another week starts and another search engine is released into the world wild web with it’s aim to slay the mighty google dragon.

cuil presents it’s search engine results like blocks of magazine snippets, 3 columns and four rows of reports on websites that it has found for you from it’s very big database – which they also say is larger than google’s.

i tested it out and to be honest, i didn’t like it – i wasn’t impressed at the results i was given back, and the images that it nests within the results look a little random, some seem to be advert thumbnails that just happen to be on the page at the time of the search (or crawl) taking place.

some people will love it i’m sure, but it’s just doesn’t live up to my expectations after i’ve clicked ’search’. lots of companies have tried to get a slice of the search engine pie away from google and so far none have really got as close as a nibble, some offered payments for searching, others better results, some specialised in searching the social networks – a niche engine and others just bragged about how many sites they indexed while not concentrating on results.

there is one “new” search engine that i’ve found over the last 12 months and i was pretty impressed with it. it’s called searchmash, and guest what – it’s run by google. it’s their little test bed for new features and it works very well, the results are accurate and there are enough new features to make it worth using.

my previous blog was managed with wordpress 2.0.5 and originally setup in december 2006, a long time ago – especially in the blogging world. there were 1 or 2 bugs appearing in my blog, such as duplicate contents on single pages, and after looking through the wordpress support forums an update was recommended.

i backed up the database using the option in the wordpress panel, i also logged into php admin on my hosting and performed a mysql dump of all the content. i then downloaded all the files connected to my blog via ftp. i was happy with my backup.

the update is pretty simple, it was just a case of replacing all the files – except my edited theme and uploaded images and content. i then logged into the wordpress admin panel as usual, it informed me that i needed to update the database, which it did without a hitch… at the time and finally, all i needed to do was update the few plug-ins that i am using – which downloaded and installed the updates automatically.

the only thing that went wrong were my categories were lost, wiped out. unsure why, but i’ve since had to place them back into the database and link all my posts to categories again. i only have around 60 posts so it hasn’t taken long, but it’s still a pain. there is a fix, but i couldn’t get that working, more information here on how to restore your categories after an update.

i’ve been ignoring my blog, but i’m going to try and post more often – i’ve also had a little tidy up as i realised there’s a load of broken links and missing images on some older posts. i’ve also trimmed down on the categories – there were 11, which is far too many – there is now 7 tightly packed categories for my observations and commentary to be housed in.

i’ve just started to submit my portfolio to a few css galleries – websites that aim to showcase some of the web’s best looking websites, that are predominantly (or only) built using web standards, css and feature a lack of tables.

here’s a fairly comprehensive list of web galleries that i have been submitting to.

i went to see ‘the dark knight’ yesterday evening, a special advance preview at my local cinema – a day before the official release tonight.

the film impressed me, it was as good as the first – if not better, and christopher nolan has again raised the bar for superhero films.

but what impressed me more was the the experience at my local cinema, one that i’d been going to for over 20 years. firstly, the screen and cinema is huge – a lot bigger than any of the screens at a near by mutliplex. the sound system was recently upgraded and is as good as you will find in an odeon, a uci or whatever and it’s also a lot cheaper. last night’s ticket was √Ǭ£5.50, the last time i went to a big chain cinema is was nearly √Ǭ£8.00 for the ticket!
one thing that i didn’t expect in the middle of a 152 minute film was an intermission, but an intermission we got and it was a chance to dehydrate ourselves with an ice cream. i always thought that intermissions were forced on the cinema if the film was too long and the roll needed changing – this may or may not be true. i think the reason in this case was to sell a few more ice creams and drinks and i don’t mind that at all – independent cinema needs all the help it can get on the financial front.

the best thing about last nights cinema were the adverts, the screening was at 7:30 and i wasn’t prepared for the film to start for at least 20 minutes after that – but the adverts started at 7:15, there was only one trailer and the actual film got under way at a couple of minutes past 7:30pm. i’ve been saying for ages they should show the adverts on loop before the actual screening time – but i know advertisers would never go for it, because it would miss out on the greatest possible amount of viewers for that screening.

so the film was great and the experience was a memoriable one and that has a lot to do with our local, 2 screen independent cinema. well done flicks

photograph by microbi