How To Search Amazon, YouTube, and Twitter in Windows 7
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RSS is powerful, for sure. I’ve been a fan of it since before it was supported natively within the web browser. I built a service called TagJag, where you can go to look for things you want to buy. It will generate RSS search feeds that you can subscribe to. Why would you want to do that? Let me explain, my dear Watson.
When you open the TagJag site, you will see a search box. Enter your search term in there. It can be as broad or as specific as you want. It depends on you, and if you know exactly what you’re looking for. Once you click the “Search” button, you’ll get a list of results from places like eBay and Amazon. You’ll even get a listing of related items.
Where the power of TagJag lies is within the little RSS feed icon. If you click it, it will take you to the full-on RSS feed for that search. If you subscribe to that feed with your reader, you’ll be notified every time something new is added to that particular search result feed.
The reason I’m showing you all of this is that I’m going to teach you how to integrate Amazon searches, eBay searches, YouTube searches and more all from within Windows 7. Let’s say you want to search for results in my blog. Now that I’ve installed a Search Connector (simple text file), I have an option in my search tree within my Windows 7 that says “Chris Pirillo”. I enter a word within the search bar, and bam… it searches my blog. RSS search is the gateway! I’m able to search for things on my blog without even having to go to my blog!
Remember that Amazon search feed I showed you earlier? After integrating it within a Search Connector file, I will just double-click to install it. Presto… it was added to my Windows search tree. Yeah, I can go to Amazon and search for things, or to my blog or YouTube. But why would I? This is so much easier, and faster.
Download the Search Connectors onto your install of Windows 7, and see how much simpler your life will be!
FirstRSS+ThunderIT AWS HMAC ERROR: "http://xml-us.amznxslt.com/onca/xml?AWSAccessKeyId=05G128QTRXN0J06J6PG2&ContentType=text%2Fxml&Keywords=microsoft%2Bwindows%2B7&Operation=ItemSearch&ResponseGroup=Large&SearchIndex=Blended&Service=AWSECommerceService&Signature=jXjinBbSbLO98j01As0×5JVWyJ02ZnQIedWXBsZGxEs%3D&Style=http%3A%2F%2Ftagjag.com%2Fcss%2Famazon.xslt&Timestamp=2010-02-09T21%3A31%3A02Z&Version=2005-07-26" NOT FOUND!
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8 Comments
Toastpaint
January 22nd, 2009
at 12:18am
This is an awesome addition to Windows 7, and it really adds useful functionality to the critical part of Windows, Windows Explorer.
nicdm
January 22nd, 2009
at 8:43am
It’s awesome for WIndows 7 ! too bad it can’t be used in Windows Xp or Vista.
ZiggyFish
January 23rd, 2009
at 3:09pm
Firefox has had this for years. In fact, Firefox goes a step further and allows web masters to allow users to add their search engine in 2 clicks and without having users manually modify a template.
I have not seen any new stuff in Windows 7;) Which is why I am sticking with Ubuntu
BTW, Linux has a tool called Deskbar, which allows you to add custom searches to your task bar (or use Firefox’s search engine to search), and also allows you to search for files, email contacts, dictionary, documents, tomboy notes, open windows and installed programs, and do calculations, post to twitter. All in the same applet.
Brijesh
January 23rd, 2009
at 7:03pm
Have you switched back to Windows or is it a VM? I bet you wont make a beta version your primary OS
Brandon Paddock
January 29th, 2009
at 1:26pm
ZiggyFish – This is nothing even remotely like the search box in any web browser including FireFox, and nothing like the Linux deskbar you mentioned (which takes after the Windows Desktop Search deskbar or Vista start menu).
In Windows 7, these federated search locations can be searched inside the Windows shell experience. The results aren’t just links, they can be fully functional file items. If a result is an image, it will open in Photo Gallery or your default image app. You can right-click on it and select “Edit” or “Open With”, or you can click Send To -> Mail Recipient. You can drag-and-drop the file to the desktop, or view it in the preview pane.
You can even search these locations from inside any application that uses the Common File Dialog. So you can click Insert Picture from inside MS Word, click on Flickr in your navigation pane, search for a picture of Vancouver, look at the thumbnails of all the results, and then select which one(s) you want inserted into your document.
They’re also dead simple to install. It’s as easy as clicking on a single link on the web page of the service you want to add. They’re dead simple to set up, too. The web master just needs to put an OpenSearch Description File (ie. simple, open standard XML) on the server somewhere and add a link to it for users to click on.
Of course Win7 isn’t going to look as compelling if you don’t actually look at the new features before dimissing them…
ZiggyFish
January 30th, 2009
at 9:57pm
Brandon Paddock:
Because Linux is modular and is not bloated by features the average person will never use, I had to do some searching in the repositories to find a Linux equivalent, I did find a fuse Filesystem, also there is a GVFS plugin for it too (which means that not only can I view the results from a GUI, I can also run scripts which interact with that data (for example send an email me when I new search result is found, or pipe that the feed into an application)) , that does what the new windows 7 does.
So you see it’s been done before.
Twittering
February 7th, 2009
at 4:03pm
Having this kind of search within Windows 7 is going to be very cool. Must say I had totally missed this idea whist testing the Windows 7 Beta.
Brandon Paddock
February 8th, 2009
at 1:00pm
ZiggyFish -
Federated Search in Windows 7 is nothing remotely like an Installable File System driver, which seems to be what you’re confusing it with.
Fuse and GVFS are nothing like it.