Google’s blog search functionality may be starting to eke past Technorati. Google now offers users the option to get to its Blog search functionality from the main page on Google. Users can search blogs, by clicking the more button above the search box and then selecting Blogs, which is the top option in the drop down box.

Google launched the blog search option in September of 2005, but apparently didn’t realize that linking to it from their own home page would be the thing necessary to make it successful. This is a rather startling mistake in that Google is lauded as being a very smart company, but took over a year to figure this out.

Now that they are past that lesson straight out of the obvious book, they are making up time and picking up searches from key age demographics among searchers in the age group of 18-24 year olds, while Technorati’s shows a strength among searchers that are over 45 years in age.

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Many growing organizations and even some large developed organizations are constantly working on systems and accounting algorithms that will enable the company to properly assess IT development charges to the appropriate groups.

Determining these charges appropriately can mean the difference between pricing a product or service out competitively and in managing budgets across multiple departments. Setting up a systematic means of doing this rapidly and efficiently is also necessary for many companies to get their books closed on a monthly, quarterly, yearly basis and be able to perform real time analysis on those results so that they can make the most accurate operating decisions possible.

Plus, this same information becomes the backbone for future financial modeling, planning and forecasts that will help senior leadership tack towards a successful strategy without receiving a nasty surprise in an unexpected budget allocation. The worst thing that can happen to a senior executive sometimes is receiving an unexpected number that they can not explain to their investors.

Some organizations may try to wing it on occassion, but the more a company grows and develops the more important it becomes for senior leaders to not only receive the right answer but to have the backup and proof instantly available that shows how the right answer was derived and why it truly is the right answer. Leaders need tools that allow them to look critically at the data they are provided, slice and dice it and insure that everything is rock solid.

Acorn Systems provides IT value management software for customers looking to track IT chargebacks through a company and come up with the appropriate ABC cost assumptions and put those assumptions to work to allocate and track direct and indirect costs precisely and efficiently.

Their solution deliverss the following utilities:

• Rate-based cost allocations or usage-based cost allocations, using a consumption driven Activity Based Costing model.
• Data integration and data capture.
• Web-based reporting with robust drill-down for IT as well as business units.
• Invoice and cost analysis reports.

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We often cover some of the fights on patents within Maven Mapper’s Information as it is often very important to understand who if anyone owns information.

It has just recently become public that Microsoft filed for a patent back in June of 2005 for technology possibly covering and relating to RSS or really simple syndication.

This has made inventors of the technology, non Microsoft employees and many open source contributors, livid over Microsoft’s claim over the technology rights.

RSS is a technology that enables website owners to rapidly and easily syndicate their content to other sites. Think of it like Jerry Seinfeld spending five minutes to setup a free account on the internet and Walla, the TV show Seinfeld is syndicated around the world instantly through many to millions of sights that Jerry might choose.

Microsoft has apparently along with other large companies including Apple, who has not been attacked in the Blogosphere, attempted to put a patent on this process and technology along with additional improvements that they claim to have designed but again may have been invented in the open source community first. It highlights the extremely complex collision of patent law, intellectual property and the rapid design and improvement of online software code through open source communities.

Many companies attempt to patent open source code so that they can use it in their own technology without receiving lawsuits from multiple designers in the open source community or having to share their own design developments and innovations back to the community as is often required by shareware licensing. This fight could prove to be very ugly as RSS is rapidly becoming a key component driving the internet and the sharing of information around the world, you can find it in use in many major news sites and especially on aggregation sites like a users my.yahoo page.

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Filmator.net provides an interesting online solution for creating video slide shows.  Users can bring together an audio file in an MP3 format and bring in a series of images or slides and put them together online through Filmator’s solution producing an online presentation.

The images can be set to trigger at specific times throughout the audio file, with many advanced options like layering and fading the images in and out through transitions.

The service will even resize images to standardize them during the import phase.  I have looked for a service like this for some time and this appears to be a very easy way to go about it.  The process is very thorough and includes many steps along the way for setting up title pages and the appropriate tags.

Users could achieve a similar effect by purchasing software from Adobe and working in flash, but that can be very expensive.

Below is a video from filmator.net that walks a user through a tutorial for creating a video that I found very helpful in understanding their process.

In general the service is free to artists and charges commercial interests for the work they do utilizing the online service.  You can view the video on their site in a full page screen also.

This is one of the more comprehensive tools that I have found like this on the web.  It is very thorough and as such can deliver a very useful and complete presentation replete with the appropriate tags and descriptions and items that make these types of presentations extra useful.

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A new site called NinjaWords provides rapid definitions upon queries.  This is one of those sites that is very handy because of its simple user interface, but it is very fast.  Its built on the Ajax and is boosted with a tie in to Wiktionary (think wikipedia mixed with a dictionary).

NinjaWords provides a faster way to get at a quick definition, with the full depth of a Wiktionary just a click away after you receive the definition.  This site will not change your life, but can be a handy bookmark as opposed to Google Searching a word plus the word define or definition and hoping that the grab bag response is close.

One of the things I like about the site is that it creates a list of all the words and their definitions that you have searched for during your session.  It does not clear the page automatically after each search and this seems to be rather useful for keeping track of what you have done.  You can see a list of several random searches that I performed using the service.

quaternary

(adj) : of fourth rank or order; of a mathematical expression containing e.g. x⁴

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disingenuous

(adj) : not noble; unbecoming true honor or dignity; mean; unworthy; fake or deceptive; as, disingenuous conduct or schemes; not ingenuous; wanting in noble candor or frankness; not frank or open; uncandid; unworthily or meanly artful

“so disingenuous as not to confess them [faults]. - Alexander Pope”

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intimate

(adj) : Closely acquainted; familiar; of or involved in a sexual relationship

“she enjoyed some intimate time alone with her husband.”

(n) : a very close friend; (in plural intimates) Women’s underwear, sleepwear, or lingerie, especially offered for sale in a store

“only a couple of intimates had ever read his writing.”

(v) : to suggest or disclose discreetly

“he intimated that we should leave before the argument escalated.”

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surreptitious

(adj) : stealthy, furtive, well hidden, covert (especially movements)

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nutrient

(n) : a source of nourishment, such as food, that can be metabolized by an organism to give energy and build tissue

(adj) : providing nourishment

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recuperate

(v) : to recover, especially from an illness; to get better from an illness

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inarticulate

(adj) : (of speech) not articulated in normal words; speechless

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academic

(adj) : belonging to the school or philosophy of Plato; as, the academic sect or philosophy; belonging to an academy or other higher institution of learning; scholarly; literary or classical, in distinction from scientific

“academic courses - Warburton”

(n) : one holding the philosophy of Socrates and Plato; a Platonist; a member of an academy, college, or university; an academician

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arboretum

(n) : a place where many varieties of trees are grown for research, educational, and ornamental purposes

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muse

(n) : a source of inspiration

(v) : to become lost in thought, to ponder

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gerontology

(n) : the study of the elderly, and of the aging process itself; the branch of science that deals with the problems of aged people. It is to be distinguished from geriatrics, which is the study of the diseases of the elderly. Gerontology covers the social, psychological and biological aspects of aging

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indices

(n) : plural of index

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blurt

(v) : to utter suddenly and unadvisedly; to speak quickly or without thought; to divulge inconsiderately — commonly with out

“please think about your reply and don’t just blurt out the first thing that comes to mind.”

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ecliptic

(n) : the geometric plane that contains the sun and the orbit of the Earth. Thus, the apparent path of the sun in the sky

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incline

(v) : to bend or move (something) out of a given plane or direction, often the horizontal or vertical; to slope

“he had to incline his body against the gusts to avoid being blown down in the storm.”

(n) : a slope

“to reach the building, we had to climb a steep incline.”

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corrosive

(adj) : eating away; having the power of gradually wearing, hanging, or destroying the texture or substance of a body; as, the corrosive action of an acid; having the quality of fretting or vexing

(n) : that which has the quality of eating or wearing away gradually; any solid, liquid or gas capable of irreparably harming living tissues or damaging material on contact

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