Over at The Mac Observer (and, indeed, at iPodObserver, as well), we’ve begun experimenting with Google’s Custom Search Engine, largely because it’s near impossible for a site the size of ours to implement a search engine that’s any better than what Google can do…. I noticed today that Colin Crawford mentioned that Macworld has done the same thing, for exactly the same reasons.It also seems like they’re having exactly the same problem we are (at least on TMO): Google’s not making the results IFRAME long enough to display all the results and the navigation controls in every instance.

All of my Macs in my home/office here in Durham, New Hampshire are having trouble connecting to Google, in that they can’t connect at all using Firefox or Safari, though my wife’s PowerBook has had success connecting using IE.My linux and Windows machines have no trouble whatsoever, regardless of browser (including lynx).If I connect to a proxy server elsewhere, then Google loads fine on my Mac, indicating to me that, well, it’s not my Macs.This is the wierd one: If I run CrossOver on my MacBook Pro, and then run IE *or* Firefox, Google comes up fine…. the Windows version of Firefox running in CrossOver has no problem, while the Mac version (running on the SAME MACHINE SIMULTANEOUSLY) can’t connect.

Joe Consumer, who has nothing and is looking to get a DVR to go along with his spiffy new plasma screen, is going to sit in his living room and compare this to the one his cable company offers…. And *because* the Comcast box sucks so much, we’re actually considering the $1000 to TiVo just to get the same (basic) functionality but with a much better user interface.

After all, it was 15 years ago yesterday that Tim Berners-Lee posted this to usenet:The WWW project merges the techniques of information retrieval and hypertext to make an easy but powerful global information system…. It aims to allow information sharing within internationally dispersed teams, and the dissemination of information by support groups.

Well, I guess being in Chicago for three days made me miss the fact that Skype sneak-peeked the beta of their next round for the Mac, and even made public (though not promoted) access to the video-capable version of the beta.This thing’s pretty stable, and is *well* worth your time to check out.

So, for almost 5 hours, my “main” gmail account has been unavailable, but other accounts are fine.I did a little bit of web searching and found some people saying this has happened for days at a time…… Let this be a lesson to you kiddos: never trust anything you don’t own, and certainly don’t trust the stuff you don’t even pay for!All that aside: anyone got a contact at Google that wants to sort this out for me?

A number of years ago, when I got my wife her first laptop, she went through and selectively ripped portions of “most” of our CD collection. Well, over the years, there have been moments of frustration as I looked to play a song only to find that it hadn’t made the cut way back when.

…otherwise they’ll just keep on stealing, and that couldn’t possibly be good for them or their general karma, could it?I’m referring to the add/drop scheme, described in great detail by Bob Parsons, CEO and Founder of GoDaddy. In a nutshell, folks “in the know” can register domain names (by paying their fee), sit on them for 5 days (earning search engine affiliate revenue all the while), then cancel the registration and get their money back.

We were out to eat about a week and a half ago (when the power was out) and I noticed this in the parking lot of the local Bugaboo Creek (hey, what can I say? I have kids and they cook a decent steak..

In a nutshell, you login to Pandora, tell it about some music you like, and then it’ll start streaming songs to you that it thinks you might like, as well. You can rate each one, helping to guide Pandora through its future suggestions (for both you AND others), making it smarter as you go.Yet another chink in the armor of mainstream radio.