Dot be scared from the title its not a scam. Microsoft Corporation has launched a campaign called “SearchPerks” where you start earning tickets towards exciting prizes whenever you search the Web, oh did i mentione that the lines “whenever you search the web” actually means “whenever you search the web using Microsoft Live Search, on a Microsoft Windows using a Microsoft IE6 or above”.

So whats the fuss about, well SearchPerks is a short lived campaign by Microsoft where they are making an effort to study how the users use the search engine to search the web, sort of lab rat experiment that’s what i get out of it so far. (more…)

In the January 2008 analysis of the Top 50 properties worldwide where search activity is observed, Google Sites led with 7.7 billion searches. Yahoo! Sites ranked second with nearly 2.5 billion searches, followed by Microsoft Sites (1.1 billion), and AOL LLC (903 million).

Google Sites marginally extended its share of core searches to 58.5 percent. Yahoo! Sites ranked second with 22.2 percent, followed by Microsoft Sites (9.8 percent), AOL LLC (4.9 percent), and Ask Network (4.5 percent).

Have you ever received a file and want to open it but unable to find what extension it is ? Which tool to use to open the file, well i have and it usually happens, you try to use the option search the internet to find out and still the information provided by the internet is no good as you really dont want to know what the extension is about rather you want to know which software should i use to open the file.

So now make your life easier try FilExt.com :

What is FilExt ?
FILExt is a database of file extensions and the various programs that use them. If you know the file extension you want to learn about simply enter it into the search box on the left and click on the Search button. If it’s in any of the FILExt databases the data we have on that file extension will be shown on a results page. If it’s not in any of the databases you will be given a link to a page with hints on how to do further research. Don’t search on terms; just file extensions and only one at a time please. There will be another search box on the results page if you have multiple searches to do.

ieSpell - A Spell Check Addon for Internet Explorer 7
Unfortunately the Microsoft team did not think that a spell checker was an essential tool for the browser, Firefox on the other hand have a build-in Spell checker but Internet Explroere does not, so to add that functionality you can install an addon for ieSpell checker.

Add-Ons Source : Download ieSpell

InLine Search  - Search the page for words or paragraphs
While searching around the internet you come up to a page and find out that the keyword you used to find the page is not clearly visible on the page. To do so you can use the find in page facility in IE7 [ctr +F5] but the search facility is not that great. Inline Search is an add-on for Internet Explorer that mimics Firefox’s search behavior, it turns searching into a Web page into a non modal research experience coupled with a search as you type facility.

Add-Ons Source : Download InLine Search for IE7

Download Video’s Via Internet Explorer 7 Add Ons
Download videos from Youtube, Google Video, Grinvi, and many other sites with simply one click. This simple add-on adds a Download Video link to the right click menu panel. Just click on it and a new window will be displayed with the download link. You will be able to download videos to your computer and watch them as many times as you want.

Add-Ons Source : Video Download for IE7

YouTube Video Download
Another add ons to download flv videos from youTube using  “YouTube Grabber for IE7″, simply past the URL of the video into the addons and press Grab and you can download the vide.

Add-Ons Source : YouTube Grabber for IE7

Internet Download Accelerator  Add Ons
Internet Download Accelerator lets you conveniently manage downloads by organizing them in categories with automatic category detection option. The option to listen to/view audio/video files as early as download starts will let you filter out unwanted content immediately.Another feature is the original Active Visual Cart technology which significantly improves your download experience by giving you quick access to the most useful program features without opening the main program window.

Add-Ons Source : Internet Download Accelerator for IE7 

Web2.0 in some terms was a hoax, or a terminology used to define the evolution of web, but the web3.0 is the future of web also known as Semantic Web. Unfortunately Semantic Web or web3.0 its self is under developments, the concepts and ideas are evolving and the the direction of web will be headed to words Semantic Agents that will analyze data, understand data and share it across different mediums.

The Semantic Web is an evolving extension of the World Wide Web in which web content can be expressed not only in natural language, but also in a format that can be read and used by software agents, thus permitting them to find, share and integrate information more easily.[1] It derives from W3C director Tim Berners-Lee’s vision of the Web as a universal medium for data, information, and knowledge exchange.

So far semantic applications have not yet popped up, and in my personal view Google will be the first one to put a claim for a semantic application, reason being availability of massive amount of user data collected organized and capable of sharing it across different applications. (Google Api’s, different google services interacting and sharing information).

Recently i happen to review lumifi’s interactive research platform, though they haven’t yet claimed to be semantic application, but some how it might be close to what we can imagine of the future web. There interactive platform is build for academic and  research communities to socially interact and share and search informations.

(more…)