Ask the web team
 How
do I use a search engine?
Using the internet would be a major headache without search
engines, and happily they have got a lot better in recent
years. Google, with its 4.2 billion web pages, is the most
popular in the UK, and is also favoured by some 40% of users
in the US.
Whatever search engine you use, you can get much better results
with a bit of fine-tuning.
Using " "
Using quotes round your search, eg "John Smith"
will just bring up pages on people called John Smith. If you
just search under John Smith, without the quotes, your search
may bring up any number of Johns and various other Smiths.
Using -
If you are searching for something that has more than one
meaning, eg bass can refer to both a fish and music, you can
exclude the other meaning by typing bass -fish.
Using +
Search engines will typically exclude common words, like 'the'.
If this is essential to your search, add a plus sign in front
of it, with a space in front, eg +The Black Eyed Peas or +The
Rolling Stones.
Categories
Some search engines will let you search by category, eg searching
for Saturn within the Science > Astronomy category of the
Google Web Directory will spare you a list of results on Saturn
cars or record labels.
Contact us
Do you have a problem for the web team? If so, please contact
us at web@soci.org, with
‘Ask the web team’ in the subject line.
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WEBWATCH
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 The
Great Three-Letter Abbreviation Hunt
Don't know your AAA from your AAAA? You need the Great
Three-Letter Abbreviation Hunt, http://www.atomiser.demon.co.uk/abbrev/
and its four-lettered sister site.
The sites can be queried by letter, or if you have
time to spare you can scroll down. While there are nearly
half a million abbreviations out there, the two sites
features a mere 1437, and readers can submit more. Two-lettered
abbreviations are to follow, and the organisers are
keen to build up the four-letter site.
Incidentally, AAA is the American Academy of Advertising
while AAAA is American Association of Amateur Astronomers.
Mysteriously, BJE stands for Bad Joke Ending.
Do you have a site you would like to recommend to
SCI Members? If so, please send us the URL at web@soci.org,
with ‘Webwatch’ in the subject line.
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