Bing, You've Done Well.

I don't have any problems with Bing. That sounds like a backhanded compliment, but it's definitely meant as a kudo. For Bing, Dethroning the Big G is a Gargantuan task.

David Pogue at the New York Times has a great video review of Bing. He talks a lot about the consumer-ish features, which I didn't really pay attention to. Yes, the Ajaxy previews are a great feature. The image searches feel a lot cleaner to me as well. I don't really care for all the text cruft when looking for an image. If I want a 'big'-ish image, I'll choose the size option from the left menu. Still, it's in Bing's interest to give value to the searches that most humans are doing: travel, local and consumer-ish type things.

As a Developer…

…all I really needed to know is why I was getting 'Cannot implicitly convert type 'System.Xml.XmlDocument' to 'System.Xml.XmlNode'' when trying to pass XmlDocument back and forth between web services. (hey, I didn't specify XmlNode, but that's what gets auto-generated in your Web Service's  Reference.cs!) Oh look, first result!

A month ago, I took the Bing 1 Month Challenge. There were a handful of times that I felt I might be able to do better in Google, and about half those times, I found what I was looking for in Google. The majority of searches though, Bing provided me with the results that I need. Basically it never left me hangin'. Who would have thought that a rebranded, remixed and Ajax'd MSN Search would have turned out so well?

The guys on the Herding Code Podcast pretty much panned it a month ago on Herding Code Episode 49 . I am much more optimistic for Bing's future. I'll be keeping it as my default search engine.

Celebrate Good Times

Great job, @Bing Team! Kudos!

Like 95% of the searching masses, I use Google as the primary engine in my browser search fields. Sure, I have installed the usual suspects of other sites that I like to search by. OK, I only ever used Wikipedia once or twice, and Stack Overflow is nice to have. I find it difficult, to switch search engines WITHOUT using the mouse. Maybe it's just me, and there's a magical keyboard shortcut to switch to Next Engine, or something.

Bing?!

After hearing the big news about MSN's rebrand, the launch of Microsoft's new search engine Bing on the usual podcasts, AND having Scott Hanselman challenge his readers to judge Bing after using for a month. I thought it would be a flash in the pan.

Loyalty and Affinity

Some people feel loyalty to brands, and some to search engines. Me, I just stick with Google because it works, and it looks clean. That's about it. I don't have any natural affinity to my search provider, so I am going to take the Bing Challenge. So at home, work and the laptop, I have changed my primary search providers to the 'blue b'.

You can see in the screenshot above that I really threw it a softball. Get ready Bing, people are paying attention!