Bust Cheating Spouses, Spy on Neighbors & Get Great Search Results!
Written: Aug 24 '00 (Updated Jul 30 '06)
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Pound for pound, Alta Vista’s search engine has the most options for a user-friendly program. I’ll admit it, I am no computer guru but Alta Vista lets me get the answers I want without having to do 40 different types of searches. The shopping element of the site is like a lifeline for me. I can see exactly what type edge one store has over another as well shipping and any online coupons. (Before you do any shopping online check with Ebates and My Simon for online coupons and rebates as well) What other search engine offers this plus a Reward Program? Not many with the clout and reputation of Alta Vista. It may have some pitfalls but it also has a web wide known name that more than makes up for a few short comings here and there.
Search Modes
There are three modes of searching with Alta Vista; Power, Advanced and Raging. The Power Search mode allows you to trim down the results by offering elements, dates and URL information. You can also take it a step further and narrow it by selecting a specific country or region as well as language. In most cases when I searched for information in Greek it was able to translate it with little or no trouble. The Advanced Search allows you to really dig deep into the bowels of the internet and see what the blood and guts or the cyber world looks like. You can enter a web address and see who is links to that address. Creepy thought huh? (You can find this option on the right hand corner of the Advanced Search page) There is a great tutorial program that I highly suggest reading before you attempt to play amateur private investigator. From the Advanced Search menus you can also do a more in-depth search for videos, MP3’s and images. I typed in Obiwanjabroni and you wouldn’t believe the pictures I got !!! The Raging Search is somewhat of a mystery to me. I have had little success getting good search results using the Raging feature. From what I have been told this feature is still in development and will be geared more towards a business clientele.
Beyond the search functions Alta Vista also offers a web wide product search, Yellow Pages, people searches and a translation module. All these can be found on the left side of the main page and sub pages. Dig deep enough and you’ll never have to waste a penny on a private investigator. You would be surprised what you can find with just someone’s name and city let alone their birth date, social security number and other ‘private’ information.
The Reward Program
Alta Vista offers a reward program for doing searches on the site, surfing the pages and shopping through the site. In recent months there have been troubles with the reward aspect of Alta Vista. There were daily drawing for 500,000 points and a “glitch” in the system (over a four day period) proclaimed everyone winners of the points. Alta Vista notified all the members of the error and awarded 1,000 points as a “peace offering”. A week later 5,000 more points were deposited into everyone accounts (I am assuming this was done to save face). Right now the stores you can spend your points on are limited; for as little as 5,000 points you can buy a $5.00 Blockbuster Gift Card or save them up and splurge on a $25.00 T.G.I. Friday’s gift certificate (a meager 25,000 points). You aren’t limited to gift certificates either; there are kids items, camping gear, portable stereos and more. My personal favorites are KB Toys and Borders.
You can earn up to 1,000 points a day providing you have the endurance to tolerate the notoriously slow site. Points usually turn up missing about once a week; if you find this happening just send the customer service team a short letter and they will credit your account.
You can also get points for shopping through Alta Vista. Honestly, this is something I would steer clear of until they get their points program straight. There are just too many problems with the reward points getting credited that I can’t see them getting a purchase credited with much more ease. The last time I check the point values ranged from 4 points to 60 points per dollar spent at a participating store.
Free Internet Access
Ever hear the saying “nothing in life is free”? Well, this holds true here as well. While you aren’t shelling out money for an internet connection you are forced to view ads on a toolbar that’s docked and locked at the bottom of your screen. I was curious about the Alta Vista free internet offer and tried it on my laptop computer. It wasn’t the fastest connection but it did come in ahead of Blue Light (K Mart) and !Blink!. The toolbar offers stocks, instant access to your Alta Vista mail account, news, current entertainment information (also called gossip) and a few other odds and ends. The toolbar does freeze on me but that could be the laptop, the phone line or the server. It takes about 2 minutes to completely load the entire Alta Vista package and get it working, sorry but I am not that patient. If I had to choose between paying $22.00 a month for AOL ( boo boo hiss hiss) or taking this as a free service I would have to think long and hard. The service interruptions were the worst part, my little hourglass would just flip over and over and over until I was left with no option but to do a Ctrl +Alt + Del. Two huge thumbs down for the free internet connection.
You could do a lot worse than Alta Vista as a search engine and yes, there are better ones out there. There number of different options on Alta Vista allow me to find people, information, addresses, business information, phone numbers and even marriage / divorce information (read that ‘cheats’ section very close). All in all Alta Vista is my one stop search engine for cyber sleuthing, finding an MP3 from Duran Duran, earning some easy KB Toy gift certificates and getting answers to Powerdime trivia. What more could I ask for from one search engine?
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Recommended:
Yes
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