Not so fast, Google!

This morning I saw a short report about a new search engine on CNN. Like most of the students these days, I’m surfing the web while “watching” TV so I decided to give it a go and checked out cuil and well, it looks like a search engine… The magic happens when you search for something. The search results are arranged in colums with pictures which gives them a nice look and feel. The “Explore by Category” feature on the right hand side suggests additional related topics which provide a bunch of useful links “onmouseover”. For someone who is using AJAX heavily at the moment, cuil is a nice application of useful ideas.

Cuil claims to search 121,617,892,992 pages, an acclaimed three times more than Google. Well, the search result for “Bond University” showed 110,040 results while Google showed approx. 8,630,000. The quality of the results is hard to compare. You will eventually find what you were looking for by going to the homepage or refine your search. Cuil seems to be a great starting point for queries about unfamiliar topics, that is because while you type your query, suggestions are displayed and the layout and exploring by category helps you to find your way through the web.

The best feature, in my opinion, was not shown while testing both search engines with the example “Bond University”, so I typed in “AJAX” – since it haunts my dreams anyways – and WOW, there it is: Tabbed search results. The first tab, obviously, is about the Asynchronous Javascript and XML, the second one is about the famous soccer club AJAX Amsterdam (think Geelong, Aussies). The third one about a lovely place called Ajax, Ontario and the fourth one, mmh, it’s that soccer club again. Well, no one’s perfect at the beginning. But organizing the search results has one major adavantage: If you can’t or don’t want to limited search results by smart queries (AJAX AND Programming), cuil does that for you which is very convenient if you are unexperienced or have absolutely no idea what you are looking for.

One problem for small websites which are featured on CNN is serious traffic. While testing, I experienced one timeout which was resolved by a simple key press (F5). Google needed five years to become decent, cuil started well with some great ideas. If these guys can keep it up and don’t sell out to Google too fast, we might actually see some competition which is always good for users.

Office Live vs. Google Docs

The first thing that stands out when you log in to both services is the fact that Microsofts login page features a small advertisement. This is a good thing because users can hope that the service will stay free. Office Live features templates or blank “workspaces”, Google Docs has the folders. Microsoft’s service lets you upload any kind of file up to 25mb of size while Google limits its service to html, txt, doc, rtf, odt, xls, ods, tsv, tsb, ppt and pps. It misses the highly spread pdfs as well as pictures. Furthermore, the maximum file size allowed is 500kb or 10mb for presentations.

While sharing is available in both services, Office Live distinguishes between two different roles, editor and viewer. Versioning is supported by both.

Mobile access is available for Google’s solution while Office Live features comments and an activity overview.

IT (un-)enabled Group Projects

Four subjects – three group projects. A nightmare for most of the students, including me. Countless meetings, even more mails and a million different documents containing the work of several people. As a Business and IT student I am lucky to have some insight into solutions that make life easier, but unfortunately most of my fellow students (especially the business ones) use a laptop and Office 2003. That’s it. Versioning is a nightmare and real IT enabled collaboration is just not existing. I tried to foster the use of Office Live where groups and work together online – the perfect solution and it’s free (for now). But most people say we don’t need that and that it’s too complicated. Bull*?$!. It’s so easy and it safes time because you don’t have to meet every other day and follow up with countless emails. Especially as a student no matter what your major is, you should know and use the new solutions for collaboration. Everyone’s using Facebook, hardly anyone uses Google Docs or Microsoft’s Office Live.

AJAX or thanks again Google

AJAX stands for Asynchronous Javascript and XML and was introduced by Google in 2005. It is not a new language but new way to use already existing standards to create rich user experiences online like Google Mail. The main advantage of AJAX is that it lets you reload only certain parts of a website unlike the regular procedure of reloading the entire document even if only one character was changed. This is archived with the XMLHTTPRequest. The progress of a response by server can be accessed with the readystate property. With an if statement the status can be retrieved. The possible responses are: not initialized, request has been set up, has been sent, is in process, and is complete.

Web Applications built with AJAX deliver higher usabilitity and a desktop app like feel.

Pimp my Facebook Profile

Like many students, I am just about to start the process of applying for jobs. I stumbled across this interesting article today about how a Facebook profile might actually help you to get the job and what other steps computer and internet-savvy people should take to gain an advantage over the competition.

“If you approach online profiles as a way to present your professional side to the world, then you have a great opportunity,” says John Challenger, CEO of outplacement consulting firm Challenger, Gray & Christmas.

“Write about your passions and ideas, and employers who search Google or other sties can find your page and get to know you,” he advises. About 75 percent of employers admit to using Google to do background research on candidates, he notes, and a growing number are using the sites to include candidates rather than exclude them.

I guess I have to update my numerous profiles on social networking sites before I apply to companies. Maybe this blog is a step in the right direction. If you are interested in reading the complete article, go to Baselinemag.com.