User:Singkong2005/Search and research tools

Currently testing some metasearch & specialist engines for researching. Google is often good enough, but these engines have some advantages:


 * Turbo10. Interesting and useful interface. Claims to search the "Deep Net", but customizing the databases to do this is not easy, as it doesn't explain which databases do what.
 * Google Scholar A bit hit and miss - some very useful stuff, but also some very obscure, esoteric stuff. Sometimes it's only the title, sometimes it's an abstract, but they can suggest further directions for research.
 * Google Books Lots of info here. It's difficult to read large amounts, but you can always go and find the book if you really want it.

Will also look at:


 * Vivisimo - automatically organizes hits into topics.
 * Gimenei - can search by country.
 * Meceoo - can block pages, or search only (say) .org sites.

A few years back (c 1999) there was a metasearch that organized hits into categories such as educational and commercial - I was pretty impressed as it didn't seem to be just based on the url suffix, so I don't know how it was done. That would be really useful for researching, especially for Wikipedia, to help find non-commercial links. Anyone know of such a site?

And of course, one can take the old-fashioned, slow but rewarding approach, and read a good book on the topic.

Alerts

 * Google Alerts - has started working again.

Searching wikis

 * Qwika - includes wikia (at least some), and machine translations of Wikipedia in various languages.
 * Clusty Wikipedia search
 * Search Wikipedias with LuMriX
 * Search Wikipedias with Google
 * Wikipedia Bookmarklet for IE(?)
 * Wikipedia:Special:Prefixindex to search using just the first letters of a title.
 * Special:Popularpages, for wikia sites, may be worth checking, e.g. http://renewableenergy.wikia.com/wiki/Special:Popularpages
 * For more, check Wikipedia:Searching Wikipedia:Tools

Forums
Sometimes forums or discussion lists can provide useful answers. Try these:
 * Worldchanging (choose a category and click "Go." Some interesting appropriate technology articles.)
 * HowStuffWorks - covers a wide range of topics.
 * CREST has some good discussion pages - see also the links on left side of this page.
 * Dr Karl's science forum