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I don’t know how long I’ve been telling myself I need to post about xkcd. I don’t really remember how I first stumbled onto this web comic, but I’m pretty sure the first one I can remember was Guitar Hero. After seeing a few more on digg or elsewhere, I ended up subscribing to the RSS feed so I can continually enjoy the “webcomic of romance, sarcasm, math, and language.” His style fits my sense of humor perfectly. I even went through the archive and read from the beginning. My cube at work has about 5 comics posted already.

Anyway, the comic that finally got me to post blends together perfect references from one of my favorite games and one of my favorite childhood comic strips. How can you go wrong with Mario Kart and Calvin and Hobbes? Don’t forget to mouse over the images to read the alt text; if you’re initially confused, a lot of times this will help clear things up.

Digg.com unveiled their latest version including expanded topics and some new customizations. If you’ve never been to Digg, you should go check it out. I’m interested to see if the new topics acheive the same general quality as the Tech news has for the past year. I’m also excited because they’ve added the ability to deselect topics from your homepage view, which means I don’t have to see anymore stories about the latest Linux distro or tech deals that I can’t afford. You’ll have to register to gain access to all the new categories (until the list the Beta status in the coming weeks), but you can’t really take advantage of Digg without registering anyway. Don’t forget to add me as a friend.

I don’t get it. Spammers hit this blog with spam every single day. Almost all of it comes in the form of trackbacks for things like brand name drugs, sex sites, and random names of famous people. When this first started happening, I didn’t know how to handle it. Every little thing made it onto the site, and with the default WordPress install I couldn’t figure out anyway to hold it so that the three of you who actually visit this site wouldn’t be able to see it all.

In the last 24 hours alone, there were 606 spam trackbacks. That’s definitely the highest number I’ve noticed so far. Thanks to the Spam Karma 2 plugin, not a single one of them made it onto a viewable page of this site. And that’s why I don’t see the point in sending me this crap. Why bother spamming a site that gets zero traffic and zero spam views? Maybe they just enjoy wasting my time. Well, guess what? It takes me about 30 seconds to delete all that spam, and if I wait long enough, Spam Karma will do it for me. So they aren’t even wasting my time. So what’s the point?

Edit: I should point out that the default WordPress install does include the plugin Askimet for combatting spam, it’s just not turned on by default.

I found an interesting article that explains what Google plans to do with all their dark fiber. This whole thing is pretty incredible. It’s a really interesting read. I wonder how accurate this really is?

Update: Here’s a little expansion on Cringely’s article.

It’s official. I’ve finally started working on a new site design. I’m trying to do things right using CSS for a standards based layout. I’m saying goodbye to tables, so this is a new experience for me. I’ve used CSS quite a bit before, but never without tables to structure the site. No promises on when this thing will be done. It’ll probably be a work in progress for a long time, especially since I hope to do this all on my own. If I want something like rounded corners that will require custom images, I’ll have to create them all on my own.

There’s several things I really want to be able to do with my site. I’m hoping I can add a photo gallery of some kind, because I have a pretty decent digital camera and haven’t really shown off many of my pictures. I really want to create a layout that will allow me to easily change the theme to coincide with the current season or whatever holiday is coming up, hopefully with some kind of artistic image highlighted at the top of the page (similar to HumanRadiator.com). I’m also trying to be less dependent on Blogger for everything except some of my content (and I hope to phase that out at some point as well). Still considering a change in domain name, but I’ve got this one for another five months, so it won’t be happening right away.

Currently Playing: The Web 2.0 Show

But more interesting are some of the other comments:

They listen to feedback actively. Emailing Google isn’t emailing a blackhole.

Some other good stuff as well.

read more | digg story

Google is joining the ranks of the Knights Templar, the Masons, the Illuminati, and Skull and Bones, effectively setting up secret invitation-only meetings with 400 elite attendees, including major media figures, who are all sworn to secrecy about next month’s Google Zeitgeist 05. Passwords will be used in lieu of secret handshakes.

Google, what are you up to?

read more | digg story

Google, the online search leader, confirmed on Tuesday it has begun a limited test of a free wireless Internet service, called Google WiFi. And so begins Google’s run for world domination. Rock on!

read more | digg story

Blogger has issues. I just realized there were 3 of the same post on here. Probably because they’ve been having trouble finding enough power (as in electricity) to run the servers they need to provide consistant service.

Can Microsoft rival Google in the world of search and information organization? I’d go with no. Microsoft is a huge company, but that also means they have a much broader one focus. They have an operating system, web browser, and all kinds of side projects to worry about. Information and organization just screams Google. The phrase “web search” has been replaced with “Google search” in most people’s vocabulary at this point. I probably use Google at least 50 times a day (and that’s definitely on the conservative side).

I had a conversation over the weekend about Google and their rigorous hiring process. It sounds like it would be basically impossible to get a job with them unless they already knew who you were. Still, they must be doing something right because they have continually shown me they are a company that makes quality products and actually cares about the impact they have on the world.

Let’s review: Google went public last year and if I’d had any money at the time I would have bought stock in a heartbeat. They’ve created one of the only browser toolbars I would ever put on any computer. Forget Yahoo!, MSN, and (god forbid) MyWebSearch or any of it’s duplicates. Now Google has started to branch out by acquiring existing software and expanding it’s own services. They were the first to come out with a desktop search that is incorporated right into their typical web interface. Other companies like Microsoft are following suit (see first paragraph). These services create an index of everything on your hard drive and search that index instead of looking at every file in order to cut search time dramatically. Granted, I haven’t used any of the other options, but Google was on top of their game getting their version out so quick.

Over the weekend I downloaded some software called Picasa 2 (powered by Google of course). It’s for organizing and editing pictures, and so far it’s really freakin’ sweet. When you download any new piece of software the installation usually finishes by asking if you want to view the readme file. I almost always decline, but for some reason I decided to take a look this time. It’s probably because I didn’t really know what Picasa was all about. Anyway, the first thing I noticed is that it wasn’t the typical “how to” with a features list and troubleshooting. It started out by explaining how it’s been a long time since the software was updated, but part of the reason was because they took so much user feedback and worked hard to incorporate it into their next release. It goes on to explain the many features of the software as if it was a casual conversation. Call me crazy, but that’s a lot more interesting to read than a typical technical document.

At this point I’m not sure anyone is still reading, but I still haven’t gotten to the thing I think is the most impressive. Here’s an article about how Google is actually improving the quality of the web through the algorithms they use to list relevant search results. Considering the amount of junk out there about the time I was in high school, that’s definitely a plus. I can remember when finding internet sources were discouraged because accuracy was always called into question. In the last year or two ,I’ve regularly heard teachers say that one of the best places to go for sources is the web, with most naming Google as the easiest place to start. Obviously their method isn’t perfect (this is called Google-Bombing), but nothing ever is.

I look forward to the future from Google. Considering they just snagged one of the chief Engineers of Mozilla Firefox, it really makes one wonder what’s next.