how to find what you want?

[dementeddemon]

ok i am new to computers, and i see posted everywhere use google, i have been using google for a month now and i find when i search for something like i.e exploits, or appz or any thing at all i get a lot of things that i dont want, does any one know how to get more exact search results? any help at all would be helpful, thnx everyone.

[Chris]

http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg...books&n=507846

[dementeddemon]

that looks very helpful but i have no money or credit card. is there any where that i could get an ebook for free of that book?

[ndex]

ok i am new to computers, and i see posted everywhere use google, i have been using google for a month now and i find when i search for something like i.e exploits, or appz or any thing at all i get a lot of things that i dont want, does any one know how to get more exact search results? any help at all would be helpful, thnx everyone.

When you do a google search you have to realize that what you enter in the search dialog is turned into a database query. If you can't afford the book and you can't manage to get to a bookstore in your area that has a copy and just sit in the aisle and read sections of it (have you noticed how many people seem to just *sit* in the chairs and tables at barnes & noble... reading... for hours?) then use the oldschool 'archie' method for defining your search criteria. Start with the word representing the most specific general description of you query and add increasing specific terms which will act as a filter for the results returned.

Searching for "appz" is ridiculous. Intelligent, educated people don't use leetspeek, however, "applications intrusion detection open source windows" will return a very specific set of results. The more specific you make your search the smaller the number of hits you'll get. Expand your vocabulary, learn to use synonyms, learn to spell correctly. The order of the terms in your query matters. If you only want results from .edu or .mil domains, you have to start your query with this filter (site: edu <query>)

People really take google for granted. It's like the greatest invention of the 20th century, at least from the perspective of an information junkie. Play with it, experiment with different permutations of the same query to see how the results returned will differ.

[dementeddemon]

ok i will do, and i dont have a barnes and nobles in town, but there is a store similar called hastings, i will go there tomorrow and see if they have the book. thnx for everyones suggestions.

[Nah]

Google gave me this when i tried "How to use Google"

http://www.google.com/help/basics.html
http://www.google.com/help/interpret.html
http://www.google.com/help/customize.html
http://www.google.com/help/refinesearch.html

[dementeddemon]

i know this is a dumb question, but is ther any other search enigine better then google? i here people all the time saying its the best and i know it is alot better then msn search engine, but maybe there is another one that i dont know about or something. and someone told me about http://37.com but it just lookd like a bunch of search engines in one and takes forever to return results. so i guess my main question would be does google return just as many and better results then 37.com would?

[Second]

well according to your signature...google does know all. And it is pretty hard to know more than all, so I would say google is a safe bet. 37.com didn't look that great. It had more ads than features. So if you were to pick between those two, I'd go with google =)

*edit*
if you go to 37.com and look under their icon in the top left corner of the page, it has a pulldown menu that lists all 37 engines they search. google is one of them.

*edit #2*

for fun, I took the advice in your sig and googled your question

hope it helps

[dementeddemon]

ok, i think ill just stick with google, more advice on searching google is welcome.

[skroo]

ok, i think ill just stick with google, more advice on searching google is welcome.

Look three posts above your last one. Seriously, it's like any other tool: unless you take the time to learn how to use it properly, you'll never be able to do anything useful with it. The ball's in your court at this point - much as with anything else, if you don't put forward the effort to learn you never will.

[allentrace]

Look three posts above your last one. Seriously, it's like any other tool: unless you take the time to learn how to use it properly, you'll never be able to do anything useful with it. The ball's in your court at this point - much as with anything else, if you don't put forward the effort to learn you never will.

Skroo you should look into becoming a traveling inspirational speaker. Maybe even market you own line of self help books.

[Chris]

Skroo you should look into becoming a traveling inspirational speaker. Maybe even market you own line of self help books.

He already lives in a van, down by the river....so he is half way there.

[Floydr47]

ok, i think ill just stick with google, more advice on searching google is welcome.

May I suggest a book entitled "Using Information Technology, A Practical Introduction to Computers & Communications" by Brian K. Williams and Stacey C. Sawyer. It is published by McGraw-Hill and can answer many of your questions. You can probably get a copy at E-campus.com for $5-$10 bucks. It gives a lot of information on various search engines including human organized, computer created, hybrid, and metacrawlers. It also gives a simple explanation of the boolean search. Good luck.

[KeLviN]

He already lives in a van, down by the river....so he is half way there.

i wonder how many people missed the reference here... : )

[Krytycal]

Johnny.ihackstuff.com has a very intersting collection of white papers about "hacking" google. Which pretty much resumes into using commands to retrieve more accurate results. For example I use: intitle:index.of "Guns N roses/" "parent directory" when I want to get some Guns n Roses songs, that will return http directories probably containing songs. It's even more accurate if you specify the criteria using extensions such as intitle:index.of "November rain.mp3" "parent directory" or simply the command filetype:mp3 followed by the criteria. This method can also be used to generally find whatever you want, from documents to executables.