Convert Units of Measure

Back in Secret #222 you learned about AltaVista's search shortcuts. Well, here's another one worthy of its own secret: the convert shortcut opens AltaVista's built-in conversion calculator, which displays all manner of length, time, speed, temperature, weight, area, volume, and cooking conversions. All you have to do is enter convert measure, and AltaVista will display a page of conversions.

For example, if you enter convert 3 liters, AltaVista displays a page listing nearly every liquid volume equivalent—metric and imperial. The conversion calculator recognizes almost any unit of measurement you can think of, using all standard abbreviations. The only thing it doesn't recognize is fractions, so you'll have to use either whole numbers or decimals—1M oz. becomes 1.5 oz., for example.

Sec insider AltaVista's conversion calculator is the same one used by sister company insight AllTheWeb, as you learned in Chapter 7.

Continue reading here: Hot Bot at a Glance

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