No no, not finding an Internet home! Rather, using the Internet to find your next home!
Back in the “olden” days (like, 10 years ago!), we used to have to rely on word of mouth or generous realtors to discover foreclosed homes. Realtors are usually not forthcoming about foreclosed homes, since these properties are usually sold at much lower prices, and the commission is smaller. I remember trying to locate some foreclosed homes when i was house-hunting, and it was nearly impossible to find anything.
But the Internet has changed everything. Now, you can go online and look for affordable housing options, and you can also search for Foreclosures online! Very cool! Search the website by location, price, bedrooms and baths, and more. Many listings have detailed information and/or photos, such as tax information, included appliances, and real state company contact information.
The Internet has made us all do-it-yourselfers! I am still amazed at how great a resource the Internet is!
One of the biggest complaints I have with search engines is that a LOT of the material I get is dated. I am constantly searching for news, current events, and forum help postings, and it is SO frustrating to get stories from 2007, 2008, and even earlier. And there doesn’t seem to be any way to modify the search settings by date, none that I am aware of. Plus, many search engines are hopelessly outdated. The Internet has grown, and we with it. With most search engines, we still get the plain old “website” text and maybe a few images or small video results added in. Social networking and social media has really changed the atmosphere of the Net; there’s a lot more information out there from other sources besides the “name brand” mediocre websites. Additionally, the social aspect of the Net makes it so we share more with each other– via Twitter, Facebook, Yahoo, etc. I think the traditional search engines are very far behind with that.
So I am delighted, as I usually am, to announce that there’s a NEW search engine kid on the block: LeapFish. It’s pretty nice. The interface is not complex (always a plus), but the search results are excellent. LeapFish draws results from the top three search engine giants, but arranges results in a very intuitive way. For example, I did a search for “Paterson New York” and was immediately presented with a page of highly-organized results: the primary ones were informational, then of recent news. To the side were “Answers” which are the current questions and answers people are discussing related to my search, and at the bottom were video results, Twitters, images, and mentions in blogs. Very elegant and detailed! The only thing I didn’t like was that the videos played when I hovered over them; this has become a common feature for video results, but I’d like to see it changed to an actual click before playing videos.
LeapFish looks like a real contender, and one of the terrific features is that you can add it to your browser. Very easy and convenient. Just go to the LeapFish homepage and look in the right top corner for “Add Leapfish to your browser.”
Here’s a film trailer-type of video that shows you the features of LeapFish. The LeapFish website has much more information about the details of the search engine.
Here’s another terrific search engine option: Aafter.com. It’s another Google-modification programs– Aafter.com is a high-privacy, very speedy, versatile search engine. And it offers a cash-back income generation system, too: Use the site to search for online deals, and receive a percentage of the product price returned. Aafter.com is very open about their cashback systam– you always see the cashback amount on the page, and can claim your savings through PayPal or via a check. It’s a nice bonus feature for a very nice search engine program.
The company is based out of Texas, and I love their pledge of professionalism and resourcefulness. The best thing about Aafetr.com, in my opinion, is the “Cha-Cha”-like search engine feature. Aafter.com accepts questions, much like KGBKGB or Cha-Cha, and offers links to a vast array of helpful links to YouTube, videos, reference sites, and etc. I homeschool, so this feature is a REAL time-saver for all the billions of little questions I get everyday, on things from calclus to geography to movie trivia. AAfter.com Answers Homework . Check out the feature– it’s great.
Also, Aafter offers spell-check, search help and answers for parts of speech and other grammar questions, reverse phone lookup, even allergy reports for your locality. It’s terrific! We have it bookmarked as one of our necessary reference sites. Check it out, bookmark it! Very, very cool!
I have used regular Google searches, looking for medical information, and HOH BOY have I gotten some really kooky stuff. You really can’t rely on internet searches for medical information, unless you want a good laugh. And the stuff I do find, it’s hard to find because it’s mixed in with all the other kooky stuff. So check out this website: Merck Manuals Online Medical Library. Merck has been around a long time, and they’ve published books on medical information, too. They have some really cool stuff there, stuff for good health, anatomy, learning about various disorders, and a good search engine for searching the site. This is one to bookmark.
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