Category: blogNews

What should be on my reading list?

I learned about Debora L. Spar, the new head of Barnard College, as a name that is tied to women in technology. I started reading one of her books, Ruling the Waves: From the Compass to the Internet, a History of Business and Politics along the Technological Frontier, in an effort to learn more about her.

Just a few pages into the book I realized that I don’t read enough material that takes a high level look at technology and the changes technology brings about. I get caught up in reading very technical tomes and don’t step back for a look at the big picture. This book is going to be the start of a new quest for knowledge, and I can already tell it will be a brilliant beginning to the process.

What I don’t know is what to read next. Can you suggest some good reading? I’d appreciate any tips you can leave me for where to go next in my reading on the trends, movements, and high level overview of technological changes.

I’m a bit of an anomaly in my age group; eldergeeks are a rare breed. As a result of that, I mix with a very diverse group of people in various age groups in my private and professional lives. I have friends who are unsure what a browser is and think copying and pasting text is hugely challenging. And I have friends who write code as easily as they breathe and can’t imagine how to navigate the day without the Internet.

The other day I was out shopping with my son and granddaughter. We were in my car. I had Feeling Good in the CD player, a Randy Crawford jazz album, and nobody complained about the music so it just continued to play. (My music choices are not always appreciated by my children and grandchildren.) My son listened to Randy Crawford a while and started talking about how her voice reminded him of an  episode of The Cosby Show, one where Vanessa joined an band and a famous singer came on the show for a guest spot. I didn’t remember that particular episode but Randy Crawford didn’t seem like a likely candidate for that. She was too young at the time. I suggested maybe it was Della Reese. He vetoed that idea.

When we got back to the house he went to the computer and and within 90 seconds he said, “Here it is.  Betty Carter.”

“Yes,” I said, “that would be someone Cosby would admire.” I gave him a mini-lesson on Betty Carter and we did a little more talking about our favorite episodes of The Cosby Show.

This sort of instant fact finding is commonplace in my life. It is the merely most recent of many such examples. It’s normal to me. But it isn’t normal to everyone. It seems very strange to some people.

I know people have always had a multitude of interests. One may be reading Civil War history while another golfs and another knits and another prepares a meal for friends. Wide-ranging interests in life don’t feel like the kind of divider between the past and present the way technology does. Maybe I’m making too much of this: maybe a ragged edge always marks change and the ragged edges of technological change are no new thing. But I’m ready to start thinking about it. What should be on my reading list?

Can you be won away from Google search?

Have you followed any of the links from this blog to BlogHer? Perhaps you’ve noticed that the search feature on BlogHer now has a Lijit logo in the search box. Under that, you see two options. Search blogher.com or search the BlogHer network. If you search the BlogHer network, you find posts on your search words found in any blog that is part of the BlogHer network.

The Lijit search is perfect for BlogHer. It helps BlogHer fulfill its key mission of locating and linking to the world of women’s blogs.

I’ve been looking at Lijit search ever since Amy Gahran mentioned it at BlogHer08. For the people who can make it work as intended, such as BlogHer, it succeeds in widening search results for your own writing or for the writing of a whole network of women. As a reader here, you know I’ve been going through trials of Lijit on this blog. I’m pretty sure it’s going to remain on this blog.

Lijit isn’t the type of search engine that searches the entire web, like Google. It is meant to search a specific network of information. It’s competing with Google in terms of “search my blog” searches, but not for “search the web” searches.

There are search engines that compete directly with Google. Two of them recently announced changes that they hope will help them move eyeballs away from Google to their brand of search. The two announcing revamped search this week are Ask.com and Hakia.com.

In Welcome to the all new Ask.com, Ask touts the fact that they claim to provide the best answers to your questions, faster and with fewer clicks.

Svetlana Gladkova from profy commented on the changes in Ask.com Rolls Out Yet Another Overhaul to Make Search Faster and More Relevant. She wrote,

So today we are seeing yet another attempt by Ask to achieve more impressive results in the search market by increasing speed and relevance of search results. Today’s overhaul reflects results of work that was initiated in January. Starting today users will experience reduction of search results download speed by 30% which is supposed to be the most important result of the overhaul. The majority of changes introduced today will remain invisible to users since they are about increasing the number of pages Ask indexes along with some improvements of the ranking algorithm (no additional details on that unfortunately).

But the most visible result of the overhaul is replacing cluttered 3-column view for search results with 2-column one where the largest space is given to the traditional list of links to the relevant pages while the smaller right column also offering some related search phrases that could probably help find better results. The search results column also offers a selection of tabs for user to choose what type of content is needed for the search – general web pages, images, news, or Q&A where results are served from various places that answer questions related to your search term. Searching other sections is also possible via the drop-down More menu.

According to an article in eWeek, Ask.com Sails into Semantic Search to Differentiate from Google, the differences are most noticable in searches for categories such as entertainment, health, jobs and reference. According to the article, the Ask search uses a different method of determining relevance and handling word order. I tested Ask and Google with this search: artists in New Mexico who use collage.

ask results
google results

Google did better with this search. Google listed some art schools, but actually had a New Mexico collage artist on the first page of results. Ask listed general New Mexico information, two listings for Democracy in New Mexico, and one art site on the first page of results. The sponsored results on Ask were better—art schools and art galleries. Maybe if I’d asked Ask.com about health or a job the results would be different.

The other revamped search engine trying to lure you away from your reliance on Google is Hakia.com. Vanessa Fox, at Search Engine Land, mentions Hakia’s new search twist in Hakia Relaunches site with “Trusted Results.” She explains:

Today at SMX East, natural language search engine Hakia has launched a new search experience that enables searchers to view categorized results, as well as view “Trusted” Results” from “Credible Sites”.

The Trusted Results program is an initiative Hakia has developed with information professionals and librarians. . . .

So far, these results are available for health, medical, and environmental topics and they are looking to expand coverage.

CJ, at Science for SEO, explains further in Hakia’s new stuff:

They’ve added the “credible sites” tab, where you can look at results from authorities, such as edu, gov and such sites, and they’re asking librarians to suggest sites and “information professionals” (I’m not sure who that covers). The resources must be current, peer reviewed, non-commercial and authentic (or at least fulfill most of these requirements).

For now you can only use it for the topics of the environment, health and medicine. The sites are by experts, although anyone can submit a resource.

Hakia’s search results are noticebly different. A series of tabs across the top of the results offers these topics: All results, Credible sites, News, Images, and Meet Others. (When you click Meet Others, you can open a chat room on your topic.) On the results page, you see sections of the page devoted to categories such as Web Results, News Results, and Images.

google results
hakia results

I gave Hakia and Google a test. I searched for “what prevents stomach pain.”

This time, I think the prize goes to Hakia. I especially thought the credible sites tab was valuable. There is so much misinformation and snake oil in health areas that some trustworthiness in results seems valuable. I’m not saying the results on Google were bad or less trustworthy, but I don’t know. I’d have to do the work of evaluating the links myself to decide. Hakia did the work for me.

To sum up, you might want to consider replacing the Google search on your blog with one by Lijit, and you might like using Hakia or Ask to search for information in specific categories. But I think most of us are still going to rely on Google for most things. What do you think?

Cross posted at BlogHer.

Sidebar changes for Blogger Challenge and Lijit Search

If you read these posts in a reader and never see the sidebar, I hope you’ll click through and take a look today. I’ve added two features.

The first is a skyscraper ad for the BlogHer DonorsChoose Blogging Challenge in support of public schools. It’s part way down the sidebar under the images of my books. You can click the ad to donate to numerous projects selected by BlogHer Contributing Editors that are part of the donorschoose.org program. My supported project is “Computer Needed for New Student-Run Newspaper!” I hope you’ll give a dollar or more to help some hard-working journalism students who need a laptop. I’m working on a post for Oct. 4 that will explain more about this project.

The second sidebar change is that I’m trying the Lijit search again. I’ve finally made peace with the terms of service, but so far I’m not impressed with the search results. I listed everything I wanted searched in my “content.” When I test it, things I know are there don’t get found. So, that may or may not remain after a period of trial.

Oldies but goodies giveaway

Time to empty the shelves a bit and make some room. I’d like to give you a book. Free, except that I need help with mailing. An envelope is about $1.50 and media mail (or whatever they call it these days) is about $1.50, so if you’re willing to send $3 to me on PayPal, I’ll send you one of these books.

Here’s how it will work. You leave a comment telling me which book you want. I contact you by email if you are the first one to ask for a book. We exchange info by email and you get the book.

The books:

  • Flash MX Actionscript: The Designer’s Edge by J. Scott Hamlin and Jennifer S. Hall, Sybex, 2002
  • Web Concept and Design by Crystal Waters, New Riders, 1996
  • Teach Yourself PHP4 in 24 Hours by Matt Zandstra, Sams, 2000
  • Building Dynamic Web Sites with Macromedia Studio MX 2004 by Tom Green, Jordan L Chllcott and Chris S. Flick, New Riders, 2003
  • JavaScript for the World Wide Web (Visual Quickstart Guide) 3rd edition by Tom Negrino and Dori Smith, Peachpit, 1999
  • Mastering Dreamweaver MX Databases by Susan Sales Harkins, Byran Chamberlain and Darren McGee, Sybex, 2003
  • Macromedia Dreamweaver MX for Windows & Macintosh (Visual Quickstart Guide), Student Edition, by J. Tarin Towers, Peachpit 2004 (Ahem, if you want this one, you’ll get the fancy schmancy student edition written by moi.)

If this giveaway is a hit, I may give away more of my oldies but goodies.

Addendum: 9/7/08. Well this was a flop. I’m going to see if anyone will take them free in my local freecycle group. There needs to be a good way to put older editions of technical books to good use. Why doesn’t somebody start a business that recycles the paper from tech books and uses it for some neat tech product?

Lijit

Check the comments about Lijit.com’s terms of use in this post: A Report from BlogHer08. I’ve taken the Lijit search off my blog for now, and may delete my account with them if the issues over content ownership aren’t resolved.

Since I write in more than one place, it appeals to me to have a way to pull up topics from all those places in a search on my content. I hope the terms get reworked at lijit.