Desktop 5 Goes Global

Posted by Xiyuan Xia, Software Engineer

International versions of Google Desktop 5 are ready to go, including a brand new language--Hindi! We want Google Desktop to be your personal information assistant, helping you find the information you want, when you want it, in any language, and in any OS (check out the recently released Mac version). Now it's easier than ever to find local content, news headlines, emails and more.

Exciting features in Google Desktop 5 include a completely new look and feel for the sidebar and gadgets. The sidebar samples the color of your desktop background and fades the color into the sidebar, fitting into any environment. Many of our most popular gadgets were also redesigned to improve their usability and visual appeal.

Other improvements:

• Previews of desktop search results. Have you ever opened multiple files to find the right one? Now you can find the file without opening each result. Previews are displayed inside our search results page.
  


• Security. We have also added warnings for web sites that may be trying to steal your personal information or install malicious software on your computer, helping to make the Internet a safer place in 29 languages.

Enjoy! Amusez-vous! Buon divertimento! Viel Spa�! Disfr�talo! Veel plezier! ?????!????????! Aproveite! ??????????? ??? ???????????! ?????

Lost in translation

Sometimes the right words elude me. Sometimes what I want to say just doesn't come out of my mouth. I have these problems in my native tongue. Imagine the problem of trying to precisely express yourself in a 'foreign' tongue.

The Associated Press reported a story of a German passenger who used the wrong idiom to express his desire to use the toilet but ended up in jail for nine months.

How could this happen?

Apparently the idiom he used was "the roof would go" or "then the roof goes". To a flight attendant, a passenger using words that indicate the roof of the plane is about to come off is not a laughing matter and one, apparently, that will force the plane to make an emergency landing.

I did find a link to the AP article (name changed to protect the innocent... we'll just refer to him as 'G'):


Source: ASSOCIATED PRESS
An intoxicated German passenger jailed for making a bomb threat really meant that his bladder - not the plane - was about to explode, a federal judge ruled. G, 23, who speaks little English, was freed Wednesday after spending nine months in prison on federal charges of interfering with a flight crew and making a false bomb threat.

Source: United States v. G, 841 F. Supp 1169 (S.D. Fla. 1993)
G was a passenger on a charter flight from Fort Lauderdale to Hanover, Germany. Shortly after take-off, he went to the middle of the plane, and, in the court's words "acted as if he thought he was in the toilet." Id. at 1170. When stopped by flight attendants, G announced "the roof was going to go." Id. He then made a broad sweeping gesture which the attendants thought indicated an explosion would occur. He became unruly, and the plane returned to Fort Lauderdale because of fear that he had brought a bomb aboard. Later, at his guilty plea hearing, G claimed his gesture was "to show that his bladder was going to explode and not the roof of the aircraft" and elaborated, "well, if my bladder explodes, then also the roof would go." Id. at 1171.

FreeBSD: APM not working on Dell Inspiron 3500

I've been running FreeBSD (recently upgraded to 6.2) on my Dell Inspiron 3500 w/ the Phoenix BIOS 4.0 Release 6.0 for some time now, but could never get APM (Advanced Power Management) to work. When I had a spare hour or two I'd research this topic to no avail. Today the pieces came together.

Problem: I wanted to see my battery level but couldn't.

Each time I would try to run apm to see my battery status I would get:

APM; /dev/apm: No such file or directory

Resolution:

Modified /boot/loader.conf to include the lines:


apm_load="YES"
hw.acpi.verbose=1
hint.acpi.0.disabled=0


and rebooted the laptop.

Now when I type apm I see:


APM version: 1.2
APM Management: Enabled
AC Line status: off-line
Battery Status: high
Remaining battery life: 99%
Remaining battery time: unknown
Number of batteries: 2
Battery 0:
Battery Status: high
Remaining battery life: 100%
Remaining battery time: unknown
Battery 1:
Battery Status: high
Remaining battery life: 98%
Remaining battery time: unknown

American Nightmare

Rising rate of foreclosures bring tragic end to dream of home ownership.
-Beacon News Sunday April 8, 2006

That's what the local press would have us believe. The press would have us believe that the foreclosure rate is on the rise. Wrong! That's what one might believe if all one did was read the front page of the Beacon News (a Chicago Sun-Times News Group paper).

Year over year we see that foreclosures have increased from 779 in 2003 to 1,223 in 2006; a 57% increase. That's what the front page would lead us believe. However, if we turn the page and dig deeper into the article we read,

About one out of every 100 homes... facing foreclosure, the same percentage as nationwide.

One percent! Hardly an epidemic and not on the rise! What the article failed to report is that this region, outside Chicago, is one of the fastest growing housing markets in the country! So with all the new houses being built, we would expect that the number of foreclosures, not percentage, would increase.

Guess the newspaper more interested in selling subscriptions, not information...

Desktop goes cross platform

Posted by Mendel Chuang, Product Marketing Manager

Google Desktop is hitting a milestone today: we're going cross platform! Google Desktop for the Mac (beta) is now available. We know that whether you use a PC or a Mac, a significant amount of personal content lives on the web and also on your computer. We're committed to helping you search all of that information.

Like the Windows version, Google Desktop for the Mac makes searching your desktop and the web faster, easier, and more comprehensive, enhances the desktop search experience with the Quick Search Box, and leverages Google technology to deliver speed and usability. It works with both PowerPC and Intel machines with Mac OS X 10.4+ and is compatible with Safari, Firefox, and Camino browsers. For this version, we focused on searching the desktop with speed, ease of use, relevance, and comprehensiveness. It does not have sidebar and gadgets, though we do plan to make Google Gadgets available on the Mac in the future. To find out more, read this post on our Mac Blog.

We look forward to adding more features and further improving performance and usability in the near future.

Physicists, Mathematicians the best programmers?

Why is it that some software engineers and computer scientists are able to produce clear, elegant designs and programs, while others cannot? Is it possible to improve these skills through education and training? Critical to these questions is the notion of abstraction.

These are the questions Dr. Jeff Kramer of Imperial College London asks in his latest paper titled Is abstraction the key to computing? -- ACM Volume 50 Issue 4.

So perhaps I advanced Dr. Kramer's argument a bit too far to fit my educational background (Physics degree, Secondary Science Education Certification). However, here's why I believe Physicists in general are better software developers than their Computer Science (only) counterparts.

Abstraction Skills: Having to install, configure, manipulate laboratory equipment to produce results that prove or disprove an esoteric equation on the chalkboard is a great exercise in abstraction. Raise your hand if you have ever suspended an oil droplet in an electrostatic chamber (Millikan Oil Drop Experiment) and produced a value within one percent of the currently accepted value for the charge on an electron? I dare say that infinitely many Physics undergraduates have! Along the way burning themselves with hot oil and shocking themselves with high voltage DC power supplies!

The skills necessary to convert abstract, complex (Quantum Mechanics anyone?) ideas into easily digestible and meaningful equations and then convey those ideas to others is another form of abstraction. To distill down the complex into the essential leaving all extraneous bits out.

"Things should be as simple as possible, but no simpler"

- Einstein


Debugging Skills: Physicists have better problem solving skills than do their CS counterparts. They have to! It's just that simple. They have to because to earn a degree in Physics one has to solve countless Physics and Math problems (on paper and in the lab). This requires very good problem solving skills and the ability to view the 'big picture' while working on the minutia and to quickly jump back and forth. This makes for better debugging and problem solving.

Abstract Communication Skills: Physic teachers are able to carefully select the appropriate level of abstraction to include only that which is necessary or required to properly convey the idea for the target audience. The same lesson (F=ma) has to be conveyed differently to sophomores than to seniors. Good Physics teachers are able to do just that. This skill is valuable especially when in the boardroom trying to convey to the "Decision Makers" why one software implementation plan is better than another.

Is Abstraction Teachable? If so, then how? Good questions. Dr Kramer addresses the teaching of abstraction in his paper. Join the ACM and read it online.

April Fools

April 1. This is the day upon which we are reminded of what we are on the other three hundred and sixty-four.
- Mark Twain, Pudd'nhead Wilson, 1894