Gigablast is the latest search engine to launch a toolbar for your browser. At first glance it seems rather Spartan when compared with other toolbars such as Yahoo’s and Google’s but it does have two unique and very useful features: search the sites linked from the current page and search the sites in your bookmarks. Unfortunately it is only available for IE at present. There is a plugin for Firefox users at http://mycroft.mozdev.org/download.html?name=gigablast&submitform=Find+search+plugins but this only adds Gigablast as an option to the built in search box.
Dogpile Adds MSN
Meta search tool Dogpile had added MSN to its collection of search engine. It now searches Google, Yahoo, Ask Jeeves and MSN all at the same time. You can compare three search tools at a time using Dogpile’s new Search Comparison and see how much overlap there is between them in the first 20 results.
When you run a web search, as well as combining and removing the duplicates from the results Dogpile automatically shows you the Top 12 from Google and Yahoo side by side on the right hand side of the screen. Unique results are highlighted. You can close these boxes or add columns for MSN and Ask Jeeves by clicking on the relevant icons.
In addition to web meta search Dogpile has an images search (Yahoo and Ditto), audio (Yahoo and Singingfish), video (Yahoo and Singingfish) and a News option (Yahoo, Topix News, Fox News, ABCNews). Interestingly, Google and MSN are omitted from the images and news meta search.
The Yellow and White Pages search covers the US only.
Aroq – Industry and Market Research
This is a gateway to Aroq’s four industry specific sites: just-drinks.com, just-food.com, just- auto.com and just-style.com. All four pull together news and market research in their particular sector. The market research comes from a wide range of suppliers and can be purchased online. The news is free and each of the sites have excellent blogs commenting on events in their sector. RSS feeds of the news headlines and the blogs are available.
Tales from the Terminal Room, June 2005 – Issue No. 63
Tales from the Terminal Room, June 2005 – Issue No. 63
The latest issue of Tales from the Terminal Room is now available. If you are a Google Desktop Search fan, you might be interested in the article “That darn Google Desktop cache“
EUROPA site – VAT number validation
Update 20 April 2011: This service has now moved to http://ec.europa.eu/taxation_customs/vies/vieshome.do
If you are VAT registered and trading with companies based in the EU, this site enables you to verify the validity of a company’s VAT number. Select the Member State from the drop-down menu and enter the number to be validated.
Yahoo! Desktop Search Beta
Yahoo has updated its Desktop Search and now supports Thunderbird email. Although previous versions of YDS did index and search Thunderbird files you had to search them under the “All files” category. Now you can chose just “Email”. The number of file types supported in the main program has been considerably reduced, though. If you want the full range of 300+ file types you have to install the expansion pack.
For me, Yahoo Desktop is still by far the best with Copernic’s offering coming second.
Google Toolbar for Firefox
Google has at last launched a version of its toolbar for Firefox. It seems to have all the features of the IE version but appears to be missing several of the “special” searches that are incorporated into the separately developed Googlebar, such as Scholar, Print, Video, Dictionary and Glossary Search. Googlebar is also experimenting with adding Google Labs “Google Suggests” into the toolbar, although the version I tried froze on occasion.
I shall stay with Googlebar for the time being.
Gigablast Launches Blog Search
Gigablast Launches Blog Search
Gigablast has added a blog search to its home page covering nearly 16.5 million pages. I have not had time to test it thoroughly and compare results with tools such as Feedster and Technorati, but it seems worth adding to my blog search toolkit. There are the same advanced search features as in the web search and the usual Giga Bits that suggest related terms and searches to add to your strategy. For example, I typed in ‘climate change peak oil’ and it came up with quite a lengthy list including ‘oil production peak’, ‘oil depletion’, ‘action on climate change’. You click on a suggestion and it adds it to your existing search string. I find this a very quick and easy way of coming up with different pages of results on a topic.
Search Strategies for the Internet: Search Tools Summary and Comparison
Search Strategies for the Internet: Search Tools Summary and Comparison
An updated version of the comparison chart covering Yahoo, Google, Exalead, MSN, Giigablast and Teoma is now available as an HTML file and as a PDF.
I’ve given up trying to restrict it to just one page. There are so many search engine features that are worth mentioning that it now fills two pages.
SPG Media RSS Feeds and Industry Web Sites
This is a really neat site from UK based SPG Media. RSS news feeds, compiled from news sources world-wide, are organised by sector for example energy, telecoms, transportation. The emphasis is on technologies and the companies that supply them. Feeds are available as both ATOM and RSS.
In addition to the news feeds, there are 28 sector specific technology web sites. Each site provides information on industry projects in production or under development, an A-Z company index of contractors and suppliers, a catalogue of companies by product or service, a diary of relevant exhibitions and conferences, and a list of industry organisations.