How Important Is It To Preserve Our Digital Heritage?
Having recently been part of an effort to preserve videos on Google Video, in light of its announced shutdown, it's made me more aware how brittle our current culture is, with many many artifacts available only in digital form. There are conservation efforts such as the aforementioned one, part of a larger group called Archive Team. Google changed its mind and promised to keep Google Video online and try to move as much as possible to YouTube where it has permission from the original uploader. This is, obviously, a win for the archivists, who kept the effort going just the same and are still in the process of uploading all of Google Video to archive.org.Contrast this with Friendster, where the Archive Team project was unable to save everything before the end of May, when everything was set to be deleted. Much has been downloaded and it will still give a good picture of what this early social network was like. Similarly, the Archive Team was able to rescue much, but not all of GeoCities, before Yahoo shut that down last year, releasing its collection as a massive 1 TB bittorrent file.
Now you may ask yourself is Friendster (or even GeoCities) worth saving? Answering that question purely myself, I'd say no, but I have no connection with those sites. Looking at the question however from the perspective of people who have spent many hours building these profiles and interacting with each other, I can see there's clearly value there to those who used them. Answering instead as someone with a deep interest in history, it's not for us to say what will eventually prove worth saving. Instead, that's something for the historians, archeologists, sociologists and other interested parties in the future to decide. But they can't do that if the information isn't even there.
How often have we not wished more of a particular point in our history had been preserved? Ironically many of the analog writings of our past are in a better state than some of our digital ones, even when it's often pointed out how easy it is to make bit-perfect copies of something in this day and age.
All of this, leads me to ask the following questions: Do you agree the digital aspects of our culture should be better preserved?
Should we have, maybe even one on each continent or in each country, a modern Library of Alexandria? (identical copies in different places to prevent 'a fire' from destroying it)
What would such a world-wide archival effort look like, technologically?
What should we do about copyrights and patents (and DRM) that might get in the way of preserving our heritage?
How do we go about archiving software for a computer that's available only in a museum, to preserve interactive access?
What about the proliferation of file formats? Do we transform everything into a canonical form where we can, or do we store the original along with software to interpret?
I think we owe it to ourselves that this generation doesn't look like a black hole when viewed from the future, and by extension, I'd like to make it easier on future historians to learn about us than it has been for us to learn about previous societies (e.g. Sumerians).
I'll start off by saying that though little personal correspondence has been preserved of earlier times, we should recognize the right to privacy and any such posited archive would be allowed to include private communications only if you explicitly opted in. Valuable though these are for historians, if we preserve as much as we can of the digital domain, enough can be inferred from context that this would be an unwarranted intrusion.
But what about the wider issue of preservation of public content that can be wiped out by shutting off a power switch?
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Put All of Your Music in the Cloud with Google Music
It was not too long ago that Google announced their cloud based music player, Music beta by Google. After using Amazon’s Cloud Player for a while, I was excited to see what Google had to offer. I am after all, an Android user and I border on Google fanboydom. While I think the coup de gras of Music beta is tight Android integration, I decided to take a close look at the web app as a music player, much like I did for Amazon Cloud Player. Here’s what I found.
I will be drawing a lot of comparisons between Music beta and Cloud Player, since Amazon was the first major service to market and I have been using it for a while to stream music. The real question is whether or not Google’s service is good enough to make me switch.
What is Music beta by Google?
Music beta by Google
Music beta is Google’s answer to music in the cloud. Much like Amazon’s service, you can upload music to stream online or sync with your Android device. There is one huge difference between Amazon’s and Google’s though: space.
Amazon give you 5GB of space for free. That is equivalent to 1,000 to 2,000 songs depending on length and format. Google, on the other hand, does not assign an amount of space in GB to your music library, they simply give you enough space for 20,000 songs.
You read that right folks. 20,000 songs.
I don’t know about you, but I only have 7,500 songs in my library and I definitely don’t listen to them all. However, just like when GMail came out in 2004 offering 2GB of space where most email clients offered less than 100MB, Google is offering a lot more space than the competition.
It’s rumored that on June 6th, Apple is announcing their cloud music app, so we’ll see what they have to offer.
Uploading MusicUploading music to Music beta is super easy. Download the Music Manager app for your computer, and select where you want the music to be uploaded from.
Uploading Music
As you can see, you can choose (on a Mac at least) from iTunes, your specific Music folder, or other folders where you may keep your music. Once you select your source, you can go to the Advanced tab to decide how often you want your music uploaded and how fast.
Upload Preferences
One issue I have with the music uploader is (at least with my ISP) it crushes bandwidth. I’ve noticed considerable slower download times while using Google’s Music Manager. This can probably be quelled by changing the “Bandwidth available for uploading.”
The great thing about setting Music Manager to upload automatically is playlist syncing, a feature that is missing from Amazon’s uploader. I change my playlists pretty often, and the fact that with Music beta I don’t have to worry about re-syncing is clutch.
Using Music betaThe User Experience (UX) isn’t all that different from Cloud Player’s. Music beta kind of looks like a mix between that and the online Android Market. I found using the web app to be very enjoyable.
On the left hand side, you’ll see your music organized into five different categories: New and recent, Songs, Artists, Albums, and Genres. This is pretty standard. It is worth noting that when using Music beta, it’s worth while to check the New and recent view even if you haven’t uploaded anything in a while, because when you sign up, Google asks you what your music preferences are, and will throw you free songs from the genres you choose.
Google has given me a lot of free music
The above screenshot showcases a feature from the next set of links on the left hand side in Music beta: Auto Playlists. Similar to iTunes’ Smart Playlists, Auto Playlists are automatically populated with songs that meet a certain criteria. Right now you have three: Thumbs Up, which is a list of songs you give a favorable rating to, Recently add, and Free songs. There doesn’t seem to be a way to create your own. This is something I hope they add in the future.
Instant Mixes, next on the list, is Google answer to iTunes Genius. Select a song, press the plus button next to “Instant Mixes,” and you have a list of songs similar to the one you selected. While I did see one “study” (read: one guy messing around with Music beta and iTunes) stating the Genius is considerably better, I don’t see anything that would indicate that. I was actually very impressed with Google’s Instant Mixes, considering how young the service is.
One thing I really like about Music beta is the way it displays multiple albums by Artist, and multiple artists by Genre. It will “stack” all of the album art one on top of another, so you can view multiple albums or artists at the same time.
Artist View
Listening to MusicYou didn’t think I’d leave out the most important part, did you? I really like Music beta’s “Now Playing” bar. I think it’s a lot cleaner and sleeker than Cloud Player’s. It also gracefully shrinks as your browser window shrinks, which is a nice touch!
Now Playing Bar
Music beta wouldn’t be much of a Google app without a list of great keyboard shortcuts, which are ubiquitous throughout all of Google’s web apps. While they aren’t advertised on the site (generally shortcuts aren’t), I did go looking for a list and came up with this:
Keyboard Shortcuts
This is a really nice touch, makes the UX a lot better, and is something that’s missing from Amazon Cloud Player.
You can actually get keyboard shortcuts for Cloud Player using the Chrome extension KeyMazony.
Settings
Music beta Settings
Music beta has a very simple Settings panel where you can do four things: Join the email list, Report a problem, Withdraw from the service, and Manage your devices.
I think the “Manage My Devices” is a nice touch reminiscent of Netflix, because Google knows you’ll be using their service over several devices- at least one computer, and possibly several mobile devices. You can deauthorize any device from here. Adding a device as as simple as downloading the app to that device and signing in with your Google Account.
ConclusionSo it seems my fanboydom came out a bit in this glowing review; however, Music beta isn’t perfect. I’d really like to see the ability to create your own Auto Playlists and do things like switch between different views (song list, album art, etc) like you can do in iTunes. I also like that when you purchase music on Amazon, it gets added to Cloud Player automatically (not that you can buy music on Google right now). The last thing I’d like to see (and it’s a big one) is the ability to download music to a computer, not just a mobile device. After searching the site and the help section, I couldn’t find a way to do it. That being said, with the amount of space Google gives you, a sleek interface, auto-syncing, and the fact that they literally are giving away music gives Music beta by Google a huge edge over the competition.
Put All of Your Music in the Cloud with Google Music
It was not too long ago that Google announced their cloud based music player, Music beta by Google. After using Amazon’s Cloud Player for a while, I was excited to see what Google had to offer. I am after all, an Android user and I border on Google fanboydom. While I think the coup de gras of Music beta is tight Android integration, I decided to take a close look at the web app as a music player, much like I did for Amazon Cloud Player. Here’s what I found.
I will be drawing a lot of comparisons between Music beta and Cloud Player, since Amazon was the first major service to market and I have been using it for a while to stream music. The real question is whether or not Google’s service is good enough to make me switch.
What is Music beta by Google?Music beta by Google
Music beta is Google’s answer to music in the cloud. Much like Amazon’s service, you can upload music to stream online or sync with your Android device. There is one huge difference between Amazon’s and Google’s though: space.
Amazon give you 5GB of space for free. That is equivalent to 1,000 to 2,000 songs depending on length and format. Google, on the other hand, does not assign an amount of space in GB to your music library, they simply give you enough space for 20,000 songs.
You read that right folks. 20,000 songs.
I don’t know about you, but I only have 7,500 songs in my library and I definitely don’t listen to them all. However, just like when GMail came out in 2004 offering 2GB of space where most email clients offered less than 100MB, Google is offering a lot more space than the competition.
It’s rumored that on June 6th, Apple is announcing their cloud music app, so we’ll see what they have to offer.
Uploading MusicUploading music to Music beta is super easy. Download the Music Manager app for your computer, and select where you want the music to be uploaded from.
Uploading Music
As you can see, you can choose (on a Mac at least) from iTunes, your specific Music folder, or other folders where you may keep your music. Once you select your source, you can go to the Advanced tab to decide how often you want your music uploaded and how fast.
Upload Preferences
One issue I have with the music uploader is (at least with my ISP) it crushes bandwidth. I’ve noticed considerable slower download times while using Google’s Music Manager. This can probably be quelled by changing the “Bandwidth available for uploading.”
The great thing about setting Music Manager to upload automatically is playlist syncing, a feature that is missing from Amazon’s uploader. I change my playlists pretty often, and the fact that with Music beta I don’t have to worry about re-syncing is clutch.
Using Music betaThe User Experience (UX) isn’t all that different from Cloud Player’s. Music beta kind of looks like a mix between that and the online Android Market. I found using the web app to be very enjoyable.
On the left hand side, you’ll see your music organized into five different categories: New and recent, Songs, Artists, Albums, and Genres. This is pretty standard. It is worth noting that when using Music beta, it’s worth while to check the New and recent view even if you haven’t uploaded anything in a while, because when you sign up, Google asks you what your music preferences are, and will throw you free songs from the genres you choose.
Google has given me a lot of free music
The above screenshot showcases a feature from the next set of links on the left hand side in Music beta: Auto Playlists. Similar to iTunes’ Smart Playlists, Auto Playlists are automatically populated with songs that meet a certain criteria. Right now you have three: Thumbs Up, which is a list of songs you give a favorable rating to, Recently add, and Free songs. There doesn’t seem to be a way to create your own. This is something I hope they add in the future.
Instant Mixes, next on the list, is Google answer to iTunes Genius. Select a song, press the plus button next to “Instant Mixes,” and you have a list of songs similar to the one you selected. While I did see one “study” (read: one guy messing around with Music beta and iTunes) stating the Genius is considerably better, I don’t see anything that would indicate that. I was actually very impressed with Google’s Instant Mixes, considering how young the service is.
One thing I really like about Music beta is the way it displays multiple albums by Artist, and multiple artists by Genre. It will “stack” all of the album art one on top of another, so you can view multiple albums or artists at the same time.
Artist View
Listening to MusicYou didn’t think I’d leave out the most important part, did you? I really like Music beta’s “Now Playing” bar. I think it’s a lot cleaner and sleeker than Cloud Player’s. It also gracefully shrinks as your browser window shrinks, which is a nice touch!
Now Playing Bar
Music beta wouldn’t be much of a Google app without a list of great keyboard shortcuts, which are ubiquitous throughout all of Google’s web apps. While they aren’t advertised on the site (generally shortcuts aren’t), I did go looking for a list and came up with this:
Keyboard Shortcuts
This is a really nice touch, makes the UX a lot better, and is something that’s missing from Amazon Cloud Player.
You can actually get keyboard shortcuts for Cloud Player using the Chrome extension KeyMazony.
SettingsMusic beta Settings
Music beta has a very simple Settings panel where you can do four things: Join the email list, Report a problem, Withdraw from the service, and Manage your devices.
I think the “Manage My Devices” is a nice touch reminiscent of Netflix, because Google knows you’ll be using their service over several devices- at least one computer, and possibly several mobile devices. You can deauthorize any device from here. Adding a device as as simple as downloading the app to that device and signing in with your Google Account.
ConclusionSo it seems my fanboydom came out a bit in this glowing review; however, Music beta isn’t perfect. I’d really like to see the ability to create your own Auto Playlists and do things like switch between different views (song list, album art, etc) like you can do in iTunes. I also like that when you purchase music on Amazon, it gets added to Cloud Player automatically (not that you can buy music on Google right now). The last thing I’d like to see (and it’s a big one) is the ability to download music to a computer, not just a mobile device. After searching the site and the help section, I couldn’t find a way to do it. That being said, with the amount of space Google gives you, a sleek interface, auto-syncing, and the fact that they literally are giving away music gives Music beta by Google a huge edge over the competition.
Crea tu propio rastreador de sitios web, tu copia de Google
¿Qué pasará cuando Microsoft Bing se coma definitivamente a Yahoo? Seguro que herramientas como Site Explorer serán historia y cada se complicará más el uso de herramientas como Advanced Link Manager, en definitiva nos tocará crear nuestra propia araña para indexar y recorrer páginas web sin depender de los grandes buscadores.
Existen hoy muchas opciones para crear nuestro propio spider, soluciones de código abierto que son realmente potentes.
Nutch es posiblemente la mejor opción para crear tu propia araña o rastreador de páginas web. Este fue construido sobre el concepto de Lucene (tiene una opción comercial) y soportado por Hadoop usando MapReduce (similar a Google) para grandes volúmenes y consultas de datos. Todos estos están basados en Java, pero existen versiones basadas en .net como Lucene.NET, Nutch.NET y Hadoop.NET que han sido portados a C#.
Pero la cosa no queda aquí y aunque Nutch es posiblemente la mejor opción para crear un rastreador y tener tu propio Google o Bing, hay otras opciones que os detallamos en esta pequeña lista:
Arachnode. Basado en C# y .net Scrapy es una herramienta rápida para el rastreo de sitio web y extraer datos de la estructura de sus páginas. Heritrix es un proyecto de rastreo de Internet Archive. ASPseek es una araña desarrollada por Plesk en C++ aunque abandonado en su desarrollo. Crawler4j es un rastreador de código abierto que proporciona una sencilla interfaz para el rastreo de sitios web. HTTrack es una aplicación gratis y de código abierto para rastrear sitios webs desde tu escritorio y poder navegar offline por las webs. Open Search Server es una solución para crear un buscador de código abierto. YaYy otra opción para rastrear y crear un buscador de código abierto y en castellano. Sphider.eu. Un rastreador hecho en PHP. ¿Qué es un rastreador web? según Wikipedia en inglés Más buscadores de código abierto (algunos con rastreadores).
Crea tu propio rastreador de sitios web, tu copia de Google is a post from: Carrero
Crea tu propio rastreador de sitios web, tu copia de Google
¿Qué pasará cuando Microsoft Bing se coma definitivamente a Yahoo? Seguro que herramientas como Site Explorer serán historia y cada se complicará más el uso de herramientas como Advanced Link Manager, en definitiva nos tocará crear nuestra propia araña para indexar y recorrer páginas web sin depender de los grandes buscadores.
Existen hoy muchas opciones para crear nuestro propio spider, soluciones de código abierto que son realmente potentes.
Nutch es posiblemente la mejor opción para crear tu propia araña o rastreador de páginas web. Este fue construido sobre el concepto de Lucene (tiene una opción comercial) y soportado por Hadoop usando MapReduce (similar a Google) para grandes volúmenes y consultas de datos. Todos estos están basados en Java, pero existen versiones basadas en .net como Lucene.NET, Nutch.NET y Hadoop.NET que han sido portados a C#.
Pero la cosa no queda aquí y aunque Nutch es posiblemente la mejor opción para crear un rastreador y tener tu propio Google o Bing, hay otras opciones que os detallamos en esta pequeña lista:
Arachnode. Basado en C# y .net Scrapy es una herramienta rápida para el rastreo de sitio web y extraer datos de la estructura de sus páginas. Heritrix es un proyecto de rastreo de Internet Archive. ASPseek es una araña desarrollada por Plesk en C++ aunque abandonado en su desarrollo. Crawler4j es un rastreador de código abierto que proporciona una sencilla interfaz para el rastreo de sitios web. HTTrack es una aplicación gratis y de código abierto para rastrear sitios webs desde tu escritorio y poder navegar offline por las webs. Open Search Server es una solución para crear un buscador de código abierto. YaYy otra opción para rastrear y crear un buscador de código abierto y en castellano. Sphider.eu. Un rastreador hecho en PHP. ¿Qué es un rastreador web? según Wikipedia en inglés Más buscadores de código abierto (algunos con rastreadores).
Crea tu propio rastreador de sitios web, tu copia de Google is a post from: Carrero
