Three specialty search engines you never knew existed

By | July 3, 2011
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There are a lot of search engines out there besides Google, Bing and Yahoo. The ones we are featuring today are niche search engines – they have limited usability – but they’re a lot a fun. And they’re useful too if their specialty is what you’re looking for.

#1. Dead Cell Zones (USA and UK)

Dead Cell Zones offers a searchable map of user-reported dead cellular zones. Can you hear me there? The search engine U.S. dead spots that have been reported by users of AT&T, Verizon, Sprint, T-Mobile, and several smaller carriers. The site they have had more than 100,000 submissions from users. If you’re in the UK you can get maps of your cellular dead zones at www.deadcellzones.com/uk.html .

#2. Soda Finder

Would you drink a bottle of soda that hasn’t been made in 40 yeas? Me either. But still, some people don’t really care how old it is – they’ll drink it. Soda doesn’t get better with age like wine, does i?

To heck with expiration dates. Soda Finder is fun to browse and search. It’s also an online store that offers a search engine to help you find old, rare, and/or discontinued soda pop. The site does warn you about drinking these old products. I wasn’t there to buy – I was there for a whiff of nostalgia. So drink up – some of the soda is fresh! Visit www.sodafinder.com – the site and search engine with pop.

#3. TypoBuddy

The world is full of bad spellers. Even with spell checkers bad spellers abound. (No wise cracks!). If you’re searching for bargains online you can take advantage of the poor folks who cannot spell and will not use a spell checker, by using TypoBuddy.

TypoBuddy is a search engine that searches eBay and Craigslist for misspellings. If you type “laptop” (spelled correctly) into TypoBuddy’s search box, and it gives you links to most of the common misspellings of “laptop” like “lpatop, loptap, lapotp, laaptop, latop”. So some poor soul trying to sell a Dell loptap for $500 – gets no customers because loptap doesn’t show up in eBay’s search engine. But it does in TypoBuddy’s search results. You might just get that loptap of your dreams for a hundred bucks. Shame on you for capitalizing on a poor, helpless, poor speller. You don’t care? Neither do I . There are spellcheckers, you know. Try TypoBuddy right now – and capitalize on someone’s poor spelling :-).

2 thoughts on “Three specialty search engines you never knew existed

  1. Patricia Kluun

    Thank you for the iPad tips. I’m still learning about Apple’s iPad. Don’t know what’s takings long!!! 75 isn’t such a bad age – just the leaks in my mind now….. Sorry I did not get a laptop, though. This is easier to handle.
    PK

    Reply
    1. Carol Isaacs

      I too bought an iPad along with “iPad 2:the missing manual”. Somehow, this new toy doesn’t thrill me enough to spend as much time as I’d planned learning to use it. I am older than you, but have taught computer to seniors for the last 11 years. This item is beautiful to look at, easy to carry, but won’t take the place of a full fledged computer. Eventually, I think it will, however.

      Reply

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