[Google Blogs] 2001: A search odyssey

From Google:

9/30/2008 03:59:00 PM

Now that we're a decade old, we figured we're long overdue for some spring cleaning. We started digging around our basement and found all kinds of junk: old Swedish fish, pigeon poop, Klingon translation books. Amazingly enough, hidden in a corner beneath Larry's and Sergey's original lab coats, we found a vintage search index in mint condition. We dusted it off and took it for a spin, gobsmacked to see how different the web was in early 2001. "iPod" did not refer to a music player, "youtube" was nonsense, and if you were looking for "Michael Phelps," chances are you meant the scientist, not the swimmer. "Wikipedia" was brand new. Remember "hanging chads"? (And speaking of that election-specific reference -- if you're a U.S. citizen, it's not too late: please register to vote.)

We had so much fun searching that we wanted to put this old index online for everyone to play with. We thought it'd be even cooler if we could actually see the full versions of the old web pages, so we worked with the Internet Archive to link to their cache of these pages from 2001. Step into the time machine and try a 2001 Google search.

For more information on this search, please read our FAQ.

Posted by Shirin Oskooi, Product Manager

Hmmm.... What to search for??? Something older than iPod, youtube and Wikipedia...? Hmmmm...
I know! I'll search for myself....

Results 1 - 10 of about 80 for Malachi de AElfweald. (0.01 seconds)

Hehe ;) Let's see... what's there... Oooh, Letter of Recommendation from the chair of the CS dept. I was listed as a Unix Wizard. And of course one of my favorite quotes of all time on our VAMPS (VAMPS Against Modern Political Systems - the political party I started and was registered with for about 10 years) guestbook:

Hehehe...VAMPS has a guestbook now? Excellent! I run an online index of political parties called The Political Lighthouse which has carried a listing for VAMPS since the last campaign. I was just dropping through while updating links. Thought you might like to know your party has more staying power than some of the big-name 3rd parties... like the Nazis and the Progressive Labour Party. Good luck in 2000!

Of course, it is always fun to look back at old webpages... like this one. To bad it can't access any of my old pages from 1993 :(

Mal

Project 10100

Project 10¹⁰⁰ is a call for ideas to change the world by helping as many people as possible.

Jack Thompson disbarred permanently!

You might remember Jack Thompson from various posts such as this one and this one.

Per Slashdot, "The Florida Supreme Court has approved Judge Dava Tunis' recommendations for the permanent disbarment of John B. "Jack" Thompson, with no leave to reapply and $43,675.35 in disciplinary costs."

Score one for the good guys

Emotiv EPOC Delay

In an effort to ensure the highest levels of quality for our first consumer product, we are extending the testing phase of the EPOC. This is going to lengthen our release schedule and, as a result, we expect product to be shipping in 2009, rather than in time for the 2008 holiday season. We know many of you are anxious to order an EPOC and we’re anxious for you to experience it, so we will keep you informed of the availability details. As members of our “Emotivated” Facebook community (and EPOC Fan Page), you can get regular updates from our NewsFlash emails (http://emotiv.com/corporate/5_0/5_2.htm), as well as by checking the Emotiv website.




All the best,

The EmoDirect Team

iPhone mutilation

Well, after having to factory reset my iPhone (and thus loose all my data again since it refuses to even acknowledge the last 3 backups) for the 5th time in 2 weeks... I think it is time to burn, mutilate or destroy my iPhone.  I originally switched to it purely for the touchscreen as I had been wanting that for awhile.  There are others with touchscreens now, and chances are they don't require the dreaded evil broken iTunes crap.

So which phone to go with? Well, preference would be for something with 850/900/1800/1900, WiFi, touchscreen (I wish my SaveJe phone had a touchscreen), allow me to write my own applications [preferably Java] , USB, and preferably GPS.  Which camp do I go with this time?

There are quite a few Linux phones... soon to be Android and Java (again) phones... what to do what to do?

The Neo Freerunner is only $374. Basically the same price as the new iPhone, or my old one, or my old SaveJe phone.... It is linux based (which wouldn't be my preference, but it is better than windows-based). Although they are not using a Sun stack (I really want full JRE7 on it) they aparently have a Maven plugin you can use to package your java app for use on the phone:

We use the CacaoJVM as virtual machine and GNU Classpath as class library. With this we have a runtime which is a mostly Java SE 1.5 compatible in the areas an average developer works. Furthermore this combination has a fast JIT compiler and a acceptable small size. 

Definitely not ideal. In fact, it looks like it has some issues.

There is a list of which phones support which JSR... but, I want FULL JRE. Like SaveJe had. Which is now aparently JavaFX Mobile and it not currently available on any phones but was displayed at JavaOne with the previous Neo product (1973).

Phone died

This is the problem I had (but while installing some other app)... If you run into it as well, here was the solution that worked:
"1. Boot phone 2. Hold Power + Home until the screen goes BLACK 3. Continue to hold home and let go of power 4. Plug into iTunes (screen should still be BLACK) 5. Within 20 seconds it should come up in recovery mode 6. Let go of Home and hit RESTORE in iTunes."

Lost Contact

Over the years I have lost contact with quite a few people. Some of them I have managed to reconnect with (mostly through MySpace) and many I have yet to figure out how to locate.  On the off chance that one of them may do a Google search for themselves and come across my page mentioning them, I will list a few people here that I would like to make contact with again...

• Jeff Baxter - he was the assistant manager at Castle in Medford when we moved to Portland together. Worked for Stream for awhile.
• Juliana - she used to do spoken word at the Ohm in Portland back in 1999 or so. She used to live in an apartment down the street from Castle.
• Kathy Tiffee - my first girlfriend back in 7th/8th grade in Alturas
  
• Kari Tibbedeaux - dear friend of mine from Redding that moved to Portola
• Jenny Abeloe - my girlfriend when I graduated from SOU and when I moved to Portland

Apache Archiva

Today I was browsing through some of the more recent Apache projects, and came across Archiva. I decided to give it a whirl.

I didn't manage to get it to work as a windows service, and a few things (like uploading artifacts to it) were kinda slow, but overall I'd say it's pretty slick and definitely something I think I will use for awhile.

Go ahead and take a look at my setup instructions (which I honestly put together so I don't forget the steps when I go to do it at home) and give it a try. I think you'll like it.

Evolution

Thought this was kinda interesting

Birthday

As some of you know, my birthday is coming up at the beginning of November. If you'd all like to pitch in to get me this, I wouldn't mind at all =)

I couldn't resist ;)

goosh

I know some of you really miss my News from the Net. I have not had time to read many articles or sites lately... However, I did come across one that catches my attention... goosh: the Unofficial Google Shell... I'd recommend that all you command-line geeks out there go take a look :)

Identity Theft

Some of you have been wondering why my google status mentioned identity theft the other day...

A couple weeks ago, I got a new RCI Platinum Plus MasterCard. Now, the interest rate was at 14.99%, which for me is really high, so there was no intention to just use the card all over the place. I didn't use it at all in fact.

Then when I went to buy my car from Beaverton Mitsubishi, I couldn't get out of a down payment, so I put it on the card. First and only purchase. I handed my card to one guy, then got it back from another half an hour later in another building.

A couple days later, I went onto the BofA website (bank hosting the card) to determine the address to send payments to. I saw the down payment on the transaction history, then a $1 paypal temporary authorization, then a $625 ($675? can't remember) temporary authorization for Paypal Dealsonline. Since I had never used it anywhere but the dealership, I was very surprised by this.

I contacted BofA. They said that until the transaction was posted, there was nothing to do. I kept explaining to them that either someone fraudulently used my card or they got my data directly from BofA. The bank suggested I call PayPal directly.

I called PayPal. They had already flagged it as suspicious because the person had not signed into their paypal account to do the transaction. Also, the person had not mistakenly typed the wrong number because they had used MY name. At this point, PayPal identified it as identity theft. They started blocked payment and started an investigation. They told me to call BofA back and what to say.

BofA cancelled my card, issued me a new one with a different number, and started an investigation.

Since I had only used the card once, and never online, chances are very high that someone at Beaverton Mitsubishi will be getting 5 years / $500,000 fine for under $700 worth of merchandise that they never received.

I also called the Merchant and told them they might want to hold on to that shipping address.

I also called my sales rep at the dealership and told him.