Charlotte, Spotlight for the Web

One thing I like about Charlotte (other than the prefeteched search results) is the support for Services. I don't have to leave the document I am working on, simply highlight some text and hit the keyboard shortcut: Shift + Command + < . Sometimes I will reading a story on CNN in Safari and like to know if there are similar stories on the topic, I highlight a paragraph or two and hit the keyboard shortcut: Shift + Command + > to run the contextual query.

Haha... Charlotte's WEB... I get it...

Charlotte is a really nicely done application, but it's just not going to replace Inquisitor for me. Charlotte is effectively a standalone web browser, which treats search results sort of the way Safari treats RSS: as a seperate mode of accessing information. It's also just a little too fiddly for me, too many options, too many icons.

But prefetched search results are what the cool kids use these days, and once you start using them you won't want to go back. If you like a Spotlight-light approach, and don't want to donate $5 to David Watanabe (who totally deserves it, btw), then Charlotte is an attractive choice.

Which is to say nothing of the google importer tool that allows your spotlight searches to take to the web. I don't have a link, but if you visit versiontracker some time in the last three days, you should see it.

I was going to mention the same thing about Watanabe's InquisitorX for the web. Of course, the version that installs into Safari & Camino carries a small surcharge if you want to customize it beyond using google, but the web version seems to have no fee, and allows you to use google, yahoo, ask, and a couple of others.
While Charlotte's green is okay, inquisitor's tiger blue makes more sense on the mac.And is prettier. Unless you like that color green a whole, way lot.

Have a look at Dave Watanabe's new Inquisitor Web Search Beta.

http://www.inquisitorx.com/beta/

He also has a downloadable version for Safari and Camino with a similar interface.