Google's image search

[Coelacanth]

I don't know if this is old news or not, but I just discovered Google's beta image search feature. (I'm a fanatic of their regular search engine already.)

This image search is really cool for bringing up fish images, for instance. Just type in "percula," for instance, and you get a page full o' percs.

Just thought I'd mention it.

images.google.com

I use Google exclusively, but I didn't know about the image search...cool.

(btw, how can I make Google the default engine for my browser, IE 5.5, so, it launches using the "Search" button?)

[Jav400]

Jack,

You can open the search window and then hit the customize button to view your choices and check the engines that you want to use, unfortunately on mine Google isn't listed as an option. I just saved this link in my favorites section and go from there to use it as a search. www.google.com/advanced_search

Thanks. Google doesn't show up in my customize list either, so i was hoping there'd be a "back-door". I do have it bookmarked, though.

[feldon34]

The reason why people like Google is that it's one of the last non-commercialized Spider sites. Rather than take website submission requests, it actively spiders every website on the net.

I suppose this is good and bad. It doesn't return the company's partner sites anymore like Yahoo and Lycos/Hotbot are starting to do. But it's a major privacy issue, as personal information about people appears on Google all the time.

If you have a site with personal information, you pretty much have to password protect it now, as Google will spider it with or without your permission.

And yes, I tried to "robots=no" thing. It doesn't work.

[Coelacanth]

Jack, do this (at your own risk, since it's a registry change <----obligatory disclaimer):

Go into Notepad and copy/paste the following text into it:

REGEDIT4

[HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Internet Explorer\Main]
"Search Page"="http://www.google.com"
"Search Bar"="http://www.google.com/ie"

[HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Internet Explorer\SearchURL]
""="http://www.google.com/keyword/%s"

[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Internet Explorer\Search]
"SearchAssistant"="http://www.google.com/ie"


OK, now save it as google.reg

Then simply double-click on google.reg to add the lines to your registry.

Quit IE and start it back up again. Google is now your default search engine.

[grape_jellyfish]

I added Google search to my browser's links bar. Just drag the little icon that is next to the address in the address bar and drop it onto the links bar. (This website is also on there.) :0)

[Digital Lungfish]

Here's another meta search engine, I've been using this one for some time now. It's called ixquick, here's the link:

ixquick.com/eng/

It also has an image search function much like Google's, but it's not beta.

- DL

Thanks again, Mark. I think I'll just do what Grape suggested, as I have to be good 'n drunk before hacking my registry.

[Coelacanth]

Remind me to ignore any future registry-hacking tips from you, Jack

BTW, I did this hack on my system and it works just fine. Although I must admit since Google was my home page anyway, I just find myself hitting the Home button instead of Search.

Remind me to ignore any future registry-hacking tips from you, Jack

That's always good advice. I like hacking the registry almost as much as flashing my bios.

[FishyBusiness]

Coelacanth,

I have Win98SE, IE5.5, and all updates to windows and IE are installed.

I did the registry change. All I did was cut and paste your entires into notepad then imported it into the registry.

Once I did this, I clicked on the Search icon and immediately got a illegal operation error. I closed IE then oppend it back up and clicked the Search icon again. This time I got a page cannot be displayed error.

This dosen't really matter since this is the most I have ever used the search feature in IE. I just wanted to let you know.

[Coelacanth]

I think the fact that I inadvertantly left "Convert URL Links" on when I posted is what messed you up, Frank. Sorry about that. What happened was that when it converted the links, the "http://" in front of them disappeared.

I have edited the post by simply disabling "convert URL links." I double-checked it for accuracy, and it's right. The only problem was that that EZ board option messed it up.

By the way, I have exactly the same system specs you mentioned: Win98SE, IE 5.5, all critical updates installed.

[FishyBusiness]

Hey, It Works!!!

Now I can actually use that feature. Until now, that Search feature was utterly useless to me.

I was wondering if there was a way to get Google to show me the summary of the websites that it finds when I use this feature?

[Coelacanth]

Just hover your mouse pointer over the links that it finds. You'll get the summaries.