Searching vs Filtering

This is one of the questions that keeps coming up (usually in discussion featuring Microsoft SharePoint and equally usually starting with a complaint about not being able to find something they "know is there").

Mostly the issues come down to the differences between searching and filtering and I put together the little example below which helped explain things;

Bob lives in a house. He's got lot of books one of which is the Great Gatsby. His bookshelf is in his lounge and everything in his life is nicely indexed and searchable and all result sets include the location. 

Bob wants to find his book. 

He does a search "book=great gatsby AND location=lounge". He gets the result that the book he's looking for is in the bedroom (where he left it). 

Now if he'd used the same text as a filter then he'd have had no results as the book wasn't in the lounge and filters don't have the flexibility to, if no result matches exactly, to widen out to include "close enough"-matches that, in this case, give him the result he's looking for.

This worked quite well so I thought I'd share it.

As a side note this also demonstrates the effectiveness of a really good search engine. Take, for instance, the majority of users habit of "filing" their emails into folders. If everyone in an enterprise was reliably able to search for things just think of all the time that could be saved by everyone just archiving emails out of their inbox rather than filing them away.

Google Chromecast - Several Weeks In

The first thing to say is that I'm an Apple TV owner. I've had it since version 1, have a tonne of iTunes content in the cloud, and am generally speaking very happy with it. I thought I'd give the Google alternative a go because before I was an "Apple guy" I was a "Google guy" and despite all the apple stuff I've got I'd happy go back to Google in a flash if they could make products that were as good (for me, I recognise that this is very subjective!) as the Apple Alternatives.

The unboxing experience is pretty good. Basically in the box is the device, a power block and a USB lead. In my case the power supply was American, but to be honest I've got plenty of powered USB ports around the TV so this wasn't a problem.

I plugged in and had the whole thing setup connecting to my wireless network in about 5 minutes. I was able to start streaming one of the Doctor Who episodes I'd purchased via the Play Movies app on my iPhone pretty immediately. Using my iPhone as a remote control seemed to work very well, and (unlike Apple's AirPlay) as rather than streaming from my iPhone to the Chromecast it makes it's own connection to the

One thing I'm hoping not to do is compare the Chromecast to the AppleTV they're very different pieces of technology. In essence all the Chromecast is is an online video player, that's enough for a lot of people but the AppleTV does more.

So I've been using it for a few weeks and here's my main comments;

• I miss having a remote. I've got young children who should go to sleep around 8, but tend to come down into the lounge around 8:30 - just in time to catch things in Walking Dead I'd prefer them not to see. The problem is that my WiFi connection on my phone has shutdown so when I pick it up to hit "pause" it has to connect to WiFi and then find the Chromecast and then work out it's playing a video so the "pause" button is enabled and then, after I've pressed it, pause the live video. This doesn't always work - in fact it rarely works. In fact I've learnt that the only way to ensure it connects properly is to shutdown the app and re-open it - hardly ideal
• Google Play is cheaper than iTunes. Mostly. Frankly it's good to have an alternative, but the one thing I did find frustrating is pricing not defaulting to High Definition (HD). It's very frustrating that when I see something at £9.99 I have to click on it to see the HD price. Even more frustrating is if it's showing £3.49 which turns out to be the rental price! There just doesn't seem to be any consistency, some items don't appear to have a price until you click on them. I find this frustrating. £1.99 for a classic album though - can't beat that!
• Virgin Media is my ISP, I have fibre broadband, the HD content is crisp and clear. However there's just the small part of me that can't get used to not knowing what HD I'm watching. Is it 1080p or 720p? I have no way of knowing. None. When I buy an iTunes download I can see it's 1080p. I saved £2 buying on Google Play but have I still got 1080p? Who knows*
• YouTube private video's don't play. This is quite odd. I can play Netflix so why not YouTube private videos? Clearly there is some kind of authentication handover for Netflix so why haven't Google done the same with YouTube?
• The "Beta" Chrome plugin for screen/ tab sharing doesn't work. Doesn't work at all. I've tried multiple chromecasts and multiple networks - no joy. Fix it
• I've had a few errors both on the iPhone and actually on the Chromecast itself. Sometimes I've had to shutdown the app and restart it, sometimes I've had to unplug the power from the Chromecast to get it working again. Consumer devices don't do this. Not the good ones anyway
• £30 is an absolute bargin

*- Yes. I know. The obvious point is that if I can't tell the difference what's the point in complaining? Fair point.

And here's what I'd like to see in Version 2;

• IR receiver. I'd like to use a remote. My existing remote works for the AppleTV and works well, I'd like to use it for Chromecast but there wouldn't be any point unless ...
• Apps on Chromecast. iPlayer, Netflix, Play, etc. I'd like these as Apps so (when combined with a remote) I don't have to play around with my iPhone/iPad to get things to play 
• I'd like to be able to prevent other people interrupting my movie by just choosing to play from their device to Chromecast (usually accidentally). This is more of an issue when I'm using the Chromecast at work where it's on the public wireless, along with the Apple TV's, than it is at home but I'd still like this recognised by Google as being a real problem

Carrying on the "improvements to play" theme;

• 1080p HD as the *default* for downloads and for pricing. If it's not in 1080p then differentiate it somehow
• Bundles. There are some really good bundles on iTunes, both movies and TV shows. Lets get some on play!
• Fix the interface. It's terrible. Terrible. Not just on one device but on all devices. Play Music on my iPhone is a mess - the person who decided that what I really wanted to do when I open it is see my music presented to me in a random order with randomly generated playlists inserted into it. I mean in what way was this a good idea?
• Seriously with the interface. Fix it.

In summary though it's a pretty good device. It has a few niggles but it's only version 1 and it's pretty cheap so it's quite easy to forgive it's imperfections. If you're an Android user should you get one? Definitely. You'd be absolutely mad not too. If you're an iPhone user then it's not quite as clear cut, but I'd still recommend it.

Apple Maps Comes To Bar Hill!

As I'm sure you're aware Apple have updated their iOS devices (iPad, iPhone, iPod) with iOS 6 which replaces the existing Google Maps with *new* Apple Maps which includes Turn-By-Turn navigation as well as a 3D view.

Sadly the new Maps application is not quite up to the standard of Google Maps (in much the same way as an ant is not quite up to the height of a giraffe).

Looking at Bar Hill Tesco is a good example of where this has not quite worked ... The map at the right shows Tesco Car Park with access both to Gladeside and Viking Way (neither of which exists), and a surprising loop in the car park.

If nothing else pondering these anomalies with give the people trapped in the one-way system that the Petrol Station has suddenly turned into something to think about!

There are numerous other issues; "Long Stanton Road" as an example of a typo (should be "Longstanton Road"), and half the businesses are missing including Tesco, the Parish Council Officers, the Church, etc.

I have reported several of these, but fixing everything is going to be a *huge* job and is way beyond anything that Apple have planned - Google Maps after all didn't get anywhere near as good as it is now overnight! It's just a shame this half-finished product is being forced onto people in it's current state. 

So what should Apple do? (let's just pretend they are taking advice from random bloggers!) I've mentioned before in various blogs the open-source mapping information provided by www.openstreetmap.org seems to be a viable alternative. For example;

OpenStreetMap.org - Bar Hill, Cambridgeshire

I'd suggest to Apple that rather than trying to build their own mapping database - which will take years - or buying one of the not-as-good-as-Google mapping companies out there to get access to their data why not work with OpenStreetMap and provide some funding for the project and use open source mapping data? Give it all away free and people will help you build it.

Anyway, here's hoping they do something soon!

Switching to Google Public DNS (on an Apple Mac OS X Lion)

If you are interested in learning why you should be using a DNS other than that provided by your Service Provider then you might like to see Google Article on the subject;

http://code.google.com/speed/public-dns/docs/intro.html

A couple of things it doesn't mention but are also definite benefits (for me anyway) are;

• Automatically opting out of any Service Provider "search" services (such as those offered by Virgin Media) when you miss-type a URL
• Avoiding any blocks your Service Provider might put on you reaching certain sites by substituting DNS entries. Of course the down side of using a service like Google is that suddenly by using a US-based service you are subject to US law and filtering

Here are the instructions in order to set-up your Mac to use Google DNS.

Go to the top-right of the screen and right-click the Network (Wireless?) network icon;

Apple Network Options

Select "Open Network Preferences";

Network Preferences

Click on the "Advanced" button at the bottom right;

Advanced Network Options

Click on the "DNS" tab (centre-middle at the top);

DNS  Servers

As you can see in the screen shot the Google IP addresses for DNS are 8.8.8.8 and 8.8.4.4 (which are certainly a lot easier to remember than IP addresses generally!).

You need to remove any entries that are already in this box and replace them with the two IP addresses above. 

Google Knol: Final Farewell ...

So that's it, I've just migrated the last one of my Google Knols back to Blogger (where I started creating posts many many years ago). To be honest it's a great shame - I can't see how with Googles goals to get the whole of human knowledge online they can justify closing that service. It was convienent, easy to use, and gave me the feeling that I was contributing to something bigger than, say, a blog.

The bit I find most surprising is the lack of loyalty Google seems to be expecting from the many people who used Google Knol. I for one don't have any interest in transferring the documents I have spent literally years creating to a non-Google service. Even one recommended by Google. Not providing a migrating path to Blogger is incredible - I have literally no idea what they were thinking!

Anyway, here's to you Google Knol, it was fun while it lasted and you will, in my household at least, be sorely missed ...