eSci.info

eSci.info is my default search engine for scientific papers. It is powered by Google Custom Search, and gives priority to predefined publishers and other academic sites (e.g. jstor.org, arxiv.org, ams.org, springerlink.com, nature.com, sciencedirect.com, siam.org, acm.org, *.ac.uk/*, *.edu/*, etc.) and to pages with relevant keywords (e.g. science, scientific, paper, article, abstract, author, math, physics, journal, preprint, publisher).

Don't get me wrong - I love Google Scholar as much as the next guy, but when I want to find a specific article (the publisher's page) and I haven't got a DOI, but only author, title, and/or journal/volume/year, eSci usually spits out what I look for as the first result. Google Scholar, on the other hand, provides more than I need - I don't really care about alternate versions. Also, it's got lots of duplicate entries, and you often get a result that refers to the correct paper, but with no link to the full text in sight.

The very short time that took me to set up this search engine (probably no more than 30 minutes) paid off big time!

You can contribute to improve eSci!

ezproxy Google Toolbar Button

Ever felt the frustration about not having the hassle-free access to all papers from home as you do from your University office? If you have Google Toolbar installed in your browser, with this button all those papers are just one click away from your home! What the button does is append .ezproxy1.library.arizona.edu (or other ezproxy server of your choice) to the domain in the URL, preserving all of the remaining URI. When you use it for the first time in a session, you will be prompted for your University credentials (at the UofA you need your CatCard number); once logged in, clicking the "ez" button will have essentially the same effect as accessing the current page from your office.

LaTeX-wiki.org

I was surprised to find out that there was no open-license LaTeX wiki in English, so I made one. Contributors are most welcome!

GREdic.com

A few years ago, as I was preparing for my GRE test, I parsed several GRE word lists I could find online (including Barron's and Princeton Review's) into one large database of 10,000+ word definitions to study from. Later, I turned it into a web site that has since become increasingly popular: right now it gets about 5,000 page views daily. Every once in a while I get emails from grateful visitors saying how this site helped them in their preparation for the test.