Gmail recently brought out a feature which lets you search for Google Docs from within Gmail. This is a great feature as sometimes it is a bit boring to open Google docs landing page and then search for the document you need. This way I can search for it and open it from within Gmail.
How to use Gmail Search Mail and Docs?
Need to enable a labs feature by looking up Settings >> Labs. Here enable Apps Search feature and save the settings.
Now on search in mail chances to search with Mail and Docs. As you can see in the image below I could choose to only display Docs results if too many results showed up. 🙂
When adding a new Labs feature one problem is slowing down Gmail but since I have started using this feature I have not noticed any slowdown when it came to searching for mails and docs alike.
What is missing from this feature?
Recently Gmail introduced a official multiple sign-in of Gmail accounts. I think this Mail and Docs search feature would be awesome if we could search from 2-3 different accounts using just one account. Now that feature would knock em dead! 😀
Try out Search Mail and Docs feature with Gmail and do let me know your views through your comments.
Are you a hacker? If you are geek then chances are you have searched Google for hacking tools. Chances are most geeks do not end up being Hackers but only fantasizing about it. Code is very important to geeks who are programmers and Google is full of them.
To show their appreciation for the Geek community Google has come up with a Google Search specially for hackers. Just visit http://www.google.com/webhp?hl=xx-hacker
This is like a easter egg with Google and in case you get inspired by Johnny Depp after watching Pirates of the Carribean then try using http://www.google.com/webhp?hl=xx-pirate and it will display Google Search page with a pirate lingo.
Not, satisfied as yet? Want to be an alien from Star Trek called Klingon. Just visit http://www.google.com/webhp?hl=xx-klingon for Google Search in this alien Klingon language from Star Trek.
Another great Easter egg is just search for “find Chuck Norris” without the quotes and click on “I’m Feeling Lucky“. The answer is pretty hilarious.
(Note: This is not really a easter egg but a website created by someone else which shows results like Google would. Thanks to Avi for pointing that our in comments. 🙂 )
So do you like Google and its tribute to all things geek? Do let me know through your comments.
If you own a website and are obsessed with your website being search engine friendly you will probably be aware of a file called robots.txt which often has the site-map to your website. This site-map is immediately picked up by search engines web crawlers which is how search engines end up indexing billions of web pages.
What does robots.txt file do?
A web robot or web crawler which first visits a website it looks up for the robots.txt files. For example when a search crawler looks up https://devilsworkshop.rsites.dev6.rt.gw it will look up for https://devilsworkshop.rsites.dev6.rt.gw/robots.txt.
This robots.txt actually allows and disallows a search engine to look up certain directories of a domain. For instance if you website has hosted a wiki you do not want to be accessible for search engines to look up, then that directory has to be excluded from looking up by a search engine.
This is why is it necessary to check robots.txt file for typos and errors which might defeat the purpose of excluding certain directories on your website from being looked up.
The website allows you to enter any URL and check the robots.txt file. This scan is usually looks up errors based on what is disallowed.
It also shows up warning for any matches what might be misunderstood or ignored by search engine crawlers.
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This is not really something that I would recommend webmasters to obsess over as usually most robots.txt of many websites are similar. For example you will see identical robots.txt files for almost all generic blogs which are hosted with WordPress. This tool will be useful mainly if you have many directories which you want not to be looked up by web bots.
Google has finally joined the icon bandwagon when it comes to the layout of their search results page. I was looking some stuff on Google as usual and suddenly I saw neat icons for Images, Videos, Books, Blogs, Maps and Shopping.
This is something new with Google as usually it has preferred to keep its search layout very sparse and minimal. As a matter of fact this sort of minimalism was what set Google apart from search services like Yahoo and MSN which is now Bing Search.
Why would Google introduce icons?
Icons are usually considered to be a lot more user friendly than just normal HTML links to introduce a visitor to different services. This may not mean a lot of techies who use Google a 100 times a day, but for the casual search user who is looking up books or the News then these icons could be very helpful.
Another reason could be Google might be making these changes to suit their usability for Tablet PCs. iPad’s early sales have shown that a tablet will be most probably used by people who use the net for surfing and searching things to buy online. Adding virtual keyboards to search pages also could be with an eye towards Tablet Pcs.
I think this change with introduction of icons is a good move by Google. I do not think regular users like me would really mind the icons are they are not too garish and it might serve its purpose of drawing attention to extra features with Google search which many users are simply ignorant about.
What do you think about this icon friendly Google search layout? Do let me know through your comments.
Ruchi wrote a nice post a few days ago detailing 10 websites to download free E-books. It got me think and looking up other ways to search for PDF files online. E-books are fine but there are also many online forms, documents, pamphlets all in PDF format which someone might be interested in look up.
Here are some tips and websites to search for PDF files online.
#1. Search for PDF files with Google Search
You can search for PDF files using Google. It searches the web for files with extension being PDF rather than links.
For example when you want to search for PDF files regarding CSS just type in “CSS filetype:pdf” without the quotes into the search bar.
This will make Google pull up relevant PDF files on CSS. 😉
#2. Search for PDF files with Bing
What works with Google also works with Bing search engine.
To have Bing search for only PDF files need to write the keyword first and then file type has to be defined.
I searched for PDF files on CSS with this query “CSS Filetype:pdf” without the quotes.
It allowed me to search for only PDF files online. No fancy filetypes had to be defined as this website only searches for files which are in PDF format. 🙂
Search PDF also looks up a decent list of PDF files with any keyword. It is pretty similar to PDF search Engine.
The only downside is that it supports multiple languages and sometimes with keywords like “CSS” it can give you results which are not necessarily in your language.
#5. Search PDF files on Yahoo Search
Just like we can search for only PDF files with Google and Bing, I could also search for PDF files with Yahoo Search.
With Yahoo the example to use for the query is “CSS originurlextension:pdf” without the quotes.
Do try out these tips for searching PDF files, documents and manuals online. Drop in your comments with any more alternatives and tips you might be using or finding useful.
In the past I wrote about how Facebook has overtaken Google on the web as the most visited URL. There is a new report out which suggests that Facebook is now the top searched brand. Hitwise a market analyst company has concurred that Facebook is the number one brand with Google being the number two brand searched.
Facebook is the top brand searched with volume being 2.80% and Google has volume of 2.40. If you notice in the top 10 searched brands You Tube and Twitter do not even figure amongst them.
What do these figures imply?
These figures mean that people who are net illiterate are still looking up Facebook as a brand on search engines rather than visit the website directly. This means there is still a large scope for Facebook to grow further.
That is the good news for Facebook and it makes sense that You Tube does not figure in the top searches as most people who will look up videos on You tube will be someone who is quite regular internet user.
What do you think about these brands? Have you ever searched for any of the above brands with a search engine? Do drop in your comments.
I was searching for an old friend on internet when I came across an interesting site-Pipl. Pipl is a specialized search engine for searching people and the results are quite impressive.
Pipl displays not only links to all of your profiles on social networks, but also blog mentions, publications, photos on Flickr, Picasa etc. It also looks for your name in public records, including property records, and birth databases, and mentions “quick facts” about the person-which are snippets from webpages. A quick search for my name gave one of the quick facts “Anshul Dixit is a part time blogger and a full time software engineer”, which is part of my bio in Devils Workshop.
What makes Pipl different is the fact that it is capable of searching deep web also, something which regular search engines like Google and Yahoo can’t do.
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What is Deep Web?
Deep web, also known as “invisible web” refers to a vast amount of data present in online databases that normal search engines like Google can’t reach. It is estimated that the amount of such data in deep web is 500 times that in the “surface web”.
The reason why regular search engines are not able to crawl in deep web is because the data is stored in databases and not on static web pages. Search engines work on the principle of indexing, that is, they crawl the web by following links found in other pages. But since the information in deep web is stored in database, these search engines can’t index it.
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How can Pipl help you?
Websites like Flickr, Myspace, Hoovers, Hi5, Friendster, Facebook etc. store personal profile and people related documents in database and not on web pages. So if you were not able to find your lost friend or relative through Google, try Pipl.
Pipl provides four easy ways to look for a contact- Name, e-mail, Username or Phone. Using any of these information you can search for a person. Searching someone through phone number is possible only in US and Canada.
I searched my name in Pipl and this is the result I obtained:
As you can see, the results are categorized according to personal profiles, blogs, websites, publications, and so on.
Some of the uses of Pipl that I can think of are:
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1) Searching old friends and relatives.
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2) Finding more information about a new acquaintance. With “quick facts” about the person, you can get a rough idea about him.
3) Can be used by companies to get information about a prospective employee. Gives you one more reason why you should be careful before posting anything on internet.
Considering that it is still in beta phase, you can expect some improvements in near future but you might want to check up 5 best search engines for students.
There is a lot that Google can do and it seems Bing Search is a poor cousin of Google when it comes to innovation. But I really liked this feature with Bing which allows your to save your search results as a RSS feed. (You can use Google Alerts for similar RSS feed of search results from Google)
How to make RSS feed of Bing Results?
This is quite simple. All you need to do is search for something with Bing and create a RSS feed buy clicking on the RSS symbol at the address bar. You can only do this with Bing and not with Google. 😐
Below is an image of how you can subscribe to the search Results as a RSS.
If you do not see the RSS Icon in the address bar, you can always create a RSS feed by appending the URL of the results page with “&format=rss” and a feed is created.
Why RSS feed for search result can be useful?
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I like subscribing to search results mainly to see when exactly does Bing index a post that I have published. I usually search for relevant keyword within the blog url and subscribe to the result’s RSS feed.
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It is also a great way to follow a trending topic or for that matter a tutorial. You can search of something specific and monitor it to see if something new is being indexed and sought after highly with Bing search.
Google has touched our lives in ways no one could have dreamt. Be it latest news you want to read (Google news), looking for some good pics for your presentation (Google images), or looking for directions to a new place (Google maps), Google is there to help you out every time. All this had made a strong group of Google worshippers. Lately I came across an article that shows how strong Google’s fan following has become that people are comparing it to God!
The article at “The Church of Google” (read the whole article here) cites some solid reasons for comparing Google to God. One of the reasons given is the omnipresence of Google. Reading this particular point reminded me of a funny video on YouTube which is on the same lines- Google Toilet.
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On a Serious Note…
Though amusing, the article and the video are also thought provoking. They show how much we have started relying on Google. Searching something on net has become synonymous to googling, which shows Google is rightly the Big Brother of search engines.
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But comparing it to God!!
Isn’t that’s too much? Aren’t we giving too much hype to a piece of algorithm written by two humans? Give too much power to someone and you will be crushed by that power. Already a section of people have started doubting Google’s motto “Don’t be Evil”, because of privacy concerns, to which “Big Brother” replied: “If you have something that you don’t want anyone to know, maybe you shouldn’t be doing it in the first place.”
Google was made to serve humans, not to control them, which is what we are making it do these days.
As for me, I don’t believe for a second that Google can be compared to God. The moment I disconnect from internet, the so called “God” has no influence over my life. Nor has it answered all my “prayers”-there are hundreds of things I searched on Google for which I didn’t get a satisfactory answer. And the latest embarrassing mistake by Google’s algorithm (see image below – pointed by labnol.org) only proves that it has to cover a long way before it can even be called the God of Internet.
If you are a blogger one of your biggest resource is a search engine. Looking around for new tricks to webs services or even something as simple as how posts within your blog can be looked with different search engines. We all use search engines and at times carry out multiple searches. It is a little difficult sometimes to keep track of the multiple searches or the queries you entered while carrying out a comprehensive search about a certain subject. I used Search Opener and found it a boon while carrying out multiple searches across different search engines.
Search Opener allows you to carry out different search queries across different search engines. It gave me two different types of options.
It allows me to enter 3-4 different search queries and open them in different tabs within the browser.
These tabs are opened within the same browser you are viewing the website.
It also allows you to use multiple search engines. It supports Yahoo, Bing, Ask and ofcourse Google.
In the above image you can see I typed in all the search queries and selected Google.
This means if I search for Devils Workshop and Facebooknol with Google and Bing being selected, I can at once open 4 tabs within the browser for both search queries with both engines.
This will be quite useful for people doing research and really looking to get deep into search results. I reviewed a similar sort of service called SearchZooka which allowed multiple searches. I admit that search opener has fewer options but it’s minimalistic look does make it a lot less confusing.
Let me know what you like about Search Opener through your comments.
