The time to buy a new computer is NEVER - Page 6

TS,

I'm sorry that you are either unable or unwilling to have a reasoned discussion about this, but at this point I don't even know what your point is anymore.

As for image results, obviously Google isn't perfect, but if I type this search in, it gives me pictures:

http://www.google.com/search?q=mikha...ient=firefox-a

It will also sometimes give me video results:

http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&s...va&btnG=Search

So if you want to calm down and discuss this whole issue rationally, I'm more than happy to do so, since interface design is one of my professional interests.

--Andre

These computer threads always hurt my head.

Ratboy, the point is that when you find computers with the same quality of parts, Macs are not much more expensive, if at all, than other brand name pre-built computers. That's what they are, brand name pre-built computers.

By clicking that link to "Image results for mikhail baryshnikov" you are redifining your search, thus proving my point. It is the same search you would have gotten if you would have clicked 'Images' BEFORE your search, and then typed in "mikhail baryshnikov" except you wouldn't have to search for text on webpages to get there. There are three clickable pictures present in your search results. But they are the result of Google gently prodding you in the right direction, despite your failure to search for what you actually wanted, not a justification that it displayed "every result". Which it didn't. There are 10,900 images available when you search images. There are three on the page you quoted. Oh, and by the way, the fact that it's even smart enough to ask you whether you want to search in pictures, video, music, etc. is a new feature - it debuted on May 17 2007 and its called Google Universal Search. So they obviously had done very well before that by having people click on the Images/Video/News and etc. parameters before that. My point, if you are unable to follow along, is that the article you posted is neither insightful or cogent, as you stated. The argument it proposes, while amusing to those who enjoy bashing microsoft, is flawed, Its assumptions are incorrect, and its main point, that the dog is annoying, while correct, is generally moot - due to the fact that everyone who doesn't like it, is more than welcome to turn it off and not use it. Its like complaining about the taste of lemons, or whats on channel 4. If you don't like it... do something else! Hell, you don't even have to go through the stupid questions if you don't want to. It's just that the Windows detractors here, yourself included, seem to be too lazy or too unwilling to spend 10 seconds of your life ONCE to set something up the way you want it.

No shit. Or for that matter, any threads in which Slim gets all hot and bothered.

I kid I kid

I am the organic equivalent of the pain gun.

that must make me the organic equivalent of the "slight itch" gun

There is an important difference: suppose I didn't know there were images of Baryshnikov before I did my search, then Google just told me something new. In the MS-style of file search, I would have to know before my search that there were images of him.

As I've said before, I support refining the search results. The difference is where this filtering occurs: before or after.

--Andre

Were. This one's easy: they tried it with Power Computing, they lost a lot of money. They're a hardware company more than a software company, if you follow balance sheets.

You asked a question, he answered. The first two results to a web search for "Mikhail Baryshnikov" are direct links to .jpgs. Or even better, to the picture in web page context. At least give him credit for answering your challenge.

Um... what? Ok... congratulations on answering my challenge and proving my point that Google will not display all results for all fields if you only search web pages... I appreciate it. Good work yet again.

Again, you miss the entire point. I'm going to attempt reason one more time. If you didn't know that the internet contained pictures of Baryshnikov, why would you be searching for them there? It's called a SEARCH. Not an ACCIDENT. If you DO know the internet contains such pictures, (which anyone who has more than a 40 IQ should know) and you are searching for them, why would you waste your time searching text on web pages? Why not click the Image search function to begin with? Otherwise, you are HOPING that Google is smart enough to figure out what you want, which it might be... and it tells you what you SHOULD HAVE DONE (Search Images) or it might not be, in which case, no prompt to search images will appear, and you will have to sift through as many full web pages as it takes to find a picture that suits your needs because you were too dense, lazy, or incompetent to search where you should have searched in the first place. Yes, Google also lets you type in your keyword, search web pages, and then hit the image/music/map etc link afterwards. Is it that big of a difference between refining the search before or after? I can't believe that would be much of a sticking point for anyone reasonable. You, of course, realize that there are a billion things you can search for on Google that don't bring up the new "image suggestion". It's all based on search popularity. If you are searching for images for something like... oh... a banana, the aforementioned Bob Marley, or something else - you will not get the query on whether you actually intended to search for images or not. I give credit to Google for trying to allow people who don't know how to use a search engine properly the chance to find what they want... but in no way does it "display every result" as you had claimed. it blows my mind that in this day and age, there are people out there who think that searching web based text is the best way to locate image files online. Edit: Oh, and I failed to point out that the original article you posted was published online in 2004 - THREE YEARS before Google would have put up any JPG links on a web text search.

my brain hurts

Because I may have been searching for pictures, or maybe a video, or an article. Often I've been surprised at what other pieces of information relate to what I'm finding that's relevant.

Again I refer you to my example before where I'm trying to remember where I heard or read or saw a discussion about bespoke suits. Was it in a PDF, or a Word doc, or one of my emails?

Google is not the end goal --- it's a good illustration of some of the points I'm trying to make.


That makes it all the more perceptive.

--Andre

Um... it makes the entire "satire" part of the article about the Google "search questions" unfair and untrue. And the speculation as to whether Google could be successful implementing the same "search parameter" ethic as MS a moot question. Thus my entire argument since my first post about this subject. I win. End of story. If when this article was published, there were no pictures/music/maps/etc. brought up on a search, and to get to them, you had to click on the appropriate link (as you still often have to do to get the results you are looking for) Since this was the case, then the satire criticizing MS search for defaulting to the same thing while holding Google up as the gold standard is just dumb. and not in the least bit perceptive. The only difference between MS and Google was that Google defaults to web based text search, allowing you to potentially search the wrong location if you choose, before you narrow your parameters and MS (by default, though you can change this as easily as you can change anything else) asks you to where to search before you search the wrong location. This has been my point the entire time. I'm not sure how much clearer I can be on this point. Either way, the end result is the same. Google just allows you to take an extra step by searching something you may not even be interested in, though its completely unnecessary. If you follow the MS format and define your search parameters beforehand, you are much more likely to find what you are looking for on the first try. If you don't know where you saw something, It's not like MS doesn't give you the option to search all files and folders. You are more than welcome to search all files and folders, or a specific drive where you keep all your personal files, by any full or partial text in a file, the title of any file or folder, or basically when the file was created, modified, or whatever. As I've said before, the fact that it gives you search parameters beforehand is completely optional. If you so desire, you can set you MS search to be like Google, by enabling fast indexing, and going into the search preferences and setting it to advanced search. Yes, I understand that its not the default setting, but not everyone likes surprises in their search results as much as you do, I understand that not everyone wants to buy into the "default way of doing things"... Thats why Windows gives you all the options. Here's a screen shot of my MS search window set up exactly in this way. (it takes precisely two mouse clicks to set your preferences in this way) This is exactly as it comes up now when I push the search button on my keyboard. I don't really have any emails or text files to search on this computer, but it takes less than 1 second to search through roughly 1TB of movie files.

You see it as searching the "wrong location" (which makes no sense anyway since it's indexed already). I see it as searching everything that the computer has access to because it can. It's a user interface failing that MS search is not exploiting the strengths of a computer (brute force repetitive work) and the strengths of a human (post-search qualitative filtering of the results). Instead it reverses the situation by forcing the user to remember where their file or phrase or whatever might be, and then telling that to the computer.

Even configured the way you suggest, there are still two fields: filename and word or phrase. Why should these two things be differentiated? Just show me all the results, and I can use my brain to quickly filter out the results.

--Andre