Don't Hunt, Search
Search engines are getting smarter and smarter - some are better than others, but the ones people use often tend to be very good. Search engines like Google can figure out that when you search “A movie in which luck is a commodity” you probably mean the 2007 spanish indie film Intacto, despite that being a fairly poor description of the movie itself.
This, combined with the fact that there more than half a billion computers connected to the internet in North America alone means that no matter what problem you encounter, someone else is likely to have encountered and documented it, and that documentation is probably online.
Given this powerful search and the size of the resources, often looking up the problem or task in whatever simple, straightforward language you can (geerally, the more specific the better) you are very likely to find a solution, or at least a group of other people looking for a solution to the same problem. Search tools, both in program’s help menus, and online, are a constant source for people who repair computers as their jobs.
If that isn’t enough, there are a few shortcuts for search engines as well. All of the following work on Google, but most of them also work in other systems:
Putting quotes (“”) around a phrase will make the search for that phrase exactly.
For example, if I search: a giant index of the internet
most search engines will look for pages containing giant, index, and internet (since a, of, the are too short and common to be useful.)
But, if I search “a giant index of the internet”
most search engines will look for pages with exactly that phrase.
+ before a word returns only pages with that word.
- before a word returns all results, except pages with that word.
site: if you put this before the url of a site, the engine will search only that site.
site: if you put this before a site extension, like .edu, .com, .co.uk, the engine will return only results on sites with that extension.
For example, if I wanted government statistics for a fact, I could search: site:.gov government statistics for a fact, and the search would return only US government sites with statistics about that fact. Likewise, if I wanted results only from UK universities, I could search site:.ac.uk as .ac.uk is UK universities’ site extension.
related: searches for sites related to or like something.
define: searches for a defnition of a word
filetype: allows a search for only files of a certain type, eg, .doc, .pdf, .mp3
This, combined with the fact that there more than half a billion computers connected to the internet in North America alone means that no matter what problem you encounter, someone else is likely to have encountered and documented it, and that documentation is probably online.
Given this powerful search and the size of the resources, often looking up the problem or task in whatever simple, straightforward language you can (geerally, the more specific the better) you are very likely to find a solution, or at least a group of other people looking for a solution to the same problem. Search tools, both in program’s help menus, and online, are a constant source for people who repair computers as their jobs.
If that isn’t enough, there are a few shortcuts for search engines as well. All of the following work on Google, but most of them also work in other systems:
Putting quotes (“”) around a phrase will make the search for that phrase exactly.
For example, if I search: a giant index of the internet
most search engines will look for pages containing giant, index, and internet (since a, of, the are too short and common to be useful.)
But, if I search “a giant index of the internet”
most search engines will look for pages with exactly that phrase.
+ before a word returns only pages with that word.
- before a word returns all results, except pages with that word.
site: if you put this before the url of a site, the engine will search only that site.
site: if you put this before a site extension, like .edu, .com, .co.uk, the engine will return only results on sites with that extension.
For example, if I wanted government statistics for a fact, I could search: site:.gov government statistics for a fact, and the search would return only US government sites with statistics about that fact. Likewise, if I wanted results only from UK universities, I could search site:.ac.uk as .ac.uk is UK universities’ site extension.
related: searches for sites related to or like something.
define: searches for a defnition of a word
filetype: allows a search for only files of a certain type, eg, .doc, .pdf, .mp3
