NoteMe

Lets say I want to find the opening hours for a store, I usually go to the page, then do a search on the front page for "opening" or "hours". If I don't get any luck there, I will look through their menu looking for "about" pages or "contact" pages and the like. Then repeating the search on those pages, sometimes giving up before trying a search on their crappy search engine or even going so far that I will do a "site:" search using Google.

bMenu seems to have found a solution that is working quite weel. Last time I checked it was not possible to use in Opera, but they stated they where working with Opera to find a solution. Now they have removed that information as far as I can see. Because the only information I can find on Opear is that they "stole" some of their developers. On the other side it does work in IE, although I havn't tested it there. I tested the Firefox extension but it currently only supports version 1.5-2.x. I got it installed after altering the install.rdf file in Fx 3b, but it didn't seem to show up anywhere. Although I guess it won't be long before it does.

This beta has a few new features compared to the first beta. RSS reader is one of them, but thats not why I like it so much. It's the simplification of navigating new sites I felt covered some of my needs when I first installed it. The coolest feature is probably the search function [See image below]. Finding contact information and the like with the saerch function is a walk in the park. It feels a bit like the new history search in Opera and Firefox new awsomebar, but made for navigating instead of searching history.



The only problem I have with with the tool is that the menu and search system is patent-pending. What it will have to say for it's way to fame, is hard to say, but I guess they have to earn money one way or an other. Altough it would have been great if this was an open standard that "just worked" like search discovery did. But I guess you can't have everything you want. But you should try it out and get your own opinion about it. If it was possible to use with Opera, I would use it any day. That's for sure.


- Øyvind Østlund -