You have to remember that hundreds of thousands of people who have given up their job search in the depths of the recession are all going to pile back onto the job market quicker than you can say ‘credit crunch’.

So I thought I’d share with you a tip I use when I’m looking for more blogging jobs. This tip can be applied for when you’re looking for work, a new house, great deals and other thing that are hard to come by. I simply set up iGoogle to perform how I want it to so it can become my Mission HQ.

Firstly, go to Google (if you don’t already have an account, create one). In the top right-hand corner click iGoogle. Then, from the tabs located to the left of the screen click ‘Add a tab‘ and give it an appropriate name in the box which appears.

Now that your new tab is created we have to add some gadgets which will help you in your job search. Our main tool here will be the RSS gadget so I need you to do the following.

Visit sites specific to your job search. Craigslist will cover pretty much everything from jobs to houses to items for sale. Most other jobs search websites also offer RSS feeds as a way of bringing you back to the site with the promise of alerts. Right-click on the feed’s icon and copy the address. Then go back to iGoogle.

Click on the ‘Add Stuff‘ link at the top right of the screen. Along the left-hand side in the sidebar you’ll see an Add Feed or Gadget link. Click on that and paste in the link address you copied from the RSS link on the job site and click ‘Add‘.

The RSS feed should now appear in iGoogle like my example at the bottom of this post. Keep repeating this procedure for all the job searches (or any other search) you like. Here are some popular websites which offer RSS feeds and jobs, apartments and more are frequently posted.

• Craigslist
• Twitter (perform a search and then use the RSS feed for that search)
• Indeed
• Yahoo HotJobs
• Monster

For more job search websites, click here.

Finally, click on ‘Change Theme from Classic‘ and select one of the cool themes they have there. This doesn’t really improve your iGoogle HQ but you don’t want to turn on your computer every day and see the same generic theme, do you?

Now all you have to do is check back daily and follow up on anything promising. Without a doubt you’re ahead of the competition by making iGoogle your search HQ because while you’re giving the advertisers a call they’re still rummaging through search results.

Photo Credit: Danard Vincente

Did you like the post? Please do share your thoughts in the comments section!

New on MakeUseOf ? Get cheat sheets and cool PDF guides @ www.makeuseof.com/makeuseof-downloads/

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Read on to learn how doing a social network search with Google Social Search works and how to use it.

Content from your social circle

Google Social Search adds content that is linked from your friend’s Google profiles to the search results. This content includes websites, blogs, public status updates (like Twitter and FriendFeed), other Google profiles and items from your feeds on Google Reader.

It is an opt-in experiment, so you have to turn it on to make it part of your search results.

Enable social search

Here is how to enable Google Social Search:

• Log in to your Google account (you always have to be logged in for social search to work).
• Go to Google Experimental.
• Click ‘Join this experiment‘ next to ‘Google Social Search‘.

From now on when you search Google it will also do a social network search and integrate results form your social circle at the bottom of the results page (from my experience that only happens when Google is set to display 10 results per page).

Get only social results

Alternatively, you can get only results from your social circle. Once you’ve enabled social search, it becomes one of the search filters available as part of Google’s New Search Features. In the results page, click ‘show options‘ under the Google logo and in the sidebar that opens click ‘Social‘. See an example of the results in the image below.

Asking help from friends

There are two advantages to getting these social results. First, it is somewhat more likely that they would be more relevant, at least in certain topics. For example, if you’re looking for something related to your field of expertise, your friends and people they know might have more relevant information.

Second, you do not only have access to the information you find, but possibly to the KNOWLEDGE the people who created it possess. Since the results include information about your relationship to the person who published the content, it might be easier to contact this person since you know him/her or know someone else who does.

Who’s in your social circle?

Your social circle is made up of your connections in various Google services. First, there are your social network connections, such as Twitter and FriendFeed. You have to list these social networks in your Google Profile for the people in them to be part of your social circle. Next, your circle includes people from your Gmail chat list and some of your Gmail contact groups. Finally, second level relations (friends of friends) are a part of your social circle – providing these relationships are public.

Note that if you do not list your social networks in your Google profile, or if you don’t have a lot of connections in them, you will probably not get too many social results.

On the other side, if you want your content (blog, videos and the like) to show up in your friends’ social search, you should list it in your profile as well.

Have you had the chance to try Google Social network search? Was it useful for you or just too much noise? Tell us in the comments!

Did you like the post? Please do share your thoughts in the comments section!

New on MakeUseOf ? Get cheat sheets and cool PDF guides @ www.makeuseof.com/makeuseof-downloads/

• 4 Multi-Search Engines to Consider for Your Home Page (11)
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• Master the Google Operands – Search Like a God & Save Time (41)
• How To Search Multiple Social Media Sites At A Time (18)

The new options help to refine your search to show results in various types and sources (video, blogs, forums, reviews); narrow the time range to show results published within the last few seconds (i.e. real time) or longer time periods; exclude or include pages you’ve already visited; and play around with the way the results are display to show images, more text, plot them on a timeline, and more.

Get started

To see the new Google search options, click ‘show options‘ under the Google logo.

A sidebar, called the option panel will open up next to the result. Let’s see what it offers.

Filter by type

The first group of options lets you refine the search results to show only certain types and sources of results.

Videos: The Videos filter returns only video results. Alongside each result there’s a preview thumbnail. The option panel changes to display video related options, such duration, publication date, quality, and only closed caption (i.e. with subtitles).

Blogs: choosing blogs will return only blog posts. At the bottom of each search result there is a link to other posts by the same blog (not necessarily related to your search) and a link to pages that link back to the search result page, if such exists.

Forums: Next, you can get only results from discussion groups by choosing Forums. This will be handy when you have a specific question, because you can ask for further elaboration form the people who’ve already related to the subject.

Reviews: This filter will show results from reviews sites. In addition to the usual results display, you’ll see other aspects of the review, such as rating or a quote of the review about the product or service.

Time frame and previously visited sites

The next option group lets you set the time frame for the results. You can choose recent results, which will return real time results. Longer predefined time ranges are also available – one hour, 24 hours, a week, and one year. You can also choose a specific date range.

Below that group you can choose whether to get back only Visited pages or Not yet visited pages.

Refine and extend your search

The third group enables you to expand your search or narrow it down by offering related search terms or using alternate displays for the search terms and search results.

Related searches: Adds keywords and search terms that can help you refine your query. These show up as links above the search results.

Wonder wheel: This might be the most extraordinary new feature. The Wonder wheel is an actual wheel that shows up next to the search results. It helps you to extend your search by displaying associated search terms. When you click a term, it immediately suggests more related terms and display related results.

Timeline: The Timeline view adds a graph that illustrates the results over time. This view also groups the results by date. Use it to find information about an event or other historical venue or person in which the time aspect is important.

Images, shopping and more text

Finally, you can alter how the results look like and choose whether to get more or less shopping sites.

Images from the page: This display is helpful to understand the search results with a single glance. It displays an image or two from each page, allowing you to visually comprehend the results without having to read each of them.

Fewer shopping sites/More shopping sites: According to your underlying purpose, you can choose whether to get more or less results from shopping sites. If you choose more shopping sites, Google will display items and prices directly in the search result page.

More text: In the standard mode, Google returns 130 characters of description for each search result (about 20-30 words). Choosing More text overrides this limitation and returns much more text for every search result, making it easier to find the right one.

What do you think of Googles new search features? Are they useful?

Did you like the post? Please do share your thoughts in the comments section!

New on MakeUseOf ? Get cheat sheets and cool PDF guides @ www.makeuseof.com/makeuseof-downloads/

• 5 Ways To Do A Site-Specific Search Using Search Engines (13)
• 4 Awesome Visual Search Engines to Transform Your Search (9)
• 10 Sites to Compare Google vs Bing Results Side By Side (10)
• Master the Google Operands – Search Like a God & Save Time (41)
• Make Use Of Podcast #30: More Current Google Searches (8)

But I would just like to sit on the ropes with all this because I am just an average user…more interested in getting the results I seek without getting into the algorithm of it all.

Although as an average user, I can say that both search engines deliver different kinds of results. You must have seen it with your search queries. Different query terms gave me different degrees of relevancy in both search engines.

For instance, using the query “makeuseof.com” gave me more pointed results in Google. You can do one of your own and find out.

But there have been results which have come out as more useful for me in Bing as well. It has given me a lot of pleasant vibes with its performance. That just goes to show that we are left to our own choice as far as these two search engines go. I can say that for a lot of us, our sixth sense in the Google vs Bing decision is not exactly working.

Even as the bouts go on, a lot of websites are cropping up around the Google vs Bing preoccupation. They are simple single-function website letting us compare Google and Bing results side by side.

This isn’t a Top to Bottom list but merely a listing of all the addresses that will allow you to do a comparison search of Google vs Bing.

1. Googawho

   Side by side searching with this plain Jane tool. Enter the search term and you get the search results from Google and a random search engine. The engines come from Google, Yahoo!, Bing, Ask, InfoSpace, AltaVista, Lycos and Dogpile. Click on any of the names to get the results in the dual pane. The Tabulizer button opens results from all search engines in individual tabs.

2. Bing & Google

   Simulataneous dual paned results from both Bing and Google helps you to compare search results easily.

3. Mixxr

   This search tool covers Google, Yahoo, Bing and Twitter on the same page. The number of frames on the page will depend on the search engines selected.

4. Stringy

   Along with the Bing and Google comparer, they have their own ‘version’ of Bing which promises to deliver optimized Bing results.

5. Search3 (beta)

   It starts with a nice interface and the premise that three search engines are better than one. The others include – Twitter, eBay and Yahoo. It also allows for browser integration (Firefox, IE7, Google Chrome, Flock, and Opera).

6. AskBoth (beta)

   The search tool comes with a neat interface and browser integration. AskBoth also gives you search and translate add-ons for supported browsers. Read our previous post on AskBoth.

7. Bing Vs Google

   We have covered it before in this post. It gives the same facility and browser integration with Firefox and IE to boot.

8. Ranks.nl

   In a rank departure from the clean-cut looks of the ones before, this web tool looks like a webmaster’s scalpel. It actually is, with its dropdown menus letting you compare search engines and their different language variants. You can compare Google vs Bing by choosing the engines from the dropdowns. Control the framesets between horizontal or vertical orientation.

9. Bingle

   Bingle gives you a single window (but dual framed) access to both Google and Bing. You can also easily add it to your browser (IE and Firefox) as its default search engine with a single click.

10. Furia
    If a webpage can be called as artless, then this is it. Just a search query box and nothing else. Type in your query and the page splits in two to display results from Google and Bing.

In this list we have seen tools that swing from the Web 2.0 look to those that resemble a weekend project done in a jiffy. Does it look like too many cooks for a single broth? But then having options never harmed anybody.

In the end it’s about getting results that are on the button. Using two popular search engines does help to cancel out the inaccuracies of both. Somebody did mention that two heads are better than one.

Which is your preferred search engine among Google and Bing? When it comes to search, do you have the patience to sift through the results from multiple search engines or would you rather use just one?

Did you like the post? Please do share your thoughts in the comments section!

New on MakeUseOf ? Get cheat sheets and cool PDF guides @ www.makeuseof.com/makeuseof-downloads/

• Compare Bing’s search results with Google’s using Bing vs. Google (20)
• Bing: The Next Big Thing From Microsoft (18)
• A Quick Guide To Google’s New Search Features (15)
• Master the Google Operands – Search Like a God & Save Time (41)
• Make Use Of Podcast #30: More Current Google Searches (8)

Here at MakeUseOf, we’ve focused on a number of websites and tools that you can use to find a song by its lyrics, such as Brad’s article on the top 5 sites to find song lyrics online or David’s article on how to find song titles with just a few lyrics you do know. Today, I’d like to cover a very new solution that’s available for the most common scenerio – when you don’t know the title of the song or any of the lyrics, but you can hum or whistle the song just fine!

Voice Recognition Technology Saves The Day

There are a number of cutting edge computer technologies that have always fascinated me, mostly because they represent areas where computers are finally entering into the realm of artificial intelligence. Two of those include image recognition and voice recognition.

While I’ve not followed the state of the art of each field, I’ve always been under the impression that both areas of computer intelligence have a very long way to go. However, what would you say if I told you that I’ve discovered a computer program, an online application to be exact, that you could sing, hum or whistle a tune to and it could accurately guess the title of the song. Images of science fiction movies, where starship crew members seek the help of the ship’s AI computer system come to mind. Well, it’s no longer science fiction – this technology is now a reality at Modomi.

Midomi itself isn’t exactly a very special or unique website. Just like every other website where you can search for and purchase music online, Midomi lets you research music, bands and more. You can watch music videos, listen to music clips or even join the Midomi fan club for any particular music group. However, the true heart of Midomi becomes apparent (and the site absolutely comes alive) when you start becoming “fans” of particular groups. As you enter fan pages, you’ll become aware of a Facebook-like social network of music lovers. As I was browsing through this site, I noticed something rather unique compared to most other music websites. Midomi once again takes advantage of interactive audio by allowing fans to make and upload their own recordings of the music that they’re fans of.

As a fan, you can listen to any of these uploaded recordings. I joined the Green Day fan club and immediately saw user dude34bja’s recording of When I Come Around at the top as the most listened to recording. I clicked on it and was blown away by her fantastic acoustic rendition of the song. You too can record your own version of any of your favorite songs if you click on the “Studio” menu option at the top of the Midomi page.

Record your songs, and if your good enough you’ll very likely develop your own fan base right within the Midomi online community. Get enough votes and you actually appear as a “Midomi star.” In addition to recording music, the Midomi site is just completely integrated with audio at every turn. You can even upload audio comments at the site instead of typing them.

Now, all of this is very cool – but what about the whole reason we came to the site? That little box at the top of the first page that reads, “Click and Sing or Hum.”  Does it really work?  I decided to test the accuracy of this online application by humming Losing My Religion, by R.E.M.  After clicking the text box, the recording began.

I hummed the first 16 seconds or so of part of the song – no words whatsoever – just straight humming. I was absolutely convinced there was no way that this application would be able to recognize the song without a single line of lyrics. When I was done I clicked on “Click to Stop” and waited for the results. This is what came up.

The top “guess” was a perfect match. Unbelievable. I figured it was a fluke – a completely lucky guess, so decided to try it again with a more difficult tune that wasn’t so modern – I went back and hummed the first 15 seconds of “Over the Rainbow,” sung by Judy Garland in the Wizard of Oz. I chose this song because there is absolutely no way I can hum it perfectly in tune. After 15 seconds of forcing the recorder to suffer through my cracking and screeching as I attempted to hum some of the tune, I clicked stop and grinned. No way it’s going to know what that horrid noise was. The following were the results.

I have to say, if anything convinced me – this did. As far as I can tell, you only need to know the general tune of a song – no title and no lyrics required. This amazing little Midomi web app will remind you of the title after just a few seconds of humming. Even better – you can download the app to your iPhone and carry around this little song-title-reminder app with you everywhere. Hard to believe? Visit the site and give it a shot – and let us know in the comments section below whether it blew you away. I know it did for me. Have fun!

Did you like the post? Please do share your thoughts in the comments section!

New on MakeUseOf ? Get cheat sheets and cool PDF guides @ www.makeuseof.com/makeuseof-downloads/

• The Top 5 Sites to Find Song Lyrics Online (26)
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• How To Conduct a Song Search By The Lyrics You Know (6)
• Make Use Of Podcast #30: More Current Google Searches (8)

In this article, let us look at 4 Visual Search Engines that provide a unique and enjoyable search experience.

Bing Visual Search Engine

Bing has introduced a new approach to its visual search by letting you browse topic-specific galleries and narrow the field of your search by selecting filters.

In this approach, you do not need to type anything to start searching. To use the Bing Visual Search Engine, you should have installed Silverlight and set your country to US. From the home page, you can see a set of featured galleries, or choose from different categories like Entertainment, Famous People, Reference, Shopping and Sports.

When you select a gallery, you get an eye-popping display of choices, which you can filter using categories on the left. For example, if I choose Popular Books, I get a nice array of books like in a real bookstore. I can sort books by Title, Author, Sales, or even Length. On the left, I can narrow the results by choosing a sub-category or filter. In this case, subcategories for books are Newest, or the Top pre-order/fiction/non-fiction/paperback lists.

I can also use filters to narrow the results for what I might find suitable for my taste: the subject, author, format (hardcover, etc.), and length in pages. Some of the galleries, like the top iPhone apps gallery for example, are especially useful and offer a unique experience. Once you use it for a while, you might think that this new feature distinguishes Bing from Google to a limited extent, as a decision-making engine.

Spezify

After using Spezify, I felt we do injustice to the web by using an exclusive textual interface to search the rich multimedia of the web. Spezify works like a generic search engine, except that the results are a visual collage of media drawn from different kinds of media sources – textual links from web pages, informative links from Wikipedia, pictures from across the web, tweets with the search term, videos from YouTube, books from Amazon, and so on. You need Flash to use Spezify.

You can browse through the results matrix in both vertical and horizontal directions, and look at the pictures as well as the videos from within the search results page. The links within the tweets will take you directly to the page about that topic. Articles from the web are displayed along with the number of Diggs, which show that Spezify uses Digg to show you popular content. Terms related to the topic are displayed at the top if you wish to explore or narrow your search.

Viewzi

Viewzi, which runs using Flash, is the most customizable and multi-faceted visual search engine. For any search term, it offers up to 19 different ways to view the search results, and you can make any one of them your default. The types of views cover everything under the sun – web screenshots, simple text, photos, music, news, celebrity gossip, recipes, weather, etc.

Videos are fetched from Joost, YouTube, and Viddler, but cannot be played back within the results page. However, the best view is the photo tag view, in which you can explore Flickr photos of related tags just by clicking on them. You can drag the tags around whichever way you want, and the interface is quite remarkable.

Spacetime

We had covered SpaceTime on MakeUseOf back when it was a 3D browser. SpaceTime is now a visual search engine using Flash, which shows search results in cover-flow style. You can choose results from Google or Wikipedia, or search Images, or videos from YouTube. Again, the videos can’t be played back within the search results, however the image search does look very pretty.

While you may not use these visual search engines for routine search queries, they do offer an attractive, unique experience. They can be a great way to introduce children to the richness of the web, or to encourage their curiosity in a certain topic. Even for us, they are a refreshing way to explore the web in a different way.

Last year, we also profiled TinEye which is another possibility – but this one is termed by the site as “reverse search“.   You upload an image to them and they will search for similarities.

Are there any of your other favorite visual search engines we missed? Do tell us in the comments!

Did you like the post? Please do share your thoughts in the comments section!

New on MakeUseOf ? Get cheat sheets and cool PDF guides @ www.makeuseof.com/makeuseof-downloads/

• A Quick Guide To Google’s New Search Features (15)
• 5 Ways To Do A Site-Specific Search Using Search Engines (13)
• 3 Forum Search Engines to Search 40.000+ Message Boards (11)
• 10 Sites to Compare Google vs Bing Results Side By Side (10)
• Welcome To The Future Of Online Search (5)

Although this seems to work fine (and I used it all day today for searches), you seem to be limited to the first four search results only.  So this wouldn’t be something that you could use for deep searching.   But if you are looking for the correct URL of a website, the Wikipedia entry for something, basically anything that would – in theory – show up in the first few results, then you could use these bots instead.   No different from Google’s “Are You Feeling Lucky?“.

The bots are for Google Talk, Yahoo Messenger and Windows Live Messenger (so no AIM love it seems).   But a lot of people now have a Google account so the lack of AIM shouldn’t be a hindrance.

Just add the following chat bot depending on what service you use :

Google Talk – sbot@bot.im
Yahoo Messenger – searchbot@ymail.com
Windows Live Messenger – searchbot@live.com

As soon as you’ve added the account to your contact list, it should go online virtually right away and then you can start searching.

Searching is very straight forward.   If you want to search Twitter, just type t and then your search term.   So :

t makeuseof.com

and this will give you :

I think for Twitter, 4 results is not really enough. You need probably at least 10-15 to give you a better overview. 4 is just too random.

For Google, type g followed by your search term.   For Bing, precede your search query with b and can you guess what it is for Yahoo?   Yep, you guessed it!  y.   I know, it’s tough to follow but I’ll try and not get too far ahead, OK?

So searching Google for MakeUseOf :

And you get pretty much the same results with Yahoo and Bing.

There’s not much more you can say about it – it’s just a no frills search function for your IM program which will give you the first four results for any given search query.  I am personally finding it very useful because if I am in a Firefox tab and I don’t want to break the writing flow by opening up a new tab for Google, I can just quickly open up my Pidgin program with a keyboard shortcut and quickly type a quick search into one of these bots.

I look up all my dictionary definitions using Google using the define search parameter and I thought for a moment that I could use this bot to make all my dictionary lookups without having to open the browser.   THAT would have been REALLY useful. But the define parameter doesn’t work with this bot.   Strange.  I hope the bot writers can fix this little glitch.

Make the define parameter work so you can do dictionary searches and increase the number of search results to between 10-15 and these bots will become even extremely more useful.   What do you think?  What else could they add to make these bots even better?

Did you like the post? Please do share your thoughts in the comments section!

New on MakeUseOf ? Get cheat sheets and cool PDF guides @ www.makeuseof.com/makeuseof-downloads/

• Turn Your IM Program Into A Productivity Tool Using Imified (23)
• How to Expand Google’s Universal Search (20)
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• Trillian Astra – Is It the Best Instant Messaging Client Now? (16)
• Translation For MSN: Auto Translates Messages While Chatting (17)

In the good ol’ days we could only depend on eureka moments, when the bulb flashed and we got the name right. Well these are better days because we need not wait for the bulb to light up anymore. We have instant recall in the form of the World Wide Web. The Internet is an information sponge that has even your local librarian beat.

A visit to the local library isn’t such a bad idea but if you can’t wait for it open then plug into the web. It’s open 24 hours a day. By the way, a lot of libraries now also have online catalogs.

Let’s start with our friendly normal search engine

When we don’t remember (and even if we do) the name of book, author, or the characters in it, the search engine is usually the first port of call. What is true for any generic search is true to finding a book without knowing the name and the author too – it’s called keywords.

In case of a forgotten title or author, we have to remember and go back to anything we can use from the book. It could be the name of a character, a line of dialog he said, or any opening lines. More specific the phrase, the better would be the result. All rules of a normal search apply (for instance, for exact searches put it in quotes).

Let’s move on to Google Book Search

Google Books has scanned and indexed entire books (7 million till November 2008) using OCR in its database and now presents it for online viewing. The Advanced Search Page is a powerful tool to get to an obscure title.

From keyword search to using filters like subject, publisher, language, publication date, ISBN and ISSN numbers (you aren’t going to remember these two!), the ways are many.  With the search, you will get results with the keywords. Click on the on the link or thumbnail to access an entire copy or a limited preview.

Even if you do not get the book, you might come across a reference which may lead you to the answer.

Other search engines of note

WorldCat is the world’s largest network of library content and services. You can search the database of more than 10,000 libraries worldwide. You can search for a book and then locate it at a nearby library. Membership of the library allows you to check out the item online.

BookFinder : try the advanced search engine of this website which indexes 150 million new, old, rare and out of print books. The advanced search options have a search by keyword field.

A9: the Amazon powered search engine has an open search and an A9 Product Search which queries the thousands of products available with Amazon worldwide. Also, A9.com powers the search behind Amazon’s ground-breaking Search Inside! book service. To find an obscure book, Amazon is a good place to head for.

Rummage around in Amazon

Not exactly…you don’t have to search haphazardly as Amazon has a basic search and an advanced search which can give you the book you are looking for. After all, if the world’s largest online retailer doesn’t sell it then who else will?

The basic search is actually not basic. Amazon calls it Search Inside! ™. Search Inside! returns results by comparing the query with the inside text of each and every book in its database. Search Inside! results are combined with results that match the title and/or author of the book. It works pretty much similar to a phrase search we use with search engines. Type in your remembered clue and click Go.

For each match, Amazon displays the page number and a selection where it has struck your search phrase. Click this page number link to view the actual pages where the result occurs using the Amazon Online Reader (a sign-in is required to use the reader).

To dig deeper you can use the Search Inside This Book field box.

Amazon’s Advanced Search is similar to Google’s advanced book search. But you get a lot more additional filters like Reader Age and Publication Date.

In a similar way you can use the advanced search functions of most online book sites. Another one worth a look is Barnes & Noble, Biblio or W.H Smith.

Ask and Answers Websites

This is a great way to tap into the collective memory of the large internet population. Most well intentioned book sites have forums or book clubs. Apart from getting recommendations, one can use this to jog each other’s brain cells about a forgotten title.

Askville

We return to another Amazon service, a community site where one can ask and get answers in discussion boards centered around lots of topics. Books, are of course one. And if you are there, please help out others with similar points and garner some experience points. If you want to ask or answer a question, you will need to register (for free) or use your Amazon login.

Bookclubs from Barnes & Noble

Barnes & Noble has a comprehensive community board centered on books. One particular community is on Lost Books. Create a free account and fire away your query.

Yahoo Answers

As of 2008, the Q&A service has nearly 135 million users and 500 million answers worldwide and it’s growing at a rate of 11 million new answers per month just in the U.S. There’s a category on Books & Authors. The process is – login with your Yahoo ID – Click on Ask to frame your question – Categorize your question from the suggestions – Preview your question and submit. For an answer notification, you can select Email me when I receive a new answer or Add this question to my messenger status.

In a similar way you can use other community knowledge sharing websites. Try out Answerbag, or Answers, if the above three fail.

There are of course many other ways to search for a book without a title or author. We can try out social media search. Even do a Twitter search. The good thing is book lovers abound everywhere and the fraternity is amazingly co-operative. We can always find them closeted together in some group or community. Facebook alone has over 500 groups within the common interest groups for books.

Will’s post on 4 Great Sites to Do a Book Search by Plot or Subject is also worth a bookmark for the four book recommendation sites he mentions.

With due apologies to the authors, sometimes we do forget their names or even the titles. But it’s a credit to these wordsmiths that we remember some snippets. Memories may dull but the web is there to sharpen it for us again. And usually discovering a long lost book is sometimes like recovering a lost treasure.

Do you have such hair tearing moments when the book’s title or author escapes you? How do you get what’s lost in memory back?

Image Credit: Ninha Morandini

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New on MakeUseOf ? Get cheat sheets and cool PDF guides @ www.makeuseof.com/makeuseof-downloads/

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Let’s go over some cool Twitter search tips and see how to set up queries that will get you a personally tailored stream of great content.

Step 1 – Choose A Topic Or A Combination Of Topics

In Twitter’s search engine, write a search string that contains the topic or topics that interest you. For example, let’s search videos about productivity.

Our query:

productivity video

Note that writing more topics (words), or ones that show up in lower frequency will yield less results. This is not necessarily a bad thing since you don’t want to be flooded. You want to set up the optimal query to get you just the desired number of results – not too much, not too less.

Step 2 – Get Only Links

People’s opinions are great and interesting, but usually you’d like to find links to full content and not just the 140 characters tweet about it. To find only tweets that contain links add “filter:links” (without quotation marks) to the query.

Our query:

productivity video filter:links

Step 3 – Remove Unwanted Results & Spam

Sometimes you have to filter out popular topics (because they keep showing up in the search results) or spam-tweets. You might also want to refine your query to not find topics you don’t find interesting. Add to the query the topics you don’t want to show up and the Twitter accounts of the spammer, with a minus sign before each of them.

In the example query I got a lot of tweets from an account named @xxxtuber (see image below), so I added “-xxxtuber”.

Our query:

productivity video  filter:links -xxxtuber

Step 4 – Filter Out (Or Get Only) Retweets

If quite a few people retweeted the same link, you might get it over and over again in the search results. To prevent this, filter out retweets by adding -RT (notice the minus sign before it).

On the other hand, a retweet might indicate a higher quality result. This is because at least two people recommended that link – the person who originally tweeted it and the person who retweeted it. Therefore, you can try to add the word RT (without the minus sign) to the query. It will filter out tweets that were not retweeted, and may upgrade your search results.

Our query:

productivity video  filter:links -xxxtuber RT

Step 5 – Subscribe To The Query

Now that you know how to use Twitter to build the perfect query for your needs, be sure to subscribe to its RSS feed. Click the RSS feed for your query in the top right hand corner of the screen.

I recommend you refine the search query once in a while to get better results. Add different words, try with or without retweets, filter out certain results, and so on.

Please share with us your favourite Twitter search tips and search queries in the comments below.

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New on MakeUseOf ? Get cheat sheets and cool PDF guides @ www.makeuseof.com/makeuseof-downloads/

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Controlling the Google search engine top rankings for what comes up on a search page may seem out of reach, but with a few easy steps, you can take charge of the results to improve upon your name and personal brand. Whether you’re disappointed with what appears or nothing comes up at all, remember that results will vary, literally, depending on a number of factors like how common or unique your name is and its current presence on the Web.

With employers and basically everyone who knows you potentially Googling your name to find out about you, it’s becoming increasingly important that you have at least some kind of grasp of your online identity and reputation and that you understand how to take better control of the search engine top ranked sites that mention your name (in a positive light). It’s relatively easy, and best of all, it doesn’t have to cost you a dime.

Privacy and Security

First things first. Dealing with and using your real name online can be risky business. It shouldn’t, however, be a problem as long as you do it wisely and correctly. It’s vital that you never publish personal information that you don’t want anyone to get a hold of. Stuff like your home address or phone number should be kept to yourself.

Some of the things Google simply doesn’t tolerate on its search pages include your social security or government ID number, your bank account or credit card number, or an image of your handwritten signature.

If such content is published on the Web somewhere, you can request its removal from Google search results. Learn more about how to remove false information about yourself on the Internet.

On social networking websites, be sure to check out your privacy settings so that you can specify who gets to view your profile.

Create Your Own Google Profile

Google created profiles to give you greater control over what people find when they search for your name. Profile results are displayed at the bottom of search pages.

First, you’ll need to make a profile with your name and a little information about yourself. You can also write a short bio and add links to some of your public pages if you have any, like online photo albums, social network profiles, and personal websites.

You then have the option of adding contact information, which is not made public and you get to decide who can view it.

From my experience, the more information you add to your profile, the higher it’s ranked, so keep that in mind.

2. Join Social Networks

Take advantage of the popularity of social networking websites and services. Profiles on Facebook, Twitter, MySpace, Classmates, and LinkedIn are musts. These websites have significant PageRank, meaning your profile may be able to achive top search engine rankings - with placement on the first page of Google search results for your name.

Feel free to go the extra mile by making a profile and listening to music on Last.fm, putting up videos on YouTube, or sharing photos on Flickr. Just be sure to enter your real name as the profile’s username only if you’re comfortable with doing so.

3. Start Your Own Blog

Another thing you may want to try if you have the time is to start your own blog. Websites like Blogger and WordPress allow you to publish your very own blog for free.

I highly recomment you check out recent MakeUseOf article on How To Easily Create a Blog with Tumblr.

Ideally, the subdomain should include your real name (yourname.blogspot.com or yourname.wordpress.com) when you register.

4. Get a Domain Name

If all else fails or you want to try to go for the very top of Google’s search listings, buying your own domain name may be the answer. Check to see if your first and last name together is available for a .com domain name registration.

As far as the content for your websites goes, it doesn’t have to be the best. Just writing in a little bit about yourself or posting your resume should do.

Getting your own domain is probably the best way to grab that top spot in Google search results for your name. However, the downside is that it’ll cost you to purchase the domain name and have your website hosted.

For the obsessive, you can actually set up Google Alerts to track any mentions of your name on the Web.

We have done some similar articles on online reputation management and controlling your online name in the past. Here’s three of them :

- How to Maintain a Professional Reputation Online
- 15 Websites to Find People On The Internet
- Manage Your Various Online Identities With Chi.mp
- Cool ‘Identity Search’ Tools for Social Web

What pops up when you Google yourself? Let us know in the comments.

Image Credit : Techprodigy

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The search engines below are really great at finding some of those useful forum posts. Some of them are even more relevant than Google in displaying results (for those that don’t know you can search probably over 90% of forums via Google by adding the inurl:forum operator.) All of these engines can search by post date, post number and other factors. Google can’t (currently).

Without further ado, let’s start. I have listed them by the value I think they provide. The best is at the top, the worst at the bottom.

Omgili

What is it about? : You probably know you can search forums by the post title. Let’s take a look at Omgili’s advanced search page. What’s interesting there is you can choose to search for discussions in 35 languages, sort by date when the topic is created and also sort by minimum number of replies or unique users that posted on that topic. Very interesting.

Some great free services offered by Omgili are:

- Google@Omgili: it returns Google results. Next to each result, you have one number which displays how many times that result is mentioned on different forum topics. You can also view those topics. This is very useful if, for example, you want to see what people say about a specific website or company.

- Omgili Q&A: I honestly haven’t found a better Q&A search engine than this which returns more relevant results. The bad thing is that Yahoo Answers is not included there (maybe they did this for a reason.) but overall it is very valuable web application.

Boardreader

What is it about? : Same basic functionality like Omgili. Difference in returning relevant results – Boardreader includes Yahoo Answers in its results. This makes them sometimes have a better relevance than Omgili in displaying some results. You can enter a site in their engine and it will display the forums linking to that site which is good if you’re a webmaster.

The thing I don’t like about Boardreader is that they try to be all in one – video search, microblogs search, they even search images! Not cool. I wonder what would have happened with Google if at the beginning (with a still undeveloped general search engine) they started spreading themselves around like this.

Boardreader should focus more on developing their forum search engines than add some (pretty basic) other types of engines on their site.

BoardTracker

What is it about? : The guys at BoardTracker are typical old school marketers. When you come on their site you’ll see messages that remind me of: ‘We have the latest technology!!!’, ‘New! New! New!’, ‘Our product is THE BEST!’ Is it?

I guess it was either me or their site is at times very slow (not to talk about their NEW! BoardTracker version 2.0 that’s a pain in the…you know what). I’ve decided to include them in this list only for their excellent relevant results. They did their job as expected.

Overall, the 3 search engines above are pretty good in doing their job. Omgili is the best by far. They offer the biggest database and most relevant results. Boardreader includes many sources in its results and BoardTracker…well…it does its job as required and I believe they can do way more. Forums are still not dead and they are very useful so I hope these sites will come very useful to you.

Can you recommend a better forum search engine? If so, please do tell us about it.

Did you like the post? Please do share your thoughts in the comments section!

New on MakeUseOf ? Get cheat sheets and cool PDF guides @ www.makeuseof.com/makeuseof-downloads/

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But in our quest for the right data, how many times have we come across a website which lacks a search engine of its own? There have been sites which I could have loved more but alas for a search box of its own. Then there are sites which do have a search box but you aren’t quite getting what you want. So it’s worth a second try with some deep digging of your own.

So for such crunch times, here are some workarounds to do an internal search on a specific website or blog.

1. Google Site Search Query

The ol’ favorite reminds us the value of memorizing advanced Google search operators. Google indexes most sites on the web and so the ‘site:’ search query helps to limit your search within a website. For instance, the query antivirus site:makeuseof.com will return results for the keyword antivirus but only from MakeUseof.com. (Their shouldn’t be a space between the colon and the domain name).



The site: operator can also be used to restrict searches within one top domain. For instance, keyword site:net or keyword site:edu. This works on Yahoo and Bing too.

According to a little poll we had some while back, it is the third most liked Google operator.

2. Search Engines and Advanced Search Options

Most search engines have this feature as an option but you just have to go into the advanced search page. Here’s where you get it in these two popular (one upcoming) search engines.

For Google




For Yahoo



For Bing




3. Use a Firefox Add-on

Search Site is an experimental Firefox add-on which makes site-specific searches very easy. The local search can be done either by selecting a word on a webpage and using the right-click context menu (Search site for selection).



Or by clicking the Search Site green icon on the search bar. You can use the search engine of your choice to do the site-specific search.



Also check out the use of Firefox smart keywords mentioned by Ann in her post on 8 Tips to Make Firefox Search Friendly.

4. Use a web service

Though the interface is plain, the Newtechusa.com search interface does the job intended using the Google search engine. Specify the domain URL in the first field and then use the second step to query the specific domain.



5. Create your own site searcher using Rollyo

Rollyo lets you roll on with your search by providing an easy non-geeky way to create a customized search engines for sites you want – rather than the whole worldwide web. Pick the sites you want to search, and Rollyo creates a custom search engine for it.

You can create a search engine for one specific site or a max of 25 sites. You can also browse, use, modify and share Searchrolls (the created search engines) created by the community of users on Rollyo. Any Rollyo Searchroll can be added to Firefox for one click access. For a quick single site setup, you can use the Rollyo Bookmarklet which not only lets you do a local search but also you can add sites to your Searchrolls on the fly.



Kaly’s post on creating your own search engines with Rollyo looks into in with more detail.

Sometimes we miss the trees because of the forest. A single site in itself instead of the whole wide web could be the source of all our information needs. So, it helps to dig deep into its coffers with specific searches.

What do you do if you come across a site which lacks a search box? Do you browse merrily away or you fall back on a utility like Google for advanced searching?

Did you like the post? Please do share your thoughts in the comments section!

New on MakeUseOf ? Get cheat sheets and cool PDF guides @ www.makeuseof.com/makeuseof-downloads/

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It’s essentially a big public chalkboard where everyone has a say as to what gets published. This works well on sites like Wikipedia for the entertainment factor alone. However, at the end of 2008, Google entered into the world of Wiki madness with its “SearchWiki” feature which integrates a wiki within the search engine. The new feature received mixed reviews when it was originally offered at Google Labs, but since its public launch last year, it slowly gained a user base.

A Few Cool Features of Google SearchWiki

Many people who’ve been using Google for years have probably noticed a few interesting, new tiny icons showing up throughout search results (provided you’re logged into your Google account). A lot of users have simply ignored the strange, new icons, while the curious geeky types (raise your hands – you know who you are) started to poke and prod this odd new feature.

The very faint icons circled on the image above are Google’s new SearchWiki features that allow you to customize your search results. Why would anyone want to customize search results? I suppose if you perform the same searches often, like “best movie websites,” or “best sites to watch tv,” you probably prefer a select number of top websites that serve up great content on those topics.

In the example above, I typed in “the best sites for watching TV”, and the fourth site listed is the article I wrote not long ago about watching TV for free with your computer (I’m not bragging or anything…really). Well, let’s say that I feel MakeUseOf has far better content on this topic than the other three silly sites above it in Google’s results (because it does) – what’s a web traveler to do? Easy – I’ll customize my web results by clicking the little “up” arrow icon to the right of the MakeUseOf link and bring it up to the top listing.

So now, at least in my own little Internet world – this MakeUseOf article is now king of these Google search results. The only sign that anything has been changed is that now the up arrow turns green – letting you know that the listing is one that you’ve customized.

If you want to move the listing back, you just click the down arrow. Now, another cool feature that I like the most is the ability to just wipe out the listings that you really don’t care for. Sick of seeing the same lame websites turn up in the search results that you perform often? Just click the little “X” box and it’s gone forever.

If you notice in the image above, I’ve circled the one place on the listing where there’s public evidence of your tampering. Each time someone promotes or deletes a link, those “votes” get added to the SearchWiki’s public area.

Apparently, I’m the first person to vote for my article for first place – go figure. Don’t think that you’ll be able to make a positive or negative impact on a website’s search ranking by doing this – according to Google, the actions in SearchWiki have no effect on site ranking. However, they could certainly have an effect on the public perception of a website.

Exploring the SearchWiki

My favorite feature of the SearchWiki is the ability to comment on particular listings. Maybe you just want to jot down a quick reminder for yourself about something at the link that struck your interest and you want to get back to when there’s more time. Or maybe you hated the article and want to jot down why. Clicking on the text bubble lets you enter those comments.

As you can see from my comments of shameless self-promotion in the text box above, I’ve just made a public remark about the link that gets added to Google’s public SearchWiki. If you want to view comments that other folks have made in the SearchWiki, you can browse those by clicking the “See all notes for this Searchwiki” at the bottom of the page.

Any time you conduct a Google search, whether or not you’ve personally contributed promotion, deletions or comments to the public Wiki, you can view what everyone else may have said about those particular listings by clicking on that “See all notes” link. For example, for a “best movies” Google search, I did just that and received the following page back.

The SearchWiki can get pretty entertaining at times, especially for searches and search results that are someone controversial. It’s a bit like watching a very political movie in a theater that allows patrons to voice their own opinions during the movie. Be forewarned however, watching what other people say about certain links can make you laugh, but other times it may also get you pretty angry. Of course, you’re also free to express your own opinion about the link – it is a wiki after all.

Have you ever used Google SearchWiki? Share your own opinion about this new Google search feature in the comments box below.

Check out the SearchWiki demo video from the SearchWiki team at Google.

Image credit: brianinsanfran

Did you like the post? Please do share your thoughts in the comments section!

New on MakeUseOf ? Get cheat sheets and cool PDF guides @ www.makeuseof.com/makeuseof-downloads/

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Or do you bypass the image search for the “always in your face” Google Web search? I, for one am a habituated Flickr user; only occasionally traipsing over to Google Image Search for a look-see. And it was an error in judgment to neglect such a ready-at-hand powerful image search engine.

So, my resolution to use the web service for power searches made me go under the cowling and learn about the ways I can supercharge my image search experience.

Google Image Search operators and the Advanced Image Search options help in bringing laser sharp focus to our search. And they can be used in a variety of ways. Let’s check it out together — I’m going to list 10 ways you can use the advanced Google search to return pin-point accurate image results and will help you in so many ways.

1. Search a website for all its images

Google operators work in the same way as the web search operators. The [site:] operator can be used to find all images from a specific domain. This is handy because Google’s custom search box on websites does not include an image search option. For instance, I can type in site:makeuseof.com to get all images belonging to this website.

Maybe, you would like a copy of our Google Cheat Sheet with all the operators to become a Google ninja.

2. Search for images of a specific size

The [imagesize:] operator is quite handy if you want to locate images of certain dimensions – large or small. Used in conjunction with the [filetype:] operator it becomes a powerful tool in hunting down images of specific pixels. For instance, typing in imagesize: 580×400 returns results corresponding to the size mentioned. Using the filetype operator, like imagesize: 580×400 filetype:jpeg will filter JPEG images from the other file types.

The same results can be achieved more easily from the options in Advanced Image Search.

You can also try out an alternative interface at Imagery (it works only in Firefox).

3. Using Advanced Google Search for desktop wallpapers

The Advanced Image Search page also has a single click link which estimates your monitor resolution and returns only those images for the keywords given. For instance, a desktop size of 1280×800 and using the search term ‘landscape’, I get back nearly 700+ panoramic wallpapers.

4. Search by content

Now, we can search for a variety of content – faces, photos, line drawings, clip art, news pictures etc.

Not only that, but the results can be further filtered by color and size from the drop-down menu in the results page.

5. Search for similar images

This is an advanced Google Search feature for images that’s still being tinkered with in Google Labs. Google Similar Images, as the name suggests lets you drill further by bringing more results which resemble the main image. This experimental service works like a mirror site to Google Image Search. Only, it has a similar images link below each picture. Click that and you get more ‘lookalike’ images. Read more about it here.

6. Search random images by camera type

A wannabe photographer like me like me often wants to see photos taken by different camera makes. Of course, I can type the make of my camera and do a normal image search. Else, I can visit a site like Junknstuff to use its Google-based interface. I can select the type of camera to find images from a drop-down menu and click to get a random sampling. The results reveal interesting life tidbits and the camerawork behind it.

7. For the artist in you

If you are interested in paintings and genius of brushwork, simply type in the name of your favorite painter. Preferably, set the size to extra large or large from the dropdown. The Google images are a lesson in themselves. Try it with ‘Monet’.

8. Words in pictures

Words and their dictionary meaning are fine. But to really form our own mental lexicon, imagery really helps. Something like – dead man’s float. Use the image search to type it in and see associated images for the word. It really imprints the meaning in the mind.

9. Build your own Google Image gallery

Google Image Ripper – Clicking on the thumbnails and then downloading individual photos is a recipe for sore wrists. Using a web service like Google Image Ripper, I can bypass the thumbnails and get the full-sized images on a single page. Although bounded by server limits, the image results are still a handful. The tool is also available as a client side Greasemonkey script which gives even more results.

T.J. Mininday has covered it exhaustively in his post on Google Image Ripper – Remove Thumbnails from Image Search

WebImageGrab Light – This is billed as a 3D web search and image browser powered by Google Image Search. The free version is limited to 30 images only. Type in a keyword and the tool downloads the images in a folder.

The stand alone software is compatible with Windows and Mac OS.

10. Use only Creative Commons images

• Public Domain Images: Add &as_rights=cc_publicdomain to the URL
• Creative Commons Attribution Share-Alike Images: Add &as_rights=cc_sharealike to the URL
• Creative Commons Attribution Images: Add &as_rights=cc_attribute to the URL
• Google Operating System – an unofficial Google blog
• Search by Creative Commons – provides Creative Commons search services for Google, Yahoo and Flickr etc.
• Bad Neighborhood – a SEO website with a useful Google Image Search box.

Last but not the least, if you are thinking of reusing an image. Google, unlike Yahoo has so far not added a button for this very important standard among its lineup of options. Though, it is present at its backend. Creative Commons by the way is like a group of open licenses which allow creators to share their works with the world.

A search can be filtered by Creative Commons licenses by adding the following parameters to the results URL. More easily, one can use web services which utilize this parameter behind a slicker interface. Three of them can be found here. Or use an available Greasemonkey script in Firefox.

The Google Images Creative Commons script allows you to filter search results by Creative Commons copyright licenses.

Want to know more about Creative Commons? Read our previous post on 3 Tips for Getting More Out Of Creative Commons.

Yes, this was a pretty long post. It just goes to show the immense power of this Google tool which is belied by its simple interface. Let’s hope that we manage to tap into some of its power. Our image quest will be better for it.

Do you have a trick or tip which I missed? Do tip us off in the comments.

Did you like the post? Please do share your thoughts in the comments section!

New on MakeUseOf ? Get cheat sheets and cool PDF guides @ www.makeuseof.com/makeuseof-downloads/

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A search query always gives us a heap of search results to sift through. DeeperWeb takes these search results, churns them out in the normal Google fashion and also sorts them out according to other associated sources like news, blogs, metrics, Wikipedia and answers. Thus, a user gets a better view of his search results. Now it’s a choice of which heap of results to dive deeper into.

Courtesy DeeperWeb.com

How does DeeperWeb help me get a deeper look at the web?

Let me try it out with a simple query – I type “recession” in the search box. It’s something I am worried about and here’s what I get:

The usual 9,370,000 results in 0.27 seconds. Just like a Google search results page. But I also get the two unique DeeperWeb features on a sidebar.

The Tag Cloud

The tag cloud (or DeeperCloud) provides the user with an understanding of the relative issues arranged around the main query. The other tags are basically keywords which I can click to fine tune my search results further.

I click on the ‘economic’ tag and Google works behind the scenes to return a results page for ‘economic recession’. The Tag Cloud and the sidebar resources contents change to reflect the new result.

I can also use a phrase like “personal finances” to enhance my search or search in a specific site. A mouse-over over a particular tag allows me to filter out that word from a search, much like the Google query minus (-) operator.

I can now go on clicking the related tags to go ‘deeper’ into the search results. Probably, I can get the same results using Google operators directly but tag searching not only takes the hassle out of it but also suggests associated keywords which we may not have thought of at the time.

Topic Mapping

DeeperWeb describes this feature as a way to reduce the usual clutter of search result page. DeeperWeb ‘maps’ the results into specific sidebar categories depending on the source and type of result. These categories resemble mini search engines.

Courtesy DeeperWeb.com

Search results are arranged into neat little boxes like – Blogs Search, Answers Search, Metrics Search, Business News Search, Resources Search and Wikipedia Search.

For my ‘recession’ query, I can go directly to blogs which discussing the topic or check out when the last U.S. recession took place via Answers Search. The Resources Search gives me many PDF documents on the subject. The Business News Search tells me that it might not be a good time to buy a car. The Metrics Search gives the pollsters feedback on a universal worry. And of course, Wikipedia Search throws in its rich storehouse of information.

Narrowing down the search results into categories and sources does wonders for personal productivity.

Great! How do I get DeeperWeb for myself?

Couldn’t be easier. DeeperWeb 1.1.0 is available in these flavors:

• Directly, as a web interface at DeeperWeb.com.
• As a Firefox Add-on from the Mozilla Add-ons page. Conduct a usual search and the DeeperWeb pane appears on the results page and disappears when you leave the page.
• And for IE as a search plug-in. The plug-in is available for Internet Explorer 7 and 8.
• Nope! It doesn’t work with Chrome, yet.

The DeeperWeb add-on is compatible with Windows (2000, XP, Vista), Mac OS X and Linux.

I took DeeperWeb for quite a few spins around the web. The web app is still in beta and so the promise for the days to come is still fresh. Although, it’s Google that’s doing the heavy lifting, DeeperWeb does give it more muscle.

Let us know whether DeeperWeb enhanced your search experience or boosted your efficiency. How does it stand up to the other Google-driven search engines? Speak your mind in the comment.

Did you like the post? Please do share your thoughts in the comments section!

New on MakeUseOf ? Get cheat sheets and cool PDF guides @ www.makeuseof.com/makeuseof-downloads/

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I accepted my James Bond-esque task equipped only with a memory stick and a very small application called SearchMyFiles from my favorite handy dandy developer NirSoft.

SearchMyFiles is a portable improvement over the standard Windows Search option. Not only can you be stealth about your activities but it is a portable app as well. So you can throw it on a memory stick and scan to your hearts content. This will work on all Windows Operating Systems 2000 or better.

You can download the application from here. There is an installable version as well but where is the fun in that? So after downloading and running the 40kb application I saw this screen:

Wow that’s a lot of options! So I quickly configured it to do my bidding as you can see below:

I configured it to search both local hard drives, excluding the Windows directory, return all files and folders created in the last 5 days. I hit OK and was on my way… Looking over my shoulder as I went. After about 5 minutes I saw what I was looking for…

Then I hit up View – HTML Report  – Selected Items and like that I was done… I saved the HTML file to my USB Drive and I was out.

I hate being the rat but my job is my job and this tool helped me do it. Upon removing my USB drive there was no trace of the search.

Do you have a tool that you live by? Couldn’t live without? Share it with us in the comments and let us know why it is so important to you!

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Tag clouds are much easier to grasp than simple lists, as words can be weighted with the help of font size and color.

We see tag clouds on lots of sites these days. Almost in all cases the purpose of the tag cloud is to give user an easier way to browse the site and at the same time see popular content.

Here are some of my favorite ways tag clouds are used on the web.

1. Discover New Music

The Music Artist Cloud is an artist recommendation engine. Try to “Get Artist Cloud” for a band you like and receive a cloud of similar musicians you might enjoy. I love many of the suggested bands and there are yet a few to be explored.

The site also fetches music videos from YouTube which you can watch while noting down discoveries.

2. Extract Information from Twitter

Using Tweet Cloud you can create a tag cloud based on a keyword or Twitter ID. This tag cloud shows you the major words found in the most recent tweets and their occurrence frequency in relation to each other. The cloud rotates in 3D and you can click words to explore them further.

3. Create Fancy Word Art

Wordle was built for no other purpose than to play with it and create pretty word clouds. You provide the text and can tweak fonts, layouts and color schemes. Results can be printed, downloaded and saved to the Wordle gallery. Below are some recent examples.

4. Improve Google Search

Search Cloudlet is a Firefox extension. The next time you search Google, Yahoo or Twitter after installing this tool you will find a tag cloud on top of the search results. This tag cloud derived from search results and shows you all the keywords relevant to your search results.

Users can easily narrow/filter search by clicking keywords on the cloud and adding them to the query. This is a must-have addon for everyone who frequently searches on Google, Yahoo or Twitter.

Where and how Search Cloudlet appears can be optimized within the extension’s option.

5. Analyze Your Texts

Are there words that you use far too often?

Using a tool like TagCrowd you can create a tag cloud from any text and analyze whether or not your use of words is balanced. You can enter a webpage URL, upload a text document or paste a piece of text and finally finetune the options. When done preparing click Visualize! and wait for the result.

Below is an excerpt from Obama’s inauguration speech.

Where do you find tag clouds helpful?

Image credits: modish

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Available as a Firefox addon and thus available for Windows, Linux and Mac Outwit is a web collection engine that lets you search for documents, images and other kinds of information online and displays the results in a very Windows Explorer like interface.

Head over to the Outwit webpage and install the Firefox addon. There are separate addons for Outwit Hub, Outwit Docs and Images. You can then access the Outwit interface via the toolbar button or the tools menu.

Consider Outwit Docs for example. Once you open it up its pretty intuitive, type what you want to search in the search box and you will see results from Internet and your local files. You can check/uncheck the type of files you want to search for. Found the file you were looking for? Great, just right click and choose to open it up or save it or whatever you would want to do with it.

You can have multiple searches going on simultaneously (reminiscent of something like Limewire) and the results would continue to increase when more such files are discovered that meet your search criteria.

Then there is a basket (strangely called the “catch”) which is like a temporary holding place for the documents (your catch) that you find interesting and would like to download later in bulk.

So much for documents, there is a lot more you can do. Outwit Images that lets you search for images in a similar fashion. Even more powerful tool however is the Outwit Hub. Where as Outwit docs and Outwit images search for documents and images respectively, Outwit Hub can be used to search for a variety of information types.

Outwit Hub is used for information extraction from webpages. Fire it up and then enter the search query or URL of a webpage. Outwit Hub will then show you different kinds of data that can be extracted from the webpage. Click on the view type on the left hand side pane and you can view the page, all the images on the page, links, email addresses, text, rss feeds found and so on. Then there are the data extraction tools which allow you to extract data from tables, lists and other data structures on the webpage.

These tools have a great potential if you are looking for data or documents of any kind. Granted, you can always copy and paste and search for them on Google but you can do so much more with tools like these. A lot more flexibility, more control and ease of use. You can for example extract the data from a table and export it as excel spreadsheet or as SQL statements in just a few clicks from within Outwit Hub.

Do you know of any such tools or extensions you use for similar purposes? Mention them in comments, we would love to hear and check them out!

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By integrating social websites within Google search results, we thus achieve two aims: we combine Google search which we love most of the times with social media users’ recommendations who rate each page. If we also combine data from several social media sources, we are most likely to find the best result quickly and efficiently.

Browser Bookmarks (XMarks)

Xmarks FireFox addon (formerly knows as FoxMarks): I’ve been using it for a while as that’s a cool way to synchronize your bookmarks among a few computers and also access them from anywhere in the world online. It has introduced quite a few cool features recently – and one of them is Google search results page enhancer. It places a little blue icon next to the result which was bookmarked most of the times.

If you click on the icon, you’ll be invited to find more info on the result which includes the page ratings, reviews and similar sites:

StumbleUpon

StumbleUpon toolbar inserts StumbleUpon users’ ratings within Google SERPs results. Besides, it shows:

• the name of your friend who recently stumbled it (meaning that this information is provided by the most reliable source, i.e. your friends);
• the category it was discovered at.

Delicious and Digg

SEOquake is a feature-rich FireFox addon that can be configured to show how many times each page was saved at Delicious.com and how many times the domain was dugg on Digg:

Any other ways to see people’s recommendations within Google search results? Please share them!

Post image from netsimage.com

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People share thoughts, exchange opinions and reviews every single second. It is really hard to keep track of those conversations and sometimes you just need to.

Would you like to know what people are saying about the recent product or track your business reviews? This time I am listing most useful online tools that might help you to search multiple social media sites from one place (and sometimes with one click).

Spy

Spy (see MakeUseOf review of Spy) is fun to use. It updates in real time and if you are tired of working, you can just sit back and read the updates.

The tool also shows recent trends (as well as hashtags) and allows you to change the page background color:

SamePoint

SamePoint offers to search plenty of social networks. It has a handy interface allowing you to click through the tabs to get more targeted results: social media, microblogging, networks, images, etc. You can also subscribe to any search by RSS to track any changes.

It also offers real time tracking mode:

SocialMention

SocialMention (see MakeUseOf review of SocialMention) offers to search through blogs (Wordpress.com, Google Blog Search, Live.com, Technorati.com, Wikio.com), bookmarks (Diigo, Clipmarks, StumbleUpon), micro-blogs, comments (BackType), images (Flickr, Picasaweb, Photobucket), news (Digg, Reddit, Mixx), video (Youtube, Truveo.com, Pixsy.com), etc:

It also scores each query based on its social media presence:

WhosTalkin

WhosTalkin is the most comprehensive of all. It is divided into sections that includes blogs, news, networks, videos, images, and forums. Each of the sections has numerous options to click through.

The site also offers to install their Google gadget to bring the power of the social media search to your Google home page.

Of course, there are more social media search tools. I’ve only mentioned those that appeared useful to me.  Which tools are you using and would like to recommend?

Post image by striatic

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To explain it clearer, Google tries to guess what other type of information the surfer would also like see based on his or her search query. For example, for “Britney Spears” you’ll see images and videos blended within the search interface and for “downtown Los Angeles” you’ll get local search results (i.e. maps.google.com).

The idea of pulling more data by one-click searching can be expanded. You do not have to limit yourself to the Google search engine only. This time I am listing a few cool FireFox addons that show you more relevant information based on your search query and provides you with more opportunities to browse through.

Add Multiple Search Engines to Google Search Interface

WebMynd offers to search a wealth of search platforms simultaneously with your Google search, by default: Twitter Search, Amazon, YouTube; but you can also add numerous other search options (e.g. Flickr, Wikipedia, Digg, LinkedIn, CNN, etc). The search results will appear right on Google’s results page in the right sidebar:

Additional great features of the page:

• send Tweets directly from your search results asking your friends advice related to your search;
• user-friendly interface: add/hide engines with one click, drag-and-drop ordering of pages.

Integrate Amazon.com and eBay Search:

GoogAzon adds the first ten search results from Amazon and eBay in a collapsed orange bar to the top of your Google results page (works also for Yahoo or MSN / Live search). The results include the title, price, and a mouse-over thumbnail image.

You can also quickly share the results with friends and access the actual Amazon / eBay search results.

Add Reference Information

Google Search Sidebar for FF3 (Greasemonkey plugin) adds relevant results from Wikipedia and Dictionary.com (as well as Flickr, and YouTube) :

See Your Browsing History

Infoaxe is a browser addon (both FireFox and Internet Explorer versions available) that will show your browsing history results based on your Google search term.

Note: it requires registration and access to your private data, i.e. browsing history.

See What Your Facebook Friends Have to Say:

SideStripe offers a handy Google Gadget that integrates with the Google search results page and searches your friends list for your search query.

The tool offers some more functionality (e.g. it invites you to ask your friends’ opinion on what you are searching) but I didn’t invite my friends to use the application, so I can’t say if it works. The search functionality works pretty well though:

Would you like to add more searching functionality or do you think “plain” Google is all you need? Do you use any tools that make Google better? Share your thoughts!

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However, please allow me to present some multi-engine search engines which you should consider to take the place of your current home page.

Search Hacker (NSFW!)

SearchHacker hosts 15 different custom search engines from its homepage: Real Estate, Baby Names, Webcams, Audio Files, Jobs, Video, Wallpaper, Free Stuff, Questions & Answers, Product Prices, File Search (with filetype filter), Passwords, and BitTorrent.

Unfortunately, the first of the engines listed is an adult image search, featured prominently on the homepage alongside a troubling image of a Disney Princess character (!), so I cannot suggest using this site from work, unless your IT department as well as your coworkers are liberally tolerant of such things (Hint: Most are not).

Yahoo! Glue

Yahoo’s Glue returns multiple types of search results, such as videos, news, images, and biography, on one page. The odd thing is that many of these results come from non-Yahoo sites like YouTube and Last.FM. There’s no plain-vanilla Web search with Glue, but there is a handy Yahoo search box in the upper right.

Serchilo

Serchilo can be thought of as a command-line interface for Web search. For example, type “g keyword” for a Google search, or “g! keyword” for an “I’m Feeling Lucky” search. If you’re shopping, try “a keyword” for Amazon or “e keyword” for eBay.

Once you’ve memorized the commands, a search plugin is available for your browser. If you register, you can create your own commands.

Katapulco

Katapulco wins the multi-search game hands-down because of its quick and simple interface and availabilty of over 90 search engines from a single command line. It uses a shortcut system much like Serchilo, but allows for its users to create custom commands without signing up for an account. Use of more than one shortcut at a time is possible, and such results appear in a tabbed interface.

Katapulco will be my new home page for a while, but I’m sure that I’ve missed some great ones, so please share your favorites in the comments.

Honorable Mentions: The original multi-search, Dogpile, Dogpile’s cousins, as well as Twingine (Google + Yahoo).

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I’m sure back in the Google Labs cave, their genius engineers are concocting up some type of real time results, but for now, we will have to settle on a great alternative. And that great alternative is called Keyboardr.

Keyboardr takes all of the behind the scenes Google search results and displays them in real-time on your screen. In other words, as you are typing your search term in their search box, the display below changes to proper Google results. Not too long ago, Google implemented one of their “Labs” products called Google Suggest, that displays suggested results and how many there are.

Keyboardr works in a completely different manner. As opposed to displaying suggested results in real-time, it displays the actual results in real-time.

The name Keyboardr comes from the fact that they have implemented the ability to navigate the results through your keyboard – using your arrow keys to jump from result to result and selecting your choice by pressing enter.

Along with getting Google search results, you will also see results from Wikipedia, YouTube and Google Images.

The engineers with Keyboardr also have plans to implement and integrate services such as Friendfeed, Delicious, Twitter, Flickr, Google Docs and many more.

In the video below you will see exactly how they will use some of these services to allow for friends and others to connect with each other, and find more of what they might be looking for.

The additional features of Keyboardr are great. However, having said that, I think the real beauty of the web app lies in its real-time Google results. When I’m searching for a quick fix or answer, I like being able to quickly search the web or a site without having to refresh with a different results page, each and every time I type something in. Keyboardr gets the job done for me, with very quick and responsive results.

How about you? Do you see yourself using this over Google.com? Are there similar web apps or browser add-ons that have this ability? I’d love to know.

Photo Credit : manfry’s

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What’s more, the search plugins option can be configured in multiple ways and few people are really aware of how much fun they can have with this functionality.

Here are some tips and tricks to show how you can play with your FireFox search plugins. Plus few links to make your own firefox search plugin.

Add a search engine to your search plugins

Normally you won’t have any problems with that. Just navigate to the site, click on your search plugins icon and the tool will invite you to add the site to the list:

You will be able to use the search engine after selecting it from the list. You will also be able to search any word on a page: select any word and right-click – you’ll be offered to search for it using the currently active search engine:

If you are not offered to add a site to your search plugins:

In this case, you can either search for it using a search plugins directory or create a search plugin yourself.

I have already described how to create a search plugin for any site:

In essence, the steps are as follows:

• Search the site;
• Copy the search URL string;
• Substitute the search term you used for {searchTerms};
• Complete the fields as shown above and you are done!

Alternatively, you may just create a keyword search for it. It takes about 5 seconds to do that.

What if the site you need doesn’t have the search platform of its own?

In this case, Google search is your best friend. I am sure you know you can search any site with Google (and Yahoo!). Just type [site:yourdomain.com search term] in Google or Yahoo and you will see the list of pages for your search term. Just copy the search URL, change search term for {searchTerms} and follow the guide above.

Now, the beauty of Google search is in its advanced search. With it you can create a search plugin for almost all your needs:

• Search multiple sites with one click – create a search plugin for the following Google search: [site:domain1.com OR site:domain2.com OR site:domain3.com]. You can add as many sites as you want and you will see search results from all of them (or any of them if not all of them contain the search term you put);
• Search for most recent entries – use Google advanced date search (that adds as_qdr= to the search results URL);
• Search for words in a title / URL – create a search plugin using the following search pattern [site:yoursite.com inurl:term] / [site:yoursite.com intitle:term];
• Search for specified file types – add filetype: to your search (examples of extensions you can use:pdf, html, doc, xls, ppt, etc).

What cool FireFox plugins have already been created for me?

Here are just a few search plugins I am using:

• Peers to see search results before even searching.
• Google without Wikipedia – to get rid of wiki results in Google SERPs (in case you are tired of seeing wiki results all over the search results pages).
• TinyURL – to quickly and easily create short URLs (if you are at Twitter a lot).
• Google unpersonalized search – to turn off personalized search in Google (in case you want to compare your personalized search results with what others see).

How do you use the search plugins functionality? What are your favorite ones? Please share!

Post image: picsearch.com

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Therefore optimizing my browser for search was the first thing I did when installing it. Since then I’ve been looking for more and more ways to access the search features easily and instantly in FireFox.

Now let’s see which methods I have come up with to make my FireFox search-friendly:

1. Install the Google Toolbar

The most obvious way to access Google search.

Besides allowing you to access Google search instantly, it also has a number of other handy features:

• search suggestions (based on your search history and/or popular queries);
• search multiple verticals (image search, news search, blog search, etc);
• search term highlight;
• spell check, etc.

Its major drawback is that it only allows you to search Google (and there are other search engines and sites you might want to search).

2. Take advantage of FireFox search plugins

You can search the huge directory of search plugins or create your own (and that’s where your own imagination is your only limit). Let’s take a quick look at how you can create your own search plugin for any search engine or site you refer to daily:

• search the site you are creating the plugin for;
• copy the query string;
• change your search term in the query string for {searchTerms};
• go to mycroft.mozdev.org and complete the form as shown below;

• test (install and perform a few searches) your plugin before submitting;
• click “generate” and you are done!

As you understand you can include any search parameters, use advanced search or play to your heart’s content to create the search that fully satisfies your needs.

3. Use FireFox “smart keywords” feature

(it allows you to search right from the address bar).

To create a FireFox smart keyword you need to:

• Search any site / search engine you are interested in [keyword];
• Copy the URL of the query string;
• Substitute keyword in the query string for %s;
• Go: Bookmarks > Organize Bookmarks => New Bookmark;
• Create new search bookmark the following way:

Alternatively, you can go to YubNub, install its search plugin and either use multiple quick searches already created there or create your own ones using a simple wizard.

4. Use The CyberSearch FireFox plugin (download it here).

Another way to search from the address bar.  It supports multiple Google services and also displays your related search history (again, it’s limited to Google only):

To access different Google services, use these commands before the search query:

• gweb – Google general search;
• gloc – Google local search;
• gvid – Google video search;
• gblog – Google blog search;
• gnews – Google news search;
• gbook – Google book search;
• gimg – Google image search;
• gpat – Google patent search.

5. Tweak your FireFox about:config settings.

Yet another way to search from the address bar. (tip by FireFox facts).

• type into your address bar about:config;
• filter keyword.URL;
• modify the string in there and replace it with your preferred engine search string, e.g. http://www.google.com/search?btnG=Google+Search&q=

6. Use Search Bookmarklets

Use search bookmarklets to access your preferred search engine by selecting any term on a page:

• Google;
• Google Blog search;
• Yahoo!;
• Exalead;
• Ask

or to easily switch between search engines:

• @Google – perform Google search;
• @Yahoo – try Yahoo search;
• @Exalead – search on Exalead.

7. Search Highlighted Words With Multiple Engines

Search the highlighted word using multiple search engines: KallOut

Kallout is a new awesome desktop application that allows you to search for any highlighted term (integrates with FireFox, Outlook, txt files, etc). With it you can choose between multiple verticals (general search, shopping portals, reference resources, etc) and search engines (Google, Yahoo, Live, Twitter, etc).

8. Search The Web (Or Any Website) With One Searchy

An experimental FireFox addon (thus you will have to login to install it). Just hit a shortcut (by default: Ctrl+Shift+K) and search without having to leave the current page. Search results will appear as you are typing your search term. To search any site, type @ before the search term and you will be shown results from the current domain:

Have I missed anything? Please add your own way to search with the FireFox browser!

Image credits: Fun with FireFox

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The other day, I created a search button for Google Reader, because surprisingly enough it doesn’t come with one and the button gallery doesn’t have one either. Mark O’Neill has already put together a search button for MakeUseOf, and I’ve made use of it myself quite a bit. For demonstration purposes, let’s pretend he didn’t make one and you’d really like to have one. Here’s what you would do to create a custom search button for MakeUseOf:

1. Navigate to the MakeUseOf homepage
2. Right-click inside of the search field.



3. Left-click on the menu item that says “Generate custom search…”



4. You’ll see the “Google Toolbar Custom Button Generator” automatically load in the page title, icon (if the site has one), and display the URL as the description. The description is what is displayed in the tooltip when you move your mouse over the button, so you might want to change it to something more descriptive like Search MakeUseOf.
5. Click Add and you’re done!

The new button will appear on the toolbar with a yellow box around it to highlight the new button.

The search button that Mark created also includes the MakeUseOf RSS feed as well. You can learn how to add an RSS feed in the Google Toolbar API documentation. The API docs contains additional information on how to create more advanced buttons.

Do you use the Google Toolbar in your browser? Have you created any custom buttons you found were lacking?

Did you like the post? Please do share your thoughts in the comments section!

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A bookmarklet can be a good alternative to a FireFox addon as it is easier to organize and backup (as a usual bookmark), faster to install (all you need is just grab a link and drag it into your bookmarks toolbar) and usually compatible with multiple browsers.

As one who searches daily (and I’d even say constantly), I am mostly interested in various ways to customize my searching and using search bookmarklets is one such way.

Easily switch between search engines: if you failed to find anything in Google, for example, switch to Exalead or Yahoo (all opens in the same tab):

• @Google – perform Google search;
• @Yahoo – try Yahoo search;
• @Exalead – search on Exalead.

Search for the selected text: select a term on a page and send a query to one of the search engines (opens in the same tab):

• Google;
• Google Blog search;
• Yahoo!;
• Exalead;
• Ask.

Search dictionaries and reference sources: select text on the current page and search its meaning and definitions:

• Wikipedia – find a wiki article for the highlighted term;
• Acronym finder – learn what a highlighted acronym stands for;
• Urban Dictionary – find a slang variation of the highlighted word;
• Google definition: highlight a term on page and get the definition from Google

Customize your Google search - just a few tweaks specifically for Google search (there might be more but I failed to find them useful enough):

• Gf=0: change number of search results to 100;
• filter=0: removes Google result clustering;
• Search within this domain – for sites that lack the search option of their own (based on Google site: advanced search operator) select a term and it will search for it in Google within current domain only.

Create your own search bookmarklet: use this cool tool that allows you to create a search bookmarklet and customize its behavior.

Note: the site allows to create a bookmarklet for an impressive number of search engines (many of them do not work though).

Sources:

• Search bookmarklets;
• Jesse’s bookmarklets;
• GoogleSystem.

Note: all the above bookmarklets have been tested on FireFox 3.0.4. Please let me know in the comments if any of them failed to work on any other browser.

Please share your favorite search bookmarklets that I missed out!

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I assume you already know that Google can be also used as calculator, currency converter and even measurement unit converter. But what about using Google to search for nearby pizzerias or checking movie showtimes in local cinemas.

Basically, there are several handy Google search operators that you can make use of on a daily basis. Today we ask you to vote on your top 5, the ones you find extremely useful and use (or at least see yourself using) on a regular basis. And if you’re one of those who has no idea about search operators here is your chance to learn a few.

Please Vote!

Did we miss your favorite search operator? Add it in comments.

You can find get more details on specific search oprator here and here.

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There are two faces to the ‘date’ conundrum.

1. How to find the date of the page I am reading?
2. How to search within a specific date?

As I set out to seek answers to the two, various ’solutions’ came up. Not absolutely iron clad, because we must remember that the web is a dynamic medium and search engines have their own foibles which the boffins call search algorithms. Search engines or web bots pick up web pages for indexing and this date might be totally different from the actual date of publishing. But we can safely assume that it’s close.

Standard hypertext has no codes for establishing the date of a web page. Meta tags for including copyright information exists but it is ignored by search spiders and more often by the designers themselves. More importantly, on the net there are different kinds of dates…publication date, indexing date, update dates…etc, etc. The results we get from our efforts may not be accurate but at least an approximation (however faulty) is something we have to live with for the time being. Back to the problems….

Is the page I am reading current – or not?

Blame it on the page designers who are lackadaisical about a small date line. If you don’t want to read an antiquated website, use this handy JavaScript hint -

(1) Insert the code ‘javascript:alert(document.lastModified)‘ (without the quotes) in the address bar. The alert box pops up to give an update date. The problem? You need to have JavaScript enabled, it does not work on all browsers and it fails for dynamic pages where it takes the system date. But for static sites it still worth a shot.

(2) Download the Link Diagnosis Firefox extension from LinkDiagnosis. Right-click on the webpage, and you get the page age. The add-on uses the ‘inurl’ string and the date filter of Google Search.

The better approach – search by date.

Here are a few ways to search for information using specific dates.

(3) Google (and most search engines) has a search by date function. Drill down to the ‘Advanced Search‘ page and expand the ‘Date, usage rights, numeric range, and more‘ link. You can search within the year, month, week and day. One wonders why Google hasn’t included this on the first page.



(4) Use a third party website using the Google engine to do a date search by default. The four on my radar are -

# Gigablast – Fine-tunes the Google search by including a start date and an end date range.

# Spific – You can filter the search results further through a drop down box. A few extra filters of 2, 3 and 6 months are provided. An earlier post mentions it here.

# D8Search – Similar to Spific, but with the filter enabled on the first page.

# GooFresh – Another search box which gives you pages indexed within today, yesterday, seven days and a month.

# The Google Ultimate Interface – Although not officially endorsed by Google, it’s a powerful interface and combines all major search strings through the page interface. Alternatively, its sister site is the Fagan Finder.

And if you like to get your hands dirty here are three tips to power your date search skills.

(5) To find indexed pages use the query – ‘&as_qdr=d‘ (without the quotes). Replace the ‘=d’ with ‘dx’ (where x is any day, for example d2) and similarly with ‘wx’ (for any week) or ‘yx’ (for any year). Append this query string at the end of the search URL in the address bar as shown in the pic below.



(6) The little known Google ‘daterange‘ operator is a nifty shortcut to use. You can restrict your search within a range of dates when Google indexed the page. A slight hitch is that it uses the Julian calendar, not the Gregorian calendar (the one we use). But a simple calendar converter can be found on the web. Search with syntax “Query” daterange:startdate-enddate.

These workarounds help us to get an approximate fix on the date. Though not completely accurate, it helps us to peg down the results to more fresher ones. Using the date functions, we can jump over more ‘popular’ results to get the exact information we want. Just imagine you are searching for a namesake of ‘Paris Hilton’ through Google…wouldn’t it help to use a date?

Do you have any more helpful hints for searching by date?

Did you like the post? Please do share your thoughts in the comments section!

New on MakeUseOf ? Get cheat sheets and cool PDF guides @ www.makeuseof.com/makeuseof-downloads/

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