So on the suggestion of Search Engine Watch, I downloaded the HotBot Quick-Search Deskbar. Look out people, I think we have a winner.

First, this little workhorse opens through the right-click menu in your taskbar, so it doesn't shrink your window size like plugin browsers. Pop a term into the search box and it searches one of the four main search engines (FAST, Google, Teoma, Inktomi) and makes it easy to switch between them. But that's just the beginning. It has a (seriously) huge menu of reference applications that it can also drop your search term into.

Imagine that you're new to XML (perish the thought). So you run a basic search with the engines, but you want a little more focus. With your term still in the search box, you peruse the menu hierarchy and see Webopedia. Selecting it drops your term right in to Webopedia and brings up the definition.

Plus there's a handy shortcut syntax for each resource. Wanna see what Amazon has on XML? Type 'amaz XML' into the box. Bam! There are some issues with the shortcuts - if you wanted to search the term RSS, you will be taken to Feedster as rss is the shortcut. Nonetheless, this is astonishingly cool.

I can't get over how much there is and how painless it is to use. Track stocks, track packages, hex conversions, currency conversions. It just goes on and on. Try the phone number speller. It takes your # and generates some amusing possibilities.

This is some serious good stuff and all from one application. Extremely impressive.