Hey, let’s face it. Our lives are busy and try as we might, sometimes we just need a little help finding things sometimes. These tips might not help you find your keys (or your iPhone 4G prototype), but they should make life a little easier.
Google Searches
The NY Times recently featured a great article by Simon Mackie about how to maximize your Google searches. I’m going to cite my favorite five from the article (you can read it in its entirety here) and also feature some top tips for searching in Spotlight.
- Use the “site:” operator to limit searches to a particular site. It’s a great one if a certain website’s search engine doesn’t return the result you’re looking for. For example, if you’re looking for Hapy on Smalldog.com, you’d type Hapy site:smalldog.com in the Google search bar.
- Use Google as a calculator. “Google has a built-in calculator—try entering a calculation like 110 * (654/8 + 3). Yes, your computer also has a calculator, but if you spend most of your day inside a browser, typing your calculation into the browser’s search box is quicker than firing up your calculator app.”
- Use the OR operator. This can be useful if you’re looking at researching a topic but you’re not sure which keywords will return the information you need. It can be particularly handy in conjunction with the “site:” operator. For example, you could try this search: GTD OR “getting things done” site:webworkerdaily.com. (see example here)
- Exclude specific terms with the – operator. “You can narrow your searches using this operator. For example, if you’re looking for information about American Idol but don’t want anything about Simon Cowell, you could try: american idol -cowell.
- Search within numerical ranges using the .. operator. “Say, for example, you want to look for information about Olympic events that took place in the 1950s, you could use this search: Olympics 1950..1960
Thanks, Zack!
Spotlight Searches
Matt Klein, the editor of Tech Tails, is our resident Spotlight pro. He often writes about how to maximize searches in Spotlight in 10.6; here are some of his best tips:
- To search for an email with a particular item during a specific time frame, for example, an email from Rebecca mentioning Toby within the last month, type kind:mail from:rebecca date:this month (you will fill in your own specifics, obviously!)
- To search for the same kind of thing in iChat, let’s say an iChat from Jon in which he professes his love to Red Delicious apples, ask Spotlight for delicious kind:chat from:jon
- Really, using Spotlight’s parameters are key for any search. Say you want to see all the image files (JPG, PNG, TIFF, etc) created yesterday. You’d type kind:images created:4/22/10
You’ll find more helpful tips in the Help menu on your Mac; go into Help and type Spotlight, and an article entitled “Searching for specific types of items” will explain it all in depth!