Wolfram Alpha - A Computational Search Engine

"A web tool hailed as a significant rival to search giant Google has gone live to the public." At least that's what the BBC are reporting in their article.

I must admit, I missed the bandwagon on this one, so my opinions on it are not very informed and more of a first impression than any detailed research.

So this thing is hailed as a rival to google !! The first few queries I entered resulted in "Wolfram|Alpha isn't sure what to do with your input" being displayed. Now, being a google user for many years I was used to getting something back from any sensible query that I entered. I decided to read the FAQ or "RTFM" as we like to say in order for me to get some meaningful results. Its interesting to note that whilst the media may be pushing it as a significant contender to Google's throne, nothing could be farther from the truth.
1st line of the FAQ reads "Is Wolfram|Alpha a search engine? No. It's a computational knowledge engine: it generates output by doing computations from its own internal knowledge base, instead of searching the web and returning links." As such the queries entered and the results gained are NOTHING like using Google's. Queries have to be entered with a specific answer in mind ( see the main page for examples ) Link at the end of the blog.

Unfortunately, this isn't what people will be expecting as they will have heard phrases such as "the google killer" etc being touted about and as such will have similar expectations when using this for the first time. The end result is that the majority of people trying this technology will give it the thumbs down as their expectations wont be met due to the medias misrepresentation of the service.

Personally, I ha vent found it that great myself.. I have been told that the queries I am entering aren't necessarily being entered correctly. "Why doesn't Wolfram|Alpha understand what I asked? You might need to ask it differently, or it might be that Wolfram|Alpha doesn't yet cover what you're asking about. Try making your query the minimum number of words needed to communicate. Try different words or notations. And be sure to check your spelling." OK so the helpful FAQ has pointed me in the general direction of what I might be doing wrong, but the fact of the matter is that I want SOMETHING back from my effort of entering some text.

Whilst "computational search engine" sounds cool... The fact is that you have to build the query to such an extent in order for ANY meaningful result to be retrieved.

In short .. No thanks Mr Wolfram Alpha .. Google is my knowledge engine of choice. I don't think I will hear anyone saying "Hey .. Why don't you Wolfram Alpha it ? " instead of "Why don't you Google it?"

Some more articles on Wolfram Alpha

http://news.cnet.com/wolfram-alpha-shows-data-in-a-way-google-cant/

http://blogs.techrepublic.com.com/itdojo/?p=582

And finally the link to the site itself.

http://www.wolframalpha.com/

Emm

NOTE: For some reason, the link tool isnt working .. so you'll have to copy and paste the links in the post to read.

Win7 RC and Win2k Servers over RDP

First real issue with the Win7 RC. When you try to access a Win2k server (fully patched) with the RDP client from Win7, CPU will shoot up to 100%. Log off from the server and it will drop right back down again. Easy to reproduce and apparantly there are quite a few users experiencing this problem.

Apart from the obvious issue with your servers running like a dog as a result, there is also the security side where there obviously is a problem server side. MS will need address pretty quickly or any Win2k with an exposed RDP listening can be DOS'ed pretty quickly.

So, have have you Win7 Beta and would like to upgrade to RC?

Well, for any builds since 7000 (the official beta) the process was really easy and smooth. However, if you try to upgrade to version 7100 (RC1), you will find that the ability to upgrade has been disabled. For the reasons why, have a look at the very good Win7 engineering blog. Hidden in there you will also find what to do if you really want to upgrade.

1. Download the ISO as you did previously and extract it to a disk.
2. Browse to the sources directory.
3. Open the file cversion.ini in a text editor like Notepad in elevated mode.
4. Modify the MinClient build number to a value lower than the down-level build. For example, change 7100 to 7000. Save the file in place with the same name.
5. Run setup like you would normally from this modified copy of the image and the version check will be bypassed.

Personally I have found the upgrade to be very smooth, it will warn you which programs will break in the progress, usually a reinstall will sort that that out. Final note, if you are looking to get a long life out of your install, don't upgrade but do a fresh install. It will save your old setup nicely in a seperate folder for you so you can pick up relevant files from there later.