Tesco Cartridge Pen aka the Tesco ‘Comfort’ Pen

Um yes, I have been away, for 5 months that is. Hey, I'm a busy guy, deal with it :p

Following the responses I got from the Pilot 78G review I wrote not too long ago, I’ve decided to do yet another pen review (actually, this will be one of 2 reviews I’ll be doing, now that I’ve actually have some time to myself to write these things) I’ve recently been discovering that the price of a fountain pen does not necessarily reflect on it ability to write. My Hero #299 (which I also found in Tesco) and my RM3.00 Youth Pens from China are good examples of these. Recently, I came across a posting in FPN that spoke about a mysterious ‘Cartridge Pen’ that could be found on the cheap from Tesco. Very Intrigued, I made a point of looking a bit more carefully the next time I was there. Suffice to say, I found one that cost me a grand total of…RM2.50. I have to apologize in advance because I’ve thrown away the packaging for this pen. It comes with 3-4 generic Short Standard International Cartridges of Blue Ink. Absolutely no idea what make the ink actually is by the way. I just threw away the cartridges and slotted in a Pelikan Violet. Here’s a first look at the said pen:

Unposted (without the cap on) it measures about 12.2cm, Posted the pen measures about 16.3cm. The cap is a clip on type and is transparent with a one piece black tip and clip unit. The rest of the pen is made of plastic (all of it actually, except the nib which seems to be made of stainless steel). No clues as to what converter it will take. But I’m not too anal about using cartridges anyways. Its RM2.50 for god’s sake! Takes both long and short International Cartridges. On to the weight factor, it’s the lightest weight pen I’ve ever used. Hardly feel the weight as I’m writing. The barrel has a rubberized feel to it and the business end of the pen has grooves cut into the grip (which is made of shiny black plastic) and does not slip in any way while writing.

The nib is stainless steel and has a slight flex to it. (Thin Iridium Stainless Steel I’m told) As far as the point is concerned, it’s an ‘F’ Nib. Absolutely nothing engraved on the nib too. The underside of the nib is the now familiar black but smooth with no vertical nor horizontal grooves. The inking system makes use of cartridges. I doubt I can find a converter for it. Then again, I ain’t no snob when it comes to inking systems :P

So, unto the actual writing bit. This time around, I used some really nice Conqueror paper and wrote a few lines. I noticed that while it was an ‘F’ Nib, it was a bit thicker than my Sheaffer No-Nonsense’s ‘F’ nib. Writing was smooth, uninterrupted (I did flush the pen out before slotting in the cartridge). Writing sample as below, Tesco Pen in Violet and the Sheaffer No-Nonsense in brown.

Ok, last thing that needs mentioning, this is a pen which is made in China. Which could be a good thing or a bad thing. I do have a post written up about Chinese made pens, but I’m still tweaking it so wait for it. Chinese pens are either very good or very bad, it can be a crapshoot sometimes. A few months after I wrote this review (yes, I take ages to write one blog post, that just shows how dedicated I am to my art :P) the pen began to leak rather badly from the cartridge part. I suspect that this had to do with a little rough handling the pen took in my bag (yes, this was BEFORE I discovered RM5 faux-leather 3 pen cases from Daiso), so do take care not to handle the pen too roughly.

Final Impressions:

Pros: Cheap, lightweight, slightly flexible nib. Smooth writing performance.

Cons: No converter so you’re stuck with whatever International cartridges that comes your way. (long or short), dubious durability.

PS: This entire blog post was written as usual in long hand with the subject of this review, the Tesco Comfort Pen

Custom Ink Blend: The Iron Chancellor

Um, not sure you'll be able to see the nuances, but there ya go. Yeah, i know its small so click on it to see the whole thing willya?

Hero Blue Black Ink Review

Well, following a pen review, I'm following it up with an ink review. My favorite color when it comes to writing ink is Blue-Black. I spoke to my Mom some time ago and she told me that in the late 50s and 60s, Blue-Black was the choice of ink for many people. She told me about giant Parker Quink bottles that will be in the corner of the office and people coming up to fill their individual ink wells/bottles. I have seen those bottles for sale by the way. Seems like I'm stuck in that era too :P

So, since I already have the Pelikan 4001 Blue-Black (it comes out Grey when it dries) and 2 bottles of Vintage Parker Quink Solv-x Blue-Black, I thought the Hero might be a good thing to try. The Vintage Parker Quink Solv-x Blue-Black by the way is my favorite Blue-Black but its getting harder to find. I had reservations about the Hero. (I mean, it costs RM1.90). So I searched through FPN to see if there were any reviews. There were 3 and they all looked pretty ok. I took the plunge and got myself a bottle.

The ink comes in a cardboard box, not really that attractive, (I was hoping for some Communist-ish box art but uh..it was just plain). Its volume is 59ml and has the words "Treated with anti-oxidant and corrosion inhibitor" printed on one side of the box. The bottle is very old looking and is capped by a light blue cap. Smells like...ink. So instead of doing a custom handwritten review, I downloaded a review form off FPN and filled it up. Here's how it looks like:

Click to see a larger image.

A proviso here tho, scanners brighten up pictures a bit so, the actual image is slightly darker than this. What do I feel about the ink?

1. It sits between the Parker and the Pelikan
2. No Feathering, I like that a lot,
3. Drying time is rather decent, could be better tho
4. Water test hardly took off anything. This is very important as I (being the clumsy doofus that I am) am prone to knocking water all over what I write
5. The price! its cheap as chips! (cheaper lar)
6. Availability - I can get in many shops nearby
7. Flow is really good, I like the fact that it worked very well with my buttery smooth Hero 331 Nib.
8. Saturation - With a Fine point, this comes out very close to a real Blue black. When I wrote with the Pilot 78G-BB tho, the end result looked grayish.

So, Fine points work very well with this ink. This ink has also restored my faith in Hero inks and I might get a bottle of red and a bottle to black to make my long overdue Burgundy ink. If I was to rate this over 5, I would definitely give it a 3.8. Now, I gotta go find more of these. Just in case the inkocalypse breaks out. You just might never know. :P

Hero #331 review

Hey there! its been some time but um...I did a handwritten review of the Hero #331 that originally was posted in the Fountain Pen Network forums. A little different this time, its all in pictures. Enjoy!












PS. My photos are squashed for some reason. Click on 'em to see it in its entirety.

Microsoft China rips off Asia’s No. 1 Microblogging Service

Now, I'm acutely aware of the fact that this blog does not really have a million subscriber count but I need to post this and implore you, yes you who's reading this right now about the issue I've specified in the title. For over a year now, I've been very very actively using Plurk.com, a microblogging service first introduced to me while I was reading a Twitter post by Veronica Belmont. Along the way, numerous tech luminaries like Leo Laporte, Robert Scoble, Molly Wood, Tom Merritt, Jason Howell (Last 3 being of Buzz Out Loud fame) and many others came on and still from time to time, peek in and update their Plurks.

That however was just an intro for me into this new world, very different from Twitter, Plurk featured updates in a left to right scrolling method with 'karma' points and other badges being awarded for introducing your friends etc. Here's a screen shot:

Along the way, I've made many new friends and oddly enough, found a new fan base for my band. Plurk is now the fastest growing microblogging service in Asia. Until now that is.

This morning, Plurk's official blog reported that Microsoft China is launching a new microblogging service, MSN Juku/Hompy/Mclub. The problem with this tho is the fact that its an exact facsimile of Plurk. Right down to the bare code that runs the site. Obviously, its easy for us to get cynical and sneer at Chinese copyright abusers and such but this is Microsoft! As posted in the Plurk Blog:

"Imitation may be the sincerest form of flattery, but blatant theft of code, design, and UI elements is just not cool, especially when the infringing party is the biggest software company in the world."

Uncool thing to do Microsoft. Please read the rest of the post here: and please spread the news to anyone that might care about a software giant that treads on smaller guys who are trying to make a break.

Contradictions

Woeful dreams of nothingness,
Stuck in a state of cloudless skies, car-less streets and treeless forests,
I'm standing in a grass-less field, trying to fly a kite in a windless sky,
Oh when will I ever stop sailing this ship of fools in a waterless ocean?
Its meaningless.

The moon shines in a night-less sky,
While I walk on by in a people-less city,
I pull my coat tighter on a cold-less sunny day,
All around me are cars gridlocked in traffic, on a road-less junction,
Is it now the right time to cry?

The Sun now rises in the west,
The oceans have no ebb and tide,
And somewhere, somewhere out there,
The long cruel night begins to fade....


(Originally written in long hand, on Conquerer paper, Pelikan Brilliant Brown ink and with a Pilot 78G F)




This work by Paul David Krishnan is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-No Derivative Works 3.0 United States License.
Based on a work at phaseignition.blogspot.com.
Permissions beyond the scope of this license may be available by contacting the author at phaseignition.blogspot.com.

Pilot 78G

Hur hur...had to start off blogging again with a pen review didn't I :P.

I've been hearing a lot about the Pilot 78G from the FPN forums and how great they were and all that. I had previously seen a few in my secret pen lair (stationery shop, shall remain unnamed :P ) But was put off by the fact that the only nib size they had was a BB (double Broad). After an extensive review reading session, I decided to get myself one. Meanwhile, someone was offering a 1959 Sheaffer Snorkel trade in the FPN forums for a BB 78G. So, I roll up to the shop and I get myself a Black BB (to trade with) and amazingly found a maroon F nibbed 78G which I promptly grabbed. They look like this by the way:

So, pens in hand, I got home and looked the pen over. Unposted (without the cap on) it measured about 12.5cm, Posted (the cap on the end of the barrel - do this carefully, some pens won't take too kindly to this kind of treatment. Cracks in the cap lip are common specially when you cram the cap on the barrell) the pen measures about 15cm. The cap is a screw on type, the pen itself is made of plastic. Rather light weight but not as light as the China made copies of the Parker 51 (Hero and Youth pens).

This review by the way, focuses on the Maroon F nibbed pen as I want to keep the BB for trading purposes (either for the Snorkel or for a bottle of Noodlers or something) As far as decorations are concerned, the clip is squarish,metallic and gold in color. Not sure what its made from tho. The word "Pilot" is imprinted on the clip. The pen itself is colored uniform maroon without any marbling (unlike my Sheaffer No-Nonsense Vintage) and 2 gold bands are imprinted on the cap itself with the word "Japan" breaking one band.

Ok, the nib itself is gold with the words "Pilot. Super Quality. Japan. printed on it. A closer look with a jewellers loupe, revealed perfectly aligned tines (that the point of the nib) and a feed section that was dead center to the nib. Interestingly tho, the feed (that black section beneath the nib) had vertical instead of horizontal slits that I'm more used to. Moving on the inking system, this Pilot sports an aerometric style converter (them squeeze type fillers that you would find in older pens - lazy to go find a pic :P) I am told however, that this pen can take International cartridges.

Filled it up with Pelikan's Brilliant Brown (my new bottle of ink as voted by the good people of Plurk) and grabbed my usual generic notepaper to start scribbling some lines. A very fine line developed on the paper and this is the place to explain an important distinction in nib sizes as far as Western and Japanese are concerned. Both Japanese and Western have the same designations for nibs. They run from BB (double broad) stubs to XF (extra fine). Japanese nibs however are actually a size smaller from what is advertised. So a B (broad) will write like a M (medium), M like a F and so on. So my F 78G writes like a XF.

I was very disappointed that instead of evenly colored lines, the 78G started to write rather erratically. The ink looked like it was being spread very thinly. I attribute this to one of 2 reasons:

1. Paper was crap. Most paper these days are not made for FP use.
2. The Ink. Pelikan Inks are known to be 'dry'

So, I tried writing with other type of papers but I got the same results. In the office this morning, I unscrewed the barrel and noticed that the filler was not very snug with the main section. Pushed it in, grabbed another notepad (yes I have many notepads) and presto! It wrote like a dream! The pad was made of heavier paper (think somewhere in the region of 80gm). I've yet to try this on my 100gm paper journal but for now, I totally love this pen! For RM18, its not too bad actually.

Writing Sample (no apologies for penmanship):


Image seems to be blurry cos, scanner was crap. (Click on the image for a clearer pic.)

First Line: Pilot 78G, Pelikan Brilliant Brown (F)
Second Line: Youth 303, Parker Quink Solv-x Vintage Blue Black(F)
Third line: Rotring Core Coridium, Pelikan Violet (M)

Side Note: Pilot also has another division called Namiki (named after Ryosuke Namiki - Pilot's founder) that makes gorgeous pens sold at very high prices. They specialize in the maki-e type lacquering that goes on their pens. Drool at this:

PS: This entire blog post was written in long hand with the subject of this review, the Pilot 78G :)

Reboot started ..accessing...0xFFFF0

Again? Yeah, why not? Its been a tough one year (Ok, maybe more than a year) since I blogged. Work, travel, dealing with Dad's death has taken a very heavy toll on me. For a while, I was experimenting with a tumblelog. That's a little bit on hold at the moment now that my digital camera is busted. A flat bed scanner might help to serve the same purpose as the camera did but, urm..it feels totally different. Obviously I'll use the scanner once in a while to upload entries into the tumblog from my personal journal but..lets just say that I've been putting down a lot of really personal stuff that I don't feel like sharing right about now. You can go see that blog here: http://phaseinked.tumblr.com/

So, another new beginning? (seems to be a lot of those in this blog) What on earth do I blog about now? I've done the 'rojak'(mixed, anything goes) style of blogging, tried my hand at technology blogging. Interesting pause for thought here. I could go back to the rojak thing and the technology thing. I could blog about shaving or fountain pens..(Paul is currently facing a mid-life crisis. Unable to afford Ferraris, sports cars and other expensive pursuits, he's turned to DE shaving and collecting fountain pens - Paul's Doppleganger).

Here's my proposal tho, I'll post whatever I feel like posting. Could be a rant, an ink review, a tech piece or even a shaving soap review. Hey, I might even break my rule of not talking about politics. (hazardous to my life but a man's gotta do what he has to do y'see?) So sit back, enjoy (if you can) and lets celebrate life as it is eh?

(Clicky to make it big).

Pos Malaysia, Free money and a lot of hot air

If you think this is gonna be a rant, you're right. Partially. Last weekend wifey, baby and me went off to the Jalan Besar Seri Kembangan Post Office to see if we could collect out RM625 (about USD191) that the Government was giving out as a rebate to deal with the rise of fuel prices. We've been hearing a lot of stories of how to actually get the RM625. Turns out, it was pretty painless. You go in and ask for a form to claim the rebate, which turns out to be a money-order ish kinda form with spaces for your name, MyKad number (Identification Card) and your vehicle number rubber stamped on it. Fill that out, take a number, wait till yer turn and hand that over to the person behind the counter. He/she will then take your thumb print (huh? yeah, we still do thumb prints here) put that on the form, hand you a scrap of tissue paper to clean yer thumb and hand you the money. Since dad's car is under my name, I ended up with RM1250. Dad refused to take it when I gave it to him so its mine. Wah..thats what in Malay we call 'Durian Runtuh' (windfall). Until I got into my car and switched on the air conditioning.

Hot air. Tweaked every imaginable setting and all I got was hot air. Called up some buddies to find out why and I got a variety of answers. The figures I was getting in terms of replacing cooling coils and compressors were really frightening. At last, the ever reliable Mr Kee sent me an sms with the contact details of a very reliable Air Con guy:

HENG WA AIR-COND SERVICE CENTRE
3003, Jalan Tun Razak,
50400 KL
Tel : 019 2136170 / 03 26980254

Turns out, the problem was a busted cooling coil and damaged compressor.Oh, the Air con relay was bust too. Pics below. The damage? RM645! So much for the extra cash. Well at least he finished the car in one day. I pity the Mercedes Benz Elegance owner that had his car over there. To change one damaged cooling coil, the entire dash got removed. Back seat littered with the steering wheel, buttons and all kinds of stuff. Sucks to be you dood. :P

Oh yeah, sucky Camera phone pics warning.

The dead Coil



Compressor from Hell. Replacement was a second hand one. New would have cost upwards RM1K. yikes!

Zipidee doo dah

Ever been in a situation where you've got a zip file and you can't open it cos the idiot admin didn't grant you access to install anything on the lousy outdated machine you're using in the office? Or maybe its a situation where you got a rar or a tar file and have no blinking idea what to do with it. Also, zip files have them nasty viruses in them so you're afraid of opening them at the first place. Well, the fretting is over. Wobzip hath arrived!



I found this while going through some del.icio.us links and was wondering why someone had not thought about this idea earlier.(Maybe there are others but I haven't looked) So on to brass tacks. Simply put, wobzip asks for an upload of any zip, tar, rar file ( up to 15 formats supported: 7z, ZIP, GZIP, BZIP2, TAR, RAR, CAB, ISO, ARJ, LZHCHM, Z, CPIO, RPM, DEB and NSIS), un-zips (tars, rars etc) and displays the content for you to download:



1. Is where you upload files from yer hard disk.
2. Is what you press after you choose the zip file..duh

Results look like whats in the box. Be reminded that the limit for files that you upload is 100MB. There is also the option to download what you unzipped back as a zip and an option to delete what you just unzipped. Ok so far? Good. It gets better. Because not only can you password protect your files but you also have the option to input a download link into wobzip and wobzip will unzip it for you. Boom! Here's how it looks like (kinda):



Now, the obvious benefit of using something like this is that its cross platform, there's no need to install anything, no need for registrations and its safe. How do you ask its safe? Well, there's the fact that every file uploaded gets scanned for viruses. The technology powering the anti virus comes from Bitdefender. Speaking of what powers wobzip, the Uncompression Software is made possible by p7zip.

However its not all that complete actually. wobzip is in testing and development and only uncompression is available. The site lists a couple of known bugs:

1. Uploader may cause corrupted files.
2. There are reports that .tar.gz and .tar.bz2 file extension do not work

So yer mileage may vary. Got a better solution or have an opinion about this? Leave me a comment and I'll be more than happy to discuss (or Disqus) it with you.

Sir-Plurk-a-lot

#3 top Plurker in Malaysia. Woot!



I need to work on my Karma..sigh.

Changes, Changes

Yeah, its been a while hasn't it? I've been putting in some little hacks into the blog to make your 'experience' better. Obviously, I had to sort out the comments disappearing issue. I want to post a huge big shout out to the guys at Disqus, Daniel and Jason, Thank you so much for fixing my template! erm...ok. I've also put in show/hide thing into the sidebar and I've to thank Annie from Blog U for showing me how to go about doing a fix like that.

Also, I've created a Label Cloud and I have phydeaux3 to thank for the very helpful instructions that eventually helped me do a nice Tag cloud. I must admit I kinda screwed up the RGB color codes while doing the cloud so I had to go back to fix it. Which is not bad since I'm not a Template-Code-Monkey. I've also listed my blog at the BlogMalaysia Blogger directory (easier for the Government to come a calling if I ever post anything seditious!) If you're Malaysian and have a blog, please get yer tushes over there and get yer blog listed there now! Also, I have made a few new acquitances in the BlogMalaysia Forum.

So, with work crushing me in all directions, hopefully I can get to write more often. Currently I'm playing around with Plurk. If you wanna get on it, click here to sign up.

Laters.

Twitter as its broken..

Looking at Twitter for the last 2 weeks, I was moved to do this piece of nonsense-ory. Some kudos is in order tho:

Inspired by: Jessica Hagy and frequent Twitter Outages.
Blog Post powered by: Crappy Graphs!
Special Thanks to: Amber MacArthur - for finding Crappy Graphs!



So, without further ado:



Original Post

MIC - FAIL!

Continuing the Fail concept, MIC (Malaysian Indian Congress - The 'Guardian' of all things Indian in Malaysia) claimed that they will take efforts to woo professionals by looking at cyberspace. Datuk Seri S. Samy Vellu, Dictator for Life, Party President, stated that the party will be using the internet to reach out to professionals and youths. “And, for this reason, our leaders need to teach themselves to surf the Net and, if possible, create their own blogs.” Yeah Right!

Original Story

I was at the MIC Website this morning and here are some screenshots:





Granted he did say this:
“Soon, we will be launching our own portal which would allow the people to make complaints and take part in discussions. “We will also make it compulsory for each state committee to have its own website and to update it daily,”

But I'm highly skeptical about it. Their website has not been updated since March and is tired and out of touch. So, since the 'Monkey see - monkey do' thing about politicians-who-condemn-bloggers-but-now-have-a-blog-of-their-own is currently spreading across Malaysia, are MIC leaders going to have their blog as well? Is Samy going to have a folder in his PC that says 'Blog Drafts' too? Will they be writing their own blog posts or are they going to rely on other people to write their blog posts? And what are they going to be blogging about? the plight of the Indians in Malaysia? How they have repeatedly failed to stand up for the rights of the Indians in Malaysia? Telekom Shares? How they kowtow to...(seditious..better be careful here)

Please don't do something just because everyone else is doing it. Its Pathetic. Spending RM400,000 in equipment is not going to bring back confidence in the hearts of people who looked at you as their only hope. Want to make a difference? Go back to the MIC building, round up your oldest members and ask them why did MIC come into existence at the first place. Then take whatever you get from that and run with it. The Indians in this country (me included) will thank you for it.

FAIL!

haha...got a mention in the English Fail blog for this picture:




Original link: http://englishfail.wordpress.com/2008/05/23/mean-people-fail/

Short update on Disqus & Template issues.

Tried it yesterday and checked to see if its working properly. Nope, didn't work out so I went back and choose the option to implement it as an overall thing. (instead of Disqus being implemented on the next new post) Started working fine. On another note, I noticed that this new layout doesn't seem to be highlighting links and generally looks kinda iffy. So I'm on the look out for a new layout design. Hopefully the next incarnation will turn out to be good. Stay tuned.

Commenting. The Next Discontinuous Evolution.

When I first started blogging, I was rather content with Blogger's commenting system. As time went on though, I was looking at various different technologies that could plug into this blog. I then went to make a decision that I would come to regret. I installed Haloscan on my blog. Actually Haloscan wasn't really all that bad, I could moderate comments nicely and my commenters (as if there are a million comments per post!) could post a little avatar etc. But after a while I realized that once the overall comments hit a certain number, they'll get put into a database of sorts and the counter for them older comments will be reset to zero. Not that they get deleted or something but basically that's what you get for having a free Haloscan account. How do you get back the 'lost' comments? Easy, pay 12USD a year.

Er...I wasn't willing to pay just to get my comments back so I've wiped the slate clean, and installed Disqus. Yep, commenting just turned Web 2.0. There has been lots of interest in this start up and co-founder Daniel Ha even got interviewed in net@night with Leo Laporte and Amber MacArthur. So how different is Disqus compared to Haloscan and even the native Blogger commenting system?

Disqus promises to make commenting more "interactive and manageable". It kinda makes 'communities' out of commenters who then connect with each other. A side benefit of this is that promoting a blog becomes much easier with this community element present in the commenting system. Community is what makes Disqus truly Web 2.0. Here's a shot of their site:



(Click to enlarge)

Intrigued, I went and looked at how this thing works in real blogs. I chose Dave Winer's blog cause well, I like his writing and he's been using Disqus for a bit now. He's also responsible for a lot of things like RSS, blogs and podcasting. Here's a look at the comments in one of the posts.



(Click to enlarge)

See where the red arrow points to? that is an avatar on a Disqus powered commenting system. When I moused over it, that box with the red circle appeared. Now, look at the next avatar below, see that little 2 gray arrows pointing up and down below it? That enables you to vote the comments up or down, Digg Style. Going back to the box, you'll see a number 1 in an orange box. That will show show how much karma or 'clout' (as its called in Disqus) you have. You can even follow the person's comments via RSS (shown with the red circle. What makes it really interesting is the fact that Disqus and Seesmic have now teamed up to enable video comments to be inserted into blog comments. Here's a shot of that in action:


Now, from what I heard on Net@night, this system integrates easily into any blog and it also works as a plugin for Wordpress. When I put Disqus into my system, it actually asked if I want to overwrite my previous comments or begin from the next new post that I'll be writing. Fancy that, they actually thought that part through. Daniel when asked by Leo about monetizing the service remarked that at the moment, they were more focused on rolling out the service but the service will remain free. So to the 2-3 people who actually read this blog, take a shot at the comments and if you wanna leave a video comment, knock yourself out.

Oh yeah, I wrote this post with ScribeFire so let me know how it worked out as well.

Ewwww,,,

Get Your Sexy Name

Thanks Leo..

What If: Microsoft buys FaceBook

Edit: *Grumble* that's what I get for posting blog posts past midnight..grr

I was in the midst of slowly writing up a blog post based on Twitter and Friendfeed when something popped up on my Friendfeed. This.



Ha? What?..ok ok..lets back this statement up a little. I looked up Robert's blog post on it(here), seems like he's referencing his 'former boss' John Furrier who was making a comment about how Microsoft and Yahoo's camps were in the midst of hammering out a deal to acquire Yahoo's search business. (Yeah..latest in the round of that saga.) I took a gander at Furrier's post(here) and he in turn references TechMeme's posts about the search business deal. Furrier then turns around in his post and says "After the failed bid for $40 plus billion for all of Yahoo, Microsoft’s intentions are clear. Buy the search business from Yahoo and take that team and go spend at least 20 billion for Facebook. Integrating the search team at Yahoo with Facebook puts a formidable army to take on Google." He further goes to say that by doing this, Microsoft will end up spending $45 billion and be in a position to compete with Google. Now, remember that all this is just RUMOUR and most of the statements are at best speculative.

But I like speculation. Especially when Robert comes out with it.

Robert remarks that there are a few issues to consider here:

1. Google does not have access to events and other selected items on Facebook. That 'locks out' Google. - "This is a fight for the Web. We all just crawled inside a box that locks Google out."

2. This will hand on a silver platter to Microsoft an Aladdin Cave (ok, maybe the cave won't fit on a platter) full of Internet Information that will give them sudden empowerment in the Internet search area.

3. (via Twitter..not in his post) We're about to hand over HTTP access to Microsoft and they can shut it down if they want to.

First, lets take a look at these 'sweeping' statements. (you just gotta get to know Robert better!)
1. This is partly true as you can search notes, some public galleries etc.
2. True if it EVER happens.
3. Yep. This is possible again only if MS buys Facebook and in fact if your'e not logged on, you can't access anything on Facebook. Remember also that there is the indiscriminate removal of people from Facebook for no apparent reason. I had a friend who sent out some messages to all his friends on Facebook. Boom! banned. Reason given by Facebook? "You're abusing the messaging system" So, If I want to announce that I just became a father again to all my 102 friends does that mean I'll get kicked out too? (that was hypothetical, the baby I mean. We haven't even considered number 2) Irina Slutsky (very respected Internet personality.) also got kicked out couple of days ago. No reason given. So have many people.

Microsoft IS capable of shutting down part of the Internet if this deal is done. At the moment tho, it is merely speculation that might even never see the light of day. But it is possible. Robert actually has another part of his blog post suggest that in order for the public Web to 'fight back', we should take on FriendFeed. It 'replaces all of Facebook's killer features with open ones which are open to Google's search'. Actually, he's true with this statement. Some people have taken this to mean that Google's search is open. Heh.. fat chance. Its not. But is FriendFeed really a replacement for Facebook?

Well, its not. I've been using FriendFeed for a couple of weeks now and while I've gotten like totally addicted to it, it doesn't replace Facebook for me. Now, I've kinda fallen off Facebook since I started Twittering seriously some time back, but I still go back to it for only one reason. All my friends are there. Sure, I can incorporate stuff like Twitter,Last.fm, Pownce, Jaiku and any rss feed I want but only one of my real friends are there with me. Maybe Malaysians haven't warmed up to the idea of FriendFeed yet. *shrug* The loneliness of being an early adopted I suppose. Meanwhile, its very important to understand what Robert has highlighted with his post and even more important to note how much of your personal information FaceBook has. Don't forget the Beacon fiasco. This is the Internet we're talking about. Just because Facebook suddenly took off and everyone is on it, dosen't mean you shouldn't be responsible for your private data.

More reading:

http://www.microsoft.com/presspass/press/2008/may08/05-18statement.mspx
http://yhoo.client.shareholder.com/press/releasedetail.cfm?ReleaseID=310948

{ } Powerset - Search just got a little Smarter.

I've spent a good number of years on the Internet and one of my serious gripes has always been about search. From the early days of Yahoo search, there has been a discontinuous series of improvement of how search engines strive to be more accurate etc. Which meant that along the journey of Internet Evolution, I hopped from one search engine to another trying to find which one suits my needs the best. What a journey that was. Moving from Yahoo to Altavista, Dogpile, Teoma, Looksmart, Hot Bot, Vivisimo and even the graphical search results of Kartoo (Which is still around and still pretty awesome for an alternative way to search). Note that I have lumped all these names under the loose term 'Search Engine'. Some of them are meta-crawlers. That is a subject for another day. :)



Kartoo: Graphical search results ..mmmmm

Heck, I even wrote an entire chapter on how to optimize search, search engines and metacrawlers for research in our company training manual (for sales people and program developers). However as the years went by I started having some hope that search will be more accurate and I don't have to use Boolean operators, quotation marks and the like. That was partly satisfied as Google refined their algorithms and currently, I use their excellent, unbranded experimental search engine, searchmash.

Somewhere last year however, a project was dropped into our (as in my company) lap. Titled "Semantic Search" it was described as a more accurate, more user friendly and natural way to search. Unfortunately the project got dropped. (we're still trying to make time to design around Google's search algorithm patents tho!) So what is the meaning of this 'Semantic Search'? For that you gotta have a little understanding of how conventional search works. The most basic way an internet search works when a search request is sent is that an algorithm searches, computes and returns the highest number of occurrences of that particular search term. The rest of the programming in the search engine then displays the pages that have that number. (Disclaimer: that's how I understand it. I don't work in this industry and have no deeper knowledge of this unless I go do more research which i don't have time for. Dammit Jim! I'm a Sales guy not a Google employee!)

How is Semantic Search different then? Instead of searching, computing and returning the occurence of the search term, a Semantic Search algorithm actually looks at the meaning of the search term and then displays results relevant to the meaning. Still confused? Check out this video:



So I heard some mention of Semantic Search this morning on Buzz out Loud (ep 722) when the Awesome Threesome (Tom, Molly and Jason) discussed a website called Powerset. This was based on an article written by news.com writer Dan Farber on his 'Outside the Lines' column. Powerset is a search engine that uses Semantic Search algorithms to search. However it only searches Wikipedia and Freebase.com at the moment. Relatively new, their 'About Us' claims that their goal "is to change the way people interact with technology by enabling computers to understand our language". Also, "In the search box, you can express yourself in keywords, phrases, or simple questions. On the search results page, Powerset gives more accurate results, often answering questions directly, and aggregates information from across multiple articles."



So far so good. A video demo of what Powerset can do can be found here:



The official Powerset blog is here:

Ok, Ok. On to the hands on test. Here are some screen shots of some search terms I tried:











Overall, I was very impressed. It almost felt like I had a magnifying glass to Wikipedia. Again, the technology is very new and Powerset utilises technology licensed from PARC's Natural Language Processing patents . While this may not immediately shake Google's entrenched position, it will up the ante in terms of what needs to be incorporated into future search engines. An interesting observation that I recall from a few years ago is that most people will willingly embrace new search engines...for a few minutes and then return to the one that they've always been comfortable with. Whatever the case maybe, I hope this would be a good direction for search companies to take us into the future of search

Meanwhile, Jason Calacanis (who I think is cool!) has written his thoughts on Powerset (better written than mine). I find this blog post very interesting as he offers some good counter points and a more in-depth look at Powerset. You can read his views here.

Some more links for you to read:
http://www2003.org/cdrom/papers/refereed/p779/ess.html
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Semantic_search