Without question Yahoo and Google offer powerful tools for searching the 'net.

However, alternatives exist!

Check this out: http://sortuv.com/

In their own words, "Sortuv (sort of) lets you search on that mental picture."

Does it work?

Hmmm... when I searched on 1TB Hard Drive I recieved a mixed bag of results relating to drive-in theaters, restaurants, cafes, and musical acts.

I was hoping to find a price on a One Terrabyte Hard Drive. Oh well.

I also tried wrapping the text in quotes: "1 TB Hard Drive". The search blew up:

I got hungry during all my searching and decided to look for food; I searched on the phrase pizza 45255 (no quotes).

The result was a set of 10 restaurants, each with with "pizza" in their name. However, none of the joints were anywhere near the 45255 zip code. They were scattered all over the United States; New Jersey, New York, Wisconsin, and Washington.

These days I do expect a search engine to be 'smart' enough to identify a zip code in a search phrase.

Admittedly this is a very small sample set. The site has many more features to offer that I haven't mentioned here. On the other hand, you only get one chance to make a first impression.

Any new search technology is refreshing. Google and Yahoo are powerful, but predictable. If you're wiling to experiment a little, visit sortuv.com and see what you can find.

Let us know what you think!