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Thanks for visiting the home of Search Bar. If Search Bar is new to you, visit the About section to learn what it is and how I thought of the idea.
 




Archived News
Archived News

Getting back to work :-) 1/29/2003 10:29:33 PM
I had been having some "real life" problems the past month or so but things seem to be starting to return to normal. That means I'll be able to work on Search Bar Pro again and help out people who are having problems, etc.

On a related note, I'd like to thank a few people for helping out. Special thanks to Edwin Kaftal, MrKlaatu and britchie for making donations and for MrKlaatu and ONE HUMAN for helping others in the Support Forum. I really appreciate everyones help. I would also like to thank everyone who has voted in the current poll on the main page.
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A few website changes 11/12/2002 10:00:05 PM
I've made a couple of changes to the layout of the website.

I rearranged the Downloads page into sections. One for full releases (such as Search Bar 1.1), another for patches (there aren't any in that category yet), a third one for addons (like the addon for Internet Explorer) and a section for custom search engine lists people send in.

I also added a link to the Support Forum as well as a Contact page with different email addresses for suggestions, support, submitting custom search engine lists, and donations.

And speaking of donations, I would like to thank the 3 people who have sent me donations in the past week. I truly appreciate it, I really do. Anything that can reduce the amount of my own money I have to spend running this website helps a lot.

If you have any suggestions or comments on these changes, feel free to post them in the Support Forum.
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New Addon for Search Bar 1.1 Released 11/4/2002 4:00:00 PM
After the delay cause by the server outage, I am *finally* able to release the addon I have been working on for Search Bar 1.1.

I had to fight through a couple nasty bugs to get it finished (one was a bug in the program, the other was a cold) but I got it done.

So what is this addon and what does it do?

If you use Internet Explorer 5.0 or higher, then this addon will allow you to use the search engines from Search Bar 1.1 directly from Internet Explorer.

There are some special installation instructions that need to be followed for the addon to work properly, so head on over to this page to read all about it. Once you've done that, feel free to head on over to the Downloads page.

UPDATE @ 11:00PM Eastern
JohnJM posted a bug he found in the addon. I was able to find a fix within a few minutes, and uploaded a new version. If you downloaded the addon before 11:00PM Eastern on November 4, 2002 I suggest that you uninstall the addon, re-download it, and install it again.
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Website is back up 11/4/2002 3:54:04 PM
I apoligize for the outage that lasted most of the day today. The machine that this website runs on had a hard drive failure and the webhost had to reload all the sites that ran on that machine from backups which took most of the day.

The good thing is that I didn't lose very much data, and the only thing I have left to do is to add the Search Bar 1.1 Internet Explorer Addon information to the site and make it available for download.

Thank you and I hope this outage didn't cause anyone (besides me of course) to get frustrated.
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Favorite Search Engines 10/20/2002 3:30:47 AM
Some of Search Bar's biggest fans read Fred Langa's Langa List and have sent their search engine list to him to share with others.

If you have compiled a nice collection of search engines and want to share it with other users, just email the engines.dat file to submissions@searchbarpro.com. You can find the engines.dat file in the directory where you installed Search Bar (the default directory is C:\Program Files\Search Bar).

Please note that I have been kind of busy with work lately (I consider Search Bar fun, not work, hehe) and so it may take a couple of days for me to check it out and upload it. If you don't see it on the Downloads page within a couple of days, don't hesitate to send me a note.

Thanks,
Patrick
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Small addon to be released soon 10/13/2002 12:51:46 AM
I have been working on an addon for Search Bar 1.1. It will allow you to add search engines to Internet Explorer, and add a button to the toolbar to launch Search Bar.

Because it is separate from Search Bar, there will be some limitations, but it should still be pretty useful. And assuming you guys like it, I'll make it part of Search Bar Pro. And integrating it into Search Bar Pro will let me get rid of a few of the limitations.

I need to do some more testing, and if I get enough free time away from my real job, it should be out in a week. So, you can either check back here around then, or sign up for the mailing list and wait for the notice.
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Major Milestone Reached 9/13/2002 12:48:00 AM
With the recent rush of downloads over the past couple of days, Search Bar has hit a major milestone.

It has been downloaded over 30,000 times since the very first version was released on March 29, 2001!!

And that's just the ones I can prove. When it first came out, Fred Langa was nice enough to host the program for me, and he's also helped me out again when the website went down. Then there's the people who have hosted the program on their own website. With all those uncounted downloads, it may have been downloaded close to 35,000 times.

All I can say is...

THANK YOU
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Get Notified 9/12/2002 10:30:20 PM
Want to receive an email whenever a new version of Search Bar has been released, and when there are some big updates to this website?

Then just go to the Help & Support page and sign up!

Worried about your giving me your email address? If you sign up for the mailing list, your email address will be kept completely confidential. You don't have to worry about me selling it to some company just to make a quick buck. No one else will ever see the addresses in the list, and there's a pretty good chance I will never see it either.
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Additional Downloads Ready 9/4/2002 1:07:50 AM
Search Bar 1.1 is now available for download from this website!

Just go to the Downloads page and choose either the Full or Minimum download.

Enjoy!
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Search Bar 1.1 Downloads 9/1/2002 1:40:56 AM
It seems the website for the original Search Bar (currently at version 1.1) has died and I have no way of restoring it. So, I decided to go ahead and post the links to the downloads here. You can have a look around the site, but remember, much of it isn't finished, and things that look like they're finished may change. Basically, nothing, especially the feature list for Search Bar Pro, is set in stone.

One thing that does work is the forum. You can either get to it by clicking here, or going to the Help & Support section at the top.

Here's the download links:

Search Bar 1.1 Full Download - 1.77 MB
Use this one if you don't have Visual Basic 6.0 runtimes installed, or if you aren't sure.

Search Bar 1.1 Minimum Download - 668 KB
Use this download link if you have the Visual Basic 6.0 runtimes installed. If you aren't sure if you have them installed, the safe bet is to try the full download first.

Use the forum to let me know what you think about me continuing to work on a new version of Search Bar. I haven't done much work on it during the past month, so giving some feedback might just get me jumpstarted again.
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Website's coming along... 7/30/2002 8:59:03 PM
Made a lot of progress on the website, both in content and plenty of behind the scenes kind of stuff.

Features Page
Added lots of new stuff here, but still have some more to add, as well as fine tuning of what is there

Downloads Page
Got the Select OS part working, as well as a cool little feature that shows the file size based on which OS you use

One thing to think about... make a section for users to upload their own search engine sets? have to be limited in file size... maybe have moderated files - contents get emailed, then i click a link in the email & file is public

Forum!
I installed and have pretty much finished configuring the support forum
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Progress Update 5/15/2002 1:07:20 PM
Search Bar Pro is about 60% complete.
I still have to implement all of the web browser features, but that shouldn't be too hard. Search engines still need a little work, but nothing big. Still have to think about which maintenance features would be good (like reset search engines to the default list, move Search Bar to the default position, etc).


Search Bar Pro website is about 10% compelete.
Plenty of work left. About all that is working is the news section.

Suggest some stuff in the Support Forums
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Search Bar is back, and better than ever!!! 5/13/2002 2:46:00 PM
The following isn't really real, heh. Just needed something to test the news posting stuff I wrote for the site.

A new version of Search Bar has been released!

Take a look around, and feel free to explore all the new features of Search Bar Pro!


The small yet extremely powerful search utility!
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