Saturday, February 20, 2010

chacha.com, cuil.com, zillow.com

We where introduced to three web sites offering very different services, to very different degrees of usefulness.

chacha.com - Offers multitudes of answers to multitudes of subjects. They supposedly have college students providing the answers. It sounds a little gimmicky to me, though it is providing some employment opportunity. Sort of like ask.com (Ask Jeeves-like circa five years ago). Not really a new idea, just another service competitor. I tried it, I asked where the best hot dog stands where in the Aurora Illinois area, but chacha.com didn't know. It seems to me that a search engine service such as this needs to have a very high success rate of percentage of questions answered, and it has to be a wide range of questions. I don't see a real need for this service. I am trying to understand what really unique niche this service offers that I would have long term use for.

cuil.com - Internet search engine.
Welcome to Cuil—the world’s biggest search engine. Maybe it is the biggest, maybe even the best. That's what they claim. Maybe they are right. I'll try it and in time I will know if it is better than Google, if not the best.

zillow.com - Real estate research and pricing guide.
Its possible that the information offered is current and somewhat accurate, but I would hesitate to swear to that. I think that at best this service should be used as an initial guide to real estate prices, but not to be used exclusive of alternative and better-proven resources. Lets face it, real estate transactions can be pretty intimidating for most of us. Its still best to work with an experienced agent found through personal recommendation. We don't know who runs zillow.com, do we? We do not know how accurate their real estate data is, how impartial they are, or who they represent. For the simple reason that when it comes to personal finances, I think the average person needs to be sure that their best interests are looked after by someone they know, not an anonymous Internet advisor.

I guess my comments above reveal my favorite and most promising choice is cuil.com more because it seems less gimmicky than the other two. It seems as though Google.com is considered the search engine of choice, and perhaps it rates that high measure. However, competition is a healthy thing. I remember the early days of my web surfing, in which other search engine services where at the forefront. Google didn't even exist. My point is that everything, especially web services, evolves over time.

Too Much Too Often

Last week in class a large part of the discussion was about Google Buzz and a bit about Microsoft Outlook Social Connector, the Office plug-in that is being introduced for Windows. Now, I am a Mac person, so most of the time I don't care what Microsoft does. You see, I use Office 2008 for Mac, because it is the standard in office software, and I need to use Word almost daily for both school and work. Beyond that I have a more or less love-hate attitude about Microsoft. When possible I try not to use their products.

Anyway, it seems like social networking software is all the rage again these days. I say that because a number of years ago I recall ICQ was the hot item. These days I think it is all but forgotten. Which brings me around to asking two questions.

1. How much of the current news on social networking is driven by fad rather than a necessity that we all must be connected before we are left in the dust?

2. Do we have to be so connected that our privacy threatens to be compromised?

My choice is based on what is most beneficial for me and my needs. I prefer to belong to LinkedIn, (I care not for using it with a new Microsoft plug-in) because it is more business oriented in nature, and I can more easily choose what information I want to share with the rest of the world. Any other systems that i might consider in the future would be chosen using the same prerequisites.

My privacy is more important to me than being socially connected to everyone all the time.

Thursday, February 11, 2010

Threat of Cyberterrorism…

Every generation lives with some looming fear. When I was a kid it was fear that the cold war with the Soviets would turn into WW3. In this first decade of the 21st century we now live in fear of another terrorist attack. NPR presented a story recently titled "Assessing The Threat of Cyberterrorism".

While this does need to be a concern that we should not ignore, we need to be careful that our response is measured equal to the threat. Once again, our government needs to learn to deal with these issues logically, without developing another layer of confusing, redundant rules that everyone has to conform too. Lets hope this does not become another misuse of the Patriot Act.

Senior Adviser on Innovation…

What a great title. To me it also a little ambiguous. It's the job title of Alec Ross, who was named to the position to assist Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton, after working on the Obama election campaign. He is known for his entrepreneurial spirit and aggressive drive, having launched his non-profit organization One Economy out of a basement.

I like entrepreneurs, having worked for two of them in my life, I know it can be exciting at times. Interestingly, I identify entrepreneurs with conservatives, since they are often responsible for new business growth. In his new role, Mr. Ross is responsible for figuring out ways to use new technology for problem solving; for example, to warn of natural disasters, to harness social networking to unite the youth of warring tribes, and to to make broadband and information technology a key part of policymaking.

I would be concerned about the line being crossed that allows technological problem solving to push us closer to a "big brother is watching" government run society. Right now that is my biggest concern. I think there is a strong tendency right now for government to want to involve itself in our private lives way too much.

One Other Reinvention? Watch This Video!

I believe that recalling my past experiences can only enrich my future efforts. For about 5 years I was a motorcycle enthusiast, belonging to an informal group named "THE POETS MC". One summer I rode along with a friend to Arkansas and back on motorcycles, and the following year I traveled solo from Illinois to Niagara Falls and back. The following slide show video documents of some of my travels during that time. I gave up bikes after being hit by a motorist in an auto, and landing in the hospital with a badly broken left leg and fractured spine. I understand the definition of pain, and thank God that I was not killed that day.

Wednesday, February 10, 2010

Creative at Home

A few years ago, before I decided it was necessary to return to school, I was spending a lot of my time doing woodwork for my home. Its really another extension of my creative nature, but I have always enjoyed trying new or more challenging things. In this case it became a necessity because of the expense involved in owning an old house. More on that another time.

My wife needed a nice cabinet for our dinning room. The image at left is the result. It is based on an early project done on the program "The New Yankee Workshop". I am still trying to master a number of wood working skills, but I am at the moment facing other priorities. I believe I can develop my skills further than where I am now.

For the moment though my main priority is to learn more about web technology, especially understanding blogs and related technology, and how they might aid me in marketing my freelance business and have fun in the process.

Class Activity Tonight
We had a guest speaker tonight, Jami, a fellow member of last semesters classes, who is an experienced blogger. An English major, she has moved into web design now, and has a wide range to talents. One of the things I was impressed with was that she started blogging while in the military, and her subject matter was what she was most familiar with at the time, the military. It made me recall the comments of a Marketing/Salesmanship instructor I had in college many years ago. He said that "successful salespeople are those who really know and believe in their product". This holds true for artists, designers, and writers. Whatever the subject matter of a blog, the author must have a passion for and believe in the subject he or she has picked as the focus of their blog if it is to be successful. Otherwise it is just a shell, and thin at best.

I also liked Jami's opening comments in her talk.  She presented classic comments and quotes from clients from hell.  Regardless of how sophisticated our technology might be, some client comments always seem the same.

New Life for my Zip Drive

When I upgraded my operating system last fall, I discovered that my old 100MB zip disks had become read only. No information from the Iomega home page (100MB technology isn't really supported directly any longer). I was about to get rid of my drive and all the disks, many new, but when I tried reformatting one of them before discarding it I realized that the disk was again read and write accessible.

I'm back to using my zip disks for temporary archive back ups of work in progress or offline storage until I have enough material for a CD or DVD backup.

Saturday, February 6, 2010

Verification Post

Among other projects, I'm in the process of verifying the ownership of my new blog for the purpose of listing it on blog search engines. This is all new to me, so I hope I know what I am doing. Wish me luck.

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Linkedin

I just updated my profile at Linkedin.

I'm spending a little time this weekend just contemplating ideas for the theme graphics for a nursing annual report I am beginning working on. I'll conference with the writer this coming week, share some ideas.