As the Swinburne University’s astronomy department recently found out, having your site appear as a top search result is not necessarily a good thing! In fact, if you are not prepared to be number one, it can bring your server to a crashing halt when swamped by unexpected requests! Read more…

Q. What is more annoying than hearing Wagner’s Flight of the Valkyrie played in midi music style on a website over and over again?

A. Hearing it come from your friend’s pocket over and over again. Read more…

We all know just how sadly irrelevant the results can be at Google. The reason for this is that Google has difficulty distinguishing the intended relevance of a search. As a result, search results often include results from web sites that may only include the words searched without actually proving relevant to your needs. Read more…

As far as an easy to use tool goes, Google has just given itself and the massive courier firm Fed-Ex a wonderful Christmas present with the introduction of Fed-Ex package tracking features from Google’s front page. Within two easy clicks, we were able to trace a CD-Rom being shipped to us from a client in Iowa. The same trace on the actual Fed-Ex site took four steps, cutting a significant amount time.

Try it yourself. If you have a package currently in transit through FED-Ex, go to Google and type “fedex (and your tracking number)” into the keyword window. The results are extraordinary and fast.

Google has recently released Google Deskbar, a search tool that allows you to search all of Google’s various databases (Google, Google News, Froogle, Google Groups, etc…), without opening your browser. When installed, Google Deskbar operates in the lower tray and automatically opens an Internet Explorer window to display results. Google has introduced this tool in response to rumours that Microsoft will be bulking search directly into its new operating system Longhorn.