i. Title
 My Personal Google

ii. Author(s)
Patrick Gookin

iii. Abstract

My project will provide a client application for searching the web using
the Google Web API that will offer a more customized user experience than
the current Google interface.  Specifically my application will offer a
user the ability to save searches and search results and to create custom
topic searches.

iv. What

My project will provide a customized user interface for searching Google
that will offer additional features not provided by the standard Google
interface.  These features are focused on customizing searches in order to
improve a user's experience when searching the web.  The user interface
will be provided as a J2EE Web Application that clients will access using
their browser.  The user's personalized search information will be stored
and managed by the web application.

Features:

1.  Saved Search Queries
The user will be able to save any Google search expression as a named item that can be recalled and executed at another time.  For example the user could save the expression (news) "Red Sox" OR "Patriots" OR "Bruins" as Boston Sports News Search and later easily execute the search again.
2.  Saved Search Results
The user will be able to save the results from a search in various formats (html, xml, pdf) for later review or analysis.
3.  Custom Topic Specific Searches
Google currently provides a number of topic specific searches that automatically narrow a search expression.  For example they have a U.S. Government topic search that executes a search expression against all government sites by limiting the search to .gov and .mil domains.  This feature would allow the user to create their own custom topics.  For example a user might create a topic called Geek Stuff that would limit searches to the slashdot.org and theserverside.com sites.  They could then execute a search expression that would be executed only against these sites.

v. Why

This project is interesting and important because it offers features that
are not currently available in the world's most popular application for
searching the web.  These features will enhance the user's Google
experience.  For example the ability to create custom topic specific
searches will improve the user's ability to narrow their searches in a
consistent and repeatable way.  This application will also offer the
potential for many interesting new ways of looking at search results.  
For example a user could perform the same search periodically and analyze
the results (ie number of hits, unique domains etc) for trends or
patterns.  My motiviation for solving this problem is that it will provide
useful features for users and will provide me with an opportunity to learn
more about the Google Web API and Web Services in general.

vi. How

My application will be implemented as a J2EE Web Application that will be
deployed and executed using Tomcat and the Apache Axis SOAP
implementation.  It will utilize Web Services to access the Google Web
API, XSLT for generating the web interface, and XSL-FO and FOP for saving
search results in different formats.  New skills requirements will include
learning the Google API, learning Apache Axis, and learning more about
xslt and fop.  I will also need to research the Google Web API and Apache
Axis.

vii. Questions
None at this time.