Alliance Technologies

Ask an Engineer is built on your questions, but we had a problem this time – no one sent in any questions! So instead of answering a question like I normally do, I'm going to present you with some of my favorite Google tips to help you get more out of your search. Please send in questions for our next newsletter – this column doesn't work without them! And now, on to Google tips:

 

No one who uses the internet is unfamiliar with the Google search engine. Everyone uses it, from grandmas to five-year-olds and everyone in between. But beyond its basic searching functionality, Google also has tons of ways to search that aren't immediately apparent.

 

Did you know that Google does math? If you type "4562/17" Google will return the answer (268.352941, by the way, but you probably already Googled it).You can also use this functionality to find out the exchange rate of currencies (search for "1 us dollar to euro"), the conversion between temperatures (search for "56 Fahrenheit to Celsius"), or even your local weather (search for "weather 50309").

 

There are a bunch of other fun things you can do with Google, too. If you type "the number of horns on a unicorn" into Google, the site will happily inform you that there is only one. If you search for "recursion" the site will ask you over and over if you meant "recursion" as though it's stuck in a loop (this is a cheesy programmer joke).

 

But beyond math and jokes, Google can also be used for narrowed down searches. Most people know how to search the whole internet with Google, but did you know you can limit a Google search to just one website? This is useful if you're looking for a page on a specific website, but the search on the website is awful, or you don't want to spend hours poking around a large site to find what you already found a few days ago. To use Google's site search, type "site:" followed by the website name and then the search term you're looking for in the Google search box. For instance, to search about.com for information about dogs, I would type "site: about.com dogs" into google. The spaces are important, so pay attention to those.

 

Now that you know all these things, you're probably a Google expert and will have people asking you for information all the time, since you always seem to have the answer. Of course, if people knew about Google as well as you do, they'd just Google for themselves. Luckily, there is a site you can use to teach your friends, family, and business partners how to Google! It's called "Let Me Google That For You" and it's awesome. To use it, go to lmgtfy.com and type a search term into the box. The website will generate a link you can send to the person who asked you the question. When the person goes to the link, the search term will be Googled for them. Here's a link to a Let Me Google That For You search for Alliance Technologies: http://lmgtfy.com/?q=alliance+technologies. It's a fun way to hint to people that just because you are a Google expert, they can also search for themselves. After all, you're busy doing work!

 

All right, that's all for today. And remember, don't forget to send me your questions for Ask an Engineer.