Better Google Searching

Google returns very good search results with basic effort, but as a graduate student you can make Google results even better with some helpful tips and tricks.  Legal Productivity has a great list of ways to improve your search results here.

And don't forget the Hofstra Law Library's Spring 2014 workshop which goes over even more ways to improve your Google skills.  View the archived webcast here.

Ernster, the Virtual Library Cat

Tired of Your Browser? Try These Alternatives

Have you wondered if Internet Explorer, Firefox and Chrome are your only browser choices?  There are actually many others to try.  Find some browser alternatives here, such as SRWare Iron, a security enhanced browser based on Chromium.  Another alternative is the privacy conscious browser DuckDuckGo, which promises not to track or report your internet information.  Read more about typical browser tracking here and why DuckDuckGo is different.

Ernster, the Virtual Library Cat

Blekko

Search engines that are not Google do still exist. Some of them are even being started today. Blekko, which launched this week, has been getting a lot of press. (An NY Times article is here; a ComputerWorld article is here.)

This search engine is a bit of a throwback, in that it relies largely on human-edited search results. Blekko's goal is to only list results from reputable sources, mostly by weeding out content farms and those public answer trees where the answers people provide are almost invariably wrong. Time will tell if this works, and some people grow used to searching with a system of slashtags.


Ernster, the Virtual Library Cat

NowRelevant.com

There is a new search engine out there that promises to find "everything about your subject for the past two weeks." NowRelevant.com offers a super-simple search interface, and a listing of new, original, and unspammed internet material from exactly 14 days back from the time of your search. The default for results is five days, extendable by the searcher. This is not a search meant to find authoritative results or even the most popular general summary of a topic, such as a Wikipedia article, but only the most recent original internet material on your subject.

Of course, relevancy depends upon what the searcher views as relevant. While NowRelevant.com may be ideal for marketers looking for topics and words with the heaviest current internet traffic, it could also be a quick way to see a wide variety of views on a current "hot topic" in the news media, or helpful postings about something time-sensitive in its relevancy, like "new law students" at this time of the year. Much more about NowRelevant.com, including a comparison with Google's new advanced search limit-by-date feature, can be found in an article by Avi Rappoport, published this week at Information Today.
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To Google or to Bing, that is the Question

Although I am a cat, not an elephant, I do have a long memory.

Back in my December 18th post discussing the difference between homonyms and heteronyms, I explained that the reason you might care has to do with choosing search engines. If I search the word "China" on Google, my results all relate to the country China. But what if I am interested in the dishes? If I use the search engine Bing, on the left side, under Related Searches, I see a link for "China dishes". Try the word "digest". On Bing, I get to choose from two of my favorite topics, food and research. On Google, I would starve.

Clusty is another search engine that provides categories for its search results.



Ernster, the Virtual Library Cat

Words, words, words

You made it through finals, now you can think about something fun (when you are ready to think again, that is.) So I am ready to think about words. Traveling the web I run across a lot of them and they are critical for searching the web.

The only problem is the English language. Too many words have multiple meanings or can have two totally different meanings depending upon context. These are know as heteronyms. So when I search for "china" am I looking for information about the country or dishes? A list of other heteronyms is at Fun With Words (see, I am not the only one).

Don't get heteronyms confused with homonyms (I did). Homonyms (also known as homophones) are words that sound the same but spelled differently (like cereal and serial). For online searching, we just need to make sure we spell these correctly. More examples of homonyms are here .

Why should you care? It has to do with search engine choice. Stay tuned for that explanation coming in the new year.


Ernster, the Virtual Library Cat

Another Search Engine choice

I know the name needs work, but I am still a fan of the Web search engine, Clusty . What makes it different and worth a look is that it "clusters" your results. So, if you search for something, for example "pet insurance" you will get your results in topics such as "health insurance", "cat insurance" and "compare" as well as just the usual list.

In case you are interested, health insurance for felines does not look any better than for you humans!



Ernster, the Virtual Library Cat

Bing

The launch of Microsoft's Bing reminds us that search engines other than Google do, in fact, still exist. PC World compares Bing with Google and Yahoo!. (from the Law Librarian Blog).



Ernster, the Virtual Library Cat