google is life

Yes, that is an exaggeration. But on a daily basis, if I use Google once, I use it six or eight or a dozen times. It's become my secondary brain.

But that doesn't mean I have mastered all the search engine's capabilities. One of the (many) e-mail newsletters to which I subscribe is the NYT's weekly Circuits, which arrives complete with an informal column by David Pogue. A couple of weeks back Google tricks were the topic.

The column likely won't be available free for very long. So as a public service, here's a few of the goodies, ranging from the obvious to the arcane. My comments are in italics.

• Download and install the Google toolbar. Not only does it put the Google search box into your browser full-time, but it also blocks pop-up ads and fills in forms for you.

[Better yet, kick the IE habit completely and go with the open source Firefox, which is the latest from the Mozilla people.]

• This is an old one, but very important: Put quotes around phrases that must be searched together. If you put quotes around “electric curtains,” Google won't waste your time finding one set of Web pages containing the word “electric” and another set containing the word “curtains.”

• Similarly, put a hyphen right before any word you want screened out. If you're looking up dolphins, for example, you'll have to wade through a million Miami Dolphins pages unless you search for “dolphins -Miami.”

[Also remember the logical OR: typing in “Jonah Goldberg (“flying monkeys” OR “Cosmo the wonder dog”)” will return pages describing Jonah's connections with furry mammals answering to either description. Really.]

• Google is a global White Pages and Yellow Pages. Search for “phonebook:home depot norwalk, ct,” Google instantly produces the address and phone number of the Norwalk Home Depot. This works with names (“phonebook:robert jones las vegas, NV”) as well as businesses.

Don't put any space after “phonebook.” And in all of the following examples, don't type the quotes I'm showing you here.

[You only want to use quotes if you want Google to find the exact string inside the quotes.]

• Google is a package tracker. Type a FedEx or UPS package number (just the digits); when you click Search, Google offers a link to its tracking information.

• Google is a stock ticker. Type in AAPL or MSFT, for example, to see a link to the current Apple or Microsoft stock price, graphs, financial news and so on.

• Google is an atlas. Type in an area code, like 212, to see a Mapquest map of the area.

• Google is an aviation buff. Type in a flight number like “United 22” for a link to a map of that flight's progress in the air.

• Google is Wal-Mart's computer. Type in a UPC bar code number, such as “036000250015,” to see the description of the product you've just “scanned in.”

[That would be Kimberley-Clark Kleenex Tissue 2-ply 8.6×8.4 in. In case you cared.]

• Google is the Department of Motor Vehicles. Type in a VIN (vehicle identification number, which is etched onto a plate, usually on the door frame, of every car), like “JH4NA1157MT001832,” to find out the car's year, make and model.

[Too much effort scraping the rust off mine.]

Pogue also suggests checking out the services available just off Google's front page, ranging from Usenet access to Froogle to Blogger. And coming soon: Gmail, which is proving a tad controversial.

Yet even with all these bells and whistles, the service ain't perfect. For some reason, Google doesn't allow certain kinds of wild-card searches—specifically, truncation using an asterisk (*) which, for example, might allow a search on “Galad*” to return pages including Galadriel, Galadhriel, Galadrim or Galadhrim. (Although—as I just now learned—you can use an asterisk to stand in for missing word[s] in a phrase.)

And sometimes you just can't find what you're looking for, even though you know it's out there. This past week I became obsessed with tracking down a very particular image, one that had become lodged in my consciousness like a burr under a saddle. Google was no help; neither was Yahoo, or the various news searches.

But this morning I had an inspiration.

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I'm not sure it's really an exaggeration. I spend a large portion of my day seated before my computer's monitor and I have quickly adopted google as one of my most used reference tools.

I'd like to add to the tips you've posted by recommending O'Reilly's book, Google Hacks. It'll intrigue both casual computer users and developer types alike.

And the google toolbar really does block a large percentage of pop-ups.

So does Firefox (Mozilla)—and if you install the Adblock extension you can block lots of other stuff too, including flash ads.

Plus, it has a Google box right next to the address bar.