December 3, 2011 
We can’t get away from it any longer – there’s under a month left until Christmas. *gasp* Lights and decorations are going up, and so is our blood pressure, thinking of all the presents that still need to be picked up.
Fear not, Alfred’s here to help. Set up a few custom searches for your favourite shopping sites or just use the handy built-in Amazon web search to find gifts quickly. Let Alfred help you get your shopping done quickly, so that you can start relaxing early with a glass of mulled wine.
Custom searches for shopping
We know you have your favourite stores. So why not set up a few custom searches to get quick search results?
Click on any of the custom searches below to import them to Alfred on your own Mac:
- Search the Apple Store (US) (keyword ‘apple’)
- Search ThinkGeek (keyword ‘tgeek’)
- Search Firebox (UK) (keyword ‘firebox’)
- Search Threadless tshirts (keyword ‘thread’)
Need to create your own? Here’s how you can create your own custom search for Alfred.
A quick way to search Amazon
Let’s face it – all of these custom searches are superfluous. When inspiration (or panic) hits, odds are you’ll turn to Alfred’s default Amazon web search for a quick purchase. The quickest way to do this is to pop up Alfred and type “amazon black socks”. And that’s dad’s sorted for another year!
Your favourite shopping sites
Please share your favourite shopping sites in the comments of this blog post. Note that we have found the old-school http://tinyurl.com/ a reliable way of shortening custom search links exported from Alfred.
Happy shopping – and don’t forget the wrapping paper!
Cheers,
Andrew and Vero
Hi Vero
Thanks for these. In the spirit of giving back, here’s a URL users can click to get an Apple UK store search. Note that I’ve made the keyword “appleuk” so that it can optionally co-exist with your US version. http://tinyurl.com/7gnlxev
And now a wee request… In the [Features] > [Web Searches] Preferences pane could you please consider adding in the option to click on a column heading to sort on that particular heading? That bank of data is getting quite large and a bit cumbersome to review/manage… Might be worth spreading that goodness to the Custom Searches too?
Bests wishes,
Gary
Hi Gary, yes that’s likely to happen in an upcoming release
Cheers,
Vero
Hi Vero – excellent, many thanks.
I just came up with these, which I know I’ll use now and again – and I think others also might find useful. Search the iTunes App Store for either iPhone apps, iPad apps or just apps in general. Some people might only find one of them useful. Also, there are many further permutations possible, but I’ve restricted my new custom searches to these for now.
asipad http://tinyurl.com/c8yt5n2
asiphone http://tinyurl.com/cwthb65
asboth http://tinyurl.com/d7jo23c
NB given the complexity of the parameters in the search URL, these might break the next time a major iTunes updates cones out.
I think these should work fine for whatever country you’re active in – that’s set at the level of iTunes itself. I was tinkering with the Mac App Store and found country-specific traces in its URLs. I drew a blank in get the Mac App Store to work in the same way, but would be delighted for someone to show if I’ve missed a trick somewhere.
Best wishes,
Gary