#specialtysearch — Public Fediverse posts

Calishat: Local News America Gets Faster Search and Smushed Bugs. “Local News America aggregates the RSS feeds of over 1000 local news sources and makes them searchable by keyword and/or browsable by state with links back to the original content. About a dozen topic feeds (including data centers, activism, and local / federal government) are also available. (The site doesn’t scrape the web […]

Calishat: Adding Two New Tools to SearchTweaks.com. “I don’t know about y’all but I am having my usual wild Friday night working on my search tools. I’ve just added two new tools to SearchTweaks.com; if you do any local news searching I think you’ll really like at least one of them. Like all of the site they are free to use and free of ads….SearchTweaks is a collection of 19 tools for […]

Dave Rupert: Finding curated public domain images. “I try to avoid indiscriminately (un-)splashing every post but the real reason for the infrequency isn’t radical self-control, it’s because dumpster diving for public domain images can be a chore…. That’s why –for me– a little for-profit curation goes a long way. I wrote down some of my favorite resources from my last search (so I […]

Calishat: Super Edu Search, Powered By Diffbot. “Super Edu Search 1.0 aggregated sets of domains and presented them as Google search URLs because I can’t afford Google’s search API and that was a free workaround. But Diffbot’s API is free and so I can integrate its search results into the tool…. Since this result integration seemed like it would be useful to researchers, I added the […]

Calishat: Upgrading BlogHiking.com: More Results, Site Muting. “I spent some time over the weekend working on my blog search tool Blog Hiking. I’m happy to report it’s more powerful than before and has a couple of new features.”

Calishat: Local Search America Adds Local News Feed, Articles From 1K+ Sources Around the US. “Local News Feed gathers RSS feed items from 1003 local news sources across America and aggregates them into one state-browsable, keyword-searchable bundle.”

Calishat: Exploring “War-Torn” Portland With Local Search America. “Local Search America is free to use and free of advertising. In this article I’m going to walk you through its three tools to find local TV stations, government agencies, and institutions of higher learning near Portland and search their Web sites.”

https://rbfirehose.com/2025/09/28/calishat-exploring-war-torn-portland-with-local-search-america/

Ghacks: Google launches App for Windows to search online, local files and Google Drive. “Windows users who install the new app on their device may use the keyboard shortcut Alt-Space to bring up the search interface. The search finds content on the Internet as well as local files, installed programs, and Google Drive files according to Google’s announcement.” I thought, “Hasn’t Google done […]

https://rbfirehose.com/2025/09/17/ghacks-google-launches-app-for-windows-to-search-online-local-files-and-google-drive/

Calishat: Blaugust: Four Tools for Easier Date-Based Searching. “Do your Internet research tasks include a lot of date-based searching? I find that date-based searching helps a lot when searching historical (and man do I feel weird saying that about stuff that happened just a couple decades ago) events, companies, people and information. The results you’ll find when searching for something in […]

https://rbfirehose.com/2025/08/19/blaugust-four-tools-for-easier-date-based-searching-calishat/

Calishat: Echo Chambers No, Everything Chambers Yes: Three Tools For Nook-and-Cranny Searching. “Yesterday I wrote about making search spaces and got accused of making echo chambers. So today I’ll show you how to get into the EVERYTHING CHAMBER with 3 tools for randomish and nook-and-cranny searching.”

https://rbfirehose.com/2025/08/16/echo-chambers-no-everything-chambers-yes-three-tools-for-nook-and-cranny-searching-calishat/

Calishat: Blaugust: Heard about Google’s “Preferred Sources”? Here are 4 Other Ways to Find Specific News Outlets. “In the last few years I’ve been working on tools to let you create lists of sites to search in Google. Unlike Google’s ‘Preferred Sources’ setting, my tools use external sources to show you news and media sites you may know nothing about. You can even find them by US […]

https://rbfirehose.com/2025/08/14/blaugust-heard-about-googles-preferred-sources-here-are-4-other-ways-to-find-specific-news-outlets-calishat/

Aaron Tay: A Deep Dive into EBSCOhost’s Natural Language Search and Web of Science Smart Search – Two bundled “Ai-powered”search (I). “This post will examine EBSCOhost’s Natural Language Search (NLS) and, in the next post, Web of Science’s Smart Search (not to be confused with Web of Science Research Assistant). Both are interesting because they introduce this ‘semantic’ query translation […]

https://rbfirehose.com/2025/07/23/aaron-tay-a-deep-dive-into-ebscohosts-natural-language-search-and-web-of-science-smart-search-two-bundled-ai-poweredsearch-i/

Calishat: Analyze Overlapping Public Interest Via Wikipedia With Attention Junction. “Attention Junction, what’s your function? To analyze the views of two Wikipedia pages, identify spans of public interest, find overlaps, and turn them into Google / Google News searches. All while being free to use and free of ads.”

https://rbfirehose.com/2025/07/23/calishat-analyze-overlapping-public-interest-via-wikipedia-with-attention-junction/

Calishat: Local Search America: Search the Web by DMA. “Today I finished creating Local Search America, a new way to create specific search spaces for authoritative institutions in American DMAs… Enter a city and state and Local Search America identifies the television stations and government agencies which serve that area as well as the institutions of higher education in that area. Up to […]

https://rbfirehose.com/2025/07/06/local-search-america-search-the-web-by-dma-calishat/

Search Engine Journal: YouTube Tests AI Overviews In Search Results. “YouTube is now testing AI-powered video summaries in its search results, a feature similar to Google Search’s AI overviews. The new tool helps users find relevant videos faster by highlighting specific clips that best match their search criteria.”

https://rbfirehose.com/2025/04/25/search-engine-journal-youtube-tests-ai-overviews-in-search-results/

Calishat: SearchTweaks.com Updated – 16 Free Tools for Better Web Search. “I learned so much overhauling WikiTwister that I immediately came up with several ideas for improving SearchTweaks, my collection of 16 web-based tools for making your web search better/easier/more interesting. After a very busy few days I have uploaded the new version and I’m delighted to share it with you. […]

https://rbfirehose.com/2025/03/03/calishat-searchtweaks-com-updated-16-free-tools-for-better-web-search/