evan
Admin
Oct 15, 2007, 9:47 AM
Post #1 of 1
(2738 views)
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Internet Search Tips
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Most internet searches yield numerous results – often millions. However, once you make a selection, finding the desired item is often difficult.
Here are a couple of suggestions to help you locate the item you are seeking.
Use the "edit" menu and chose "find" or just press "ctrl+F" to launch the search box. Once you enter the word or phrase in the box, your computer will search the page for the search string you requested.
Google has an awesome "advanced search" to guide the user to refined searches that yield the best information and help eliminate useless sites that often accompany a search result.
All search engines (that I’m familiar with) ignore common words such as "and", "or", "the". However, if that word is essential to your search, simply place a "+" before it and it will not be ignored. Enclosing the search string in parentheses has the same effect. Conversely, putting a "-" in front of a word will return results without that word being included.
Phrase searching is useful when you want to see if your children's essays are copied from another source or represent genuine research. Simply enter a phrase in quotation marks into the search engine and let the fun begin. This is much more accurate than testing if they brushed their teeth by checking if their tooth brush is wet.
Phrase searching is also useful to validate email warnings regarding new viruses that threaten to wipe your hard drive. By entering the first line of the email message into the search engine, you will usually receive results which point out the true status of the threat. Most dire warnings are bogus and Snopes or Urban Legends are two of the best places to confirm the factuality of a virus.
There are dozens of other shortcuts and tips that are useful and easy to learn. Take a few minutes to familiarize yourself with your favorite search engine's advanced features. It's time well-spent and will return many benefits in the future.
Evan Heltay is the President and CEO of MySummerCamps.com
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Evan A. Heltay
President
(This post was edited by evan on Oct 15, 2007, 10:07 AM)
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