The Algorithm is Being Ignored

I went to an open house event at the main Google campus in Mountain View, CA, last week. It was hosted by the Partner Solutions Organization division. A friend who works at Google suggested I go, even though he has no idea what the PSO group does. Neither did I, so I figured I’d take the free meal and the free information.

I’ve already been to the Google campus several times by now (invited by actual employees, of course). It was somewhat amusing to read the email instructions that said, “Event will take place at the Tunis auditorium in Building 43” and actually have a rough idea of where that actually was. Google has surprisingly lax security by the way – if you’re in Mountain View looking for a good meal, don’t know anyone at Google, and are short on cash, dress like an engineer and try to mingle your way into their cafeterias. You’ve probably got a 50-50 chance of getting in.

When I arrived, there was already a crowd. I did a quick count of chairs, and estimated that they were expecting maybe 200 people. Mind you, this was just one open house event for the PSO group out of several that they’ve been doing for the last couple weeks, all over the world. From what I understand, the PSO group isn’t even that big compared to the rest of Google, so basically there are hundreds of people applying for possibly a handful of positions. Google really is growing by insane amounts, and it does seem like everyone wants to work there too. As someone put it to me, “Google is the black hole of silicon valley”.

The place filled up in no time. They gave some presentations, all moderately informative, and then had a Q&A session, where they actually were throwing free T-Shirts to people asking questions. I felt like I was at some surreal convention event. People asked some fairly serious questions too. Well, except that one guy that was trying to be funny and ask about the quality of the free food. Cherish that free shirt, buddy. No, it was not me.

I noticed an odd air of arrogance in the tone of some of the Google speakers. I don’t think it was on purpose though, it was just a by-product of their crazy amounts of success, so in many ways, it’s perfectly deserved. I visited Microsoft more than 10 years ago on an interview tour, and I have to sadly confess, the feeling I came away with was that Google is at the moment very similar to a young, energetic, still-viable Microsoft. They’re rolling in success, and feel pretty invincible. Places like AskJeeves should really just throw in the towel now and save themselves the trouble.

I thought about this more while I was filling out the online Google employment application form the next day. They ask you for your SAT score, by the way.

Hello, I’m a Proprietary Office Software Application

Over the last couple years, I’ve slowly tried to wean myself off proprietary software and find free and/or open source alternatives. This is not because I’m some weird hippie, but rather because I’m a cheapskate.

Well, actually, the more accurate reason is because I’m finding that proprietary software prefers placing the user in an “upgrade or become irrelevant” vicious cycle. For example, I still use Windows 2000. I never upgraded to Windows XP because I checked carefully and decided that the new features were either features I did not need, or features that I didn’t think were worth the cost and hassle of upgrading. As I write this, Windows XP is already yesterday’s news (although still worth at least $120 dollars on Ebay for XP Pro, apparently) and Windows Vista is what Microsoft wants me to use. I actually acquired (legally!) a free copy of Vista Business from the “Power Together” promotional website, and I still haven’t installed it, again, because there really isn’t anything there that I feel I need. I paid good money for Windows 2000, and it works fine for me, so why is Microsoft insisting that I’m a moron for not upgrading? Oh, and tell that Steve Ballmer to get off my lawn before I hit him with my cane.

So, anyway, rather than spend the money on something I don’t need, I figured I’d either stick with what I have, or look into free/open source alternatives. I’m fairly happy with some of the things I’ve found. I browse via Firefox, check email with Thunderbird, avoid virii thanks to Grisoft’s AVG Anti-Virus, use Comodo as my firewall, let IZArc handle my zip-file needs, and use ConTEXT as my text editor of choice this week, among many other nifty programs (legally) available for free.

Unfortunately, there are some pieces of my software toolbox that I’ve resigned to stick with whatever I currently have. Adobe Photoshop continues to not be truly challenged by things like The Gimp, in my opinion, at least when it comes to the interface. But I’ve stayed with version 6 for the last several years. Another fairly important one is the dreaded Microsoft Office, of which I’m “frozen” on Office 2000.

I tried to switch to the free alternative, OpenOffice, once, and felt the performance and feature set wasn’t quite up to what I needed and got from Office 2000. This was a little while ago, so today I was tempted to download the latest 2.1 version of OpenOffice and try again. But I didn’t. Why did I balk? I’m not really sure.

It might have something to do with the size of the task. I switched from Outlook to Thunderbird, and I don’t miss Outlook at all, but my email needs are rather simple. I use Word and Excel for a variety of tasks, however, and some of them are, well, not necessarily complicated, but “unique”, perhaps. I’ve spent a bit of time getting acquainted with both applications as I needed to. I’m not saying that OpenOffice couldn’t do what I need, nor am I saying that Office 2000 is a particularly great application. But at my age, do I really want to experiment?

I guess my conclusion to all of this is, when it comes to software, I'm cheap and resist unnecessary change like a grumpy old man. Maybe in 30 years I'll download OpenOffice and try again.