How to use Seekmaster

 

The Multimedia category

 

As you can observe, Seekmaster is a filtering engine – it does not do any searches of its own. What is does is plain and simple: redirect you towards a Google (or other search engine) filtered search, in order for the easy finding of several types of files that are listed on the main page, as search categories.

As you can see, there are five categories listed: Audio, Video, E-books, E-learning (meaning E-how’s and Tutorials) and Online Media files.

Further, each category has its own “engine” (we call it an “engine” because it builds and redirect the search). As you will see, Google is the main engine we will use, but what we call “engine” here has a slightly different meaning: it symbolizes the area of the search and the building of the query.

How does it work? Simple! We’ll show you an example, also showing you why the search has to be done in a certain way.

 

Let’s say you want to look for a song – and we’ll use, as an example, an old song sang by Beach Boys – that is “Barbara Ann”. You search query would look something like this:

 

 

 

 

So, under the category, we choose “Audio files”.

 

Under the engine, we choose what type of link we want in return. Here’s a list of the websites we use:

 

  1. Open directories – interfaces that show an index of content for an actual website or server. It should look like this:

 

 

As you can see, an open directory is mainly a collection of files.

 

  1. Rapidshare, Megaupload – the world’s largest (up to this date) upload centers. An upload center is a public server designed for data storage.

 

Of course, these servers don’t allow indexing, and it’s easy to understand why – because their purpose was to be used by people who want to store their personal data and files. However, some of them would make this content public. A link provided by these upload centers would look like this:

 

http://www.rapidshare.com/232412811/Beach_Boys_Barbara_Ann.mp3

 

  1. Multiply and Trilulilu (the website we used for the “Live music” option) are a different approach to upload centers – they provide data storage capabilities for smaller files and a smaller community. A link would look like this:

 

http://username.multiply.com/audio/item/126

 

4.      Torrents and Edonkey – two peer-to-peer networks that provide connections among the users that share files between them. Both of them need a client software to be installed on your system before accessing and downloading the content. However, Google indexes this content and often returns useful results. A .torrent file is mainly a shortcut to the actual file, file that exists somewhere on another person’s computer – the same is an Edonkey (Ed2k) link.

 

Take note, please, of two things:

  1. We did not use the article “the” before the band’s name. Why is that? Because it may restrict us from getting sufficient results. There might be a chance that only few of the pages containing our terms also contain the article. By not using it, the search engine will return as results both the pages that use it and the ones that don’t.
  2. We did not check the “exact search term” box. It only has to be checked in case we expect the resulting pages to contain our terms as a phrase

 

You can follow the same steps for video files as well as e-books.

 

In case you’re looking (under the Video files category) for a live webcam, just type in the name of the city or country you’re looking for results from. Our search string allows a wide range of options.

 

The E-learning category

 

This is an original option that we’ve come up with, offering people the possibility to look for educational instructions on, pretty much, anything. Just write down what you want to do.

 

Let’s say, for instance, that you want to learn how to install a PC motherboard. Nothing easier: just type that in:

 

 

 

 

Then, you can choose from a wide range of tutorials. You have the “regular” tutorials, in forms of text, or you can go for instructional videos (choose “Video tutorials”). If you need to find out how others have dealt with this, you can go and choose “Public forums”, which will give you the opportunity to visit webpages where other Internet users have discussed several topics connected to the problem and, hopefully, have came up with a solution.

 

The last two options from the E-learning category are designed for people who want to find out either how to use a product (the “User manuals” option, which will allow the person to write down the name of the item that he’s purchased and find a manual on how to use it, or the “User reviews” option, which allows the persons that are about to purchase an item to find out other Internet user’s opinions about the same product). The query would look like this:

 

 

 

 

This query, plus the option “User reviews”, will return results in forms of discussions about the pros and cons of the item. The same query, plus the option “User manuals” will return results in form of downloadable manuals on how to use the item.

 

Online media

 

How to use the Online Media category? It’s, again, a very simple and effective category for finding out online TV and radio stations, and also videoclips. The approach we’ve used is smart and we’re glad to say it’s working – because it’s the only way that Internet users will be able to find an online TV/Radio station that is broadcasted (streamed) through all the protocols (including flash and peer-to-peer TV).

 

How it works? Easy: just type in the name of a TV station. The query can look like this:

 

 

 

…or like this:

 

 

 

 

The same goes for the radio stations. As for videoclips, we’re using Google’s regular search, that we’ve adapted for video-broadcasting websites – so it should work like a charm.

 

Good luck with your search. Don’t forget to read the disclaimer on the first page and, remember, if you have to search for something, search smart: use Seekmaster.