March 11, 2004

Gunning for Google Below the Radar

Stefanie Olsen of CNET News.com pulls together a good overview of the start-ups targeting Google’s dominance.

Some quotes from the article:

“…Google also faces Lilliputian threats from a fast-growing group of start-ups that hope to replicate its own meteoric rise from unknown upstart to Internet powerbroker….

At the top of the list are companies like Quigo and Industry Brains that aim to improve on search engine advertising techniques. A second group, including Mooter, Eurekster and Dipsie, are advancing ways for people to get personalized query results, something that both Google and Yahoo also are hoping to perfect. Others are developing search tools tailored to specific localities as well as visualization features to assist in better targeting search results around specific topics.”

March 10, 2004

WinMyth: MythTV Front End for Windows

I’ve got to try WinMyth on my Laptop. It’s simply a .Net-based Windows front end for MythTV.

And now with spring approaching, we can watch our Stevo outside!

However, I suppose I could simply re-boot with KnoppMyth, but since I run XP as my primary OS on my laptop, I’m hoping it will be simpler with WinMyth.

Note: WinMyth requires the dsMyth, which contains the DirectShow filters that enables playback of MythTV .nuv files on windows. (Also very cool!)

March 9, 2004

Personal Search Synergies

After the excitement of the last week, I’m finally catching up on work and subsequently blogging.

In particular last night I had a few minutes to check out one of the latest Desktop/Personal Search applications.

Specifically, Lookout Soft’s email search add-on for Outlook, which seems like a great tool.

In limited tests I found Lookout’s search accurate and fast (once the initial indexing was completed). In general I think Lookout and similar products such as X1 are immensely useful.

March 3, 2004

Nathaniel Delett Hatch

The last few days have been an amazing series of sleepless nights filled with dirty diapers and emotional highs that I suppose can best be appreciated as the right of passage for parenting.

On that note, please join Catherine and me in welcoming our son Nathaniel Delett Hatch to the world!

Mother and son are doing well. Pinto is very happy with his new pack member.

Update: More pictures here, with a RSS feed of course

February 26, 2004

Thumbnails and Archives

Another new search engine player ZapMeta, which has page thumbnails as well direct links to older versions of a link via the Internet Archive’s Wayback Machine

February 25, 2004

MythTV Mailing List Archive with RSS Feeds

I was just looking for an RSS feed for the mythtv-users mailing list and I stumbled across David Jeske post regarding an “experimental archive browse/search software” that he co-developed with Brandon Long.

In addition to search and threaded views of posts, their tool also includes RSS feeds in many flavors … although the feeds only include summaries and there’s no Atom feed yet, but suffice it to say, I like this trend.

February 25, 2004

Death of the Password

CNET has an article that highlights some of Mr. Gates’ comments during a speech at the RSA Security conference held this week in SF.

In particular, the following comment, which we’ve heard before with the hype around Smart Cards, but hopefully the obvious end to passwords will come to fruition sooner this time than later (this time).

“Bill Gates predicted the demise of the traditional password because it cannot “meet the challenge” of keeping critical information secure.”

February 24, 2004

Local News and RSS Feeds

Perhaps I’m late to mention this because I missed the local news feature the first time I looked at Topix, but thanks to Tim Bray’s recent comments, I took another look at Topix’s beta targeted news service and to my delight they also have a RSS “feed for every ZIP code in the US, a feed for every public company, a feed for every sports team, a feed for every movie star, band and musician…and more” (via Rich Skrenta Blog)

February 23, 2004

Microsoft tests InfoPath update

Via CNET I just read that today Microsoft released an update for InfoPath

“Microsoft released a trial version Monday of its first major update to InfoPath, the new electronic forms application released last year as part of the Office family.”

“The beta version of Service Pack 1 (SP1) includes several significant new features, said Microsoft product manager Bobby Moore, along with the typical performance enhancements and bug fixes included in a service pack…”

February 20, 2004

Live Linux CDs

I’m constantly amazed at the influx of customized bootable Linux CDs (aka Live Linux)

For example, check out some of the distributions on this list

The distro’s geared toward kids and education are starting to look particularly interesting to me these days.