For the last few years we have been converting all of our transcripts to HTML so they could be more easily searched. However, if you tried clicking on the Search menu item in the last, oh, year or so, you might have noticed that nothing happened. We got ourselves a Google Search Appliance. which worked really well up until the day after the service contract expired, and then it went DOA. Seriously, the thing is braindead.

So, our goal is to replace that functionality with search using Windows Live Search. First thing we had to do was to expose all of those transcripts by linking them to the main page, where the search spiders could find them. The second phase is just to implement a custom search page using Windows Live.

Phase one is now complete.  From the main page on www.dotnetrocks.com you can click the HTML Transcripts menu option and that brings you here:

http://dotnetrocks.com/text/transcripts.aspx

All of the transcripts are listed from most recent to oldest.

You can test this out by doing a google search on the literal string "So, that forced Haskell to stay pure"

The first hit is a link to the HTML page in the transcript where Simon Peyton Jones uttered those words:

http://www.dotnetrocks.com/text/0310/index11.html

and from there, you can go to the show page to listen, or browse through the entire transcript.

So, at the end of phase one, we should see a spike in traffic due to people searching on various .NET topics and landing in a DNR transcript. Phase two will allow you to search through just our transcripts.

Happy Holidays!