The old Cheech and Chong skit about “Where’s Dave?” no longer holds true for us. We know where Dave is: He’s right on our computer desktop.
Dave’s got it all. He’s knowledgeable, quick, and most of all, he’s always available. No, we’re not talking about the coauthor of this column, dear reader (although, truth be told, our own Dave does possess those qualities). We’ve discovered another, more useful Dave for our desktop: Dave’s Quick Search Deskbar, by Dave Bau.
Since installing this tiny JavaScript program on our desktops, we can do searches for nearly anything, no matter what we’re doing: email, word processing, programming, or whatever. Dave’s Deskbar integrates with your taskbar. We simply type in the keywords we’re searching for into the text box and the Deskbar opens a browser to Google and starts searching. Using different characters, we can do all kinds of searches, like Yahoo searches, look up word definitions, get stock quotes, find phone numbers, comparison shop, and a lot more. We can check the weather, look up song lyrics, and even check the nurses’ PDR for medication information. Dave’s Deskbar includes a calculator, clock, and a calendar that links to your favorite datebook online or off.
There’s so much that you can do with Dave’s Deskbar that you’ll need to refer to the help occasionally. But Dave’s Deskbar is customizable. If you know a little HTML and JavaScript, you can add your own searches. Dave’s the complete package. And best of all, Dave’s right here.
Where to Get It: http://notesbydave.com/toolbar/doc.htm Price: FREE System Requirements:IE 5.5, and 6.0, on Windows 95, 98, 2000, and XP
Bill Dubie and Dave Sciuto are the hosts of The Computer Report, New
England’s longest-running technology talk show. Contact them at
billdave@thereport.com.
