Setting up the Android SDK on Windows 7 64bit, with a 64bit JDK / JRE is a bit less straightforward than one would expect, thankfully though the solution is quite simple. There are two settings that need to be adjusted to make this work – otherwise you’ll get an error indicating that Java can’t be found.

Step 1: Modify your PATH to include the bin folder of the JRE. Mine looks like this:

C:\Program Files\Java\jre6\bin

Step 2: Set the ANDROID_SWT variable (you’ll probably need to add it) to the \tools\lib\x86_64 folder of the Android SDK. Mine looks like this:

C:\Android\SDK\tools\lib\x86_64

With these two changes, everything seems to work as expected. Why this is required on 64bit but not 32bit I’m not sure, but this does seem to solve the problem.

I’m sure there’s nothing to this, but I have to point it out: a Microsoft employee publicly seeking information on Google PageRank. Roberto D’Angelo, in How Google PageRank(tm) works (the post has been removed, here is a PDF version of the original*), discusses how the PageRank algorithm works as well as asks for others to provide additional information.

Anybody find this a bit odd?

I’m not trying to knock Roberto, or Microsoft, it just strikes me as odd that a Microsoft employee would be publicly seeking information on a proprietary feature of a competitor’s product. While it’s normal to review a competitor’s product to see what it does better, trying to figure out patented and proprietary technologies, in a public setting, seems like a bad idea to me.

What gets me about this, is that it’s so public. Digging into a competitor’s product in a public manner will lead to backlash, especially when we’re talking about Google and Microsoft. I can only imagine the comments that will be made as a result of his post. So far I’ve not seen any feedback on this, but I have to image that it will be coming. From a business perspective, I have to suspect this will be considered a mistake.

What do you think, is it really a good idea to publicly dig into the proprietary feature of a competitors product?

Update: Since this was published the original page was removed, making public discussion a bit of a moot point. I’m leaving this as I feel it’s an interesting point. I’ve removed the original link and added a link to a PDF file of the original page, for those interested in seeing what was said.

I just dropped by to check my Gmail account (which is almost never used, and the address has never been published anywhere), and found quite a surprise. The spam box currently has 7,026 spam messages!

Keeping in mind that spam is deleted after 30 days, that means I’m getting 7,000 spam messages a month to an unknown, unpublished account! All of my other email accounts use two layers of filtering, one at the server, the other in the client. With this much spam going to an almost secret account, I can only image the spam going to my published accounts.

I actively use six separate email accounts, if each gets 7,000 spam messages a month, I’d be spending my entire week without sleeping just going through spam. Spam just seems that much more evil every day.

We all know that Google is PigeonPowered™ – now, we have a search engine ran by trained monkeys. Well, not exactly monkeys, but semi-trained people. Yes, you heard that right. When you do a search, it doesn’t hit some massive database containing every web page known to man, it goes to a human for them to figure out.

If I didn’t know better, I’d call it an April-fools’ joke. But, alas, it’s not.

Here’s how it works: You type your query in a very Google-like homepage, but when you hit ‘Search with Guide’ (pressing ‘enter’ will get you a glorified set of InfoSpace results) instead of getting a list of results, you get a chat window. In that chat window you can tell the guide more about your search, and you might, eventually, get an answer. While there is some value to a human edited directory such as DMOZ, I can’t see a human built search engine working out.

I have to wonder how this will work out from the business side, this doesn’t seem to be the greatest business model, as it can’t be cheap to have an army of people sitting around searching for other people. It looks like their business model is based around selling ads, and while that is a high profit market, I can’t see it being enough to cover the expense of having the guides. It’ll be interesting to see how long they last.

Sorry for the rant, but I found this one just too odd to ignore.

Could it really be? Rumors are flying that tomorrow (Tuesday) Google will open a beta for a new spreadsheet tool. This is quite a move, and one that will certainly turn up the heat on the Microsoft – Google rivalry.

Google Spreadsheet will have support for the Excel file format, a move that seems to be setting a direct course for competing with the ever popular Microsoft Office suite. When combined with the launch of Calendar and the acquisition of Writely, Google seems to have an eye of the market now controlled by Office.

Reports are that at 9AM, EDT Google Labs will be linking to the new application and allowing a limited number of sign-ups.