Friendly Technology.........

Mike Kelly's New Personal Video Recorder...

God - Mike Kelly's a true geek. I am envious. Read more about his latest project here...

Choosing the best search engine...

A draft section from my forthcoming book, The Friendly Internet Handbook. Lots of work to do still...

You can find many different types of information through the Internet. The list is nearly endless, but here are few prominent examples. You can find very specific information on a very specialized issue. You can find general introductory type information on a broad topic. You can find phone numbers, maps and driving directions. And, importantly and often forgotten, you can find many people who can provide you desired information.

No one search engine can provide you the best results for every search you conduct. Google might come the closest to being one stop searching, if you are in a pinch.

I believe, however. it pays to learn which search engine is the best for whatever it is you are looking for.

Specific Information - Google is best used when you are looking for very specific kinds of information. Google offers a whole range of other features, but it is probably it at its best when it can really focus. More on how to help Google focus on the pages to follow.

Broad Topic Information -  The Yahoo Directory (directory.yahoo.com)- notice how I say the Yahoo Directory, and not simply Yahoo. The Yahoo directory is Yahoo's comprehensive database of handpicked web sites. It is best used for general information on a broad. preferably non commercial, topic. Businesses (?and organizations?) can pay for a fastracked review by Yahoo directory editors. Although Yahoo policy states that paying for a quicker review absolutely does not guarantee inclusion in the directory, I am always a little wary of commercial web sites I find there.

Telephone Numbers - for listed numbers all over the world, it is best to go to an online phone directory for the country in which the number is located. In Canada, online phone directories include Superpages.ca and canada411.com. In the US, anywho.com and superpages.com.

Maps and Driving Directions - Major search engines offer popular features that allow people to view interactive maps of a certain area and/or to get driving directions from one place to another. Popular sites include Google Maps (maps.google.com), Yahoo Maps (maps.yahoo.com), and MSN Maps (maps.msn.com). Another good service, with better worldwide coverage, is mapquest (mapquest.com).

Reference Information - For encyclopedia type entries, I recommend either going to the MSN Search(msn.com) and clicking on the ENCARTA link on top of the search field or visiting Wikipedia (wikipedia.org). Wikipedia is a very interesting web site in that all the entries are written and forever editable but the site visitors. Through Wikipedia, you can contribute some of your knowledge to the world - more on Wikipedia later. I would trust wikipedia for higher profile entries, and be a little more cautious about more obscure information.     I also like a site called Refdesk (refdesk.com) which has a huge amount of reference links, but beware, Refdesk also has a lot of advertising (including often the dreaded pop up variety) and clutters a lot of info on its front page.

Human Experts - I often tell people in my seminars that, if all else fails in your Internet searches, the secret weapons I have to offer are Expert sites. These are web sites where instead of searching for information directly, you can look for human beings who may be able to give you the answers you want. Each of the experts are rated by previous questioners, so you will want to find people who have high and recent ratings. Allexperts.com is a free site where I have had a lot of luck. Google (answers.google.com) offers a for pay experts / research service where you can set your own price. If these fail, which happens rarely, you might considering browsing through the faculties of various universities to see if you might find a friendly professor who can help.

The best way to conduct a Google Search...

I have lost count of how many Internet related seminars, courses, and discussions I have facilitated over the past 5 years. Its been a great privilege and pleasure. At all these events, we obviously talk a lot about Google - the world's most popular search engine.

You may have heard a lot of talk about Google and wondered the reasons behind it's popularity. Well, firstly, the folks behind Google developed a really smart way to decide how to rank web pages. They decided to look at how many other reputable web pages link to another web page. The more links a web page recieves from other reputable web pages, the higher it gets ranked. Turns out the this democratic method gives very good results.

Second, Google has not been content with just one smart idea. The Google folks continue to develop new features they feel will be useful to the general public. We will talk about some of the more useful features later.

For the past few years, when showing how to conduct a Google search, I used to spend a lot of time on Google's so called "Advanced Search" features - accessible through the "advanced search" link on the Google home page. I used to think that term "advanced search" in this context was a misnomer because this feature was not just for advanced users, but simply gave anybody more power in their search. And I recommended the "advanced search" page far and wide.

But, looking back, I can probably count on the fingers of only one of my two hands,  the amount of times I myself have used the "advanced search" feature in the past year. So, clearly I am finding the vast majority of the information I am looking for right from the main Google homepage. I would say now that I would only recommend going to "advanced search" (I know there are too many quoted words in this post) if I was not having much luck with the Google search on the homepage.

Having gone through that very long introduction, here is my suggestions about how to conduct a really good Google search. These tips will work for many other popular  search engines as well.

1. Use as many search keywords as you can. Be as specific as possible: Google indexes over 8 billion  web pages, so you want to help it help you find the specific  information you are looking for. Three or more keywords is a good rule of thumb. Remember, if you are looking for broad topic information as for something quite specific, you are better off going to the Yahoo directory.
   
2. Enclose search keyphrases in quotation marks: If your search terms should be in a specific order (ie. are a phrase), enclosing them in quotation marks will further increase your chances of getting good results. For example, if you are searching for the web site for Canada's Department of Finance, I would type it "department of finance" Canada.
3. Use the magic tilde (~): You never really know what words web site designers will use. Will the creator of a web site with helpful hints about Microsoft word call his site a guide or a tutorial. Will she use the word tips or the word tricks. A way to get around this problem is by using what I call the magic tilde. Here is how it works. If you search for - guide "microsoft word" - , Google will only search for the word  - guide - , but if you put a tilde before the word guide, as in  - ~guide "microsoft word", Google will search for all words that mean the same thing as -guide-, like -tutorial- and -help-, etc.

Innovation in Search...

The past 18 monthes has seen an incredible amount of widely publicized innovation by various search engines. I would say it started when Google, the world's most popular search engine, became publically owned in August 2004. Since then, it seems almost every week, new features become available.

A lot of these new features will appeal to specific groups of people. For example, Google Video search might only interest serious video enthusiasts. The Yahoo desktop search may only be useful to those with a large amount of documents, emails, and other files on their computer.

As well though, the search engines have managed  to roll out features that I feel will be of use to most Internet users. Here they are:

Google Suggest: As you start typing in your search keywords, this Google feature starts suggesting other keywords you can use, helping you refine your search or use useful keywords you may not originally have thought of.

Yahoo Mindset:  This Yahoo feature offers a slider that allows you to set how 'salesy' you want the search results to be. Enter in your keywords first, click search, and the set the slider either to "shopping" or "research". "Shopping" should give you prices, stores, and product information from the manufacturer. And "Research" should give you news, reviews, and product information from the general public.

The Power of Internet Search...

I am fiddling here - putting together an intro for the search chapter for my upcoming Internet guidebook. I want to start by sharing some thoughts about how important I think Internet search is to the world. i want to go into a little detail here before I launch into the  "how tos". Comments on my methodology or on the draft text (or on anything actually) is most welcome.

Internet Search engines make finding information much easier. With Internet search engines,  you no longer have to live near a large library, you no longer have to have the money to hire an army of researchers to get good information on any topic or subject imaginable.  Internet search engines have greatly leveled the playing field with respect to good access to quality information.

Hopefully, more people are becoming better educated about themselves and the world around them.

No Internet search engine is perfect however.  And it is, I believe, important to learn and keep up to date with the best ways to conduct an Internet search.

You've undoubtedly heard of Google. But, did you know that Google web search is best used when you are looking for very specific information and that a good rule of thumb is to come up with at least three search keywords to put in the search box.  In short, the key to a successful Google search is to be as specific as possible.

Other search engines offer better results for broad topic searches. Still others work very well for phone numbers and reference information.

In the pages that follow, I sincerely hope you will find many useful tips and tricks to help improve the quality of your Internet searches.

A lock with a word combination, rather than numbers...

This would work for me, and likely for a lot of other people. The key is picking a word not easy for anyone who knows anything about you to guess.

The Staples Word Lock, folks, discovered on Engadget, sold by Staples, and not yet available in my local stores (though it might be in yours):

More here...

The Most Useful, and for the moment most expensive, keyboard...

 

Smart, smart, smart. A Russian design house has come up with a keyboard where each key is a little lcd monitor. This means you can change the key's display depending on what you are using it for at any given time, or if you are working in  different language. This is art which also offers supreme function. Link for more.

Found this via Slashdot

Gizmo - VOIP Alternative to Skype

Gizmo, a  new Skype internet phone alternative,  caught my eye because it allows free recording of calls. I have long wanted an easy way to record conversations for my community radio show. And this just might be the ticket. I haven't downloaded Gizmo yet so I can't say for sure - yet.

Another interesting free feature is the ability to leave voicemails. I think Skype charges extra for this.

Almost back to semi regular posting...

Hey Folks - sorry I have not been posting much. I am going to get back to regular posting next week. I  am writing a book tentatively entitled The Friendly Internet Guidebook 2006 and will be posting notes and text here. More next week.