Permanently turning off Google Instant (update)

If anyone noticed, the Google instant configuration has now changed since the last time. Looks like it was very recent.

Before it was simply an on off switch, the setting of which sometimes Google remembered, but most of the time didn’t. Now you have more options.

Clicking on the gear on the top righthand bar will bring up this page…

Never, you bastards!

I don’t know if this time it would make any difference at all, but the last time, the setting only lasted as long as you didn’t use any other Google service (E.G. Gmail) and then logout.

It’s 3:09AM right now, so I’m not going to bother testing this. Let’s just hope that this time they took a hint from all the feedback.

Permanently turning off Google Instant

Don’t know about the rest of you, but I really do enjoy using the “Back” button. It helps me keep track of what I already searched and, in my old “almost 30” age, I need to save my sanity as much as I can.

I put up with this for a long time now, but apparently all the new changes to the Google homepage came with an auto-falconpunchtogroin-reset feature.

I was going into the search settings and changing this, but if I check my Gmail, logout, and go back to a Google search, whatever settings I saved are all gone. It also seems to randomly change back at times.

So here’s the next best solution; instead of http://www.google.com, make the following your homepage URL instead :

http://www.google.com/webhp?complete=0

(Edit 12/22 : You can also use the Firefox start page instead which is much leaner and still be able to keep the autocomplete, which I did find useful at times.)

This way, you don’t have to bother with settings or punching your screen in frustration, which I have to be really careful about with my girly hands and all.

It strikes me as odd that a company that allegedly prides itself in “Dogfooding” (I.E. eating its own dogfood — a term used internally in the company when releasing new services and features) would find no one in the office that would consider this asinine in the extreme.

Also, I seem to be correct that this HTML5 trend is pushing more and more client-side scripting junk on the browser and Google among others are forgetting the fact that part of the reason it became famous (aside from search accuracy) was that it was simple.

Bind and gag your children when you send them to school

… Especially if they use public transportation.

Does anyone have ducktape?

Begin old man rant…

Is there anything on the same league of annoyance as someone talking loudly on a cell phone on the train than a group of juvenile helium baloons discussing inane babble as if no one else has to thoughts of their own? The loud ones in particular make me consider starting a free condom drive in populous neighborhoods and hold seminars on the virtues of corporal punishment.

When the consistency of your children’s real world converstions border or surpass those of lolchat, it’s time to consider letting them drop out. At least they’ll be off my train.

When I was in school, we talked about everything from politics, religion, science and the news to those terribly corrupting video games and music (Marilyn Manson was just becoming popular). But not matter the subject, at least we used real words and, on the train, we didn’t pretend we owned the whole car!

Cellular walkie-talkie users needed to save the world!

If you’re using one of those terribly useful, talk anywhere, cellular (NEXTEL et al…) walkie-talkies all the time, then I all need you to answer the following questions. Your immediate response and positive reaction may save civilization and the world itself.

• Are you a contractor at a job site?
• Are you an engineer at an excavation or structure?
• Are you an emergency medic on call?
• Are you an off duty police officer?
• Are you a worker checking safety equipment or at another industrial job?
• Are you on a conference with family members while expecting a delivery of a new baby(ies)?

If you answered NO to all of the above questions, then I implore you to jump in a plane by yourself and fly through this…

The MODIS instrument on NASA's Aqua satellite captured an Ash plume from Eyjafjallajokull Volcano over the North Atlantic at 13:20 UTC (9:20 a.m. EDT) on April 17, 2010.

If a plane is unavailable, drive or hike up there and breath in the fumes or better yet, just jump in.

Please save us from your inane, shrill, babble about buying pork and soda at the supermarket, or getting your teeth cleaned, or that your significant other doesn’t like raspberries, or that your craving for pasta gave you gout.

Please refrain from describing what you can do with enough sausages to fill a phone booth, or how far you think you can spew milk from your nose, or how green that stake was in the freezer after the power went out, or what color your skin was between your toes after you didn’t take off your socks for a week.

Please think of the children when you talk about picking up honies at the club, or that your momma didn’t raise you to be a [vagina], or that Jeffery from accounting can go [fornicate] himself, or that you just passed a badonkadonk the size of a Mack truck.

No one gives a flying intercourse about your personal conversations, so don’t make us listen to them!!!

As of next week, I’m going to start carrying one of those portable cell phone jammers.

Photo Gallery / Picture viewer doesn’t work on the Desktop

This annoying little problem started quite recently. Probably due to some unknown update that installed itself overnight. Double-clicking on any image from PNG to GIF gives no results whatsoever. The photo gallery doesn’t even start.

The solution is to get rid of all the web links / URL shortcuts on the desktop (delete them or move them to a folder) and viola! You can double-click on images again.

I have no idea why this started this week. I’ve never run into anything similar with XP.

P.S.

I’m really buried in a project lately, which is why I haven’t been posting very much. But I have a new set of Sites and Movies of the week coming up.