The Bristow’s dot COM

A new search engine has jumped on the scene. http://www.cuil.com (pronounced ‘cool’ ). They claim to have indexed 121,617,892,992 web pages. Cuil claims this is almost three times as many pages as Google has indexed. So, I decided to test it out.

I did a Cuil search on my name, Jeff Bristow. The results are all pages that have something to do with me. (I guess I am the most active Jeff Bristow on the internet) The results ranged from my twitter stream, to my involvement in the Fort Myers for Mike Huckabee Meetup group. However, this website ( thebristows.com ), does not show up in the list. So, my initial reaction is that Cuil may not be as intelligent about finding hits. Google makes a connection with my name, Jeff Bristow, and The Bristows dot COM, likely through linkbacks and meta data.

So, I decided to search for ‘the bristows dot com’. And I got zero hits. Not a single item. So I searched for ‘thebristows.com’. This time I got hits from sites linking to thebristows.com, but thebristows.com still doesn’t show up as a possible site to check out.

I know this isn’t a thorough test of a search engine, but it does show me that their catalog of sites may not be as impressive as they initially make you believe. I think the big difference is that Google may not index every single page that you have, while Cuil is likely indexing everything, which means they show a very impressive amount of indexed pages. But they may not be reaching as many actual websites as Google is. Or they somehow just failed to index thebristows.com, whatever the reason, I am not all too impressed with not finding my main site in their huge index of pages.

On the design side, Cuil is on a black background. A nice contrast with Google, but I am no fan of a dark background on a website. I think that this design will hinder Cuil’s adoption by the masses.

Now, Cuil has a few nice features that are impressive, regardless of my above mentioned items. Cuil has found a new way to display search results that is very handy. Most search engines give you a long list of sites to scroll through once you click search. Cuil places the search results in blocks with a good amount of preview text for each site. This can help the user to determine if they even want to explore a possible search result. And you can control they layout even more by adjusting the number of columns presented on the page. You can choose a 2 or 3 column layout with a simple control at the bottom right of every page.

Another nice feature about Cuil is that you get a category list with your search results. This allows you to refine your search a bit more based on recommended categories of pages based on your search term. When I searched for Jeff Bristow I got options to search for ‘Fictional Secret Agents & Spies’. I thought that was a pretty cool search category. And this was based on some characters having the last name of ‘Bristow’ on shows like Alias.

In Summary: I like Cuil. I think they need to change their homepage so it isn’t so dark. And I think they need to index thebristows.com, but I like what they are doing with the actual layout of the search results. They are on the right track and time will tell if there is really enough room on the web for another search engine to be successful.

The iPhone 3G was released just a few days ago and one of the coolest things to come with it is the iPhone Apps Store. Already there are hundreds of Apps to choose from, and I have been browsing through many of them to find the best picks. Here are what I consider the best 7 Apps for the iPhone available through the Apps Store. (as of 6/14/2008)

Holy Bible

This App grabs Bible text from youversion.com. You get access to 16 different translations with full search capability. You can also use a daily reading function to help you read through the Bible in a year and contribute notes to the youversion.com community. This is an excellent Bible Study tool and is much handier than carrying around a bound Bible wherever you go.

Facebook

The Facebook App allows you to see your Facebook inbox, and see any status changes any of your friends have made. Most of my friends tend to update things on Facebook regularly so I find this App extremely helpful in keeping up with what and how they are doing. It is nice to not have to jump onto a computer to gather this information.

Mobile Banking

If you use Bank of America then this App is perfect. You can access your Bank of America bank account, transfer funds, and even see where the closest ATM machine is to your current location. I am always looking for a Bank of America ATM, so this little App is especially handy. So, if you have ever wondered how much money is left in your bank account after having to send more money to AT&T to use your iPhone, the Mobile Banking App is there to help you out.

SpeechCloud Voice Dialer

A phone I used to have a long…long…. time ago had voice dialing. And I loved it. This was something I was surprised to see was missing with the new iPhone. But along comes SpeechCloud to save the day. With this little gem you can press a big green button and say the name of one of your contacts and it will call them. This is much safer than trying to scroll through your contacts while you are driving, even though I know none of us ever do that….

AIM

AOL Instant Messenger isn’t my favorite IM service, but this is the best IM application currently available in the Apps Store. It does an excellent job too, my only complaint is that it isn’t active when you are on another screen, so it isn’t practical to be ‘always on’ and receive IM messages whenever they come in. But it makes the list because it is currently the only IM client you can get.

Twitterific

Twitter is a social utility that allows people to share short messages. I have been using Twitter for the past year and actually wish more of my friends used it. Twitterific is a great tool to connect you to see all of your friends latest Twitters and even make your own. You even get a nice Twitter sound when one comes in. (this only work when the application is active though, just like AIM) - I actually update Twitter via Ping.fm, so if you want an invite to ping.fm just let me know in the comments and I can see what I can do.

Pandora

I believe that this App is tons better than AOL Radio. With Pandora you tell it an Artist that you enjoy listening to, and it creates a ’station’ that will play music that you will also likely enjoy. In the App you can give a song a thumbs up or a thumbs down so Pandora can learn more about your musical tastes. This App works great on the 3G network and gives you access to a ton of music, it truly is amazing.

These are my current top 7 picks from the Apps Store. Do you have some other picks that you feel are worthy of mention? Then leave a comment and share.

The Decision
This weekend I took the plunge. I did something I honestly never thought I would do. I purchased an iPhone. I was looking at possibly getting the AT&T tilt and using the wi-fi access for internet. This would save $30 per month. But once I saw how big and bulky the phone actually is I became reluctant to move in that direction. The iPhone 3G was just released on Friday as well, so I got to play around with a hands on demo at the AT&T store. I was very impressed. But I decided to head home and think it over some more. I know making a decision to spend $30 more per month isn’t something I should do while at the store.

I read multiple reviews about the 3G network, and the new iPhone. I then began to see how I could use the new iPhone for Instant Messaging, Email, Twitter Updates, and even begin to explore the ‘mobile web’, which are websites that render the web specifically for mobile devices. I realized that as a web developer I was shooting myself in the foot by not having a tool to help me see and then build for this ‘mobile’ web.

I talked over the decision with my wife, and she reluctantly allowed me to take the plunge into iPhone land.

The Review

I have now been an iPhone user for only about 32 hours. And I am very impressed. The iPhones interface is by far the most intuitive interface I have ever used on a phone. I haven’t had the need to open the manual even once. It is amazing to have a phone that is so chocked full of features, yet is easy to use. Apple has truly done an excellent job. I have historically been strongly opposed to Apple products, the iPod especially, but they have done an amazing job with this product and should be commended for their development work to bring a product like this to the market.

My top favorite features:
1. Intuitive Interface
2. Silent toggle switch - switch on the side of the phone to turn all sounds off instantly.
3. 3G - Broadband data network.
4. App Store - Easy to use way to add more apps to your phone.
5. Maps - Google Maps with the ability to find where you physically are, this is crazy cool.
6. Safari Browser - You can view any website right on your phone. (no flash 9 support though which stinks so sites like hulu.com are not usable via the iPhone. (Come on Adobe make your SDK available for mobile devices.)
7. An ever expanding feature set via Apps. (This is the #1 feature in my opinion)

I began looking through the App Store offerings for free applications. I grabbed the AIM, Pandora, Bible, Facebook, Twitterific and eBay applications. These Apps seem to be the best of the bunch right now, but the App Store is only days old so I anticipate many more cool free offerings in the near future. (I am personally hoping for a Gizmo5 offering or a Skype offering.) My only issue with some of the apps are that they must be active to be working. For example the AIM application must be open on the phone so that you can send and receive IM’s. I would love to be able to have the app run in the background and notify me of an incoming message. Again, this is something I anticipate someone making in the near future, so it isn’t a huge issue. The positive is that I am able to send some IM’s via my phone from anywhere that I might be.

Another other cool thing about the iPhone is that it is popular enough that companies are making web based apps specially for the iPhone. They may work with other mobile devices but that are designed for the iPhone so I would guess that they work best in Safari.

Some cool web based apps (meaning they run in Safari) that I began using on the iPhone.
Meebo - you can instant message with just about every IM service available.
Ping.fm - this little app rocks, I am able to update my status on every social networking site I use by typing it in just once. ( I never actually go to all of those sites anymore. ) - Oh and if you want an invite to ping.fm just ask for one in the comments of this blog post and I will see what I can do.

In Summary

The new iPhone 3G is possibly a laptop replacement for me, and it is far more mobile than bringing a laptop everywhere I go. With this I am able to keep in contact with friends and family using social networking technology regardless of where I am at, check my email, quickly get directions to an address, and make those ever important phone calls. I really like that this one device can do all of this.

I will likely write up some more reviews on the various Apps that will be unleashed for the iPhone in the coming weeks. I anticipate seeing a lot of innovation out there from the development community and am very interested to see how much the iPhone will be able to do in the future via Apps.

If you would like a far more in-depth review of the iPhone 3G I recommend checking out Terry White’s review.

Update: I also just added a mobile version of this website. If you come to thebristows.com via an iPhone or other mobile device you will see the slimmed down version of the site automatically. Enjoy!

Update: I added a iPhone version of this website. If you come to thebristows.com via an iPhone you will see the slimmed down and iPhone friendly version of the site automatically. Enjoy!

On June 17th the next release of the Firefox Web Browser will be unleashed to the masses. And Firefox is hoping to set a world record for the most downloads in a 24 hour period.

So next Tuesday don’t forget to grab your copy from http://www.getfirefox.com and help make history!

Update: I found a method for getting the Parental Controls that I needed in Ubuntu.
http://skindley.wordpress.com/2006/12/11/fedora-core-6-controlling-logins-by-time/ - Thank You Scott Kindley for this excellent how to.

I have been using Ubuntu as my main Operating System now for a couple of months and I have been very pleased at the functionality and flexibility of using a non-Microsoft system. That is until I discovered a feature set that the Linux community does not feel is relevant. Parental Controls.

I really want a simple method for designating when a specific user can be logged into the system. OSX can do this. Vista can do this. Why hasn’t anyone in the Linux world come up with this? As I explored this I discovered that the need does not seem to be recognized as legitimate by the majority of developers. Statements like “That is bad parenting.” seem to resonate any time a user asked why these features are not available.

The reality is that you can’t keep track of your kids 100% of the time, and you can’t be looking over their shoulder every second they are online. Being able to have some enforceable restrictions as to how long a user can be on the system to the time of the day are very reasonable approaches, and should be considered valid by the Linux Community.

Due to the lack of these features I am now using Vista on my home PC, so that I can make sure that the kids don’t get up in the middle of the night and use the computer. This is mot my preference, I would much rather them be using Linux. But until I can find reasonable and appropriate parental controls for my Linux system, Windows Vista will have to remain.