Google is the Internet’s leading search engine, handling almost 50% of all Internet search requests, more than five billion searches each month. Google’s About Us page on their Web site, www.google.com, explains the origin of their unique company name:
"Googol" is the mathematical term for a 1 followed by 100 zeros. The term was coined by Milton Sirotta, nephew of American mathematician Edward Kasner, and was popularized in the book, "Mathematics and the Imagination" by Kasner and James Newman. Google's play on the term reflects the company's mission to organize the immense amount of information available on the web.
In addition to their popular general purpose Internet search site, the software wizards at Google provide an array of specialized search sites that are designed to help you find information even faster. They restrict your search results to sites more likely to have relevant content, making your searches more efficient.
Each of these specialized sites replaces the “www” in the main www.google.com Web address with a word that represents the focused nature of the information you can find there. Here’s a list of these specialized sites:
http://Finance.google.com - provides a broad range of information on stocks, bonds and mutual funds along with stock charts, business news, discussion groups, fundamental financial data and a portfolio tracker.
http://Catalogs.google.com – the same catalogs you would normally receive in the mail are online. You can turn through the pages one by one, search the entire catalog for an item or have Google search though all of the catalogs to find what interests you.
http://News.google.com – this site collects current news stories from more than 4,500 news sources around the world. These news feeds are updated every fifteen minutes to keep you up-to-date with what is happening around the world. A brief summary of the original news story is presented along with a link that will take you directly to the full story on the news site where it was originally published.
http://Scholar.google.com – this site focuses your search on scholarly literature. Search by author, publication or subject to find relevant articles from academic journals, professional societies, universities and other scholarly organizations.
http://Blogsearch.google.com – this site applies Google search technology to the world of blogging. While Google owns one of the largest blog sites, www.blogger.com, the search engine doesn’t just search Blogger; it searches most of the major blog sites. For just about any topic you can imagine, key in your search word and you’ll find someone blogging on that subject somewhere in the world.
http://Books.google.com – this search site focuses on the world of printed books. Enter a couple of words from the title, the author’s name or even a sentence from the book. The search results come back in the form of a library card catalog with the full title, author, ISBN, publisher and publication date. Depending on copyright provisions , you may also see a title page, the index, the lines of text in the book that matched your search term, or in the case of expired copyright, you might even be able to access the entire book.
As you can see, there is much more to Google searching that just www.google.com. Use these alternative Google search sites to focus your Internet searches and find the information you want even faster.
Until next time, best wishes that you find everything you’re looking for, both on the Internet and life in general.
Questions and comments on this article can be directed to Jim’s e-mail, jcunning@pct.edu. All of Jim’s technology columns are available online at his blog: http://jec1230.blogspot.com.
Saturday, August 26, 2006
The next generation of Video and Computer Data storage
The optical laser-based disk storage technology introduced with audio compact disks (CDs) and later improved with near-cinema-quality digital video disks (DVDs) may still seem like cutting-edge for some of us (anybody out there remember audio cassettes?). But we all know the cycle: cutting-edge today, obsolete tomorrow.
As usual, technology is continuing its relentless march forward and electronics engineers are beginning to unleash the next generation of high density/high definition optical disk storage. Similar to the early VCRs that used one of two competing formats, VHS and Betamax, two high-definition formats have hit the market at once: Blu-ray and High Density DVD (HD-DVD).
Blu-Ray and HD-DVD both offer substantially increased audio, video and data recording capacity, as much as ten times more. On the data side, the Blu-ray format really packs a punch, offering 50 gigabytes of capacity while HD-DVD checks in with a more modest 30 GB. By contrast; CD capacity is 650 megabytes and DVD capacity is 4.7 GB. With this increased storage capacity, movie studios can record their movies in high-definition TV format.
Yes, just as the movie rental industry is completing the transition from VHS to DVD, they will begin offering yet another format for your viewing pleasure. The catch is that you will need an HD-TV and an HD-DVD or Blu-ray disc player to take advantage of the crisper, almost multi-dimensional images the new format offers.
These increased capacities will also permit software developers to distribute higher resolution audio and graphic content, and you’ll be able to store thousands of photos or MP3 files.
On a technical capability analysis alone, Blu-ray looks to be the superior format. It provides 40 percent more data storage than HD-DVD and scales to a slightly higher HD-TV resolution of 1080p, while HD-DVD tops out at 1080i. However, the HD-DVD format has what could be the winning hand in this poker game – a much lower price!
The HD-DVD technology is an evolutionary step forward for the DVD manufacturers, making it less costly to retool their plants for HD-DVD production. A quick check at Circuit City found Samsung and Sony Blu-ray disk players selling for $999, while an RCA HD-DVD player was only $499 (these prices will come down as production and sales ramp up).
For those concerned about the future of their extensive music and video libraries, don’t worry. Both of the new high-density formats are backward compatible with the CD and DVD formats. In fact, with the new players’ relatively high price tags, you may be tempted to hold off on making the switch—until you begin seeing the new formats in your favorite movie rental store.
Having two competing formats for the next generation of high-density/high-definition optical storage will certainly be confusing, but it will be fascinating to watch the marketing battle. While the manufacturers are busy competing for the market share, movie studios are playing it safe by releasing movies in both formats. Which format will win you ask? Ultimately, you, the consumer, will determine that by casting your vote at the cash register.
Until next time, remember to backup your important files, update your anti-virus program, check for security updates, ignore those “phishing” e-mails, and have fun computing!
Questions and comments on this article can be directed to Jim’s e-mail, jcunning@pct.edu. All of Jim’s technology columns are available online at his blog: http://jec1230.blogspot.com.
As usual, technology is continuing its relentless march forward and electronics engineers are beginning to unleash the next generation of high density/high definition optical disk storage. Similar to the early VCRs that used one of two competing formats, VHS and Betamax, two high-definition formats have hit the market at once: Blu-ray and High Density DVD (HD-DVD).
Blu-Ray and HD-DVD both offer substantially increased audio, video and data recording capacity, as much as ten times more. On the data side, the Blu-ray format really packs a punch, offering 50 gigabytes of capacity while HD-DVD checks in with a more modest 30 GB. By contrast; CD capacity is 650 megabytes and DVD capacity is 4.7 GB. With this increased storage capacity, movie studios can record their movies in high-definition TV format.
Yes, just as the movie rental industry is completing the transition from VHS to DVD, they will begin offering yet another format for your viewing pleasure. The catch is that you will need an HD-TV and an HD-DVD or Blu-ray disc player to take advantage of the crisper, almost multi-dimensional images the new format offers.
These increased capacities will also permit software developers to distribute higher resolution audio and graphic content, and you’ll be able to store thousands of photos or MP3 files.
On a technical capability analysis alone, Blu-ray looks to be the superior format. It provides 40 percent more data storage than HD-DVD and scales to a slightly higher HD-TV resolution of 1080p, while HD-DVD tops out at 1080i. However, the HD-DVD format has what could be the winning hand in this poker game – a much lower price!
The HD-DVD technology is an evolutionary step forward for the DVD manufacturers, making it less costly to retool their plants for HD-DVD production. A quick check at Circuit City found Samsung and Sony Blu-ray disk players selling for $999, while an RCA HD-DVD player was only $499 (these prices will come down as production and sales ramp up).
For those concerned about the future of their extensive music and video libraries, don’t worry. Both of the new high-density formats are backward compatible with the CD and DVD formats. In fact, with the new players’ relatively high price tags, you may be tempted to hold off on making the switch—until you begin seeing the new formats in your favorite movie rental store.
Having two competing formats for the next generation of high-density/high-definition optical storage will certainly be confusing, but it will be fascinating to watch the marketing battle. While the manufacturers are busy competing for the market share, movie studios are playing it safe by releasing movies in both formats. Which format will win you ask? Ultimately, you, the consumer, will determine that by casting your vote at the cash register.
Until next time, remember to backup your important files, update your anti-virus program, check for security updates, ignore those “phishing” e-mails, and have fun computing!
Questions and comments on this article can be directed to Jim’s e-mail, jcunning@pct.edu. All of Jim’s technology columns are available online at his blog: http://jec1230.blogspot.com.
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