Yahoo’s Search Pad is a Win for Me

In an attempt to steal market share from search engine giant Google and fend off up-and-coming rival Microsoft Bing, Yahoo launched its new Search Pad feature last night. Search Pad watches your searches and determines whether it’s random or part of a research project. Six or more searches on a similar topic tells Yahoo you are doing research. It automatically saves the links, thumbnails and summaries of the pages you’ve searched to the Search Pad, where you can add comments, or cut and paste text as well. Then you can save, print, or share your research with others via Facebook or Twitter. It is touted as easier to use than the old Microsoft WordPad or Google Notebook, where you have to manually copy and paste URLs and content.

Users in the U.S., Canada, Mexico, Australia, New Zealand, Singapore, Malaysia, Philippines, the United Kingdom, France, Spain, Italy, Germany, Brazil, Mexico and Argentina all now have access to the Search Pad feature.

Being in marketing, I frequently do research on the web, so I decided to give Search Pad a test drive. I searched, conveniently, “Yahoo Search Pad.” I gathered my info on the pad, added some verbiage I had copied, and opted to save. I did have to take an extra step and sign up for a Yahoo account, but all-in-all it was simple and helpful.

I actually think I’ll use Yahoo more frequently now, especially because you can also cut and paste information you gathered through other search engines (and Yahoo looks up the URL and adds it for you).

This move might actually help Yahoo gain some more market share, at least until Google, Explorer, and Bing follow suit.

-Erika Moskal





WBS Connect

Firefox 3.5 Beta Catches Up

While Firefox has had some features most browsers snub, including its library of add-on third party applications, it finally caught up with many of the features in the recently unleashed Safari 4 with the Firefox 3.5 update. In fact, most features have been available in Safari for years. Give Mozilla credit, however, for upping the ante with a couple of items Safari lacks. Here’s the rundown:

Private Browsing
While enabled, no history of your surfing whereabouts is left behind in the browser.

Firefox: New. But Firefox has the ability to forget a single site after it has been visited when the user has not turned on Private Browsing.
Safari: First seen in 2005 with the release of Mac OS 10.4 Tiger.

Tab Drag-Out
Tabs have been around in most browsers for the last couple of years, but now some have implemented the ability to drag a tab out of a window to create a new browser window.

Firefox: New
Safari: Implemented in 2007, though the implementation was much improved this year with Safari 4 when tabs were moved from the very top of the window to below the bookmarks bar.

HTML 5 Web Standard
This new media support is not used by many web developers yet, but once developers start implementing HTML 5, they’ll be creating media- rich sites that won’t require you to download additional plug-ins.

Firefox: New
Safari: Added in March of 2008 with the release of version 3.1.
Improved in Safari 4.

Speed
This can be looked at in many different ways. Some folks are touting Firefox 3.5 outperforms Safari 4 by tenths of a second in javascript performance. Apple’s website says javascript performance in Safari 4 blazes past Firefox, though they only include numbers from Firefox

3.5 beta for Windows.
Firefox: Speed-demon
Safari: Blazing fast

Session Restore
If you lose power or quit the browser, it picks up where you left off, even to the last word you may have been typing on a web page.

Firefox: Added in 2006 with version 2.0, and improved in version 3.5.
Safari: No comparable feature.

Firefox 3.5 also has a nifty clear recent history option, and though all browsers have this, Firefox allows you to pinpoint a time range to clear, down to the very last hour of browsing, and includes checkboxes for history, downloads, cache and login info so you can choose what you want to clear. Safari 4 added an eye-catching Top Sites feature that lets you see a panoramic of your most frequently added websites.

All-in-all, we can be thankful both Mozilla and Apple are pushing the peanut forward in web browsing. Whether you’re on a Mac or PC, you have two great browsers to choose from, and you can even choose both if you desire. In either case, you’ll be browsing in style and you’ll be one step closer to speeding through the web of the future.

Lindsay Giachetti


WBS Connect

Thankful to be an American

I read an eye-opening article on Forbes.com, "Broadband Big Brothers." It included a slide show, “The world’s most net-repressive countries.” It’s shocking to me that so many in the world are so forcefully sheltered. Information from Reporters Without Borders and the OpenNet Initiative (a consortium of universities that performs in-country testing on Internet filters), was used to compile a list of countries that exert tremendous control over on-line information.

Here are the highlights…er, make that lowlights:

1. Iran: They block more than 10 million "immoral" sites, including pornographic, homosexual-related and even most about dating in general. "Insults to religion" are said to carry the death penalty.
2. China. The "Great Firewall of China" blocks users from any site carrying political references that they consider taboo (i.e. independence for Taiwan or Tibet). Their 137 million web users don’t really have free speech.
3. Tunisia. All their cyber cafes are monitored by the government. They even employ administrators to police all browsing activity.
4. Myanmar. They keep a tight rein on the Internet, banning all political and social content they see as controversial. Screenshots of web activity are taken every few minutes in their cyber cafes. It is reported that the Internet is only available for a few hours each day, and a mere 1% of citizens have Internet access at home.
5. Saudi Arabia. Islamic values are strictly enforced. All sites dealing with gambling, nudity, drugs, or dating are a no-no. However, international media is often available, particularly on non-Arabic sites.
6. Syria. Banned are all extremist Muslim sites, political opposition sites, Kurdish minority sites, and all Israeli sites.
7. Uzbekistan. Although their law forbids censorship, they are adamant about controlling information around sensitive topics. One such topic is a massacre in Andijan in 2005 where Islamic extremists were said to have killed 173 civilians.
8. Unranked: North Korea and China. They are unranked because OpenNet Initiatives has not been able to perform testing there. North Korea basically prevents their network from connecting with the outside world. They have their own intranet with its own search engine and email program. Cuba has harsh laws around Internet usage. Illegal Internet and counter-revolutionary activity mean imprisonment. In addition, Internet connections are very costly. An hour of connectivity costs as much as half the average person’s monthly pay.



Erika Moskal

King of Pop’s Death Spurs Web Woes

There’s nothing like the death of a famous (and at times infamous) icon to test the web. His passing caused a wave of slow service and even outages on popular web sites.

Outages were suffered by Twitter, the LA Times, AOL Instant Messenger, TMZ (who first reported of his death), even Perez Hilton’s blog site (gasp!). Giant Google felt the hit too. The number of Jackson-related searches caused the search engine to think it was under attack. Users had to enter a captcha in order to proceed. Wikipedia closed off edits to the MJ entry as hundreds rushed to put their 2 cents in.
According to PC World, the LA Times reported almost 2.3 million views in one hour. CNN got a staggering 20 million views. BTW, that’s more than the population of the entire state of New York.

According to CNET “Keynote Systems, a company that tracks site performance, is reporting that a review of more than 30 online news services the firm covers, shows that availability on average fell from 100 percent to 86 percent. The average time it took to access the home pages of top media sites jumped from 4.2 seconds to 8.9 seconds.” In this time of speedy connections, almost nine seconds would seem like an eternity. I’m not sure I’d even wait.

I heard about the untimely death of the superstar at around 5pm. I admit I was one of those millions trying to confirm the rumor online. Even after seeing it on several different web sites, it didn’t really sink in until I saw it on TV. I guess I needed to see it and hear it from an old fashioned source (old habits die hard).

I guess the “ah ha” about all this for me is that it makes us really look at the capacity of the Internet. If the passing of Michael Jackson can have this kind of impact… just imagine.

Erika Moskal




CNET

Snow Leopard Exchange Support – New from Apple

Still scared of taking your Mac to work? Apple announced on Monday the incorporation of Microsoft Exchange support in their latest OS iteration, Snow Leopard. This means, if you’d like, you can access your Exchange email right alongside your personal email in Apple’s Mail application. The same goes for your calendars and contacts. Not only do you get your content in the standard OS applications, your mail folders, contact groups, and events are there too. Any changes you make update your account on the Exchange server seamlessly.

How easy is this? Don’t bother calling your IT department to walk you through setting everything up, because once you type in your email and password in Mail, your Mac does everything else, seamlessly integrating all of your Exchange data with your Mac apps.

Are you using a PC and thinking about making the switch? Snow Leopard comes out in September and will be included on all new Macs. If you already have a Mac and want to upgrade, you’ll only have to throw down $29. Not bad considering Microsoft Exchange support isn’t included with Microsoft Windows.

Apple has more information about the new Exchange support in Snow Leopard as well as other information that might give you even more reason to take your Mac to work.

Lindsay Giachetti

Apple Plans to Build Data Center in North Carolina

CIO.com reports that Apple Computers has chosen North Carolina as the home for their new $1 billion dollar data center. Apple plans to build out their new data center to full capacity over a course of 9 years and has not yet revealed what the exact location of the new data center or its intended purpose. In comparison, the typical capital spend by Google or Microsoft for their large data centers that house and power their cloud computing platforms is $500 to $600 million. This may reveal a long-term strategy from Apple, perhaps on expanding/evolving the MobileMe service or bringing to bear their own set of SaaS or streaming applications.
North Carolina passed specific legislation that gives tax incentives to corporate income taxes that are calculated for extremely large capital-extensive operations. Conveniently, a week after that legislation passed, Apple had received a signed bill that gives them ~$46 million in tax breaks over a course of 10 years. One of the stipulations for the tax breaks is that they must build in an economically depressed county to provide a sort of local stimulus. The North Carolina Department of Commerce states that Apple will create more than 3,000 jobs in the region with their $1 Billion investment.

A quiet and bold move for Apple and with almost everything major they do mum is the word. Apple does not make these large moves without a very good reason and the net is already a buzz with speculation on what it will be used for. I can guess what ever it is, their next major products or services will more than likely be fueled by this large infrastructure investment.

Danny Kim

‘Big Brother’ is alive and well in China

The Associated Press reported this morning that as of July 1st, China is requiring all domestically-sold PCs to carry new site-blocking software. “Green Dam – Youth Escort” software will block pornographic content and can also be programmed to block other sites…whatever parents deem appropriate. China already blocks political web content that challenges communism or promotes democratic reform.
In a May 19th notice to PC-makers, the Chinese Ministry of Industry and Information Technology stated that educators "should fully realize the damage that harmful online information does to the physical and mental health of primary and secondary school students." Hmmm, is this where the “youth escort” part of the name comes in? By blocking Internet content the Chinese youth will sail through their formative years unscathed?
The interesting part to me is that consumers will be able to uninstall the software if they wish. What’s the difference between this and any other parental control software? Maybe it’s because they want to require that the PCs be shipped with the Green Dam pre-installed. Action is required to remove it. Will they include instructions on how to uninstall the software? And will they keep track of who has removed it?
John Palfrey, an Internet censorship expert at Harvard University, described the latest requirements as "a potential game changer in the story of Internet control," by moving China's "Great Firewall" closer to the user, where censorship can be more effective.

Check out this photo from the official “Green Dam Youth Escort” site.






















According to a Circle ID site, it depicts children sitting at their computers, being shielded by a screen labeled "Green Dam Youth Escort green web surfing filtering software," held up by arms labeled "government" and "finance." The nasty looking black blobs say "harmful website" and "harmful information."


Erika Moskall

Intel and Wind River, The Future of Mobile Platforms?

In an effort to buffer themselves from large market fluctuations in the PC and server markets, Intel has purchased Wind River Systems, which specializes in embedded systems. The AP reports that this bold move by Intel is a nod to the rapidly evolving mobile platforms.

Although the systems chip manufacturing portion of Intel's business is extremely lucrative with an 80 percent share of the market it is prone to fluctuations in the fiercely competitive PC and server area. Moving to increase their portfolio and diversify their products with the recent acquisition signals a move to tighter integration between their hardware and embedded software.

Intel is an ambitious company that history shows is very keen on expanding into strategic markets that can leverage their engineering prowess. Some past acquisitions have been peppered with failures (telecom chips) but that has not stopped them from taking bold actions despite the economy. If they manage to pull off a well-integrated platform that can work with several of the major mobile operating systems and create something that can be in many form factors they will have a winner.

Video – Is it really the future as John Chambers says? Yes, but when?

At the recent Cisco Partner Summit, Cisco Chairman and CEO said the future was all about video in his keynote address. He references the recent Cisco acquisition of Pure Digital Technologies, the maker of the flip video camera, as a big win for them in the video arena.
He went on to predict that within the next few years, 90% of all network traffic will be around video. I think this is a stretch, a big one. Maybe for giants like Cisco this seems realistic, but for the rest of us, it’s going to take longer. Many firms are worried about the economy, and trying to simply keep the doors open for business. Sure, video conferencing and the like can cut down on travel related expenses and increase efficiency (no lost productivity during travel), but the price tag for truly effective video solutions is a huge barrier to overcome.
True telepresence video conferencing systems, which is what I think needs to be deployed to truly replace an in-person meeting, run from around $50 thousand to the hundreds of thousands of dollars. This seems a luxury not many companies can afford in this economy.
I do believe we’ll see a dramatic increase in the more consumer-based video products, like the flip video camera, video calling over IP, and web collaboration that incorporates video. But I think the true coming of video as a standard business communication tool won’t happen until we see a dramatic drop in price for telepresence solutions.


Erika Moskal

Microsoft’s Bing: Bravo or Blech?

Microsoft made available their new search engine “decision engine” Bing today, two days earlier than expected. As I browse the popular tech news sites one thing is clear to me…nothing is clear. While still in its infancy, some folks like it and some don’t (gee!) BTW, word has it Microsoft chose the name in hopes it will become “verbed” as in “I googled binged it.” Here are some interesting observations and opinions about Bing.

TechNews World: The article title, “First Impressions: Blah-da Bing” summed it up, no likey. But specifics noted were; “its travel section doesn't top Yahoo's; its shopping section features rather bland products; and its page arrangement is inconsistent.”






ZDNet: Larry Dignan had a nice first impression of Bing calling it quick, with a clean interface, and producing handy searches. Chris Dawson had another take. “Bing is simply a spiffed-up of Google with Microsoft tools like Expedia and Encarta working in the background.” And an even stronger negative ZDNet reaction came from Zack Wittaker who called the Bing name stupid, the front page cluttered, and said it offered nothing new. He also said people just want to search, meaning get rid of the “interesting” facts Bing incorporates into its graphics when moused over. By the way, I happened to think those facts were interesting when I test drove the preview site.

CNet: Rafe Needleman called Bing much better than expected, touting in particular the search presentation, and the video searching.

PC World: David Coursey basically says, “So what?” He called Bing “strikingly Google-like” and pointed out that nothing impressed him searchwise.

Only time will tell whether Bing has a real shot at challenging Google. I plan to try some searching on Bing and form my own humble opinion.





Erika Moskal

WBS Connect