Ask Jeeves a Question Kids!
Ask Jeeves a question when you are looking for a straightforward answer to a simple query.
To ask Jeeves a question, type your question into the search box on the ask main page.
- Ask Jeeves a question in everyday English. There is no need to use complicated search rules.
Ask Jeeves a question as if talking to a teacher or family member. Example questions:
- How many inches are there in a yard?
- What is the diameter of the moon?
- Where is Timbuktu?
Search engines like Google expect you type in terse search queries:
- inches yard
- moon diameter
- Timbuktu where
But the terse approach can be ambiguous. Imagine shouting "inches yards!" at friends and asking them what question you were thinking of. They might come back with:
- Can you name two non metric units of measurement?
So you can see the Ask approach has the advantage of making your search more specific. You could even try using this approach in Google. But the results may not be as good, because the Google search engine is not optimised for this format. Experiment and see.
Who is he?
Jeeves is the finest creation of the English comic author P.G. Wodehouse. He was the butler who was forever getting his confused employer, Bertie Wooster, out of sticky situations. Bertie didn't know much, but he knew the way to get an answer to any of his problems was to get help from his "gentleman's gentleman".
On 27 February 2006 the image and name of Jeeves was removed from the Ask.com home page. Rumours have it that the colonials running the company felt threatened by the superior intelligence and savoir faire of the famous British butler. They did not have the modesty and confidence of Bertie Wooster, who never felt threatened by the vastly superior wisdom of Jeeves.
Rumour also has it that the famous butler remains the defining intelligence at Ask.com, working his magic from the gamekeeper's lodge.
Ask Jeeves for Kids (AJKids)
Ask Jeeves for Kids (AJKids) provides many homework and study tools. These include:
- Reference resources, including a dictionary, thesaurus, world atlas and almanac.
- Subject oriented search pages. These prompt kids with interesting and useful questions they can ask in a variety of subjects. Areas covered include science, maths, astronomy, and biography
- Useful directories, including a collection of clip art.
AJKids also has fun areas like classic games, video games, and crazy words.
For Adults
The AJAdults homepage is less fun than the AJKids page, reflecting the austere design pioneered by Google. However, it offers some interesting links to specialised searches for pictures, news, and more. But most interesting is the row of buttons along the bottom of the page. One of these takes you to the AJKids site, others include:
- Bloglines, which allows you to create a page loaded with the freshest things about the things you love. It's like having a butler deliver your Times newspaper, racing tips, and slippers to the bedside.
- Downloads. Using this is like sending Jeeves to the village shop. Send him off, and he comes back with toolbars, desktop applications, and many other goodies.
- MyJeeves gives you personal service from the famous Butler. You get more storage space than a Buckingham place wardrobe, access to saved data from different computers, and much more.
- Smart Search is like asking Jeeves what you should do "this jolly day". Like him, it gives you fast access to maps, movies, white pages, site previews, the "right" people, dictionaries, weather forecasts, stock quotes, products, news headlines, conversions, popular searches, spell check, advanced search, pictures, and more.
All in all, for that cultured search experience you could do worse than to Ask Jeeves a Question.
