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November 09, 2005

The beauty of automation

I should really blog at much greater length about the beauty of the ability to automate simple (or, if you're clever, extremely complex) tasks through computer programming. Of course, with beauty comes ugliness. Every systems administrator (or at least every single one that I've ever known) will tell you that will being able to automate the maintenance of their various computers is wonderful, it is also what allows one malicious person to write a program that exploits a software vulnerability and thus enable any 13-year old "script kiddie" to be just as dangerous without half the technical knowledge.

But that point will have to wait until later. Tonight, I discovered Yahoo!'s FareChaser, which automates the searching of several airfare websites (the fine print indicates that it is only "participating partners" which suggests that money is changing hands for this service; however, the fact that orbitz.com is on the list muddies this hypothesis somewhat since Orbitz is ostensibly the same kind of automated search (what a lovely idea, search engines searching each other for results)). Why is this tool any better than the old crop of such clearing houses that have been around for years now? Because it appears to search the airlines' websites themselves, which, in my broad experience as a frequent flier, often have cheaper flights at different times than places like Orbitz or Travelocity. So, here's to technology making life even more convenient than it is now and saving me the time of hitting those websites individually.

On a related note, I like that Yahoo!, Microsoft and Google are all competing quite vigorously to create compelling online applications for users (typically using Ajax, a really great hack of a technology). All the better for us, and, ultimately, the better for them, too. No one likes a stagnating, entrenched corporation bent on extracting ever greater revenue from the same (formerly compelling but now just prosaic) offerings. Oh, I'm not thinking of anyone in particular. Really.

posted November 9, 2005 10:35 PM in Self Referential | permalink

Comments

Posted by: bored at December 13, 2005 03:43 PM