BullsEye 2 Pro
BullsEye 2 Pro
| by Dale Farris, President, Golden Triangle PC Club December 2000 With the latest update to the new version 2.5.020 of BullsEye Pro, the Intelliseek Corporation solidifies its place amongst the different ventures of many other companies working to make searching for quality sites on the Internet more successful. BullsEye 2 Pro is a specialized search tool that provides an intuitive, yet powerful interface to over 800 search engines and specialty databases on the Web. The Guided Search and Intelligent Agent technology is what provides the coverage in the program that for the present, is not matched in any other search tool or search site. Fifteen (15) major search areas and over 140 specific categories are already built into the program, making finding what you want quick and easy. BullsEye 2 Pro is a simple to use, but powerful client-side Internet search product that can be coded to integrate into existing Web sites. For more information on this feature, contact the company at the below listed addresses. With this program, you can save searches, query a history of searches, and search reports, all in an effort to get the most out of the Internet. The company that sells this program, Intelliseek, has as their goal, to produce an intelligent desktop portal, focusing on delivering the best sources of information for what you are looking. Intelliseek is a privately held Internet company based in Cincinnati, Ohio, and is a leader in the provision of an infrastructure for intelligent portals. Both server-based search and tracking solutions, such as their Web Search and Vertical Search solutions, as well as this advanced client-side program are developed in this company. Intelliseek now has over 75 co-branded business partners who distribute their technology to their end users and over 1 million unique monthly users visit Intelliseek properties. New Features in Pro Version 2.5.020 Natural language queries Multilanguage search Access to more search engines - over 800 engines in over 120 categories MS Outlook style user interface Integrated browser Results display in the Manager Persistent highlighting Quick relevance scoring and summaries Inline summaries Desktop integration Enhanced reporting Operational Features Efficient Web searching - guided search and intelligent agent technology Comprehensive news agents In-depth analysis - advanced linguistic analysis and unique filtering Eliminate duplicate and dead links Information management - annotate, save, share search results BullsEye Tracker tracks information at the site, page or item level Email or pager alert when tracked information changes Operational Information When you run the program, the Manager first opens, divided into regions. The Shortcut Bar on the left is used to move between different areas of functionality in the program, including Intelliseek, Search, Manage, and Track. The large, dominant pane is where search criteria are entered and search results are displayed. There is also the Main Toolbar, as well as a series of menus at the top. The search areas appear in the Shortcut Bar, including 15 major area you can search with the program, such as Web, News, Shopping, Multimedia, Software, or References. When you first run the program, the quick search page of the Web search area automatically appears. The various categories under the Web search area include searching the whole Web, kid-safe sites, MP3 searches, and more. There is also an "Advanced" link and a "Edit Search Engines" link that provide access to tools used to conduct more sophisticated searches and to set search defaults. Once you enter your keyword or keywords in the "Enter Keywords" field, you click the red Search button, and this starts a search across the Web for all references to the keyword. The default view is divided into 2 parts, including the top pane that lists the search results, and the bottom pane that is a fully functional, IE-compatible Web browser window. If you wish, you can change this results layout to display only the browser, or only the results list. Taken as is, the results are at first raw and may contain dead links, duplicates, or outright errors. A neat feature built into BullsEye 2 Pro is the tool that lets you "clean" these. Click the "Analyze" button on the Main Toolbar, and then select the "Remove Dead Links" option. This will result in less matches in the results view, as the program will remove the irrelevant and time-wasting links that are no longer good. You can also then further search within your results, using the "Results" button on the Main Toolbar. This will allow you to use the same or other keyword or keywords to match against the Web pages retrieved from your first search. This allows you to narrow your results to only those that are most relevant to your search term(s). Using the "Refine" button, you can even further refine the results, by either adding or changing your original keyword or keywords. With the features in the "Advanced" and "Filters" options, you can access special functions to help you create a more powerful search within results or on the Web. The "Filters" button allows you to exclude types of sites or specific Web pages from your searches. By default, the program displays search results in the top pane by score, based on relevance to the search criteria. Each result listing includes the title of the Web page, the URL, the search engine from which the result came and a short summary. The program allow you many features to refine how your results are displayed. You can add notes, or comments to a page and save these with the page. You can show or hide result summaries and notes, and you can view additional information on the results, such as ranking and file size. The "Status" view displays results in the order they were matched, the "Site" view sorts results in a hierarchy of folders by domain (.com, .org), and country, and the "Concept" view groups results together by terms related conceptually to the search query. Reports can be created for any open search. These reports provide a way to share the results of a search with those who do not use the program, or to format the information for presentation of data exchange. BullsEye 2 Pro can generate 5 types of reports, and each can be configured with a variety of options. These types include html classic, html compact, text, xml, and handheld devices. By default, reports are delivered to the "Reports" folder under the "Manage" tab on the "Shortcut Bar." You can also save the report on your hard drive, and email the report to others. Based on the criteria entered into the "Generate Report" dialog box, the program then generates a report. Reports can be viewed in a browser or another application that can read .html or .txt file formats. In addition to generating reports, the program offers other means of managing the information retrieved or created. These include creating bookmarks, viewing saved searches, viewing search histories, along with managing reports. "Saved Searches" can be saved for later retrieval or review, and the "Query History" will display a list of queries conducted with the program. The program supports the use of Boolean operators (AND, OR, NOT) and proximity searches (NEAR, NEAR/n). You can specify search engines to use, set filters on the site, addresses and pages, and create complex queries with the "Power Query" feature. Once the criteria are entered and the Search button is pressed, the search is executed and the results are displayed just like in a standard search. You can even invoke a query wizard, spell checker, thesaurus, and sound-alike lookup table from the Advanced Search dialog box. In the included 14 search areas, you can customize defaults for these. Settings include the search engine or sources to query, the level of analysis to perform, the types of filters set, and how duplicates are to be handled. Features Within Tracker When you buy BullsEye 2 Pro, you are actually buying two programs in one. The Tracker application functions independently from the main BullsEye 2 Pro program, but it is an integral part of the program. Because it is designed to scan the Internet on your schedule, for information you need, Tracker can automatically monitor specified Web pages for changes, identify and retrieve new and relevant information on any topic, and present any changes and updates in a custom BullsEye 2 Pro report format. When using BullsEye 2 Pro, you are driving the search in the Manager window, while in the Tracker program, it automatically searches for you. Tracker can perform all the searching functions an end-user can access through the BullsEye 2 Pro Manager, but Tracker can execute these, repeatedly if necessary, automatically, without any user intervention. The results of these searches are then available for you to access at your convenience. Pretty Cool! You just select the "Track" button on the "Shortcut Bar," then click on "Tracker Profiles" and the Tracker window appears. To create a new Tracker search for a specific Web page, just select "New, Track a Web Page" from the Tracker menu. Then, you enter the properties of the page you wish to track, and using the existing tabs here, including "Analysis," "Schedule," "Delivery," and "Report Options," you can define what should be tracked on the page, how often, how the information is delivered when a changes has been made, and if reports are required, how these should be presented. Using the "Analysis" tab, you can have the Tracker program track changes in text, links and even images, and look for specific keywords which must appear on the changed page. This allows for very specific searches to be conducted. Defining how often Tracker searches for information is set on the "Schedule" tab, with a configuration button that allows very flexible search timings to be set. Competitive Positioning BullsEye 2 Pro competes very favorably with other similar products, such as Copernic 2000 Pro, Mata-Hari Pro 2.01, or NetMind's Mind-It 3.0. However, with the newest features in BullsEye 2 Pro, it now easily surpasses these other programs in features, power, as well as competitive pricing. Recommendation For those seriously intending to regularly perform serious research on the Internet, this program is a certainty, and for the very competitive price, represents a lot of value for the investment. However, for the occasional Internet surfer, not all that interested in solid substance on the Web, then any of the multitude of online search engines should continue to provide what these irregular searchers need. For students, teachers, and researchers, BullsEye 2 Pro is a sure thing, and should quickly prove to provide the results this discriminating group of information hounds needs. Setup and Install Setup and installation worked fine on my machine, but my machine easily exceeds the minimum configuration requirements listed below. When running this program, users are encouraged to remember that you are asking this software to search the Internet for you, generate results and then comprise the results into whatever way the user has defined. Therefore, the faster the Internet connection and the processor, and the more memory on the system, the better this program will work. For the best user experience, the program should be installed on a PC with IE (version 4.0 or later) as the browser. If available, this program will use IE to power its own internal browser. Otherwise, the program will use a limited capability browser control included in the program. You do not have to change your default browser to IE. The program will continue to use the browser of your choice to open Web pages in a separate window. For users of IE 4.0, there may be delays while the program works to highlight keywords, if the user asks it to do this. The pre-release, beta version of IE 5.5 will prevent users from using the quicksearch forms in the program. For those with an early version 4.0 of IE, Intelliseek recommends upgrading to SP 2 or later. For users working behind a Firewall/Proxy Server to access the Internet which requires a user name and password, you may be asked to enter this twice while using the program. With systems with video limited to 256 colors, the program may not paint correctly, and with systems with older multimedia driver, the program's animation may not display correctly. All the above mentioned concerns have been addressed by the company, and the requisite corrective action is also included with the program material. The program will load an icon onto the desktop for both the BullsEye 2 Pro program and the Tracker program. Price $249.00 Retail Price $100.00 Upgrade Price NOTE: Intelliseek also makes available the free BullsEye 2.5 program, accessible via a download from the company's Web site. This free program is geared to consumers, while BullsEye 2 Pro is focused on marketing, business development, information systems, consulting, and human resources, as well as serious researchers. The free program will not track changes to sites, now will it allow the user to set up the notification of the Tracker changes, and contains a lot of banner ads. System Configuration Requirements Windows 95B (or later), 98/2000 and Win NT 4 (SP3 or later) Pentium 100 MHz or faster processor 32MB RAM minimum 15MB hard drive space minimum, plus 65MB recommended 800 x 600 resolution & 256-color (16-bit) recommended Internet connection, high-speed recommended Contact Kelly Deters Baker Director, Corporate Communications Intelliseek One Crowne Point Court, Suite 470 Cincinnati, Ohio 45241 1-513-672-5408 1-513-772-6900 FAX 1-513-772-6996 kbaker@intelliseek.com http://www.intelliseek.com info@intelliseek.com |