Windows 8 comes embedded with Internet Explorer 10 with the Bing search engine

Bing search for former Nova Scotia Premier G.I. Smith draws a blank

This is my second day of using Windows 8 all the time for work.

Today the thing that sticks in my craw is how bad Bing is at finding topics.

Google beats Bing as a search engine no matter how bullish I feel towards Microsoft and Windows 8. 

Making Google Search the prime search engine in Windows 8

You can add Google Search to Internet Explorer 10 and replace Bing by selecting it as an IE 10 Add-On. After that, close down IE 10 and open it from the desktop where the controls are easier to find. Selecting the primary and secondary search engines is at Tools, Manage Add-Ons (upper right corner – the icon looks like a cog-wheel)

Amazingly Bing provided the solution on how to add Google whereas Google floundered around with a series of half-baked suggestions. That makes sense when you consider Microsoft owns Bing and at least can index their own pages.

Other than success with Microsoft, Bing drives me crazy with weak search results. I am always looking up computer, music and musical equipment reviews. Bing is not reliable for those searches while Google is. Bing apparently finds more porn sites; however, I won’t claim any expertise in that arena.

Searching for G. I. Smith

G.I. Smith and Robert Stanfield (photo credit Rob Smith)

I started using Windows 8 Metro IE 10 to research information on G.I. Smith, a Nova Scotian politician.

Rob Smith, one of my Facebook friends, posted the picture of his dad for father’s day. His dad was G.I. Smith the notable Conservative politician from Truro, Nova Scotia who served as Premier of the Province and later became a Senator.

I remember the name G.I. Smith as a prominent politician from my youth and comments my dad made about him. My father was the Editor-in-Chief of CBHT television news. Politics was the stuff of our dinner table talk. Back then I would have memorized all there was to know about G.I. Smith but that was almost 50 years ago.

The Bing search “G.I. Smith” in IE 10 came up empty, even when I restricted the results to Canada. The Bing screen snapshot is at the start of the story.

A Google search gave me several articles to read about G.I. Smith.

Wikipedia has a short article on the former premier and there two references to memorial trusts.

Bing did not get any of those sources and even tried to confuse G.I. Smith with G.E. Smith the Bob Dylan guitarist and musical director of Saturday Night Live.

Nova Scotia Premier and Senator G. I. Smith – from Wikipedia

“George Isaac Smith, usually referred to as G.I. Smith, (April 6, 1909 – December 19, 1982) was a Canadian lawyer who was recruited by Robert Stanfield to help rebuild the Progressive Conservatives in Nova Scotia. He was the 18th Premier of Nova Scotia from 1967 to 1970.”

Robert Stanfield had been Premier of Nova Scotia and went on the lead the Federal Conservative Party. He was heir to the Stanfield Textile factory in Truro. “Stanfield’s” is synonymous with warm cotton t-shirts and underwear – the very best. Stanfield was they say “too honest” to become Prime Minister of Canada.

“Born in Stewiacke, Nova Scotia, Smith practiced law in Truro. He served overseas during World War II. Smith was elected as a Member of the Legislative Assembly (MLA) in 1949 and served in Stanfield’s cabinet when the Tories formed government in 1956. When Stanfield moved to federal politics, Smith became Premier of Nova Scotia. Under his government the faltering Sydney Steel was nationalized. Smith argued in favour of regional equalization payments which transferred funds from rich provinces to poorer provinces like Nova Scotia.”

Mastodon Ridge, Stewiacke Nova Scotia (photo Dennis Jarvis, Creative Commons)

So G.I. Smith was one of the architects of regional equalization that the current Conservative Federal government wants to cut back.

Stewiacke, Nova Scotia is famous for being half-way between the North Pole and the Equator, a fact I learned on the way to summer camp in the 1950s.

Stewiacke is also a site where mastodon bones have been discovered and there is a museum and tourist attraction on the Mastodon Ridge.

“Smith’s government was defeated by the Liberals in 1970 and Smith resigned as party leader the next year. In 1975 he was summoned to the Senate of Canada representing the senatorial division of Colchester, Nova Scotia. A Progressive Conservative, he died in office in Truro, Nova Scotia in 1982.”

That is the famous father of my friend Rob Smith, a part of Nova Scotia’s history,  and geography along with a little archaeology thrown in for color.

Photo Credits – Thanks to Rob Smith and Dennis Jarvis (some rights reserved) for the photographs.