Search is already a fundamental part of the Mac desktop experience...
Individual apps integrate search well, but as an overall system, search on the mac leaves a lot to be desired. Searches using the Finder SUCK: they take forver, and they don't ever seem to help you find what you're looking for.
Tiger (10.4) should improve this quite a bit with Spotlight, Apple's new index/search architecture, which includes a nice plugin system (recently described in more detail here). This theoretically will enable Spotlight to search everything the Google Desktop searches. If Apple can deliver reasonable indexing speeds and quality search results, they're going to be able to compete.
On the other hand, because Apple's already baked in support for Google via Safari, most Mac users are already trained to use Google as their Internet search tool of choice. A Google desktop would extend this behavior seamlessly, so I'll be really curious to see if Apple can retrain users to use Spotlight for local searches. My guess is if Google can deliver soon enough, Spotlight will be a second-try search tool on the Mac.
But wouldn't it be cool to see Apple and Google would combine their efforts?
Just wait six months: after Apple recoups their R&D and startup costs, they'll drop the price. They maximized sales of the iPod for Christmas 2003, and now can capitalize on the alpha-geeks to get their ROI and still keep their profit margins high. After that, they'll drop the prices to get the marketshare they're after. We'll see $199 minis by summer, and By Christmas 2004 they'll be $150 or less.
So, if you're an alpha, go get one today so my wife can save $50 on one for my birthday in June!
Not only could you search the Internet, but you could refine your searches just to other people's thoughts, etc.
Sweet screaming monkeys would that be pointless. Blogs are like dreams; they're only interesting to the people they belong to.
I agree 95% of most blogs are rather weak. But If Google can help me find the 5% of blogs that really matter to me, then I refining searches makes a heck of a lot of sense. I mean, isn't that what Google is all about anyways? If I'm looking for Reno, what better place to find relevant thinking than Google? And what better community to google than Blogger?
Google is a service, not content. Maybe I'd be willing to pay for the service, but not the actual results. Searching is more of an art than a science. Why should I spend 10 cents (literally) to figure out what the best results are?
It would kill home-grown content. 95% of the stuff out on the Web isn't worth a penny. Moving to a penny-a-page system would only make brand more important on the Web. And do we really want a brand like MSN controlling the content most people see?
(This is sort of like the last point): Think about what this would do for slashdot! I mean, I think it's great, but they would become a gatekeeper for generating money, not just point-of-view!
DocBook is nice for managing certain types of content, but using it often means trading a high level of structure for a generic one. You're stuck using the tags that DocBook defines, which is good for books and articles, but it doesn't scale beyond that very well. For example, using MathML or SVG with DocBook isn't a lot of fun.
I had one of those things install itself on my machine. I have to admit, though, that it hasn't bugged me enough to try to uninstall it yet. It's just sort of there. It doesn't pop up a window, or navigate me someplace I don't want to go. It just underlines stuff. And so far, it hasn't interfered with my ability to follow a hyperlink.
But what I really find stupid is that the system isn't even that helpful. Because it just tries to find words, it has not comprehension of context, so if I click on the word "software" it always takes me to IBM, whether the context is "open source software", or "programming software" or "buying software"...
The first is pretty easy to get, really, if you have a techie-head on your shoulders. My boss (who's not a techie) says that most techies around my age grew up on computers, and therefore have more like 10 years of experience than 1 or 2. I think he's right.
Business knowledge is harder to come by, because most 12 and 13 year olds have any direct impact on business. It usually isn't until you're in your first job (or internship) that you get a clue about what it takes to set a business plan and meet it.
Of course, both types of knowledge are relative. I work for a Web site/app firm, and there's no way on God's green earth we'd hire a 30+ year veteran of fortran or C++ to do Web work (note: I'm being more absolutist on this point than I really am).
In the same way, we'd never hire a used-cars salesman, either, to manage our teams or sell our services.
A very good point. My question would be: how many slashdotters think living/working in a traditionally high-IT location really makes better products/web sites/etc?
A comment about the first point: "the XML parser can, and will validate most syntatical and grammerical errors, but it *cannot* check invalid values". I agree this is a major problem with DTDs, which is why
XML Schemas make so much sense. Check out the
Primer for more info. It's not a silver bullet, but it's a heck of a lot better than DTDs (although they do have their place)
You're completely right: going behind a boss is asking for trouble. At the same time, smart management shouldn't simply ask for "their" solution, they should ask for the best solution. Sometimes that's Linux, sometimes it's NT, or BSD, or Be (...ok, I can dream, can't I?:). Of course, "should" doesn't mean it always happens (or at someplaces, *ever* happens).
I think the boss in the article is an example of a smart boss: his man got the job done timely and inexpensively, and he was cool with it.
When it comes down to it, when you lock yourself into one technology, you lock youself out of the best solution.
I think it depends on the project. In some places Java speeds up the process of coding because so much is abstracted. And smalltalk can speed it up even more (although I'd use Java or C++ before Smalltalk), but don't waste your time with "Hello world!" and trivial stuff like that in Smalltalk...
Slashdot Mirror
Search is already a fundamental part of the Mac desktop experience...
Individual apps integrate search well, but as an overall system, search on the mac leaves a lot to be desired. Searches using the Finder SUCK: they take forver, and they don't ever seem to help you find what you're looking for.
Tiger (10.4) should improve this quite a bit with Spotlight, Apple's new index/search architecture, which includes a nice plugin system (recently described in more detail here). This theoretically will enable Spotlight to search everything the Google Desktop searches. If Apple can deliver reasonable indexing speeds and quality search results, they're going to be able to compete.
On the other hand, because Apple's already baked in support for Google via Safari, most Mac users are already trained to use Google as their Internet search tool of choice. A Google desktop would extend this behavior seamlessly, so I'll be really curious to see if Apple can retrain users to use Spotlight for local searches. My guess is if Google can deliver soon enough, Spotlight will be a second-try search tool on the Mac.
But wouldn't it be cool to see Apple and Google would combine their efforts?
Just wait six months: after Apple recoups their R&D and startup costs, they'll drop the price. They maximized sales of the iPod for Christmas 2003, and now can capitalize on the alpha-geeks to get their ROI and still keep their profit margins high. After that, they'll drop the prices to get the marketshare they're after. We'll see $199 minis by summer, and By Christmas 2004 they'll be $150 or less.
So, if you're an alpha, go get one today so my wife can save $50 on one for my birthday in June!
Not only could you search the Internet, but you could refine your searches just to other people's thoughts, etc.
Sweet screaming monkeys would that be pointless. Blogs are like dreams; they're only interesting to the people they belong to.
I agree 95% of most blogs are rather weak. But If Google can help me find the 5% of blogs that really matter to me, then I refining searches makes a heck of a lot of sense. I mean, isn't that what Google is all about anyways? If I'm looking for Reno, what better place to find relevant thinking than Google? And what better community to google than Blogger?
Good luck! We stopped by Blockstackers to clap, but you had to go and work from home. Cheers from TIG.
10mbps is great for a programmer, but don't ask a graphic designer or video editor to use a 10mbps connection!
DocBook is nice for managing certain types of content, but using it often means trading a high level of structure for a generic one. You're stuck using the tags that DocBook defines, which is good for books and articles, but it doesn't scale beyond that very well. For example, using MathML or SVG with DocBook isn't a lot of fun.
I had one of those things install itself on my machine. I have to admit, though, that it hasn't bugged me enough to try to uninstall it yet. It's just sort of there. It doesn't pop up a window, or navigate me someplace I don't want to go. It just underlines stuff. And so far, it hasn't interfered with my ability to follow a hyperlink.
But what I really find stupid is that the system isn't even that helpful. Because it just tries to find words, it has not comprehension of context, so if I click on the word "software" it always takes me to IBM, whether the context is "open source software", or "programming software" or "buying software"...
All we need is a flying phone box and we'd be ready to revive the good doctor:
Doctor Who: Attack of the Clones
To be released in a seriese of real-audio episodes starting in 2002
It basically comes down to this:
The first is pretty easy to get, really, if you have a techie-head on your shoulders. My boss (who's not a techie) says that most techies around my age grew up on computers, and therefore have more like 10 years of experience than 1 or 2. I think he's right.
Business knowledge is harder to come by, because most 12 and 13 year olds have any direct impact on business. It usually isn't until you're in your first job (or internship) that you get a clue about what it takes to set a business plan and meet it.
Of course, both types of knowledge are relative. I work for a Web site/app firm, and there's no way on God's green earth we'd hire a 30+ year veteran of fortran or C++ to do Web work (note: I'm being more absolutist on this point than I really am).
In the same way, we'd never hire a used-cars salesman, either, to manage our teams or sell our services.
A very good point. My question would be: how many slashdotters think living/working in a traditionally high-IT location really makes better products/web sites/etc?
A comment about the first point: "the XML parser can, and will validate most syntatical and grammerical errors, but it *cannot* check invalid values". I agree this is a major problem with DTDs, which is why XML Schemas make so much sense. Check out the Primer for more info. It's not a silver bullet, but it's a heck of a lot better than DTDs (although they do have their place)
I'm using 0.10.0, too, with no problems...
You're completely right: going behind a boss is asking for trouble. At the same time, smart management shouldn't simply ask for "their" solution, they should ask for the best solution. Sometimes that's Linux, sometimes it's NT, or BSD, or Be (...ok, I can dream, can't I? :). Of course, "should" doesn't mean it always happens (or at someplaces, *ever* happens).
I think the boss in the article is an example of a smart boss: his man got the job done timely and inexpensively, and he was cool with it.
When it comes down to it, when you lock yourself into one technology, you lock youself out of the best solution.
? I'm all for open source, but I don't see apache when I did a GET by hand:
/index.html HTTP/1.0
Trying 205.181.112.65...
Connected to www.zdnet.com.
Escape character is '^]'.
GET
HTTP/1.1 302 Moved Temporarily
Server: Netscape-Enterprise/3.6 SP3
Date: Tue, 02 May 2000 13:07:01 GMT
Location: http://www.zdnet.com/
Content-length: 0
Content-type: text/html
Connection: close
Connection closed by foreign host.
Looks like Netscape to me...
I think it depends on the project. In some places Java speeds up the process of coding because so much is abstracted. And smalltalk can speed it up even more (although I'd use Java or C++ before Smalltalk), but don't waste your time with "Hello world!" and trivial stuff like that in Smalltalk...