The Exalead search engine.

While using my favourite flavour of GNU/Linux as operating system I got so used to have multiple alternatives for every task that I also started to look out for alternatives for other everyday tasks. It seems as if one of the most recurring tasks to me is searching the internet. Looking up any keyword or topic I just heard of and did not know what it meant or did not know the background. My favourite engine is the Google search engine at the moment. But for several reasons I don’t want to rely on only one solution anymore.

Working in the IT-branch I do care of alternatives because you always have to have a good resort if plan A fails. That is why most internet service providers are connected redundant to the internet. It happened to us that some workers dug a hole somewhere between Vienna and Linz. Sadly they cut the three main fibre channels which connect half of Linz to the Vienna core node. If you are not connected redundant all your services will stop to work for an indefinitely time. Now imagine that one day the google webpage might not be accessible one day because all their servers were confiscated by the US because of investigations against terror. So a good alternative would be the lifebelt for those who are seeking for information.

Another thing is that it might be a good idea to spread ones activities over different services. If you take a look at the current Google empire you will realize that they have already all the data they need to track all of your activities. It is obvious that Google can see what you searched for when you use the Google search engine. But what about the not so obvious trackers? Nearly on every page on the web you can find ads which are coming from the Google Adsense program. It might not be so obvious for average surfers but technically it works like that: if a website uses the Google Adsense program the webpage itself includes ads which are coming directly from the Google servers and not from the original page itself. For e.g. if site A has got a google banner on the index page and you are watching it your browser first gets the source code of the index page of site A and then displays it to you. As the sourcecode contains commands for your browser to fetch ads from Google it connects to the Google server, fetches the information and integrates it into the index page of site A. One would think that there is no connection yet between site A and Google yet but there is. To be able to integrate the Ads site A has to provide a user ID to Google so that it delivers ads and so that Google can relate clicks on ads to the user ID for accounting reasons.

In other words: Not only by using the search engine you are giving Google the power to collect your data. On every single page which you are visiting and which contains Google ads, Google videos, Google maps, any other Google service Google can collect your data. They know on which page you where on which day and what content the page displayed. So they can make a really good profile of your person. They don’t have your personal details yet but in business world it must be a very very big power to have access to that data. A company with that information is able to track all the trends and interests on a global basis. Just amazing if you would sell such information to marketing companies or even governments. An incredible thought.

I wonder when Google is going to start as a telecommunication provider for mobile phones. The access to data would be more or less the same, just in real life. You can track where which person is at which location at which time. And as you are providing the data channels you can also analyze the content itself. And in this very case you even know the personal data such as name, address, etc. as well

Ok. Enough conspiracy theory for today. I am not telling anyone to be that paranoid but just to think all over before wakign up *after* someone misused all the gathered data. And to be honest I am not going to dump Google as my favourite search engine in the near future. And on my webpage you can see that I am also using Google maps. I will just try to also switch to alternatives more often which leads us back to the main topic here: the Google alternative.

In Europe there is some development going on on an alternative search engine to Google. The project is called Quaero and aims to bring out a good search engine alternative. On one side I am not a fan of “let’s make some clone of something” just to break into a market which is more or less entirely in American hands. But on the other hand I am a big fan of alternatives, especially when one single corporation has the control over the complete sector. One search engine which is involved in the Quaero project is Exalead. The details can also be read at Wikipedia.org. The interface is also very simple and easy to use but comes with some nice features (which you can turn on if you want but which you are not condemned to use from the beginning). So you don’t have to install multiple plugins [1] [2] for your Firefox browser.

As a heavy linux user I am happy that nowadays there are hardly any problems when dealing with Microsoft Windows documents but still I do not like receiving .doc attachments in my emails. Even when I am working on a Windows machine I don’t like it. That’s nothing related to Linux. This practice is just a waste of bandwith, time and money.
Read some interesting thoughts about this topic at gnu.org.

If you do some serious image manipulation there seems to be no way around Photoshop. Although I am already used to gimp and achieve the same results as with Photoshop some things could be more convenient in gimp. I know that gimps goal is not to be a Photoshop replacement but for my field of usage it is. Today I found another nice tool (taken from a list of most wanted Windows software for Linux list… where they presented some good replacments). And as Photoshop substitution the Pixel Image Editor is amazing. This tool truly can claim to be a Photoshop clone. Sad but fair thing to mention: the pixel image editor is no freeware. It costs $32 which seems affordable even to hobby photoshoppers. And you can try a 30 day evaluation version. Another big plus: it is available for nearly every platform (Win, Mac, Linux, etc.) and on the “purchase benefits page” you can read this: “License is multiplatform, you can use it on more platforms at once”.

On Feb. 1st the gp2x coding competition was announced. Entry submission is valid until Feb. 20th. Prices for the top 3 projects are some nice goodies which make your gp2x even more sweet. I am really looking forward to see the results as the existing tools and games from the gp2x community are really incredible.