I'm Letting Microsoft Take Over My Android Phone

If one lives long enough, one can notice certain ironies.  I clearly remember waiting and hoping for an invitation to obtain a GMAIL account.  The invitations were slowly released and began an enormous integration of Google services.  At that point, I gave up my MS Hotmail email account and the use of Yahoo and Alta Vista for searches.

Once smartphones arrived, I stayed with Google's Android as it provided me with greater freedom of choice than the well-known alternative.

I did abandon my GMAIL account years back when I got sick of the constant privacy intrusion.  Step by step, I've been untangling myself from the chokehold of Google.

I've always heavily used customization to sport very unique phone icon screen configurations.  Google allowed that.  So today, it was relatively painless to ditch the native Pixel launcher altogether.  As I now only use Bing and its AI chatbot for searches, I started to hate the prominent Android search bar that would not allow alternate search engines.  This is the Microsoft launcher running on my Google phone.

I'm saying goodbye to another key part of the Google experience.  I know the company is working hard on Bard.  But they've already lost me and will have to successfully innovate to pry me back from more modern techniques, even if those seem to be coming from such an unlikely source as Microsoft.  The Richmond, WA company has clearly been on the uptake while Google's been sleeping.

Use My Tags

I have hundreds of photos from our most recent trip to get online. If I do a few a day, it's going to be a while before they're all uploaded to Flickr. Once in a while I wonder about all the effort required. My reservations evaporate if I take the time to visit my account though.

Now I've over 6,000 pictures at Flickr. In a physical sense that would be too many to organize. Yet, as each online photo can have searchable tags, finding a needle in a haystack is easy. When uploading, I always type in a few terms of what is in the image. Click below to enter a page with my most used Flickr tags. Or do a individual text search and see what you can turn up!


See my common Flickr tags.

Upside Down Computing

The title isn't meant to be taken literally; it is just a feeling about the situation I'm facing with this computer now.

For most of my LATN (Life After The Net), I used Microsoft's IE as my browser and Google for my searches. I am quite sure I sometimes change things up simply to prevent computer-induced boredom. I love that exhilarating feeling when encountering a new software concept. I really like it when I'm unsure how to accomplish a specific task and must dive into the underpinnings to figure out how specific software works. Alas, although evolution is continuous in this area, there are far fewer 'eureka moments' nowadays.


I've decided to make two recent changes though. Firstly, my browser experience has changed. Over the past year or so I used mostly Firefox as its updates came more quickly. Then, I started playing with Google's Chrome primarily on my netbook. I have become so seriously impressed at its speed that it has become the default browser on my main PC. Secondly, most of us have defaulted to using Google as our primary search engine. It sucked up and spit out much more of the web than any of its former rivals. Yet, since Microsoft introduced Bing, I've been spending a lot of time with it. Bing is now my default search because it provides the best initial results. I like the interface and summary features. There are still times, when I dig deeply into a Google search to find obscure links, but for general, everyday searching, now I'm Binging it.

My Internet browser is currently a Google product and I am relying on Microsoft for search results. This is why the world seems upside down.

The Search is Everything

I've been on the Net nearly since it's inception. It would never have become manageable without search engines. I honestly remember looking at books which were simply pages and pages of difficult URL listings. Even though there were only a fraction of today's active domain names, it was a pretty bulky and unintuitive way of finding information. Yahoo began similarly just moving resources located by humans into a database. Having the computer do the search seemed logical but rather a miracle at the time.

Additionally, I have had my own 'stuff' on the WWW for years and years. I find it interesting how the search results from today's three major engines differ. Okay, we all do it, so we may as well admit it. Nearly everyone sometimes searches for what comes up under their names. There's a fairly well-known person who shares my name. He's been involved in the submarine business for nearly twenty-five years. Sometimes, I come across information on that Dennis Hurd.

Generally, I do quite well on the search rankings though. I am tops on the three main engines. I have discovered there are some differences. If one is looking for real info about me, the newly renamed Microsoft Bing gives the best overall results. For example, it provides my main pages on Flickr and Facebook as well as my blog. Yahoo is hands-down the best when searching for images of me as it integrates Flickr. Even the majority of the photos that aren't of me are by me. Finally, Google is the best at producing the most complete historical records, even though it's a bit messy. It probably has the largest number of links to my name, although they may come up on pages quite far from the top rankings.

Gold in Them, Ther' Hills

Quick calculation shows the blog is now is its 216th week. As I have never missed a day, that means there are over 1,500 unique days of blog postings. Granted, some of the entries may lack any throught-proking concepts and, at other times, I've undoubtedly, repeated the exact same thoughts.

Regardless, it is time to mention that even if you've arrived for the first time today, over four years of my yacking doesn't have to be inaccessible. In fact, there's an entire page devoted to sussing out my previously written tidbits of wisdom. You can check by:

typing in a search term,

picking a label,

or choosing a specific week.

Click on the screen image above. Or you may even try adding a customized IE 7 search of my eJournal and images to your toolbar by reading this entry from last year.

There's More Than One Way ...

... to Skin a Cat?

Information is useless without a quick way to access it. Realizing this has become more important as I approach my fourth year of daily blog entries. My blog's archive vault holds all the words I've typed here since September 2003.



There are three ways in which to access old data. First, the most powerful way is to do a complete search. One simply types a word into the box and clicks a button. This will return pages that contain specific words. Secondly, it's possible to check the label categories which I've set up as a way to describe entries. This can point to general directions, but it may be difficult to locate specific material as these pages can grow quite large over time. The final way to see previous entries is to browse through week by week. This would not be a very efficient way of finding an exact entry, but you might well find some interesting things along the way. These three ways increase the value of old entries in this blog by making the information more accessible.

Life as Labels

Since the time I decided to use labels here, I've been playing with the concept as it relates to blogging. I'd tagged a lot with Flickr but the use of labels on blogger.com is surprisingly different.

In Flickr one uses tags to organize and pinpoint. Primarily, the use of tags can be for one's own use or for public searches. For example, a general, broad search can turn up all 33 of my pictures of London; whereas, I can quickly locate only two examples of the changing of the guards. In fact, the vast majority of my hundreds of tags point to a single photo.

On the other hand, blogger.com's labels are for self-initiated organization only. The emphasis is on general, self-described topics. Moreover, labels with a single entry are somewhat unnecessary. It took me a little experimentation to figure this out.

I have probably labeled only a quarter of the entries in my eJournal and images. Now I've come to a very sad realization though. I have discovered I spend a great majority of my time here discussing these three topics:

My Work (BCIT)

My Computer Use

My City (New Westminster).

Other data abounds but I really haven't got the labels all worked out yet. It may take a while ...

Tags, Labels, and Searches

Spring cleaning is probably good for the soul. Regardless of the season, it's liberating to get rid of extra junk. For example, I just threw a few bags of clothes into the back of the truck. The Salvation Army Thrift Shop wasn't open yesterday, so they're still sitting in the back. All those pants with a waist size of 42 are no longer in the closet. I need a reason to stick to dieting. As long as I was at it, I also decided to make a few formatting changes to this blog over the weekend. Some things were dropped while others just moved around.

I decided after years to finally embrace the tags. Actually, I guess blogger.com refers to them as labels. Although there's already specific ways to search this blog, labels do offer an additional way to view its data. Rather than a brute force search to turn up an appropriate page, identifiable labels pinpoint my own concepts on how to organize my eJournal and images, essentially a database of information.

The problem is, to be effective, labels need to be added to the older entries too. I shan't expect that is going to occur any time soon. Rather than focus on the previous 1,600 entries, I'll label all new ones. If you do want to see how tagging works with my Flickr picture collection, click the image below.

Search Me!

Even if you've not yet upgraded to Internet Explorer 7, it'll happen automatically through Windows Update this month. It may take you a while to get used to tabbed browsing but here's some added functionality you can install today.

The IE7 search bar defaults to MSN search but you can choose and install dozens of alternatives. Google will probably, at some point, attempt to gain control too. I'd like to suggest you add another important source of information. With over three years of entries, this blog can be a interesting resource. I bet you most likely wonder several times a day if Dennis has written about a particular subject. Now there's a method to quickly and easily find out.


HOW TO ADD THIS BLOG TO INTERNET EXPLORER 7 SEARCHES

1) Open the Microsoft search guide.

2) On the search guide, locate the form as shown to the right.

3) Proceed to cut and paste the following URL:

http://search.atomz.com/search/?sp-q=TEST&sp-a=sp1002b391&sp-p=all&sp-f=ISO-8859-1

4) Specify my eJournal and images as the name.

5) Click install.

Stupid Searches

Most visitors who stop at the blog on a normal day are not friends. The majority of those who read my entries arrive by Internet search.

I have a few different ways to access guest information, including the browser page prior to entry on this site. Therefore, it's easy to learn the exact search phrases that have pointed to my eJournal and images. I've learned that basically people have very poor search techniques. Here are some very recent examples:

Google > pictures of hiuen tsang
This person should have selected Google's image search tab and then typed "huien tsang". Quotes would've ensured those names occur together rather than on different parts of the page.

Google > In what state is the Grande Coolee Dam?
Most search engines like Google, ignore common words, so there's no need to form a question. It's just a waste of time. They could have just typed in "grand coolee dam" with the quotes and Google would've come back with the correct spelling. Of course, top-ranked sites are going to contain its location.

Google > pictures of what happened after the mohammed cartoons
This contains both types of errors. Potential researchers should also think of the best places to search. A general search engine isn't the best place to find current events. It'd be better to switch to Google News and search there. If one's searching for general purpose photos, it's smarter to go to a custom site such as www.flickr.com or www.webshots.com.

Oh yeah, there's something else I'd like these people to know. Both MSN and Yahoo have search engines which can return different results; however, they're generally as good as Google's. Give 'em a try too!

Some Year in the Future

Dennis: Hey, Hal.
Computer: Yes, Dennis?

Dennis: Delete that episode of CSI: Kissimmee. I'm finished and I'll never trust a guy dressed as an animal again!
Computer: Done. What can I do for you now?

Dennis: Hal, how about a personal network search?
Computer: Okay.

Dennis: Jay said I used to have a beard in the late 1990's. I want to view an image taken of me in that era. Try to find one of me when we were leaving after a free night at the Holiday Inn in Kelowna.
Computer: Found. I accessed it in your Flickr collection of 2006.

Dennis: Put it up on the wall screen.
Computer: Yes.

Dennis: It must have been originally on film. It was scanned with an old scanner, obviously. Can you enhance the image, please?
Computer: Enhancing ...

Dennis: Make my face a little less green.
Computer: Is that to your liking?

Dennis: That's better. What is the file format?
Computer: Standard jpg.

Dennis: Convert to .holo format. Just try moderate relief texturing.
Computer: Yes. Done.

Dennis: That's a good job. I'd almost swear it was taken with a 3-D camera.
Computer: Shall I save?

Dennis: Yes, Hal, but keep the original too. I really did have a lot of hair back then. Jay was right. Okay, Hal.
Computer: What can I do for you now?

Dennis: Let's try a Microsoft Connect 2023 vidcon to see how Jay's younger sister is doing.
Computer: Okay, connecting video conferencing to Sri Lanka. Proceed.

Dennis: Hi, what time is it there ...

Who's the Next Google?

I send apologies to friends who don't like reading about my views of technology.

First, God created Yahoo, (In reality, it was David Filo and Jerry Yang.) In the mid-1990's that site was a directory of web links compiled by hand. By 1997, I had moved to Alta Vista. Relatively soon after that, I stopped typing searches there and went to Google not because of its clean interface or 'coolness', I moved because it was simply better at providing a world of useful links. Google was able to comb through and index more of the Internet than any competitor. When we're looking for something, access to as much as possible is what matters most.

Unfortunately, when one's the king of the hill there's no place to go but downhill. Google's supremacy spawned an entire industry which tried to 'optimize' a site to rank well there. Google has had to respond by creating algorithms that weed out spam and underhanded methods to manipulate their results. Dealing with these concerns has eliminated their once, undisputed lead in searches. Now the company is simply too nervous and secretive to let people know they are throwing out a lot of babies with the bath water. This is too bad.

Here's some slightly-modified, recent correspondence:

---

ORIGINAL MESSAGE

To: Google Support
From: Dennis
Subject: pages in domain search but not indexed.
Date: Wed, 20 Apr 2005 14:24:09 -0000

I know you are busy with important details. I have tried to look around the net to find a reason for the following but have been unsuccessful.

I have a blog that presently contains around 90 weekly pages of information. At one time googlebots used to stop by daily and all pages were indexed. My blog section has a PR of 5.

Now, I find only about 10% of my site's pages can be found with snippets in a search of my domain. The majority appear there without title or text. Do you know what factors can lead to this?

Google Search: site:www.dennissylvesterhurd.com

Language: en
WebUserLocale: en
IssueType: other_webmaster

---

GOOGLE'S RESPONSE #1

Thank you for your note. The Google index contains two types of pages: fully indexed and partially indexed pages. Some of your pages are currently partially indexed. Because our robots were unable to completely review its content during our last crawl, your site appears without a cached copy or detailed title. Instead, it's listed by its URL.

We understand the frustration this situation may cause you. We're always working to increase the number of fully indexed pages in our index. You may be able to improve this page's visibility in our search results by ensuring that a number of high-quality sites link to it. While we can't guarantee that pages in our search results will always be fully indexed, "crawler-friendly" pages have a greater chance of being fully indexed. Guidelines for creating a "crawler-friendly" site are available at http://www.google.com/webmasters/guidelines.html

Regards,
The Google Team

---

MY NEXT MESSAGE

What a wonderfully quick response! I'm happy to hear back so quickly and completely. Further questions:

Your Paragraph 1 - (a) Am I correct in that the 'partially indexed' pages are not actually scanned and therefore information on them will not be returned on Google searches?

Your Paragraph 2 - Most traffic on my site goes to my blog, therefore most links go to www.DennisSylvesterHurd.com/blog/ . That index page has always been listed. Although with a PR of 5 it now only receives visits a few times per month. The 'partially indexed' pages are the archives. (b) Can 'partially indexed' pages stay that way forever?

(c) Could it be googlebots don't want to hit them because all the pages start with initial text and they're trying to avoid duplicates?

I'd love to hear your ideas on questions (a) (b) and (c) at your leisure.

==Dennis

---

GOOGLE'S RESPONSE #2

Hi Dennis,

Thank you for your reply. As you may know, we don't personally review individual sites, nor do we comment on webmaster techniques or the details of our search technology beyond what appears on our site.

We've dedicated an entire section of our site to answering the most common questions from those who maintain and/or promote websites. You'll find all of our publicly available information posted at http://www.google.com/webmasters/index.html

Besides this section of our site, we've created a newsgroup discussion forum for passionate Google users. At http://groups.google.com in the http://groups.google.com/groups?q=google.public.support.general group, many webmasters and Google users share their questions and expertise.

We recommend performing an advanced search on this group if you feel your question is particularly challenging and you've been unable to find an answer on our site. To do so, go to http://www.google.com/advanced_group_search?hl=en and enter your search terms in one of the "Find messages" fields at the top of the page. Type "google.public.support.general" in the "Newsgroup" search field, and click "Google Search." If you don't find an answer to your question, you can always post your question to the group to see if other newsgroup users have helpful advice. Please be aware that this content isn't posted by Google, and we cannot verify its accuracy.

Regards,
The Google Team

---

THE END

Thank you for copying this bit of standardized text from a template.

I guess what I was trying to politely say is something is broken at Google. Your "mightier than thou' attitude may not last forever. I see your company fast trying to use cash to expand into areas outside of search.

This is a good for two reason, I can immediately think of:

1) Yahoo and MSN completely index my site without forcing me to resort to any additional strategies. Eventually the average web user is going to figure out you're not the only game in town.

2) I remember when Alta Vista was king of the hill. We will love you dearly until the next best thing comes along.

Have a nice day.

Dennis

---

Google vs. Yahoo

Because Google is considered the search king, it's the target for those involved in site manipulation. Of course, there are advantages to being at the top of a search list. Keeping the bad guys at bay has Google constantly running to modify their algorithms.

I think they've got some serious trouble if my little site is any indication. As of this morning, I now get just 91 results for my eJournal and images on Google, but Yahoo returns a whopping 880. I think the gold is wearing thin on the king's crown.

Google / Yahoo Comparison: Results for This Blog

Smarter Searching

Over the last few days, hundred of guests have landed here via Google searches for facts on the earthquake and tsunami. I appreciate that people are searching for information about what is going on in the world. A normal search engine, however, is not the place to find late-breaking information.

If you are interested in reading the most recent data from current stories, it'd be better to visit a source like Google News. The page is updated a couple of times every hour and will point you towards a fantastic array of international media outlets. You can easily type in your search criteria from there.

There are also plenty of ways to keep up on what's happening in the blogging world by searching Technorati or Feedster.

(To get an idea of the various search terms that pointed people to this page, scroll down to the second section of this link. You'll find some tracking data for my eJournal and images there.)

Blog Writings: They're Searchable

Yesterday, I received a surprise message from an ex-colleague. In 1991, we worked together on the island of Bahrain in the Persian Gulf. Jeffrey is now in Texas.

It was a Google search for Hamala Beach that pointed him this way. In a previous entry, I had mentioned the place because Jay and I lived there. Originally, it was a camp for the construction company which built the Saudi-Bahrain Causeway. As mentioned earlier in this blog, this was one of three places rented during my 2.5 years of work for General Dynamics and the Bahrain Defense Force.

The prior entry, written yesterday, was waxing philosophically about the power of blogging. On that very day, an acquaintance who'd not been in contact for thirteen years was able to send me an email message. What more can I possibly add?

Searching for Fruit

I love our summertime diet when so many local fruits and vegetables hit the market. Blog readers from from far-away places, may not know that British Columbia's Okanagan region is famous for the production of apples, cherries, apricots, plums, grapes, pears, and peaches. This in turn, has led to a burgeoning wine industry too.


I also wanted to take this opporunity to state I've made a slight improvement in the search feature on this blog. The search link has always listed the pages containing the search item. Now, however, when a link is followed, the page should advance to the first appearance of the word. In testing, I wished to see the frequency of some vocabulary and I picked fruit. The number indicated after the type of fruit shows the number of pages that contain that reference:

 apple - 4
 apricot - 0
 banana - 1
 blueberry - 0
 cherry - 4
 lemon - 0
 orange - 1
 peach - 1
 strawberry - 1