ie8 fix

suggest

Misleading dictionary

WordFinder with Collins English Dictionary & Thesaurus is a comprehensive English-language dictionary and thesaurus. Although users looking for an electronic alternative to traditional hardbound reference books should find that WordFinder meets all their needs, some aspects of the interface can be confusing.

For the most part, the program's interface is intuitive and attractive. As users start to type a word, the dictionary scrolls through its entries alphabetically; this allows users to see surrounding words, much as they would when looking up a word in a hard copy of a dictionary. It's easy to switch between the dictionary and … Read more

China to Google: No porn, or else

Google has acknowledged that the Chinese government asked it to disable a search feature with the goal of censoring pornography, but it still won't say whether the government ordered tighter censorship around the 20th anniversary of the Tiananmen Square massacre.

The New York Times reported Friday that Chinese government officials ordered Google to remove the search feature--known as Google Suggest--that displays related search terms based on the original query typed into the search bar or face unspecified punishment. Apparently some queries brought up related results with suggestive implications, leading to criticism from China's state-run media and … Read more

Gmail now knows who you want to e-mail

Google's Gmail Labs has just rolled out a useful, but mildly creepy feature that gives you suggestions on who you should e-mail based on previous conversations. So, if you've had threads going with a group of people, it will recommend some of those folks once you've added at least two addresses in the recipients field. Best part is, they don't even have to be in a group of contacts you've created in Gmail's contacts manager.

I got this to work to an almost uncanny level. It handles things like family members without a hitch, … Read more

Bite-size restaurant, movie, book reviews

Yelp.com may be the place to go for writing and reading restaurant and business reviews online, but the iPhone clamors for a different model. Goodrec beautifully fills this void with a full-featured application that lets you search or browse among restaurants, bars, books, movies, wine, and local venues for short reviews. A color-coded key shows you the number of positive, mixed, and negative reviews alongside short-form reviews. You'll also be able to rate each product and write a bite-size review, adding photos you can snap directly from the application. If friends are also using Goodrec , you can filter … Read more

Google has a suggestion on your search

Google expects to graduate a feature from its labs to its main search page in the next week to help users execute faster and more specific searches. The feature, called Google Suggest, automatically recommends options for the rest of your search term as you type based on the most popular searches.

Like many Google offerings, Google Suggest has been available for use for several years while in development. The feature, which mirrors services offered by Yahoo and the recently launched Cuil, was announced Monday on GoogleBlog:

The Google Suggest feature originally started as a 20% project in 2004, and has … Read more

Turn Delicious bookmarks into recommendations with InSuggest

InSuggest, the recommendation engine I took a look at back in February, has just launched a service that scans your bookmarks to give you links for related reading. The new tool is a derivative of the Web site analyzer which would take any link you dropped in and give you recommendations of similar sites. In that case, users could add up to three sites to get more narrowed results, whereas this tool is focused simply on where you've been.

For now, it's limited to Delicious users, but if you've got an account there you can plug-in your … Read more

Yahoo Suggest: The Good, the Bad, and the Unbelievable

In my presentation yesterday here at Web 2.0 Expo, I showed Yahoo Suggest as an alternative to Google Suggest for quick-n-dirty keyword research. Both tools are free. Google Suggest is also built into the Google Toolbar's search box, so it's super convenient: just start typing keystrokes and it makes suggestions (think: auto-complete), the suggestions listed in order of popularity. In fact, it was Google Suggest that my daughter Chloe used to identify her top search term, "neopets cheats" and thus named her site "The Ultimate Neopets Cheats Site" since Google Suggest showed that &… Read more

DiggSuggest tells you what you should read on Digg

DiggSuggest is a new service created by 20-year-old Digg user who has used the service's API data feed to provide a feature the popular social news site currently doesn't: suggested readings.

All you have to do is plug in your Digg username (or someone else's) and it will scour your past dugg stories to serve up suggestions for stories both popular and upcoming. The more you digg the better the results should be. Not only does it show stories, but it also groups together keywords related to the things you like.

That's about all it does … Read more

Let computers figure out what you like with inSuggest

inSuggest is a new recommendation service for finding interesting items on the Web. There are two variations--one for blogs and Web sites, and another for photographs. Both take four items picked by users to whittle down the types of sites or photographs you'd be interested in.

Between the two, the Web flavor is a little more structured, requiring users to enter in the URLs of some of their favorite sites. The results can then be previewed right below the search box and be browsed eight recommendations at a time. The photo engine is a little more organic, simply … Read more

Yahoo goes into mind-reading mode

Yahoo has kicked off its Search Suggest feature, designed to save users time by offering suggestions they can click on, according to Yahoo Search Blog

Take CNET, one of my favorite search terms, for example. Users enter "CNET" into the search box. A drop-down menu appears with a list of suggestions, ranging from "cnet" to "cnet downloads" to "cnet networks downloads," and on and on and on. So many CNET sites, so little time.

Users typing in "zoo elephant jungle" will receive assistance on the first three words, but after … Read more