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Story 3: Better Googling
Sree Sreenivasan is not on the Google payroll, but he stresses that if you are only using the eight-year-old search engine for searching the web, you are missing out on a world of options the search engine provides.
Sreenivasan is a Columbia Journalism Professor and says that many users are unaware of the many extra tools Google provides. In his article Better Googling: Things You Didn't Know Google Does, he lists and explains some of these additional functions. Some of these include:
- TOOLBAR: You can type in Google.com each time you search if you want, but it’s a lot faster to have it built in on your browser. Firefox has it automatically built in.
- DESKTOP: This is a way to search the contents on your computer faster than any built-in finder function. Search instant messages, word documents and more.
- GOOGLE ALERTS: An option that sends you an e-mail as soon as a phrase you are tracking has shown up on either the main Google index or Google News.
- NEWS: Speaking of news, you do not need to go to separate news sites anymore to get a variety of news. Google allows users to search 4,500 constantly updated news Web sites all at the same time.
- VIDEO: Looking for something specific in the news. Now you can search transcripts of American TV news programs and of course, it’s free.
- SCHOLAR: Do a specialized search of just academic journals and other publications.
The Google tools are endless according to Sreenivasan. Other options include an images search, map tools, calculator, phone directory, government document search, book search, language options and much more.
The most popular tool however, might just be GMail. GMail is Google’s version of free e-mail for the public. However, instead of giving the user 2-6 MB of space like Yahoo and Hotmail, Google provides users with 2,600 MB of space.
With so many options provided by the website and highlighted in Sreenivasen’s article, it is not wonder the popular phrase “I’ll search for it,” has become “I’ll Google it.”
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