SteveX Compiled

Wonder why internet search is so broken? Here’s one of the reasons.

Two different sites I’ve visited today, one high profile (YouTube) and the other fairly low profile (sorry Rory) have been showing Google’s Public Service Announcement Ads.
Google needs to have an AdSense ad to sell into every AdWords ad spot that’s created on the Web. If they don’t have an ad to put on your [...]

Has anyone else had a problem with Gmail simply losing mail?
I registered an application and the author sent me a license key, but I never got it.  A few days later I sent him and email and he sent me a copy of the message he originally sent me, so I searched for the license [...]

I installed Google Desktop Search on Vista, but left the Vista search alive as well, so I’m indexing everything twice.  I’m sure I’ll shut that off at some point, but it’s interesting in that it gives me the ability to search my system with both tools and compare the results.
One significant result is that Google [...]

Every now and then I like to move the ads around to see what happens to the rate that people click on them.
It’s actually kind of depressing to see how making the ads more intrusive increases the rate that people click on them.  But it’s true.
There’s a balance, of course - I don’t want the [...]

There’s a new free version of Google SketchUp available, but it doesn’t install on Windows Vista.  Or does it?
When you run the setup, it tells you that you’re not using a supported OS, and exits.  No option to install it anyway; it just prevents itself from being installed.
Ever-foolish, I configured the SketchUp installer to run [...]

53 new messages in my Inbox this morning, and only 6 of them are not spam.  This is ridiculous.  Here’s the body of one of them (with a bit of editing):
babes amazing big boobs get a good tit f**kingblonde teen sucking and f**king in the kitchen

How can Google not think this is spam?
I want a [...]

That’s the big news today:  In a stock deal, Google is buying YouTube.
A deal like this makes me wonder what Google is really getting out of it.  Another company might be impressed by YouTube’s ability to scale - to deliver video as well as they do - but surely that’s nothing impressive for Google.
And Google [...]

It’s true.  Recordable media, like blank CDs and DVDs, aren’t perfect.  Sometimes, a disc is going to exhibit errors while you’re trying to write data to it.
What I don’t understand is why developers creating backup software don’t take this common occurrence into consideration when designing their software.
I’ve complained about Nero Backup aborting a backup many discs [...]

I just discovered another special query that Google uses to return specific information, rather than just general search results:  Release Date.
Search for Photoshop CS2 Release Date and Google will clearly tell you that the release date was April 28, 2005.  Windows XP Release Date gets you October 10th, 2005.
I use the movie:Pirates of the Carribean [...]