The James Kilgour BlogA Life Blog.

Bing: the new Microsoft search engine. Now available in Beta in the UK!

I was quite intrigued to test Bing, and find out what the fuss is about. Since Microsoft are rumored to be spending $100 million advertising Bing, there must be something special. Surely.

My first thought on loading the Bing Homepage was wow! It looks really nice, with some really great background pictures. On my 4mb Internet Connection, the picture did take a moment to load.

I then did a quick search: camera. It seemed like a good plan, and I was expecting some shopping listings, as shown in the Bing preview video.

I was disappointed with what I got. Just links, like Google. Wow. Obviously shopping and other cool new features are only going to be available in the US, at least for a while. This seems typical, as UK users always seem to get left out

However, there are some cool features working in the UK! Such as the live preview pain: this is quite a good idea on Microsoft’s part, and something that I think I will actually use. It would be easier and quicker though to have the orange dot on the other side of the listing. (You’ll see what I mean when you try).

Another good development is the ability to preview videos. Like the Preview Pain, this cuts down the amount of clicking needed for searching.

You can also watch the full video through Bing.

My first impressions of Bing is that it’s a great search engine, that I will continue to use. I would like to see the full features that are available in the US in the UK though. The questions everyone seems to be asking is Bing vs. Google. I think that Bing takes the prize: something I never expected to think.

JK

Homepages Friends is a weirdly named site, that at first look may appear to be a scam. I’ve been using it, (out of curiosity) for a few days now, and the earnings from the site have started to pour in.

Basically, you register quickly, and get your own homepage. On it, is a Yahoo! search box. All you have to do is use it like normal; like you would Google or Yahoo! itself. The results are identical to Yahoo!.

Every search is recorded in your account however (not the actual keyword), and the next day, the number of searches will add up to earnings. The site pays fairly well; 2p for every search. It soon adds up, and the real way to start monopolising is with friends. When your refer them, you get an additional 10% of everything they earn, plus 5% of anyone they refer. Once your account reaches £20, you can request payment by PayPal.

Being paid to search actually, is something Google should be doing. They earn buckets from searchers like you and me, through the millions of pounds made in Ad revenues.

If you want to give the service a try, click here. It’ll sign you up as a friend of mine, and I’ll get 10% of the amount you earn (It won’t affect your profits). Leave a comment if you do!

JK

Yesterday, Google announced the launch of Google Chrome, a new web browser, from the company whose business is the web.

The news spread across tech sites like the plague, with everyone waiting to try the browser. But is it really better than Internet Explorer?

I’ve been using the software for a few hours now, just going around doing my usual things, checking email, catching up with friends and watching video.

The first thing I noticed was the sleekness of the software’s interface. The way new tabs open up is all very mac-ish, and the way the window integrates with Vista’s glass interface is all very streamlined.

Video works, just as well as in IE or Firefox, and everything seems to work, even pluggins not designed for the new browser. I tested YouTube and BBC iPlayer, which worked perfectly. However, the Channel 4 Watch Online service failed to work due to Google Chrome not having a Windows Media Pluggin. 

Another great feature is the address bar itself, which gives very intuitive guesses at what it is you want, as soon as you begin to type.

The New Tab Page in Chrome is a great development. In IE, all you get is a useless About Tabs page, but in Chrome, you get a lot of info: snapshots of your history and past searches, and your bookmarks as well. 

But is the browser as good as IE? Not yet. Loading Pages seems to take that bit longer than in IE, and the software seems to become suddenly slow. Also, the way it generates pages sometimes goes amiss; my webmail page for instance looses it’s beauty in Chrome.

The overall design isn’t brilliant either. In IE, you have access to everything you need on every page, but without being intrusive. With Chrome though, to access your bookmarks, you have to open a new tab. Also, there’s no individual print button for example, or a history button. It just seems to take… longer.

That said, Chrome can only get better. Some of it’s features would make IE fantastic. One can only wonder if IE8 will incorporate some of it…

JK

One of the coolest features of iTunes is Cover Flow. It’s a really cool way of searching through your digital music library; as long as you have the album art.

So a new website uses a similar features to allow you to search through the web. It’s called Searchme.com, and by typing in a keyword and clicking search it shows you a cool preview of all the matches.

Actually, it works really well, even though it’s still in Beta. Better, it has an extensive index of sites; pretty much just as good as Google.

So a cool little site that is very useful. Google, watch out!

JK