Google is an amazing search engine service, but there are many other options if you would like to use a search engine on your site or computer.
SearchBlox is a great search tool that allows users to search shared drives, feeds and more.
SearchBox amazingly searches your server and can index all of your documents, PDF files and more. SearchBlox is completely open source and is available in 37 languages.
Topix has just partnered with Blekko to power their in-site search functionality. Topix is a very large and well established local news aggregator, so this is a great with for Blekko. Blekko is a new player in the search market and any partner of this size is really going to help in their fight to gain some market share.
Blekko has already gained a few other big partners including StackOverflow and Merchant Circle.
At the moment Google is at the center of the web. Here is a great infographic from Computer School which shows off just how big Google really is.
TinEye represents a very interesting web app which allows us to use reverse image search in the web: Upload the image and TinyEye searches around the web to find the same image source, modified versions or finding higher resolutions.
I’m pretty sure that there’s nothing similar in the web right now, and can help a lot of webmasters and bloggers to find if some images they’ve uploaded are being re-used by other people. Most certainly web and graphic designers can use it to protect their work.
TinEye has indexed almost 2 billion images from which they run the comparison every time we upload an image (this web app also can use the URL of the image as well).
TinEye is also available as a browser extension for Mozilla Firefox and Google Chrome.
WordPress is definitely a large community where we can find thousands of sites offering us free and paid themes, making the task of finding the right one a pretty complex one. Theme Finder represents an excellent and free web app from we can easily pick our theme.
One of the coolest features of this web app is the simplicity to use it. In the top we can find all the common search options to find our theme:
Soon as we click the option we would like, the themes will be highlighted. Just by clicking on any of them, we’ll be redirected to the theme creator site where we can download it.
This is a great option to find in a simple way the theme we are looking for, unfortunately this finder contains a large majority of paid themes.
If I were to ask how many people out there actually used Cuil there’s not doubt I’d hear the sound of crickets. The much maligned search engine the was supposed to be the Google killer had attracted the eyeballs of major tech media outlets only to be the laughing stock of the community. Since it’s launch, the search engine has struggled for it’s fair share of respect, but never quite getting there. We’ve covered Cuil in the past and came to the same conclusion, that Cuil was just not meant for the public and would have been better off staying behind closed doors to either die on the vine, or prepare itself for an actual launch.
It seems that news on this search engine just does not die. Recently reported on TechCrunch, Michael Arrington writes that Cuil is finally closing its doors for good…unofficially at least. According to the report, what few employees that are still with the company have not been paid, which is never a good sign. While they look for green pastures the future for the search engine is almost certain. With its line of successive failures, perhaps now we can finally lay it to rest.
So what say you? Did anyone in the Crenk community ever use Cuil? The few that commented on past articles were not impressed, but if you actually liked it, we’d like to hear why.
Google released recently, in beta, https://www.google.com/ which is of course the secure website using SSL for Google Search.
So, what is SSL? Secure Sockets Layer represents a secure protocol which provides us secure connections in a public network, like the Internet. This protocol uses cryptographic communications to guarantee privacy and authentication between client and server; basically using this type of connection, when you are connecting to a SSL site the protocol is confirming you that the answering server is who he say he is.
Sites without SSL could be victims of eavesdropping (someone else is looking the information you are using) and phishing (the server is not who says he is). That is way all of the web mails available, shopping sites, etc, use SSL sites for client’s connections.
Google only offered us SSL connections for Gmail and Google Docs; and I guess with this new experiment they are extending us the way to avoid any possibility for someone realizes we are actually searching for porn most of the time 
A big part of writing online, and even just being alive today, is knowing what’s happening around the world. One way I do this is to set up Google Alerts so I know what’s happening in my field. Another way is to use an online tool to see what’s being searched and posted on the Internet such as Trends Buzz. This is how many news firms pick up stories in far away lands quickly.
As you can see from the screenshot above, it takes note of what people are searching for in Google and Yahoo!. They also have Twitter monitored so you can find out what’s happening there too which is significant considering news spreads fastest on Twitter. Then, smaller sites such as the New York Times and Alexa are covered followed by smaller search engines.
The service is currently in public Beta and it will be interesting to see what the team comes up with once its ready for the full launch.
Back when the internet was gaining huge amounts of users at the turn of the millennium, everything was about the World Wide aspect. But now, it’s worn a little thin. Don’t get me wrong, it’s still useful and connects people and companies all over the planet. But local search is where there are big bucks to be made. Think about it, aren’t you more likely to click on an advertisement when it’s a 20% discount for the Chinese restaurant around the corner, instead of an offer for the Chinese HiPhone?
All the major online services have caught on with Twitter being the latest having launched Local Trends. Now, Buzz.com looks to catch in on the local .com boom. At the minute it’s still in Beta testing. But more and more tech blogs are talking about it.
While Buzz.com will rely heavily on social networking sites such as Twitter and Facebook, At&T have stressed that they have not built a social networking site, although you will be able to share many things with friends and family. By indexing what people are talking about as well as working with companies and advertisers, buzz.com will provide people will accurate search results for things like clubs, restaurants, shops, deals and much more. It’s like social media for local businesses.
I can’t wait until Buzz comes out of private Beta. It sounds like a great service to get the skinny on what’s going on in your locale. If you want to try your luck at getting a private invitation, click here.
Want to know the best places to go or businesses to call? Let buzz.com help you tap your social net for business recommendations from the people you trust most – your friends and family. – Buzz.com
Ever watched a movie clip around two years prior then needed it for a project or something? Me too.
Things like documentaries, famous speeches and old fashioned shows are hard to find on sites like YouTube and Vreel – especially when all you have to go on is a quote or extract.
ReelSurfer however aims to change all that. They take a huge volume of content from the Internet and break each video up into thirty second segments. Then, they index all spoken words on the video as though they were text. Thus, when you search for your quote the thirty second segment pops up. You may be asking, why do they bother splitting up the video at all? Well this is purely so you’ll hear your keywords right away. Imagine watching an entire movie whilst praying it’s the right one!
This is similar to AnyClip, however there is one core difference. ReelSurfer will allow you to create your own account for your company or college thus allowing you to upload meeting, lectures etc… This would come in very handy for students looking for information on a chosen topic while revising or an employee quickly catching up on the conference call he missed.
