Mark W. Smith: 8 tips for better Web searches

Search engines have made dinner party conversations much less interesting.
Quibbling over the first movie featuring Julia Roberts? A lighthearted conversation that used to last an entire course is now extinguished with a simple Google search. (It's "Satisfaction," by the way.)
But search engines have done a whole lot of good -- placing the world's knowledge at our fingertips.
They're even more powerful than you know, with many useful features that are left unadvertised and hidden.
For this list, I looked at the Top 3 search engines -- Google, Yahoo! and Bing -- to find more options to find exactly what you're looking for.

1. Easy math. For those without a calculator handy, search engines offer an easy way to do quick math. Just type in your equation -- something like 78*3.2/98 -- and it'll give you the result (2.55).
Google, Yahoo! and Bing all do this, but Google does it best. It will show you the answer as you type and doesn't return any other search results than the answer you seek.

2. Find the time. Web searchers can type "what time is it in Japan" or any other location into either Google or Bing to instantly find out the local time.

3. Help with conversions. How many cups are in a quart? Or how many pounds in a kilogram? How many U.S. dollars in a euro? Simply typing those questions into Google or Yahoo! will net the result (Bing struggles with the currency question, but can answer the other two.) It's a handy tool for recipe conversions or for international travel.
Oh, and the answers are 4, 2.2 and 1.42, respectively.

4. Check that flight. To check the status of a flight, you can enter the flight number and carrier into Google or Bing (but not Yahoo!) for a live update. Search something like "Delta Flight 1567" and it will tell you if the flight is on time and what time it departs and lands. Bing and Google pull from flightstats.com for this information.
Bing also allows you to compare flight prices from different online vendors at bing.com/travel.

5. Search credible sites. On Google, you can tell the search engine to return results from only certain types of Web sites, such as government or education sites, which usually have more trustworthy results.

So, if you're looking for information on unemployment benefits, but only want results from government Web sites, you can Google "unemployment benefits site:>.gov". The ".gov" is where you'd swap out ".edu" if you want results from the Web sites of educational institutions.

6. Wonder Wheel. Search engines perform the best when you're the most specific, but that's not always possible. Google offers a different way to search to help with this called the Wonder Wheel.
You start with a generic search term, say "chicken recipes." That term goes to the center of a spoked wheel with more specific terms listed at the perimeter. From there you can select "healthy chicken recipes" to make it more specific, which then moves to the center and offers even more specific options on the spokes. Then, you can settle on something like "healthy grilled chicken recipes" and see what the Google results are for that.
To activate the Wonder Wheel, find it on the left side under "More search tools" on any Google results page.

7. Google Squared. If you're looking to compare information on a certain topic, Google Squared is a great place to start. Typing in a topic like "Michigan state parks" will return a grid display with each park listed and columns for things like location and square footage.
You can also add more columns based on the information that Google collects for each state park, or whatever topic you choose. The page can then be exported as a spreadsheet for reference later. Try it at google.com/squared.

I did a similar search of Milford, PA restaurants and got similar great results below.

8. Live Twitter traffic. Twitter, too, has become a vast repository of searchable data. You can search public Twitter updates at search.twitter.com or in the search field on any Twitter page. My favorite search is a way to check for instant traffic updates.
In the search box, type "near:Detroit traffic." That will return live results for tweets sent near Detroit containing the word traffic, so you'll see things like "stuck in traffic on I-94! Tanker crash" to help inform your route. People will also often include photos.
Contact Mark W. Smith: 313-223-4424 or msmith@freepress.com. Follow him on his Facebook page or on Twitter: @markdubya. You can also ask him any technology question on VYou.

Source: http://www.freep.com/article/20110628/NEWS09/106280318/Mark-W-Smith-8-tips-better-Web-searches?odyssey=mod|newswell|text|FRONTPAGE|s

Opera 11.5 follows rivals with minimalist 'Featherweight' UI

From ComputerWorld.com

Takes same approach as Chrome, Firefox and IE9 in move to make browser seem faster

By Gregg Keizer

June 27, 2011 03:50 PM ET

Computerworld - Opera Software will debut a new, streamlined user interface in Opera 11.5, a company executive said today, that closely resembles the minimalist design now sported by most of its competitors.

The new interface, dubbed "Featherweight" by Opera, features only four buttons alongside the address bar, and loses much of the "chrome" -- a browser's interface elements, not Google's application -- to expand the amount of display space for websites.
Featherweight will be the default user interface (UI) for Opera starting with version 11.5, which appears to be close to shipping.
It also closely resembles the UI direction first taken by Google and its Chrome, which Microsoft and Mozilla both followed with their Internet Explorer 9 (IE9) and Firefox 4 that launched earlier this year.

According to Jan Standal, Opera's vice president of desktop software, Featherweight was its reaction to complaints by users that Opera felt slow.

"Even though Opera is extremely fast -- fast at opening and closing tabs, opening windows -- we got reports from users that they felt Opera was slower than other browsers," said Standal. "We wanted to make the browser feel lighter and faster, but keep its functionality."
Standal also echoed arguments made by others, most notably Microsoft, that ditching extra chrome allows more of the Web page itself to show.

When Microsoft first revealed IE9's interface last September, it touted the muting of the browser. "People go to the Web for sites, not for the browser," said Dean Hachamovitch, vice president for IE, at IE9's beta release event last year.

Standal said much the same today. "We wanted to leave as much room for the Web page as possible," said Standal, "and move to a more application-style window."

But he denied that Opera was simply copying the work of others. "Count the amount of pixels," he argued. "We were already there with a light interface. People just didn't see it that way."
Even so, Standal acknowledged that Opera has been working on the Featherweight UI for just six months, a timeline that preceded the release of IE9 and Firefox 4, but followed Microsoft's and Mozilla's showing their browsers' new designs.

Opera has issued a string of "release candidate" (RC) builds of Opera 11.5 in recent days, which hints that a final version will ship shortly.
The newest edition, Opera 11.5 RC5, was issued today, and can be downloaded from the company's website for Windows, Mac OS X and Linux.

Browsers look more alike than different these days, as minimalist UIs reign supreme.

Gregg Keizer covers Microsoft, security issues, Apple, Web browsers and general technology breaking news for Computerworld. Follow Gregg on Twitter at @gkeizer or subscribe to Gregg's RSS feed . His e-mail address is gkeizer@computerworld.com.

Source: http://www.computerworld.com/s/article/9217960/Opera_follows_rivals_with_minimalist_Featherweight_UI?source=rss_internet&utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+computerworld%2Fs%2Ffeed%2Ftopic%2F211+%28Computerworld+Browsers+News%29