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Google's Inevitable Ruin Begins

pcmag.com

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Re: Google's Inevitable Ruin Begins

#61

Post by InclinedPlane »

grantheaslip wrote: post #24
qeorge wrote: post #8

John Dvorak seems to have an unlimited supply of complaints, and rarely anything constructive to say. Wikipedia suggests he's never built anything of his own. Always a bridesmaid, never a bride. Perhaps that's part of it?

It's possible to be a good tech journalist without having coded something yourself (though that's not to say that Dvorak is a good journalist). Sure, it would probably be an asset, and a lack of technical context can make people write some stupid stuff, but not having built something does not automatically invalidate anyone's opinions. Most journalists have never worked in their fields, but nobody's complaining about…

Dvorak is not a good tech journalist. His "criticisms" are no better than the ravings of your cranky senile neighbor who hasn't been satisfied with anything in the world since WWI started (indeed, he may be that cranky senile neighbor depending on where you live).

Re: Google's Inevitable Ruin Begins

#62

Post by InclinedPlane »

fragmede wrote: post #11
werthog wrote: post #7

JD;DR. See also: http://www.marketwatch.com/story/apple-should-pull-the-plug-... http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,2817,1923151,00.asp Has Dvorak ever been right about anything? (And no, he doesn't get credit for the keyboard layout, that was a different guy.)

Prediction: Apple Computer Corp. will switch to Intel processors within the next 12 to 18 months. http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,2817,939886,00.asp (Technically, he was short by 9 months, but Apple did the inconceivable, eventually.)

He predicted that Apple would switch to Itanium processors, they didn't, not even a little bit. This is as wrong as if he had predicted Apple would switch to ARM.

The fact that Apple would have to switch off of the Power architecture for its systems was pretty obvious at the time. The idea that they would switch to Intel processors was not guaranteed but pretty obvious (I predicted it), given Intel/AMD's production volumes and performance characteristics. The idea that they would switch to Itanium was based on false premises and never came to pass.

Re: Google's Inevitable Ruin Begins

#63

Post by epi0Bauqu »

tariq wrote: post #10
Deprecated wrote: post #2

I don't know if it will bring on ruin, but I certainly found the old image search much more friendly and usable. Both this and page preview seems like "another useless feature that someone thinks improves the experience when it does nothing but show off the fact that someone can code JavaScript or some other display manipulation language." Clean and fast wins the day with me ... Duck Duck Go?

this. the "improved" image search is terrible. very finicky and even hard to use--hardly simple. re: ddg. regular user, but as others have pointed out already the ajax load for results is annoying (because it's slow and flashy/jerky).

Note we now have html (non-js) & lite versions at http://duckduckgo.com/html & http://duckduckgo.com/lite

Re: Google's Inevitable Ruin Begins

#64

Post by chc »

chc wrote: post #48
fragmede wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Prediction: Apple Computer Corp. will switch to Intel processors within the next 12 to 18 months. http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,2817,939886,00.asp (Technically, he was short by 9 months, but Apple did the inconceivable, eventually.)

I think this is an instance of the broken clock rule. People had been throwing this rumor around for years. That he repeated it at some point before it actually happened (but got the timing wrong even with a big window) is unremarkable. For example, the rumor is mentioned (though rightly dismissed as impractical at the time) in this eWeek article from 2002: http://www.eweek.com/c/a/Apple/Apple-Keeps-x86-Torch-Lit-wit…

Also, I just double-checked the dates. Apple switched to Intel in January 2006, which is 16 months past the end of his 18-month window, not nine.

Re: Google's Inevitable Ruin Begins

#66

Post by drivebyacct2 »

corin_ wrote: post #53
drivebyacct2 wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>With the new version of Google images, the images don't become actual hyperlinks until you have hovered over them for about a second, so there's a considerable delay when trying to open multiple images in new tabs quickly. That is patently untrue. [source: I just tried. I middle-clicked as many links as I could as fast as I could. Each one resulted in a new tab instantly]

I just tried in Chrome and it's as you said. In Firefox, however, it's a different story (and FF is my primary browser.)

Oooh. I see.

Re: Google's Inevitable Ruin Begins

#67

Post by jshen »

jamesaguilar wrote: post #39
jshen wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Beware splitting hairs when you are ignoring the main point. The new google image search is worse than the old one imo so dvorak's point stands even if he got a few technical details wrong. I also agree with him that it's a bad sign when a company seems to be doing things just because their competitors did something similar.

> The new google image search is worse than the old one imo so dvorak's point stands even if he got a few technical details wrong. It may be worse for you, but it is better for almost everyone else. Dvorak is getting two things confused here: first, he assumes that because of his special uses cases that aren't supported as well, GIS is overall worse now. Second, he assumes that because a certain Google property is wo…

The old version, when you clicked an image it would take you to the page that contained the image and give you some controls at the top like 'view full size'. The page it took you to was fully functional. Now, when you click on the image it takes you to the containing page but it puts the image in an overlay on top of the page blocking the actual page. You can't see the page unless you close the overlay which takes you out of google image search altogether.

I don't think this is better for most people, and it certainly isn't better for me.

The scrolling instead of paging is a u no no in my book. For example I can look at 8 pages of images then quickly jump back to page 2 if I want to. I can't send a link to page 8, or bookmark it, and it breaks other u expectations. Maybe that's ok, but I don't see what gain overcomes those negatives.

Re: Google's Inevitable Ruin Begins

#68

Post by jamesaguilar »

jshen wrote: post #67
jamesaguilar wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The new google image search is worse than the old one imo so dvorak's point stands even if he got a few technical details wrong. It may be worse for you, but it is better for almost everyone else. Dvorak is getting two things confused here: first, he assumes that because of his special uses cases that aren't supported as well, GIS is overall worse now. Second, he assumes that because a certain Google property is wo…

The old version, when you clicked an image it would take you to the page that contained the image and give you some controls at the top like 'view full size'. The page it took you to was fully functional. Now, when you click on the image it takes you to the containing page but it puts the image in an overlay on top of the page blocking the actual page. You can't see the page unless you close the overlay which takes y…

You're forgetting a few properties of the new landing page. The image is at its full size, or at least at a much larger size, which is what most people want to see when they arrive at a landing page. In the old version, only a tiny thumbnail was visible. Many pages also don't have the image visible at the top, so this makes it so the image is always visible. So there are a few things that at least argue in favor of the new version.

Scrolling versus paging is a personal preference thing. I don't know the rationale behind that, but I know that some people prefer the smoothness of a scroll over the pages.

Re: Google's Inevitable Ruin Begins

#69

Post by Deprecated »

bkj123 wrote: post #26

Putting 'Dvorak' in the title would have saved me some time.

Sorry, I see a lot of people don't care for Dvorak, I probably should have put his name in the title. I do think he occasionally has something interesting to say. Simple, clean, fast is why I've used Google and I think that is primarily what has made them a success. If they complicate their applications, will that be a detriment to their business? That's an important question.

Re: Google's Inevitable Ruin Begins

#70

Post by joblessjunkie »

treeface wrote: post #20
joblessjunkie wrote: post #17

I like some of Google's recent changes, but I must agree that the new Google image search is a mess. I much prefer the old one.

I don't really understand people's complaints on this issue. How could you not prefer to have hundreds of images on one page instead of clicking for the next page over and over? It's the difference between a mousewheel scroll and click/scroll, click/scroll.

My complaints are mostly around the Javascript mess that has stolen our direct access to the images.

The image I want is usually in the top row of results anyway, so an endless collection of thumbnails isn't much help.

I don't want to view an image in some kind of weird half-sized shadow box. I want to see it alone, at full size -- or directly download it. In the old Google image search, these tasks were as easy as a right click on a context menu.

Now we get strange hover boxes that are only 50% larger than the thumbnails, and clicking a thumbnail takes you to a confusing pseudo-page that isn't the full size image, nor the actual source site. Who does this help?

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