So here is Google's search page today, as on many special occasions they have their custom logo on show.

During the summer the Live Search homepage started featuring new images every day, using the entire frame, previously there had been a gradient here instead, on the image were a bunch of hotspots which pointed to related search results.

Is it me or does Google still look a little too 1990s compared to this?

Before you mention performance, on Live Search the image is loaded in the background, so it doesn't slow down the loading of the page itself, once its ready it fades into view, its actually quite a nice looking effect.

The only downside is its not available for the UK version yet, which means I hit the US site everyday just to see what they've got on there. Let's get that sorted please, there's only been a few days where I could say that specific image only really applies to the US market, like when they have images of sporting events for example. But the rest transfers over well.

From a search point of view, I use Live Search for my normal stuff these days, with a good success rate, especially since IE8 now shows suggestions for searching in the search bar at the top as you start typing (like on the actual search pages themselves - well excluding the UK sites again). The quality of the results is pretty much the same now, I find myself only hitting Google when I've got a more technical query that needs a bit more work, like error messages and things like that where Live Search isn't quite there yet.

I'm in a similar situation as Robert McLaws, both my blog and Gamercast I have tied up to FeedBurner, soon that data gets assimilated into Google.

I am glad that the European Union is investigating Google on their privacy issues, storing your search data for two years, no private company should have so much information, and if you take part in some of Google's other services, they've got all your webpage visits too.

I see that Robert McLaws has done some digging to come up with the donations that tech company's employees have made to the two right-wing US political parties, the currently reigning Republican Party, and the Democratic Party.

Google's employees it turns out is the most politically active, not that surprising really, with over $50 000 donated in total, Microsoft coming in second with just over $40 000.

All the tech companies Robert covered gave more to the Democrats, except two, can you guess which? Yep, Adobe and Apple employees have given more to the Republicans.

It's interesting to see the ratios of support within each company. Google, Yahoo being heavily Democratic. Microsoft being largely Democratic and Apple being slightly Republican.

I wonder if I can get any of them to donate for my political campaign.