August 23, 2007...6:49 pm

Microsoft’s Tafiti Search

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(A larger and clearer 2.4Mb mpeg4 version is available here)

(A separate 3.6Mb mpeg4 video of the tree view search option is here)

Out of curiosity I tried Microsoft’s new Tafiti search which requires Silverlight , their rich Internet application technology which is available for Windows and Mac OS X. If you don’t have Silverlight installed already then the Tafiti homepage will prompt you to downloadSilverlight 1 before use. Once you commit to a search an animated carousel of icons appears on the left which lets you toggle between the web search, available books, related RSS feeds and Images. Any of these results can Silverlight 2be drag and dropped into a clip retainer down the right hand side. Subsequent searches are stacked on the notepad top left and can be returnedSilverlight 3 to or deleted.I felt that a lot of the search screen was taken up with graphics whilst reducing the size of the search results screen. maybe overlayed graphics with an auto hide feature would probably have allowed more of the browser area to be given over to the actual search results. It was a pleasant enough interface if you like eye candy and worth experimenting with. I’ll be interested as to how it evolves.

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4 Comments

Filed under Search, Technology, Thoughts, computers, video

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4 Comments

  • Thomas
    August 24, 2007 at 5:36 am

    Nice video walkthrough of Tafiti. I wrote up Using Tafiti, A Silverlight Demo Walkthrough but just used static screen shots.

    I think the video is a good method for helping demonstrate the features and functionality of Tafiti. I agree taht I will be interested to see how this evolves, and what other applications are created using Silverlight.

  • emalyse
    August 24, 2007 at 8:44 am

    Thanks for that Thomas.A very good screenshot walkthrough.

  • Thomas
    August 24, 2007 at 4:34 pm

    Thanks, complimets are always appreciated.

    What program did you use to create that video walkthrough? After seeing how well yours works as a demonstration, I think I would like to try that.

  • emalyse
    August 24, 2007 at 4:45 pm

    You’re welcome Thomas-screen movie capture wise I’m on a Mac (the outrage of it!) so used iShowU (http://www.shinywhitebox.com) though I’ve often used it equally well when running other OS options via virtualisation. No doubt there are similar Windows specific screen video recorders out there.

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