I’m Sure you’ve seen a lot of the hype about cuil.com.
And, after trying it for about three seconds, I can safely say that’s all it is:hype.
Cuil is a new search engine. Cuil is supposed to be some welsh/Gaelic word for “Cool”. Created by ex-Google employees, it’s trying hard to be an anti-Google. Logging on gets you a black screen with a small search window, and a blurb stating Cuil will not save your personal information. So far so good.
The problem is, once you type something into the search box. Cuil advertises that they’ve indexed three times the pages as Google. I believe it, since only about a third of any responses will be any good. Typing even the simplest search terms in the box will give you some hilariously inappropriate web pages, and lots and lots of spam.
For example, typing in “byzantine roads” gives me the entrecard entry for this page, but not this page. Typing in “Steel Valley Outdoors”, my other site gives similar results, including lots of unrelated sccapers. Also, Cuil seems to find weird, semi-related thumbnails for it’s pages, but doesn’t quite get them right. Some lizard keeps showing up for “Steel Valley Smash.” It’s very Hunter Thompson: It’s sorta close, but not quite and makes me angry.
Typing in Google gives you, um google. so you can actually get something done. Good Luck. Try Cuil at your own risk.
Actually, I’ve been trying to get the Bopok in a month done.
I’m only about halfway where I need to be, but that’s a half a book I haven’t written before. I have a bunch of days off next month as my wife is having seconary cataracts removed, so I hope I can finis it then.
Anyway, Sorry. I’ll get on a better schedule next month.
If you’re like me, you’ve decided to write a blog to share your writing with the world. You thought your writing would stand on its own, and readers would flock to your website, grateful that you decided to share your awesomeness with everyone.
Then, reality sets in. Developing content and working on your “Real” writing become chores, not fun.
Even worse, you realize that although you’ve trained yourself to develop plots and realistic characters, to edit yourself and set realistic goals, you know bupkis about SEO, CMS, WEB 2.0 and all the other things you thought you could get away with not knowing. After all, this blogging is supposed to be all about giving the masses a voice, right?
Tough. Like anything else, like writing, blogging has it’s own learning curve. Sure, wordPress is easy and powerful. But I collect Plugins the way I used to collect Lovecraft. Some help, some take up space, and some are useless. So here’s a list of the plugins I use on various websites and Why:
Akismet- The spam Blocker that’s included with Wordpress is still one of the best. You should have already enabled it. if not, shame on you.
Bad Behavior- The other Spam Blocker. Bad Behavior maintains a list of bad sites and blocks these users from ever seeing your precious posts.
All-In-One-SEO- Allows you to ad meta data to your posts to get them noticed by Google.
Democracy Poll- The easiest way to add Interactivity. And that’s a good thing.
Google Sitemaps- Helps Google Index all your pages. ANd if it helps Google, it helps you.
MicroKid’s Related Posts- Lets you search your posts and manually add related posts to posts. Posts. Posts Posts. ( Not Spam)
Popularity Contest- Alex King has written a whole mess of popular, useful plugins, but this is really useful. It allows you to rank pages and posts on a variety of criteria.
RSS-Footer- Ads a footer with a link back to your site to your RSS feed.
Sociable- Adds Social bookmarking buttons to your posts, making it easier for readers to share and recommend your pages. Try it now!
wp-Cache- Reduces Server load and speeds up page rendering by creating static pages of your posts. That’s technobabble for pleases your readers if you get a bunch all at once.
wp-Database Manager- Lets you update and manage your database from the dashboard. Great for Piece of mind.
WWSGD- What Would Seth Godin Do? Ask readers to subscribe a couple of times, then quietly disappear.
Bonus: 4 Firefox Extensions for writers
scribefire- Lets write blog entries and add site reviews from Firefox without having to fire up the old Dashboard.
I’m going to be working on some SEO Stuff on the site today and tonight: Updating the database and URLs, looking at new Plugins, maybe a page or two are going to be reformatted. If you see anything odd, let me know.
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