As its name implies, the Sherlock application is something of a detective, tracking down information on the Internet from the clues you provide. Some people might find it difficult to get excited about a search tool, but Sherlock is far from ordinary. With specialized search categories, including yellow pages and a dictionary, Sherlock will quickly become your one-stop reference tool.
Sherlock is basically a collection of Internet search functions, each packaged in its own “channel.” The default channels are listed in the Channels menu of the Channels pane, as shown in Figure 13.1. They’re also listed in the toolbar at the top of the window.
By the Way
Long-time Mac users might be confused by the recent incarnation of Sherlock, which doesn’t include the option to search the local machine’s files. That feature is now available directly from the Finder either in the search option in the toolbar of the Finder windows or in a separate Find window opened by selecting Find from the Finder’s File menu or by using the keyboard shortcut Command-F. Refer to Chapter 2, “Using the Finder,” for further information.
Each channel provides a specific kind of information, gathered from another source and displayed within the Sherlock interface. Notice that at the bottom of the Channels pane is a Terms of Use link, which opens a sheet explaining that Apple doesn’t produce most of the content displayed in Sherlock.
Let’s take a look at each default channel’s use and special features.
The Internet channel compiles search results from popular Internet search sites, such as Ask Jeeves and Lycos. As shown in Figure 13.2, each search result lists the title and address of a Web page, a relevance ranking, and the search site or sites that provided the entry.
To perform an Internet search, simply type your search terms into the text entry field at the top of the Internet channel pane and click the green Search button or press Return. When the results listing appears, you can select an entry with a single click to see a site description if one is available. Double-clicking launches your default Web browser and opens the page you requested.
Similar to searches using the Internet channel, the Pictures channel queries photo databases for digital images based on your search terms. Thumbnail images of the results are displayed in the results pane, as shown in Figure 13.3. Double-click a thumbnail image in the results to open a Web page displaying the full-sized picture.
The Stocks channel, shown in Figure 13.4, provides details about the market performance of publicly traded companies. The information shown includes the stock price at last trade, price change, price range over the course of the day, and the volume of shares traded. You can also view charts of a company’s performance over the past year or week or for the current day.
To find information about a company, enter its name or market symbol. Market symbols are unique identifiers, but many companies have similar names or several separate divisions. If you enter a name, you might see a sheet asking you to choose the company you’re interested in, as shown Figure 13.5. When the correct name or symbol appears in the text entry field, click the green Search button or press Return.
Watch Out!
Market symbols and companies with similar names can make it difficult to ask for the listing you really want. If you don’t enter the exact market symbol, some guesswork might be involved for Sherlock to return any results. Always check to make sure that the displayed information is for the company you thought you requested!
As you view information for different companies, they are added to the list in the middle of the Stocks pane so that you can easily return to them. If you want to remove a listing, simply select it and press the Delete key on your keyboard.
In addition to providing stock quotes, Sherlock also displays recent news articles pertaining to the selected company. To read a story, select its headline from the left of the chart, and the bottom pane displays the full text.
Sherlock’s Movies channel, shown in Figure 13.6, pulls together all the information you need to choose a movie and a theater in which to view it.
To use the Movies channel, you must enter either your city and state or your ZIP Code. Then you can choose to search either Movies or Theaters in your area. The Showtime pop-up menu enables you to choose the date of interest to you.
Choose the movie and theater listings at the top of the panel that are of interest to you, and the bottom of the window will fill with theater and movie information. In addition to a text summary of the movie, you can watch a preview for the selected option in QuickTime.
By the Way
To play the QuickTime preview, you might be prompted to set your network connection information in QuickTime Preferences if you haven’t already done so. Refer to the section on QuickTime in Chapter 7, “Using QuickTime and DVD Player,” for more details.
The Phone Book channel has two modes: a person search and a business search.
The person search mode, shown in Figure 13.7, allows you to find a phone number and address by entering a person’s name and a general location. To perform a person search, click the information button at the upper left (the one with an “i” in a white circle). Enter a last name, a first name, and either the city and state or the ZIP Code of the area to search. Then click the green Search button. In the middle pane, choose from among the list of potential matches to see detailed information, including a map.
Use the business search, shown in Figure 13.8, to obtain the phone number and address for a business and to view a map to its location. Simply click the information button on the right (the one with an “i” in a yellow circle), enter the business name and either the city and state or the ZIP Code of the area to search, and click the green Search button. In the middle pane, choose from among the list of potential matches to see detailed information.
To receive driving directions to addresses turned up in either the person or business search, enter an address in the Driving Directions From text field. The Directions pane fills with step-by-step instructions.
You can then select the location you added in the Driving Directions From pop-up menu.
From the eBay channel, you can search active eBay auctions and track those of interest to you. To search, enter keywords in the Item Title text entry field and set your other parameters, such as product category, region, and price range; then click the Search button. When you choose a result from the search, its details fill the bottom panes of the screen, as shown in Figure 13.9.
To track an item, highlight it in the results listing and click the Track Auction button at lower right. Changing to Track mode using the button just below the search field reveals a list of only those items you’re tracking. To remove an item, select it and press Delete on your keyboard.
For information on current flights, go to the Flights channel. Here you can view flight status by route or by airline and flight number. Select a specific flight for details about the aircraft and flight. For some entries, you can also view a chart depicting the plane’s position en route, as shown in the lower-right corner of Figure 13.10.
You can click the small switchlike button at the bottom right of the Flights pane to set preferences for the Flights channel. As shown in Figure 13.11, you can choose airlines and airports by continent on which to focus your searches.
As you might expect, you look up word definitions in the Dictionary channel (shown in Figure 13.12). For some words, you also see a list—in the lower half of the pane—of phrases that contain that word or relate to it. (Clicking the Pronunciation Key link opens Dictionary.com’s pronunciation symbol key in your default browser.)
The Translation channel, shown in Figure 13.13, performs rough translations between different languages. English speakers can translate into Simplified and Traditional Chinese, Dutch, French, German, Greek, Italian, Japanese, Korean, Portuguese, Russian, and Spanish, and then back to English.
Did you Know?
If there is a large block of text in a document or email message that you want to translate but don’t want to retype, you can select the text, choose Edit, Copy from the menu, and then switch to Sherlock’s Translation channel and choose Edit, Paste from the menu.
When using this service, keep in mind that computer-generated translations do not match the output of a skilled human translator.
If you have a specific technical question about Apple software or hardware that OS X’s Help Viewer can’t resolve, use the AppleCare channel, shown in Figure 13.14, to search the AppleCare Knowledge Base for reports about Apple products and issues.
Now that we have explored the default channels, let’s take a quick look at some channels written outside Apple.
In addition to the Channels we’ve see so far in this chapter, which were created by Apple, there are many channels written by others to view information on topics ranging from news to astrology and from song lyrics to television listings.
To access this information, click the Channels button at the upper left of the Sherlock toolbar to open the Channels pane. Next, choose Other Channels from the list along the left-hand side of the window. As shown in Figure 13.15, a plethora of channels will appear in the right-hand column along with the countries to which they apply and a brief description.
To open one of these channels, simply double-click its listing. Each channel will have its own interface to support the information it displays; you will have to follow the cues in the channel’s interface to figure out what information will be provided and how to perform a search.
Watch Out!
The quality of third-party channels varies greatly. Some are helpful; others merely frustrate.
Before we complete our tour of Sherlock, let’s examine the features accessible in Sherlock’s preferences.
The Sherlock Preferences, as shown in Figure 13.16, are minimal. You have the option to allow Sherlock to accept cookies always or never as it searches the Internet on your behalf. Cookies are small files sent to your computer from some Web sites that provide specific types of services, such as personalized user accounts and online shopping.
By the Way
Sites use cookies to keep track of you as you interact with the site. (This is because the computer running the Web site doesn’t have another way to recognize that you’re the same person who looked at the preceding page.) Even though cookies are mostly harmless, some people don’t like the idea of having others track their movements on the Internet, even if the information is most likely never seen by human eyes. That’s why Sherlock gives you the choice of whether to accept cookies. (Note, however, that some sites require use of cookies for you to interact with them successfully.)
If you click the Show Cookies button, you can see a list of the cookies accumulated on your computer, both by Sherlock and by any other Web browsing applications you use. If you want to remove cookies, you can select them individually and click the Remove button or choose to delete all stored cookies with a click of the Remove All button. When finished with the list of cookies, click Done.