Trivial Google SkillsAs with most computer tasks there are many ways to accomplish the same thing. This is especially true of searching on the web. However, going through google et al has many advantages that are only apparent if you know first hand how to do them. That is why I have created this little list of google tasks.Hopefully you will pick up a few useful techniques and you never know when they may come in handy.. Please, don't hesitate to suggest othersSincerely Chris Yukna yukna(at)emse.fr Scenarios: 1. You have decided to try to get a job somewhere in the international pharmacutical firm Pfizer. You would like to work in supply planning or logistics especially since they have the reputation of being the best in the world in order fulfilment. So how can you only search in their pages when they have many different websites around the world. 2. You have been hired to do a very quick internet marketing study on the prevailence of three English words: whiskey, beer , and wine in the following three countries: Slovenia, Austria, and Italy 3. I just would like to know how many links there are to Ecole des Mines from outside the site itself. see if there is a way to eliminate results any internal links like Incom06. 4. How many English pages are there in France? Be prepared to defend your protocol and explain your reasoning. 5. How amny civil war photographs are stored in the American Library of Congress? See if you can find something on Quakers, friends, and guns. 6. This seems a bit silly but see if you can create a timeline for Chris Yukna. 7. Even though the school's website ( Ecole des Mines) is down please go to Totally Unorthodox which is hosted there and click on Hercules then take Lesson VI ( Beg, Itch, Limp, Sore, Switch, Pattern, Stale, Despite, Drought, Frown). Remember you can not go to the website itself since it is not working. 8. Find all the Microsoft Word, plain text, and pdf documents on the schools website. 9. List all the definitions for a word say : performance. Then try to discover why google treats these pages as definitions. Construct a similar page with a word or two word phrase that has no google definition associated with it. 10. Go to your favorite website. See if you can find a quick way ie one page that has links to similar pages, backlinks, its google cache, etc. 11. Search only on the pages of the ecole des mines and the university jean monet for someone who works at both establisments. For example Marc Rolens. Try not to make double searches. 12. Take a typical school website say in Saint Etienne and see what are the most important pages according to Google.fr, Google.com, Yahoo.com, Alexa. 13. Try to compile a list of the number of times Osama Ben Laden was mentioned the week before September 11th 2000. and the week after. 14. Through google see if you can obtain Francis Yukna's address or Liliane Bois Simon's home phone number. What are the limits of this approach. 15. Search for pages that mention Alexandre Dolgui but exclude those from the Ecole des Mines. 16. Survey the number of pages worldwide that have these colors in the web addresses: red, blue, yellow. 17. Create up to date stock survey pages for Google, Yahoo, Microsoft, and Apple. 18. Find our what the author Richard Stallman has said on newsgroups. 19. Discover if google can act as a time machine like the wayback machine? 20. Simply by typing in the url field of your browser search with google. 21. Look at what google has indexed in the last few days, hours, seconds for a particular topic. 22. You are not on your computer and you don't have the right software installed to read a document word, pdf, etc that you found on the web.So use google (hint google docs) 23 You need to track domestic trends via Google search traffic across specific sectors of the economy. Changes in search volume could provide pertinent economic insights. Seasonal changes often become clearer. Let's say in automotive, computers & electronic, or air travel. Simple or Silly hacks 1. In cached pages google will highlight the sought after words that brought you to that page see if you can figure how to change the words highlighted. 2. At our school tell me what version of software is being run on the servers. 3. Make a list of al the directories at your school. 4. Locate where all the hackers are on a map of the world. 5. Become invisible, look at a website with out leaving a single packet of bytes on its servers. rapidshare mihd depositfile filefactory easyshare megaupload mediafire itfile Suggested resources: Google Labs Filetext.com Searchengine watch Google Help : Cheat Sheet Advanced Google Search Operators |