Google has launched the Google Deskbar - a tool similar to the already well-known Google Toolbar, but accessible from any application (as it sits next to the Windows system tray), not just the browser.

Billiant novelties include the option to configure custom searches - if you're a film buff like me, you might want to set up an IMDB search (see sample screenshot below), I'm definitely also adding an amazon.co.uk search tab.

Here is some more info if you want to set up custom searches yourself:

through some leafing through the page's HTML source code, you can usually find the parameters you need to create a custom search. For example, the source code on the imdb.com front page is

<form action="/Find" method=post>
<tr bgcolor="#FFFFFF" align=left>
<td valign=top width="100%">
<select name=select>
<option selected>All</option>
<option>All (beta)</option>
<option>Titles</option>
<option>My Movies</option>
<option>People</option>
[...]
</select><br clear=left>
<input type=text name="for" size=14> <input type=image height=21 width=31 border=0 value="Go" name="Go" src="http://i.imdb.com/f163.gif" align=absmiddle>[...]</form>

First, we need to find where the search form on the page starts. This is indicated by the form-tag. Next we need to know the search URL. This is the base URL of the page you're watching (here "http://www.imdb.com") plus the contents of the action parameter (here "/Find").

Although many pages uses the post method, the pages will usually (no guarantee here, but usually) accept URLs in the get format (what's the difference? read more here and here)

Now we need to determine which parameters are being sent as part of the search. These will be tagged on to the URL after a "?". input-tags and selection boxes all contain info we might need to pass, note the name of the fields (here "select" and "for"); here I default to search for "All", but might just as well easily create a "IMDb Quotes" search later.

Last but not least, build the URL, sticking "{1}" where the keywords entered on the webpage would have appeared:

http://www.imdb.com/Find?select=All&for={1}

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