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Giving up on Google

robsheldon.com

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Re: Giving up on Google

#131

Post by nadam »

A comparison article on search not mentioning Bing? Yahoo and Duck Duck Go both use Bing as far as I know. Of course there are cases when Bing is weaker than Google. For example your 'streamline/streamlining' example. (As Duck Duck Go also uses Bing of course they have the same problem). On the other hand in other cases Bing is better than Google.

I searched for this a while ago:

'impact of basic research on GDP'

There were no relevant results on Google, and the first result was relevant on Bing. (and of course on Duck Duck Go and Yahoo, which use Bing.)

Edit: It seems that now google also gives back relevant result on my search query, so this example is not relevant anymore.

Re: Giving up on Google

#132

Post by thaumaturgy »

jasonkester wrote: post #126
thaumaturgy wrote: post #72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's relatively easy these days to make sites that use JS in a smart way to dynamically load content. In the case of this personal site, if JS is on, then all the links do is request a "stripped-down" version of only the content of each post, and then swap that into the main content area. There are no http requests then for the images, background, css, and so on, which is nice for the server. That's all well and good…

I think that's the "backwards" he was talking about. You're building your links to call javascript, then scrambling later to find ways to make them work without. The accepted way of doing this is to build your links to point to URLs, then use script to override them with whatever dynamic wackiness you think is helpful. You get all sorts of bonuses by doing it that way (such as ctrl-click, save target as, etc.) withou…

> You're building your links to call javascript, then scrambling later to find ways to make them work without.

Not exactly. I'm building JavaScript to call links, and then making sure that everything works sans JS.

I dunno why I'm catching flak for this. The display bug had nothing to do with JavaScript; it was primarily a CSS issue. The JS in that page only coincidentally fixed the CSS issue, which is exactly the kinds of backwards testing I was talking about (and obviously didn't do the last time I updated it).

See, in order for the layout to work with a minimum number of images, there's a CSS trick in some overlapping layers. The JS in the page coincidentally extends one of those layers when it inserts the fairly unobtrusive text control links that allow you to scale the page text as large or as small as is comfortable to read on your display (something the noscript folks don't even realize isn't there). Without that element, the content layer wasn't being resized correctly.

I'm on your guys' side here. I know all the "accepted ways"; I have to explain them to my clients when I justify the costs they're charged, and the benefits. Sometimes they want to know how many people this will actually affect, and I have to tell them, "maybe a few", and then try to justify doing it anyway.

And, it is harder to implement. I can build a site that will look exactly right no matter what size display you're reading it on; fonts and images will all scale, and the site will look right at 800x600 or 1600x1200, without lots of scrolling or empty space. The catch is, to do that, I need JS to work, and spending time trying to figure out the least ugly way to display the site sans JS is not "not any harder".

Feel free to browse my page source, it's fairly easy to read, if unconventional in places.

Re: Giving up on Google

#133

Post by newman314 »

danilocampos wrote: post #48
petercooper wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I can't think of any good examples now, but in some IDEs in the 80s and 90s they had an "expert mode" you could toggle on and off to extend the number of menu options and the like. A similar setting on Google would be great. I know a little of Google's syntax like the + and " workarounds, but having a literal search as default would be worthwhile for many users. I recall that I switched to Altavista back in the mid 9…

From your mouth to Marissa Meyer's ears. My ultimate Google fantasy: An account setting called "2008 mode." No instant search. No fancy, annoying endless scroll Google image search. No word clustering/auto-substitution. It would be awesome.

That would indeed be awesome.

Google Image Search also breaks horribly with FF and Ghostery installed.

Google Instant still does horribly at my favorite test search word: Cardinal

Do they know if I'm looking for

a) the bird b) the team c) guy with the funny hat

? A: No.

Re: Giving up on Google

#134

Post by latch »

petercooper wrote: post #46
danilocampos wrote: post #15

I am often annoyed by Google. Its word clustering is too clever by half. At one point I was debugging, I think, an NSTableView object. Google says "eh, fuck it, iPhone dev is much more popular, here's UITableView. Have fun with that." And so then I have to wrap NSTableView in quotes to force Google to use my input as I've provided it. I wish I could turn this kind of stuff off.

I can't think of any good examples now, but in some IDEs in the 80s and 90s they had an "expert mode" you could toggle on and off to extend the number of menu options and the like. A similar setting on Google would be great. I know a little of Google's syntax like the + and " workarounds, but having a literal search as default would be worthwhile for many users. I recall that I switched to Altavista back in the mid 9…

Visual Studio 2008 and beyond has this, and its disabled by default for VB.NET users. I'm not joking.

Something like "view advanced members" or something...

Re: Giving up on Google

#135

Post by jasonkester »

thaumaturgy wrote: post #132
jasonkester wrote: post #126

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think that's the "backwards" he was talking about. You're building your links to call javascript, then scrambling later to find ways to make them work without. The accepted way of doing this is to build your links to point to URLs, then use script to override them with whatever dynamic wackiness you think is helpful. You get all sorts of bonuses by doing it that way (such as ctrl-click, save target as, etc.) withou…

> You're building your links to call javascript, then scrambling later to find ways to make them work without. Not exactly. I'm building JavaScript to call links, and then making sure that everything works sans JS. I dunno why I'm catching flak for this. The display bug had nothing to do with JavaScript; it was primarily a CSS issue. The JS in that page only coincidentally fixed the CSS issue, which is exactly the ki…

The lesson is still the same though: Deliver a simple HTML page to the client that can be viewed correctly and in full without scripting or CSS turned on. Then, optionally, use scripting to enhance what's already there.

By doing it any other way, you run into the issues you're running into.

Re: Giving up on Google

#136

Post by gaius »

petercooper wrote: post #46
danilocampos wrote: post #15

I am often annoyed by Google. Its word clustering is too clever by half. At one point I was debugging, I think, an NSTableView object. Google says "eh, fuck it, iPhone dev is much more popular, here's UITableView. Have fun with that." And so then I have to wrap NSTableView in quotes to force Google to use my input as I've provided it. I wish I could turn this kind of stuff off.

I can't think of any good examples now, but in some IDEs in the 80s and 90s they had an "expert mode" you could toggle on and off to extend the number of menu options and the like. A similar setting on Google would be great. I know a little of Google's syntax like the + and " workarounds, but having a literal search as default would be worthwhile for many users. I recall that I switched to Altavista back in the mid 9…

Here's one: I often google for Oracle and Python. I sometimes get articles about Apollo, Pythia and Delphi.

Re: Giving up on Google

#137

Post by gaius »

danilocampos wrote: post #43
pragmatic wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Check your search history: http://www.google.com/history/

Search history is one of Google's creepier features – I disabled it awhile ago. Not that I suspect it helps anything, but at least if someone finds my computer or something, that data isn't two clicks away.

It's creepier than you think - ever since it began making suggestions, long before Google Instant, Google has been quietly logging things you didn't search for.

Re: Giving up on Google

#138

Post by thaumaturgy »

jasonkester wrote: post #135
thaumaturgy wrote: post #132

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> You're building your links to call javascript, then scrambling later to find ways to make them work without. Not exactly. I'm building JavaScript to call links, and then making sure that everything works sans JS. I dunno why I'm catching flak for this. The display bug had nothing to do with JavaScript; it was primarily a CSS issue. The JS in that page only coincidentally fixed the CSS issue, which is exactly the ki…

The lesson is still the same though: Deliver a simple HTML page to the client that can be viewed correctly and in full without scripting or CSS turned on. Then, optionally, use scripting to enhance what's already there. By doing it any other way, you run into the issues you're running into.

OK, I give up. :-) I could continue trying to sort this out with you, or I could just go back to work. Thanks for the advice!

Re: Giving up on Google

#139

Post by jacquesm »

btilly wrote: post #115
jacquesm wrote: post #71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not that I can detect. For instance: หาเมนบอร์ดช๊อคเกต775 returns 42k results, and is not exactly a common combination of words on google.com. Extra points if you know what it stands for :)

Google Translate claims, "Find Motherboard Shock gate 775." I don't know what that is supposed to be a reference to.

Close enough 'shock gate' is funny, phonetically very close to 'socket' right?
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