September 2006

Google’s Personalized Search

by Andy Brudtkuhl on September 25, 2006

I stumbled upon this today. I have not read anything about it so it may be one of those Google launches that affects certain users. Also to note it only appears in my Firefox browser.

It tracks your search history and saves the links you have clicked on according to the query used. It’s a great feature addition. You can filter by Web, Images, News, Froogle, Video, Music. You can also star items which adds them to your Google Bookmarks account (which I don’t use). The service also keeps track of your own personal trends, ie what you search for the most and “other interesting tidbits” (from google).

If you have access to this feature and are currently logged into your Google account, click here to view your search history.

Or, look up in the top right of your Google screen where your account functionality is and you will see a link called ‘Search History’.

I think this is a great value-added feature for Google to implement. It’s still not the prettiest thing but it will definitely create a better search experience.

I’ve been meaning to drop Google for about a week and try my luck using other search engines. I haven’t brought myself to that point but expect a comparison soon. (I’m primarily interested in Ask)

technorati tags:, , , , ,

{ 0 comments }

Business Week Best of the Web vs Me

by Andy Brudtkuhl on September 25, 2006

Best Blog:
BW – Tech Crunch
Me – Lifehacker

General News:
BW – Google News
Me – New York Times

Health:
BW – SparkPeople
Me – n/a

Podcasts:
BW – Ask A Ninja
Me – Buzz Out Loud – CNET

Sports:
BW – ESPN
Me – ESPN (horribly designed though)

Tech News:
BW – Digg
Me – TechMeme

Business News:
BW – Yahoo! Finance
Me – Business Week

Buying & Selling:
BW – Become
Me – Amazon

Finance:
BW – Yahoo! Finance
Me – Market Watch

Jobs:
BW – SimplyHired
Me – SimplyHired

Real Estate:
BW – Trulia
Me – Zillow

Games:
BW – Shockwave
Me – I have an XBOX 360

Gossip:
BW – Gawker
Me – ValleyWag

Humor:
BW – The Onion
Me – You Tube

Music:
BW – iTunes
Me – Last FM

Social Networking:
BW – Bebo
Me – LinkedIn

Trip Planning:
BW – Kayak
Me – I don’t don’t get to take vacations

Video:
BW – YouTube
Me – YouTube

Blogging Tools:
BW – WordPress
Me – WordPress

Calling:
BW – Skype
Me – Google Talk

Collaboration:
BW – Wikipedia
Me – BaseCamp

Photo Sharing:
BW – Flickr
Me – Flickr

Web Mail:
BW – Gmail
Me – Gmail

Read

technorati tags:, , , ,

{ 2 comments }

USBCells are cool

by Andy Brudtkuhl on September 21, 2006

USBCells are standard-sized AA batteries whose heads flip open to reveal a USB plug; plug them into your PC and they’ll recharge off the USB port. I already use USB chargers for my phone and music player and GPS when I’m on the road — this completes the picture. I wish that every rechargeable device came with a USB recharge point!

Boing Boing: AA batteries with built-in USB charging-plugs

http://www.usbcell.com/

technorati tags:,

{ 0 comments }

Getting Ready for 3.0

by Andy Brudtkuhl on September 20, 2006

I stumbled upon the Wikipedia entry for Web 3.0 yesterday, which I am sure will evolve over time. But I thought I would compare it to my definition from March (which I am sure will evolve over time).

Wikipedia:

“Web 3.0 is a term that has been coined to describe the Semantic Web which aims to “organize the world’s information” using a declarative ontological language such as OWL [1].”

Me:

“In my mind this ‘Web 3.0? model applies to … the extension of the software as a service model into the software as a platform model.”

Or you could read Zeldman’s take from January.

technorati tags:, , ,

{ 0 comments }

Album artwork Widget

by tjmapes on September 14, 2006

With the release of iTunes7, you can now get all your album artwork downloaded automatically…but it does have its fallbacks. Basically, it doesn’t get everything correct. So if you need a little artwork sidekick always there for you… go grab the Amazon Album Art widget over at apple.com. You just select the album’s songs in iTunes, and flip to the dashboard, search to your album and click ‘set as album artwork in iTunes’. All done!

{ 1 comment }