It’s a belated app of the week this time around, but I think it’s worth it.

One of the things I’ve always thought is missing from Spotlight is the ability to search Google and the like from it. It’s a brilliant tool now, but it would definitely take it one step further for me if that was included.

Fear not though, after a couple of clicks of the ‘Stumble’ button of my newly installed Firefox 3, I stumbled upon (see what I did there?) a nice little app called Monocle, by Waffle Software.

Monocle adds a Spotlight-like icon to the menu bar, and gives you the ability to search Google, Wikipedia, Yahoo and Windows Live right off the bat. There’s the facility to add others too, should you wish.

The really cool thing though, is it takes advantage of Google’s suggestion facility, and suggests results as you type. For example, type the-iBlog into Monocle and you’re given this site, our Twitter account and the Flickr page too. Very, very cool !

But that’s not the best bit. It’s FREE ! Who doesn’t like free software?

Head on over to the Monocle web site and get downloading.

Do you use Monocle already, or do you use another application/tool that does the job? Let us know below !