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February 24, 2005
A New Way to Get Answers
My job requires me to write a lot. And to read a lot, as well. So it's nice to have a dictionary handy. I used to use dictionary.com until I learned from kottke.org that Google switched from using dictionary.com to using answers.com. To see what I mean, do a search for something like kittens on Google, and look up in the right-hand corner. That "definition" link now points to answers.com rather than dictionary.com. Anyway, I figured if it was good enough for Google, it must be good enough for me, so I gave it a try, and I like it much better. The interface is far superior and you get much more information from several more sources, including Wikipedia, another favorite resource of mine. And you can hear a pronunciation without subscribing to Dictionary.com Premium for $19.95 per year.
The best thing, though, are the additional tools answers.com makes available. Of course you get your standard Firefox search plug-in, but I also downloaded their 1-Click Answers application which basically puts a miniature version of their site on your desktop. Whenever I need to look up a word or double check spelling, I can now highlight it, and hit alt+command g (on a Mac) to have 1-Click Answers jump to the foreground and give me the information I'm looking for. Assuming it's not spyware, it's a great little application to keep running. There's also an RSS feed for daily highlights, and Answer boxes that you can put on your site.
Posted by cantrell at February 24, 2005 12:13 PM | References
Comments
Oooh. I've been looking for a nice little desktop app for this. I guess I've never really looked hard enough. Thanks!
Posted by: Abel Rios at February 24, 2005 12:44 PM
Wow! Even an American Sign Language Entry (ASL) if you scroll down far enough. BTW, "kitten" in ASL combines the sign for "baby" and "cat" (smile).
Posted by: Kevin Hoyt at February 24, 2005 01:14 PM
Interesting... I usually use the "define:" operator at Google, and I see neither dictionary.com nor answers.com among the hits they return this way. (See define:kitten.) Maybe it's one workgroup at Google not knowing what another one is doing...?
And speaking of Firefox search plugins, it's great that the search at MXNA returns archived as well as current weblog mentions... lets us find any mention, ever, in any of those 383 weblogs aggregated there. But I'm guessing we're archiving those 50-word RSS abstracts rather than the full text of each entry... am I on-base here? If so, do you know of a way to search full-text on this set of 400 technology-oriented writers...?
tx,
jd
Posted by: John Dowdell at February 25, 2005 02:09 AM