennifer Garner fans) out there reminded of Rambaldi? [alias-tv.com]

    2. Re:It's all about choice! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: -1

      Can't post to slashdot using Tor, and a couple servers have been banned by slashdot entirely, for flooding the site.

    3. Re:It's all about choice! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Would you people fucking quit it with "US-ians" ? Americans. AMERICANS. Christ, I'm a goddamn Canadian and it bugs me.

      Gringos, Yanks, Capitalist Pigdogs, anything, sweet god, ANYTHING but "USians."

  33. Advertisements by Bifurcati · · Score: 3, Interesting
    An interesting question will be whether Google will ever put ads on its main page. Clearly that would be a sought-after position, but also goes against the beauty of Google's AdWords system, where I actually find Ads relevant.

    But perhaps if I select certain personalised info for my home page, they would have enough information to justify attempting to target ads to me? I actually think it pretty unlikely - it would be an unpopular move, and Google really does no evil. But it must be tempting!

    --

    Physicist, consultant, science communicator
    1. Re:Advertisements by Anonymous Coward · · Score: -1

      As I posted above (and got modded flamebait somehow), there's quite a few explanations for this.

      A. The monk may not have realized it was something special at all. If you don't understand the material at hand, two papers on the same subject tend to look an awful lot alike.
      B. He may have assumed more than one copy existed, and for that matter he may have been right at the time, and only afterwards were the other copies lost. It's really not an unreasonable assumtion to make - most of the monks in medieval Europe spent their whole lives copying and recopying various texts. You'd expect any book to find its way into a monastery would end up being duplicated many times over, and sent to other monasteries where it would be duplicated furthur. This didn't always happen, of course, and I personally suspect that simple carelessness like this is responsible for a great deal of lost writings, and not mindless book burning and censorship that gets blamed so often.

    2. Re:Advertisements by Anonymous Coward · · Score: -1

      There's a good documentary of this on Nova [pbs.org] called "Infinite Secrets of Archimedes".

      You can grab a torrent from digitaldistractions [digitaldistractions.org].

    3. Re:Advertisements by Anonymous Coward · · Score: -1

      Should be tor.eff.org [eff.org].

    4. Re:Advertisements by jotux · · Score: 3, Insightful

      why would they ever need to put ads on their main page? How many people go to google.com just to see the google logo? 99.999999% of people that go to the google site probably go with the intent of searching(which will display ads), or to use another service with similar ads.

  34. Create your own? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Might be useful to the average Joe. Surely it's not hard to create your own 'custom' home page?

  35. Google-Sucks by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Funny

    "They just seem to be everybody's best friend. Google can do no wrong!"

    I'm still waiting for my blowjob.

    1. Re:Google-Sucks by Anonymous Coward · · Score: -1, Offtopic

      If you have $5, go see the hobos downtown.

    2. Re:Google-Sucks by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Is this true:
      The internet search engine Google has been running
      attack ads against DeLay, but when a conservative group attempted to run the same ad text -- substituting the name Nancy Pelosi (who is
      guilty of the same charges she levels against DeLay), Google refused to run the ad. Google executives claim they will not run ads "against
      an individual." But the ads against DeLay continue running. The Federal Election Commission records show 98 percent of Google employee political donations last year went to Democrats. It's worth noting that, for the high-tech industry
      overall, about 53 percent went to Democrats."

      One might conclude that Google has an agenda!

      C'mon, Google. You're really taking your eye off the ball with all this crap. Stick to business and don't let the whackos take over the show...

    3. Re:Google-Sucks by kin_korn_karn · · Score: -1, Troll

      Good. It's about time there was a successful business that wasn't chugging Republican cock for all it's worth.

  36. How I love thee, Google... by Wyellbee · · Score: 1, Funny

    Wow, that's pretty spiffy. I just hope they do something about how cluttered it looks and how uneven the boxes are. Coming soon: Google Bongos! Practice this beloved African instrument from the comfort of your own computer. Fully customizable, the colour of the bongos changes automatically with your mood and interests!

    1. Re:How I love thee, Google... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      You can click and drag those boxes around, you know...

  37. So....Grease 'em up. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Insightful

    "Or personalize it so it's simple?"

    Greasemonkey, anyone?

  38. Can it be true? by SpartanVII · · Score: 2, Interesting
    Although it is not currently in Beta

    This seems to be their one and only service that isn't beta. But I don't mind their screwy usage of that term, it all is polished enough for me.

    1. Re:Can it be true? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: -1

      Something "bad" gets onto the network. Something that the authorities don't want out there.

      The authorities find out.

      The network has 100 nodes.

      The authorities arrest the operators of all 100 nodes.

      ....profit?

  39. NEW AT SLASHDOT: ADS FOR GOOGLE PRODUCTS! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    You too can use this great feature. So how much is Slashdot getting to advertise for Google?

  40. Feature suggestion for google homepages by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    A slashdot dupe search box would be really useful.

  41. Personalized homepage by yotto · · Score: 1

    I just hope I can personalize it any way I want, so I can get it to look like this.

    --
    Pulp Audio Weekly - Geek News and Reviews
    1. Re:Personalized homepage by Anonymous Coward · · Score: -1

      The technique being used sounds like an Electron Probe, or Wavelength Dispersive Spectroscopy. Here is a nice Java application demonstrating Bragg's Law, on which the techniques are based. [stonybrook.edu]

  42. Google from strength to strength... by RemovableBait · · Score: 5, Interesting

    The integration of their other services is what makes this a not-so-hidden gem. I like being able to have my Gmail, Google News and regular Google Search all viewable on the one page. The weather, Slashdot and other news options are an enormous bonus -- as yet, this is replacing my RSS aggregator as all my feeds are on the site.

    I like the fact that Google have not lost sight of their original focus: search. Many of the other web portals, like Yahoo or MSN, have all the graphics heavy customisation on the page and then throw their search box in as an afterthought (although this is becoming less obvious).

    Google has just a couple of additions to make in order to produce another winning solution: integrated RSS feeds (as someone has already suggested), international weather information (or international versions of the customised page) and the option to put customised search buttons (like the useful Search Linux and Search Uncle Sam) under the search box. That I would like to see.

    1. Re:Google from strength to strength... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: -1

      The program appeared on PBS as a Nova special and it was clear that scholars were stunned to find that Archimedes devised a simple form of integral calculus in an attempt to find the area under a curve, something that was unknown prior to the investigation of the parchment.

      Archimedes treatises on levers, the value of PI, and his other mathematical discoveries have been known to us for centuries and I was simply listing off his notable achievements.

  43. Holy Shit!!! by obsol33t · · Score: 0, Redundant

    I don't even know what to say. I appreciate the work that you put in to the site, but come on editors.

    1. Re:Holy Shit!!! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: -1
      If you're so concerned about money being spent on anything besides cancer research, the why are you here? Surely it would be better if you spent the money you spend to go online on cancer research instead, and donated your computer to charity, and spent the time you'd otherwise spend on writing comments here working for a cancer charity?

      Now, if you want to donate your time and money to cancer research, great. But don't whine because others care about other causes.


    2. Re:Holy Shit!!! by obsol33t · · Score: 1

      I'm puzzled by this "response." Did you respond to the wrong comment? If not your ability to convey ideas needs a lot of work.

  44. order 66 - wikipedia by swansmt · · Score: 0, Informative

    For those who don't know, Order 66 is The Great Jedi Purge
    /karmawhore

  45. As noted in the original story: by steeef · · Score: 5, Informative

    From the FAQ:

    6. Why did you mess up the clean, crisp Google homepage?

    We didn't. If you want to keep using the original Google homepage, you can. In fact, we expect that many users will. The personalized homepage is for those users who want to see more of the information that matters to them in the same place. You can always switch back and forth between your personalized homepage and the original Google homepage by clicking "Classic Home" or "Personalized Home." ...

    If you don't like it, don't use it. Google isn't going to make this their default page.

    1. Re:As noted in the original story: by Anonymous Coward · · Score: -1
      but its a kind of joke typical for america ... no knowledge of other world parts and mixing different cultures! go back in time to archimedes and tell him (who was a slave under romans for some time) that you think he writes in latin

      OK genius, let's hear your super-enlightened, non-american rendition of the joke. Latin is generally the only ancient language well known enough that one can appropriate a couple word endings, apply them to modern language, and still get the point across. Yes, it would have been more accurate if he'd had Archimedes writing ancient greek, you pedantic troll, but due to lack of greek characters on our keyboards, and the fact that almost nobody would be able to read it, it would no longer be an effective joke because no one would get it.


      --
      Never attribute to Cthulhu what can adequately be explained by Dagon --(Miskatonic Razor)
    2. Re:As noted in the original story: by McDutchie · · Score: 2, Insightful
      If you don't like it, don't use it. Google isn't going to make this their default page.

      ...yet.

      Never trust a corporation to keep their promises more than a couple of years at most. Management changes, stockholders make demands, etc.

    3. Re:As noted in the original story: by rm999 · · Score: 3, Interesting

      I fail to see how making that the default page helps them at all (and therefore why they would ever do it). It only uses more bandwidth and computing power, and offers them *no* revenue. They will never make money off the front page becuase if they ever start to put ads on their default front page people will flock away.

    4. Re:As noted in the original story: by ki85squared · · Score: 1

      Unfortunately, when I click on "Classic Home", it takes me to a page that doesn't have the "Personalized Home" option... no quick switching for me...

      To get to my personalized page, I have to manually type in http://google.com/ig

  46. Re:Cluttered search engine? How about crap editors by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Your whole post can pretty much be summed up with "get a clue".

    Why would scraped and dried animal skins be rare and costly in the 12th Century farming economy where these monks lived?

    You start your post off by showing that your just making stuff up, this is good because it lets any reader who knows anything about 12th century Europe, and especialy anyone with a college degree (I'm pretty sure most schools require Medieval Lit as a GE requirement), know that you dont have a clue. Unfortunately some mod seems to have fallen into the "with out clue" category. You see parchment was incredibly expencive in the Middle Ages. To put it into perspective, it took around 200 sheep to make 1 bible. And while your right that it was a farming economy, the nobles owned all the land, and all of the cattle on the land. Only the wealthy could afford even a single book. Even into the 13th and 14th centuries the largest libraries had at most 1000 books.

    I don't buy the "necessity" of erasing Archimedes' works, no matter how often they repeat that story to elementary schoolers learning the definition of "palimpset", or how many of us grow up to write stories for newspapers repeating it.

    Sure it wasn't "necessary" to erase Archimedes work, but it was definately much cheeper. Imaginge a new notebook cost somewhere in the area of $5k, and you had to write a book, would you a) Buy a new notebook or b) Erase some less important writings. Of course you go on to suggest that the christian monk erased it because it was evil science. But considering every single work of writing that we have that originated durring or before the dark ages was writen by someone who had church sanctioned training? In fact, beyond that, just about everything from the Roman era and earlier can be attibuted to Irish monks who were very much religious. And then there is the the book in question that had Archimedes on it, and oh yeah, it was a monk who wrote that as well. Are you starting to see how your argument doesn't make much sense? The reality of the matter is, some monastery felt a prayer book was a more important use of the parchment than the writings or Archimedes, writings that no doubt existed in other places at the time. Writings that were probably all destroyed by fires and other natural causes.
    --
    There are 4 boxes to use in the defense of liberty: soap, ballot, jury, ammo. Use in that order. Starting now. - Ed Howd

  47. Re:Cluttered search engine? How about crap editors by Anonymous Coward · · Score: -1

    First, the concept of monastic "order" really begins in the beginning of the twelfth century with the military orders, the cistercians, and the premonstratensian canons.

    Second, you're assuming this is a western manuscript, when some of the other contextual marks suggest that in fact it was produced in Constantinople. Basilean monks did know Greek. And in the west, it depends on where you're talking about. Spain was an active center for Greek/Arabic/Hebrew -> Latin translation of texts, especially scientific ones. Southern Italy had large communities of Greek speaking peoples. Hell, even the bishop of Lincoln and not a bad scientist in his own right, Robert Grosseteste, knew and translated ancient Greek.

    Something abstract such as "The Church" is not an historical agent; individual churchmen can be.

  48. Slashdot's take by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    I wonder how much advertising money Slashdot gets for covering certain technology companies.

  49. Wow by pHatidic · · Score: 3, Funny

    I certainly hope the word of the day is harder than 'aficionado' in the future. I think word of the day should come in four difficulty settings:

    1. Unwashed Masses
    2. Smarter than average
    3. I'm a fucking genius
    4. I read /.

    1. Re:Wow by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I think you misnumbed those. Number 4 should clearly be before number 1.

    2. Re:Wow by nmoog · · Score: 1

      Agreed! Words of the day so far: menagerie, faction, aficionado There should at least be a "next word" function, so you can skip to a word you didn't learn when you were a kid.

    3. Re:Wow by MiKM · · Score: 1

      Nah. #4 is in the right spot. What should be before #1 is "I'm a Slashdot editor"

    4. Re:Wow by zippthorne · · Score: 1

      so... it loops around?

      --
      Can you be Even More Awesome?!
    5. Re:Wow by ucblockhead · · Score: 4, Funny

      (4) should go between (1) and (2)

      --
      The cake is a pie
    6. Re:Wow by uchi · · Score: 4, Funny

      Since when are /. readers and "unwashed masses" not one in the same? I could have swore that being unwashed was part of the conditions you agreed to by reading this site.

    7. Re:Wow by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      But if you got as many as you wanted, it wouldn't be "word of the day." I guess it would just be "word."

    8. Re:Wow by mrchaotica · · Score: 4, Funny
      4. I read /.
      In other words, the non-fucking geniuses.
      --

      "[Regarding the 'cloud,'] ownership was what made America different than Russia." -- Woz

  50. Just what we need by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    More dupes of the April Fools articles.

  51. link prefetch (was Google) by Anonymous Coward · · Score: -1, Offtopic

    Real puppies. Though, for privacy reasons, I could do without their out-of-site link prefetching. (Yeah, I switched prefetch off, but's a little draconian for something google should never have introduced.)

  52. does anyone even use the front page anymore? by rebug · · Score: 3, Insightful

    I know with keywords in Safari and Firefox I haven't intentionally visited google's front page in ages.

    --

    there's more than one way to do me.
    1. Re:does anyone even use the front page anymore? by Fishstick · · Score: 1

      yeah, really -- does anyone still open www.google.com and then commence to typing in search terms? Hell, I've been typing terms into the address and clicking 'search' in Mozilla for I don't know how long.

      (and using the google bar in IE and Firefox's toolbar search, etc)

      Though, I may start to use Google's new page as my homepage since gmail inbox, slashdot and bbc headlines all seem to be customizable options.

      --

      There is much cruelty in the universe, John.
      Yeah, we seem to have the tour map.

    2. Re:does anyone even use the front page anymore? by Deaper · · Score: 1

      Why would you click at all?? ALT+D, TAB, Search term, Enter. Hands never leave the keys.

    3. Re:does anyone even use the front page anymore? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      ctrl+k, search term, enter.

    4. Re:does anyone even use the front page anymore? by ultrasound · · Score: 1

      Hey, I can cut your search workload by 25% for FREE!

      Try CTRL+K, Search term, Enter.

      Its so easy.

    5. Re:does anyone even use the front page anymore? by LordSnooty · · Score: 1

      does anyone still open www.google.com and then commence to typing in search terms?

      I know people who head to the Google front page and type in a site's URL. Then they find the site by clicking on the first result. These people are idiots!

    6. Re:does anyone even use the front page anymore? by Fishstick · · Score: 1

      Well, yeah -- that's still a step above people that just start guessing URL's and type them into the address bar in the first place (and then wonder why they get a page full of links, ads or porno).

      --

      There is much cruelty in the universe, John.
      Yeah, we seem to have the tour map.

  53. My prayers have been answered! by fleener · · Score: 1
    The one thing I've always wanted Google to be is... more like Yahoo!

    It was never about 'the search' anyhow, was it?

  54. Google should help Slashdot with a technology by melted · · Score: 2, Funny

    Google should help Slashdot with a technology that would help filter out ridiculous dupes like this one.

    1. Re:Google should help Slashdot with a technology by jackcarter · · Score: 1

      I hate to tell you, but your comment is a dupe.

  55. search.yahoo.com by generalleoff · · Score: 2, Informative

    I dont much mind if google is trying to be another yahoo as long as they follow yahoos lead and create search.google.com. search.yahoo.com is a none bloated search only version of yahoo for those that never saw it.

  56. google is EVIL by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Ok, if you check out the google labs page, you'll see a "If you're passionate about these subjects you should join google" type thing. What interesting is the fields the offer. They include:
    *Robotics
    *Genetic Algorithims

    This can only mean one thing.... a Clone Army bred by google!
    RUN!!

  57. Straight from Ars.... by IcEMaN252 · · Score: 1

    Straight from Ars....

    --
    CitrusTV (http://www.citrustv.net): the Nation's Oldest & Largest Entirely Student-Run Television Station
  58. man, google has some javascript gurus... by skiingyac · · Score: 0

    the drag & drop to re-arrange the sections on your personalized page is slick.

  59. Good Idea by deadmantyping · · Score: 2, Insightful

    I definitely like the Google personalized homepage, but I can see how many people wouldn't, and I certainly wouldn't want it to become too cluttered like MSN or Yahoo. I like being able to read Slashdot and Google news headlines and preview my gmail. They definitely are on the right track with this one. However, I think that they should keep the default homepage clean and simple as it is now and offer the personalized page only to those that truly want it. I think that one good feature about google products is their simplicity. They should keep it that way.

    Google Chief Executive Eric Schmidt has said the company is focused on search and is not a Web "portal." A Web portal is a site which offers a range of personalized services on one page.

    This is a good move, focus on what they are good at, searching, and build all of their services around it, instead of trying to spread themselves too thin and only being mediocre at everything that they do. seriously good job

  60. The comment on evil by cspring007 · · Score: 4, Funny

    Ok, google is either perfect or really really evil.
    Not the big blundering stupid kind of evil that microsoft is, but the creepy really really bad kind of evil.
    Like the kind of evil in that story 'event horizon' where everyone rips their eyes out.

    ...or they are just really really good at internet programming

    1. Re:The comment on evil by ATLgerm · · Score: 1

      You said it brother. The really funny thing is, wall street *still* has no idea what google's potential really is. I mean, look where their market cap is already and they're only being compared to yahoo so far.

  61. gmail by Therlin · · Score: 2, Insightful

    I would like to be able to personalize my google start page but I do not want anyone in my job to somehow have access to my gmail account at work.

    1. Re:gmail by PeteDotNu · · Score: 1

      I have Firefox set up to always ask me before accepting cookies. Whenever Google tries so set a cookie, I choose the "allow for session" option. This means that when I close Firefox, all Google cookies are deleted.

      Okay, this means that I need to re-login to GMail each time I open the browser, but that only really happens once a day anyway.

      This might solve your problem.

      --
      My other processor is big-endian.
  62. About Clutter by TyrelHaveman · · Score: 2, Insightful

    "I don't want my search site to be any more cluttered than it is now." Well, I guess that's why it's completely customizable. You can put what you want where you want it, including putting nothing there... though I find the Slashdot module quite nice (that's how I found this story). With Slashdot, Google News, Gmail, and Google Search on one page, I've got 90% of the stuff I ever use right in front of me as soon as I start my browser. Couldn't be better.
    It gets a thumbs-up from me, for sure.

  63. Old news by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    isn't this story/point so, like, 10 minutes ago?

  64. Hmm.. by bsquizzato · · Score: 1

    What I would like more is if they introduced little "templates" so to speak. Different setups, if you will. So instead of having those big columns spread across the bottom I could have them in small boxes along the side or something. I'm sure Google will keep advancing the customization options as time goes on...

    1. Re:Hmm.. by bsquizzato · · Score: 1

      Oh wait, I just noticed you can drag and drop those boxes to rearrange them. Nifty! But still, not what I was going after :D

    2. Re:Hmm.. by rjshields · · Score: 1
      Oh wait, I just noticed you can drag and drop those boxes to rearrange them. Nifty!
      I don't use IE you insensitive clod!
      --
      In this world nothing is certain but death, taxes and flawed car analogies.
    3. Re:Hmm.. by redeye69 · · Score: 0

      Congratulations. PS: It works in Firefox too.

      --
      Without precision, my life would be imprecise....
  65. Portals like phones? by kartiknarayan · · Score: 1
    With apologies to http://hardware.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=15035 4&cid=12605486

    We're back to the jack-of-all-trades, master-of-none situation here.

    With the amount of new technology and features in search engines today, their original purpose is becoming less and less efficient.

    For example: on my old Google v0.1, I pushed the 'Down' button until I found the search engine box I wanted, then I typed in my search term and pressed the 'Go' button and it found my term. No difficulties there.

    On my new, all-singing-all-dancing Google monstrosity, I must look for the search box, whisk past 'News' and 'Camera' to find 'Search', type in my search term, then press 'Go'.

    I can grasp that some people want to be able to read the headlines and check the weather, send that information to their friends, read the news while searching, etc etc etc... Now, in this technologically oriented world, we are inundated with sites that do one job supremely well -- I had a Google for search, a Yahoo for webmail, a BBC for news.. Why is finding a site that just searches such a difficulty?

    1. Re:Portals like phones? by Cus · · Score: 1

      Have you tried http://www.google.com/xhtml ? Very little non-relevant info on the front screen

  66. Not for me by TintinX · · Score: 1

    Certainly given the building blocks currently on offer, I don't really see a need for it.

    I have the Gmail Reminder to prompt me to new mail and give me a single click into it. What's the point in having just a few of your emails on a search engine homepage anyway? I don't ever even go to the Google homepage to perform a search as I do it directly from my address bar.

    I can sign up for BBC news alerts or read them in RSS format via an aggregator if I want to. In this day and age of information gathering, with so many options available to us to group together the things we want quick and easy access to (even if it's just half a dozen, easily accessible bookmarks!), I don't really understand the point in displaying them all on a page that many people don't habitually visit.

  67. Portal gives original content, Google does not. by froghermit · · Score: 0

    IMHO, portals provide more than just a page full of content. It provides original content. Google does not provide any kind of original content. They just provide links to other people's sites. Portals such as Yahoo.com, MSN.com, and AOL.com are examples of such portals that provide original content.

  68. So... by veraction · · Score: 0, Flamebait

    So, what technology/programming language is used to make the cool design of this personalized google?

  69. I like it by ksemlerK · · Score: 1

    I personally like Google's personalised home pages. It has all the information I could want, (weather, Google News, BBC News, Stock Quotes, Word of the day, and Quote of the day), in a nice, neat, and clean interface. I personally hope Google makes this a feature of the main site. I actually like it much better than Yahoo!

    --
    Get your free Dropbox account with 2 GB Free storage!
  70. We must have by bazily · · Score: 1

    needed a token Google story today to fill our quota for Google stories this week. Way to go team!

    --
    Why cut IT when your office space costs $3/sf? gibso
  71. Not quite up to Yahoo! by theRG · · Score: 2, Insightful

    I love My Yahoo! I also love my Gmail. I think this customized Google page is a great start but it's simply not there yet. Yes, the interface is nice simple Google, but I think in this day and age with RSS and broadband, it's a little too simple, boring and frankly not enough features for me. I do like how easy it is to customize though.

    It really does feel to me like it's a start, and not ready for primetime. This is what a portal was 5 years ago.

    I really do have high hopes for this though. It's Google. Yahoo! isn't shaking in its boots just yet.

  72. try it before you don't like it by yagu · · Score: 3, Insightful

    I set up my personalized Google home page. I like it a lot. I don't know if I'll keep it because generally I like the uncluttered look of the standard Google Home page. But, take a look, your mileage may vary!

    Some of the nice features:

    • from "Search, and I'm Feeling Lucky" up it's basically the same old Google page you were used to! No sweat!
    • at the top are convenient links to logout (pretty standard fair) and go to your search history (a nice feature if you've never yet tried that!)
    • modules which are handy (e.g., stock quotes, your google mail account) and
    • modules which are customizable (e.g., add your favorite stock symbol, collapse, uncollapse your google e-mail previews), and
    • very much like the dynamic miracle of drag and drop Google Maps, you can reaarange the order and placement of the modules simply by dragging and dropping the title bars of each module. I still don't know exactly how they're doing that, but compared to the clunky "customizable" personalize sites elsewhere, Google's is a joy to work with.
    • opt in or out of the various modules

    Since this isn't even really Beta yet, I'm guessing (am almost sure) there'll be lots of improvements to this -- and probably most of the improvements address many of the "complaints" posted thus far. (I've found Google to be amazing in their willingness to listen to and respond to and take action on feedback from the consumer community.)

    So, before you go ranting about the corruption of what was simple and is now crass, take a look... you may find it useful.

  73. This is just like my.yahoo.com by line.at.infinity · · Score: 0, Redundant

    http://my.yahoo.com/

    It's been around a lot longer. You can edit/relocate sections just like gmail.com/ig, too. I think you can also get to the same page from:

    http://login.yahoo.com/

    1. Re:This is just like my.yahoo.com by hughk · · Score: 1

      Yahoo jumped the shark with the scale of their advertising. Nobody minds ads but with 50% or more covered with some horrendous flash, it doesn't really look good.

      --
      See my journal, I write things there
  74. Obvious mistakes by google by Evets · · Score: 1

    It seems that they have made a pretty obvious mistake here.

    If you sign into your account and choose slashdot, and leave the default of 3 stories, it will only show 1. Editing your choice by changing it from 3 to another number and back again will display the correct number of stories.

    The same problem exists for google news.

  75. It is (very) beta! by hritcu · · Score: 1

    Can I add other news sources or feeds?

    Not yet, but stay tuned. We chose the currently available feeds for this beta release of personalized homepages in order to give a good sampling of content from across the web [...]

    --
    If you don't fail at least 90 percent of the time, you're not aiming high enough. (Alan Kay)
  76. Personalization =~ Localization by GuyErnest · · Score: 2, Interesting

    It is strange that it doesn't work if you are not in the locale of US. You can't get your gmail (the language must be English-US, not even English-UK), your weather and surely not your news.

    The first thing that jumps into my mind when I hear personalization is Localization. Google must work first on making it truly localized.

    1. Re:Personalization =~ Localization by SilentSheep · · Score: 1
      You can get your weather. I'm looking at my local weather(East Midlands) on my personalised google site right now. And surprise, surprise its raining!!!!

      Just type your post code in the box where it says zip code!

      --
      .
    2. Re:Personalization =~ Localization by Ulven · · Score: 1

      I'm in the UK, and I get my gmail and news. Didn't bother asking for weather - this is England, after all.

    3. Re:Personalization =~ Localization by GuyErnest · · Score: 1

      It is not enough to be in UK, you also need to set your setting to be English(UK) and not the default English(US).

      If you try to mess with the system and ask for English(UK) interface, then you get the hint to switch back to English(US) by not showing your gmail in your my-google page.

      It took me a while to understand that hint...

  77. There is no spoon! by pdamoc · · Score: 1

    Come on people, this thing has few consequences for nerds. I haven't used Google's search page in ages... I only look at it when they change the image on holidays or on special birthdays and such. The rest of the time I have this nifty little textfield incorporated in the browser's interface.

  78. Simplicity by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    I like simplicity.

    Also with personlized sites, I guess they will track who searches for what, etc. :(

  79. Always two stories there are... by Tim+Browse · · Score: 1

    ...a master and a dupe.

  80. MOD PARENT UP! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Too bad yahoo comes before google....

  81. Urggh. by TractorBarry · · Score: 1

    Sorry that stinks...

    But then again I think the Google logo is overdoing it.

    I just hope when they roll it out they keep the "classic" page available for those of us who don't want personalisation.

    And rest assured one day all the personal information that Google are collecting (search histories, emails) WILL be put to nefarious ends. The only question is how long will it take for the "bad guys" (tm) to take control.

    --
    Sky subscribers are morons. They pay to be advertised at !
  82. yahoo still slower due to URL redirections by free2 · · Score: 2, Informative

    even search.yahoo.com is still slower due to URL redirections in each link of the search result page

    1. Re:yahoo still slower due to URL redirections by Lordrashmi · · Score: 1

      Actually google uses redirects too, you just don't see them.

      Every search result link contains this 'onmousedown="return rwt(this,4)'. (The 4 is which search result this is). When you click on the link, the Javascript function re-writes the URL to point to '/url?sa=U&start=[$search_index]&url=[$url]&ei=[a bunch of garbage]'.

      I am assuming the value for 'ei' relates to me having google save my search history, but I have not been able to confirm it.

      So yes, google uses the URL redirect too, they just are sneakier about it.

  83. Google Suggest by Tylerious · · Score: 1

    I checked it out right when they started it, but I was disappointed because it didn't work with Google Suggest, ehich I use regularly. But looking yesterday, they seem to have extended support to Google Suggest. It doesn't display my modules, but it does provide a link in the upper right corner to visit my page.

  84. cluttered? by srid · · Score: 1

    It definitely doesn't look like Yahoo yet, but I don't want my search site to be any more cluttered than it is now.

    It is more convinient to use the browser's google search bar, than google.com itself. Perhaps, google can provide the simple version at google.com/simple, while retaining the portal version at google.com
    --
    - srid
  85. Redundant? by zaguar · · Score: 2, Interesting
    Just curious, does anyone actually use the google homepage? Cause really, I only google using the google bar in firefox, and I use gmail with www.gmail.google.com/gmail. So really, I actually never do go to the homepage any more.

    I'm sure for the 90% of the population that use I.E., including the 0.001% of /. readers that use I.E., it is a useful addition, but really, for the kinda guy that will take advantage of this feature, they just won't use it

    --
    "Sure there's porn and piracy on the Web but there's probably a downside too."
    1. Re:Redundant? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Haha, what a long-winded URL that is (www.gmail.google.com/gmail). I thought you were being sarcastic until I realized that the URL actually works.

      Try gmail.google.com

    2. Re:Redundant? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Or in firefox just type gmail and it will automatically jump to gmail.google.com/gmail

    3. Re:Redundant? by gareth.adams · · Score: 1

      Or in any browser just type gmail and it will work. If not, type gmail and press Ctrl+Enter which will work in all major browsers

    4. Re:Redundant? by Vlad_the_Inhaler · · Score: 1

      Frequently, especially if I am trying to weight my search by using the domain suffix of that country.

      Looking for something specifically english? www.google.co.uk is your friend.

      --
      Mielipiteet omiani - Opinions personal, facts suspect.
  86. Too cool, seriously by d_54321 · · Score: 0

    This really is too cool. I mean that- the coolness of this is a problem. I open a browser with my personlised google, and bam, the news, weather and other interesting info makes me forget what I was gonna search for.

    --
    Support the FairTax
  87. that's also why I turn JS off when not needed by free2 · · Score: 1

    I always turn JS off when not needed. For safety and faster rendering.
    And now I learn it skims useless redirections. Good.

  88. Gutta cavat lapidem... by unixMafiA · · Score: 1

    ...non vi sed saepe cadendo. - or so I hope: that the little drops of water of our opinions may hollow the O's in gOOgle by slowly cutting through the bedrock.

    Don't fix it if it ain't Error 404!

    I suspect that some of Google's decide&do-crowd are Slashdotters, will read these comments, and prove to be sensitive to the opinions of their fellow Net browsers.

    Glancing at the previous comments, I note that most of us prefer the uncluttered aspect of the search engine's Status Quo to the proposed kind of offer-it-all Portal: as do I.
    Presumably, /. is primarily populated by an experienced and therefore rather demanding type of Internet user. Some of us may use text browsers (lynx), have slow machines (retro rlz!) or slow connections: many of us have reasons beyond mere appreciation for valuing the speed and easy use of Google's search engine.

    If we prefer the uncluttered, fast-loading and fast-handling Google we've been used to (some of us, for as long as Google's IP has been returning pings), I can only presume that less experienced and less demanding Internet users, hardly likely to suddenly wish to navigate through a labyrinth of links, chunks of text, images and what-have-you, should prefer the same.

    I hope * at google dot com will read these here comments, and know how to interpret them for Google's best interest.

    From the heart, Google: a KISS * !! Keep It Simple ......

    --

    * Signal 15... "Ceterum censeo Microsoftem esse delendam." Cheers cq. BRgds: DrS aka UNIXmafia@ribeco.net