IE7 Search Provider for Newsgroup Search via Google Groups
I'm a frequent newsgroup poster as you probably know. Newsgroup postings provide a lot of information about common technical problems and Microsoft is running an own news server with Community Newsgroups focussing our products and technologies.
With Internet Explorer 7 you'll have a new toolbar search box at the top of the browser which is extensible by so called Search Providers. There's a drop-down button with a Get Search Providers command which takes you to the site Add Search Providers to Internet Explorer 7. To add a new provider to the Internet Explorer 7 Toolbar Search Box, you can click the provider's link there.
But there's one thing that I'm totally missing: Beside our favorite MSN search engine there's no search provider for easy access to the former DejaNews archive (Google Groups).
Fortunately you can create an OpenSearch description document to promote a custom search engine. So I created some custom xml files which will tell Internet Explorer 7 how to add the newsgroup search to the browser for a convenient search experience. Beside this search provider I just created another two providers for searching through TechNet and MSDN blogs:
German version: Ich habe für den Internet Explorer 7 drei Search Provider geschrieben, der es ermöglichen, im neuen Suchfeld rechts oben direkt auf das DejaNews Archiv (Google Groups) zugreifen und darin bequem suchen zu können sowie die TechNet und MSDN Blogs als Nachrichtenquellen zu benutzen. Da das Thema nicht nur die deutschsprachige Community interessieren wird, habe ich das Posting auch in englischer Sprache verfaßt.