No no, it’s spelt “Cuil” but it’s pronounced…

How was it pronounced again…?

Did you mean “Cuil”?

It seems that the new search site Cuil is off to a bit of a shaky start, and this new rival to Google does seem to be overreaching at present: in terms of useful results, it is frequently outclassed and it has a strange habit of illustrating search results with completely irrelevant graphics, often from completely unrelated sites! However, Google is a hard act to beat and the service has only just launched. A rival search engine to Google must be healthy for the internet, and it would be nice to think that Cuil will grow in strength – without being bought out to join Yahoo’s collection of failed search engines. However, a story about hazelnuts and salmon (section 4 of the FAQ) doesn’t excuse the choice of a Gaelic name (with unfamiliar orthography) for an international audience. “Google” is probably hard enough to pronounce for many people around the workd – and it is certainly hard enough for many people to remember or type – but it’s a lot catchier than “Cuil”!

There is however on the face of it one area in which Cuil already has the lead over Google, and that is respecting privacy. Compare Cuil’s brief privacy statement with the “Privacy Center” covering Google’s vast portfolio of Web services.

Here’s an example of practical differences: did you know that Google (which you might also be entrusting with your email, your calendars and all sorts of other personal data) keeps logs of your searches for 18 months before anonymizing them? Cuil says: “We do not keep logs of our users’ search activity”.

For this reason alone, Cuil should be supported, provided its current defects can be remedied swiftly. Web users are not patient and whilst Google is far from being the perfect search engine, Cuil is not yet in its league. For the sake of healthy competition and for a Web that does not pander to one search engine, let’s hope Cuil improves soon.

Right: entering “cuil” into Cuil yields results that might suggest a healthy lack of self-obsession. Or it might indicate something else entirely. Your call.

Note: experiments of this nature must never be attempted with Google.

WebnoteHappy

WebnoteHappy is a Web “bookmark” manager for Mac OS X that can help you keep track of URLs using metadata tags (very hip, very useful), traditional folders (for the traditionalists) and also “smart folders” that display bookmarks according to criteria defined by the user (much like smart folders in the Mac OS X Finder). In this respect, it offers the same sort of core functionality as the bookmark managers in Firefox 3 and in OmniWeb, but it works with the user’s default browser, whether that be Camino, Safari, iCab or any other browser. Change your default browser, and URLs selected in WebnoteHappy will launch in the new choice. Integration with the online del.cio.us system is also offered.

It is perhaps a limitation that the URLs are always launched in the default browser: if, for example, you need to use a different Web browser for special sites (for example, Firefox works much better than Safari when editing WordPress posts), WebnoteHappy can’t help you out with this issue, so you may still need to keep the odd URL in such “special use” browsers.

As for adding new Bookmarks, this can be done in WebnoteHappy itself or in most browsers using a supplied Javascript “bookmarklet” or a user-definable key combination. Most browsers seem to co-operate with at least one of these methods, but you might find things don’t run so smoothly with say, beta versions of the more obscure browsers. That’s to be expected, and to avoid any disappointment before purchasing, you can try out WebnoteHappy with your favourite browser by downloading the software, which will run without limitations for 30 days. There’s also a free “Lite” version, but as the comparison chart indicates, it’s much more limited in its capabilities.

All the good band names are taken, and maybe it’s getting that way with software too. But the whimsy stops with WebnoteHappy’s name, and it performs its function as a platform-independent bookmark manager well. Anyone committed to just one browser and its built-in bookmarking system will probably have no need of this application, but those of us who like to try out the latest versions in the quest for the ultimate browser, or keep switching for testing or other purposes, a capable bookmark manager application makes a lot of sense.

Zombies eat everything till it’s all gone

We were wondering recently why the telephone company still wastes precious fuel distributing those heavy paper (another limited resource) directories – now that corporations care so much about the planet. There seemed to be only one answer: advertising revenue. Surely not. That would be placing corporate profits before environmental responsibility. Shocking. Well, the same theory appears in this new list of zombie technologies. Imagine, such cynicism.

Depending on your ad-blocking software, you might see an advertisement for online “yellow pages” at the top of the page. They don’t miss a trick!

A dilemma at Apple

“I’ve finished the installer!”

“Oh great”.

“Except – I’m not sure which is correct: should I say “Installation completed successfully” or “Install succeeded”?

“‘Install’ is a verb, isn’t it?”

“What’s a verb?”

“Oh, never mind. Look, why not spell it out in a proper sentence?”

“Eh?”

“Something like… I don’t know… ‘The software was successfully installed”?

“Oh, that’s quite nice. But it’s a bit long”.

“It’s too verbose?”

“Er…”

“Look, just pick one”.

“I’m not sure… I could use all three I suppose… One of them is bound to be right…”

“Yeah, you do that. And why don’t you put a bloody great tick next to the one you like best”.

“Oh! Good idea!”

“I give up…”

Theremin workshops in Nottingham

Hypnotique announces that she will be hosting some theremin workshops in Nottingham (England) on 2nd August. You and your family can learn to play this ancient yet very hip electronic music instrument. There will even be a “Theremin Idol” competition so don’t be idle, waving your hands in the air like you just don’t care; wave them in the air like you do care (that’s how you get to be a Theremin Idol, you know), and pre-book now.

They Live 2: they live on the south coast too

That’s not failure: that’s sedition!

This justifies a trip back to Faildogs one more time.

All is vanity…

Reasonably irate

A meander through the Web led to this recent projectile vomiting via a weblog in response to some of the declared philosophies guiding Wikipedia. Make of it – and the undeniably useful yet thoroughly flawed Wikipedia – what you will, but if nothing else, the observations about the use of the word “reason” make the article (and the original piece it references) worth reading.

Certainly when it comes to dedicated political sites (including those of politicians recast as journalists) it’s best to beware those who preach from the pulpit of “Reason” – they can be found on the extreme left and the extreme right; the pathology seems much the same in both cases.

They Live

“Take a look. Put them on”.

Shop. Eat. Indulge.

Hang on, aren’t these messages meant to be subliminal?

Subtlety is so last century…