New search engine

http://www.blogwise.com/search.php?q=idaho

Finally managed to get the new search engine for Blogwise up and running. Last night it was listed as a ‘beta’ and an optional trial. Tonight it’s the main thing (albeit still well and truly under a beta label). The old search engine really was that bad that I felt it was necessary to push the boat out this early.

Actually there are some pretty cool things (well, I think so…) that I haven’t revealed on the search interface yet. For starters the search tool is distributed across the Internet – the queries are done elsewhere which means the server is free to serve pages, and other computers pick up the bulk of the work.

There’s also search by proximity: have a look for sites near Heathrow Airport (51.3N, 0.3W), and a sort-of content filtering as a result of some work I did with ICRA over the past few months – the code is there but there isn’t yet a neat way to interface to that.

Performance is massively improved over the last search engine, as are the results themselves. Unfortunately I’m still not able to search within blogs (would be nice, but simply not enough resources to achieve the kinds of data processing that I’d need).

Expect many more bits & pieces over the coming weeks – I’ll probably post them here in advance.

Phone ripoff

Have a listen to this (MP3, ~450Kb). It was a message left on BT 1571 (domestic voicemail service, for non-Brits) the other day. I’ve also been called directly by this person/machine and had another similar message.

I love the way they’ve crafted it to make it sound like a stumbling yet polite gentleman that couldn’t possibly be part of a scam. I also love the way that they put emphasis on the 090 number (charged at £1.50/min… of course) and that the last three digits are clearly inserted by a computer.

It would be hilarious if so many people didn’t get caught out by these bastards.

Vague thought

Why do radio travel reports always refer to ongoing accidents? ‘There is an ongoing accident at Junction 6 of the M27…’

Slightly more normal posts returning soon… just going through a hectic phase…

IE7

http://dean.edwards.name/IE7/intro/

What a good idea. By simply inserting this Javascript into the start of your page, you no longer need to worry about IE errors with CSS and stylesheets. The script works (I think) by modifying the DOM on the fly to suit IE’s render engine, applying all sorts of hacks and workarounds on the way – neat!

Apparantly…

Heard on the radio the other morning… Scientists have determined that December the 4th at 12.30pm is the average time at which adults stop looking forward to Christmas and start stressing about it. If it’s not true it certainly feels like it should be!

Congratulation by the way to Woodge & family whose baby daughter, Kajsa Christina was born on the 2nd.

Plazes

http://www.plazes.com/

A geo-location directory; works by spotting which routers you’re using to get to the net and using that to look up where you are. Neat – I ought to look at this in more details, sign up and have a play!

Student Radio Awards 2004

Tonight I travel to London for the Student Radio Awards at the Shepherds Bush Pavilion. Surge is nominated for 4 awards this year including Station of the Year and best Technical Innovation. It’ll be fun – last year’s was excellent.

Since Hanni‘s gotten me addicted to Flickr (a photo sharing service with more bells and whistles than you can shake a stick at), I’ve been fiddling with some of its features and come up with this page.

If this works, I’ll be able to send photos from my Nokia, via Flickr, onto this page. A live photo log of the Student Radio Awards. I know photologs/moblogs aren’t exactly new, but it’ll be the first time I’ve tried it. Keep an eye out on that page tonight (from 7pm GMT) for photos from the Svencam!