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Preface
In the last ten years or so I've been fascinated with the Web. And since the Web started getting large enough to require organization, I've been fascinated with how that organization has evolved. From very basic text pages and Big Red Buttons That Don't Do Anything, we've moved to extensive databases, search engines, and online information collections of all sorts. Since I wrote the Official Netscape Guide to Internet Research in 1996, the landscape has changed dramatically.
In 1996 it was possible to maintain a "big picture" idea of resources available online: even if you couldn't track down every last one you had a sense of what was available, where the gaps were, and so on. Now that's impossible. The Internet is growing too quickly. But hey, these are the kinds of problems you want to have, right? A rapidly growing collection of information, with a rapidly growing set of tools for dealing with it.
In 1996 I decided I was crazy about search engines. I loved experimenting with them, learning the syntaxes, trying to figure out how to make them work best. I'm still crazy about them. I'm almost as crazy about trying to teach other people to use the search engines, to help them take advantage of the wealth of information that's appearing online.
Thanks for buying this book. If you, too, get bitten by the search engine bug, join me over at ResearchBuzz.com. There I'll try to keep you up to date with developments in the search engine world.
Thanks for reading.
Web Search Garage
FROM OUR EDITORS
The Barnes & Noble Review
Find anything. Well, darned near.
Tara Calishainᄑs Web Search Garage is one of the smartest and most useful web research guides weᄑve ever seen. No surprise, perhaps: Calishainᄑs ResarchBuzz.com is one of the Webᄑs handiest research resources (even Time magazineᄑs noticed it).
Calishain starts off with the ᄑelementsᄑ of searching: the techniques, gadgets, and tweaks thatᄑll help you find what youᄑre looking for faster, with less of the junk you donᄑt need. Next, the ᄑprinciplesᄑ of searching: approaches thatᄑll help you figure out where and how to look. (For example, the Principle of the Reinvented Wheel: whatever youᄑre interested in, chances are thereᄑs a community of people already interested in it. Find the community, and youᄑll find the answers.) Calishainᄑs ᄑPrinciple of Salt Grainsᄑ chapter even helps you decide whether you can trust what youᄑve found, based on a few simple questions you can ask about any page or site (or email chain letter!).
Here, too, are the sources, including plenty you might not have known about (like, for example, the Webᄑs best obituary databases, or where to find great photos of famous 19th-century Americans). And, finally, here are examples: prefabricated searches that are likely to find exactly what youᄑre looking for.
So what are you looking for? ZIP codes? Audio clips? Your ex-girlfriend? Your stateᄑs Do Not Call registry? Human experts? Song lyrics? Labor statistics? Look here first, and youᄑre 90 percent there. Bill Camarda
Bill Camarda is a consultant, writer, and web/multimedia content developer. His 15 books include Special Edition Using Word 2003 and Upgrading & Fixing Networks for Dummies, Second Edition.
FROM THE PUBLISHER
Enter your Web Search Garage
where you learn how to look,
what to use
to find magic
find it faster
with less junk, less hassle
even figure out what it means
(or doesn't)
Where you find the answers
Where you learn how to ask the questions
Your mentor, teacher, Web search magician: Tara Calishain
author of Google Hacks, host of ResearchBuzz.com
can help you find anything that exists
(and some things that don't)
including
lost buddies, buried ancestors
sounds and pictures
great deals
honest advice, intriguing quackery
term paper research
news you can use
jobs and love (maybe both at once)
Browse it, take it home,
Enter the Garage
Come out, a master
© Copyright Pearson Education. All rights reserved.
SYNOPSIS
Writing in a reader-friendly style, Calishain, editor of a weekly newsletter on Internet searching, explains what search engines are for, how to use them, and what tools to use with them to make researching easier. In addition to covering specific topics and showing how to work search engines, she outlines principles for how Internet searching works. Examples provide information on specific kinds of searching, from genealogy to finding local information. Annotation ©2004 Book News, Inc., Portland, OR
FROM THE CRITICS
Slashdot.org
The perfect book for the average web user who wants to improve his research skills. I'd put this one in the Christmas stocking for all those people who are getting a new computer or a new broadband connection. That's not to say that the more technical savvy will find nothing in this book, so if you give a copy to someone, either read it first or borrow it back -- you may find it worth enough to get your own copy.
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