In honor of its 10th birthday, search giant Google has brought back its oldest available index of Internet pages -- from January 2001. The old search includes an old goofy logo and a claim that Google was searching 1.3 million Web pages.

It's fun to search for people and things in the news now to see what came up about them seven years ago. This is especially true in Central Florida, where people who were down often rise and people who were up often fall.

For instance, the top result for a search on "Lou Pearlman," was a St. Petersburg Times article that referred to him as "the rich and successful mastermind behind such teen pop stars as the Backstreet Boys, 'N Sync and LFO."

A search for "Casey Anthony" only brings up about 181 results, many of them pages about an Oregon State University wrestler.

Below are links and photos of searches on those terms and more from 2001 and today. Many of the old Web sites no longer work or exist, but you can get a good idea what those sites said from the information that pops up in the search results. Go here if you want to try it out yourself.

Got your own interesting examples? Post a comment.

Here's a good post from the Sentinel's Frugal Force blog about how you can save up to $400 on new computer software by opting for free and open-source products instead of the more popular, expensive products.

One of the products mentioned is OpenOffice, a free alternative to Microsoft Office, which I wrote about in a column last year.

As the success of this past weekend's BlogOrlando conference shows, Florida continues to be a great place for tech conferences.

Now comes word that one of this year's more interesting tech conferences, the Future of Web Apps (FOWA), will once again be returning to Miami in 2009. The conference will take place February 22 to 25 (Sunday to Wednesday) with BarCamp Miami on Sunday, workshops on Monday and the conference itself on Tuesday.

FOWA is a little bit geekier than BlogOrlando and other conferences (and it's not free), so it may not interest average consumers. But, if you are a web developer, application developer, blogger or just care about the Internet, it may be worth checking out.

You can read my blog coverage of FOWA here and hear audio and see slides of some of this year's presentations here. 

• Official Google Blog: Our position on California's No on 8 campaign
  This is pretty interesting. Google has taken an official stance against a proposed in California to ban same sex marriage.
  (tags: Google government marriage california)
• Google Goes to Washington, Gearing Up to Put Its Stamp on Government - washingtonpost.com
  A look at Google's push to education politicians in Washington about its service and get nearby companies to starting buying them.
  (tags: Google Washington)
• Casting a wide Net -- baltimoresun.com
  Sprint's WiMax service is now live in Baltimore.
  (tags: sprint cellphones internet wimax)

In today's paper, I have a profile of Anthony White, a 35-year-old Electronic Arts Tiburon employee who has what most guys would consider a dream job: he gets paid to watch every NFL game so he can make sure Madden NFL Football is as accurate and up to date as possible.

Here are some more interesting tidbits about White and his job that didn't make it into the print article.

How he watches the games

When White gets the footage of that week's game from the NFL it gets loaded into a computer system that lets him pick and choose what to watch. It's a pretty amazing system and it's the same one that NFL coaches use to review game film, White said. When White watches a game, he'll watch every offensive play from one team and then every offensive play from the other. But the computer program allows him to be much more sophisticated. There are about three camera angles for every play and with a few clicks, he can bring up every touchdown pass a particular quarterback has thrown this season or every running play from a particular team. 

(Photo credit: Stephen M. Dowell/Orlando Sentinel)

Sorry it's been awhile since I've done my Friday Picks of cool articles, videos, blog posts and other media worth spending some time checking out this weekend.  So here we go...

Pick #1: The Dark Bailout
Regardless of your view on the government's $700 billion bailout plan, you've got to admire this clever mashup of the The Dark Knight and President Bush's speech from the other night.

Pick #2:"Weird Al, Father of the YouTube Spoof, Wired, Sept. 22 issue

Here's a really interesting article looking at how parody song king Weird Al Yankovic gave birth to all the parody songs and videos (including the one about) that have come to fill sites like YouTube.

Pick #3: "Free, Legal and Online: Why Hulu Is the New Way to Watch TV," Wired, Sept. 22 issue

Speaking of online video, that same issue of Wired has a great in-depth look at Hulu, the online video site that was started by NBC Universal and Fox and quickly became insanely popular. (If you aren't familiar with the site, here's a column I wrote reviewing Hulu a few months ago).

Lots of readers commented on my last post about Bright House Networks adding some new HD channels to say that they wanted Bright House to add lots more HD channels, including FX HD.

Well it looks like that request might come true. Bright House Networks has recently added two new HD channels in Tampa Bay: FX HD and Lifetime Movie Network HD, which leads me to believe Bright House will soon be adding them for Central Florida customers.

I asked Bright House spokeswoman Sara Brady if these two new channels were coming and she responded via e-mail:

"I don’t have any details right now, but as we’ve said and demonstrated, we’re continuing to add HD channels, so there is more to come in the months to come. "

So stay tuned. When and if I get confirmation of these new channels, I'll post it on my blog. I hope they add FX HD before Thursday, when a new episode of "It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia" airs.

And if you want to check out the HD lineup for Tampa Bay Bright House customers, go here.

The first is from Google and it might help undecided voters make up their minds. It's called "In Quotes" and it provides an easy way to see what the candidates have said about key issues and what the pundits have said about those positions.

To use it, go to http://labs.google.com/inquotes/ and click on one of the issues listed or type your own into the search box. Each quote has a date and a source (with a link back to the original article) underneath it. If you click the "Spin" button you can see how different publications have interpreted the candidates' positions. You can also choose to see quotes by both vice presidential candidates as well as other politicians.

Here's a screenshot of In Quotes:

• State of The Blogosphere: The More You Post, The Higher You Rank
  Some good info for bloggers.
  (tags: blogging)
• Move Over Netflix -- Roku To Open the Box | Epicenter from Wired.com
  More good news for the Roku box.
  (tags: Roku Netflix Internet video)

I'm a big fan of the NBC sci-fi show "Heroes," but sometimes, the product placement that shows up is so blatant it's comical.

Like in the first episode of season two, where cheerleader Claire Bennet is given a new car by her dad and when she's handed the keys she exclaims, "the Rogue?" The Rogue is made by Nissan, a big Heroes sponsor, and since it was a relatively new car at the time that I hadn't heard of, it seemed strange that a teenage girl would recognize it by sight the same way she would a Camaro or a BMW. I wonder how much more Nissan had to pay to get Claire to say the name of the car in the show as opposed to just having it visible?

Monday night's season three premiere was full of product placement, like the Apple iMac sitting behind Hiro Nakamura as he sat in his office.