 Number 211a - Year End 2000 |
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| Got to find it, Part-II | ||
| By Mark West, Tokyo PCUG | ||
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This month I continue my review of computer-based search engines and cover some of the more powerful programs. As the chart below [bottom of page] shows, there are many similarities between these programs. A brief explanation of the categories that I used will help you to understand the chart.
Search Categories: If there is a check here, you can add your own category or there are preset categories that can be used to narrow your search. The categories often include entertainment, books, jobs, kids and more. You can specify which engine to search in each category. Advanced Search: This allows you to specify what to search for and how to search. All had the option of using a boolean expression "red + apple", exact phrase "red apple" or all words. Multi-Engines: The program searches more than one based engine per pass. Some allow you to add sites and these are marked with an S. The others are updated by the company. Other than web: These programs allowed searches of news groups, FTP sites and more. Summary: This is a report on the individual sites that the search program returns. Each vary in the amount of details given. Most save the summary for later use. Duplicate Removal: When the search results are duplicated, the program automatically removes the duplicates. Tutorial: Some of these programs have complex fea-tures. An in-depth tutorial is included to help explain how to use the features and can be a big help. Integrated: This indicates that the program can put a button on your browser so you can access the program from the browser. EZ Search has a nice, user friendly GUI (Graphical User Interface). It looks like an extension of Windows. The summary is a couple of lines and self-contained. Infoquest is one of the two programs that support multiple languages. The summary includes the title of the web site, a one line summary and URL. The search entry is very thorough and you can also select the level of search. |
Ferret is a group of seven programs; Web, Info, IRC, File, News, E-mail and Phone. This program has the widest group of searches of any that I list. The interface is simple and you can save the search results as a separate file. The description of the link is very short. One nice feature is the Ferret's appearance within the find menu under the start menu.
Mata Hari is for the serious searcher. The interface is very basic but you can do multiple queries, set filters and limit the time spent looking for information as well as the engines searched. My favorite feature of Mata Hari is the search progress details screen. This is a real time read out of the total pages searched, including failed and accepted sites. The summary is the first page of the web site. It's viewer displays native HTML code so it can be a little confusing but you just double click to move the page to your browser. Search Spider is similar to Mata Hari in many of it's features. Spider is the other multiple language program. The search results are saved as an HTML file, a feature that I liked. The summary is quite extensive. This eliminates the need to load the web page to determine if it really contains the desired information. There is a search wizard to walk you through setting up a query. The help function is weak and is HTML based. One of the few things that Microsoft did right is their help engine. I saved my favorite for last, Web Compass. Web Compass uses a search wizard to set up your search. This is the only one on the list where you can add your own sites to search. The summary is the best, there is a several line paragraph that describes the content of the web site. The last three programs, I could have written a complete article on each. There are several features that I did not have room to cover here. You can find most of these programs at www.download.com. The Ferrets are at www.zdnet.com I used the Ferret programs more than any of the others. All of the programs reviewed worked through the proxy sever that I have. I hope that this will help speed up your navigation and information gathering on the Web. See you at the meeting, until then Happy Computing.
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Number 211a - Year End 2000