Dustin LindenSmith

http://www.bing-vs-google.com/

Try some searches to see the differences. I can see differences, but I can't tell if they're substantive. I sort of like the look of Bing's pages more, though.

I still haven't made the full-on jump into the Mac world yet (if I knew more about the new MacBook Pro laptop just released, I wouldn't be so reticent to switch), but one of the primary considerations for me has to do with keyboard usability. That is to say, I'm a huge keystroke junkie on the PC, and especially when editing text, I very seldom have to make my fingers depart from the keyboard to grab the mouse.

In the Mac world, that's clearly not the way things were designed. I believe that the original masters of the Graphical User Interface (i.e. the GUI) of Apple's OS meant for the keyboard to function as a text entry tool (granted, with several command options available) and for the mouse to work as an application launcher and all-round user assistant. (As I recall from my faint Apple history, Steve Jobs fought hard to keep a single-button mouse design in the original Apple computers; everyone else wanted 2, 3, or more buttons for 'increased usability', but Jobs insisted that the best usability experience was the most streamlined one possible.)

As I continue my pre-purchase research on Macs and Mac issues, one of the things I watch for the most is power user hints. In that spirit, I'm posting a link for future reference to these Mac keyboard shortcuts (plus the Google search results for same), along with a link to this review on Macworld about Quicksilver, the (seems like) excellent keyboard-driven application launcher for the Mac. This "desert isle" question about the most critical apps to have on your Mac is also worth keeping for future reference.

If any other Mac users out there have usability hints, user groups, or other web resources to refer to me, DO NOT hesitate to tell me about them, will you? After reading Macworld's early impressions of the new Intel-based Mac notebook, I'm no longer as scared to wait for a bit and maybe try getting one of those machines. I don't want to wait much longer than a couple more months or so to buy a laptop, but I also don't want to miss out on what sounds like will be a great machine. (Especially once all the native apps become available, hopefully with the next year or so.)

These are Google's words on the new service, and this is the Google Base Homepage.

Usability freak Greg Raiz wrote about the new service here, with a quick follow-up here about how he thinks this service could spawn a new Google Wallet e-payment platform.

More info by Google about it is here. Apparently you can upload RSS feeds to it too, which must have implications to people who want to broaden their audience from blogs. But I don't think I understand the true value of this yet. Info has to be specifically uploaded to Google Base and it's not automatically included in the Google search index unless it becomes highly relevant by web links. But people will have to know about Google Base and search it separately for stuff. And if this stuff is so important, why isn't it already being found in the index? Ostensibly it's because it's not relevant enough, isn't it? Is that because the information hasn't been found yet? Is this then just a way to get your own personal information and resources online and searchable with Google? Maybe it's as simple as that.

jjjiii just hipped me to Boston-based Greg Raiz (bio | blog) who has a hell of a lot to say about software usability, especially from a development standpoint. Since I'm on the lookout for new feeds to test the Google RSS Reader I've been playing with recently, I added this guy's blog to my syndicated feeds to keep up with what he's saying.

He just posted what I thought was a mind-blowing (or at least, VERY clear) entry about what Linux needs to do to kill Microsoft in the usability department and, basically, take over the world in the operating system sphere. Now, I'm a total Linux-phobe myself, although I've always been interested in trying it out because I know that it's an inherently more stable OS (or kernel, or whatever) and I dig supporting open source in principle and practice whenever possible (the LJ platform is open-source too, for those who didn't know -- the code is here). The reason I'm scared to try Linux is because I've heard it's not user-friendly and very command-line-oriented, which I don't have time (although I do have the inclination) to learn right now.

Anyway, he basically threw down what I thought was a very well thought-out manifesto on OS usability in this blog entry, and he had me clapping with joy at his insights, until I read some of the 139 comments on the entry (bear in mind it was just posted TODAY!) that went fairly far to cut down his logic, in my opinion. Now I don't know what to think, but boy, did the guy ever inspire a good discussion.

And I still don't know if I have the guts to try a Linux install. Maybe I'll partition off a piece of my second (older) hard drive and try it out sometime. If a majority of those comments are to be believed though, it sounds like I could derive similar technical benefits with increased usability by getting a Macintosh with OSX on it instead. (As a side note, I know that LJ founder brad uses the Debian distribution of Linux on all of his desktop machines, so if I try anything, it'll probably be that one.)

Incidentally, while reading the comments on that entry, I came across this supposed blog from a Microsoft developer, which appears to be a sham but was funny to read anyway (though tough for me to understand as a non-developer).