Category: technology

Ben Hammersley uses a piece in The Guardian to kick off the end of the media's love-in with Google. Have Google done anything wrong? No. On the other hand Yahoo! have certainly turned things around quite dramatically and compared to MSN's continuously dismal efforts they seem to be getting value for money with their investments in search.

There is a sense of inevitability to this Google backlash. Having ridden the hype curve Google had to come down. Yahoo! have been there, done that and now they are quietly delivering… rather well it seems.

What is important to note is that from everything I can see Yahoo! and Google are fundamentally different companies. Ignoring the search, context-sensitive advertising and two Os in their name and what do I see? Google is focussed on providing simple, easy, powerful access to other people's data. Yahoo! is still hell bent on producing and delivering content. As we read all those years ago, Yahoo! really do want to be a media company. Google is a tech company through and through.

So why is Yahoo! piling dollars into better search? Without a decent search it can't keep drawing consumers in front of its content, adverts and dating services. Google, relax – let Yahoo! do their thing we still love you.

UPDATE: Google fights back with Google Gulp!

UPDATE 2: John Naughton doubts Hammersley's logic…

In exactly the same vein of a column I recently completed for LinuxUser, Wired magazine's editor Chris Anderson has put together an excellent post on why the TV business is in for a big change. Let's face it, the more we get used to downloading music etc the more not being able to watch video content when we want is going to grate. The technology (BitTorrent) is here – gimme gimme gimme!

Google News now how sports some interesting customisation features built in Dynamic HTML. Not only can you rearrange where blocks of news appear on your page but you can also add your own keyword driven news sections. Very interesting… It's My Yahoo all over again, but not, if you know what I mean!

On MacOS X we have a number of relatively new interface widgets which are proving quite interesting. One is the drawer with many have strong feelings over. I have to admit that at first the idea did nothing for me, especially when seeing it implemented in Apple's Mail program.

However now that I'm working most of the time on a dual screen setup they're really beginning to make sense. My usual working arrangement is one 15″ Powerbook on an iCurve and one 20″ Cinema Display. With so much screen space I rarely have any application's window filling one screen as I was accustomed to doing on smaller screens in days gone by. With help from Expose I tend to have piles of windows open at the same time.

Palettes don't work so well in that kind of setup. On a single small screen they're inevitably squashed next to the relevant document window. On large or multi-screen systems the palette can be left a long way from the relevant window. Drawers on the other hand are elegantly attached to the appropriate window, quickly hidden if needed. Much better when there's lots of screen real-estate. Unfortunately when I'm back on the move again with just the single laptop screen drawers feel a little cluttered and inefficient if I have several windows open.

Below I've got two screen shots. First is a drawer attached to a Pages document showing the various formatting styles. Second is the Word 2004 document with the formatting palette showing the various available styles. This palette is mutli-purpose, it shows styles for whichever document is active but it's a separate window unto itself. If I shift my document onto another screen the palette doesn't move. It gets confusing and slow… your mouse has to travel a loooong way to click something on the palette.

A few thoughts on Pages

Apple call Pages 'a word processor with incredible style' but it sure doesn't feel like a word processor to me. From my usage so far, and I'm by no means a Pages guru yet, Pages fills the easy desktop publishing gap left by Pagemaker (or the likes of Serif PagePlus on the PC). Word is horrible for layout but it's a solid tool for the wordsmith. Managing revisions and integration with referencing tools is all solid in Word. Pages is not really built to integrate with third-party tools (developers tell me that it's barely scriptable). The included templates are also a little underwhelming but it's just a beautiful simple app to lay a brochure, newsletter or invitation in. It's Keynote and Omnigraffle for paper documents.

Seeing as it was inevitable that I would upgrade my much-loved copy of Keynote then Pages is effectively a free tool that comes in the same box. I like even more when I put it that way!

If you don't feel that QuickSilver is polished enough for you then you'll be pleased to know that LaunchBar 4.0.1 is out. It's well documented, reliable and incredibly useful. After years of use I find myself hitting command-space on every computer I sit in front – much to my frustration, especially on PCs!

Last night I attended Communities on the Move an NMK event looking at how the mobile Internet will change online communities. Chaired by the IPPR's ever-thoughtful Will Davies discussion roamed wide and far.

Interesting nuggets:

• The mobile Internet is developing 'backwards' with commercial content coming first and free stuff coming later – totally opposite to the 'wired' Internet.

• Todd Tran noted how people are very price insensitive with ring tones and other mobile purchases. They will often buy a ring tone or movie clip for

It's a relief to finally hear that there will be wifi on Brighton to London trains and stations along the way. It's been a very long time coming – being stuck at Victoria station without wifi has been feeling increasingly weird considering the wonders one can get at other train stations let alone airports, cafes, universities, hotels etc.

In fact I think I may have unintentionally beta-tested this a while back. I was doing something or other with my Powerbook just as we pulled into East Croydon station. I noticed that I hadn't turned Airport off which can be a battery drain. Just as I clicked the menu I noticed a wireless network. Curiosity led to me connecting and it worked – free wifi! Something to remember next time I'm stuck in East Croydon, I thought. Imagine my astonishment when the connection held strong as we pulled out of the station all the way to Victoria. I was so gobsmacked I mentioned it to a few colleagues none of whom had any such luck and neither have I since that day.

Unfortunately it will be a T-Mobile paid-for deal when it goes live properly. Which is ok except that T-Mobile charge their phone subscribers more per 15 minute unit than ordinary credit card users – doesn't seem right at all.

43 Things is a pretty neat webite – it's a collaborative life goal setting tool. It's hard to explain so go play. The wonderfully named Robot Co-op built it with the help of the folks at 37 Signals who make the wonderful Basecamp. All well and good… then it emerged that, according to Salon, the Amazon refugees who had started the Robot Co-op were actually funded by Amazon.com. This is a bit like how A9.com came into the world but even more subtle. Robot Co-op have responded in their blog claiming the Amazon investment came late in the day. Who knows but it's very interesting what Amazon is up to. Their main site has stagnated design-wise but their other investments are blossoming. What are they up to?

Two people I met today were bemoaning their new mobile phones. Both had moved from Nokia phones but one had stuck with Nokia while the other was on Sony Ericsson. Their troubles stemmed from new user interfaces which they were struggling to cope with. What really struck me was that both noted how the 'old Nokia' phones were much better. Nokia isn't really losing marketshare because other phones are so much better… it's because their phones are so different now – there's no real benefit in sticking with Nokia as the phones work differently from your old one. If you want to upgrade to the latest technologies the other phones look better and often are technologically slightly better. The market is wide open for someone to establish an easy, memorable and long-lived interface which will grow as phones do.

In other news Google have released their astonishing Maps service (in Beta of course). What's so incredible is not that they've left off the rest of the world but the whole thing is HTML/Javascript based and darn usable! Goodbye Java applets, imagemaps and other such cruft – hello fast and easy maps – you can even drag the map around with your mouse. Extraordinary.

Finally I've been dealing with an urge to buy a computer game. It's been ages since I last played a game.Coming off watching 24's third season on DVD my trigger finger feels itchy. Is their some subliminal programming going on?!? I really dig the Tom Clancy-inspired games such as Rainbow Six, Ghost Recon and Splinter Cell (which I haven't played yet). I don't have time to play games but the temptation is there… I can't believe that there isn't a game version of 24 – a realtime game would be brilliant fun to play (with a pause and save option obviously!) I am in the Mac time warp of games so options are limited so perhaps 24 – the game, is in production. Well Splinter Cell it probably is then…

UPDATE: BoingBoing pointed me to an excellent analysis of how Google Maps works

It's strange but I just got off the phone with the third person in as many weeks who couldn't open a PDF file from me but Word documents were ok. What kind of strange world is it when Word documents are more compatible than Portable Document Format files are?!?

Am I missing something? Are corporate IT people preventing PDF readers from being installed? When one lives in a MacOS X world PDFs just work everywhere, I guess I've been spoilt.