Techknow

No more Blogger

2005-04-10T01:12:00.000+05:30

I’ve got myself a shiny new WordPress blog. Read more about that here. All the posts here have been exported to the new blog. This blog will still remain, but, I won’t be posting here anymore.

See you there!!

Spell with Flickr

2005-03-30T23:56:00.000+05:30

Here is a really cool use of the online photo sharing service Flickr. Enter any word and have it displayed as randomly picked photos. A number of innovative uses of the vast collection of photos on Flickr are popping up these days. Amaztype is another.
No wonder Yahoo! recently bought it.

Update - There are many more user created Flickr hacks. Find a list of them at The Great Flickr Tools Collection.

Tags – flickr, yahoo

Indian portals and innovation

2005-03-14T00:54:00.000+05:30

Rajesh Jain mentions the lack of innovation in the Indian portal scene in a post about IndiaWorld, supposedly India’s first portal (frankly, I hadn’t even heard of it). I think he has hit the nail on the head when he says, “we've stagnated in terms of innovation”. But innovation apart, right now I think they should concentrate on just giving the people who visit their site a good experience. Especially Indiatimes, one of India’s largest portals, which seems to me, is a page full of annoying flash ads with some news bits and details of its other services thrown in as an afterthought. But wait, Indiatimes has been extremely innovative when it comes to advertising. This slashdot post mentions that the hugely annoying ‘floaters’ are becoming more prevalent on the web these days. But, Indiatimes has had these from as long as I can remember. These ads that block the main site itself, with frame rates that put the latest computer games to shame, are so annoying that I’m sure not a single visitor would want them. Indiatimes is not the only offending site, Rediff, India’s other big portal is equally (in)considerate when it comes to their users. To be fair, Rediff is a tiny bit better. Blake Ross, one of the guys responsible for Firefox, captures the futility of such exercises perfectly in this post. I can understand that the portals need to make money and the users can’t expect an ad free site with good content. But, aren’t there other ways to achieve this, without annoying the hell out of the very people who turn to them for a variety of services (hint, hint).

Maybe it’s good news then, that Yahoo is planning to invest in Indiatimes. A change in culture is definitely in order. Or maybe not, considering that Yahoo is also irritating-flash-ad-happy on many of its sites. Maybe it is the similarity of their ideas in bugging their users that is bringing them together. To be honest, I really don’t care right now about all the brilliant technical innovations that these guys can come up with. If they do, great, but till then, give me a usable site that I want to come back to. Users on the net usually don’t have much say in how big portals like these work. But, we do have one more thing….choice. Google News beats them hollow when it comes to news aggregation, I no longer use their mail and I don’t shop online anyway. So, not even the semi-sleazy pictures will take me back to Indiatimes. The browser I use is good enough to fend off the worst that is thrown at me, but, that’s only till the next ‘innovation’ in advertising technology, so, I’d rather get used to something else.

Tags – indiatimes, rediff, portal, yahoo

Internet Explorer will finally get tabs

2005-03-10T21:44:00.000+05:30

The Office Weblog points to a WinSuperSite preview of IE 7. Apparently, it’s confirmed that IE 7 is going to have tabs. Big news, but not unexpected. I can’t even imagine that Microsoft would release IE 7 without a feature as critical as tabs, given that every competitor’s biggest selling point is the ability to browse with tabs. What would really be news is if IE 7 had an integrated RSS reader, something like Onfolio and not live bookmarks in Firefox. IE has a lot of catching up to do in terms of features and some which I feel *have* to be included are those like mouse gestures, a good bookmarking system, an intelligent password management system, ad blocking and basic ones like a search box. These are the bare minimum as other browsers are already there. Also, Microsoft specific features like better integration with Outlook can definitely be an advantage over the competition. I’m sure MS will look to tie in their own services like MSN Search with IE 7 and that is one area where other browsers will always have an upper hand, unlimited flexibility for the user. I really hope MS proves me wrong, but I seriously doubt it.

The IEBlog has more information, but nothing very specific.

Tags – microsoft, ie, browser

Finally, something from Google is out of beta!

2005-03-08T00:11:00.000+05:30

Looks like the brutal competition in the desktop search space has forced Google to bring it’s application out of beta in a break of tradition. New features include the obvious suspects, support for PDF, and a wider variety of mail clients and browsers. There’s also support for multimedia files (audio, video and images) which can be searched for using their meta data. For all the remaining two hundred odd file types that GDS does not support when compared to Yahoo! desktop search and X1, they’ve provided an SDK, so that it’s users will come up with plugins. Very smart, considering that they’ve already covered the file types used by a majority of the market. If there really is any demand for other file types, plugins to add support are bound to come out from it’s user base. There are already some plugins available, and the Any text indexer could be quite useful.

I’ve installed GDS in it’s latest avatar as it now supports Maxthon. I’ll be using it mainly to search through my history. The excellent capability of GDS to search through web history is what is going to make life tough for services like Filangy. That’s because if you can install a toolbar as required by Filangy, instead, you might as well install GDS and enjoy the better experience.

Another reason I’m going to use GDS is because of the floating deskbar. It’s a little search bar which doesn’t hog space on the taskbar, and can be conveniently placed anywhere on the desktop. Also, the integration of desktop search results with web results, which wasn’t working earlier with Maxthon is something that should be very useful.

The next feature I’m looking forward to is the integration of Gmail with GDS. Gmail with an offline mode, searchable through GDS would be heaven for e-mailing.

Tags – google, search, desktopsearch

Copernic's Desktop Search v1.5 Beta

2005-03-07T00:34:00.000+05:30

Copernic recently released a beta version of their Desktop Search v1.5. The list of new features is pretty long. One new feature that really stands out for me is the button that allows jumping from one keyword occurrence to the next in the preview pane. This can be an extremely useful feature when searching through large documents. It’s great that Copernic is actively listening to its users and is implementing features that are being requested/demanded by them. One bug I noticed in this beta version is that the icons for PDF and HTML files are incorrectly displayed in the file list pane. But, mainly for the reasons I mentioned in my desktop search comparison, i.e the speed of the searches and excellent preview, I’ll be sticking to Yahoo! desktop search for the time being. I search through a lot of PDF’s and powerpoint presentations at work and the preview of PPT’s has still not improved in CDS, and it’s quite slow with large PDF’s. Copernic is coming out with feature packed updates more often than their competitors, and I just might be forced to switch when the next version comes out.

Tags – copernic, search, desktopsearch

Google weather

2005-03-06T23:59:00.000+05:30

Google has added weather forecasts to their growing list of services. The weird thing is, it’s only available for US locations. Google Maps being US only is understandable. But, weather information from all around the world is already available on The Weather Channel. I wonder why they chose Wunderground, which is a US only service, as their source. Maybe it’s because they’re pitching it as a way to get weather info through the phone too (SMS), which isn’t available elsewhere. Still, a web only forecast shouldn’t have been a problem for other locations. As far as I know, The Weather Channel doesn’t charge anything for the data, as many browsers make use of extensions and sidebars which pull in data from there.

Tags – google, weather

Intelligent design? Not exactly

2005-02-22T23:26:00.000+05:30

Recently, I had posted about the ongoing debate about evolution and intelligent design. Today, I read an excellent article in The NYT Magazine which pretty much rips apart the idea of intelligent design by explaining with examples why the design of living creatures is not exactly intelligent.

In mammals, for instance, the recurrent laryngeal nerve does not go directly from the cranium to the larynx, the way any competent engineer would have arranged it. Instead, it extends down the neck to the chest, loops around a lung ligament and then runs back up the neck to the larynx. In a giraffe, that means a 20-foot length of nerve where 1 foot would have done. If this is evidence of design, it would seem to be of the unintelligent variety.

Another interesting thing I learnt from this article is the emergence of a hybrid solution to the perceived problem. It proposes that intelligent design was responsible for the creation of cells that later evolved into more complicated life forms. Like I said earlier, it looks like this debate won’t end soon.

Tags – evolution, id

Filangy - Personalized search

2005-02-20T20:49:00.000+05:30

In the already overcrowded search engine space, Filangy is a new player which offers ‘personalized search’. What this means is that, apart from the plain old web search, Filangy also allows users to search through only the pages they have viewed. This is done with the help of a browser toolbar. Such a feature appealed to me immediately and I had to try it out as soon as I read about it. But, as of now it’s only available by invitation. Maybe they are hoping that a Gmail type viral marketing effort through invitations will bring in more users in the long run. Anyway, I gave them my e-mail address, and got an invitation after some time. I’ve been using it for a few weeks now, and, I have to say it’s pretty handy.

The toolbars are available for both IE and Firefox. As Maxthon isn’t supported, I’ve been trying it out on Firefox. Once the toolbar (extension in the case of Firefox) has been installed, it has to be authorised, so that the username is mapped to the toolbar. As I browse, the toolbar looks at the URL and sends it to Filangy. If at some point of time I want to go back and look at something again, then all I have to do is enter my search term in the toolbar and that’s it. When the search is through the toolbar, Filangy does a normal web search by default. A direct ‘WebCache’ search requires some extra mouse clicks. Not a big deal. The results tell me exactly which pages I had browsed through had the term I’m searching for. One irritant is that the time taken for the pages I’ve visited to be reflected in my searches is totally unpredictable. The pages would have already been indexed, and assigning the content of those pages to my account shouldn’t take too long. But, Filangy is a Nutch based search engine and it must still be undergoing a lot of development and tweaking. If the pages I visit are available to be searched in a few minutes at the most, every time, it would be great. WebMarks is another useful feature that allows users to bookmark any page when they are browsing. All those bookmarks can be accessed from anywhere later.

Privacy is obviously a big concern with such a service and Filangy seems to have taken all precautions in this regard. There is alway a risk involved in shared computers though. The pages browsed by all users could be indexed and searched through later. But, this can be prevented by using the option to pause indexing for a specified period of time. Also, only the total number of indexed pages can be seen and there is no way to look at a list of all the indexed URL’s.

Although this a useful service at present which caters to a niche, I feel Filangy in its present avatar will find it difficult to find many users. That’s because Google desktop search is all that is needed to provide the same functionality, i.e, searching through visited pages. And, del.icio.us does a much better job than ‘WebMarks’ as a online bookmark manager. The only thing going for them right now is that users can access a history of pages that they have visited from any computer. Google could easily do something similar with their toolbar, and if it is integrated with Gmail and their desktop search, well, that’ll be bye, bye Filangy. But, to be fair to them, it is still in very early stages of development and more features are bound to be added soon.

Tags – filangy, search

New commenting system

2005-02-13T01:20:00.000+05:30

Blogger has finally improved the commenting system on its blogs. It was always a pain to comment without a Blogger account, or, without logging in if you had one. Now it’s much better. Anonymous commenting is no longer forced. A change of settings is required to enable the convenient pop-up window for comments. Another improvement I’d like to see is the pop-up window coming up directly from the main page, rather than requiring a second click from the permalink page of the post. An FAQ can be found here.

Much better than before though.

Tags – blogger, comments

E-mail as a database

2005-02-10T23:41:00.000+05:30

BBC Online has an article on how e-mail services are slowly becoming personal databases. Following Gmail, all the big players now provide huge mailboxes. This space, according to the article, is being used to store a variety of information and not just plain old text mail. With an abundance of space, people now use their mailboxes to store everything from photos, videos, documents etc. While the article looks at how the major service providers’ strengths of searching and targeted advertising are going to make them money, I was more interested in how they could extend this database concept beyond mail only.

With a Google VoIP service rumour doing the rounds, an idea on how they could integrate it with Gmail – If Google does start a internet telephony service, it could easily allow users of it’s VoIP service to use Gmail as the front end for that, and at the same time use it as a database to store call history, even record and store conversations if both parties agree. With WiFi networks and VoIP phones becoming popular, such a service could be integrated with an online database too.

Maybe a few years down the line that’s what we’ll see. Google would have taken over our internet experience. We access the web through Gbrowser, all communication, mail and voice, will also be through that interface. If bandwidth is sufficient, make Google a proxy server for our browsing and we’ll have the ultimate database. Our entire online experience in searchable format, instantly. Scary? Absolutely. But, hopefully Google will ‘do no evil’ with our trust.

Tags – bbc, database, gmail, google, voip

Thanks for nothing Sony

2005-02-06T18:02:00.000+05:30

Is Sony planning to dump products that failed in more advanced markets in India? Looks like they are, from the full page ads in magazines and huge billboards that I’ve seen in Bangalore (and most definitely in other cities too) advertising their Network Walkman. The thing is, the gizmo they’re advertising is based on technology rejected by bigger markets. The player they are mainly advertising, the NW-MS90D plays only songs encoded in their proprietary ATRAC3plus format. It does not play MP3, let alone WMA or OGG. So, I guess some software is provided to convert all our music to ATRAC3plus. Nowhere in the ad is this specified. Quite not as easy as “Connect, transfer & play” that Sony claims. It was only late last year that Sony began supporting MP3 playback on their players (walkmans?, walkmen?). Still, we privileged Indians get to buy the result of a mistake that Sony has accepted they’ve made in other markets. Engadget has chewed on Sony’s format support dilemma for quite some time now.

And what about the cost of these players? The most expensive one, with a capacity of 512 MB costs Rs 30,000, and the cheapest player with 128 MB memory costs Rs 14,000. No wonder nobody buys such devices in India. My Iriver player with 20 GB memory and a host of other features, costs less than Sony’s cheapest offering in India (OK, I had to slip that in). The issue of bad marketing decisions and their futility has been raised before too.

Surprisingly, the lower end models have MP3 playback support. I hope this kind of ‘maybe we can get away with it’ attitude of manufacturers never pays off. If someone can afford to pay many thousands to buy these players, they must also have access to the net, and one Google search is all it takes to expose such ‘unique’ products. Of course, everybody makes their own decisions as to what they want to buy, but, lack of information should never play a role in those decisions.

Tags – sony, india, atrac

Too many Gmail invites

2005-02-04T02:20:00.000+05:30

This is just useless. Gmail just gave me 50 invites. Yes, you read right….50. Useless to me because, everybody I know has a Gmail account, and if they don’t, it’s by choice. Maybe they don’t ever plan to go out of beta. Just keep giving present users invites and at some point everyone will have an account!

Tags – google, gmail, invite

Small things to change the world

2005-02-02T01:12:00.000+05:30

Scoble asks if small things can change the world and what those things could be. OK, I’ll take the bait. Considering the risk that it’s a thin line between things that could change the world and a boring list of feature requests, here are some small things I’d like to see from the companies/services I use –

Bloglines – There’s a ‘keep new’ feature in Bloglines that let’s me indicate which posts I want to read (again) later. These posts usually tend to be the ones that interest me and I think are worth reading in detail, or more than once too. Now, couldn’t there be a way in which Bloglines sees which posts I’m asking it to keep new, checks out the links in those posts, sees what the most popular tag for that link is on del.icio.us, and recommend similar posts? Make another feed for those recommendations and tell me who else is writing about and linking to stuff that interests me. All your users would then be exposed to many more blogs/sites on the net that they never knew existed, but would love to read. There already is a recommendation feature, based on the blogs I get the feeds for, but that isn’t too helpful.

del.icio.us – Add a ‘keep private’ feature to the links I’m adding. How difficult can that be? And no, it’s not for what you’re thinking.

Microsoft – This isn’t exactly a small thing. But, it could be if Microsoft wanted. Buy out Maxthon. There, I said it. Realise that there are a large number of people who can secure their PC’s well, thank you very much, and haven’t switched to Firefox only because it lacks some of the functionality that browsers like Maxthon provide. You might be coming out with a Firefox killer of your own with Longhorn, but do you really expect people to wait for two or three years for a new browser. Unless you plan to release a new browser before then, I’m sure Firefox would have caught up and millions of other people like me would have already switched. I know I can just continue using Maxthon, but in your hands it would mean further innovation and a better browser.

Tags – bloglines, del.icio.us, microsoft, change, maxthon, scoble

The $100 PC

2005-02-01T21:12:00.000+05:30

An article in Red Herring reports about an effort to manufacture a PC which costs $100, aimed at the developing market. The intention is to put these cheap and portable computers in the hands of millions of students in place of textbooks. While I can understand the desire to use technology to improve the quality of life, I don’t think this will ever work. The challenge in a developing country like India is getting the children into schools, let alone worrying about bridging the technology divide. I’m not saying that using technology to improve lives is unachievable in our country. It is very doable as my state Karnataka has shown with it’s Bhoomi initiative. But, aspiring to replace textbooks with computers is nothing but providing a solution to a problem that is yet to arise. Getting textbooks in students hands should be the primary focus. The disparity in economic status being as pronounced as it is in India, this plan might work within a segment, but will not address the problems of the vast majority.

Having upgraded my computer recently, and looking at the costs I have to agree with Om Malik when he says that $100 is just not achievable unless it is heavily subsidised. The article mentions that big companies like AMD, Samsung etc. have promised support. Of course they have, when the minimum size of the order that will be accepted for these $100 PC’s is one million. What will have to be seen is if the subsidy has to be provided by the governments, or by the companies also in the spirit of corporate social responsibility.

A better way of technology dissemination in India would be to follow Sam Pitroda’s PCO model. Community access to computers will serve the purpose better and be more successful.

Tags – pc, karnataka, india, bhoomi

New age radio

2005-01-30T18:27:00.000+05:30

Unbound Spiral has a how-to on creating a personal radio station using Skype. Really cool idea. It’s amazing how people are coming up with so many applications for Skype. It’s called the iPod radio, as an iPod is used as the source of the music in this case. But, as the how-to mentions, any device that can be connected to the line-in of a sound card can be used, a CD player, FM radio, anything. The only problem is that a separate sound card is needed to play music and talk on Skype simultaneously. Another problem is that an unlimited number of listeners cannot be supported, and the bandwidth required is an issue.

I think a more user and network friendly idea would be using a BitTorrent like system to do this, where all you have to do is select a playlist, create a .torrent file and seed it. If many users are listening in and everyone stores only the last few minutes of the broadcast and uploads it to whoever is joining in, a large number of users can be supported. This will definitely support better quality music too (in terms of bit rate only!). I wouldn’t be too surprised if software which enables this pops up in a few days…

Got to the Unbound Spiral through Conversations with Dina.

Tags – ipodradio, bittorent, radio

Linkblog and Blogroll

2005-01-28T23:53:00.000+05:30

I’ve created a linkblog on the online bookmarks manager del.icio.us (read that as delicious). It’s a simple system that allows the creation of a personal collection of links that you come across as you browse the web. Tagging of individual links makes searching much easier. It’s also interesting to see how many other people are adding the same links to their pages. So, I’ll just add links to my linkblog if I find them interesting. Instead of using the bookmarklet that del.icio.us provides to add the link, I’m using an excellent plugin for Maxthon, the browser I use. This is definitely better than mailing links to people, but in a kind of egoistic way, as people will have to come to my page to see the links now. But hey, it’s easier for me.

My linkblog is at http://del.icio.us/thejo

I also created a blogroll at Bloglines recently and have found it much more convenient to read all my favourite blogs compared to reading them off RSS feeds through my mail client. Though getting RSS feeds is what Bloglines does in a way, it’s all transparent to me. The biggest advantage is that I can access it from anywhere, as all it needs is a browser. Much easier to add new feeds too.

Blogroll is here – http://www.bloglines.com/public/thejo

Tags – linkblog, blogroll

Google might become a verb all over again

2005-01-26T23:03:00.000+05:30

Just when Skype is in the process of being identified by default with internet telephony, it looks like Google may ruin it for them. Speculation is that Google is planning to offer it’s own net based telephony service. The obvious connection with Google’s recent job posting looking for someone with experience in dealing with optic fibre that has been laid, but not in use, has already been made. While such a service makes sense from an advertising point of view for Google, where search results can have links to call centers of companies that can answer customer queries directly, I’m more interested in how they can integrate it with Gmail. It would be great if you could see an indication in the mail interface when the person whose mail you’re reading is online. One click and start talking. Considering the popularity of Gmail, I think a telephony service from Google will be equally successful. With broadband finally becoming a reality in India, we might soon be ‘Googling’ each other.

Also, looks like the Google browser rumours have started all over again. This time it’s because of the recruitment of Ben Goodger, lead programmer of Firefox.

Tags – google, skype, gbrowser

Will Indians really never buy iPods?

2005-01-23T23:08:00.000+05:30

Through GigaOm, I found a post on Youth Curry, the blog of Rashmi Bansal, editor of JAM magazine. This post was in response to an article in the Economic Times, about Indian youth. Though I don’t read JAM, I’ve always read her interesting articles in BusinessWorld about that all important demographic in India, the youth.

I couldn’t quite agree with some of the technology related points she makes in the response….

"Flashing their iPods?" iPods may be objects of curiosity - even desire - but at a price band of Rs 19-25,000 ($430-550) the Ipod is still a tech toy for Pajero puppies (rich kids) and celebs who need something to talk about in interviews. Although young India wants to buy into cool, it is unwilling to pay the kind of premium for it that's acceptable in other countries.

Recognising this, IPod is apparently releasing a 512 mb version called the "shuffle" for Rs 7000. But in my view, unless it adds on a phone capability (like the Palm has done in response to PDA enabled phones) most young people in India will go for Mp3 cellphones.

While I agree with her view that the iPod may be too expensive from an Indian perspective, what should be kept in mind is that the iPod is only a popular representative of a whole host of similar devices. What’s relevant is the willingness of the Indian youth to spend on the latest techno toys other than cellphones. The reason for the more muted usage of such devices is, I believe, not because of our hesitation to open up our wallets, but because of the reluctance shown by the manufacturers of these devices to properly introduce and market them in our country. This is true not only for the uber rich, but also the present middle class in India, which is seeing a sharp growth in its spending power thanks to a booming economy, with cities in the eye of the IT storm being prime examples of this phenomenon. The automobile industry has already shown us what simultaneous worldwide releases of their offerings can do, and I think the consumer electronics manufacturers will find out that a similar strategy will work for them. The point I’m trying to make is that the Indian youth is not averse to spending its money on products that can add some kind of value, to their lives, coolness factor, whatever. Maybe I shouldn’t generalise this to be the view of the ‘Indian youth’, as I don’t have any data to back it up, except for being a part of it myself and the evidence that I see around me.

Another point is that of young people going for cellphones with MP3 capability, rather than spending money on dedicated flash or hard disk based jukeboxes. This will no longer remain an issue, as India will once again follow its past pattern of skipping entire generations of technology and catching up with the world mid-way. The cellphone and devices like the iPod are on a path of convergence and soon cellphones with huge memory, in the form of hard disks will make any argument on the willingness of people choosing one device over another irrelevant.

PC or console gaming will not achieve the kind of widespread popularity with 10-20 year olds it has in other countries, given the continuing pressure on young Indians to perform academically. Mobile gaming has a brighter better future, being a personal device less prone to parental supervision.

The absence of widespread popularity of gaming in India is not because of the pressure on young Indians to perform academically, but, because of the abysmally low level of PC penetration in our country. I think it would be fair to assume that academically, the expectations from a student in a household without a computer would be the same as that on a student who has one. But, I will bet everything I have, which isn’t much, that the most popular activity on that computer will be gaming. It only takes access to a computer to get hooked onto the experience of playing a game on a computer which can never be matched by the ‘it’s better than nothing’ experience of playing on a mobile phone.

It would be nice, however, to see journalists and other experts go beyond the superficial level and get under the skin of the young Indian.

Totally agree with that one.

Tags - india

Picasa 2

2005-01-18T22:36:00.000+05:30

Google has released it's free image management software Picasa 2, today. This is an update to the version Google was providing after it acquired Picasa last year. Some innovative features from Gmail have been incorporated into Picasa in this new version. They include using labels to tag photos and adding a star rating to photos.

Other new features include, easy mailing of photos (using Gmail or the default mail client) and posting to Blogger blogs, password protection of collections, changing file information from inside Picasa, the ability to place a photo in more than one album, creation of collages and improved photo editing capabilities.

I've always loved the timeline feature of Picasa. Clicking on the 'timeline' button, shows all the photos in your collections in chronological order and makes picking one folder out of many much easier. Other well implemented features like selecting different regions of a photo being viewed in it's actual resolution, make this application a must have for effective photo management.

Go get it!

Tags - picasa, google

Evolution v/s Intelligent design

2005-01-15T20:55:00.000+05:30

Recently, Wired magazine featured an article about how the theory of evolution is under threat by a new theory called intelligent design. The argument made by the theory of intelligent design is that, modern biological life is far too complex to be explained by natural selection. There must have been an intelligent designer, who conceptualized all the complicated life forms we see around us, including human beings. Who was this designer? The supporters of intelligent design do not stick their neck out and say it’s God. That’s left to the creationists.

While creationism enters the realm of religion, intelligent design, though closely related to it, purports to be science, only to be classified as a pseudoscience by the supporters of the theory of evolution. This war, or rather crusade as Wired calls it, is being fought in the last place it should be, schools and classrooms. The debate is now to decide whether students should be exposed to both theories or not. Though this issue has reared it’s head in the United States now, it will eventually spill over to other countries where creationism has it’s share of supporters.

This controversial topic is now in the news again because of a ruling in the US against the placement of stickers in textbooks which said “Evolution is a theory, not a fact”.

When belief and religion enter the picture, the debate about any matter rages on for a long time, and I doubt if this issue will get resolved in the near future. But, some people I’ve met have kind of convinced me that we must have evolved from apes! So, for now I’ll stick with the theory of evolution.

Here is an excellent opinion on the sticker incident in the Seattle Times.

Tags - evolution, id, creationists

First images of Saturnian moon Titan's surface

2005-01-15T17:46:00.000+05:30

The Huygens probe has sent it’s first image of the surface of Titan, Saturn’s biggest moon. More images can be found at the ESA website. ESA had this to say about the above image –

This raw image was returned by the ESA Huygens DISR camera after the probe descended through the atmosphere of Titan. It shows the surface of Titan with ice blocks strewn around. The size and distance of the blocks will be determined when the image is properly processed.

The Cassini-Huygens mission to Saturn was launched way back in October 1997. It has reached saturn after taking a circuitous route by orbiting thrice around the sun in order to get the energy required for the long journey to Saturn through gravity assist.

Unlike the Mars Rover, Huygens will stay put, but still return a wealth of information using it’s onboard instruments.

The ESA website also has a few audio recordings made by the Huygens Atmospheric Structure Instrument. Not chart busters, but still very interesting.

Here are some other relevant links.

Guides to ripping and encoding music

2005-01-14T13:34:00.000+05:30

Ars Technica has an excellent and detailed guide to ripping and encoding music. They cover everything from a basic explanation of the different formats, bitrates, a brief history of the encoders, lossy and lossless encoding, tools that can be used to rip music and a how-to on the actual ripping process itself. More information on sampling frequency amd how it affects a ripped file would have been welcome.

One useful tool that they missed out is the dBpowerAmp Music Converter. It’s an easy to use tool, and is perfect for that first rip. The makers of dMC also have a guide on ripping.

With the growing popularity of MP3 players and digital music, music is definitely moving from CD’s to hard disks and so, it’s great that such guides help in understanding the process and ensuring the best quality.

Tags - rip, encode, guide

Desktop search comparison

2005-01-11T23:14:00.000+05:30

With Yahoo! releasing their desktop search tool, I thought it was time to take another good look at all the major desktop search tools. Here is my comparison:

Introduction -

Effective and easy access to information on a computer is a basic need. For long, this hasn't been an important issue due to the limited amount of information that could be stored on personal computers. But, with the ballooning size of hard disks and widespread use of digital devices that are generating tons of content, the demand for efficient methods to retrieve and search for this data is slowly growing and becoming more popular. This demand has grown big enough to attract the attention of the big players in the industry. As a result, what we now have is a glut of desktop search applications in the Windows environment, with many more expected, which are spoiling consumers for choice and making the entire experience of using a personal computer less frustrating. In this comparison I'll examine the different desktop search applications and recommend the one that provides the best overall experience.

To begin with, what does 'desktop search' mean? It's a little like having a search engine exclusively for your desktop. Just like searching the internet for information, desktop search allows searching of hard drives, at similar speeds. Yes, that's the interesting part. The first time a desktop search application is installed, it indexes the contents of your hard drive. Indexing is the process of reading through all supported file formats and storing that information in a way that can be quickly accessed when queried. This leads to extremely fast results, like in an online search engine. Indexing of the entire hard drive is a one time process, and as files are added, deleted or modified on the hard drive, these indexes are also updated. The advantage of this is that, one no longer needs to precisely remember the location of the thousands of files on a hard drive. Only a general idea about the file is sufficient. But, the index takes up some hard drive space. The space required depends on the amount of data present on the drive. But, this is usually not more than a few hundred megabytes in most cases and the resulting convenience is well worth the lost space. Compared to the soporific searches consumers had to endure at the hands of Windows' default search, this technology is a godsend. Actually, Windows XP has an indexing service which aims to do something similar, but, is badly implemented and is better left unused.

This comparison includes desktop search applications from Google, Copernic, Microsoft, Yahoo, blinkx and Filehand. This comparison is based on user interface, features, file format support, search results, resource utilization when running etc. Since Yahoo desktop search uses X1 technology, they are similar in many aspects and differ only in some features.

Installation and indexing -

While Google, Copernic and Filehand search were pretty small downloads, Yahoo and blinkx were larger than 6 MB. MSN desktop search is a small download by itself, by PDF file support requires an additional download from Adobe which is around 10 MB. The applications from Copernic and blinkx support Windows 98 onwards, but GDS, YDS, MSN desktop search and Filehand search only support Windows 2000 and XP. While the Google, Yahoo, MSN, Copernic and blinkx applications were free downloads, Filehand search is free but requires the user to register the product with a free registration key provided by them.

The installation of all the applications was pretty straightforward and there were no surprises.

After installation, each of them started their initial indexing. MSN desktop search, Filehand search and blinkx do not, by default index the entire hard drive. Changes have to be made in the application settings to ensure that the entire hard drive is indexed.

The time required for the initial indexing becomes important if the hard drive contains a very large amount of data. YDS took the least amount of time to index my hard drive and was extremely fast. This is impressive considering that YDS supports many more file formats than the other applications. More on file formats later. Copernic, Google, MSN and blinkx desktop searches took about the same time, but a little longer than YDS. Filehand search, though, took the longest; almost four times as long as YDS. The exact time taken by each application is not relevant as it depends on various factors such as the amount of data, the rotational speed of the hard disk, the speed of the processor etc. One gripe I have about MSN desktop search is that even though it indicated that indexing was complete, all I had to do was leave my computer idle for a few seconds, and it would pounce in and start indexing again. I don't know if these were efforts at incremental indexing or initial indexing itself.

If you are a user who keeps the computer on only when you are working, then you might want to leave it on for some time to let the desktop search application finish its indexing, as they index only when the computer isn't used for some time. This is to ensure that the system resources hungry process of indexing does not interfere with your normal work. Filehand search and YDS are exceptions to this. They index in fixed intervals, which can be defined by the user, or between a user specified period of time during the day. blinkx gives the user total control over the indexing, which is not the case with the other applications.

If the user tries to perform a search when the indexing is incomplete or in progress, then, the results are not comprehensive and do not include all the content on the hard drive.

User Interface -

Google desktop search -

Google desktop search (GDS) is the only application to use a browser as the interface with the user. All the other applications have their own dedicated applications. The interface is very similar to the Google web search interface. Using a browser as the interface has both pros and cons. The advantage is that Google can easily integrate search results from the web and the desktop. The disadvantage is that Google cannot leverage the inherent power of desktop applications, such as a preview of search results, instant results as the query is being typed etc.

The above image shows how GDS integrates search results from the web and desktop.

Copernic desktop search -

Copernic desktop search (CDS) has by far the best interface of the lot. It has a familiar e-mail client look to it and is very convenient and easy to use. The user can select what kind of file he wants to search for in the toolbar at the top. Searches can be refined to narrow down the results. The results can be instantly previewed in the 'Preview' pane. This is extremely convenient and saves the trouble of actually opening each result in its native application. Details of the selected result are also displayed.

blinkx -

blinkx has a well designed user interface, but sorely lacks a preview pane. As a saving grace, it does show a snippet of the document in a pop up box when the mouse hovers over it in the results list box, but, only the first few lines of the document and not the portion where the search term is.

blinkx provides a separate button for each of the different file types that it supports, so, searching among a particular file type takes one lesser step.

Filehand search -

The Filehand search UI is very simple, without any bells and whistles. All the important controls fall easily to hand. Advanced search options are available on clicking a button. Though there is no preview pane, Filehand search uses the web search engine trick of displaying a portion of the document where the search term is present.

MSN desktop search -

In typical Microsoft fashion, MSN desktop search is all eye candy and looks great. It consists of different toolbars for the desktop, IE and Outlook. In the desktop toolbar, a small window pops up providing instant feedback as a query is typed. Searches from Outlook and IE open in an application window, but, there is no preview pane. Only a small snippet of relevant text is displayed below the title/subject.

Yahoo desktop search -

YDS always displays all the files in the index. The search results are narrowed down as the user types the query. It has separate tabs to search for e-mail messages and also attachments that none of the applications have.

The UI of YDS is based on the version 5.0 beta of X1 and it is a huge improvement over X1's earlier version.

File format support -

The utility of any desktop search application lies in the number of different file formats that it can support. Obviously, the more the better.

All the applications support text, HTML, MS Word, Excel and Powerpoint, MS Outlook/Outlook Express and the popular music formats. Only Filehand search does not support image and video files. Corel Wordperfect files are also supported by YDS, CDS and Filehand search.

Only GDS does not support the all important PDF format. Considering the popularity of PDF and the number of documents the average user has, this is a glaring miss from Google. GDS redeems itself by being the only one to support searching of chat logs, but, supports only AOL instant messenger.

CDS is the only application in the comparison to support Firefox. With the rising popularity of Firefox, this will definitely be a plus for its users.

The winner in this department is YDS. It supports a whopping 225+ file formats which is impossible to list here. The only applications it does not support are chat tools and Firefox.

Features -

Here I'll highlight only the standout features of each application, the basic search functionality being the same in every application.

Google desktop search -

The results in GDS are listed in the familiar Google format. The number of search results for each file format is displayed on the top and the results can be narrowed down with a single click.

As mentioned earlier, Google's decision to stick with the browser pays off here, with a seamless integration of web and desktop searches. If GDS is installed, searching on the Google website will return results which include data on the desktop.

GDS also allows the display of search results sorted according to date or relevance as determined by the Google algorithms.

Supported file formats need to be opened in their native applications, but, chat logs, e-mail conversations and cached web pages can be opened in the browser itself. Also, GDS does not allow searching through attachments in mail.

By using the browser, GDS can't provide the instant feedback experience, but, using the recently unveiled 'Suggest' feature, they may make up for it by suggesting keywords from the index as the user types them.

The stand out feature of GDS is its ability to index the IE browser cache and history. Whether it is a security risk or not is for the user to decide. On single user computers this can be a very useful feature.

Copernic desktop search -

CDS puts a search bar in the Windows task bar which can be used to quickly access the application. This is pretty handy, but at the cost of some system resources. The preview pane is very useful, but, is not available for the multimedia content. It also has a few problems displaying Powerpoint files. Also, although CDS displays that portion of the file where the search term first occurs, subsequent occurrences will have to searched for manually. This is very inconvenient when documents have hundreds of pages. On contacting Copernic Support for a solution to this problem, the impressively swift reply was that the feature was still not implemented and it could be accomplished by using the Ctrl + F key combination.

Another nifty little feature of CDS is that every time it's indexing the drive the system tray icon changes to reflect it. While it doesn't seem to be very important, its value becomes apparent during day to day usage. Every time the application starts indexing it takes up a lot of system resources and the user can immediately see that CDS is the culprit. A small move of the mouse and CDS will quietly run back to its corner. But, with other applications it takes some time to realize the cause of the system slowdown.

blinkx -

The latest version of blinkx has a number of new innovative features. This version also indexes the metadata of JPEG images and MP3 files, a welcome inclusion since multimedia search shouldn't be confined to searching for just the filenames.

There is also something called SIS or 'Stuff I've seen'. Searching under this category allows the user to search only through what he has been looking at online.

The 'Smart folder' feature can be used to create folders which are topical and over time blinkx will add content to that folder from the web and local drive when it thinks that specific topics are similar to the ones in that folder.

Another new feature is the inclusion of the ability to search on peer to peer networks. blinkx uses the Gnutella protocol and searches can be performed and files downloaded directly from within the application. The user is forewarned that blinkx is not responsible for content downloaded from P2P networks. P2P networks being extremely dynamic in nature, file availability is never consistent.

blinkx also provides a way to search the web in a number of categories directly just with the click of a button. The default search engine is blinkx's own, but this can be changed to one that the user desires.

The blinkx toolbar appears on the title bar of the active window and based on the contents of that window provides the user links to related websites, blogs, products and other content on the local machine. The buttons on the toolbar are initially dim, but become coloured when relevant content is found.

The toolbar is supported for the Internet explorer, MS word. Blinkx claims MS Outlook is also supported, but did not work with Outlook 2003 on my computer.

Filehand search -

The best feature of Filehand is the small toolbar that appears above each search result when the mouse hovers over it. The most useful feature lacking in all the other applications is the ability to move from one search term to the next through the entire document. This prevents scrolling through the entire document looking for the search term. The amount of extract displayed can also be increased or decreased. Quick navigation to the beginning or end of the file, or even scrolling through it is possible.

Filehand search also indexes the metadata of MP3's, but does not support audio or video files. Searching through attachments in mail is also not supported.

Similar to GDS, Filehand search also provides relevance ranking.

MSN desktop search -

MSN desktop search tool's strength is its tight integration with Outlook. It can search through the Outlook calendar, tasks and notes. MS Onenote is supported too. Certain files can be modified to enable a large number of search shortcuts which can be quite handy. It does not search through the IE browser cache and history though.

Yahoo desktop search -

YDS gives extra importance to e-mail search and it works like a charm. A separate tab is provided to search through attachments. The one area where YDS beats the competition hollow is in the speed of its searches. Results are provided as the user is typing his query and is blazing fast. Although similar instant feedback systems are present in blinkx and CDS, they are nowhere as quick as YDS.

Another killer feature of YDS is it's ability to preview any file format in exactly the same way as it would appear in it's native application. Even multimedia files can be previewed within YDS itself! This file viewer support for all the formats it supports is really what sets YDS apart.

YDS does integrate online search, but, it's not integrated into the application like in CDS. YDS also provides a search tool bars for Outlook and the Windows taskbar.

Searches can also be saved to be used at a later date, a feature unique to YDS.

Search results -

All the applications provide a means to sort the search results according to the modified date, file type etc. but only GDS and Filehandle search use their own algorithms to determine which result is most likely to match the user query. The other applications simply display the matches from their database of keywords. So, the quality of searches is not an issue in the keyword matching applications and in the absence of a well constructed search query, relevance ranking is more of a hit or miss game.

Resource utilization -

Resource utilization is always an important factor to be considered in case of applications which always run in the background. Among the desktop search applications, Filehand search was the most frugal in this regard. It required just more than 1 MB. CDS, GDS and MSN desktop serach were within the 10 MB mark, and YDS needed around 20 MB, but, the biggest shock was blinkx, which needed more than 40 MB of precious RAM space. This is a price the user will have to pay for the many features that blinkx supports. Features like providing relevant search results constantly based on what the user is viewing is bound to be resources heavy. Blinkx is definitely not for someone who is already short of RAM.

Indexing is naturally resource hogging in all cases and is best scheduled for when the computer is idle. CDS, blinkx and GDS gain extra points here as they wait to see when the system isn't busy and finish their job.

Privacy -

With the growing popularity of desktop search applications, privacy fears were bound to arise. But, by taking some simple precautions everyone can enjoy the benefits of these wonderful productivity enhancers. YDS, CDS, blinkx and GDS do not support searching of network drives. MSN desktop search and Filehand search do, so, special attention has to be paid to their configuration on networks, to prevent the spread of confidential data.

On desktops, users can take simple precautions like turning off a desktop search application if they do not want their activities to be indexed for later retrieval, like on a public computer. Extra care can also be taken by specifying that folders with private information should not be indexed.

Google has been at the receiving end of allegations about how GDS can be used to breach a user's privacy. This is partly because GDS allows the caching and searching of browser history, especially secure web pages, the kind used in online banking, shopping etc. But, caching of secure pages can be disabled if the user wants to. Also, there are doubts that Google sends personal data to its servers to integrate web and local drive searches. This isn't true. GDS sits in between the user's computer and Google's servers. When the user enters a search query, the GDS application receives the web related results from Google, adds its own locally and displays both in the browser. No data ever leaves the user's computer.

And the winner is....

Google desktop search is a very good application that has a lot going for it. But, the lack of PDF support is something that can't be overlooked. Instant feedback during searches is also missed. Like some of the other applications, GDS is still in beta, and I'm sure it'll be hard to beat when it is ready.

Filehandle search is a minimalist and does the things it is designed to do extremely well. If I had to pick the best feature among all the applications, then it would have to be the ability to scroll to each occurrence in the results. But, it is too slow in its indexing and also takes up a lot of space for its index compared to the other applications. It also does not support searching of attachments in mail, photos or video, which is quite important. With digital cameras becoming as popular as they are, image search is a must.

MSN desktop search is a tool that works for the avid Outlook user. Though it has a polished feel to it, a preview pane is sorely missed. And, I think it will never support Mozilla applications! So, I'll give it a miss for now.

The sheer breadth of features offered by blinkx is unmatched. 'Smart folders' and SIS are extremely innovative features and indexing of JPEG and MP3 metadata is invaluable. If you can get over the lack of a preview pane and the enormous system requirements then, blinkx is definitely for you.

Copernic desktop search will always have many users simply because of its marvelous user interface. Everything falls easily to hand and the search bar is also very handy. It also supports most of the file formats normally used at home and all in all is an excellent all rounder. If you use Firefox then CDS is a must have as no other application supports it.

The application I will not be uninstalling at the end of this comparison though will be Yahoo desktop search. All the amazing features of X1 at no cost is nothing but a steal. For the vast majority of users who don't use Mozilla or Eudora and don't need to index remote drives, YDS fits the bill perfectly.

The future....

The desktop search space is really heating up. As I write this, Mamma.com, a search engine is in the process of acquiring Copernic. AOL has signed up to use Copernic technology in its desktop search application. Microsoft might as well use its monopoly with Windows and do another Netscape.

So, what can we expect from desktop search applications in the years to come? Well, I can only speculate.

Google is in a wonderful position to revolutionize search all over again. Right now, web search results only include content on public servers. But, with GDS, Google could give people the ability to search every hard drive on the planet with its application installed. Privacy and security will be an issue, but not something that can't be taken care of. Blinkx already has implemented a rudimentary form of this in its P2P component, but Google has the ability to make the whole process transparent to the user.

With the exploding popularity of digital content generation devices like still and video cameras, the ability to search through this content will become critical. Otherwise, it will be difficult to cope with the sheer amount of data that is present on our hard drives. Search utilities must be integrated with the already available technology of pattern matching in images and videos. The dream of on demand information at ones fingertips will truly be realized in the years to come and that need will have to be fulfilled on the desktop by these very applications.

Some applications that I did not include in this comparison are -

Ask Jeeves desktop search

HotBot Desktop

Note - All screenshots were obtained from the respective websites.

Tags - google, yahoo, msn, filehand, copernic, blinkx, desktopsearch, search

Workaround for attachment size limits

2005-01-09T22:20:00.000+05:30

Although e-mail service providers give us huge mailboxes, there is still a limit on the size of attachments, 10 MB to be precise on the popular free services. But, if you take into account the encodings necessary for the safe transport of attachments, the size limit ends up being 60–70% of the allowed size.

Sometimes, there is a need to send much bigger files, like a bunch of photos, movies etc. Dropload and YouSendIt allow this. Both are very simple to use and all one has to do is upload the files onto their servers, and an e-mail is sent to the specified addresses with a link to the file from where it can be downloaded. Both services keep the file on their servers for a week only.

Dropload requires free registration and allows you to specify only one recipient at a time. Resending the uploaded file to another recipient will cost a dollar. Also, the file can be downloaded from the server only once. Maximum file size allowed is 100 MB, but upto 1GB per account is allowed at a time.

YouSendIt doesn’t have any such restrictions. It doesn’t even ask for your e-mail id and allows you to specify multiple addresses at a time. It has no file size limit but there is a ceiling of 1 GB. YouSendIt does not prevent the user from downloading the same file more than once. It actually encourages the use of download managers for resuming downloads. Everything considered YouSendIt is a better service, but, maybe only till it is royally abused.

Sending huge files just got a whole lot easier.

Tags - yousendit, dropload