Orangeinks

Create a Flash-Based Website Online Using Wix

Wix is an online application that you can use to create and publish Flash-based websites without any programming knowledge. I was very curious to see what they are offering and when I got an invitation from the Wix team to test the app, I immediately took the plunge.

The Wix Editor is a flash based drag and drop tool which makes it easier for anyone to add, remove and arrange objects in the webpage project. Adding a page element like buttons and borders can be done in just a couple of clicks. Adding a new page and linking them together will not require you to place href codes, you can just click the image of the page you want an object to link to. Linking to an external page however will require you to place the URL of the external link, which is the only coding part of the website making process that you will ever encounter when using Wix.

Different forms of media like videos (from YouTube), music and pictures (from Flickr, Wix or your hard drive) can be easily inserted in the project. Widgets like photo albums, media player and mini pages are also available as enhancements. What is even more interesting in the editor is that the editing is not only limited to using the buttons and menus in Wix. You can also use keyboard shortcuts like Ctrl+X for cut and Ctrl+V for paste and other keyboard shortcuts. The right click mouse button can also be used when editing which is rarely seen in flash based applications. There is no undo function so one must be careful in deleting elements, instead use the cut command.

Once you have completed a website or a page, you can choose to publish it publicly which will be available to the Wix community and will be indexed by search engine or you can choose the private mode. An embed code is also provided so that you can place your work in social sites and blogs. You can also use the email option which can be useful if you to use the flash page for marketing or company brochures.

In conclusion, Wix is a powerful web app which can do wonders for anyone who wants to create a website without going to the process of coding. The user friendly and eyecandy user interface makes website design an enjoyable experience. The service is still in private beta and If you want to check out the cool app, just visit their site and sign up for an invitation. Check out a simple website that I made using Wix. I have provided an embedded version below. Check out the full size here.

Free Flash Websites – Wix.com

Tags: flash, web application, web search engine, website, wix, wix editor, You Tube

Powerset: The Natural Language Search Engine

How many times have you searched Google or Yahoo using a phrase or a sentence and returned a search result of a page with just a bunch of keywords related to your search and not the real context that you want? Sometimes you’ll end up browsing the second or third page of the search results just to find what you are really looking for. This is why most people agree that the Google page ranking system is losing its relevance. Given this, most people still use the first page of Google search results as their primary resource of information. Low ranking pages with relevant content still loses the battle in the page ranking system Google has devised. Google’s reliance on keywords in their search algorithm doesn’t entirely mean that all the search results they are providing are totally irrelevant. Sometimes it just takes more time to find what you are really looking for in the Google search pages, especially for novice and average users.

Soon, a new search engine called Powerset will emerge and will change how people search the web.  Powerset is a natural language search company that is building a transformative (learning) consumer search engine. Unlike traditional keyword search that only indexes the keywords that appear on a page, Powerset indexes the meaning of the sentences in each page. By matching the meaning of the query against the meaning of sentences in their index, Powerset promises to often return better, more accurate results and even return results that aren’t possible with traditional keyword search.

The Powerset technology is still under development and there is no official launch date yet. If you must try it out, you can register for an invitation in PowerLabs, a community where users can interact with demonstrations of Powerset’s technolog. You can try out their Wiki Search Sneak Peek demo. It offers you a chance to play with an early application of Powerset’s technology based on an index of Wikipedia. You can also take part and give feedback to help improve their natural language indexing, and suggest ideas for the ideal search engine. This is another great example of user interaction towards the development of new technologies and products.

Tags: Google, google search powerset, search-engine, searching, web search engine, Yahoo

Stumpedia: The Social Powered Search Engine

Stumpedia is a human powered search engine that relies on participation from its members to index, organize and review the information found in the internet. Users can participate by sharing their knowledge and interests with one another and provide an alternative to search engines that are powered by bots and algorithms.

Page ranking is totally human generated and will depend on votes/rating made by the members. Think Google search results combined with Digg rating. Whenever a search is made the results with the most votes will appear first. In the image that I have provided (below), I searched using the keyword “google” and it displayed Sphinn on top of the Google homepage. This is the result of more people voting for Sphinn rather than Google and you will see thumbs down votes for Google itself. This is how human interaction can totally affect the search results for Stumpedia. It is totally up to the members to properly vote in order for the search engine to work properly.

I emailed the Stumpedia team and asked a question regarding the prevention of spam in their service and got a quick reply from Luis Pereira, Founder & CEO of Stumpedia.

How do you protect Stumpedia from being infiltrated by spammers and spam sites?

Presently we’re leaving it up to the community to handle spam submissions by voting down irrelevant results. We’re also monitoring activity and are prepared to take action if spam becomes a problem. Banning people that spam, removing spammy results, etc, are all options we are open to.

Another feature of Stumpedia is the instant answer feature where anybody can ask a question and get an instant answer from real people (members of Stumpedia). You can also participate in answering questions by downloading their widget. This feature is slightly similar to the Mosio service which provides answers from its users through the use of text messages, email and IM’s. The only difference is that most of the questions asked in Stumpedia are link or website related.

Founder and CEO Luis Pereira also mentioned some of the features that they are adding to the Stumpedia service.

Some future stuff in the works include:

a.. Users will have the ability to import and share their social bookmarks, making them easily searchable using the Stumpedia search feature. Imported bookmarks would be ranked using their Social Rank algorithm and their associated tags would become search engine friendly. For example, tags such as “search engines,” “search_engines,” “search-engines,” and “searchengines” would be considered one in the same and produce the same search results.

b.. Social bookmarking features similar to del.icio.us will be added.

c.. Additional social networking features such as adding/inviting friends and sharing link submissions are in the works.

d.. A feature that ranks and scores activity of members.

e.. Future submission sections for news, videos, and images will be added.

Human Interaction is always important for social networking services. In a service like Stumpedia, a certain degree of responsibility among the members is the key essential in order for the service to be a success. People will want and expect accurate search results from the search engine (which is what everybody expects from any search engine). It will be up to the community to to manage the results through responsible linking and voting. Stumpedia is an interesting service and if you want to help it grow by registering your blogs and favorite websites, head over to the site right now and start Stumpin.

Tags: answers, Google, human generated, mosio, pagerank, questions, search-engine, social bookmarking, stumpedia, web search engine, website

Ecocho: The Green Search Engine

Ecocho is an eco-friendly search engine that promises to grow up to two trees for every 1000 searches made using their site. The green search engine team claims that using Ecocho will not alter or slow down their search. It allows you to search between two search engine giants (Google and Yahoo) who have given their support to the Ecocho project.

A thousand searches on Ecocho allow us to buy enough carbon offset credits to remove 1 ton of CO2 from the atmosphere. This works out at two trees spending a year sucking CO2 from the atmosphere as they grow, which makes us very happy.

Ecocho aims to contribute seventy percent (70%) of their revenue back into carbon offset credits, for the growth of trees. The carbon credits are provided by Global Carbon Exchange (GCX) and KPMG. If you want to help Ecocho in saving the environment, be sure to make your searches using their website. You can also add the Ecocho search bar to your sites by copying the codes which can be found here.

Tags: carbon cycle, carbon offset, ecocho, environment, Google, search-engine, web search engine, website, Yahoo