Kirb’s Musings

Kirby Witmer’s ponderings, ruminations, and meditations of… anything.

Microsoft on Wednesday took the wraps off Windows Live OneCare, its all-in-one security and PC care subscription service. I haven’t used it personally yet, but at $49.95 a year for three computers it sure beats Norton Antivirus! As soon as my subscription to Norton runs out, I think I’m gonna have to try out Windows Live OneCare. After all it includes antivirus, anti-spyware, PC tuning, and backup tools. Plus free updates!!

I got a letter in the mail yesterday informing me that my zip code has changed from 17013 to 17015.  And I just got a 1000 business cards printed a little over a month ago…

Some time back Microsoft had offered the Windows Media Center Theme (Royale) as a download for Windows XP. I loved it. However, for whatever reason, I can no longer find it on Microsoft’s Site. It’s gone. If somebody can find it there let me know. I had saved the theme when it was live, and I thought I would share it with you all.

Download Windows XP Royale Theme

Hmmm… good question. I’ve been noticing that live.com has been doing much better at indexing my blog than google has. Whenever I write a new post, I can be almost sure that within a couple of days (most times one or two days) it has been indexed by live.com. Google however doesn’t seem to update their search index nearly as often. There is 185 entries for site:kirb.com kirb.com/Blog on live.com, but only five entries for the same search on google.com. Now I realize that my site is a very small one and that it’s impossible to gauge a search engine’s performance solely on my blog, but I am really impressed with live.com. I just love being able to scroll the whole way through my search, without having to hit the next button. And did you notice that ads on the side change as you scroll?? That’s cool. If you haven’t tried it yet, you have to. http://www.live.com One word of warning though: You may find yourself using Google less and less.

It’s been awhile since Gmail has been updated, but now they implemented some very tiny ones. They’ve added pictures to Gmail just like Google Talk has. In fact Google Talk and Gmail share the same picture. If you change the one, the other changes. Bummer. It would be nice to have two different pictures.  Google has also added a little ping sound whenever someone sends a you a new chat message, and added 17 more languages to Gmail Chat. Cool features?? Yea, maybe, but when are they gonna allow you to create your own folders in Gmail??  And I would really like to create a filter that applies to my existing email?? I don’t know about you, but pictures in Gmail doesn’t top the list of my most wanted Gmail features.

This blog was getting too cluttered. I’ve changed the theme, and updated the permalinks. What do you think??

ZDNet’s Garett Rogers says there is a new entry appearing in Google’s robots.txt file.

Disallow: /uds/

 Hmmmm… what could this stand for?? Garett speculates that it could stand for Unlimited Data Storage.. I hope he is right!! Just imagine if you could upload all the files you wanted to Google’s Servers. That would be swell. I don’t see how they could afford to offer Unlimited Data Storage for free, but Google has surprised me many times in the past!! I, for one, would jump for the chance to sign up for Unlimited Data Storage!! Of course, this is merely speculation, but I’m hoping its true.

The New York Times reports that Google has complained to the Justice Department that Microsoft is trying to dominate the search market by setting the default search engine in Internet Explorer 7.0 to MSN Search.

“The market favors open choice for search, and companies should compete for users based on the quality of their search services,” “We don’t think it’s right for Microsoft to just set the default to MSN. We believe users should choose.”

…said Marissa Mayer - vice president for search products at Google.

The new Internet Explorer 7.0 has a little built-in search box in the upper right hand corner of the browser, similar to what firefox and opera have had for a while already. And that’s where Google doesn’t make any sense… at all. Google is the default search engine in both opera and firefox. So what are they saying??? It’s right for them to be the default but not Microsoft?? My response to the whole deal?? I’ve changed my default Internet Explorer 7.0 search box from Google to MSN Live. Go ahead.. try it.. its easy.

You can read more on the situation if you wish - Jeremy Zawodny, Search Engine Journal, Philipp Lenssen, Ed Bott