A couple of years ago I did some extensive research for a workshop I presented called Search Strategies. I came across that material as I was purging and organizing some of my files. As I read through the material from my “old workshop” I realized there were some neat shortcuts and Google tips I have not used in a while. My inquisitive mind (and procrastination when it comes to cleaning files) often leads me from one thing to another so of course, I also took time to see if there were some new tips and strategies that had cropped up in recent years. Below, you will find some of the interesting tips and strategies I rediscovered from the past and some new tips I discovered this evening. I’m sure you will recognize several of them. Feel free to share additional Google tips using the comment link at the bottom of the post.

1. The (-) and (+) Operators
   Use the (-) or (+) operators to inform the Google search engine as to whether to include or exclude a word when performing a search.  For example, if you search for King Henry I your results would point you to information about all the King Henry’s not just King Henry I.  The query King Henry +I will give you the results you desire (since “I” is one of the common words filtered from a regular search).  Likewise, if you perform a search using the (-) symbol you will be able to search pages that do not include a particular term.  The query -red ants will give you results about ants other than red ants.
2. Phrase Searching
   Put quotes around phrases if you want to search for words that appear together.  For example, the query “Middle School” will look for webpages that show the words Middle School next to each other.
3. The ~ Operator
   The tilde (~) operator takes the word immediately following it and searches both for that specific word and for the word’s synonyms. It also searches for the term with alternative endings. Remember you should not have a space between the “~” and the query word. For example, ~fast matches “fast,” “faster,” “fastest,” as well as “quick” and “speedy.”
4. The .. Operator
   The .. operator specifies that results should contain numbers in a range. Remember you should not have a space between the “..” and the two numbers. For example, the search query troll doll $10..$50 will look for trolls that cost between $10.00 and $50.00.
5. The * Operator
   The * Operator serves as a placeholder for a word or more than one word. For example, “You * my life“ tells Google to find pages containing a phrase that starts with “You” followed by one or more words, followed by “my life.”
6. Identify Local Time for Any City in the World
   To learn what time it is in a particular city type the word “time” followed by the name of the city. For example, the query time Paris will give you the current time in Paris, France and Paris, Maine and Paris, Illinois.
   
7. Define a Word
   Define any word by simply typing the word “define” followed by the word you need defined. For example, define catapult will provide a definition for the word “catapult.”  You can also use the phrases “what is” or “what are” followed by a word or phrase.
8. Money Conversion
   How strong is the dollar? Use the query convert dollar to yen (or choose a different currency) to find out. By the way, Google cannot guarantee the accuracy of the exchange rates used by the calculator, but you will get a good general idea regarding conversion rate when you you use this feature.
9. Time Conversion
   How many hours are there in a fortnight? Use the query hours per fortnight to find out.
10. Weather
    What is the weather like in Madrid? Use the query weather Madrid to find out. You can also type “weather” followed by the city and state, U.S. zip code, or city and country. You will learn the current weather and will also be able to see the weather forecast (see screenshot below):
    
11. Searching within a Specific Website
    You can search for a text in a specific website. To search my blog for a past column I wrote for speech teachers I would use the following query “speech teacher” site:http://farroutlinks.net/blog. Notice there are no spaces before or after the colon.
12. Searching Based on File Type
    You can search for matching keywords inside a file type. If I wanted to find .pdf files with the word “paraprofession” in them my query would be paraprofessional filetype:pdf. My returns would only show .pdf files with the word paraprofessional. Notice there are no spaces before or after the colon.
13. Google Calculator
    The Google search query form also features numerous calculation capabilities. The features are too numerous to detail in this post, but you can access a marvelous Google Calculator Cheat Sheet posted by Nancy Blachman for full details.
14. Booking Flights
    Learn how much it would cost to fly from one city to another using a query that includes city to city.  For example, if I wanted to book a flight from Rochester to San Francisco my query would be Rochester to San Francisco (see sample below)
    
15. Travel Conditions
    Learn about delays and weather conditions at a US airport. For example, if I wanted to know about delays at the Rochester, NY airport my query would be ROC airport (use the 3-digit code for an airport unless there is more than one major airport in the city. If your city has more than one major airport, include the airport name as well as the city in your query.)
16. Linked Pages
    Learn what pages are linking to a particular site. For example, if you I want to know what sites are linking to this blog my query would be link:http://farroutlinks.net/blog. Notice there are no spaces before or after the colon.
17. Intitle
    When you type “intitle:” at the beginning of a query word or phrase  you only see search results that show that criteria in the titles of Web page returns.  For example, if you type intitle:Red Riding Hood all search results will feature “Red Riding Hood” in the title bar of each page return.
18. Intext
    When you type “intext:” a search is only performed on the body text of webpages, ignoring titles, links, etc. This is a good search to perform if your search criteria might commonly occur in a URL address.  For example,  intext:php will help you find the term .php in text instead of returning a myriad of sites that include .php in their web address.
19. Phone Numbers
    Look up phone numbers using the term phonebook:  or phone: followed by the name of the person you are trying to locate.  You can also use the term rphonebook: to look for residential phone numbers.  Your query would look like phonebook:Robert Farr or rphonebook:Robert Farr or phone:Robert Farr.  Notice there are no spaces before or after the colon.  You can also use the query phone followed by a phone number to learn who the phone number belongs to.  For example phone:607-652-1200 will tell you the name of the person or organization that uses that phone number.  The phone function appears to only work for phone numbers listed in phone books.
20. Movie Reviews and Showtimes
    I found this tip very handy!  Look for movie reviews and showtimes for movies in your area using the query movie: followed by the name of your city and state.  Your query would look like movie: Oneonta, NY
21. Local Food and Restaurants
    I can’t believe I have not used this search before!  To look for local restaurants simply query the type of food you desire, followed by a comma, followed by your city and state.  A sample query  for pizza in my area would look like pizza, Oneonta, NY.  Search results feature restaurant names, phone numbers, websites, addresses and a mapquest.  A sample screenshot follows:
    
22. Track Packages
    Waiting for a package from USPS, UPS, or FedEx?  Simply type your tracking number in the Google Search box to link to information about your delivery. Query results will look similar to the screenshot shown below:
    
23. Stocks
    Look for stock quotes using stocks: followed by the ticker symbol. For example, if you wanted to know how your IBM stock was doing you could type stock:IBM or stocks:IBM to see a trend chart and brief synopses of how the stock did during the last day of trading. Notice, this function will not work if you include spaces before or after the colon. A sample screenshot follows:
24. Specific Searches
    Google has anumber of specific searches that make it easy to search within blogs, news, books, and much more.  Check out some of the following searches:
    • Blog Search
    • Book Search
    • Catalogs
    • Code Search
    • Directory
    • Finance
    • Images
    • Local/Maps
    • News
    • Patent Search
    • Product Search
    • Video

You can find even more searches and features  when you visit the Google Products Page. I also suggest that you use Google’s Advanced search feature if you can’t remember some of the shortcuts included in this post.  Another excellent site is Soople, a visual interface that makes many of the “specialized” features of Google more user-friendly (especially the calculator features).

After watching the marvelous BBC film series Virtual Revolution – Cost of Free, I was compelled to further think about my own computer use and that of our students. Thus, the following poster. I have embedded the video series (found on YouTube) below my Sunday poster for your convenience. The hour you spend watching the series is truly worthwhile. Feel free to share your thoughts about the “Cost of Free” and the following poster with your students. You can share your thoughts using the comment link found at the bottom of this post as well.

The images used to create this poster were posted to Flickr by Nik McPhee and William Brawley. Click on this mini poster if you would like to view a larger version for printing. Click on the title of this blog if you would like to email this post to a friend.

You might also enjoy revisiting my following post: Digital Dossier…Footprints…Shadows

Have you had a chance to play with Google Image Swirl, for example? This new Google mashup clusters similar images based on characteristics found in both the text surrounding images, as well as the images themselves. Image Swirl results look a lot like the thumbnails presented in regular image search results, but you can see that there are many images stacked behind the topmost result. When you click on a thumbnail the stack expands to show you a group of images, related by visual characteristics. Click on one of the new images to expand the search further. The new search is based on textual and conceptual associations.

Image Swirl currently works for about 200,000 of the most popular image queries. You can tell which queries have Image Swirl results when you start typing in the search box, as available searches will auto-complete, similar to Google Suggest. Try a couple of the suggested searches…let me know what you think.

Actually, Google Swirl reminds me of a similar code I shared a few weeks ago that you can use to change the URL of a YouTube video. When you replace the word ‘watch’ in the URL of any YouTube video to warp.swf your YouTube leads to to other YouTube sources based on the video you were originally watching. Sadly, when I tried out the feature as I wrote this post it did not appear to be working any longer.

Another Swirrl app that you might like to give a twirl is Swirrl (try to repeat that phrase 3 times fast!). Swirrl is a handy application that makes it easy for you (and team members if you so choose)to store, share, edit and analyze information. It’s like a mini wiki. The free version allows you to create or upload up to 100 items/files or 20 MB. Each item you store in Swirrl has its own web page and own URL, making it easy to link your data up and browse around it. You can upload files, input data in an online spreadsheet, or develop a webpage/test using a simple web-based word processing tool. You can invite individuals or a team of individuals to collaborate on any of the documents created or uploaded to your space. While I did not take a lot of time to explore every nuance of the application, I can tell you that overall I found it intuitive and easy to use. It would be a great application to share with students who are working on a project together. I wish I had a similar tool at my disposal years ago when students collaborated to write historical newspapers.