Saturday, February 14, 2009

Surf Canyon browser plugin--tested


This morning I did some further testing of the Surf Canyon browser plugin to enhance search results on the Internet. I entered "mercury" looking for information on the element and a Google search yielded, in part,...

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Mercury Vehicles 2009: View Mercury Cars & SUVs
Mercury Vehicles 2009: Official site of Mercury Cars and SUV's. Build and Price your 2009 Mercury Vehicle. See Special Offers and Incentives.
www.mercuryvehicles.com/ - 13k - Cached - Similar pages -
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Mercury Marine
Manufacturers of outboards motors and MerCruiser inboard engines, with over 7000 dealers worldwide.
www.mercurymarine.com/ - 10k - Cached - Similar pages -
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Mercury
Feb 2, 2008 ... From The Nine Planets multimedia tour of the solar system.
www.nineplanets.org/mercury.html - 17k - Cached - Similar pages -
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Mercury (element) - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
A heavy, silvery d-block metal, mercury is one of six elements that are liquid at or near room temperature and pressure. [2] The others are the elements ...
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mercury_(element) - 199k - Cached - Similar pages -
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Mercury (planet) - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
The orbit of Mercury has the highest eccentricity of all the Solar System planets, and it has the smallest axial tilt. It completes three rotations about ...
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mercury_(planet) - 312k - Cached - Similar pages -
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Mercury Auto Insurance - Get a fast, free online car insurance quote.
At Mercury Insurance, low car insurance rates and great service aren’t just a theory. Visit mercuryinsurance.com to get a fast, free auto insurance quote.
Show stock quote for MCY
www.mercuryinsurance.com/ - 31k - Cached - Similar pages -

Well, as you can see from the first few listings that there is one entry for the element and a listing for an auto dealership, a marina, a planet, and an insurance company. I expected that broad range from Google. It cannot read my mind and not list the superfluous links. So, I clicked the "target" icon [Surf Canyon] on this entry...

Mercury (element) - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
A heavy, silvery d-block metal, mercury is one of six elements that are liquid at or near room temperature and pressure. [2] The others are the elements ...
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mercury_(element) - 199k - Cached - Similar pages -

and saw this...

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Mercury (element) - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
A heavy, silvery d-block metal, mercury is one of six elements that are liquid at or near room temperature and pressure. [2] The others are the elements ...
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mercury_(element) - 199k - Cached - Similar pages -

Surf Canyon calculations brought forward 3 search results.
Categories: Element
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mercury: Definition from Answers.com (from page 11)
mercury n. ( Symbol Hg ) A silvery-white poisonous metallic element, liquid at room temperature and used in thermometers, barometers, vapor lamps,
www.answers.com/topic/mercury - 295k - Cached - Similar pages

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WebElements Periodic Table of the Elements | Mercury | Essential ... (from page 4)
This WebElements periodic table page contains Essential information for the element mercury.
www.webelements.com/mercury/ - 33k - Cached - Similar pages

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It's Elemental - The Element Mercury (from page 6)
The Element Mercury - Basic Physical and Historical Information.
education.jlab.org/itselemental/ele080.html - 10k - Cached - Similar pages

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Mercury (planet) - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
The orbit of Mercury has the highest eccentricity of all the Solar System planets, and it has the smallest axial tilt. It completes three rotations about ...
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mercury_(planet) - 312k - Cached - Similar pages -

As you can see, the search is beginning to focus. And then I clicked the Surf Canyon "target" icon from the above link list...

mercury: Definition from Answers.com (from page 11)
mercury n. ( Symbol Hg ) A silvery-white poisonous metallic element, liquid at room temperature and used in thermometers, barometers, vapor lamps,
www.answers.com/topic/mercury - 295k - Cached - Similar pages

and saw this...

Surf Canyon calculations brought forward 3 search results.
Categories: Element, Periodic Table
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Basic Information | Mercury | US EPA
Forms of mercury. Mercury is a naturally occurring element that is found in air, water and soil. It exists in several forms: elemental or metallic mercury, ...
www.epa.gov/mercury/about.htm - 16k - Cached - Similar pages
More results from www.epa.gov »

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HealthyToys.org : Chemicals of Concern (from page 8)
Mercury is a metallic element. Its compounds are often used in inks, adhesives, ... HealthyToys.org detected low concentrations of mercury in a number of ...
www.healthytoys.org/chemicals.mercury.php - 7k - Cached - Similar pages

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C&EN: IT'S ELEMENTAL: THE PERIODIC TABLE - MERCURY (from page 10)
Mercury is one of the handful of elements that have been known since antiquity. Alchemists were beguiled by it, convinced that it held the key to ...
pubs.acs.org/cen/80th/mercury.html - Similar pages

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WebElements Periodic Table of the Elements | Mercury | Essential ... (from page 4)
This WebElements periodic table page contains Essential information for the element mercury.
www.webelements.com/mercury/ - 33k - Cached - Similar pages

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It's Elemental - The Element Mercury (from page 6)
The Element Mercury - Basic Physical and Historical Information.
education.jlab.org/itselemental/ele080.html - 10k - Cached - Similar pages

As you can see, the search becomes even more focused. I suppose this could go on indefinitely but it provides detailed information without scrolling through page after page of unrelated Google offerings.

In response to a letter from the developer, I wrote...

Okay Mark, I installed Surf Canyon and began some trial tests. It appears to work good with Firefox [I do not use Internet Explorer anymore] especially with "live" listings. I do have one complaint in that it has a limited scope by being restricted to main and popular search engine interfaces i.e., Google, Yahoo, and MSN. I would like to see it applicable to...

cuil

Google Scholar

science.gov

scirus

Here is a very good review of Surf Canyon...

GeekyCoder

I would recommend the plugin. It is only 30KB, easy to install, and can be removed [rather, deactivated] if it unsuitable for one's needs.

Surf Canyon



Surf Canyon--enhanced Web search

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

Thanks for kicking the tire some more! We hope you continue to find it useful. And thank you for your suggestion for new search engine with which to integrate. Please let us know if you have any further thoughts or input.

Mercury said...
This comment has been removed by the author.