The University of Michigan library was aware that Google has a commercial interest in obtaining digital copies of its copyrighted material.
There is a PDF file at the University of Michigan website that was created by John Wilkin on December 13, 2004. In this file he includes a screen shot that demonstrates how Google plans to display snippets from copyrighted material. Notice the Google ads on the screen. Google is acquiring the U of M library for the purpose of making money, and that's just fine with the library.
However, it is also violates Section 108 of copyright law, which says that libraries can make copies under certain restricted conditions, one of which is "the reproduction or distribution is made without any purpose of direct or indirect commercial advantage." This is just one of several apparent violations of copyright by the library.
The Regents of the University of Michigan should immediately instruct the library to withhold all copyrighted material from Google.
Letter to the University president: Page 1 Page 2
Letter to a University lawyer: Page 1 of 1
Letter to the Regents' representative: Page 1 Page 2
University of Michigan FOIA request: Page 1 of 1
Letter to Stanford University Library: Page 1 Page 2
Letter to Harvard University Library: Page 1 Page 2
Saturday, July 16, 2005
PageRank: Google's Original Sin
By 1998, the dot-com gold rush was in full swing. Web search engines had been around since 1995, and had been immediately touted by high-tech pundits (and Forbes magazine) as one more element in the magical mix that would make us all rich. Such innovations meant nothing less than the end of the business cycle.
But the truth of the matter, as these same pundits conceded after the crash, was that the false promise of easy riches put bottom-line pressures on companies that should have known better. One of the most successful of the earliest search engines was AltaVista, then owned by Digital Equipment Corporation. By 1998 it began to lose its way. All the pundits were talking "portals," so AltaVista tried to become a portal, and forgot to work on improving their search ranking algorithms.
Even by 1998, it was clear that too many results were being returned by the average search engine for the one or two keywords that were entered by the searcher. AltaVista offered numerous ways to zero in on specific combinations of keywords, but paid much less attention to the "ranking" problem. Ranking, or the ordering of returned results according to some criteria, was where the action should have been. Users don't want to figure out Boolean logic, and they will not be looking at more than the first twenty matches out of the thousands that might be produced by a search engine. What really matters is how useful the first page of results appears on search engine A, as opposed to the results produced by the same terms entered into engine B. AltaVista was too busy trying to be a portal to notice that this was important.
But the truth of the matter, as these same pundits conceded after the crash, was that the false promise of easy riches put bottom-line pressures on companies that should have known better. One of the most successful of the earliest search engines was AltaVista, then owned by Digital Equipment Corporation. By 1998 it began to lose its way. All the pundits were talking "portals," so AltaVista tried to become a portal, and forgot to work on improving their search ranking algorithms.
Even by 1998, it was clear that too many results were being returned by the average search engine for the one or two keywords that were entered by the searcher. AltaVista offered numerous ways to zero in on specific combinations of keywords, but paid much less attention to the "ranking" problem. Ranking, or the ordering of returned results according to some criteria, was where the action should have been. Users don't want to figure out Boolean logic, and they will not be looking at more than the first twenty matches out of the thousands that might be produced by a search engine. What really matters is how useful the first page of results appears on search engine A, as opposed to the results produced by the same terms entered into engine B. AltaVista was too busy trying to be a portal to notice that this was important.
Yahoo! launches health blogs
Yahoo! as launched a range of interesting health blogs, covering topics including yoga, nutrition, diabetes, depression, cholesterol, breast cancer and asthma.
The blogs are written by experts in their field, and include an RSS feed, comments (although Yahoo! registration is required) and permalink options, although the branding is simple and generic across the various blogs under the Yahoo! Health Beta banner.
Steve Rubel suggests that theses new blogs could be part of a strategy by Yahoo! to build their own consumer blog network, however comparing the two is like comparing chalk and cheese. Whilst the Yahoo! blogs have the ability to build traffic through leveraging the Yahoo! brand name, posting a couple of times a week doesn’t normally make for a lot of repeat viewing.
The blogs are written by experts in their field, and include an RSS feed, comments (although Yahoo! registration is required) and permalink options, although the branding is simple and generic across the various blogs under the Yahoo! Health Beta banner.
Steve Rubel suggests that theses new blogs could be part of a strategy by Yahoo! to build their own consumer blog network, however comparing the two is like comparing chalk and cheese. Whilst the Yahoo! blogs have the ability to build traffic through leveraging the Yahoo! brand name, posting a couple of times a week doesn’t normally make for a lot of repeat viewing.
Friday, July 15, 2005
Add-on Components for SSIS
I've just discovered a new 3rd party add-on for Integration Services by Ivolva.com. There is a SSIS wizard http://www.ivolva.com/ssis_wizards.html which simplifies the process of creating a custom task or data flow component.
There is also the Extra Sort component http://www.ivolva.com/extrasort.html which apparently provides enchanced performance for sorting large data sets. I'll take a look at these add-ons and post my comments later.
I've just discovered a new 3rd party add-on for Integration Services by Ivolva.com. There is a SSIS wizard http://www.ivolva.com/ssis_wizards.html which simplifies the process of creating a custom task or data flow component.
There is also the Extra Sort component http://www.ivolva.com/extrasort.html which apparently provides enchanced performance for sorting large data sets. I'll take a look at these add-ons and post my comments later.
Using SQL Server 7.0/2000 in a Hyper-Threaded Environment
I've just read an good article which discusses using SQL Server in a hyper-threaded environment http://support.microsoft.com/kb/322385. To cut a long story short, we recommend that the maxdop (maximum degree of parallelism) setting should remain equal to the number of physical processors that are being used.
Performance
"[]...The performance of hyper-threaded environments varies. Conservative testing has shown 10 to 20 percent gains for SQL Server workloads, but the application patterns have a significant affect. You might find that some applications do not receive an increase in performance by taking advantage of hyper-threading. If the physical processors are already saturated, using logical processors can actually reduce the workload achieved. For example, applications that cause high levels of contention can cause decreased performance in a hyper-threaded environment. We recommend that you test your application thoroughly to make sure that a hyper-threaded environment provides you the performance gain that you want versus the purchase of equivalent physical CPUs. Hyper-threading can be very helpful but hyper-threading cannot replace the full power of an additional physical CPU"
Sneak Peak at Developer Enhancements
The PDC session abstracts have been published, and although they are written in a fairly oblique way (very deliberately I suspect) they still provide an early taster of the fun to come for developers with Office 12.
Forms Server
Creating Browser-Based InfoPath Forms...hosting the server form control in an interactive custom aspx page. [More details on the Forms Server that first saw the light of day last week]
InfoPath 12
...deeper integration with Visual Studio Tools for Office…new all-managed object model...reuse your work through form template parts...integrate InfoPath forms into your own application by hosting InfoPath as an ActiveX or WinForm control [Yes! I know so many ISVs who will love this! ]...extend InfoPath itself through COM add-ins.
User Interface
...new, declarative model for customizing the Office user interface using XML [mmm… a kind of XAML for Office then]
Outlook 12
...fundamental changes that will make 'Outlook 12' a better development platform...more robust, usable and manageable...significant changes in programming the user interaction, the core object model and performance. [This sounds like a big one. Outlook has always had a pretty tricky object model to master.]
Word 12
...takes XML document programmability to a new level, offering new flexibility and intuitive user interaction...enable a greater use of custom-defined schema [Good to see the commitment to XML in Word continuing]
All the PDC session abstracts are available at http://commnet.microsoftpdc.com/content/sessions.aspx.
If you want to get along to PDC this Sept, registrations are still open.
The PDC session abstracts have been published, and although they are written in a fairly oblique way (very deliberately I suspect) they still provide an early taster of the fun to come for developers with Office 12.
Forms Server
Creating Browser-Based InfoPath Forms...hosting the server form control in an interactive custom aspx page. [More details on the Forms Server that first saw the light of day last week]
InfoPath 12
...deeper integration with Visual Studio Tools for Office…new all-managed object model...reuse your work through form template parts...integrate InfoPath forms into your own application by hosting InfoPath as an ActiveX or WinForm control [Yes! I know so many ISVs who will love this! ]...extend InfoPath itself through COM add-ins.
User Interface
...new, declarative model for customizing the Office user interface using XML [mmm… a kind of XAML for Office then]
Outlook 12
...fundamental changes that will make 'Outlook 12' a better development platform...more robust, usable and manageable...significant changes in programming the user interaction, the core object model and performance. [This sounds like a big one. Outlook has always had a pretty tricky object model to master.]
Word 12
...takes XML document programmability to a new level, offering new flexibility and intuitive user interaction...enable a greater use of custom-defined schema [Good to see the commitment to XML in Word continuing]
All the PDC session abstracts are available at http://commnet.microsoftpdc.com/content/sessions.aspx.
If you want to get along to PDC this Sept, registrations are still open.
Thursday, July 14, 2005
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
Posts
