Quintura Search

Because you can use it in tandem with other search engines, such as Google, Yahoo, or even the product search engine at Amazon.com, I would call Quintura a search refinement tool. After you enter a search word or phrase, other, related words and phrases pop up on Quintura's screen. Hover over one of these words or phrases and a new tag cloud blooms, this one more specific to the element you hovered over. Double-click a word or phrase to add it to your search string.

At the same time, traditional links with summaries, generated by the search phrase, appear on the right side of the screen. In this way, I was able to identify a favorite dish and find a recipe for it. It took only a second or two for me to enter a search phrase, "Indian curry," double-click the word "chicken" from the tag cloud to add it to my search string, then to see the words that had been eluding me bloom under my cursor: tikka masala. Jackpot.

That said, Quintura did not always return results I expected, even when I lobbed some softball queries its way. The program is still relatively new; I hope it will become more intelligent as time goes by.

--Leigh Anne Jones