Krispy's Rants

While Google may not call it the long anticipated next move to a contextual and fully connected Web…according to the Google Inside Search Blog the day of a faster, smarter and more relevant Web is here thanks to the Search Giant. Google is calling the evolution of their Search “Knowledge Graph” and from the reports I have seen…it is really interesting.

I have been amazed not just by the growth of the Web and the ability of things to rapidly connect the dots with people, places and things, the future connections will be made by the Google Bots that now read the web more like a Human than ever before.  The image above is a visual representation of the Web Connections that exist today.  But what is this Semantic Web of which Krispy speaks?

The Semantic Web provides a set of technologies for formally defining the context of information. Just as the Web relies on a standard formal specification for “marking up” information with formatting codes that enable any applications to understand those codes to format the information in the same way, the Semantic Web relies on new standards for “marking up” information with statements about its context — its meaning — that enable any applications to understand, and reason about, the meaning of those statements in the same way.

I also look to Google’s implementation of the Knowledge Graph as more than a way to do “Searches” it is a way for we as a culture to better connect with information.  There has always been a science behind doing effective Searches regardless of what search engine you prefer and the Knowledge Graph starts us down a path towards removing some of the limitations that come from the common user not knowing the secrets of search.

There are three main goals behind the Knowledge Graph

1. Find the Right Thing: There is nothing worse than having to make your way to page 10 to locate the relevance and desired “connection” that had you do the search in the first place.  The Knowledge Graph will intuitively connect you to the more relevant  options that you entered into he search bar.
2. Get the Best Summary: Seeing what the site is before you click the link is a wonderful thing.  Since this wonderful feature was instituted I thing that Google has extended the life of my left mouse button by at least 2 or 3 years!
3. Go Deeper and Broader:  For Search Junkies like me…the ability to peal back layers and either narrow my focus or expand the reach of my search is a great opportunity.

The future of search is in good hands, I know that for me making a switch to the Bing’s, Yahoo’s and Ask’s was never really an option…but Knowledge Graph sealed the deal for me and is an impressive next step!

Cheers,

Chris J Powell

I once again had my decision to support and love all things Linux validated last night as I was trying to help a friend with his Microsoft Windows XP Machine get the 7 year old machine back up and usable.  I had been working on it part time for about a week.  The hard drive had just stopped being friendly to the installation of Windows that he had on there.  The beast had never been tampered with, updated or modified in anyway as the warranty sticker was still intact.

I had to use every trick in the book to recover the history of his young family (all the pictures and videos, tax files etc were still living on the hard drive).  Because of the depth of the corruption on the drive I had no choice but to format the entire drive wiping out the restore partition and doing a full destructive reinstall.  I knew that the Windows OS on the machine was legit and I did have a copy of the Retail version of the same version kicking around from the days of yester year that I still used Windows.

The install and recovery of the images and videos went smoothly but then out of the blue I started getting activation errors when I tried to get him updated with the latest patches.  Because this was not my computer and had all the right documentation I decided to do the right thing and activate the copy of Windows with Microsoft over the phone.  First attempt with the “Activation Team” left me wanting more as they told me that there was a miss match of the Product Key and the Installation and I would need to call the Windows Support Team…ok fine…I can accept that…different type of support but they didn’t open until after I had been at work for a few hours so I waited until  I got home from work.

This is when the deep seated resentment for all things Microsoft set in.  When I called the support team, the IVR recognized my request for Windows XP support as a request for Windows 8 Support…wow that is a stretch but I get through to an agent, apologized for the queuing error and describe my issue.

We go through reading the 10,000 numeral Installation Code and then the Product Key and the agent tries to politely tell me that he is unable to help me for reasons I still fail to understand.  You see the product key is unique to the install media and while the Product Key from the back of the computer is valid there is nothing he can do for me as it does not match the version that was installed.  I explained the situation with the Hard Drive that made it impossible to install from the media that was provided by the OEM (in this case eMachines) because of the hard drive issues.  Unrepentant the agent gave a half hearted apology stating that to prevent piracy, Microsoft instituted this factor!

I was completely taken aback.  To prevent piracy you made it impossible to upgrade the drives on an OEM machine that is nearly 7 years old?  The genius advises me to go to eMachines for support…which while I have him on the line I jump over to their site and see just how much replacement media would cost…and guess what:

So now I am stuck between a rock ad a hard place.  I am not allowed to update the installation to a legitimate level because of features supposedly built into the Windows XP system, I can not order new media to ensure that I am compliant with the license for the OS and the maker of the OS is jerking me around.

The agent was empathetic and supportive, I guess but he really was without a clue and was out of his depths when I made some pretty bold statements retorting his earlier claim that they had done this to prevent Piracy…I had to tell him that it would have taken me far less time to install an Activation Crack then it took to fart around with Microsoft Support only to be told they can not help and that I would have to call the OEM who in turn is pushing back to Microsoft to support the product.

As always I am so glad that I made the transition to Linux all those years ago.  I truly do hate everything that begins and ends with Microsoft.

Well it was good to vent…I will not say what the end result of the series of conversations with Microsoft actually resulted in but somewhere there is going to be a training call used of some guy in Canada Ranting about how the practices of Microsoft not only promote Piracy but also validate the decision for anyone with half a brain to walk away and choose an alternative…and yes Davin…even Macs can be included.

Cheers,

Chris J Powell

Well I must say after talking yesterday about Nuclear reactors, diving in to look at the latest feature of Google Docs seems well pedestrian.  But the reality is, the new Research Sidebar is simply awesome.  At its core is a direct connect to the full weight of Google’s Search Engine…all within the document that you are working on.

As reported by Ars Technica you no longer have to Alt  + Tab to head over to a Browser Window you can do your searches from within the document, pull images, quotes, etc directly from relevant web portals.  This is a good thing considering the number of schools and businesses that have embraced the world of Google Docs.

I am going to give the new feature a full run for its money over the next week and will try using it as my primary Blogging platform.  While messing around with the settings I did try to leverage the power of continual connection by opening up the same document on my iPad and did notice one very severe weakness.  The Desktop version of Google Docs utterly fails on the iPad and there fore the Research Sidebar does not function.  That is too bad because I had high hopes for a one view world!

Over and over the error:

https//docs.google.com

This error has been reported to Google and we’ll look into it as soon as possible.  Please reload the page to continue.

And over and over the error would return.  I get that every feature will not be 100% compatible with every device but if there is any case to be made for not relying on a Cloud Solution for your Business Productivity needs this might just be more key than just the file format issues that “may” occur.  While I still think that this new feature is the Bee’s Knees and Cat’s Meow, I was hoping to be able to leverage it from my iPad and see if it was possible to further unchain myself from the Desktop and start to move in the direction of this “Post PC Era” that we are entering into.

I guess that will just have to wait for a while…the 15 error messages sent to Google this morning should alert them to the fact that there is a problem with my using one of their free services and that should get them to put 15-20 Engineers on the problem and have a solution by the end of the day right…oh yeah…reality sets in.  Solutions are now not part of the equation.  I have to wait for features to be added, bugs to be squashed and I don’t even have a 1-800 to call for support.

Ok…back to the drawing board…and I will patiently wait for Mother Google to update their mobile version.

Well that is it for me.

Have a cheery day…I get to start mine with a splitting headache…guess the storm they were calling for is coming faster than they anticipated.  I do love being a walking barometer!

Cheers,

Chris J Powell