Angels on Karangahape Road, Newtown, Auckland, New Zealand, Monavie

Did the Angels come to Auckland a bit early this year for Christmas?

Power Tips: 20 Great Google Secrets, Internet Search, Web, Auckland, New Zealand

Google is clearly the best general-purpose search engine on the Web

But most people don’t use it to its best advantage. Do you just plug in a keyword or two and hope for the best? That may be the quickest way to search, but with more than 3 billion pages in Google’s index, it’s still a struggle to pare results to a manageable number.

But Google is an remarkably powerful tool that can ease and enhance your Internet exploration. Google’s search options go beyond simple keywords, the Web, and even its own programmers. Let’s look at some of Google’s lesser-known options.

Syntax Search Tricks

Using a special syntax is a way to tell Google that you want to restrict your searches to certain elements or characteristics of Web pages. Google has a fairly complete list of its syntax elements at:

www.google.com/help/operators.html

Here are some advanced operators that can help narrow down your search results.

Intitle: at the beginning of a query word or phrase (intitle:”Three Blind Mice”) restricts your search results to just the titles of Web pages.

Intext: does the opposite of intitle:, searching only the body text, ignoring titles, links, and so forth. Intext: is perfect when what you’re searching for might commonly appear in URLs. If you’re looking for the term HTML, for example, and you don’t want to get results such as

www.mysite.com/index.html

You can also enter intext:html.

Link: lets you see which pages are linking to your Web page or to another page you’re interested in. For example, try typing in

link:http://www.hungry-hackers.com

Try using site: (which restricts results to top-level domains) with intitle: to find certain types of pages. For example, get scholarly pages about Mark Twain by searching for intitle:”Mark Twain”site:edu. Experiment with mixing various elements; you’ll develop several strategies for finding the stuff you want more effectively. The site: command is very helpful as an alternative to the mediocre search engines built into many sites.

Swiss Army Google

Google has a number of services that can help you accomplish tasks you may never have thought to use Google for. For example, the new calculator feature

(www.google.com/help/features.html#calculator)

Lets you do both math and a variety of conversions from the search box. For extra fun, try the query “Answer to life the universe and everything.”

Let Google help you figure out whether you’ve got the right spelling—and the right word—for your search. Enter a misspelled word or phrase into the query box (try “thre blund mise”) and Google may suggest a proper spelling. This doesn’t always succeed; it works best when the word you’re searching for can be found in a dictionary. Once you search for a properly spelled word, look at the results page, which repeats your query. (If you’re searching for “three blind mice,” underneath the search window will appear a statement such as Searched the web for “three blind mice.”) You’ll discover that you can click on each word in your search phrase and get a definition from a dictionary.

Suppose you want to contact someone and don’t have his phone number handy. Google can help you with that, too. Just enter a name, city, and state. (The city is optional, but you must enter a state.) If a phone number matches the listing, you’ll see it at the top of the search results along with a map link to the address. If you’d rather restrict your results, use rphonebook: for residential listings or bphonebook: for business listings. If you’d rather use a search form for business phone listings, try Yellow Search

(www.buzztoolbox.com/google/yellowsearch.shtml).

Extended Googling.

Google offers several services that give you a head start in focusing your search. Google Groups

(http://groups.google.com)

indexes literally millions of messages from decades of discussion on Usenet. Google even helps you with your shopping via two tools: Froogle (http://froogle.google.com),

which indexes products from online stores, and Google Catalogs (http://catalogs.google.com),

which features products from more 6,000 paper catalogs in a searchable index. And this only scratches the surface. You can get a complete list of Google’s tools and services at

www.google.com/options/index.html

You’re probably used to using Google in your browser. But have you ever thought of using Google outside your browser?

Google Alert (www.googlealert.com)

monitors your search terms and e-mails you information about new additions to Google’s Web index. (Google Alert is not affiliated with Google; it uses Google’s Web services API to perform its searches.) If you’re more interested in news stories than general Web content, check out the beta version of Google News Alerts (www.google.com/newsalerts).

This service (which is affiliated with Google) will monitor up to 50 news queries per e-mail address and send you information about news stories that match your query. (Hint: Use the intitle: and source: syntax elements with Google News to limit the number of alerts you get.)

Google on the telephone? Yup. This service is brought to you by the folks at Google Labs (http://labs.google.com),

a place for experimental Google ideas and features (which may come and go, so what’s there at this writing might not be there when you decide to check it out). With Google Voice Search (http://labs1.google.com/gvs.html),

you dial the Voice Search phone number, speak your keywords, and then click on the indicated link. Every time you say a new search term, the results page will refresh with your new query (you must have JavaScript enabled for this to work). Remember, this service is still in an experimental phase, so don’t expect 100 percent success.

In 2002, Google released the Google API (application programming interface), a way for programmers to access Google’s search engine results without violating the Google Terms of Service. A lot of people have created useful (and occasionally not-so-useful but interesting) applications not available from Google itself, such as Google Alert. For many applications, you’ll need an API key, which is available free from CODE
www.google.com/apis

Thanks to its many different search properties, Google goes far beyond a regular search engine. Give the tricks in this article a try. You’ll be amazed at how many different ways Google can improve your Internet searching.

Online Extra: More Google Tips. Here are a few more clever ways to tweak your Google searches.

Search Within a Timeframe

Daterange: (start date–end date). You can restrict your searches to pages that were indexed within a certain time period. Daterange: searches by when Google indexed a page, not when the page itself was created. This operator can help you ensure that results will have fresh content (by using recent dates), or you can use it to avoid a topic’s current-news blizzard and concentrate only on older results. Daterange: is actually more useful if you go elsewhere to take advantage of it, because daterange: requires Julian dates, not standard Gregorian dates. You can find converters on the Web (such as

http://aa.usno.navy.mil/data/docs/JulianDate.html

excl.gif No Active Links, Read the Rules - Edit by Ninja excl.gif), but an easier way is to do a Google daterange: search by filling in a form at

www.researchbuzz.com/toolbox/goofresh.shtml or www.faganfinder.com/engines/google.shtml

If one special syntax element is good, two must be better, right? Sometimes. Though some operators can’t be mixed (you can’t use the link: operator with anything else) many can be, quickly narrowing your results to a less overwhelming number.

More Google API Applications

Staggernation.com offers three tools based on the Google API. The Google API Web Search by Host (GAWSH) lists the Web hosts of the results for a given query

(www.staggernation.com/gawsh/).

When you click on the triangle next to each host, you get a list of results for that host. The Google API Relation Browsing Outliner (GARBO) is a little more complicated: You enter a URL and choose whether you want pages that related to the URL or linked to the URL

(www.staggernation.com/garbo/).

Click on the triangle next to an URL to get a list of pages linked or related to that particular URL. CapeMail is an e-mail search application that allows you to send an e-mail to google@capeclear.com with the text of your query in the subject line and get the first ten results for that query back. Maybe it’s not something you’d do every day, but if your cell phone does e-mail and doesn’t do Web browsing, this is a very handy address to know.

Top Ten Tips and Tricks on iPhone, Auckland, New Zealand, David Lim

Here are top ten tips and tricks for iPhone which will make your navigation process easy.

Check the following top ten tips and tricks for iPhone. You can use these tricks to make your digital life simpler.

Home Button This button is your all time best buddy. While playing around with iPhone if you are lost, just press the Home button. You will get back to your familiar iPhone Home screen. The Home button is always located at the bottom.

Remember your own Phone Number

• If you have problems remembering your phone number, first hit the home button.
• Select settings in the bottom right corner.
• Scroll down to Phone, select it, and then look at the top center of the screen. You get your number there.

Modify iPod Menu Buttons Go to main menu. Select the iPod icon. Now select the More icon. Click the Edit icon. You can drag the icon down into the menu over the icon you want replaced.

Mailing Safari URL Go to the page that you want to mail in Safari Now tap the address bar, which will show the address bar. Click the Share button at the top left corner. A compose email shall open with the URL included as the message of the email. It will also have the subject line. You can add the email address and click on send.

Exit Frozen application

If you think a program or an application is frozen for quite a long time, you can close it by pressing and holding the home button for few seconds until it releases.

Move and Delete items

• Need to go into your favorites or mail messages or other items screen.
• Now click the Edit button.
• You can delete an item by clicking the red icon beside the name.
• Confirm the deletion.
• If you want to move a Bookmark or Favorite, click the icon to the right of the name.
• And then slide the name to the position you wish.
• One more way to slide your finger from left to right, over the item, which shows the delete button.
  

Hard Reset Press and hold the sleep or wake button on top of the iPhone, and the Home button on the button front for few seconds. You will see the apple logo.. let it go and iPhone will reboot.

Power down and Power Up

• Press and hold the sleep or wake, which is at the top of iPhone for several seconds.
• You will see the screen changing and will display Slide to Power Off.
• Slide the Power off button from left to right.
• If you want to turn your phone back on, press the same on/off button on the top of the phone for a few seconds. It will start up again.

Automatic mail checking

• Go to home screen. Tap the settings icon, and then the mail section.
• Tap the Auto check option. You will get it once you scroll down.
• Select the how frequently you want your mail updated.
  

Enabling Caps Lock Feature

• Click on Settings in the home screen.
• Click on General on the next screen.
• Now touch the keyboard button.
• You will find a tap next to Enable Caps Lock. Click on it.
• To use this feature, double tap the shift key and you will see it turning blue. It implies that you are in the caps locks mode.
• Tap the shift key again to quit the caps lock mode.

3G Apple iPhone Short Cut, Auckland, New Zealand, David Lim

Iphone3gidea_3 The iPhone has many hidden (or, at least, not so obvious) shortcuts that can make the iPhone much easier and faster to use. For example, as noted in my last post, the latest iPhone software update adds the feature to press the Home button to return to the first page of your Home screen. Here are some other shortcuts that I use all the time. [UPDATE: Click here for a more recent post with even more shortcuts.]

1. Comma shortcut. When you are typing and want to quickly add a comma, press and hold the 123 button and then without lifting your finger, slide your finger over to the comma and then release. After doing so you will have a comma and will be back in the letter mode and can keep typing your sentence. You can also use this trick to get a period, although if you are at the end of a sentence the faster way to get a period is to tap the space bar twice. In fact, the hold 123 and slide method can be used for any symbol, such as the question mark or the parenthesis, although it is a little easier for those keys closer to the 123 key.

2. Scroll to top. In Safari and many other applications, you can very quickly scroll back up to the top of the screen by taping on the status bar at the top of the screen (where the time is displayed). This is useful not only because you can start reading the top of a page, but also because many applications put useful fields at the top of the page, such as the address and search field in Safari or the search field in Contacts.
3. Domain resolution. When you are typing an address in Safari, you don't need to type the "www." part or the ".com" part. For example, if you go to the URL field and just type iphonejd Safari will automatically change it to www.iphonejd.com and take you to this website.

4. Reset. If something seems to be wrong with your iPhone, you can reset it to start fresh. To do so, hold down both the Home button and the sleep/wake button (the one at the top) for about 10 seconds. You can also force quit just a specific application that you are using by holding down the Home button for about 6 seconds or so.

5. Hold on. When you are using the keyboard, you can often hold down a key for a few seconds to see more options. For example, when you are in Safari and typing a URL, the .com button at the bottom allows you to easily enter .com, but if you hold down the .com button for about two seconds you will see other options pop up (.org, .edu, .net, etc.). Or if you are typing an e-mail and you want to add an accent to a letter you can just hold down the letter for two seconds. Hold down the E key for a few seconds and you can enter an é. If you are typing an e-mail address in the TO field of an e-mail, you can hold down the period for two seconds to see a pop up menu that lets you quickly add .com, .org, .net, .edu, etc.

6. Swipe to delete. The fastest way to delete a single e-mail when you are looking at a list of e-mails is to swipe your finger from left to right across the e-mail, as if you are crossing out an item on a list. That will cause a red Delete button to appear so that you can confirm that you want to delete. If you want to delete a bunch of messages, then the fastest way is to tap the Edit button and tap the circles next to the left of each e-mail you want to delete and then tap the Delete button.

7. Tap the bottom corner. As noted above, you can now quickly get back to your first Home screen by pressing the Home button. Most people switch between screens by swiping across the screen to the left or the right. Another way to do it, one that sometimes feels faster, is to tap once near the corner, just to the left or the right of the row of dots that indicate which screen you are on.

8. Contractions. When you are typing an e-mail, the iPhone suggests some contractions automatically. Type cant and the iPhone will suggest can't. (And of course, to accept a suggestion you just tap the space bar; to reject a suggestion you tap the x next to the suggested word.) But if you type well the iPhone normally won't suggest we'll because, well, well is a word. But for we'll and many other words, if you type the last letter an extra time, the iPhone will then suggest the contraction for you. Type welll and the iPhone will suggest we'll. Type weree and the iPhone will suggest we're. In the past, I used the trick with I'll and it's, but now I find that when I type ill and its the iPhone automatically suggests the contraction without needing to add an extra key. This happens because the iPhone learns your words as you type and adds them to the custom dictionary -- which, by the way, you can always reset if necessary by going to Settings --> General --> Reset --> Reset Keyboard Dictionary.

9. Get a 3G signal. Sometimes I see that blue E at the top telling me that my iPhone is using the slow Edge network when I know that I am in an area that has 3G. A quick way to get your iPhone to lock in on a 3G signal is to turn on airplane mode for just a second and then turn airplane mode off. Airplane mode is the first option when you tap Settings.
10. I'm sorry, your Honor! We all know to flip the switch and put your iPhone in vibrate mode when you are in court, a deposition, etc., right? But what if you forget and need to QUICKLY stop your iPhone from ringing before you get sanctioned? Press the sleep/hold button at the top of your iPhone once and it will silence the ringer. Press that button twice and it will both silence the ringer and send the call to voicemail -- and hopefully you already had the New Voicemail alert sound turned off. (Settings --> Sounds --> New Voicemail).

Hopefully some of these are new to you, and I would love to hear about your favorite tips and tricks.