Slashdot Mirror
Google: The Missing Manual
Looking at the table of contents (for some reason PDF only), I figured out the book might be useful for someone relatively new to the Internet with intrinsic fear of doing something wrong (which pretty much describes my parents as well as their friends within the same age group). Chapters 8 and 9 on Web-mastering with Google might be useful, as it talks about buying AdWords for ad campaigns and serving AdSense for making money off the Web site. Still, I was interested to see what the book had to offer and started reading from Chapter 1, only to find this useful tip on page 24:
A lot of people probably knew this, but Google allows you to do a phrase search even if you don't have an idea of what the complete phrase looks like. Wildcard search allows one to use an asterisk for any word that's missing. Google will fill it in automatically. Pretty useful for finding the lyrics for that song you heard on the radio, but couldn't figure out the last word.
But this is not a Google tutorial: it turned out to be surprisingly useful even for me, someone who uses Google probably about a hundred times a day. Google features have that feeling of serendipity, where you can use the engine just fine without knowing anything advanced, but once you discover a few shortcuts, there's truly no replacement. For example, the book tells you what kind of numbers can be usefully entered into the Google search window: you can search for area codes, ISBN numbers, UPC numbers, flight numbers, Fedex/UPS/USPS tracking numbers as well as vehicle ID numbers (btw, the car is for sale).
Chapter 4 is very informative for Google's less frequently used services - Groups and Answers. While Google Groups and the Usenet search are probably bookmarked by any geek out there, not many people know that Google runs a paid service that can help you if you're just stuck with no results. Moreover, once the answer is posted and someone has paid for it, Google allows all the visitors to browse it for free, and some advice, for example, in small business section, can save a trip to the lawyer or paid consultant. The book takes the reader through the process of setting up an Answers account (which is actually the same account as the one for Groups) and asking informative questions requiring additional research.
Google: The Missing Manual is a pleasant book to read. Lots of screenshots (although all black-and-white), detailed information on the services and quite useful tips for newbies as well as professionals, clearly marked chapters, notes and tips spread throughout the book all make for a good reading experience. It's interesting URLs like this one that show that the authors really put time and effort into creating a book that's fun as well as informative.
Will the book be useful for an average Slashdot reader? Unlikely, since most of the information is already out there and most of the people here don't need a hand-holding walk-through into Google services. Will it be useful for Webmasters? Most of the tips I've read in the last two chapters were pretty much something I knew before. It's not something you need when you've had your own Web site for a few years, but the book is pretty good if you've just started up building Web pages. Also, since so many features have been only recently introduced, the book doesn't cover things like graphic ads in AdSense or Gmail accounts.
For someone quite unexperienced with the Internet or those seeking to gain expertise in Google services and broaden their research skills, though, it is a useful, fun-to-read title. It's not expensive either, so while I think for most of the geeks it's redundant, it would be a good gift for those in the family who keep calling and asking questions that begin with "Where do I find...?"
You can purchase Google: The Missing Manual from bn.com. Slashdot welcomes readers' book reviews. To see your own review here, carefully read the book review guidelines, then visit the submission page.
Yeah that is a great option! I also like how it will convert cups into pints or do various simple calculations. They cover this on http://www.google.com/help/features.html#calculato r
I really like the google guide.
http://www.googleguide.com/
I used it a few times to teach some classes on how to search the internet.
Here a Sig There a Sig Everywhere a Sig Sig...
Of course not, this is slashdot, where even the insightful people don't RTFA.
If you read the review, it looks like this book has a lot of useful information for those who have used google without really knowing the advanced capabilities (as I have). I may consider getting this book, since there are a lot of features of google that I don't know about, and one day I may need.
P.S. About O'Reilly books, I don't know anyone who buys books without needing them. I like their reference books, because they have everything easy to hand. Also I like their Perl book, it's well written.
At any rate, this isn't about advocating O'Reilly, so I'll leave it at that.
Not if you're doing a phrase search, ie with quotes, matches the entire phrase.
"Netcraft confirms: * is dying"
and
"Netcraft confirms: is dying"
and
Netcraft confirms is dying
Are wholly different.
Sounds like you need this book!
I don't need no instructions to know how to rock!!!!
451 furlongs/fortnight in km/hr and you get back:
451 (furlongs / fortnight) = 0.270020143 km / hr
or type: 387 btu/hr in watts
and get: 387 (btu / hr) = 113.418504 Watts
"When the going gets weird, the weird turn pro" -- HST
And, it is even faster than http://www.webster.com/ at least for those of us still on dial-up.
Not mentioned in this write up (but perhaps in the book?) is this:
-qqqqqqqq site:slashdot.org
Placing something impossible (like 8 Qs) in the "without the words" field on the Advanced Search page combined with entering a site in the "Domain" field will get you a listing of ALL of the pages on that website!
Well, unless the robots.txt file blocks certain pages/directories... but most sites don't do this. I don't know how many times I've used this trick to find more pr0... err, I mean, information on a website.
For example: Remember that Slashdot story about tired.com? It bugged me that there was only one page on the site... so I pulled out my google trick and found these. Nothing amazing, but fun.
Visit the Game Programming Wiki!
The Google API
The Google Filesystem
The Google Homeland Security Database
The Google Censorship Features
Around here folks have trouble reading one whole article, how do you expect them to read a whole manual?
F1 is the standard help key in pretty much every windows application. thats what they are talking about.
On a related note, Soople.com offers a sort of "GUI" for Google's more advanced features. Yes most of us on Slashdot can remember/figure out how to search for specific file types or look up a phone number via the command-prompt framework, but Soople puts them out front.
It can work pretty well for those proverbial parents/grandparents who don't quite "get" it.
So close and yet so far from the world's perfect ID number
You mean something like a Wikipedia article about Slashdot?
My other car is first.
If anyone doesn't know, you can put your tracking number for UPS, FedEx or USPS into google and it'll give you a direct link to their tracking service. Very handy.
"Sic Semper Tyrannosaurus Rex."
Ah, but the link in the story was not to a phrase search, and so the "*" has no effect!
google for "vertical service codes"
Regarding the wildcards in phrases feature mentioned in the review, that one was actually news to me. And the way it was used in the review (Google will fill it in automatically) was actually wrong: there's a wildcard in that query, but not within a phrase. Use that query and you get the exact same results if you drop the wildcard. But a query containing a wildcard within a phrase does in fact work as advertised - cool!
This would be a nice idea for a new google meta-utility: Enter any phrase with a wildcard, and you get a list of proposed substitutions for the wildcard, perhabs in descending order of occurence.
Switch back to Slashdot's D1 system.
A similar feature that I find more useful is typing "dict 'word'" in the Firefox address bar. It takes you to the dictionary.com page for the word you entered. There is a big difference, however, dictionary.com gives you the official definition while "define:'word'" at Google gives you all the colloquial usage on the web, which is sometimes more useful.