Katrina - Yahoo, MSN, Google?

katrina yahoo
Originally uploaded by venkks.

katrina_google
Originally uploaded by venkks.

I did a search today in yahoo and google on "katrina". It was interesting to examine the results. I found Yahoo and MSN results were more relevant to hurricane katrina and initially there was no results in Google relevant to the hurrican "katrina". Few hours hours later some results poped up. But its already 3rd day (if not more) for the "katrina hurrican" story.

I think if search engines try to optimize, carwl and present relevant results for top keywords it would be highly helpful. Kudoos for MSN and Yahoo in this aspect!

Google Talk!

Its the talk of the town today! As usual Google with its simple yet powerful UI has drawn attention of millions of users. Also it uninstalls your GMail notifier since it supports notifications. I would have loved to see the IM integrated to the Sidebar. Also it would have been better if they had supported emoticons though I agree that it might break the keep it simple rule!

Download and talk from Your http://www.google.com/talk

Google Desktop 2 with Sidebar! Why an app? Why not a webapp?

Google today released Google Desktop 2 with Sidebar. The sidebar looks pretty helpful and handly tool. I read some reviews stating that it takes quite a screen real-estate, but dont worry it has an auto-hide feature which will allow you to have ample space on your screen. I would like to see MSN messenger with a nice interface with all these features.

I am also wondering why Google built this as a desktop application. Why not build an rich web client interface (ajax) and utilize the Windows -> Display Properties -> Customize Desktop and place it as a web item and place it in the sidebar. I am hoping Windows should be storing this stuff somewhere so a typical installation for this interface (web based) should have written those values and locked the web item to the side of the screen. But this idea only works for Windows XP/2003, still that would work since Google desktop only supports XP and 2003. May be they did it because they have a better reason!

Blogger for Word

Posting a blog entry has gotten even easier.  Now you could post an entry just from your Microsoft Word.  Download this Word add-in and start to blog from your word http://buzz.blogger.com/bloggerforword.html

Video on your iPod?

I was awaiting for the new 5G iPod series to arrive but just figured out that I don't need one. Just visit cnet.com setp-by-step instructions for video on iPod setup http://reviews.cnet.com/4520-10163_7-6279061-1.html?tag=bnav, its pretty cool.

Accessing CSV file as a Database using ODBC-JDBC

Microsoft provides a ODBC driver for CSV/TXT files so that they can be accessed/manipulated from applications using ODBC. The same can be accessed in the Java world using the JDBC type 1 driver, which essentially is a JDBC-ODBC Bridge. There is a detailed tutorial here:

http://www.devarticles.com/c/a/Java/Using-CSV-Files-as-Databases-and-Interacting-with-Them-Using-Java/

However there is a bug with Microsoft ODBC Text Setup utility. The Text driver creates a file called System.ini which stores the column names with the corresponding datatype and length, header details etc. But the utility (atleast the one provided with Windows XP) doesnt write the datatype and length to the file. This however can be manually changed and System.ini is usually present in the directory in which you specify the CSV file.

For the example in the tutorial the change for System.ini will be:

[statebirds.txt]
ColNameHeader=True
Format=CSVDelimited
MaxScanRows=1
CharacterSet=OEM
Col1=STATE Text Width 255
Col2=STATEBIRD Text Width 255

http://msdn.microsoft.com/library/default.asp?url=/library/en-us/odbc/htm/odbcjetschema_ini_file.asp

Yahoo Mail doesnt work with IE 7.0 beta 1

If you install IE 7.0 Beta and try opening Y! Mail it would complain please upgrade to IE 6.0!

Yahoo releases Shopping Web Services

Yahoo released Shopping Web Services API thus enabling users to build applications easily. The API provides access to productSearch, catalogLisiting and merchantSearch services. The services are very primitive while comparing to eBay's API.