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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.
I'm not so surprised that O'Reilly has published a manual for Google. What surprises me is that they got 224 pages out of it.
224 pages! My god, the style guide and word processing manual here at work, toegther, don't even come to 224 pages.
What in the name of the Eversmiling Buddha could possibly fill those pages? "You may type 'AND' between search terms. To type the word 'AND', do not use the apostrophes. Find your keyboard. Locate the 'A' key..."?
www.kitchengeek.com -- Nosh for
There are tons of little aspects to google that you probably don't know about.
One of my favourites is the define option...
type into google define:whatever and it will come back will a list of defintions, can be very handy sometimes.
Normally I am completely uninterested in the Missing Manual series of books. But I use Google so much (and it already does such a good job) that getting this book is very tempting. I didn't know about the Google Answers section, and I would love to know how to get that last 10% of usefulness out of their services.
I submitted this story last night, and it didn't get posted.
Call me stupid, but it doesn't look like this book has anything that Google Hacks doesn't have...
Also, the book reviewed is available on Amazon for four dollars less. Don't pay the /. tax.
Er...Google will fit in if you don't put anything.
In your example "Netcraft confirms: * is dying", google yields the same results as in "netcraft confirms: is dying". Pretty obvious actually, since the results achieved with "*" do not restrict the "*" to be a single word.
We are all geeks here, so yeah it's ridiculous to us. But I see this as being an awesome book, and required reading for people getting into computers with the will to learn
See, if you go out looking for something obscure, you'll find it perfectly in 15 minutes or fewer. But I have friends who work as researchers for Harvard Univeristy and are considered the bomb and a bag of Fritos basically because of this ability. It's not second nature to most people to start using quoted phrases, alternative spellings, excluded matches, and cached pages with their handy highlights. Most folks have never clicked "I'm feeling lucky," or even know what it does. And good luck explaining to someone when you should use the directory, what pagerank is (and isn't) good for, how to find GIS results, or foreign language results. Yes the product is simple, but it is huge
Also, most people don't understand formal logic. Best Google-foo artist I know: a philosophy major. Try explaining even a concept so seemingly basic as implication to a random non math non geek. It's like the Mr. Wizard with the apple and pear slices. "So, if X implies Y, and I have Y, what can I infer?" They'll say "X" every time. Toss in a little logic, a little set theory, and I'm guessing that book could be even bigger than it is. And that's not counting Froogle or the toolbar or Gmail or anything.
I'd buy it. I probably will. And I'll make my LSAT students read it.
adam b.
Although I'm suprised 1 light years to picometers works!
"Can of worms? The can is open... the worms are everywhere."
On the other hand, 10^100 light years to picometers works- the reason why the above fails is that google doesn't allow 'words' which are 100 characters long.
Just open it at a random page and you'll be ok...
Z