Over at The Mac Observer (and, indeed, at iPodObserver, as well), we’ve begun experimenting with Google’s Custom Search Engine, largely because it’s near impossible for a site the size of ours to implement a search engine that’s any better than what Google can do…. I noticed today that Colin Crawford mentioned that Macworld has done the same thing, for exactly the same reasons.It also seems like they’re having exactly the same problem we are (at least on TMO): Google’s not making the results IFRAME long enough to display all the results and the navigation controls in every instance.

In my view, the only valid reason to be a reporter is a strong desire to have a front-row seat so as to rush out and tell everyone else what you have seen…. Politics, next door over.This comes from my friend, Dennis Powell, now writing a column for The Athens News (yes, in Ohio).

As many of you know, I was at PME this weekend and, of course, saw the Podshow funding announcement just as things were getting started…. If — between now and the tipping point — they can launch/break a few rock stars that were previously unknown to the world (and I think some of them are there in the network already, at least potentially), then their position is set. All they gotta do then is wait until the tipping point and bam — for 15 million dollars DAG Ventures just bought their way into a sizable chunk of a new record label.That $15 million (or, rather, their chunk thereof) was the cheapest investment they ever made.

All of my Macs in my home/office here in Durham, New Hampshire are having trouble connecting to Google, in that they can’t connect at all using Firefox or Safari, though my wife’s PowerBook has had success connecting using IE.My linux and Windows machines have no trouble whatsoever, regardless of browser (including lynx).If I connect to a proxy server elsewhere, then Google loads fine on my Mac, indicating to me that, well, it’s not my Macs.This is the wierd one: If I run CrossOver on my MacBook Pro, and then run IE *or* Firefox, Google comes up fine…. the Windows version of Firefox running in CrossOver has no problem, while the Mac version (running on the SAME MACHINE SIMULTANEOUSLY) can’t connect.

On Friday, it was all over the AP that Universal Music plans to go after YouTube and MySpace in an attempt to pierce the “safe harbor” veil that’s been protecting these online services from the actions committed by their users…. This egg *is* going to crack eventually, and the companies that change their strategy first will be in a much better position than those who fight tooth and nail down to their last dollar.

Joe Consumer, who has nothing and is looking to get a DVR to go along with his spiffy new plasma screen, is going to sit in his living room and compare this to the one his cable company offers…. And *because* the Comcast box sucks so much, we’re actually considering the $1000 to TiVo just to get the same (basic) functionality but with a much better user interface.

Though I discussed it on the most recent Mac Geek Gab podcast, enough of you have e-mailed me about this that I thought I’d type about it here, too.For the last 3+ years I’ve kept all my mail (and I mean all 180,000 messages and 1,400 folders) in Mailsmith…. My e-mail client on my Macs and work and home can certainly do it, my phone already does it and, with SquirrelMail installed on our server, I can access it on the web, too.

If you’ve been following the conversation here (or over on HawkWings), you’ll note that one of my biggest concerns with having all my mail *in* Mailsmith was that I couldn’t easily get it all *out*, especially not while preserving the hierarchy of messages. That’s no longer a concern, thanks to a little bit of AppleScript mojo, a few hours of “free” time, and the seeds planted by BareBones flat-export script.

My big problem is that, as far as I can tell, there is no way to automatically migrate all of my mail out of Mailsmith while preserving the hierarchy of 1400 mailboxes that exists…. The import is taking a while, as one would expect, and hopefully I’ll have an answer to that particular question soon.But I ask you: knowing what you know, is Mail.app the right choice for me?

After all, it was 15 years ago yesterday that Tim Berners-Lee posted this to usenet:The WWW project merges the techniques of information retrieval and hypertext to make an easy but powerful global information system…. It aims to allow information sharing within internationally dispersed teams, and the dissemination of information by support groups.