"How about a search tool for the rest of us?" a recent e-mail message asked. "Something that's not only easy to use, but doesn't bury us in information?" The writer said she was tired of having too many choices, and I can see her point. There are times when you want a quick answer instead of page after page of Web links, each of which has to be investigated to see whether it meets your needs.

It's an interesting topic, and I started to scout around. Our search engines are judged by how comprehensive they are, but they're not very good at retrieving simple things quickly. If I want to know when Humphrey Bogart's birthday was, I just want the answer: Jan. 23. A Google search pulls 5,200 Web links of varying trustworthiness. What I really want is one authoritative one.

Finally I tracked down GuruNet (www.gurunet.com). It's a nifty reference tool from San Mateo, Calif.-based Atomica Software that turns every word on your screen into a possible Internet link. Put your cursor on a word or phrase -- in any program -- and then click to get information. GuruNet pops up facts about your subject in tabbed form.

What GuruNet gives you depends on your subject. Suppose you need some background about Microsoft. The screen will contain tabs that link to company news, stock quotes and charts, a company profile and a brief precis about Microsoft's effect on the technology sector. Nothing too deep, mind you, for GuruNet specializes in concise information. It's what you use when you're in a hurry.

Different sets of tabs appear depending on what you select. I clicked on the word "gene" and got a quick definition from the fourth edition of the American Heritage Dictionary (quicker, I might add, than when I use my CD of the same dictionary, which takes time to spin up). Other tabs included an article from the Columbia Electronic Encyclopedia, Webster's Medical Dictionary, and a glossary of terms from the National Human Genome Research Institute.

GuruNet, in other words, does a good job of figuring out the kind of information you want, and it links to a reasonable set of authoritative sources, as well as enabling Google searches of the latest news about your topic. When I clicked on "New York City," I got the local weather, a city map and other geographical information, a set of quotes about the place and an encyclopedia entry.

I think of GuruNet as a kind of organizer for Web information. It doesn't force you to leave the current page in your browser to track down a search site. The card-tab metaphor works well by keeping what you don't need out of view, and it's handy to have a reference that is as easy to reach inside my e-mail program as my word processor.

A 14-day trial period makes GuruNet easy to test, after which you pay $40 to keep the full version. Two things to keep in mind: This is not a product for dial-up users. Remember that its network link is what delivers the data, and over a phone line, the wait can be frustrating. And GuruNet is not available for Macintosh or Linux users. I can't understand the former: The Mac trumpets its ease of use, and GuruNet is made to order for that approach.

Because GuruNet offers selected data from its numerous databases, rather than the filtered results of "crawls" through millions of Web sites, it will never replace a true search engine. But then, sometimes you need an encyclopedia, while other times you need an almanac. If speed is of the essence, GuruNet makes a fine resource.