Sgt. Zondi is a personal web search spider. It uses your computer to conduct web searches based on your own search criteria by following and checking links found on web pages.
Sgt. Zondi works in two modes - an "Easy" and an "Advanced" mode. When the program opens you are by default in Easy mode.
To conduct a search:
- enter some search words in the "Search Words" field. This is NOT a boolean field and any words here are strung together with "and".
- pick a search engine to seed the search
- press "Go!"
What happens:
- The program looks in your internet search sites folder ( normally used by Sherlock ) to find the appropriate parameter/plugin file
- This file is analysed and the search engine query formatted
- The query is sent to the search engine
- The reply is analysed and links extracted
- These links provide the "seed" for the spider engine
- The spider starts and various items of progress info are displayed
- The spider gets the links in the link queue
- 1-8 channels may be opened at any time - adjusted by the spinner arrows next to the "Channel" block on the main screen
- The pages are analysed and matched against the query
- If a page matches the query, its links are added to the link queue in turn, else it is discarded
- Either the spider operation finishes by itself or is stopped by pressing the "STOP!" button
- Good links are shown in the main list box. Double clicking a link here will load the page in your default browser
To enter this mode press the "Query..." button. A window appears that allows you to set up a query.
Step 1. Enter a boolean search expression in the "Boolean" field. The parser understands:
AND/and
OR/or
NOT/not
double quotes "
plain brackets ()
Where ANDs and ORs are mixed at the same level without brackets evaluation is left-to-right.
Step 2. Provide one or more seed URLs by entering them in the "Seed URLs" field and pressing the adjacent "Add" button.
This is the minimum required for an advanced search.
You may also adjust other parameters ( see later sections ).
Once you have set up the whole Query, press the "Load Spider" button. If all is well the main window ( Easy Window ) should show that the spider is loaded and ready to go. You may now press "Hide" to hide the query window.
To run the search press the "Go!" button in the main window. Operation is now as per the "Easy" search, except that no search engines are queried for seed URLs, as they are provided in the Query.
It seems a new tradition in the Mac world, since the introduction of "Sherlock", to name search tools after detectives. I have always enjoyed James McClure's great South African detective novels starring Lt. Kramer and Sgt. Zondi. If you like crime novels look out for titles such as "The Steam Pig", "The Caterpillar Cop" and "The Gooseberry Fool" - great reads all of them.
A PPC Mac.
A few Mb of disk space.
About 6 Mb of free Ram.
An internet connection.
A monitor set to a minimum of 800x600 resolution.
Suggestions welcome.
Last updated on 12-03-2000