Last Valentine’s Day I published a newsletter where I revealed the secret of IT people. We don’t know everything; we Google for most of the answers we comeup with.
Here’s the next part. Google has all kinds of ways to get even better information from it when you search.
The adept handling of these techniques is called Google Fu by some.
But wait, you ask? I thought ChatGPT was taking over search?
Perhaps some day, and today it can augment search, but it is not reliable yet. We’ll discuss AI in the near future.
Here’s the first trick of Google Fu: write long queries, and write short queries.
For example, you can ask a question in real language “What was the movie John Wayne was in where he owned a bar in the South Pacific?” Google immediately returns the correct answer “Donovon’s Reef”.
The lesson here, is you can interact with Google as you might a human.
If you think in keywords, “John Wayne movie bar” gets you the correct response too.
Do not worry about capitalization or punctuation, they are ignored.
Want to find an entry, but control the source? For example, if you have a medical question and want to get answers only from WebMD because you trust them, type in “rocky mountain spotted fever” site:webmd.com
It gives you only information from that site.
Too often we find the information we want only to realize it is four years old. This happens a lot with queries about computer information. We can see only the most recent information.
After you’ve done a search, note on the upper right the Tools button. click it and from the time dropdown choose what you want other than Any Time.
I took these screenshots the day after Carol Burnett’s 90th Birthday TV special, and note they are all from the last 24 hours.
Also you can set a filter, so you only return items that are relevant.
Notice Flights? You can search for upcoming flights, or check on the status of flights in the air right now.
And you can do a host of other searches right inside Google search box.
And there is a lot more.
Speedtest - give you the speed of your internet
Coin Toss, Dice throw, Calculator, Timer, Stop Watch - self explanatory
8/(23/.176)*14^3 returns
Try typing in stock symbols or Dow Jones
Want to find only PDF files? Add filetype:PDF.
That is useful for teachers searching for worksheets for their students.
You can make all of this really easy by using Google Advanced Search.
And finally, here is one I thought everyone knew, but am finding out some do not. You do not have to go to the Google.com search page. You can search from the address box at the top of your browser.