Google Pocket Guide
by Calishain, Dornfest and Adams
Published by O'Reilly Books, $9.95.
(Discounts available to MUG members)
Reviewed by Avrum Lapin
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Google Pocket Guideby Calishain, Dornfest and Adams Published by O'Reilly Books, $9.95. Reviewed by Avrum Lapin |
This short (125 pages) book is a handy guide as to how to use Google more efficiently . A short book merits a short review.
The first search engine that I used seriously was Alta Vista and I remember how pleased I was when I found a page of tips on how to search for specific things (like a url containing a specific phrase). Later I moved to Metacrawler which seem to be faster and more recently I have begun to use Google (probably because it was the default search engine with Safari. Today Google is the dominant search engine but of course MS would like to change that.
A simple search using Google can yield thousands of entries. While some of them are obviously not what you want you have to wade through a lot rubbish to find what you want. You can narrow your search by using Google's built in Boolean logic - to get "and", "not" and "or."
Google Pocket Guide shows how to use the Boolean logic with examples and how to do advanced searches. You can also limit your search to certain domains such as "ca.gov".There are even preferences for Google which you can set which define how many listings per page, language etc.
The book also show you how to search for people etc on line, articles posted to newsgroups etc.
If you use Google and you feel that you are not getting the results that you think you should then this is the book for you.