Web

Blind Search Is Cool

August 9, 2009

in Tools,Web

Blind Search is one of my favorite new toys. It lets you search for something on Google, Bing and Yahoo simultaneously, and lines up the results in three columns. The catch? It doesn’t tell you which search engine each column of search results comes from — rather, it asks you which results you think are the best. I’m pretty sure the results are going to surprise you.

One thing is for sure; whenever I turn out voting for Bing, they’ll gain significantly more of my respect than when they tried to turn me over with a $1.15 meal and a ten grand hidden treasure, especially since the guy behind Blind Search works for Microsoft. It’s too bad that the site isn’t officially endorsed by the company — what better way to win over users and market your product than to empirically demonstrate its prowess?

The Internet Explorer 8 Ad Campaign Gives Me Pimples

July 7, 2009

in Web

Aye-aye!

Usually, my nightmares are about flamingly red-eyed minotaurs and axe-wielding aye-aye’s, or a bastard combination of the two. Right now, they’re about Microsoft’s Internet Explorer 8 ad campaign.

“Why?”, you ask — “That’s most peculiar. Surely, no marketing can be that troubling!”. Please, humor me, and take a brief look at this empirical comparison of today’s most popular browsers:

Internet Explorer 8 Comparison ChartChart Copyright © 2009 Microsoft Corporation. Original page.

Even though the check marks are oddly reassuring, I’m sorry Microsoft; the cake you are taking is a lie. That comparison is a grave offense to anyone who has ever used one of the listed alternatives to Internet Explorer, even if only for a few minutes. It’s perfectly okay for a sales pitch to exaggerate a little for greater impact — most people expect it. However, when your points of argument are this abstract and you’re still unable to present a single, true fact, something is off.

But okay — let’s be reasonable. This isn’t the only way Microsoft is winning back Firefox, Chrome and Safari converts, and convincing its existing user base to stay. Here are some other compelling reasons to run Microsoft’s latest and greatest browser:

  • Download IE8, Feed The Hungry — Microsoft donates 8 meals to the hungry per download. The small print states that each download constitutes $1.15. All I want to know is where the guys at Microsoft get their cheeseburgers and curly fries.
  • Use IE8, Find Ten Grand — Guess what. Microsoft buried $10,000 somewhere on the internet, and only Internet Explorer 8 is impressive enough to find them!
  • Download IE8, Get a Nickelback MP3 — This one confuses me a little. I’m not a marketing wiz, but I’m pretty sure that “download X, get Y” campaigns are supposed to be rewarding to the user, too.

I was going to write a small paragraph here, questioning the thinking behind this, but then it occured to me that as long as the target isn’t the computer-savvy demographic (which it clearly isn’t), this probably works — perhaps even pretty well.

A lot of cool things have come out of Microsoft lately, like the ECMA C# and CLI standards and Microsoft Surface. I respect Bing for managing to stand up against Google, too. This ad campaign, however, goes in the proverbial basket with Vista and Millenium.

Subscribe to my RSS feed immediately and:

  • put an end to all suffering in the world ✓
  • score yourself a spot in my will ✓
  • make food obsolete ✓

It’s no wonder this website is one of the world’s highest ranked and supremely most visited. It simply secures the cake ✓

The check mark symbol makes for an excellent replacement of the period ✓

Update: For a slightly more constructive breakdown of the comparison chart, see Busting IE8′s Mythbusting.

Twouble with Twitters: SuperNews!

April 12, 2009

in Fun,Web

“It seems like twittering is just randomly bragging about your unexceptional life”. Brilliant comedy clip. Twitter users beware, this may sadden you.

Sick Of Your Slow Internet Connection? OpenDNS Solves!

November 1, 2006

in Web

There’s a wide variety of things that will limit your online experience, a pretty common problem is simply lack of download and upload bandwidth, or hogging of same – but there’s another thing: DNS latency. OpenDNS, a service run by the founder of EveryDNS, might be just what you need.

Every time you want to access sites via their hostmasks, e.g. ‘www.google.com’ or ‘www.diggdot.us’, rather than their actual ‘names’ (IP addresses), e.g. 64.233.187.99, 64.71.156.11 – a query is sent to your DNS server asking, “What is Google.com?” – and it’s surprising how much slower the page load time can become because of that initial query, regardless of what connection you might have. Some ISP DNS servers have very poor respond times, ultimately leading to slower browsing, but fortunately there’s a free alternative.

If you use OpenDNS, you let their dedicated servers in various locations respond to your DNS requests instead of your ISP, and there’s a good chance they’ll respond a hell of a lot faster.

OpenDNS Cache

If you’re having applications hang with the indication that they’re looking for some host, e.g. Firefox saying “Looking for www.google.com…”, you should really try this out.

Other bonuses include automatic spelling correction, e.g. www.craigslist.og will take you to the .org site – Their server also blocks DNS requests to known phishing sites so your credit card information won’t be stolen.

Try changing your DNS server settings on either your computer or router to the following IP addresses (the OpenDNS servers) and check if it has a positive effect – you don’t need a login, specific operating system or anything like so, it works everywhere:

  • 208.67.222.222
  • 208.67.220.220

You might be surprised.

For more information, visit www.opendns.com.

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