CUIL! (pronounced cool)

Well, this was my first thought of a new technology to pursue--a new browser I heard about on NPR, sometime in the last month, but had forgotten the name of. Thanks to Google, that wasn't a problem, I searched "new browser" & this looked like the most likely one, or one there had been much "buzz" about in the past month or 2.

I started by reading a few posts about it on other sites before I went there, then read a couple pages on the site, then I just jumped in. What better way to try a new thing?

I must say, the results didn't live up to the hype. My first search was a somewhat arcane one--something I discovered years ago when doing a very long, drawn out search. I quickly learned, years ago, what 3 "magic words" would find this site in Google, so I tried them. I got 28 matches--surely better than Google's 318,000 matches--esp. if it is more SELECTIVE or targeted than Googles wide net.

Alas, cuil did not find it in 28 matches, while it was the FIRST match in Google's 318, 000.

OK--bad start--but don't give up. Ask some others for suggestions.

So I did. I asked 5 or 6 colleagues for sample searches I might do, to play "Stump the Browser". Of the first few, I did no better than 50%--not bad, but not Google.

I kept asking folks, till the one where i got NO matches in cuil, & the 5000+ matches in Google only took 20 hits to find the somewhat arcane site my friend had referred me to.

So--I went, I saw, I faltered. Well, you can't "conquer" all the time, & at least, it tells me that there really is something about Google that works for me. Whether that's because I "cut my teeth" on it, or that it really is "smarter"--who knows. Who Cares? Not me.

Off on another adventure-- Gardner