google category archive

9 October 2007

Hodgepodge of Miscellany, part 2 of 2: Google Code, Subversion, Meld

(Continued from part one.)

Google Code Project Hosting

I mentioned this in my YARQ post and have since explored it further (although not much further). It’s a pretty cool free (as in beer) service. I like that they offer a Subversion (SVN) respository and it is easy to start up new projects. I had briefly looked at how to start a SourceForge project and it seemed more involved. This isn’t necessarily a bad thing and maybe it helps ensure people are more serious about their project, but there are a lot of little projects you might want to host and not spend so much effort up front.

To experiment, I created the bash cpafter project for my bash cpafter.sh and copy_it.sh scripts. An …

24 June 2007

A Library is a Vault for Locking Up Books

Apparently.

U’S DEAL WITH GOOGLE

Disrespect for property

If I were to walk into a photocopy shop and ask for a duplicate of a copyright-protected book, the shop workers would show me the door. It does not matter whether I intended to distribute snippets of the text around the world or do anything else with the copy — the courts have ruled that the unlicensed duplication of an in-copyright book is illegal.

But when the University of Minnesota announces plans to digitally duplicate books, including copyright-protected works, in a commercial project with Internet giant Google (Star Tribune, June 7), it calls the effort groundbreaking and valuable.

As an author who teaches at the University of Minnesota, I wonder how I will talk to students about academic honesty and integrity when the university

19 January 2007

Caught in Google’s Web?

I’ve been reading Robert Cringely’s PBS.org column for many years now. I like the way he writes about technology, although many of his articles are more esoteric than I care to get in to (or am able to understand). I really enjoyed today’s piece on Google: “When Being a Verb is Not Enough: Google wants to be YOUR Internet.”

There is this:

Google loves secrecy. That they’ve been acquiring fiber assets hasn’t been a secret, but the sheer volume of these acquisitions HAS been. Why? One thought is that it kept down the price since people didn’t really know it was Google snatching up this stuff (they’ve done it under a number of different corporate names). But if price was the issue, then why hasn’t Google just bought the companies that own the fiber? It made no sense

5 December 2006

SEO Song: ‘Google Loves Me’

Google loves me, yes I know,
for the search results tell me so.
Little sites to them belong,
we are weak and they are strong.

Yes, Google loves me,
yes, Google loves me,
yes, Google loves me,
the search results tell me so.

There is nothing new under the sun. I thought of that little ditty and was pleased with my cleverness, but Google hates me and shows me that others have riffed on it before.

This is a small and insignificant site, amongst billions and billions of other pages, but Google is sending some love my way. I’m amazed at how much of my traffic comes from them: about 50%.

I wonder how often searchers arrive here and find their hopes and deepest longings fulfilled? I can tell that disappointment often awaits …

26 August 2006

Google Analytics Reports

You’re in for an exciting treat: Results from Google Analytics! Wow! These are results for visits from August 5 (when I first started using GA) to August 24 (when I meant to post this).

(*See note about Google Analytics and privacy.)

Visitors From Around The World

These first three maps show where everyone is coming from. This has been the best part for me — I’m thrilled to see people stopping by from all over the world. I hope you find something that makes you want to visit again or even regularly.

Some of the dots represent scum-of-the-earth spammers. I’ve had 9 spam comments so far that have all been caught by Akismet. So I …