No, this does not mean that Yahoo! the site is going away. Far from it. It means that Y! has officially offloaded it to Microsoft.

Yahoo! has made it very clear these days (and their CEO even said so) that they are not a search company, so now Y! is all about content.

This is part of the reason why Y! has been making major changes over the past few years – mostly in the form of cutting the chaff from the wheat, so to speak. Yahoo! 360 is gone, Geocities will be gone in October, Yahoo! Live the short-lived broadcasting service (like Ustream/BlogTV/etc.) closed in ‘08, Jumpcut, another Y! property, is gone, and so on. And there are plenty more.

Y! has been dropping a whole lot of hammers, no question. They want to concentrate on things that will make them grow as a company, and search is definitely not one of them.

At this point I personally do not have faith in the Y! brand due to the fact they can’t seem to find a winner with anything new they produce. And instead of taking their existing services and improving upon them, they get dropped instead. For those of us that actually used those services, we as the users get screwed in the end because any effort we put into using it was for nothing. This is not exactly what we’d call a confidence booster in the Y! brand.

There are seven things from Y! that I know people use, that being mail, messenger, games, Flickr, maps, personals and answers – all of which have tenure. None of this stuff is new. In fact most of it is ancient, internet-wise.

Do you know anybody that uses OMG? Or real estate? Or Shine? Or Buzz? Or Green? If you said, "No, and um.. I’ve never heard of those Y! services", that wouldn’t surprise me a bit. The problem is that this new stuff is what Y! wants you to use. But the sad part is that had you not read it here, you most likely didn’t know they existed.

In comparison, when Google offers a new service, they let you know about it. The same is true for Microsoft. When something new comes around in the Windows Live system, you’re informed. Both these companies put a good effort into letting the masses know of the good/cool/interesting things they make. But as for Yahoo? Not so much. That’s a problem and hopefully one they will fix.

Is Yahoo’s decision to offload the search to Microsoft a good thing, or is this the beginning (or the continuation) of the end for Yahoo?

craigslist, love it or hate it, is a great site to find.. well.. anything. However you’re limited to searching just one local area at a time.

However you can search multiple areas via the use of a particular web site and an RSS reader (like Google Reader, Feed Demon or even Windows Live Mail or Mozilla Thunderbird) to get the job done.

The web site to use is crazedlist.org, but from the moment you visit that site a big nastygram appears in the middle of your browser (which is not an ad). It says you can either mess around with your browser to disable referrers, or use RSS feeds instead.

Trust me when I say the RSS way is much easier. And more convenient.

Let’s say for the moment you want to perform a nationwide search of craigslist. If you do this directly via the crazedlist.org web site, so much data will be pushed to your browser that it will crash it, and your IP address will be flagged as "bad" by craigslist.

Instead, you do a nationwide search this way. For demonstrative purposes, we’ll use Google Reader to handle the feeds.

From the top left drop-down we select all. You immediately get a warning:

Click OK.

For our example search, we’ll use "1967 camaro". Here’s how I filled mine out:

• Search for 1967 camaro
• in sale/wanted
• cars & trucks (all)
• No price selected
• "Pics" checked for "ads must have photos"

DO NOT click the Search button. Repeat: DO NOT do that.

Click the big orange Get RSS Feeds button instead.

You will see this:

In Firefox: Right-click "this link" and choose "Save Link As"

In Internet Explorer: Right-click "this link" and choose "Save Target As"

When the save screen appears, change Save as type: to All Files, and type in the file name as 1967 camaro.opml, like this:

Now all we have to do is import this into Google Reader.

Note before continuing: Just about every RSS Reader has the ability to import standardized OPML files. Whether you’re using an app or a web site, they all should have some ability to import OPML.

With Google Reader it’s very easy to import an OPML file. You go to www.google.com/reader, login with your Google account (such as a Gmail account), then click Settings at the extreme top right, then the Import/Export tab, like this:

From here you click the Browse button, go to the Desktop where you saved the OPML file and upload it.

In a US nationwide search, this results in 328 feed subscriptions. When you click Back to Google Reader, it will look something like this:

All subscriptions will be listed by state abbreviation then locale for "1967 camaro", all with photos.

Why is it OK to multi-search craigslist the RSS way and not direct via crazedlist.org?

It’s for the reasons crazedlist.org states. Having a mountain of data sent to your browser has a high tendency of crashing it, and craigslist is very wise to those who make unreasonable search requests from their servers. And yes, performing a massive nationwide search is considered unreasonable and they will block your IP in short order.

RSS feeds on the other hand are much more "civil". Furthermore they act as a saved search of sorts. Once you import it all into Google Reader or other feed reader, any new listings that match your keywords will show up.

Bing is the new search engine web site from Microsoft. This is their attempt to put their name on the map concerning internet search, or said differently, Microsoft is trying to compete with Google. Again. Bing is the replacement for Live Search.

You can try it right now if you like. Just go to www.bing.com. Or, if you’d prefer a tour first, that’s here: http://www.discoverbing.com/tour/. Or, you can watch a video on the "decision engine".

What makes Bing different?

Two things: Organization and related results.

Example: A search for "tampa".

Using Google

Using Bing

Note the stuff on the left.

Weather, real estate, map, hotels, attractions, images. Bam.

Related searches. Not advertisements. "Things to do in Tampa", "City of Tampa", "Tampa Aquarium", "Tampa Tribune", "Tampa Jobs". Bam.

Search history below that. Bam. It’s all there in plain view.

Does Google have any of this? In fact it does, but it’s hidden. You have to click "Show options…" to get it, and then drill down even further for related searches. That’s inconvenient when Bing brings it all to you up front – without clutter or extra clicks.

The organization and related stuff in clear plain view on first result page is a big deal. It’s decidedly convenient. It also looks better and is easier to use.

With Bing, what that engine is trying to do (and does successfully do it) is not just give you results for what you search, but results that matter. It is an attempt to make search results more relevant to what you want to find. This is part of the "decision engine" they speak of.

There’s a lot more to Bing, but that covers the basics. I do in fact like using it because of the sidebar results. It is very convenient.

And yes I know there will be tons of people that say, "No way. I like Google." Well, that’s the same thing people said about Yahoo before Google, and look what happened. Am I saying Bing will overtake Google in market share? No. But it does put up a darn good alternative against the big G. Finally.

Over the course of the weekend I used the internet to find places most of you out there are aware of to get good stuff cheap. Most of you will know what these places/events are, but it’s how you find them that’s the important part.

Using Google Maps, with the category operator you can quickly find what you’re looking for in or near your local area.

For this example we’ll use Flea Markets, Thrift Stores and Estate Sales.

Flea Markets
(International visitors: flea market defined)

Usage: city state category:Flea Markets
Example using Tampa Florida

Thrift Stores
(International visitors: thrift store defined)

Usage: city state category:Thrift Stores
Example using Boston Massachusetts

Estate Sale
(International visitors: estate sale defined)

Usage: city state category:Estate Appraisal & Sales
Example using Dallas Texas

How do you find other categories in Google Maps?

Instead of using the category operator, just use your town/state and what you’re looking for when searching. Any category that appears in the list (there may be several) will sort by that category only.

Example: If I search for Tampa FL cars, I get a ton of listings.  But at the top left, I see the categories, and they look like this:

Note where it says Categories: Auto Repair, Auto Dealers Used Cars. Clicking one will sort by that category only.

Almost anything you search for in Google Maps will have a category for it. Use it and use it often. You will most likely discover many businesses you didn’t know existed that in turn give you more choices to shop for better deals.

Something which is not readily obvious in Google Maps is the ability to find real estate listings. And no, it’s not just for new houses. It also includes rentals, foreclosures (good for the bargain hunter) and so on.

Here’s how to do it:

Load up Google Maps and click “My Maps” to the left.

Looks like this:

Continued

Written recently on CNET is an author claiming that the reason most people use Google for internet searching is habitual and nothing more.

I was forced to agree with this after trying it out for myself – but only after that. Originally my thought was that Google’s search is unmatched and there’s no way Yahoo search or Live search can compare.

But I was wrong.

After performing several searches using generic words (like computer) and then advanced phrases (like tampa red light camera), the results were surprising. No matter which I used, the relevance of the results – which is what counts the most – of the search results were up to speed using all three search providers.

You can think of relevance by asking a simple question when you see the search results, that being, "Was this what I was looking for?" If the answer is yes, the results were relevant. If not, they weren’t.

There was a time when Google was far superior to any other internet search provider – and this was for years. But it would appear Yahoo and Live have caught up. And in some cases the rivals perform better than Google. Example: A search for tampa florida on Yahoo returns a "Top Rated Things To Do" for that area; it’s useful and very visible. It also lists better-placed advertising for apartments and rentals; something many who search for Tampa want to know about.

Do you use Google for everything search?

You might be using it only out of habit.

Windows ships with a very functional search tool, but to take advantage of its full functionality and speed you have to have the notorious “Indexing Service” running in the background. As you may know, this service can be a beast in terms of resource consumption. While disabling this service doesn’t break the Windows search functionality, it does severely cripple it. For an alternative, check out voidtools’ Everything.

Pointing out the biggest advantage from their FAQ:

How long will it take to index my files?
“Everything” only uses file and folder names and generally takes a few seconds to build it’s database. A fresh install of Windows XP SP2 (about 20,000 files) will take about 1 second to index.
1,000,000 files will take about 1 minute.

In addition to an “instant” (relatively speaking) index, Everything offers several other attractive features:

• Regular expression support.
• Minimal resource usage.
• Free

If you currently use the Windows search tool or another tool, Everything is definitely worth taking a look at.

Bookmark management in all web browsers is terrible. All of them. You would think that something as simple as searching for a bookmark would be simple and easy to do but it usually isn’t.

In Firefox 3 you can at least search your bookmarks easily if you know how to do it. Fortunately this is quite easy. All you have to do is use your address bar. Just type in a word or two and your bookmarks are auto-searched along with browser history.

Most of the time your bookmarks are listed first, and that’s good. You will know if a search result is a bookmark because there will be a gold star next to the listing.

Below is a screenshot of what this looks like.

While this may not be perfect (sometimes the search is a bit too "picky"), at least you have some ability to search bookmarks.

Microsoft recently released version 4 of Windows Desktop Search so I decided to check it out. If you’d like to check it out for yourself, launch Internet Explorer, head over to http://windowsupdate.microsoft.com, do a "Custom" (instead of "Express") install and you’ll see the option to download it there. It’s free.

WDS installs itself in the taskbar and will look something like this:

I have the indexing window purposely open in that screen shot because when you first install it it will take time to index everything. If you don’t have the indexing window open, you will know WDS is doing something by a fade-in/fade-out magnifying glass icon next to the clock (you can see it in the screenshot above).

The Big Question: Is this better than the standard built-in XP search?

Yes.

But it depends what you’re looking for.

My biggest gripe: E-Mail searching

I do like the fact you can search thru e-mails without having the client running. If you use Outlook, Outlook Express or Windows Live Mail, WDS is a nice little shortcut to search thru mail quickly.

The only drawback is that it doesn’t show the title of e-mails, just the cryptic-looking file names.

Like this:

Not cool.

There is a specific way you could use WDS where you can see the information that matters when e-mail searching. You have to use the "big" version (by clicking the magnifying glass icon), then click "E-Mail" then purposely select "Large icons" and then you can see e-mail content when searching for it.

Big pain in the rump if you asked me.

Searching everything else? Does just fine.

Aside from the e-mail searching b.s., this is a genuinely good utility for finding anything else in XP. It does find things faster than the standard search does.

Will this slow down your computer?

Only on older systems – especially during the indexing process. For example, I’d never put this on a computer with a Celeron processor in it or on any anything with under 1GB of RAM.

How to uninstall in case you don’t like it

Easy enough: It’s listed as Windows Search 4.0 in your Add/Remove via Control Panel.

Looks like this: