BullsEye: Search Multiple Engines Through One Interface
Written: Jan 25 '03
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Product Rating:
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Pros: Makes quick work of searches multiple engines.
Cons: E-mail option and mouse functions did not work properly.
The Bottom Line: A neat way to search and organize results.
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| rpllingrock's Full Review: BullsEye |
What is Bullseye?
Bullseye allows you to search the Web using hundreds of popular (and not so popular) search engines (800+). All of this is done using one interface and plethora of options.
The idea behind using this tool is to cut down on the time getting to the actual information that you desire. Even Google, the Granddaddy of all search engines can’t offer what Bullseye does.
BullsEye is in the same type of tool as Copernic 2001 (now called Copernic Agent).
Requirements
Microsoft Internet Explorer 5.01+
Windows 98/ME/2000/NT 4.0 (SP6+)
Pentium 300 MHz or faster
64MB RAM
100 MB free disk space
800x600+ & 256 colors
This review is based on BullsEye running Windows XP Professional, 512 MB RAM, Athlon T-Bird 1.33 GHz, and an ADSL connection (1.5Mbps).
The Interface
The interface is clean and uncluttered. At first glance, it looks a bit intimidating, but it really is quite simple. In the far left pane sits the Shortcut Bar and where you choose searches and manage your saved searches. The right pane is the main page and where your results are displayed along with the actual linked page below. Across the top is the Toolbar where many of the functions are called from.
Features Worth Mentioning
• Bullseye includes a third-party utility called SurfSaver, which allows you to archive pages locally. With this, you’re able to go links deep into websites where you’re able to search for the retrieved information locally on your hard drive. This formatting can include frames, links, and of course text. For this feature to be of any great benefit, I recommend a fast broadband connection, especially if saving images along with HTML.
There are a few differences between saving pages locally using MSIE. I did notice SurfSaver saving image files with a different extension.
• Search results can be e-mailed through the interface, including highlighted text.
• Results can be organized by site, score, or status. Normally you would want to sort by relevance (score), but there are occasions where you may be looking at a specific source for an answer, and may choose to sort “by site”.
• While you may not want to search 800 sources for information at one time, you can customize each search by choosing what engines to include. In fact, it’s possible to add a search engine to a category. For example, adding Google to my example search above. This is done by going to the advanced search and selecting the engines of choice. The reason you may not want to do this is simple, Google and others like it, may clutter the results with non-relevant results. The idea is to search using engines specific to the information you’re after.
• Categories-You can search just the Web, or break your search down into several different categories. These categories include, News, Shopping, Multimedia, Discussions, Jobs, Books, Computers, Software, Books, References, Health, Entertainment, College, and International.
An example of a how a category search works :
The Computer Category
When clicking the Computer category, you’ll see sub-categories to narrow your search by specifying what exactly you’re after. They include Answers and Support, Companies, Search Discussions, News and Publications, and Miscellaneous. and under some of these are even more choices. For example under Answers and Support we have the following choices”
• Find Answers to Computing Questions
• Search Computer News
• Find Drivers
• Search Computer Publication Archives
• Search Company Support Web Sites
• Search Computing Encyclopedias
• Search Computing Dictionaries
It is sometimes more helpful to search in a specific category for several reasons. First, it eliminates words found which may not pertain to your inquiry. For example, I want to research a specific problem pertaining to Windows 98. Now, I could just use the Web category, or I could use the Computer category. But by using the Web category, I may get back many more results than I was looking for and 90 percent of them not even close in significance. So I choose the Computer category and my results are returned from specific sites pre-canned in Bullseye, or simply add the sites of your choice. By default they are, Bugnet, Indiana University Knowledge Base, ZDNet Bug Search, ZDNet, How to, and ZDNet PC Tip Search.
So for this example I enter the search phrase, “Networking Computers” under Find Answers to Computing Questions. I’m greeted with 50 results, all rated from 67 percent all the way down to 2 percent.
I now choose to Analyze my search by eliminating dead links, and it downloads each link to make sure it’s relevant. I now have 44 matches ranging from 100 percent to 77 percent. You can go right for the jugular and make your first search refined. It does take longer, but results are much more accurate.
At this point I generate an HTML report for future use.
Example Reports:
Initial search
http://pages.cthome.net/rollingrock/epinions/nc.htm
Analyzed Search
http://pages.cthome.net/rollingrock/epinions/nc2.htm
What I didn’t like
• If I were to change anything, it would be adding additional colors or changing the existing colors when highlighting searched web pages. (much like Google does) . The search terms are highlighted in yellow, and can be almost impossible to read white text on a dark background. If the options are there, I couldn’t find them.
• The “Back” and “Forward” buttons do not function with my MS Intellimouse Optical. Considering this program uses the Internet Explorer browser engine, I would think it should work.
• The e-mail option did not work on my primary account. One of the reasons may be the lack of “user authentication”, something my ISP requires. I did however get it to work on another account without problems.
• You’re only allowed to have 3 searches open at any given time. If you attempt to start another, you’ll have to either discard or save your current search.
Overall
This program has made searching relevant information much easier for both me and my family. Since I introduced BullsEye to my daughter, she has found it to be an indispensable tool in her school research projects.
Honestly, when I first starting using this utility, I didn’t care too much for it. But after several days of learning and appreciating what it had to offer, I became a believer! A believer in something other than Google! ;)
I could have easily given this program 5 stars if it weren’t for the annoyances I mentioned above. Even with those, I highly recommend this program to anyone who utilizes search engines for more than just casual browsing or research.
Recommended:
Yes
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