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Remindr is an easy to use, quick and efficient way to remind yourself of tasks, appointments and things to do which you wouldn’t want to forget. It’s a simple idea, it is useful, and it works! Which is more than I can say about several of the web applications running around these days.

It was developed by Getalime as an entry to the Rails Rumble 2008 contest, which is an annual competition for web applications programmed in Ruby on Rails.

You simply tell it what you want to be reminded of, when, and how. Reminders can be sent as e-mail, mobile text message, or to your jabber or twitter account.

Remindr has earned a place in my list of favorite web applications, and you can try it out and see for yourself by visiting here. No registration required, and it’s free.

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The CouchSurfing project is one of the most clever ideas I’ve been introduced to lately. Of course CouchSurfing has been around for about 5 years now, it just took a while until the news reached me.

This is an online community of travelers who offer and request free accommodation to and from other members. Which essentially means if you plan to travel to Rome, there is probably a fellow CouchSurfing member with an extra bed or couch you can crash on.

Quite unconventional way of traveling, skeptics might say. Having browsed through several member profiles and reading through testimonials of people who have chosen to travel this way, I am convinced “unconventional” is not bad at all.

This international hospitality exchange is catching on so fast, there are members in practically every corner of the world.

Many hosts may take the time to show you around their hometown, or give you insider’s advice on the best things to do and see while there. And whether you’re hosting or surfing other people’s couches, you will be a part of a vibrant, multicultural, community of world travelers.

CouchSurfing operates as a non-profit organization, with a worldwide reach, and has several safety measures and advice in place for members. You can read more about the project, and how it works by visiting their website here.

I’m not saying this type of globe trotting is for everyone, and I really would not recommend it when it comes down to planning your honeymoon, but it now has my attention and I’ll be telling everyone about it when the conversation rotates around traveling.

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Happy New Year! It’s 2009, Year of the Ox according to the Chinese zodiac cycle, and maybe – just maybe it’ll be a better year for humanity. With less war, more money, a healthier environment and an improved quality of life for all. The new year signals a few changes for AllEver.com as well. With a renewed will to blog – there should be posts quite more often which you’ll hopefully find interesting, entertaining and of practical use. So stay tuned, and have a wonderful new year!

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The unfortunate events in South Ossetia, Georgia over the past few days have brought the Olympic Truce to mind. During the Ancient Olympic games, a universal truce was observed between all participating city-states. Once the commencement of the Olympic Truce was announced, every participant to the Olympic Games had to abide by the rules. All conflicts, wars and even death penalty executions were put on hold. The primary reason being guaranteeing safe passage for all athletes to Olympia, and respecting the sanctity of the games.

If a participating city-state would engage in any conflict and violate the truce, they were given stiff fines and forbidden from competing in the games. Something which was considered a big disgrace.

There is a modern movement created to uphold the Olympic Truce. The United Nations have adopted the “Olympic Truce Resolution” for the Beijing 2008 games. Yet we see two of the countries competing in the games at this moment, Georgia and Russia, engaging in military conflicts over land disputes in South Ossetia.

A land dispute which has been ongoing for more than 15 years, since Ossetian separatists started a fight for independence from Georgia in 1991-1992.

And for some reason, it had to escalate to armed conflicts over innocent civilians now, during the Olympic Games. Of course, I am not saying that should problems arise a country should just be “non-violent” and not defend it’s sovereignty.The political agenda here seems to be far more complicated and sinister in this case. Both parts could have tried diplomacy before waging war on one another. That did not happen. It was a “fight first, and then make pleas for sympathy to our cause to the international community”.

There should be more education on what the Olympic Truce is about, and nations need to start respecting it again. If we cannot respect and uphold peace for a couple of weeks every four years, what kind of civilization is this we’re supposed to have produced for ourselves. How hostile and unstable modern society has become?

I can only hope these conflicts will soon seize, and that the two countries will follow the example of their athletes and reconcile.

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Most talks in Tech town since yesterday are sure to include a mention to Cuil. Pronounced “cool”, a newly launched search engine, built and founded by former Google employees. Cuil claims to be indexing more of the web than any of its rivals, including Google. It also promises an innovative approach to searching, unlike any other engines out there.

Cuil co-founders Anna Patterson, Louis Monier and Russell Power are clearly set out to take on their former employer, Google. Although Cuil’s technology may very well be able to do that – I don’t quite understand all the “look at me, I can do it better than Google” approach. Read this for instance. When you start typing a search term in Cuil, auto-complete sets in suggesting possible search terms. It can even suggest a direct website link. This is described on Cuil as “We let you look before you leap, because not everyone feels lucky.”, an obvious reference to Google’s “I Feel Lucky” search button directing you to the most likely possible match of your search to a website. It’s a little funny, not in a bad way though.

Getting passed the “I want Google’s head on a platter” hype, Cuil does seem promising. They claim to have new search architecture and algorithms in place which will provide for better, more relevant results. Twiceler, the search engine’s spider is set out to crawl every page on the World Wide Web. Already indexing more than 121 billion web pages. Popularity will not be the main factor of assessing a web page’s relevance to a search term. Their deeper content analysis Cuil says will provide for better results.

Another aspect of searching with Cuil which sets it apart from competitors is Privacy. Very simply put in their own words “when you search with Cuil, we do not collect any personally identifiable information, period. We have no idea who sends queries: not by name, not by IP address, and not by cookies”. Several competing search engines, store users’ web search history on their servers, claiming it helps them provide more relevant content. Cuil does not.

Venturing from the simple search box at the front page of Cuil to the results display, the user interface is unlike most you’ve grown to expect when you search the web. Instead of the conventional list style results, you get 3 columns by default, which can be switched to 2. For each resulting web page, there is a title, some of the contained text, and a picture. A format you’d most likely expect at News websites displaying their articles.

An “Explore by Category” box on the top-right, allows for quick searches on other subjects belonging in categories your current search is also listed in. Tabs on the top of the page provide quick switches to other relevant results.

Another thing that caught my attention though, is Cuil uses e-mail. I mean there are no forms there, besides the search form. If you want your website included in their index, you have to send them e-mail! If you want to inquire about employment, send feedback, make questions, just send them e-mail! They even use the same e-mail addresses to accept feedback on different issues, which means they actually have to read the messages instead of automating actions and replies. Impressive.

Still Google does continue to claim it indexes more on the web than Cuil, without revealing any numbers. And many users point out Google continues to offer more search results for the same search terms. Considering Cuil launched just yesterday, I think we all ought to wait a while and see. It may just be a bit to early to provide any constructive criticism.

Has anyone been using Cuil lately? I’d like to hear what you think of it!

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