A big thank you for the team at Digivate for the great gift above. As predicted by the fortune cookie behind the card: I now have blogged about this.

My experience at Digivate has been nothing but life changing. I had the opportunity work with some extraordinary talent, both past and present. I’m also very lucky to remain good friends with many great colleagues.

The guys and girls in marketing will no doubt go from strength to strength. And I’m sure you guys have lots of fun at the same time.

As for the leaving .net mockup, a tip of the hat must go to the creative team. Keep up with the great work!

Go on, give it a test, search for something really obscure. Try out Cuil - billed as the next generation search engine, the Google beater, the next big thing, the search engine that indexes 121 billion pages.

All the hype around this comes from the three people behind this project. 3 Tech genius with two who is responsible for Google’s search teams. With that pedigree, you must think Cuil is very good.

Now that’s only half the story. In business, your product is only as good as the marketing behind it. And behind Cuil is Manning Selvage & Lee, one of the most respected PR firms in the world (they are part of Publicis). So the marketing buzz you hear about Cuil isn’t there by accident.

So what about the result? Does things rank well? Other then the “Cuil(cool)” design. It’s hard to say without a blind test, but what from my obscure searches done on verticals I’m very familiar with, I have to say of the top 10 results, there is at least one that is very relevent, which is actually saying it’s just as good as any other search engine.

Search is made up of three areas. Spidering, Indexing and Ranking. The first two is easy, big server, smart spiders, lots of investement and you are there. It’s ranking results accuratly thats the hard part. Cuil may index 3 times more pages then Google, but unless those results get ranked accuratly, it’s only use is good PR.

I think the jury is still out on who’s better, but I will give Cuil a chance. Let’s see how well it uses on site relevency to rank the results and see how it compares with user generated results in the future.

Note: About Cuil

(Taken from: http://www.cuil.com/info/news_press/)

Cuil (pronounced COOL) is a search engine that combines the largest Web index with content-based relevance methods, organized results, and complete user privacy. The company’s next generation approach to search is the result of proprietary breakthroughs in search architecture and ranking algorithms. Cuil’s employees have extensive experience in search, having worked at Google, IBM, eBay, AltaVista, Stanford University, the Internet Archive and other technology companies and research centers. Cuil is located in Menlo Park, California and has received series A funding from Tugboat Ventures and Greylock Partners, and series B funding from Madrone Capital Partners. Cuil derives its name from an old Irish word for knowledge, reflecting the background of co-founder and CEO, Tom Costello, who hails from Drogheda, Ireland. For more information, please visit www.cuil.com.

How to Improve the Reception on an Iphone 3G

from wikiHow - The How to Manual That You Can Edit

How to improve the reception on the new Apple iPhone 3G. - No hacking or hardware changed required

Steps

1. Turn on iPhone and check current signal strength
2. Go to “Settings”
3. Tap on “General”
4. Tap on “Network”
5. Under Enable 3G, slide it to “OFF” setting
6. Go back to home screen and wait for 2 mins
7. Check that the signal has improved

Tips

• Great for battery life
• You can easily revert back and enable 3G

Warnings

• 3G will be turned off.
• Only use if you do not required the GPS and 3G surfing speeds

Things You’ll Need

• iPhone 3G

Sources and Citations

• http://www.urbankudos.com/tag/iphone-3g/

Article provided by wikiHow, a collaborative writing project to build the world’s largest, highest quality how-to manual. Please edit this article and find author credits at the original wikiHow article on How to Improve the Reception on an Iphone 3G. All content on wikiHow can be shared under a Creative Commons license.

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Now that I’ve had the iPhone 3G for a weekend, the initial excitment and buzz is dying down. This iPhone honeymoon is passing fast.

The reason for my lack of enthuaism has been caused by some really annoying iPhone 3G features. Here’s the top 5 things that’s really bugged me.

1. Poor signal strength

As mentioned in my initial comparison between iPhone 3G and iPhone 2G, I’ve notice that the 3G version had a significantly worse reception level. This is even more apparent on the weekend when as soon as I’m deep within any building, the signal drops to near zero.

At home, my phone shows 3 bars less signal then the iPhone 2G on the same network. Missing some features may be one thing, but missing calls due to crap signal is really unacceptable.

2. Too fat for my dock

The iPhone 3G is now too fat for my original dock. How am I supposed to show it off to my co-workers now huh?

3. GPS can be slow to pinpoint

Much has already been publicised about the cool GPS feature, but in my tests this weekend, I’ve struggled to get any pin point even when I’m in the heart of London. At the times when I did get a blue dot, it was slow to follow me around and generally gives my location accurate to 50 meters. Are you still impressed?

4. Slow operating system

I’m not sure if everyone else is has noticed this as well, but I’m sure that the new 3G is now much slower then the original. Even when it comes to unlocking, then typing in passcode, then going into contacts and looking for a persons details is far more sluggish then the original.

I hope its just a initial software glitch and will be corrected in the next update.

5. Won’t charge on docks

This issue really bugs me. My iPhone 3G (with iPod functions) won’t charge on any of my docks! I’ve tried it with a Bose ipod dock and a generic speak dock but showing the message: “Charing not supported with this accessory”!

I mean, does that mean I have to buy brand new accessories to support this iPhone? What was Apple thinking when they made this change?

Other issues?

That’s my rant over. Let me know if you have noticed any issues that bug you or annoy you about the iPhone 3G. Or even help defend what is a genuinely great product and perhaps I’m just looking at it in the wrong light. All comments are welcome.

Tis’ the end of the widely anticipated iPhone 3G launch day and as expected O2 and carphone warehouse has run into its predictable shambles of poor delivery and lack of stock.

Despite the reports, I was lucky enough to get my hands on the new iPhone 3G first thing this morning. Happily bouncing into work 1 hour late.

Which iPhone is Which?:

Appearance :

Can you spot the difference? Just on appearance there is very little difference between the two generations of iPhones. You are doing well if you can distinguish which is which from the pictures above. But no one is buying the new iPhone because the first generation is ugly. Don’t change what’s not broken.

Now, what is great about the new iPhone’s design is the curved back. I remember when I first got the iPhone 2G, I was paranoid I will drop it just making calls. Trust me, this slight change has made it feel so much more secure in the hand. I guess I have to retract my earlier comments on design, but Kudos goes out to the iPhone design team again!

Features:

So, going back to the reason why we did buy the new iPhone: Great new features. - Well things are looking promising. Surfing at 3G really makes a huge difference. I keep looking around wondering which Wifi network I stumbled onto.

The maps now have a little blue dot that moves across the screen as I move across London. The Accelerometer feels more responsive. The voicemail manager screen is so helpful. The screen is definitely much sharper. I even installed the Facebook App which is another promising feature.

Still, with all the new bells and whistles you may have to forgive Apple for missing their core feature: The phone bit. Now, let me know if anyone else has the same issue with Poor signal strength. Throughout the day, I’ve had both phones side by side and the iPhone 3G always has 2-3 bars of signal less then the original iPhone, both on the same network!

(3G iPhone on the left with 3 bars, Original iPhone on the right - Full strength)

*Update: My 5 Hates of the new iPhone

Summary:

Although the iPhone 3G is great and all, right now, to me right now, its only a promising potential. My hacked iPhone 2G still has more functions, more cool apps and best of all I get them all for free. The biggest challenge for the new iPhone 3G is it’s predecessor. There’s lots to live up to!