I just read a review of Kosmix.com in the NYT. It is supposed to be a new and upcoming cool thing. The author of that article compared Kosmix to google, by way of saying "do not compare Kosmix with google." I went to the Kosmix site and performed a couple of searches. It is correct not to compare Kosmix with google. All Kosmix does, so far I can tell, is parse the search results content into categories: web, video, blog, etc. Hardly novel or interesting. (Kosmix has a "new" service to allow you to specify keywords to drive the news content you want. Whoa! Cutting edge stuff. Five years ago.)
I am no fan of google. Kosmix is a fan of google, so much so that they basically return google results by category. You can "add your site to Kosmix" if you send them an email. An email? Yes, an email. On a scale of 1 to 5, that ranks as lame. So much for automated services.
CoolIris and CoolPreviews, on the other hand, are very interesting and somewhat novel. And you do not have to send them an email. If you have not tried CoolIris and CoolPreviews, you should have a look-see.
CoolIris is a sort of desktop application that presents web content in a metaphor that is as close to the "Minority Report" pre-crime application interface as I have seen. I think it is the next (or maybe current) predominant UI paradigm.
CoolPreviews is a browser plugin that displays the content of a link in a frame over the current window. You preview the content in the target by hovering over the CP icon beside every link.
CoolPreviews can sometimes get in the way, but not generally, and you can turn it on and off quite easily. CoolIris is, well, really very cool.
Score
CoolIris: 8
CoolPreviews: 7
Kosmix: 2 (for effort - it's a hard time to be a start-up)
Showing posts with label Internet. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Internet. Show all posts
Sunday, March 15, 2009
Thursday, January 15, 2009
My First Plug
This web site - Totally Looks Like - really makes me laugh.
http://totallylookslike.com
Enjoy.
http://totallylookslike.com
Enjoy.
Sunday, April 13, 2008
My Pet Rock
About a hundred years ago, I bought a router for my home network. It was either a D-Link or a NetGear. After several days of mis- and re-configuration of the settings of the router, the Windows NT Server, the laptop PC cards, the Windows work stations and my wife's expectations of when our internet access would be permanently back online, I returned it, and brought home a LinkSys.
The LinkSys router, though a little more expensive than the first one, was the same brand as my laptop PCMCIA cards. Hours and hours, spanning days, were required to get the all of the components correctly configured and the computers properly connected. Eventually, after a bit more mis- and re-configuration of the settings of the router, the Windows NT Server, the laptop PC cards, the Windows work stations and my wife's expectations, the network was finally properly configured, and I owed my friend Philip a lifelong debt of gratitude for his expertise and good natured guidance. The hardware needed to be reset every little while, but was maintainable.
I have replaced that original hardware a few times now. Network hardware lasts a surprising long time. Each generation is a bit simpler than the previous one; each new router seems to require a little less configuration than the previous.
Last week, my administrative assistant drove to Best Buy, bought a Belkin wireless router, and plugged it in. An entire conference of software engineers was connected in that instant. Zero Configuration: The total required time, including the drive to Best Buy, was but a tiny fraction of my first experience.
New computer components are getting easier to install and configure with each passing year. They sit virtually ignored for years.
Pet Rocks are much more functional than they used to be...
...but
they
require
the
same
level
of care.
The LinkSys router, though a little more expensive than the first one, was the same brand as my laptop PCMCIA cards. Hours and hours, spanning days, were required to get the all of the components correctly configured and the computers properly connected. Eventually, after a bit more mis- and re-configuration of the settings of the router, the Windows NT Server, the laptop PC cards, the Windows work stations and my wife's expectations, the network was finally properly configured, and I owed my friend Philip a lifelong debt of gratitude for his expertise and good natured guidance. The hardware needed to be reset every little while, but was maintainable.
I have replaced that original hardware a few times now. Network hardware lasts a surprising long time. Each generation is a bit simpler than the previous one; each new router seems to require a little less configuration than the previous.
Last week, my administrative assistant drove to Best Buy, bought a Belkin wireless router, and plugged it in. An entire conference of software engineers was connected in that instant. Zero Configuration: The total required time, including the drive to Best Buy, was but a tiny fraction of my first experience.
New computer components are getting easier to install and configure with each passing year. They sit virtually ignored for years.
Pet Rocks are much more functional than they used to be...
...but
they
require
the
same
level
of care.
Sunday, December 16, 2007
Should I Secede
... from the internet? I am certain that I will miss nothing, and I will be missed even less.
I knew an old German professor of Philosophy who refused to have an email account. His imagery of having to respond to alarm bells and whistles going off when he was trying to complete serious research is appropriate. The internet creates a huge amount of psychological noise dictating where we need to be, how to order videos and pizza, and displacing the physical act of Christmas shopping with its point-and-click counterpart.
I expect any day to find an advertisement for a web-based enema service -- to open up blocked electronic passage ways. (Do not search. I did and the results are not pretty.)
There are broken links. Links to smut, advertisements and phishing holes always work. Broken links are a phenomenon strictly limited to the tiny fraction of useful or interesting content on the Web. Broken links are always and only to something I actually need or want.
I am really tired of the spam. I used to believe that spam only came in email. I've come to understand that the most of the internet is spam. Email only alerts me to its exact location.
Most of the internet is comprised of disorganized web sites devoid of any useful content at all - four percent lean bits wrapped in an ethereal sausage casing, 96 percent ground up organ parts, ears, snouts and feet.
The robot brain so feared by human ethicists of the 1950s and '70s is already their primary mode of cognition. Do they see the worst-fear-realized state of an electronic community mind that lives independently of its contributors and consumers? It is here.
I do not mean to disparage the entertainment value of the internet. We are definitely entertained. Yet we are now privately entertained by content that we do not and cannot share with our mothers.
I love the internet. They can have my Web when the pry my cold dead fingers from my keyboard.
My fear is that we might all secede from the internet, but no one would notice.
Raise
your
laptop lid
if
you
are
NOT
here.
I knew an old German professor of Philosophy who refused to have an email account. His imagery of having to respond to alarm bells and whistles going off when he was trying to complete serious research is appropriate. The internet creates a huge amount of psychological noise dictating where we need to be, how to order videos and pizza, and displacing the physical act of Christmas shopping with its point-and-click counterpart.
I expect any day to find an advertisement for a web-based enema service -- to open up blocked electronic passage ways. (Do not search. I did and the results are not pretty.)
There are broken links. Links to smut, advertisements and phishing holes always work. Broken links are a phenomenon strictly limited to the tiny fraction of useful or interesting content on the Web. Broken links are always and only to something I actually need or want.
I am really tired of the spam. I used to believe that spam only came in email. I've come to understand that the most of the internet is spam. Email only alerts me to its exact location.
Most of the internet is comprised of disorganized web sites devoid of any useful content at all - four percent lean bits wrapped in an ethereal sausage casing, 96 percent ground up organ parts, ears, snouts and feet.
The robot brain so feared by human ethicists of the 1950s and '70s is already their primary mode of cognition. Do they see the worst-fear-realized state of an electronic community mind that lives independently of its contributors and consumers? It is here.
I do not mean to disparage the entertainment value of the internet. We are definitely entertained. Yet we are now privately entertained by content that we do not and cannot share with our mothers.
I love the internet. They can have my Web when the pry my cold dead fingers from my keyboard.
My fear is that we might all secede from the internet, but no one would notice.
Raise
your
laptop lid
if
you
are
NOT
here.
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