Yahoo! Translates it a little better!

In my previous post I talked about Altavista Babelfish (owned by Yahoo!). Today the weblog of Yahoo! announced that they have extended their excising translation service. The result is Yahoo! Babelfish. At the first sight it seems to be exactly the same as AltaVista Babelfish. Nevertheless there are four differences:

• The amount of translation possibilities is extended to 38: simplified Chinese to Traditional Chinese and Traditional Chinese to Simplified Chinese are included.
• After translated the text, you can directly search the web with the text translated.
• Yahoo! is working to make simultaneously searching on the web possible between different languages (Yahoo! Deutschland and Yahoo! France are offering this function in a test stage).
• The translation service is integrated in the Yahoo! Toolbar. With one push on a button, websites can be translated.

Probably that AltaVista is now indeed history for me…..

Translating with AltaVista

Gradually most people will have forgotten AltaVista by now. For those people, I will fresh up their memory. AltaVista was in the middle of the 90’ the most popular and most used search engine on the World Wide Web. Around 2000 AltaVista lost his power, because Google became stronger and stronger. In 2003 Overture acquired AltaVista. In the same year Yahoo! on his turn acquired Overture.

Despite AltaVista is hardly used anymore, I have found that one functionality can still be of use.

Occasionally I come across (parts of) English or other foreign articles which I have difficulties with to translate. Sometimes this irritates me a little, till I encountered Altavista Babelfish. This service provides people the opportunity to translate sentences, parts of text and even entire web pages to English, Dutch, French and other languages. Sometimes the quality of the translated text leaves to be desired. But quite often it helps me to understand foreign text better. This translation service is also available via de search service of Yahoo!.

Google offers also translation functionality. For me a big disadvantage is that the Dutch language isn’t included. That’s why AltaVista still isn’t entirely history for me.

DMOZ versus Librarians’ Internet Index

On the World Wide Web I encounter many web guides. In fairness I must say that I don’t make much use of these information sources. Oftentimes I type (as many people do) a few search terms in Google, after which I think by myself: surprise me! But what if you want to orientate yourself widely on a certain subject? And where you at the same time don’t want too many quality poor search results? Then web guides (or directories) are a better solution. There are two web guides where I occasionally take a look in: The Open Directory Project (ODP) and the Librarians' Internet Index (LLI).

There are big differences between both web guides. The ODP is in the possession of 5 million indexed sites, which is very big. This can be explained by the fact that thousands of volunteers all over the world are updating this index. Everybody has the opportunity to become an editor. Editors can judge and add applied websites.

On the contrary, the LLI is updated by a select group of librarians. Because of that, this web guide is much smaller then the ODP. An advantage of the LLI is that you are ensured that the provided content is of a good quality.

I’m a fan of both web guides. The ODP because of its big index and the LLI because of its high quality content.

Google also loves music!

It’s already clear to me that Google offers many search functionalities. However, I didn’t know that people can also search specifically on albums and songs. This function seems to be a little bit hidden in the global service. By typing in the general search bar (of Google) the name of an artist, then at the top of the list will appear a picture with a link named: "more results for…". By clicking on this link you will be directed to Google’s music search service. Another possibility to get there, is by typing the following URL in your browser: http://www.google.com/musicsearch.

Next, (If you haven’t done it yet) you can type the name, song or album of an artist in the search bar of the Google music search service. For example, you do a search for “U2”. After that you can declare if you want to see all found songs, all found albums or both. Besides viewing information about albums, lyrics, pictures, reviews and artists, you also can be pointed to multiple online music shops to buy your chosen album. For the music lover it’s certainly worth a try!

Search specific with Google

Is it possible to search more targeted directly from the start page of Google? The answer on this question is affirmative! It is not necessary anymore to consult the advanced search options. Curious at the explanation?

Think of the next situation: you are searching for tips about web design. In Google you type the following search query: "allintitle: tips 'web design' ". Afterwards, Google shows results where the words “tips” and “web design” only comes up in the title (title tag) of the document. In this way, you will catch those documents where your search subject is centralized.

Other examples are:

• Searching in only the URL of the page (allinurl)
• Searching in only the body of the page (allintext)
• Searching in only the links to the page (allinanchor)

It’s not only possible to search at the place of a word in a specific part in a document. It’s also possible to search at the type of document. For example: the search query "filetype:pdf tips web design" helps you to find documents about web design in PDF format. Also you can find other types of documents such as PowerPoint (ppt), word (doc), Adobe Postscript (ps), Excell (xls) and Rich Text Format (rtf)

Blooks; A new rage?

I didn’t know what blooks where about, until this afternoon someone paid my attention on it. Because of this I conducted further research, and encountered the website aboutblooks.com. This website provides the following definition: "a blook is a printed and bound book, based on a blog". This definition speaks in my opinion for itself. According to Wikipedia, a weblog in the shape of a book can also be considered as a blook.

De term "Blook" is introduced by Jeff Jarvis. He invented this name as a title for the first book that was based on a weblog. This book was written by Tony Pierce, who had organised a competition to come up with a title. That’s why many people think that Tony Pierce has invented this term. Afterwards, it is known that this is not true.

Some people are scared or believe that “the blook” could be the first impulse of the disappearance of the paper book. This seems a little bit exaggerated to me, because blooks can also be published in paper. Besides that, I think it’s more comfortable for people to read a book based on paper (just as me).

The website lulu.com makes in a clever manner use of this new rage. She provides everyone the possibility to create, publish and sell their own books (and other multimedia stuff). Also you can buy work of other people. They’ve even invented the first literal award for blooks: The Lulu blooker Prize!

Ask Encyclopedia; Everything in one

When I want to know something about certain subjects or persons, I look at the online encyclopaedia “Wikipedia”. In spite of my satisfaction about this source of information, I know since today that there is another possibility to find such kind of information: Ask Encyclopedia.

Ask encyclopedia passes several online encyclopaedias by, after a given search query. Among them are Wikipedia, MSN Encarta, Houghton Mifflin en Columbia. Often the most direct result (with picture) appears at the top of the result list. Sometimes it seems that some ordinary web results are themselves among the encyclopaedia results, which provides some noise.

The great advantage of Ask Encyclopedia is that this service is searching multiple sources at once. Also sources where the information has a high level of reliability. Wikipedia could sometimes be the opposite. This source provides anybody the opportunity to conduct their own articles. This could be harmful for the reliability.

Google Scholar; Ideal for finding scientific Information

The day before yesterday I mentioned the site Findarticles, as a good option for finding free articles. Now I have found another source: “Google Scholar”!

This service provides access to materials of different scientific disciplines. Many of these articles can be viewed in PDF and HTML format. Also you can see which other materials have cited the concerning article. In this way, you could apply the “snow ball method “for your desk research. Finally, the advanced search options make it possible to search on auteur, publication, date and subject area.

For me, Google Scholar is a service to keep in mind, when it comes to finding scientific information.

Google Calendar; Google’s new toy

While I was surfing the World Wide Web, my attention was called to a new service delivered by Google: “Google Calendar”. I couldn’t help, to have an overall look at it.

I encountered that people can add multiple calendars. This means that you can have a particular calendar for your sport club, school or for your housekeeping work. You can share these calendars with other people, where you can define the different access rights.

Also there is a possibility to automatically send invitations and commemorations. You can receive these by e-mail or SMS. Besides de earlier-mentioned functionalities, Google Calendar offers more possibilities. However, I haven’t looked at this further to.

The service is still in the béta stage. Therefore, the usefulness of this service still has to be proved.

FindArticles

Most of the time desk research is part of a graduation assignment. Also in my case desk research played an important role. At my search at quality articles about Content Management, I consulted different newspaper and magazine databases. To access these databases I had to pay. Because I’m only a student, I asked myself if there were no other (free) possibilities available. I found out that those possibilities are truly there!

I ran up against the website Findarticles, which is part of LookSmart. This website provides access to free articles and turned out to be a useful information resource to go into a certain subject.

Definitions; It can happen easily

Everybody is searching for a certain definition or meaning of a word sometimes. Google offers a solution for this kind of information need. Actually, I know it quite a while, but I think it’s nice to mention it on my weblog. For my school task (I’m about to graduate) I wanted to know, what the definition is of “CMS”, short for Content Management System. I typed the following search query in Google: "definition CMS". At the top of the search results list, a distinctive link appeared which pointed to several definitions. Quite handy, I must say. It’s important to track the source of the definition because not every source has the same level of reliability. If there aren’t any definitions in your desired language available, you can choose a different language (English, Dutch, German, and French).

The starting point of Weblog "Peragro Versutia"

Hi!

This is the official starting point of my weblog "Peragro Versutia". These are two words in Latin, which have the following meanings: "searching through" and “smartness”. These words tell us what this weblog is all about.

Frequently I encounter many sources and search techniques, which are pretty new to me. Many people have only eye for Google, which they even don’t use fully. That’s why I started this weblog, which on the one hand is a good information source for myself, and on the other hand could help other people to find their way on the World Wide Web more easily.

I hope you will enjoy it!


R.H. Meijer