Google: The Missing Manual

Alex Moskalyuk writes "According to O'Reilly Publishing's Web site, the missing manual series was started after many software publishers decided to drop the practice of including manuals in the boxed set. Supposedly, the same information could be retrieved from the Web site or help file, but those uncomfortable with the manufacturer's site, or those with pathological fear of reading anything that follows F1 were left out in the cold. So it's understandable that missing manuals exist for Windows, Mac OS X, Dreamweaver MX and other products packed with features that are not easy to grasp through naive experimentation. But a manual for Google? A manual for the Web service that makes money by creating an interfaces as simple and intuitive as possible? To put it mildly, are they insane?" (Read more below.) Google: The Missing Manual author Sarah Milstein, Rael Dornfest pages 224 publisher O'Reilly rating 7 reviewer Alex Moskalyuk ISBN 0596006136 summary Everything there's to know about Google

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.

Comments

Since we're talking about Google

[melted]

Can anybody tell me why GMail stopped working with Firefox 9.2 last week? It says that it doesn't support javascript for some reason and doesn't show my mail. It does work fine in IE 6, though.