There’s a new version of Internet Explorer just over the horizon and with this advance comes new toys. I’ve had a chance to test one of these new features called “Accelerators” and they are sweet!

With accelerators what you do is highlight a word on any webpage and then a dialog appears from which you can execute various kinds of web-based functions on that word. I’m a definition freak so I absolutely love being able to highlight “tautological” and find it on a dictionary site—it means unnecessarily or uselessly repetitive by the way.

The possibilities of this feature are wide. See an address on the page? Highlight it and map it. See something you want to buy? Highlight it and search eBay for it. See content you want to share with a friend? Highlight it and email it, or better yet tweet it. The best part is that you can make your own accelerators and as an avid Firefox user, I admit I’m a little jealous of this feature.