I thought it only made sense to incorporate some searching functionality into my site.

Even though I am still using Blogger.com as my blogging engine, I realized that I could still provide a search functionality via ColdFusion. To do this, I have used the Verity search engine included in ColdFusion.

Really, the search functionality is easier now than it will be once I develop a CF blog engine, because it is very easy to create a Verity collection by just scanning a directory of HTML documents.

One problem I experienced when implementing this feature, however, was the fact that I had a “Previous Articles” section in my navigation. The titles of those links would be pulled when performing searches, which was misleading and distracting. As a quick fix, I eliminated the portion of my navigation and reindexed the collection.

When I have a blog engine driven by ColdFusion and a database, this issue will be eliminated, because I’ll set up the Verity collection via a query instead of a path.

Whereas the Windows world is groaning over the upgrades Microsoft puts them through–whether it is the elusive Longhorn or the painful SP2–in the Mac community, industry experts excitedly welcome Tiger.

Please read: Mac Industry Heeds Tiger’s Roar.

It is noteworthy that Apple and Microsoft have both been pursuing metadata and better ways to provide searchability, and yet Apple is delivering in early 2005, whereas experts’ confidence that Microsoft will deliver by sometime in 2006 is slipping.

Apple has taken a dominating role in delivering a truly modern operating system via Darwin and OS X 10.4.

Unfortunately, truly modern operating systems are not always what businesses are looking for, which is one reason why Apple’s dominance hasn’t transferred to market share in the business industry. Nevertheless, Apple continues to impress experts and home users alike.

I’m sure this is hardly news to most people, but as Apple has been promising, and as expected, Apple will be releasing Tiger on April 29, 2005.

In addition to the general fine-tuning of the core technologies driving OS X, I am looking forward to see how OS X 10.4’s new technology Spotlight will improve the usefulness of the Mac desktop. This is the feature that feels most futuristic and high-tech. It may seem silly to refer to a basic search functionality as “futuristic” or “high-tech”, but really search technology has come a long way even in just the past 5 years, and we’ve come to see that innovative and intuitive searching is actually quite hard to come by. I am hoping that Spotlight will provide a sophisticated and intuitive interface to this end.

Wow! I am impressed. I came to the realization awhile ago that the G4 line of PowerMacs were incredibly rich with upgrade potential, but where I erred was in thinking that I had saturated my QuickSilver’s potential when I upgraded it to 1.4GHz with 1.1GB RAM and a GF4Ti. Boy, was I wrong.

Check this out: Giga ships 2GHz processor upgrades.

Back in the day, I concluded that processor upgrades would never hit more than the 1.4GHz that Apple raised the G4 line to. I suspected that the bar would never raise any higher. Thus, a 1.4GHz upgrade, a nearly maxed-out RAM capacity of 1.1GB, and a GF4Ti–which is about all a 133MHz FSB can handle–left my machine pretty saturated. And it did indeed stay that way for quite some time. I am very pleased with my upgrade decisions, and my processor upgrade card specifically has served me very well since I bought it in August 2003.

And yet here we are, with a 4-year old machine originally set at 733MHz now capable of pushing 2GHz. After four years–nearly two years since being upgraded–I thought my machine was finally losing the vitality it once had, and I finally saw a G5 purchase looming in my future. But with a 2GHz upgrade looking back at me, it looks like the G5 will have to wait a bit longer before it can get a piece of me.

Don’t get me wrong. I’m not a sucker nor nieve. I appreciate that a G4 is still just a G4 and that it doesn’t hold a candle to a G5 per megahertz. I also appreciate that a G5 purchase would likely consist of a dual-processor system, which is even more powerful, especially for the apps that need it the most. And finally, I also appreciate that I’ll still have a suffocatingly narrow 133MHz FSB, compared to the G5 architectures that all straddle the 1GHz mark. Nevertheless, I know how pleased I am with my G4 running at 1.4GHz, and I know that an upgrade to 2GHz would be a huge shot in the arm. Considering the significant speed boost the upgrade would give my machine, and considering the cash back I would be able to garner by selling the 1.4GHz upgrade, a G5 just doesn’t look like a very wise choice. My Mac still has too much life left in it.