Taken from Thomas Römhild’s Overview Desktop Pictures.

Or maybe I should say say why I admire Steve Jobs.

Anyways, when I think of Apple products nowadays, I think of something 1) easy to use, 2) clean, and 3) polished. In a discussion with one of my friends, we described their products as “perfect.” Now, of course Apple products aren’t “perfect” but they’re so damn tight!

Example #1: iPhone

I heard so much hype about the iPhone when it came out that I had to go check it out at the local Apple Store. The experience was hard to describe, but I felt that the iPhone just “popped.” It was intuitively easy-to-use and it had something of a brilliant aspect to it. Like, I really, really, really wanted to have one. I mean I had used and tested other cell phones and PDAs before (including a Blackberry) but they just weren’t the iPhone. I was just impressed by how polished it was. Just so clean that at this point in time, even if it lacked the features of other cell phones, it was just one of the most well-done products I’ve ever seen.

Example #2: OS X Leopard

You know, honestly I really wasn’t impressed by the features that were rolled out in OS X. I had seen them before in a lot of other applications. But you know what I was impressed by? I was impressed by how the features performed rather than what they were. So for instance, there are a lot of virtual desktop managers available for Windows (ex. Yod’m, VirtuaWin, Dextop) and for Linux too. But none of the ones I have seen are as clean or smooth as OS X’s Spaces. I could say the same for iChat, Quick Look, Finder, and Time Machine. They’re all so damn smooth. Even the Stacks feature on OS X’s dock menu. Smooth, ya dig?

So this is why I say I admire Apple (or Steve Jobs). They just seem like they all huddle in some corporate office and try over and over and over to create the best product possible. And I think that’s what makes them so spectacular.

So I was looking for some random videos and I was about to type in the url for Google Video, but I decided to try out Microsoft’s Live Search Video on a whim. So I typed in, “video.live.com” and viola, there I was greeted by the slightly unsightly front page for their video search. After getting some search results, I opened some videos in new tabs to see if they were what I was looking for. And surprise, surprise, when I left my mouse cursor over a video for a bit of time, it began to preview the video for me automatically. I don’t know how late I am about this, but I definitely thought that this was a really useful feature. I’m just so used to Microsoft being behind the curve on innovative and useful features, that I was impressed by this one.

So overall, I’m pretty satisfied with their video search. My experience is that I don’t get as many search results in Live as I do with Google, but I think they’re doing a pretty solid job. But, I think the real issue is the design of the website. i hadn’t been to Live.com in a while, but it just doesn’t feel right. Maybe I’ve become too used to Google’s plain drabness, but I don’t feel that Live is doing any better. O well.

One thing I wonder is if the search bots for the various searches (i.e. Web, Images, Video, etc.) are separately dedicated or if there is just one main bot with different sub-bots… I don’t even know if I know what I’m talking about. Just pure conjecturing and speculation from an average internet user.

The original Windows Longhorn, a bit schizo, but looks more functional than Vista. I’ve heard good things about Windows 7. They had better get it right… or I’ll just stick with XP.