For a few weeks now I’ve been trying out the Winzy search engine [referral]. Thanks to my friend at makeyougohmm.com. It’s a search ’site’ I’ll call it, powered by ask.com. The search is not very powerful, but the site awards you points for searching. The points can earn you an ipod, or a chance at winning money.
This morning on the drive to work I heard the owner of yet another search engine that’s out there.ChaCha Search(Beta). After a few rounds with it, I’d have to say it’s not too shabby. The returned search results are more than what ask would offer with an added side bonus. You can chat with a ’search specialist’ who will help return more relevant results for your search. They’re called ChaCha guides.
According to the ChaCha guide on becoming a guide, you must be invited by a master ChaCha guide. The page also states “Our Guides earn between $5-10 per search hour based on performance.” Wow! They even have a flexible schedule….
”
- Get deep access to the ChaCha Underground community to meet other ChaCha Guides like you!
- Get paid to do something you like (help people in areas that interest you).
- Participate whenever you want. Your ChaCha Guide schedule is flexible – it’s 100% up to you.
- Be a celebrity! Share your knowledge with the world and be recognized.
- Climb to the top of the ChaCha Guide rankings and build your ChaCha Network to maximize your success.
”
I’m not quite sure of the ‘celebrity’ role. I tried out the chat option while searching for something that returned many possible different results. I chatted with a guide who hung with me while she popped relevant results into my canvas. Along the way she asked me if the results were relevant. Basically she was checking to see if she was warmer or colder. She pretty much got the results I was looking for.
I’m quite pleased with both the results the engine returns on it’s own as well as the chat option. It’s nice when you arent sure what your looking for and can’t get your query just right. Although I must say that I’m pretty savvy myself. I’m a bit curious if I could become a guide and I’m looking more into it.
Search Engine, Search, ChaCha, Internet, Beta
In the past I’ve purchased several types of DVD-R’s. Some have worked, and for some strange reason other DVD-R’s haven’t performed the same. Some wouldn’t get read by my recorder at all. In a hurry to keep the part number for future reference, I accidently grabbed just the UPC code and nothing else.
Upon searching for this part I came across Internet UPC Database. The site is actually a hobby of it’s creator. It allows users to register, logon, and add UPC’s all the time to it’s database. The site claims to have begun it’s work in 1999 so it’s database is pretty full. As of this entry the total items entered were at 839,904. You can view the rest of the stats at their site.
Sure enough I found the product’s information I was looking for right away. What I wonder is how the information is validated. Since there is only a guideline on the data entry.
upc
I’ve recently reformatted my computer and started missing my favorite dev tools. In an attempt to record them, I can also share them with others.
A list of my current favorite web tools…
Text Editor:
Compression Utility:
- IZARC – IMO, better than winzip
Localhost Server (Apache/mySQL):
- Wamp – Run an Apache web server on your PC. You can configure it to run or not run on startup. It also includes mySQl and a few php extensions.
Firefox extensions:
- measureit – Measure pixels right on your screen.
- colorzilla – Grab colors off of web pages, zoom, and built in color picker.
- web developer – CSS, XHTML, Screen resize, line guides, disable styles and much much more.
- firebug – A great tool especially for pages created in php. You may have 100 lines of code before the html begins. This helps you debug xhtml issues on “line 12″ which is actually line 112. Works well with included php files as well.
IE Explorer Add On:
- IE Dev Toolbar(For IE Similar to Firebug)
Tools, Dev, Developer, Dev Tools
There’s one thing that not only annoys me, but makes me worry a bit. Any services that are offered at an online service. In this case it’s a hotmail issue. I was in the middle of an intense, time sensitive email conversation, where we were mailing back and forth. I was notified of the new mail and…
AGHHHH!!!
I’ve been leaning a bit on del.icious.us lately a bit too much for comfort too. What happens if the server there gets “too busy”, goes down, or worse yet – decides to completely shut down and remove itself from the web?
What web services do you rely on? What services are you leary of?
A nice surprise this morning when I logged into my google home page. My RSS feeds had a new feature. They now include a little + symbol indicating that there is more to read on the feed. It gives you the first few lines of the feed. Pretty cool…
