Just randomly by accident, I typed in a search in Google, and accidentally put an apostrophe in front of the word. On the results, I noticed something was wacked, the top search bar was missing. I tried this for multiple keywords. Not sure if this always happened or if it is just a little bug.
try it: http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q=%27test
Seems to work fine in Firefox, but IE7 the top search box, logo, are missing. Weird
Yes, it is true. Google Maps sucks. Twice now, I have looked something up, only to be led on a wild goose chase around town. On top of the that, they have less features (in my opinion) than Microsoft Live Maps. Let’s take a look at the debacles:
1) Fire on the Mountain
Fire on the Mountain (http://portlandwings.com/) is a cool buffalo wings in Portland. I found it by Googling “best wings in Portland”. Anyway’s, I have a post written up for the wing debate, that will come later, but for now, let’s compare Google Maps vs. Microsoft Live Maps
Now, there are few details here. On Google maps, when you search and fine FOTM in Google, it will show you a small map, you click on it and you get to here. Great, it even has a little link and info about the place – awesome! But, take a close look. The address is 4225 N Interstate Ave, Portland, OR, but Google has the dot located (zoom in a little) – Some # 9th Ave NE – WTF????? Now, the picture on the right, the Microsoft Live Maps. Background info here. Searching for “Portland wings” in search.live.com, you will see local listings, no map, but there is a link to FOTM, and it brings you here which then if you click on interactive map, brings you here which is the screenshot I have above. The correct address, and it is located in the correct spot! What is even better is there is a bird’s eye view here as well.
Now, if I got driving directions on Google Maps (which, BTW, I did) and follow them, without double checking the address against what they mapped, I end up in ghettoville, which, I did (thank god I had my T-Mobile dash, which has Live Maps for Mobile, which saved me again!). Winner – Microsoft Live Maps
2) Post Office
Ahh, the Post Office. Disgruntled workers, people always impatient, just a fun time. Well I had a package to mail, so I figured I would walk to the post office. Lets dig into the results:
On the left, searching for the Post office near my address. There are two results on the map – here is the link. One that is around 7-8 blocks and one that is around 15-16 blocks away. Of course I am going to walk to the nearest one. As I walk today, in the rain no less, I get to the area of the first result, and it is just residential homes, no post office, nothing. Another big WTF!! So once again I pull out the T-Mobile dash, Live Maps for Mobile, search for Post Office near my address, and it gives me the address for the second (read: farther one in Google) away, and that is it. So I walk there, do my business, walk home. But, getting home is what got me thinking of this post, so then I search on maps.live.com – “post office” around my address, and this is what I get (the picture on the right) – link here. So, Once again, Microsoft Live Maps wins out.
So chalk up two times that Google Maps has really thrown me for a loop, which is two times to many. From now on, Microsoft Live Maps.
Has anyone else experienced this craziness??
ok, for the seriously hardcore geeks out there. Track my flight in Google Earth!
First, if you don’t have it installed, go to http://earth.google.com and install Google Earth.
Then, hit this link
http://www.fboweb.com/antest/ge/geOFNF.aspx?pp=51902740
you will see an live tracking of my flight when it takes off (around 4:10 PM CST)
It will update once a minute. Pretty dang cool if you ask me.
I love it on the site, it says “FOR INFORMATIONAL PURPOSES ONLY. NOT TO BE USED FOR IN-FLIGHT NAVIGATION.”
Yeah, I’m flying my plane, with a satellite Internet connection, with Google Earth, and using it to track where I am, man, I don’t need the gauges and what not, I have Google to tell me where to go!!……..crash 🙂
Pretty sweet thing, its crazy what you can do these days.
There are basically the big three companies, Yahoo, Google, Microsoft. You can install a bunch of applications from each to create an experience on your computer.
Yahoo:
Microsoft:
Google:
I could probably keep listing more things as well. As you can see, the “Big 3” have a ton of offerings for you to customize your computer to your liking. For the last month or so I tried to go “all Google”, but today I switched to “All Microsoft”. Using Live search, using all their tools, etc, to see how it goes. Although I still have Google talk installed as it is not interoperable.
Yahoo seems to be lacking out of the three. Also, in all three companies, there isn’t some “unified” experience (I wish there was, it would make it a lot easier). If there are some tools or app’s that you use from the big 3 that I haven’t listed, please shoot me a comment.
This evening, I hooked up my Pharos Bluetooth adapter with my Microsoft GPS and synced it to my T-Mobile Dash. I hopped in my Vibe and cruised around town, so I could test out the GPS capabilities. In the past, I have used Pocket Streets and Trips (I don’t think newer versions of Streets and Trips have the Pocket Version anymore though, I have an older version – I have used the laptop version with the GPS, it works well), and Virtual Earth Mobile. As I don’t have those installed currently, I decided to try two new products. Google Maps for Mobile and Live Search for Mobile.
I’ll start off by just saying, that getting the Bluetooth GPS working can be tricky. I paired it with my Dash, then set up a COM port so I could utilize it within applications.
Live Search for Mobile was pretty easy to set up. In the settings, there is a place to pick the COM port, I chose the one I set up, and then went to the maps, and chose an option for “Center on GPS”. In a few seconds, I was watching myself (as a little red arrow) on the screen. The road maps are good, slightly out of date, but the aerial maps are really bad. Black and white even. On to the next test.
Google Maps for Mobile: the maps are nice. The aerial maps are really good for Central MN, but the thing is, as much as I tried, I couldn’t get the GPS to start within the application. There must be something funny with the way it looks for the GPS, so in all reality, I didn’t test much with GMM.
Now that I have my GPS paired, I want to get mologogo working again, but their site is down, something with a DNS issue. Has been down for a week or so. Once I get that up, maybe I will make a page here again or a sidebar widget that shows my current location. The one goofy thing is, the charger for the Bluetooth unit is kind of wacky, if I remember, my PSP charger worked better, I will have to dig into that. My car has 112V plugin, so that is cool.
I can’t wait for the day when you can get 3D GPS like Virtual Earth 3D or Google Earth, or even Bird’s Eye on your mobile, sync’d with GPS, you will never get lost.
Glimpse of Google Night at Agile 2006. Google threw a huge bash, and all I got was a lousy tee shirt. But it was still cool. Thought maybe there would be more Google stuff, or a presentation, but they just put on the party.
What does your Google search history tell about you? (if you have it turned on). Over the last year, here are my top sites. Pretty intresting.
Top sites
1. msdn.microsoft.com
2. http://www.codeproject.com
3. http://www.microsoft.com
4. blogs.msdn.com
5. http://www.codeguru.com
6. en.wikipedia.org
7. http://www.experts-exchange.com
8. weblogs.asp.net
9. support.microsoft.com
10. http://www.dotnet247.com
Took a look at my referrer logs tonight. Wow, MSN Search is kicking some major a$$! It seems that Google and Yahoo direct people to my archive pages, while MSN directs them right to the actual link page of the post, way better.
For something posts, MSN is the first hit, others I dont even see on the front page. For instance, search for “walmart auto service”
MSN I am #1, Google and Yahoo – no where to be found.
I have been using MSN search and I would say it is getting better. I also have been using Dogpile the last few weeks and that is pretty cool too, now that it includes MSN.
Looks like gmail is open for business, you can sign up from the google website
Goole came out with this cool new thing last week, querying http://www.google.com with sms. You can send a query and they will send you back results, totally cool
if you send an SMS (not a shortmail or email) to GOOGL or 46645, like
Pizza 56387
It will return to you the top 3 results for pizza in Waite Park, MN. (Gary’s, etc).
Pretty cool.
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