Good question.  I originally found the word while researching a name for a company my friend Alex and I were going to set up.  We were going to create a web site that would scan a computer for vulnerabilities and help the user to fix the problems.  We wanted a name that would have meaning to our core business.  We started off with easy to remember English words, but we found the domain names had already been registered.  We decided to change languages, so I went looking for a word in the language I was currently learning, Gaelic.  I found anacail.  In Gaelic it means defend or shield.  Perfect!  That's what we were trying to help users do to their computers.  We went with it.

So we worked.  Alex is a gifted graphic designer and site designer and he jumped right in creating the site.  I'm more of a systems guy, so I started to work on hooking Nessus into the site.  Creating an API for Alex to control Nessus from web pages, and modifying the Nessus reports to look good on our site.  Then reality interfered.  I got too busy working for the Leviathan of Redmond and Alex got swamped at his day job at Workflow.com.  The whole dot-bomb implosion put a damper on our grandiose plans as well.

So this is what's left - a domain name and a bunch of unused code to do something too many other companies are doing a piss-poor job of.  It reminds me of an Affordable Floors song called All the things I meant to be.

With the turn of the new year, I'm looking forward to better days.  May they be better for all of us.

Cheers,
m²