Solaris will initially be "free" (as in beer with an annual subscription fee for bug fixes and support)
Hmm...
"As in beer with an annual subscription fee?"
Hm... OK...
Free speech = drinking beer with an annual subscription fee for support? Yeah, I guess that works in a geeky kind of way. He might speak pretty freely after having lots of beer, and on each New Year's Eve pay some guys to show up at his home to support him in software development.:-P
You're not alone in being unimpressed by their software. With Google's tradition of implementing amazing new technologies (like the shocker 1 GB free mail now with POP3 support) and their search engine itself, GDS just gave a big "huh?" from me. It's barely even usable and as far as I can see, both X1 and Copernic is much better. What was the deal about only Microsoft formats? Why didn't they make GDS support the formats we wish to support via a plugin architecture?
And it's of course very strange and inconsistent it doesn't support searching within filenames when Google Web search searches within URL's. They should've looked a bit more at that one for ideas of pushing the limits in search technology, I can think of numerous operators the web search don't support but that GDS could. But right now GDS feels more like an alpha than anything else, and I sure hope we'll see a lot of improvements to it from Google or it'll be one of the most useless tools they've produced.
I would be extremely surprised if Microsoft would support those, and just make thier desktop search support their own godforsaken applications.
I wonder if there is any off-line search engine like X1, Copernic, or that one, for Windows that support search plugins via some kind of API. So a developer can add e.g. mp3 ID3 tag search, DVD metadata search and other things like that. If MS is going where I think they're going, they'll just drown in the bunch of desktop search engines with nothing new to offer. I can't see why not even Google was thinking of this when they designed theirs. Right, we're supposed to wait for a single company to let me search for what I want efficiently? That feels so... err, stone age.
A feature like that would be great and certainly an idea for Mozilla.org as an upcoming open source project -- read another article here that they were looking into this area.
But google does a word match, so it probably gets thrown by the "where", "who" etc Jeeves is designed to accomodate for these words
Yeah, that's kind of my point... In some cases this question thing actually works for Ask Jeeves. I thought it only had a restricted database for questions like "What do the acronym (something) mean?", and that it would suck in other cases, but it doesn't seem to be that bad.
The first people to play the game will be those who buy it, people waiting on the "free" version will likely be waiting at least a day for it to be cracked.
So they're going through all this trouble and pissing of their paying customers to delay the warez scene about a day?? Are they fucking insane?
They only need one paying dude of a warez group that leaks whatever he got from Steam along with a crack and all that work to stop them is in vain, but the legit customers will still not be able to play even in single player without an internet connection?
What about Valve and their decision to require authentication for SINGLE PLAYER?
Get the crack for the game when it's released, then you won't suffer from that restriction. When will they figure out single player protection only hurts their paying customers?
These are the searches I made in order and nothing cut out except for the cases where a question didn't give anything on page 1 for either of the engines.
Who created Slashdot?
Ask Jeeves: CmdrTaco as #1 (correct answer) Google: CmdrTaco as #4
Who designed Ford?
Ask Jeeves: Henry Ford Academy as #1 (HF is correct) Google: Nothing about Henry Ford on first page
What wavelength is red?
Ask Jeeves: 622-780 nm from search result description of #1 Google: "about 650 nm" if you follow link and read on in the page of #1
Sometimes we see negative side effects from this question system...
Where can I download Nero?
Ask Jeeves: First links to download service that did indeed have Nero as a download, but versions from 2000. Ahead.de as #3 Google: Ahead.de as #2 (a completely unrelated site as #1)
I tried to refine...:-)
Where can I download the latest version of Nero?
Ask Jeeves: Got confused, but finally got the proper link (official download page) as #8 Google: Nero 6.6.0.1 (correct!) at unofficial site as #1, official site as #2.
Do SCO have a case?:-)
Ask Jeeves: Groklaw.net as #1 Google: NewsForge analysing article as #1 and other SCO related news articles.
When do Revenge of the Sith have its premiere?
Ask Jeeves: "has its worldwide premiere on May 19, 2005" according to search result description for #2. Google: Nothing in search result descriptions, and nothing I could find by following a few search result links on page 1.
It is an OS monopoly if the main applications most people need (Office and Java-basd ones) won't work properly anywhere else than in Windows.
As has been stated
1. Microsoft Office is available for Mac too, and even in a better version than what's available for Windows according to most people who've seen the differences. (at least in the latest version of MS Office for both operating systems)
2. OpenOffice usually does the work well enough and it's very much multi-platform. "Most people" probably don't need closer compatibility if all they do is working with e.g. plain Word documents and Excel sheets, so for these people the software would "work properly" in all definitions of "properly" I can think of.
I'd like to defend Microsoft this time... Their new search engine is barely through the "technical preview" (aka alpha in this case) stage and has been given limited resources as it's only available for beta testing purposes.
"The new competitor MSN has had teething problems and we should bear in mind this is a test mode."
Yeah, so why didn't you test the finished product? If they would've tested MSN Search, at least test search.msn.com and notbeta.search.msn.com as they apparently have done. It's not interesting to me as a reader to see the performance of a search engine where very little fine tuning has been done. It's not like I'd use a search engine with little hardware resources causing more time-outs than succesful searches anyway, even if it would win in the test.
But my guess is consumers are really sick of all the format wars as seen with DVD.
At least I'm not, I just got a cheap DVD+/-R/RW+CD-R/RW drive.:-)
The only sign of the format wars I notice is that my standalone DVD player only supports DVD-R (and not DVD+R) but so what? Just buy these for both video and data and you'll never need to care.
I can only see this becoming a problem if it's technically impossible to design combo-drives like these for future formats, without too expensive drives. However, I agree format wars are annoying if you want to be an early adopter of a format.
I wouldn't be willing to sink ANY money in it if that were the case.
I'd be willing to buy these even in that case, assuming they'll be able to play regular DVD's too. What would I lose on it? I assume prices would go down enough after time, like they do with all consumer products.
Ahh, so that's how they worked around the limitations of a red laser. Hmm, durability issues with as sizable discs as these is the least I'm looking for right now.
DEEPZONE IS ONE OF THE ORIGINAL SOUNDFORGE AUTHORS.
In that case, he's both a cracker and a SF author, or there are two Deepz0ne's.
Just a few matches at Google Groups:
"Q : I'm trying to install Wavelab but i cant find the serial # A : Run the installer and actually READ the screens this time.;) The
installer gives you the serial. (btw its 'Deepz0ne-Radium-1998-QCZ')"
--------
" Bug fixes : Long filename fix, better synch, noisereduction fix, etc.
Sek'd increased the copy protection but not enough to stop Deepz0ne:)"
Wow, Microsoft must take the prize as having the slowest search engine in internet history. I had to cancel since I didn't bother to wait any longer. Wow...
I think 5.x in 2.x mode is great:-) You get a lot of useful features not existing in 2.x with a still reasonably low footprint, compared to many other players. It's not like it keeps opening AOL popups or something...
Wow, Microsoft must have fixed it... It now no longer shows microsoft.com as top hit.
Haha, I guess the joke reached MS headquarters.:-P
Re:Do this affect how fresh their index will be?
on
Google Index Doubles
·
· Score: 1
Better search results means fewer necessary searches, which in turn will make the entire process most time effective.
Search results? Are you talking about a person searching? I was mostly concerned about how quickly Google can update their complete index now that it doubled in size. I understand for my part it might get better, as long as the index is kept up-to-date.
And anyway, you can`t just stop indexing webpages just because it might take longer to index them. You just need to improve on hardware or the technology itself.
Yes, I realize this too, however I just wonder if Google made the necessary hardware/tech changes to maintain their current freshness of the index so we aren't getting an index, say, twice as big but taking twice as long to reflect all the always ongoing fluctuations on the web. I'm not sure if that would really be an improvement. More broken links and all that.
Good timing to conincide with MSN attempt to start a new searchengine too!
Yes, they'd better fight back, as they now have a serious competitor in MSN. It's giving very accurate results.
Doesn't anyone find it strange that Google gave the same top result there a while back?
MSN must be using a very similar algorithm.
Maybe a bit too similar...?
*tinfoil hat on*
Do this affect how fresh their index will be?
on
Google Index Doubles
·
· Score: 3, Insightful
I wonder if it'll take longer to index twice as many pages? Or if they, along with this change, improved their spider and/or added hardware. Otherwise I'm not sure this change is for the better, unless you like to search for really obscure topics.
I'll be different from a large part of the Slashdot crowd and actually look forward to a Star Wars RTS. I think they've made two others for the PC (well, I sure hope it's going to be released for the PC!) before. One based on the Age of Empires engine which showed a bit of the potential but the engine was piss poor and I didn't like the balance and little polish to the game either. The other was that 3D RTS that also was a bit strange for my tastes.
I don't believe a Star Wars RTS is doomed though, just that the previous ones have been so damn poorly made. Innovative missions, a great engine, a lot of content without deviating too much from how things were in the universe and inventing too many new units... things like that would be great to see.
Slashdot Mirror
Could just be a stock photo they threw in there.
I don't really think so since the picture text said "hundreds of urns were found on the sea floor".
... so here is one from some swedish news: a bunch of urns
Surprisingly that picture doesn't seem very common in related stories from a Google News search.
Solaris will initially be "free" (as in beer with an annual subscription fee for bug fixes and support)
Hmm...
"As in beer with an annual subscription fee?"
Hm... OK...
Free speech = drinking beer with an annual subscription fee for support? Yeah, I guess that works in a geeky kind of way. He might speak pretty freely after having lots of beer, and on each New Year's Eve pay some guys to show up at his home to support him in software development.
Does 'Beta' mean anything to you? If people want these features, and make them know, they'll be added.
:-)
I know what "Beta" means to Google at least: "an indefinite state for a product as an excuse for not fulfilling everyone's expectations".
You're not alone in being unimpressed by their software. With Google's tradition of implementing amazing new technologies (like the shocker 1 GB free mail now with POP3 support) and their search engine itself, GDS just gave a big "huh?" from me. It's barely even usable and as far as I can see, both X1 and Copernic is much better. What was the deal about only Microsoft formats? Why didn't they make GDS support the formats we wish to support via a plugin architecture?
And it's of course very strange and inconsistent it doesn't support searching within filenames when Google Web search searches within URL's. They should've looked a bit more at that one for ideas of pushing the limits in search technology, I can think of numerous operators the web search don't support but that GDS could. But right now GDS feels more like an alpha than anything else, and I sure hope we'll see a lot of improvements to it from Google or it'll be one of the most useless tools they've produced.
I would be extremely surprised if Microsoft would support those, and just make thier desktop search support their own godforsaken applications.
I wonder if there is any off-line search engine like X1, Copernic, or that one, for Windows that support search plugins via some kind of API. So a developer can add e.g. mp3 ID3 tag search, DVD metadata search and other things like that. If MS is going where I think they're going, they'll just drown in the bunch of desktop search engines with nothing new to offer. I can't see why not even Google was thinking of this when they designed theirs. Right, we're supposed to wait for a single company to let me search for what I want efficiently? That feels so... err, stone age.
A feature like that would be great and certainly an idea for Mozilla.org as an upcoming open source project -- read another article here that they were looking into this area.
Groklaw blocks the Google spider, last I heard.
Searching for "Groklaw's Mission Statement" in Google finds this page so it seem like Google is indexing them.
But google does a word match, so it probably gets thrown by the "where", "who" etc
Jeeves is designed to accomodate for these words
Yeah, that's kind of my point... In some cases this question thing actually works for Ask Jeeves. I thought it only had a restricted database for questions like "What do the acronym (something) mean?", and that it would suck in other cases, but it doesn't seem to be that bad.
The first people to play the game will be those who buy it, people waiting on the "free" version will likely be waiting at least a day for it to be cracked.
So they're going through all this trouble and pissing of their paying customers to delay the warez scene about a day?? Are they fucking insane?
They only need one paying dude of a warez group that leaks whatever he got from Steam along with a crack and all that work to stop them is in vain, but the legit customers will still not be able to play even in single player without an internet connection?
Who are they fooling, really...
What about Valve and their decision to require authentication for SINGLE PLAYER?
Get the crack for the game when it's released, then you won't suffer from that restriction.
When will they figure out single player protection only hurts their paying customers?
These are the searches I made in order and nothing cut out except for the cases where a question didn't give anything on page 1 for either of the engines.
:-)
:-)
Who created Slashdot?
Ask Jeeves: CmdrTaco as #1 (correct answer)
Google: CmdrTaco as #4
Who designed Ford?
Ask Jeeves: Henry Ford Academy as #1 (HF is correct)
Google: Nothing about Henry Ford on first page
What wavelength is red?
Ask Jeeves: 622-780 nm from search result description of #1
Google: "about 650 nm" if you follow link and read on in the page of #1
Sometimes we see negative side effects from this question system...
Where can I download Nero?
Ask Jeeves: First links to download service that did indeed have Nero as a download, but versions from 2000. Ahead.de as #3
Google: Ahead.de as #2 (a completely unrelated site as #1)
I tried to refine...
Where can I download the latest version of Nero?
Ask Jeeves: Got confused, but finally got the proper link (official download page) as #8
Google: Nero 6.6.0.1 (correct!) at unofficial site as #1, official site as #2.
Do SCO have a case?
Ask Jeeves: Groklaw.net as #1
Google: NewsForge analysing article as #1 and other SCO related news articles.
When do Revenge of the Sith have its premiere?
Ask Jeeves: "has its worldwide premiere on May 19, 2005" according to search result description for #2.
Google: Nothing in search result descriptions, and nothing I could find by following a few search result links on page 1.
It is an OS monopoly if the main applications most people need (Office and Java-basd ones) won't work properly anywhere else than in Windows.
As has been stated
1. Microsoft Office is available for Mac too, and even in a better version than what's available for Windows according to most people who've seen the differences. (at least in the latest version of MS Office for both operating systems)
2. OpenOffice usually does the work well enough and it's very much multi-platform. "Most people" probably don't need closer compatibility if all they do is working with e.g. plain Word documents and Excel sheets, so for these people the software would "work properly" in all definitions of "properly" I can think of.
I'd like to defend Microsoft this time... Their new search engine is barely through the "technical preview" (aka alpha in this case) stage and has been given limited resources as it's only available for beta testing purposes.
"The new competitor MSN has had teething problems and we should bear in mind this is a test mode."
Yeah, so why didn't you test the finished product? If they would've tested MSN Search, at least test search.msn.com and not beta.search.msn.com as they apparently have done. It's not interesting to me as a reader to see the performance of a search engine where very little fine tuning has been done. It's not like I'd use a search engine with little hardware resources causing more time-outs than succesful searches anyway, even if it would win in the test.
But my guess is consumers are really sick of all the format wars as seen with DVD.
:-)
At least I'm not, I just got a cheap DVD+/-R/RW+CD-R/RW drive.
The only sign of the format wars I notice is that my standalone DVD player only supports DVD-R (and not DVD+R) but so what? Just buy these for both video and data and you'll never need to care.
I can only see this becoming a problem if it's technically impossible to design combo-drives like these for future formats, without too expensive drives. However, I agree format wars are annoying if you want to be an early adopter of a format.
I wouldn't be willing to sink ANY money in it if that were the case.
I'd be willing to buy these even in that case, assuming they'll be able to play regular DVD's too. What would I lose on it? I assume prices would go down enough after time, like they do with all consumer products.
Ahh, so that's how they worked around the limitations of a red laser. Hmm, durability issues with as sizable discs as these is the least I'm looking for right now.
DEEPZONE IS ONE OF THE ORIGINAL SOUNDFORGE AUTHORS.
;) The
:)"
:-P
In that case, he's both a cracker and a SF author, or there are two Deepz0ne's.
Just a few matches at Google Groups:
"Q : I'm trying to install Wavelab but i cant find the serial #
A : Run the installer and actually READ the screens this time.
installer gives you the serial. (btw its 'Deepz0ne-Radium-1998-QCZ')"
--------
" Bug fixes : Long filename fix, better synch, noisereduction fix, etc.
Sek'd increased the copy protection but not enough to stop Deepz0ne
--------
"Radium presents
WaveZip v1.12 regged
(c) Gadget Labs LLC.
Cracker : Deepz0ne + int69
Supplier : Sandor"
--------
And strangely enough, this Deepz0ne cracker was active in the sound editor scene.
Optimist's response: Maybe they were waiting for their activation code.
:-)
Yeah, and MS employees have recently started adopting "cool" nick names like "Deepz0ne".
Ahhh. So, let's see. If you use google at work, you should be going to jail. Sounds fair.
Nah, it rather says you can't use them to make a profit from them.
Hey, Google, I'm holding up a finger. Guess which one?
Are you saying you don't prefer Google above all other web engines?
If not you're just another hypocrite.
Wow, Microsoft must take the prize as having the slowest search engine in internet history. I had to cancel since I didn't bother to wait any longer. Wow...
5.x was pure AOL, and pure crap.
:-)
:-) You get a lot of useful features not existing in 2.x with a still reasonably low footprint, compared to many other players. It's not like it keeps opening AOL popups or something...
Huh? Maybe elaborate?
I think 5.x in 2.x mode is great
Wow, Microsoft must have fixed it...
:-P
It now no longer shows microsoft.com as top hit.
Haha, I guess the joke reached MS headquarters.
Better search results means fewer necessary searches, which in turn will make the entire process most time effective.
Search results? Are you talking about a person searching? I was mostly concerned about how quickly Google can update their complete index now that it doubled in size. I understand for my part it might get better, as long as the index is kept up-to-date.
And anyway, you can`t just stop indexing webpages just because it might take longer to index them. You just need to improve on hardware or the technology itself.
Yes, I realize this too, however I just wonder if Google made the necessary hardware/tech changes to maintain their current freshness of the index so we aren't getting an index, say, twice as big but taking twice as long to reflect all the always ongoing fluctuations on the web. I'm not sure if that would really be an improvement. More broken links and all that.
Good timing to conincide with MSN attempt to start a new searchengine too!
Yes, they'd better fight back, as they now have a serious competitor in MSN.
It's giving very accurate results.
Doesn't anyone find it strange that Google gave the same top result there a while back?
MSN must be using a very similar algorithm.
Maybe a bit too similar...?
*tinfoil hat on*
I wonder if it'll take longer to index twice as many pages? Or if they, along with this change, improved their spider and/or added hardware. Otherwise I'm not sure this change is for the better, unless you like to search for really obscure topics.
I'll be different from a large part of the Slashdot crowd and actually look forward to a Star Wars RTS. I think they've made two others for the PC (well, I sure hope it's going to be released for the PC!) before. One based on the Age of Empires engine which showed a bit of the potential but the engine was piss poor and I didn't like the balance and little polish to the game either. The other was that 3D RTS that also was a bit strange for my tastes.
I don't believe a Star Wars RTS is doomed though, just that the previous ones have been so damn poorly made. Innovative missions, a great engine, a lot of content without deviating too much from how things were in the universe and inventing too many new units... things like that would be great to see.