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11 January 2007
I started writing NetRants in 1996. I think it's safe to say, I single-handedly
invented blogging. I stopped in 2001 and wrote my last NetRant in 2003. That's
about the time blogging started to grow into the 'here's every detail of my life'
oft-times curse on the internet that it is today. Google is broken. Sure, people complain about Google. They can't get a good listing. They can't even find their site in Google's directory. That's just bellyaching from people who really don't know how to write a webpage properly to get a good position. That doesn't mean Google doesn't work correctly. It means they need to learn how to write their pages better. What I'm going to explain to you now, is how Google isn't working in the most simplest way a search engine should work. If you aren't that good at using a search engine, you might not understand. You might not even care. But, I will do my best to explain so anyone should be able to see the problem. The prime directive of any search engine is a simple sentence you've probably seen on the results page for as long as you've been on the net. There are variations on the wording, but it's basically:
This means, the less specific your search, the more likely you are to get results that may cover your information, but not contain all the words you put in at first. Say you saw a cake called a Blue Raspberry Cake. You decide to look for the recipe, but with the words: Blue Raspberry Cake, there are no hits. Try using: Raspberry Cake, and you may get what you need. Maybe, the author of the page you find is colour-blind and calls it a purple or green raspberry cake, or simply calls it a raspberry cake. That's how searching works. You take out a word from your search and you get more results. Simple, basic, the foundation of all searching. Google doesn't work that way, all the time, anymore.
I noticed the problem about three months ago. Actually, I didn't notice a
problem. I thought I'd lost my mind. Was Google really giving me fewer hits
with fewer search terms? That wasn't possible. I let the first incidences slide.
I had to be mistaken. Google would never go against the prime directive.
I was stunned. After trying both searches repeatedly and getting the same results each time, I realized I hadn't lost my mind. Google was not working properly. Google was going against the prime directive. I found their feedback email and wrote them. It had to be a fluke, some glitch, temporary for sure. It's been about a month, and it happened again. They aren't fixing it. Here are the searches, so you can see for yourself, notice the keywords and hit results for each search. Example 1: "rowan lore" orange "zebra communications" - 9 results "rowan lore" orange zebra - 0 results taking out the word 'communications' and the quote marks gives no results. any pages from the first search would still contain all the words for the second search, but they do not show. Example 2: site:www.radiant.net "radiant communications" security standards - 17 results site:www.radiant.net security standards - 7 results taking out the phrase 'radiant communications' gives fewer results. the page results from the first search still contain all the words in the second search, but 10 of those pages have disappeared. What this means: It means, anytime you are doing a search on Google and you aren't sure of the specific search terms you should use, you could be getting far fewer results than you would with any other search engine on the net - any other search engine. If you aren't getting the results you're looking for, use another search engine. Google is no longer King. Google is broken. Google is dead.
© Simon
3 June 2003 I've decided to put the NetRants to sleep. I haven't written one in almost two years, but I haven't noted the end either. It wasn't that I ran out of things to rant about, in general, just nothing about computers or the internet. The internet isn't new anymore. It's become a normal part of my life, so ranting about it, would be like ranting about my telephone. "It's amazing! I can punch in numbers and talk to someone who's no where near me!"
Speaking of sleep, there is one new discovery I've made about the
internet. I think it causes sleep deprivation. I'm not talking about
the sleep deprivation everyone had when you got your first internet
account - back when the net was new, and you'd stay up for hours, clicking
and clicking. I used to warn anyone who said they were finally getting an
internet connection, "You won't get much sleep the first month." This isn't
about the hours of sleep you get, but the quality of the sleep.
As an example, I had a dream with a Roman temple set up on a
rolling green hill; a stream ran by it, with a large tree to the side.
I painted a picture of it. Then... I found it on
the net. This is amazingly
similar to my painting. (Sure, you don't need the link, but now I know
where I can find it next time I'm looking, and I won't have to go through
my thousands of bookmarks.) This finding led me to the Fortuna Virilis,
which led me on, and on. Now, it wasn't the amount of time it took looking
through all the pages I went to about the temple, it was the information
that made me sleepy. Too much information to process in one night.
© Simon
3 August 2001 This is my first rant since February. Where have I been? Oh, nowhere. Why haven't I written? Come on, like you really care? In April I was going to do a wonderful (you'll have to take my word for it) rant about dotcom failures. They were dropping like flies, dontcha know. Here's a link to a site that documents their demise Dotcom Graveyard. Word on the street, which street I'm not sure, possibly Wall Street, is there are more mergers going on now than closings. Which means more giant monopolies. This will make it even harder for me to not frequent companies I don't like. Now I'll have to find out every company AOL owns, so I don't buy anything from any of them. The more companies they suck in, as they attempt to become the internet they so despise, the less shopping I'll do. Yes, even in this time of peace, I still hate AOL. Just for the record, once again - AOL is not the internet, and AOL users should know better - better than to be AOL users. Around June I had a wonderful rant in mind about Hollywood hype on the net, but I had second-thoughts. I already ranted about the use of fake fansites to promote movies. They've moved into games now - scavenger hunts for Planet of the Apes, cryptic websites with clues to other cryptic websites for AI. How this relates to, or makes you want to see their movie is beyond me, and from the amount of trouble and money they've put into these websites, I would think the movie would be unnecessary. Just make the game and mystery websites. Get a small registration fee, and alot of advertisers, and you don't need the big stars, film, lights, extras, and all that other stuff. The movie Swordfish had a website with 100k in prizes - did they need a movie? So now it's August. The coolest internet/computer related thing to come my way recently is SirCam. I'm still getting about one of this virus a day. I like this virus, even though it hasn't paid off too well. Incase you're unfamiliar with this virus, it comes as an email attachment with various extensions. I'd refer you to the Symantec website for information, but apparently they don't know how to write html - their site crashed my system down to 1% resources. I decided to go with the McAfee site instead, but they don't know how to write html and crashed me down to 0% resources. Maybe their html programmers have a virus?
Here's what I know about the virus. If you open it, and you are unlucky enough
to be using a Win32 operating system (which means you're not so lucky on any
given day of the week), it hides out in your recycling bin, steals a file from your
'My Documents' folder, and sends it to someone - either on your mailing list, or
to an email address from a website you've been to recently. It steals a file, and
sends it to someone else. I love this virus. Now if someone could just program this thing to send back, to one email address, files in someone's My Documents folder... Hoo-Ha! Here's a Yahoo news link about the SirCam virus - I don't know how long they archive news, but give it a try.
© Simon
16 February 2001
Back in 1996 you remember some controversy about a movie that came out staring famous star #1.
What was the controversy? If you could only remember. That know-it-all guy at work doesn't believe
you. How can you prove it? Dejanews. Dejanews, which later became just Deja, held the archive of posts to Usenet newsgroups. I've used Usenet since before I had internet access - yes, before. When I only had email access on the internet, back in 1995, there was a service which would look for your keywords in Usenet posts and forward the messages to your mailbox. If you aren't sure what Usenet is, read this. Dejanews was the one reliable service to search through years of Usenet posts to find the information you were looking for. There have been rumors for the past few years that the archive may be lost, that Dejanews, or Deja, would abandon the archive. It would be an incredible loss. The Usenet archive includes posts from the last six years to Usenet newsgroups - post from the informative to the ridiculous - millions of posts - thousands of newsgroups from alt.acme.exploding.newsgroup to misc.kids.pregnancy. Groups devoted to every celebrity who made a mark in even a B-movie, groups to discuss operating systems, programs, hobbies, food. The progress of the internet is chronicled in Usenet posts. Since 1995 Dejanews, and later in its Deja incarnation, has been the keeper of those archives. Deja provided searching of the archives. You could search for keywords, by author, by date, or some combination of those and other options. You could find out if the person you met in a chat room was a regular poster to alt.binaries.celebrities.bikini. You could find out where to buy Blue Mountain coffee while living in the UK from alt.food.coffee. They might not be discussing it today, but if they discussed it in the last five years - you could find it. Deja's Usenet archive has it all. On Monday 12 February, Google took over Deja's archive. Here's to hoping Google keeps it all.
© Simon
18 November 2000
How long have you been on the internet? How many years are you adding to that number?
Did you add one? Two? Maybe you were really late to the game, so you've added about five years? "During my service in the United States Congress, I took the initiative in creating the Internet." - Al Gore 11 March '99Not everyone can be that insanely pompous, but there are tons of people adding years to their net-life to sound like they were among the first through the door. Do you remember doors? Nevermind, I could never figure those out.
I thought it was my imagination when I first noticed a few websites saying they've been
on the net for 10 years, 8 years, 5 years. I gave them some slack, didn't see it as a trend, but it is.
Tons of sites are starting to lie. I came across a site which claims it was on the net since 1986. A
goverment site?... you ask - that's possible. No this is a
retail site. A few more lies -
And they call themselves designers :
Survey Results
Question Serve With the Holidays coming up, I must mention-
Spammers :
© Simon
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Almost everyone is familiar with the expression: "There's no such thing as a free lunch" (attributed Milton Friedman), but the word 'free' or the omission of any charge information draws people like flies and lowers their logic to nil. Dangle a carrot and thousands want a nibble.
The internet is full of sites offering free goodies. Some of these
sites are what can be considered genuinely free. Search engines, sites
with free clip art, sound files - most of these require nothing of the visitor
and only hope you look at the banner advertisements that support them.
There are others that go one step further. They offer you a free service, but
here's the catch - they collect your internet usage information.
There's a new product called :CueCat. It's a small device that scans UPC
codes and can take you directly to a website for more information. Website
UPC codes can be included in articles and you won't have to type that long
URL (internet address). You'll be magically taken to the site when
you wave your :CueCat over the code. Best of all - it's FREE. Are you wondering why? The :CueCat is free because it gathers marketing information. They gather this information so they can better personalize their website to suit you. Anytime a website claims to want to better personalize their site to suit you, a enormous red flag should go up in your mind. They're saying 'The better we know you, the more we can offer you', but what they mean is 'The more information we can gather on you and your interests, the more we can get for our reports to marketers'Check out both iWon and :CueCat and read through their Privacy Policies.
If sites like these draw enough people, this type of privacy invasion will
become the norm. Everyone stupid enough to give away their personal
preferences in hopes of winning the website lottery, or so they don't have
to bother typing in a long URL, is making it easier for these practices
to continue and escalate. They say the oldest profession is prostitution. Even prostitutes know enough not to 'give it away'. © Simon
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I now have the 3.7 version of the Windows operating system on my computer. By that name, it's no big deal, but by its commercial name, it's seemingly a giant hypocrisy. Yes, I have Windows 95. I get flashes of horror in apocalyptic proportion just writing the name. I have trashed Win95 since it was first introduced. I will continue to trash any Windows operating system - except 3.1 - the orphaned, dependable, wonderful operating system of my choice. It's a shame many latecomers to the computer age never had a chance to use 3.1 . They'll never know the joy of having a computer that works with you, instead of fighting with you, assuming you're a moron, loading up your harddrive with what ever it feels like, and throwing out illegal operations just to amuse itself.
I haven't gone completely psycho. Morjava set up my new computer (built it from
scratch donchano) with 3.7 on a separate partition. I can pretend to my heart's
content that it doesn't exist. It's locked away. It's a prisoner on a piece of
my harddrive that I like to think of as the hell's kitchen of my computer. Okay, I confess, the netcam is pretty neat, but I haven't figured out what I want to do with it yet. I know it won't be 'Simon - 24/7 Untamed!', or anything of that ilk, but there are bound to be some interesting options. I have 3.7 set to open with 'Welcome foolish mortal!" and closes with Zorak saying "That was creepy...ewww". Seems all too appropriate. © Simon
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I've ranted a few times, okay most times, about what's wrong with the internet, what bugs me about computers, net users, spam, websites. Computer's crash. AOL'ers are still clueless. Spam, by the very nature of how it got it's name, still is abundant, and websites... well even the US Postal website is all javascripting now. You'd think the goverment would be far enough behind that I could still enjoy their website, but no.
The other day I was having an imaginary conversation in my head (what
do you expect? I write. There are thousands of people up their in my
noggin and sometimes they, or I, get bored and we have a little
conversation. Sometimes I let them tell their story, if I find it
interesting, and sometimes I tell them to wait). This conversation
was with a character who didn't have internet access. Who thought they
didn't have time to be on the internet. Sometimes the characters in my head
aren't too bright, but it got me thinking about what's right with
the internet.
Even if you aren't a writer, don't think you'll never need to do
research for anything. What if you get a snippet of song lyrics stuck
in your head - What is that song?, or you can't remember
the name of that actor who played opposite that other actor in that
action movie with the hot chick in it? It could drive you nuts for days
trying to remember. Ahh... the internet. All you need is a line from the
song, sometimes just a word if it's rare enough. Instead of walking around
for days trying to remember the song, it's there right now, all the lyrics,
so you won't drive yourself, and everyone you ask "What's this song?
It's something like wren-wren, wren, wren, wren..." insane.
Search for the movie by genre - action you say? Put "action movie" in
some wonderful search engine like
All the Web (my current favorite) and follow the clues - with
any luck at all, you'll find it. Besides the endless suppy of information available on the net, there's email - no phone-tag, no waiting for a letter to arrive by govmail (I've probably been on the net longer than you, and I refuse to use the term 'snailmail'. I was here first. This is my term), send at your convenience, reply at your convenience. I don't even like telephones. They're too impatient. Email has the patience of a saint. It will sit there unanswered for hours, days, weeks, and not demand your attention, yet at times when you need, it can be as instantaneous as the phone. Javascripting pages that aren't written properly, unnecessary 'flash' pages that crash my browser, spam upon spam... weighed out, I'd trade my tv and phone for my internet access. © Simon
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I remember a few years ago the word on the bandwidth was 'keep your images small'. All the website help articles warned that large images take too long to load and internet users will click away if they have to wait too long. I think the recommended size for the entire page - images and text - was around 36k. With faster modems and systems, that number seems ridiculously small, but website designers have thought of new ways to chase away visitors. One of the newest ways to chase people from your site is asp scripting. Many sites use asp wonderfully, but there are just as many that have it miswritten to the point of sapping every bit of computer resources a visitor has, usually crashing their browser, sometimes taking their operating system down with it. A good example is the Staples site. I crashed on it. I was looking forward to shopping there online. I thought it was just my computer, but a friend with a brand new computer crashed as well. Needless to say, neither of us are willing to give site another try. I'm sure Staples has no idea their site is actually chasing visitors away. They'll probably have the same 'design' team redo the site a few times trying to find a format that draws people in, or eventually decide that internet commerce isn't all it's cracked up to be.
Another website killer is javascripting errors. Newer versions of Netscape
and IE can handle a few missing definitions in a sites code, but older
browsers will spit out the errors rapidly and anyone with an older browser
will attest to clicking those suckers away as quickly as they can just so
they can run from the site. Of course you don't even have to have errors
in your scripting to chase away your visitors. Many users who've been on
the net awhile, simply turn off javascripting so they don't have to deal
with the errors. If you have your whole site based on javascripting, those
visitors will get a blank page when they come to your site. Nothing.
Don't believe it? Turn off javascripting and go to this
Futurama page. You can turn
it back on to view the page, but they won't allow you to look around
unless they can track you with a cookie. I went there once. I won't
be back. Then there's the other 'blank page' websites. Those who have a splash page asking if you'd like to view their 'flash' site, or 'get flash' Children's Museum of Richmond . Sometimes they don't even bother to ask, it's flash or nothing. In many cases, that means visitors have a blank screen if they don't have the latest flash. Bye, lost another one. When frames first came out, netiquette suggested giving users the option of viewing a framed site, or a non-framed version. Now with programs to design pages, sites are designed by people who know nothing about programming for companies who know nothing about the internet. The easy-to-remedy errors these imbeciles allow in their 'designs' turn away more and more visitors to their client's domains everyday. With the client and the 'designer' having the latest software, everything looks amazing on their computers, and like a giant mess, or worse, a blank page to anyone without the same level of software.
Businesses give up on net sales all the time, and it's not because there
aren't enough people comfortable shopping on the net. It's because, everyday,
their website design chases away potential customers. © Simon
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I have a confession. I believed the Y2k hype. I believed that some
computers would have a problem switching over to the date 01/01/00.
How long did I believe the Y2k bug scare? Until about 5 minutes after
midnight when I set my 286 to 11:59pm, 12/31/99 and waited a minute, then
typed 'date' at the DOS prompt - 01/01/00. Of course the problem with the
date, in some cases, only manifests itself after reboot. So I rebooted,
typed 'date' - 01/04/80. That was wrong, interesting, but wrong, so I
gave the computer the new date again, rebooted, and it kept.
My 286 is Y2k compliant. The only thing in the house that wasn't Y2k compliant
was my dad's goldfish. He kicked out shortly before midnight. I never thought
to check its bios. So how did the panic set in? At first, I thought conspiracy - it's the natural choice. There were alot of new computers sold, because people were told their old computer wasn't Y2k compliant. Though geeks are increasing their power, I don't think the geeks will inherit the earth anytime soon. Maybe it was a political conspiracy? But I can't imagine world leaders agreeing on anything, much less tricking everyone into believing we had a world wide crisis. I can see why a conspiracy would have been a good idea. Everyone was expecting something with, not only the change of a century, but the change of ...numbers, not quite a millennium yet, but numbers that to the naked eye appear to be millennial. Having the world expect something big to happen - the end of the world, the second coming of Christ, our lease of the planet running out - and diverting everyone's attention to a computer glitch would be a good distraction. Instead of people wondering what would happen, they could be given a fear, a minor fear, but enough of one to draw their attention away from the end of life as we know it, and the panic that might ensue. But, I don't think there are enough truly intelligent, non-narcissistic leaders on this planet to pull off a rouse of that dimension.
My guess, today, is media frenzy. You know how a science report will come
out saying they've found a gene that might be involved in ...say,
paranoid schizophrenia ...and the press reports it as "Schizophrenia Cured?",
and the next time you see a delusional character walking down the street you
don't feel quite so sympathetic, because you know they just don't want to cured?
Then you read the small print and find out it's just a gene that might
be involved, the researchers have years more testing to find out if it's really
involved, and if it is, they aren't quite sure what to do with the information
anyway. That's how the media works. Stevie Wonder checks out a new procedure
that's still in its infancy, but the news reports tell us he's getting his
eyesight.
© Simon
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'Tis the season for even me, the person who's written several pieces
on the evils of internet cookies, to allow a few of them to reside
on my hard drive ...well, at least until I'm done with an online
purchase. Even the most ardent cookie haters have to give a little
on the holidays if they hope to get any shopping done online.
Here are my personal hints for shopping online. Everyone has heard not
to purchase from a site you don't trust, but no one really says how
you can know you can trust a site. You don't have to go to Amazon or
Etoys to know a site is trustworthy. I ordered from a site last year,
well not from the site, they didn't have a secure server, but over the
phone, then through usmail, from an elderly woman in Florida who had a
webpage with something neat I wanted. Sure, that could have been the
last I saw of my $20 check (she didn't take credit cards), but you know
what? I didn't care.
Besides throwing your money away, I have some other tips. So have fun, throw some money to the little guy now and then, and Merry Christmas.
© Simon
Archive Index ~ Newest Rant
There are a few topics I've ranted about, that alot of people would like a
bit more information.
The Wad
The first request is for a (the?) Doom ][ wad made by those kids who freaked
out at Columbine Highschool. So far the only one I've found is the
U.A.C. Labs Map 01. It plays well, but is an odd mix of courtyards and winding
passages. Secrets abound, and ammo, as there's no way you can play in
anything but what seems at times 'nightmare' - especially the
end of level two. I wouldn't recommend these for deathmatch unless you have alot
of players, well ...level one might work, but level two with all the twists and
turns would only work with some patience. Canceling AOL
Another request is for information on how to cancel an AOL account.
Usually all you ever have to do to cancel your account is fix yourself
a snack, or get out a crossword puzzle, give them a call, then stay on
hold for what seems like an eternity. You also might want to practise
saying "Yes, I'm sure." a few hundred times before you call, and if you're
in a creative mood, instead of giving the real reason for the cancellation,
you can tell them you were visited by the millenium bug who told you to
switch servers because the moon was in Saturn ....or something like that. Charles Timmerman
I wish I could tell you more about Charles Timmerman. Every few months I
look for something new on the net about him, but so far no luck. I play
Memory Blocks almost every day - my best score is 35 seconds 22 total pairs
flipped - that's on the small board. I nearly freaked when I couldn't get
his Code Breaker game for a few months after I lost it in a crash. I have
every Windows game I could find of his, and considering these were written
in 1995 and they still look better than most small Windows games, I
imagine Mr. Timmerman created a virtual reality game and escaped into it.
But then, I've been told I have a vivid imagination.
© Simon
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We all know Entertainment Tonight is just an infommercial for the motion
picture industry. Their week of Eyes Wide Shut propaganda had even
the most wooden-headed viewer wondering how much they were getting paid
to plug the film. We all know that the best/funniest, sometimes the only good
scenes in a movie, will be shown in the trailers or ads. It's marketing, and
marketing is rarely a pretty business. "Yes, I support the notion of 'image is nothing', so I want to drink the fine product that brought me this enlightenment so everyone will see how wise I am!"The "Be an Un" commercials are another style I could live without. I never, even as a teenager, wanted/bought a product because I thought it would set me apart from the crowd, yet advertisers have been trying this marketing ploy for years. If their product is so rare only a small group drink/use/buy it, I'm guessing their product stinks. You want an easy way to feel special, get a dog. "Wait Simon", you say "What's this have to do with computers or the internet?"
Glad ya' asked, I was starting to wonder there myself. Instead of waiting to be thrilled that someone (usually someone on GeoCities) put up a fansite for their movie/actor (product), they've decided to forgo the wait and start fansites themselves. Once they get the hype started, everyone who isn't an Un, wants to be a part of the new hot property. They can claim they're the talk of the internet. I'm sure they'd argue they're just priming the well, but next time you go to a 'fansite' instead of keeping in mind that it's just one persons opinion, you'll have to wonder if it isn't just the director/distributor's opinion, and no one has an ugly baby, especially if they're hoping to make money from it. Some of the fake site clues are polls, mailing lists, and anything that looks like it's just too much information - like great images from an unreleased movie, or prime sound bytes.
Salon magazine recently ran a piece on
The Blair Witch Project, and their misuse of the internet. Not only is it
believed (kind of hard to prove it, especially on the net) that
those connected with Blair Witch started fake fansites, but before the movie was
even previewed a number of internet news sources wondered how there were not only
fansites, but a webring and a usenet newsgroup devoted to this unseen flick.
© Simon
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