February 14, 2006
Filed under:
fyi — emad @ 1:18 pm
I noticed that Apple has begun shipping macbook pros…but the article stated speeds of 2.0 & 1.83 GHz.
If you ordered a macbook pro 1.83 GHz or 1.67 GHz like me, you might have been wondering what was going on too.
Well, it sounds like Apple is providing the upgraded processors in your order. Rumor has it that they may be reserving the lower end 1.67 GHz processors for the ibook versions.
Some people have been canceling their orders to ensure they get the correct versions…but that just put them at the end of the queue…which is alright by me since mine isn’t coming for another 6 weeks and people canceling orders just moves my order up…so don’t cancel your order to reorder! 
UPDATE: I just received this email from Amazon, whom I placed my order with:
Hello from Amazon.com.
You recently placed an order for a new Apple MacBook Pro from
Amazon.com. Apple Computer Inc. has decided not to manufacture this
particular computer model. Instead, Apple is manufacturing an upgraded
model with a faster processor to fulfill outstanding orders.
The good news is that we will automatically ship the upgraded model at
no additional charge to you when we fulfill your order. The new
computer is also eligible for the $150 rebate offered by
Amazon.com. You can view your order status by visiting “Your Account”
on Amazon.com.
Here is information on your order:
CANCELLED ITEM:
Item # B000BNHMIY
Apple MacBook Pro 15.4″ Notebook MA091LL/A
(1.83 GHz Intel Core Duo, 1 GB RAM, 100 GB Hard Drive, SuperDrive)
Item # B0006PK94Q
Apple MacBook Pro 15.4″ Notebook MA464LL/A
(2.0 GHz Intel Core Duo, 1 GB RAM, 100 GB Hard Drive, SuperDrive)
You can find more information about the new product specifications and
the Amazon.com rebate on our website here:
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0006PK94Q/
If you don’t want to receive the upgraded product as a substitute, you
still have the option to cancel your order before the Estimated Ship
Date that appears on the order in “Your Account.”
We hope you enjoy your new computer.
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I mentioned Blingo in the past as a search engine that provides prizes to its searchers (like iwon).
Last year, Bill Gates announced revenue sharing with searchers for their future ad product, AdCenter.
Well, they just recently announced incentivizing MSN searchers with prizes…so, naturally, someone was bound to exploit the system.
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Looks like Yahoo has launched a User Interface Blog:
This blog is the companion blog for two libraries we’re proudly releasing today. The new Yahoo! Design Pattern Library offers our thinking on common interface design issues for traditional and rich Internet applications. The new Yahoo! User Interface Library is a collection of industrial-grade JavaScript utilities and widgets that enable you to efficiently get the most out of today’s powerful browsers. In both cases, these are the exact same things that power Yahoo! today.
The two libraries each stand alone, but also complement the extensive Web Services offered by Yahoo! properties via the Yahoo! Developer Network (and others around the Web). With today’s release, we’re starting to tell a complete cover-to-cover story. A web service is one thing (and a pretty cool thing at that), but we believe it’s even more potent when combined with proven interfaces and enhanced with JavaScript and AJAX goodness.
They have some good, general UI tips there even if you don’t want to use those libraries. The libraries are free to download under the BSD Open Source and Creative Commons Attribution-By Licenses.
The Yahoo! User Interface Library “is a collection of JavaScript components that help developers enrich web applications with desktop-style, event-driven interactions. [They]’ve focused on creating a lightweight and modular library with an a la carte deployment style, minimizing the pageweight associated with this move toward greater richness…These are industrial-grade components. Their design has benefited from the input of more than 100 web engineers at Yahoo!, and we’re working hard to make usage both clear and flexible. Each utility and widget in the library has been battle-hardened in the browsers of millions of users” (emphasis is mine)
The Yahoo! Design Pattern Library was released “to share the common patterns that [they] see emerging at Yahoo! It is hoped that by opening up [their] design patterns [they] can share [their] current thinking as well as solicit your valuable feedback…[Yahoo] believe[s] design patterns are powerful. First, they offer a solution in context of a problem. Second, they provide a name for the solution. Taken together as a set, pattern libraries form a solution language that can enhance our ability to communicate design ideas.“
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February 13, 2006
It was interesting reading the posts about Oracle’s acquisition of Innobase and their press release that followed. Innobase provides the technology behind Innodb tables in the MySQL database.
Now, there is talk of them looking at other companies such as Sleepycat (the Berkeley DB people), JBoss (the J2EE App Server), and Zend (PHP).
What do you suppose is the business plan behind this?
Most instances of Zend I’ve seen utilize MySQL but Oracle and Zend collaborated on Zend Core for Oracle. I’ve seen and/or heard JBoss used with just about everything. Berkeley DB has always been a nice, quick DB file with low overhead (it’s free, I’ve never reached any limits on open handles to it, you can select data out very quickly, etc).
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February 9, 2006
Hammernode is turning its services off by Feb 15.
From their insider section:
February 3, 2006 - hn.org is scheduled to be turned down on February 15th, 2006. Operating this service since September of 2000 has had more ups than downs, and I hope that it has provided value to many of you during that time.
Hammernode provides a free DNS service. As of this morning, their topbar on their homepage states these stats:
Vanity Accts: 25,000
Updates: 75,446,723
Virtual Accts: 57,608
Domains: 28,542
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Well, we heard a lot about Google creating their own eBay Shops (gBay) and their own payment system (gPal/Google Wallet).
Well, it sounds like they’re actually testing it. From the WSJ article:
For the last nine months, Google has recruited online retailers to test GBuy, according to one person briefed on the service.
FYI, Google is also testing magazine/offline advertising placement.
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I’ve received a lot of questions lately as to what the difference is between an iYP (Internet Yellow Pages), cityguide, and local search. Over the past year, we have seen more and more of these cross over and the lines between them have been grayed a bit (and continue to do so). Now, I am of the opinion that these terms don’t necessarily describe companies but, instead, they define how these companies have built their products.
iYP - A yellow page directory. These are keyword-based searches against categories as opposed to searches against records. Often, you have to enter the city information in a different box than the sate or zip code (each field gets its own box). Data is usually collected from a partner or the “offline” division of the corresponding phone company but may also come from or be supplemented by base data providers. Usually have a good sized customer/advertiser base due to upselling offline customers for online advertising. Originally, advertisers would pay to show up in the listing, have an enhanced listing, or buy some guaranteed placement position in the search results. However, we are seeing more online advertising usually consisting of a base monthly fee providing some level of clicks baked into the flat fee along with inclusion into the directory. We may see pay per call increase in this arena faster than the others, usually due to relationships with phone companies (though there are many cost-effective options to call-metering these days).
Local Search - Searching for listings geospatially (most often). Data can be location records but can include searching for products, classifieds, events, or just about anything that is searched for locally. The interface usually consists of two boxes (a “what” and a “where”) but have had a trend moving towards a unified box . The decision on the interface is usually based upon the company’s ability to parse the single box properly to identify that 1) it contains a local modifier (if it is integrated with algorithmic/web search) so there are no false positives such as “Chicago” the musical, not the city and 2) a what and where term can be identified and parsed out. Data is usually from a base data provider and is supplemented with additional data/metadata. Advertisers are usually acquired through web interfaces and will consist of a pay for performance model (usually consisting of pay per click but can also include pay per call).
Cityguide - a cityguide isn’t really a searching feature but some of the local search companies have some cityguide component and some news paper companies or other local companies tend to have a cityguide. A cityguide is, as the name implies, a guide to a city. It provides information about events and will provide recommendations and lists about where to go or what to do within the city. Data is either purchased or acquired based on a partnership, built through an internal editorial staff, or garnered from users (either by directly soliciting information like user reviews or by traffic habits such as popularity lists based on pageviews of businesses or recommendations based on past viewing/purchases). Traditionally, advertisers paid for placement positions or CPM advertising. They then shifted to enhaced listings. In more recent times, they have consisted of cost per click advertisers (especially as companies with large local customers bases try and find a way to get more local traffic to feed the almost insatiable appetite for local consumers by these customers). The click-based advertisers are usually from a third party/partnership (they usually don’t build their own ad engine).
There is a lot more to it than just this but this helps provide some context when I refer to the different types of products out there.
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Yellowbook acquired Click Forward.
From their site:
Click Forward provides outsourced local search engine marketing solutions to directory publishers, newspapers, and marketing agencies. We use our leading edge technology and advertising expertise to allow our client partners to offer highly profitable local search products to their advertisers.
Sounds like Yellowbook may be ramping up its customer base and/or online marketing efforts. Meanwhile, the Yellowbook site states that it is in “4.0 Beta” and is looking more like a local search than an iYP (as most are these days).
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February 7, 2006
Well, it’s been a while since my last post. I must apologize…I’ve been really busy lately. Hopefully things will clear up shortly.
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Here are a couple of changes I have noticed in GMail:
- When you have addresses in your email, a link for each one is created in the right-hand column to a Google Maps link for that address (see image). Kind of reminds me what Vinq Greasemap has been doing for a long time (it displays a google map at the top of whatever webpage you’re on with all the points mapped onto it…it is a firefox extension).
- I just noticed today that Google is incorporating their Chat application into Gmail:
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Chat is coming soon
Chat with your friends from right inside Gmail. There’s no need to load a separate program or look up new addresses. It’s just one click to chat with the people you already email, as well as anyone on the Google Talk network. And now you can even save and search for chats in your Gmail account.
We’ve started rolling this out to all Gmail accounts, so yours should have it soon. It’s good to chat. Learn more
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