friend page 3 - Dave's Blog

A Brief History of Microsoft's Live Search's New Domain Bing

• 2003 July: The first archived version of bing.com features "bing! is a small device (e.g., possibly even a small Band-Aid(R)-like sticker!) that vibrates when a person's cell phone rings." I can't recall 2003 cell phones, were they big enough to require this device?
• 2004 August: Site for the same device is rewritten and looks much better, IMHO.
• 2006 June: The domain is now parked by easyDNS. I guess the "bing!" device didn't work out?
• 2006 November: Its now "BING*" and they won't say what they're working on ("we're still in stealth mode") but they are hiring C#/.NET developers.
• 2007 January: And they're gone. Without even exiting stealth mode. Too bad, I liked their logo. Their domain is now for sale...
• 2007 February: Looks like EasyMail buys the domain and offers a physical mailing service in Australia: "By simply clicking a button on your computer, mail is beamed electronically to a bing post office. Your mail is automatically printed, folded, enveloped and dispatched into the Australia Post network the very same day."
• Present: Now its the new home for Live Search of course.

The new name reminds me of the show Friends. Also, I hope they get a new favicon - I don't enjoy the stretched 'b' nor its color scheme.

Netflix Watch Instantly Recommendations

Netflix lets you watch a subset of their movies online via their website and a subset of those movies are available to watch on the Xbox 360's Netflix app. so its not always easy to find movies to watch on Xbox 360. Yet, I regularly see my Xbox friends using the Netflix app and its a shame they didn't make an easy way to share movie recommendations with your friends. Instead we must share movie recommendations the old fashioned way. Here's the movies I've found and enjoyed on my 360.

Weeds

You don't have to be a stoner to enjoy this humorous and dramatic satire featuring a widow trying to raise her children and deal pot in suburbia.

Avatar The Last Airbender

An American animated series that's an amalgamation of various Asian art, history, religion, etc. that maintains a great story line.

Paprika

If you enjoyed Paranoia Agent you'll enjoy this movie in the same animation style and by the same director and writer, Satoshi Kon. Its like a feature length version of a Paranoia Agent episode in which a dream machine lets outsiders view one's dreams but eventually leads to blurring the dreams and reality.

Grindhouse Planet Terror

I didn't see either of the Grindhouse movies when they first came out, but of the two, Planet Terror is the more humorous and exciting gore filled parody.

Outsourced

A refreshing romantic comedy that still has a few of the over played tropes but is easy to enjoy despite that.

The King of Kong

A hilarious documentary on the struggle between the reigning champ hot-sauce salesman and the underdog Washington state high school science teacher to obtain the Donkey Kong world record high score. After watching, checkout this interview with the creators of the movie and the villain.

Primer

I've mentioned Primer before, but I put it on here again because its really good and you still haven't seen it, have you?

Scott, Jesse, and Jon in Vegas

sequelguy posted a photo:

On the bridge in front of Treasure Island just before the first show of 'Sirens of TI' that day.

Back from California

Sarah and I are back from a short Christmas visit to California. We spent the days around Christmas with much of my extended family in Sacramento many of whom I had not seen in quite a while. It was nice to see everybody again. I ended up taking a few pictures on Christmas in order to add to the digital photo frame I gave Grandma.

We flew in and out of San Francisco on Virgin America which was really nice. The staff is trying their best to be hip but accessible, the safety instructional video is entertaining, there's mood lighting, and all seats have entertainment systems as well as power outlets and USB ports to charge your electronic devices. They don't have many flights which appears to mean shorter lines. And it was cheaper to fly with them and then rent a car and drive to Sacramento then to fly in to Sacramento. I'll for sure be flying with them again given the opportunity. Before flying back Sarah and I spent a day in San Francisco, where we decided that if we don't go back to Fisherman's Wharf again in this lifetime that would be acceptable, saw the Golden Gate Park and met up with my friend Jake who I haven't seen in at least four years. Next up, happy new year!

Back From Germany

Sarah and I are back from Munich, Germany as of Thursday and I've just about recovered. The trip there via Air France we watched many movies and it was much better than the trip back in which the entertainment system failed and I had a cold. When we arrived, Jon met us at the airport, helped us with the subway system, we played Guitar Hero, ate at a Bavarian pub, and then later at an Australian bar.

The following day we met up with Jon and three of his friends, one of whom was visiting from England and we all took a train to Neuschwanstein Castle. Apparently its the 'Disney' castle in that Disney's castle's are based upon it. The castle is filled with images and statues of swans in homage to the Swan Knight. We ate in the town at a cafe with traditional Bavarian food before taking the train back and getting all you can eat fajitas for dinner.

G1 Android Phone

I finally replaced my old regular cell-phone which was literally being held together by a rubber band with a fancy new G1, my first Internet accessible phone.

I had to call the T-Mobile support line to get data added to my plan and the person helping me was disconcertingly friendly. She asked about my weekend plans and so I felt compelled to ask her the same. Her plans involved replacing her video card so she could get back to World of Warcraft and do I enjoy computer gaming? I couldn't tell if she was genuine or if she was signing me up for magazines.

I was with Sarah in her new car, trying out the phone's GPS functionality via Google Maps while she drove. I switched to Street View and happened to find my car. It was a weird feeling, kind of like those Google conspiracy videos.

The phone runs Google's open source OS and I really enjoy the application API. Its all in Java and URIs and mime-types are sort of basics. Rather than invoking the builtin item picker control directly you invoke an 'intent' specifying the URI of your list of items, a mime-type describing the type of items in the list, and an action 'PICK' and whatever is registered as the picker on the system pops up and lets the user pick from that list. The same goes if you want to 'EDIT' an image, or 'VIEW' an mp3.

I wanted to replace the Google search box gadget that appears on the home screen with my own search box widget that uses OpenSearch descriptors but apparently in the current API you can't make home screen gadgets without changing parts of the OS. My other desired application is something to replace this GPS photo tracker device by recording my location to a file and an additional program on my computer to apply those locations to photos.

Weekend Dinners: Old friends, Old library

Last Thursday I saw a bunch of college friends that I hadn't seen in a while, despite all of us working at Microsoft, and Saul and Ciera who were visiting. We had dinner at Typhoon! which I haven't been to in quite a while. Daniil and Val brought their cute child. I got to see Charlie and Matt who I'm not sure I've seen since my 25th birthday. There was much nerdiness. I need to remember to organize such a night myself sometime in near future so I don't have to wait another year to see them.

On the weekend Sarah and I went out to dinner at Carnegie's, a former public library in Ballard, Seattle that's now a restaurant. I saw the restaurant's website in Matt's delicious links and thought it looked interesting. The exterior and entryway look like a public library, but just inside its redone as a sort of modern version of french classical with a bar and two dining rooms. No pictures since my replacement camera only arrived today, but there are photos available. They serve french cuisine which was good and not as expensive as I would have expected. An interesting place, although its a bit of a drive and I'm not sure if we'll be going back soon.