Cuil went live on the 28th of July 2008, it has a really rocky start. The pages loaded slow, but this was because they had over 50 million searches which is more than Microsoft’s Live Search gets.

I tried out a few searches. I came up first for my own name, which is a good sign, but some of their results are somewhat lacking. I found a few spam results, bad ebooks and just keyword pages designed to trap spiders. Now, they claim to have the most indexed pages out of any search engine in the world. However, this is probably because of the immense number of spam and bad quality pages, which Google doesn’t have.

Cuil doesn’t have an image search, but this may be because they have combined image and web search. If you search in Cuil you will be greeted with both normal results alongside normal results. The results page is tabular, with results not going straight down like Google but across and down. So in Cuil you get a page of results that go vertically and horizontally, but in these results are also images and small thumbnails.

The idea of image and web search combined it good, but sometimes on a slow connection you don’t want to see images and sometimes you will only want to see images.

So, Cuil have spent $33 million on a search engine. It is ok, but needs some changes made to make it anywhere near a threat to Google.

If you want people to remember your website or company, you need to offer them something special to remember you by. A unique a dazzling logo is perfect. When someone visits a website they will probably see your logo first. If it catches their eye, they will remember it.

Using a template logo or a bad quality logo will make you look like a normal company that has just not spent much. For a relatively low price, you can get a brandable and beautiful logo that will make people remember your website.

For this reason, I have spent some more money to get a designer to make a new logo for CompuTalk as well.

However, with a few simple tips it is easy to increase the length that your iPhone battery will last.

• Full Charge Cycle - It is important that at least once a month you let the iPhone battery drain almost completely and then fully charge it again. This is a tip given by Apple themselves and really does work.
• Brightness - The brightness of your iPhone’s screen can highly affect it’s battery life. If you turn down the brightness a bit, you may find that you save some power.
• Turn on Auto-Lock - It is important that you turn on the iPhone’s automatic lock function, not only does this stop you accidentally doing things, but it saves battery life. Every time the screen is pressed, the light comes on, so if you have it auto-lock then the light will not have to come on and you will save on power.
• No Network - If you are in a remote area or an area that will be in for a long time that has no phone signal, then you will lose battery very fast. When you have no signal the iPhone will be constantly searching for a new signal, so if you turn it off or just put it in flight mode, it will not search for a signal and you will save a lot of power.
• Bluetooth - When you are not using Bluetooth you should completely turn it off. This improves battery life and makes your phone more secure.
• Wi-Fi - Wi-Fi is a nice feature on the iPhone, but when you aren’t using it you should turn it off, it just sucks up battery power.
• Email - The iPhone has an automatic email check. Make the times that it checks less, or turn off auto-checking, and you will save a lot of battery life.

Each of these tips will make a small difference, but together you will save a lot of battery life.

This is an example mimobot. You can see that they are really inspired and aimed at people who want to have something different, and people that want to make something that is essentially quite boring, very fun.

I am a big fan of their Halo mimobot range. It is one of their smallest ranges, only featuring the Master Cheif and two Spartans.

mimobot USB keys come in a huge range of styles, you can get something pink and bright, to dark skeleton. They also come in 1Gb, 2Gb, 4Gb and 8Gb sizes, so you will be able to hold a lot of files.

I would recommend a mimobot to anyone and I will be receiving my one sometime soon.

Once you have signed up and been approved by AdSense, you should have a look through the programme policies to make sure that you do not get removed from the programme.

Now you need to start getting adverts put up on your website(s) so that you can start generating revenue and clicks. So, log into your AdSense account and click the “AdSense Setup” tab at the top.

This should bring you to the setup page where you can choose what type of adverts that you want to display. Unless you want something else, then by standard you should want to use the “AdSense for Content” type of adverts. So, click on “AdSense for Content” and you should be bought to the next page.

You should select “Ad unit” and “Text and image ads (default)”. When you click Continue you will be allowed to choose the size and colour scheme for the ad. Take a look at Google’s Ad Formats page and choose what size of advert that you would like to display. Select that size and format in the drop-down box.

You should now be onto the colours part of the setup. You should select the colours so that your ads blend in well with your site, look like part of your site and don’t stand out too much. This is called blending, you can follow Rob Malon’s great & advanced guide on blending adsense ads, found here. However, you can just choose colours that look good together as advanced blending is not essential.

Once you have chosen your colours, I advise that you save them, so click “Save as new palette” and you will be able to use those colours later without having to choose them again.

Now just select the corner style that you want (I always use square) and choose what you want to do if for some reason ads aren’t available (I use public-service ads).

Click continue and you would be bought to the channels page. I advise that you create a channel and give it a name you will remember. When you display adsense on different sites, all your ads will be displayed together. If you use channels, you can put your ad blocks in different channels and see exactly what sites and ad blocks generate what revenue.

Click continue, give your ad block a name (just something relevant) and then click “Submit and get code”. When you get the code, paste it into your website’s HTML. When you visit your website the first time, the ads will not show. It can take 10 or so minutes for the ads to start showing on your site.

After a few days when you visit the AdSense reports section, you should see your channels and you will be able to see how much revenue they have generated. Remember to read the programme policies.

FoxyTunes is an addon/plugin for Firefox that allows you to control your media/music player from within Firefox. You can do standard things such as pause, start, stop, forward and volume.

However, it also has many other features hidden away in its menus. FoxyTunes is an addon for Firefox, this means that it is easy to install and should run perfectly. It works with loads of different music players, too many to list, including the big ones with was iTunes, Winamp and Windows Media Player.

When you are listening to music, you can access the FoxyTunes planet. When you are listening to music you can click the FoxyTunes Planet button. This will bring you to information page about the artist you are listening to. From here you can see similar artists, view information and see their best tracks.

With some over small but nice features, such as integration with Twitter (you can automatically post listening to your song as what you are doing) and the ability to download new skins.

All around FoxyTunes is a great plugin for any music lover. It is easy to change song inside Firefox and the many other features make it even better. It is simple to install and I really recommend it.

If you are having any problems, or any links get broken, please make a comment on this post.

• Nav4All - Free GPS Navigation Tool - To run you need an external GPS receiver because the Viewty doesn’t have one built in - Download
• Viewty Bulb - Make the Viewty screen turn into a torch/light - Download
• StopWatch - Add useful stopwatch to the Viewty - Download
• MobiChat - Lets youchat on MSN, Yahoo and more - Download
• Paint - Yes, Paint has come to the Viewty, draw your own pictures - Download
• GPS Track - Another free GPS tool for the Viewty, Again you need external GPS - Download
• Doc Reader - This application can read word documents, rtf, pdf and many other types - Download
• JZipMan - This application can extract archived files such as zip and rar - Download
• Opera - The Opera web browser application for the Viewty - Download
• MathPack - Package of lots of maths tool such as equation solver - Download
• Karaoke - This can play standard music and karaoke files on the Viewty - Download
• Talking Clock - This will say the time out loud - Download
• Weather Satellite 2 - This will show you the weather in satellite form all around the world - Download
• BarCoder - This application lets you enter barcode numbers and it will give lots of information about the item - Download
• Money Manager - Now you can manage your money using your Viewty - Download
• JAM SE - Lets you use bluetooth to control music on a bluetooth enabled computer - Download
• Vibe - With Vibe you can compose and create music from sounds on the Viewty - Download
• mWebPlayer - Music player that can play online radio and other streaming music - Download
• FileLock - Password protects files and folders so that they are secure with the password - Download
• FileExplorer - A very powerful file browser application, much better than the standard one - Download
• Q-SpyCam - Turn the Viewty into a spy camera and view it live on your computer - Download
• Wordy 2 - Another directionary application for the Viewty- Download
• Mobipocket eBook Reader - Allows you to read eBooks on the Viewty. To install unzip the files and transfer them to the phone - Download

Important: Once you have downloaded a file/application it may be named “something.zip” (ending in .zip). If this is the case, you must rename it so that it ends in .jar or it will not work.

To install/run these applications connect your Viewty to a computer, download these files and then transfer them onto the Viewty. Then on the Viewty find the files and run them. This will go through the install or if the application is very simple then it will just run.

All software works on the Viewty and all links work at time of posting. Please post any problems as comments here. Also post a comment if you want me to get some new software.

A VPS is almost exactly the same as a dedicated server, except that they are typically slightly smaller and cheaper. Using virtualization software, VPSes mean that you can have your own OS, root access and everything, without having to buy a big, expensive dedicated server.

I got my VPS courtesy of WiredTree. I am currently on their “VPS384″ plan, which costs $49/month ($34.10/month when using the coupon “10percentoff”). This is a medium priced VPS. It is their smallest plan and comes with 384 Mb of RAM and includes cPanel/WHM, 40 Gb of disk space, 600 Gb bandwidth and 4 dedicated IP addresses.

This is a fairly reasonable price, it isn’t dirt cheap, but it is 110% worth it. I decided to get my VPS after learning some Ruby on Rails things, and because my websites on my shared HostGator account were getting quite big. I asked the live chat some questions, many of them fairly complicated, and got fast replies. Unlike many hosts, the live chat was able to answer my questions without referring me to an email address.

I talked to the live chat for a while, and was very happy. I then placed my order through PayPal. WiredTree verify all their accounts by phone (this is a good idea, keeps out bad people that will overload servers). I talked to the live chat again and was told by the live chat rep that he would give me a call within 20 minutes. Sure enough, 18 minutes later, I got a call from that live chat rep. He basically just verified my phone number and said he would get my account set up.

About 20-30 minutes later, I got a welcome email containing server details and the login details to WiredTree’s “grove” system, it is essentially an amazing support system with other brilliant features including server statistics, server monitoring, service monitoring, bandwidth usage and loads of other stuff. It is easy to use and all the custom tools mean that you can monitor your server and do many other things from within one system.

WiredTree have a nice selection of PDF documents that explain how to do a large amount of things. I followed their guide to set up private nameservers (ns1.calumneilson.com & ns2.calumneilson.com). I wasn’t sure that I had done it quite right, so I opened a support ticket. About 16 minutes later I got a reply to say I had done everything right and it should be working once it has updated.

I also opened another ticket about Ruby on Rails setup. My FCGI install wasn’t working right. Again, within 20 minutes I got an advanced reply from someone who really new their stuff. They advised me to run RoR through Mongrel, instead of FCGI, because FCGI runs through lighttpd but cPanel needs Easy Apache.

He asked me to call if I needed help, because he would be able to help very well over phone.

Pro’s:

• Lighting fast support
• Fairly low prices
• Reliable & fast servers
• Very nice client support portal
• Server monitoring tools
• Helpful live chat

Con’s:

• None!

So, to cap it all off, I have an amazing & fast server with WHM/cPanel included. WiredTree have a brilliant customer support system where I can get replies in just 15 minutes, compared to 6 hours+ on other hosts. I can’t find any faults, everything was perfect.

Using an SSH client is almost exactly the same as logging into a computer without a GUI. You are able to issue text commands to do almost anything. SSH is the most common method of managing and running servers, because when you log in you can do anything from install software to reboot the server.

To log into a server via SSH, you need to have an SSH client. The most used, and probably best, SSH client is PuTTY. It is simple, easy to use, free and does everything that is needed.

You can download the PuTTY SSH Client here: PuTTY Download

If you are a Windows user, you should download the top version, labelled “PuTTY”, the file is just putty.exe

If you don’t use Windows, then you should download the version correct for your operating system. Once PuTTY is downloaded you should open it up.

On the main page that opens when you start PuTTY, there is only one or two important things, so it is very easy to connect to your server.

In the box labelled “Host Name (or IP Address)” enter the IP address or host name/domain name of your server. In the box to the right of that, labelled “Port”, the default setting is 22. By standard, SSH runs on port 22. However, for security some server and large hosts such as HostGator run SSH on a different port, you will need to contact them to find out what port this is (but try 22 for now).

Now at the bottom click the “Open” button. A black window with white writing should now open. You will be asked for a username, type it in and click enter. You will then be asked for a password, type your password in (you shouldn’t see it typing, but it is).

You should click enter again and you will now be logged into your server using SSH. If it logs in correctly then it means you have done everything right.

If the prompt to enter your username never appears, or you get a network or connection error, then it means that it can’t connect to your server. This means the server either doesn’t have SSH, SSH runs on a different port or you are having connection problems. In all cases, you should contact your host or service provider.

If, when you enter the host name and click open, you get a prompt about a host key no being cached in the registry, just click yes.

If you get an error about an incorrect username or password, then try a few times and then contact your host for help if it still doesn’t work.

TOR isn’t a proxy, it is a worldwide network of routers that act as a proxy but it is 10X better than a proxy.

This is a guide on how to configure TOR to work with Internet Explorer 7.

TOR has a firefox plugin so firefox users have it the easy way but it can be confusing on how to set it up in IE7.

To start off with download  TOR for Windows from here: http://tor.eff.org/download.html.en

After that run the installer and make sure that you tick the box for TOR, Vidalia and Privoxy but not TorButton Firefox Extension.

Once it is installed run Vidalia and Privoxy if they are not running already. In Vidalia Control Panel click settings.

In the server section turn “Relay traffic for Tor network” off if it isn’t already.  In the “Advanced” section make sure the address is “127.0.0.1″, the port is “9051″. Leave the password as what it is, do not change it.

Now click the save button and then the exit button making sure you save the settings.

That is TOR configured properly, you are almost there, now all you have to do is set it up in IE7 (Internet Explorer 7).

Open IE7, Click Tools and then Internet Options. Go into the “Connections” tab.

At the bottom click the “LAN Settings” button. At the bottom of the new window it says “Proxy Server”. Tick the “Use a proxy server for LAN…” box.

Below that set the address to “127.0.0.1″ and the port to “8118″ (I know its different from before but its right). Untick the “Bypass proxy server for local connections” box then click Ok and then Ok again.

You are done. Your details will all be hidden and you will be safe and untracable while browsing the web.

To disable TOR do not go into the just go back into the IE7 settings and untick the “Use  a proxy server box” and tick it whenever you want to use TOR again.

If TOR in IE7 isn’t working then make sure that Vidalia Control Panel and Privoxy are running. If you are still having problems then just leave a comment here and I will help you.