Category: Reviews

Google launched Google Instant today, which is exactly what it sounds like: search results appearing as you type. The concept is simple: you type something into Google, and you see search results for what Google thinks you’re going to search for, even before you finish typing.*

As I’ve mentioned before, Google isn’t my primary search engine, and even when I do use Google, I never use the website. Instant is supposed to launch browserside eventually, but for now it’s limited to the website. Since I probably won’t be using it too often for that reason, I decided to give it a try today, complete with its most important shortcuts: tab for finishing a word, right arrow to finish a query, and up and down to go up and down search queries.

Conclusion? Still deciding. This may have something to do with my typing speed. People have guessed this during NaNoWriMo word wars and (of course) last weekend when I wrote the three-day novel. See, I can create at least sixty words a minute when actually writing the words off the top of my head. Writing 900 to 1000 words in fifteen minutes is normal for me, not outstanding like it is to many others. When typing other things, I can type significantly faster, so the third-second or so wait before the search results appear is just a tiny bit faster than what I’d be waiting anyway. Still, that does save some time.

Since Google isn’t my primary search engine, I turn to it with very specific queries, usually those whose answers can’t be found on the first page of a search result. For those queries, the results usually won’t show up until entering the last word, in which case I may as well have just entered it in my browser’s search bar.

My results: Mixed feelings. Sure, I’ll save a few seconds, but I don’t use Google often enough that the seconds will add up significantly. If I really want to save those seconds, I’m better off searching from my browser instead of opening a new tab for Google and watching the results show up. That’s the ultimate time waster. For someone who keeps a search tab open all the time, this could be a lifechanger.

*Unless you’re searching for inappropriate content. Then you still have to type in the entire search query and hit enter.

I installed the Delicious toolbar for Iceweasel (the Debian rebranding of Firefox) yesterday. First impression: Wow. Why didn’t I install this sooner?

The installation is just like the installation of every other add-on. You install and restart, and upon restarting, the new add-on is ready to go. Excellent. The three new buttons that got added to the navigation bar made the address bar smaller, but that was fixable. I could remove the toolbar. Those were fixable.

Then I noticed something that made me laugh. Delicious was really trying to sync all 12,000+ of my bookmarks with the browser, not what I wanted. I started using Delicious to reduce my dependence on browser-based bookmarks! This setting can also be adjusted, so I switched back to classic mode, restarted my browser (again), and entered a world where ctrl-d saves a bookmark. I may change my mind later, especially since searching in the sidebar looks useful. You can sort by oldest first! That’s really valuable, especially given how long I’ve been bookmarking there. There are a lot of lost gems in the archive (and a lot of lost gems that need to be retagged).

Now to read and save the half-dozen links I just opened.

I’m not interested in buying the iPad, but this afternoon I happened to be in a Best Buy (and I do mean happened–the other people I was with wanted to go for non-iPad reasons) and decided to give the iPad a try.

The keyboard is hard to type on, even when the iPad is oriented horizontally. This may be due to my talons or because I’m not used to typing on a touchscreen. Whatever the case, the keyboard feels unnatural, and I found myself pecking at the keys instead of typing naturally. You can buy a special keyboard to attach to the iPad, but if you’re planning on doing hardcore typing, aren’t you better off using a real keyboard on a real computer?

For a device that has been touted as the gadget to get for the non-techy person in your life, it’s surprisingly nonintuitive to use. I played around with several of the apps that were preloaded on the iPad. Zooming in and out of Google Maps isn’t obvious, as there’s no button to zoom in or out; your fingers do the work. Surfing the Web takes time, as you use your fingers to scroll, and I found myself running my finger up the screen to scroll down, an action that made perfect sense to me. I’m scrolling the stuff at the top away, right? Wrong. You scroll your fingers down the page. This makes sense if you think about it, but at first glance it wasn’t the obvious thing to do.

The iPad doesn’t always orient itself properly when you turn it around. This drove me mad to no end, and I found myself looking at an upside down iPad. In theory you can orient the iPad with any of the four edges at the top; in fact, that happened to me at some point. This just doesn’t always happen when you want it to.

The iPad isn’t completely bad, though. Reading books is pleasant. You can import books in epub format and read them through the books app, and you can even click a word to define it, which is nifty. The neat part for me is the movies. I only tried this with the Youtube app, but this works with other video apps as well from what I’ve read. Turning the iPad horizontally makes the video fullscreen, and turning the iPad vertically gives you other options. This can be handy when traveling, especially given the iPad’s ten-hour battery life.

I don’t see myself owning an iPad. The concept of a tablet computer is a great idea, especially for those who consume media instead of create it. With the arrival of other tablets in the not so far future that are superior to the iPad, there will be plenty of options out there. Choose responsibly. Meanwhile, I’ll stick to my hardy laptop and desktop, though I may seek out some on-the-go gadget one day, preferably one without the restrictions that Apple has chosen to place on the iPad.