Don't Back Down

There is only one comic strip that regulary makes me laugh. Not just chuckle-laugh, but just about blow-liquid-out-of-my-nose-laugh. I admit, that's not every day, but it does happen. Or rather, it would happen if I had some liquid in my mouth around the computer - but I generally don't, for whatever reason.

 Bucky: You literally could not be a bigger geek if you had a dungeon master's guide in your hand.
 Rob: Well... which edition?  The new ones are su-weet.
 Bucky: I do not stand corrected.
 Rob: I mean, my charisma is, like, eighteen double-zero!

Appeared in Get Fuzzy published 2005-02-04.

While I was reading Jeff Sandquist, I came across this piece that talks about the new MSN Search. Perhaps it was the mention of the football that made me look, since we're so close to the Super Bowl. I'm really not sure.

Nonetheless, I did look. And Jeff's arguments for the new MSN Search were compelling. Specifically because I've also noticed that there are times when I look for things - oftentimes hotel phone numbers and addresses and the like - that I can't find that information (easily) through Google. Instead, like Jeff, I get all sorts of results offering to sell something to me, but more and more often I can't find the simple information that I want.

So I tried it. I have to say that I'm impressed. Notably, the page is really, really small for a Microsoft-branded site. It loads quickly without a bunch of extra junk. I could even do without the football (or other graphic), but I could live with it because it is very unobtrusive. After all, Google has its doodles. No reason Microsoft shouldn't be allowed the same courtesy.

I have thus far found only one serious disadvantage to MSN Search.

I first thought that the cache isn't as fresh as Google's. I looked at my page through Google's cache and it is from February 4th. In MSN Search, it's from January 21. Two weeks is quite a bit of lag time. Surely Microsoft could do better. I see from my stats that MSNBot visited less than five hours after the last time that the Googlebot stopped by to check on things. If that's the case, their cache shouldn't be so badly out-of-date.

Interestingly, I then noticed that if I search on Chad Everett instead of Chad, I get a fresher cached page in the results (fresher, in fact, than Google's). That's a little strange, don't you think? Both show a URL of jayseae.cxliv.org, yet the cached view is different. This isn't a show-stopper, but it's just a little odd that accessing the same page from two separate result sets will give me a different cached result.

Incidentally, I also see two advantages to MSN Search.

The first is that, right at the bottom of the page, is a nice orange RSS button. Click it and you have a feed of the search results. That's sweet. It would be nice if it were featured more prominently - perhaps higher on the page - but it's nice that it's there nonetheless.

And the final advantage to MSN Search? Their search returns me as the first or second result for Chad. I'm at the bottom of the third page on Google. Interestingly, the results for Chad Everett are indentical on both sites (at least for the first couple entries) - the actor's profile is listed first and I'm second. This flip-flops over time at Google, so I'd assume the same will happen at MSN Search.

In the meantime, I've added an "MSN" search keyword to my address bar so that I can keep using it. Not sure if I'm ready to switch my default search enging just yet, but it's actually tempting.

After I eventually made it through the signup process that was needlessly unpleasant, the Vonage experience has been quite good.

I ordered the service (that is, I ordered the service successfully) on Tuesday. The package was shipped that samed day (I ordered relatively early in the day), and it arrived here yesterday (Saturday). I'd say that is a reasonable timeframe, though you'd think it could get from Ohio to North Carolina a bit faster than that. No matter, at least it arrived.

In completely un-geek-like fashion, I didn't even open the box until last night, and I didn't even try to connect anything until just a few minutes ago. When I did try and get things running, the largest problem I had was getting it all connected. I have so many things plugged in that I really have run out of room. I need a larger UPS (that is to say, more ports) or something.

Once that problem was solved, I simply connected the included Linksys phone adapter after the cable modem, but prior to my existing router. Brought them up one at a time (cable modem, phone adapter, router, in case you're wondering) and they came right up, with no problems at all. Very sweet.

I plugged in the phone and it worked right off. One thing threw me, and that is that when I dialed my cell phone number with ten digits (no 1 in front), it gave me a fast busy signal. This apparently is the Vonage equivalent of "you must dial a 1" message. After I tried that, it worked flawlessly.

I've only made a couple of calls, but so far the quality is excellent. Far better than the Voicepulse account I tried a couple of months ago. I'd assume this has a lot to do with the Linksys device, since it implements Quality of Service on the voice traffic at the router level, as opposed to being another device hanging off of the existing network and fighting for the bandwidth. No matter - as long as it works!

For those who are considering a VOIP solution, I'd recommend checking out Vonage. If you'd like to lend me a hand, let me know your email address and I'll send you a referral coupon that will get me some free access when you sign up. If you'd like to hear the quality, let me know and I'll send you my phone number so you can hear it for yourself. If you live in the US or Canada, send me your number and I'll call you so you don't have to pay any tolls.