Tech Status Quo

How does Evernote work?

Tag this at Technorati: beta, computer, evermote, Mac, mobile phone, never forget, new .com, organize and tag, remember everything, Windows

In the search world, competition is fierce. Google, Microsoft, and Yahoo pour millions of dollars into advertising their search engines to gain every last user on the internet. There is a new player in the business now thought, and it looks like Twing is going to hit the ball out of the park.

Twing is an “alternative search engine” that I found while perusing the farthest corners of the internet (yes, the internet is square). By alternative, Twing is just “not one of the big 5″. That’s catchy. But the important question to ask any new search engine is, “Does your search work?”

I was pretty skeptical about Twing when I first arrived at their homepage. Supposedly, it searches forums and forum posts, rather than searching plain old static pages. Interesting, haven’t ever seen that before. This is what Twing has to say about itself:

We’re dedicated to the world of online communities and forums. Our intent is to enable you to quickly find highly relevant communities and discussions pertaining to your interests, as well as keep you informed on the latest trends influencing communities. Members of Twing also can track activity on their favorite forums and stay informed on updates via custom alerts.

Again, you can promise the world, but can you deliver?  Let’s see what Twing can find for me…

Me: Simpsons Bartender
Twing: 255 results, first one included ‘Moe’
Not bad….

Me: 1980 Olympics
Twing: 2100 results, second one was about the USA hockey team - exactly what I was looking for
Very nice

Me: Tetris creator
Twing: 312 results, first one including Alexey Pajitnov.
I am extremely impressed

Overall, Twing did a great job handling search requests and providing an easy way to find information without following deep link trees.  The user interface is also very nice and easy to use.  Twing is definitely going to make an impact in the search engine world, watch out Google.

Tag this at Technorati: 1980 Olympics, Alexey Pajitnov, forum, Google, google rival, microsoft, new .com, search engine, SEO, Simpsons, Tetris creator, twing, Yahoo

One or two incredibly interesting stories strike me on a daily basis, the first being this gem out of England.  A theme park there is actually banning the use of PDAs in the park.  Excerpt below.

“Alton Towers Resort will be piloting a “PDA Free Zone” during May Half Term (May 25th - June 1st inclusive), to encourage parents to disconnect from the office and reconnect fully with their families. PDA police will be onsite to enforce the ban and any adult caught using a PDA whilst at the Resort will be asked to report to one of five “PDA Drop Off Zones” where they can safely leave their PDA’s for the day. If the scheme is successful, it will be introduced full time.

Russell Barnes, Divisional Director for the Alton Towers Resort explains; “What we have here is the ultimate short break location where every member of the family can unwind and have fun. We feel it’s so important for parents and kids to focus on nothing more than having the best possible time, we are prepared to take drastic action to ensure that parents really leave their work behind!”

How arbitrary.  Rather than lowering prices, building more rides, or lengthening park hours, the security is actually stopping patrons from using their PDAs.  What a business strategy.

The biggest problem with this ‘ban’ on adults having PDAs is quite comical:

“So the policy allows kids phones for safety purposes.
Who are they going to call? The parents without the cell phones?”

Tag this at Technorati: alton parks, bad ban, dumb adults, family fun, pda, waste-of-money

Thats right folks, Google is going to update their page rank within the next 12 days. That would bring the time lapse between two PR updates to 100 days, leading to the belief that it is time to update the PRs. Below are the last 10 PR updates by date and days between.

Date Updated	Update Type	Days Lapsed
4/26/2006	TBPR Export	45
7/13/2006	TBPR & BL Export	100
9/28/2006	TBPR & BL Export	76
1/10/2007	TBPR & BL Export	101
1/25/2007	TBPR & BL Export	18
4/30/2007	TBPR & BL Export	98
10/28/2007	TBPR & BL Export	181
1/10/2008	TBPR & BL Export	74
2/26/2008	TBPR & BL Export	47
6/06/2008	TBPR & BL Export	100

Many people have been spreading the rumor that the PR update happened on April 30th. I personally checked the blogs of those claiming that their blog PR was updated, and none had been (most were still at N/A).

“Many of you has already noticed their new PR, and the rest will be noticing it in the next moments or days, so keep checking your Google Toolbar or use any of the Backlinks and Page Rank Checkers. for me and my 3 months site I have noticed my first new PR at the first moments of this day - the first of May (the labor day! and the month that holds my birthdate (May 7th) in its days! what a coincidence lol) - I was so excited for this Update as it’s my first update to know how good did I work and how much do I understand Google PR and the Search Engine Optimization concepts, so what was the result??”

The PR update has not yet happened, but it is coming in the near future. Get your final links in now before the update, the next one won’t be for another 100 days or so.

Tag this at Technorati: blogs, Google, google update, page rank, reach, search engine optimization, SEO, traffic

If you have (or had) Comcast as a service provider, we want to hear your experiences with them, preferably bad experiences to keep things interesting.

To participate in this contest either post your Comcast related story here or write a review of the wehatecomcast.com blog on your own blog.  If you choose the latter, make sure you leave a comment with a link to your blog.

The best post wins.  Creativity and exaggeration are key to this contest; the stories should be true, but a bit of flair never hurt anyone.

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