Fagan Finder > Site > Blog

November 15, 2010

I have redone the Google Ultimate Interface, a long-time favourite of many. It now includes tons of options on all current Google services. Searching by date has been taken off that page and split into a separate Search by Date page which includes other tools as well as Google.

November 7, 2010

I have pushed forward the first major redesign since Fagan Finder launched in 2001. This brings improved aesthetics and overall smoothness, some additional features, and support of all the latest web standards. Please let me know what you think of the new design and if you have any problems. Note that not every single page on Fagan Finder sports the new design yet, but all the regular search pages do. Actually, I created a new design back in 2004 but never published it, but I think this new new design should work well.

October 28, 2010

Fagan Finder has been largely abandoned for most of the last seven years. At the end of July I announced an update to the image search page, and I'm now following that up with quite a bit more.

• Major update for the Video Search page, adding educational videos, how-tos, and documentaries, news video, etc. and including a good informational section.
• Major update for the Maps and Geography page with online map websites and sources of geographic data, and including a very extensive informational section.
• Major update for the News Search page.
• Major update for the Shopping Search page including not just price comparison engines but local stores, product reviews, info, and manuals, local shopping and classifieds, product code search, even rent, borrow, and free sites as well as a very extensive informational section.
• Major update for the Academic Search (formerly advanced reference) page which now includes academic search engines and directories, scholarly/journal papers, online courses and videos, flashcards and quizzes, books, and more.
• Major update for the Search Engines page including blog search engines, real-time search engines, and hard-to-categorize tools such as Wolfram|Alpha and other fact/answer tools.

The meta search engines, directories, and blog search engine pages have all been rolled into the search engines page. I have also begun some intentional duplication. Blog search engines can also be found on the news page for convenience; news video can be found on both the news and video search page. Education videos can be found on both the video and academic pages. The academic page also includes some general search tools as well. All to make it easier to do all your searching without having to travel to different parts of Fagan Finder. I have also updated the home page to take all these updates into account and add new tools like book search. I have also completely redone the about section which now includes a handy contact form to send me feedback.

Image Search updated again

I have once again cleaned up the Image Search Engines page, removing, fixing, and even some additions.

Image Search updated

I have significantly upgraded the Image Search Engines page; details here.

October 24: Switch Bookmarklets 2

Okay, I've finally gotten around to making a new interface for the switch bookmarklets and adding some features. Get 'em here: Switch Bookmarklets!

October 16: Switch Bookmarklets

This was going to be part of the new feature set when I unveiled the new design of Fagan Finder, several thousand years from now. But Steven convinced me otherwise, so I've incorporate this new tool into Fagan Finder today. It's ugly but it works. Switch bookmarklets allow you to switch from search results on one tool to search results on another. Grab the bookmarklet for any tool (e.g. Dictionary.com), search anywhere else (e.g. Yahoo!), then click the bookmarklet to switch to Dictionary.com. Get the bookmarklets by following the link at the footer of any search page (e.g. search engines, blogs). Feedback welcome.

August 22: URLinfo

Brand-new tool today! Actually, it’s a major redo of an old tool. Introducing URLinfo (beta), a tool used to find out information about a web page, track it, translate it, search through it, view old versions if it, find similar pages and backlinks, and more. It’s divided into various sections, and each also contains information and additional links. You can also create a customized bookmarklet for easy access to URLinfo. Feedback is welcome.

June 24: Meta Search Engines

My seriously out-of-date Meta Search Engines page is now up to date. Almost everything that was there is now gone, but over ten meta search engines have been added, everything fixed, more information written, and descriptions added for all the tools and links.

June 13: Invisible Web

When I went through to update the Invisible Web section, I found that almost all the resources included no longer existed. I also took out the file format search, since I now have a separate Search by File Format page. That left me with so little that I almost decided to remove it completely. Instead I have removed it only from the home page, but I have updated the information, and added a few new links. Suggestions welcome.

June 3: Search for Quotations

A brand new section today, Quotations and Proverbs search. At the moment, it includes mostly quotation and proverb websites, but also has sayings, aphorisms, slogans, etc. It isn’t really finished, but nothing on Fagan Finder ever really is. So far it includes 52 search tools and 33 external links (with reasonable information about each), making it very extensive already. Also, I have tried something new: the page includes a random quotation from Daily Quotation Server. It makes the page load a little slower, so I may remove it (and feedback is welcome).

March 3: File Formats

New tool: Search by File Format.

February 19: RSS

I updated my article on RSS to include information on Atom, OPML, and a few other things. The changes are described on the changes log.

January 26: Web Directories

I have updated the Directories and Human Guides section. I removed a number of search tools and links, however I have added five new search tools, descriptions for all links and search tools, and a information section.

January 7: 2004 already?

After receiving quite a few e-mails, I finally got around to adding 2004 to date options for a couple of pages.

January 1: Search Engines

I’ve given a much-needed update to the Search Engines page, which includes several new search engines.

December 31: Audio and Music Search Engines

For the same reason mentioned in the previous entry, I have added sixteen new resources to the Audio and Music Search Engines section.

December 24: Movie and Video Search Tools

I have been going through Fagan Finder’s search tool pages, upgrading them to the current format, and removing dead links. Doing so for the Movie and Video Search Tools reduced it to just three tools, so I have added fourteen new resources to that page. Most of these are for finding movie reviews.

December 14: Quotations?

Are you really into quotations? Or maybe proverbs? E-mail me.

December 7: Backend Changes

I have been making a number of changes to the back end of Fagan Finder. Most of these changes will not be obvious for some time, however. One thing to note is that all search tool pages in the new format are now available as search boxes.

November 6, 2003: Still Quite Alive

Just a notice to say I'm still alive. Unfortunately I have very limited time to work on Fagan Finder while I am attending university. I intend a major website overhaul, which may not happen for quite a while. The only changes happening at this time, I’ll admit, are more advertisements on Fagan Finder. I will not, however, let them take over the site.

August 6, 2003: Translation Wizard

Big new feature today, the Fagan Finder Translation Wizard goes live in beta status. I have been working on this tool for some weeks and it is by far the largest and most complex tool on Fagan Finder. See About the Translation Wizard. Features include translation of words, sentences, and web pages. Web pages can be SWF or PDF files. Many translators are available, including more than one for many language pairs. Quite a few languages are available, each with its own informational page. Virtual keyboards are available for Latin, Cryillic, Greek, Hebrew, and Arabic. Input may be written in right-to-left (i.e. Hebrew, Yiddish, Arabic, Farsi, Urdu). One-click translation for language pairs where only dictionaries are available. And that’s just a start: many other features, languages, and translators will be added.

June 3, 2003: New Autosearch feature

Every so often I hear suggestions to make Fagan Finder more like a meta search engine. Some people want to search all the tools at once, or at least multiple tools simultaneously. I have planned on something like this as an option when Fagan Finder eventually becomes database-driven. Today (perhaps fuelled by comments by Luigi), I wondered if I could do something simple to accomplish this right now. A little work and a new beta feature, Autosearch, available from the Preferences page. Don’t expect it to work :-) and please send feedback. Essentially you can click a next button rather than having to select the next option and then press search. Currently only available on new-design pages (Blogs, Images, and the main page).