Entries from July 2008 ↓

Since yesterday I’ve noticed some strangeness going on with my Google search results - the UI looks different. It turns out I’m part of an experiment that brings “Digg” to search results. For example, I can promote a search result or bury it. As far as I can tell not every one has this feature ‘turned on’ and you can only know if you’re logged in.

This is the biggest product change I’ve seen on Google Search and I can’t tell if I like it or not. On the one hand, I think I might enjoy commenting on links so when I encounter it again later I can retrace thoughts. And I can’t wait to bury all those lame squatter sites / sites that have no content value. On the other hand, I don’t want to add complication and more work to my search experience. I like the simplicity exemplified by Google’s single search box. I type in something, results come back, done.

Also, at the moment my actions only affect my own search results. Will whatever I promote/bury be useful for even myself, given there is _so much_ on the web? I don’t really need help with the easy search terms like ‘Sandy Lin’ or ‘MIT Sloan’. Which means the only way for this to be useful is if all user actions collectively affect search results.

Indeed, the faq for Edit search results implies collective search edit might come in the future.

It’s been a week since Diane Greene’s abrupt departure from VMware. From my position on the fringes of the ‘inside’, the news was a shocker for every one. Mostly it was shocking for how it was done, not for it being done at all. People have been expecting her to be replaced by some one more ‘experienced’ for a while now, albeit in a more amiable fashion.

I personally like Diane, think it’s unfair, and am sad to see her go. I like the idea of a woman CEO, an engineer’s CEO, and a founder CEO all wrapped up in one - and was rooting for her to keep leading the company into competition with Microsoft. I even secretly enjoy her awkward public speaking skills - which always made me chuckle at the absurdity of the situation. She spoke to us at MIT last semester - during the Q&A session, she kept on interrupting a student who was in the middle of asking a question because new things popped into her head on a previous train of thought. This happened at least 3 times before he was able to finish his sentence. Poor guy - he must have prepped that question in his head many times only to have Diane ruin the moment for him.

During that same class session, some one raised the question of her relationship with Joe Tucci, CEO of EMC. At least back then she was politically savvy enough to say Tucci and her are cool and he’s leaving VMware alone to do its thing i.e. she told us nothing about the real situation. Now, it looks like some thing was brewing all along -

Fair or not, given EMC’s background, when a female CEO gets canned from the wildly successful company she founded and helped steer to its “unsatisfactory” 49% growth, and her “inexperience” and “lack of execution” are cited as the reasons, the tongues are going to wag.

In the end, she’s done a fantastic job. So much of the business-leader image is a smooth-talking MAN in a suit; but here she was kicking ass for years. I still remember how impressed I was when I first used the VMware desktop product at FactSet to reproduce some annoying Adobe Acrobat plug-in bugs. It’s awesome.

Along the lines of GoLoco (ride share), GottaPark is a parking-share marketplace that I encountered while googling for “San Francisco” and “Parking”. It basically facilitates renting out your extra parking spot, such as a driveway, for short-term parking.

This raises a bunch of questions about the validity of the agreement between the space renter and provider. But, if Zipcar works, why not this? I’m looking forward to trying it out. It would be nice to find a spot fast when I’m around Hayes Valley or the Marina - phone integration would be crucial. Zipcar does such a fantastic job with text messages to remind me of or extend reservations

They’re launching July 15th, 2008 and already buying up AdWords, which is how I found them.

The Team Fusion blog mentioned about academic pricing for VMware Fusion today for $39.99. Well, for those lucky Beavers out there, MIT has a site license for a host of VMware products, including Fusion. Couple that with a free student copy of your choice of poison - Windows XP or Vista - there really is no additional software cost to switch from a PC to a Mac and have access to all those necessary Windows-only apps (like Crystal Ball Predictive Modeling software for those DMD problem sets).

MIT students can download VMware products from the distribution site here.