CHRISdotTODD

Occasionally we have the need to search just a single website, yet the site search engine doesn’t seem to be up to the task. Google has a great feature that many don’t know about that lets you search a website using Google. The steps are quite easy to follow. Go to www.google.com In the search box enter the following: site:domain search term(s) . For example site:nba.com damian lillard . Site:  (including the colon) is the Google keyword telling it to restrict its search to the domain you will name next. The domain must come immediately after the colon -- no spaces . You don’t need to include “www.” or other sub-domains unless you’re certain you want to restrict the results. Here are some examples: nba.com for the NBA website ( https://www.nba.com ) nhl.com for the NHL website ( https://www.nhl.com ) adobe.com for Adobe’s website ( https://www.adobe.com ) Treat the search term(s) like any other Google search Check out the results. There are a few tricks that ...

There are many job search apps and websites including LinkedIn , Monster , and Indeed . It seems with all the various search apps and sites, it’s difficult to find a good match for the job titles I’ve been seeking. After many frustrating attempts to use the advanced search features on these sites, I discovered that good old reliable Google has a better solution. To use Google to find your next job, search Google by following this simple pattern: job level (optional) of job title followed by jobs . For example, “manager of social support jobs.” If you want to search in another city or if you’ve blocked your location, just modify your search to include the city, “manager of social support jobs in Seattle.” When you get the initial results, either select the heading or one of the many filter options, e.g. “Full-time,” and you will be directed to a page specific to job postings matching your search criteria. From the job postings page, you can very easily further refine the resul...

"Why can't I find what I'm looking for on my own companies website? I know the document/content is there -- I wrote it. When I use Google I don't have troubles finding what I'm searching for. Why can't we have Google for our website?" (This is a topic I would not typically post on this blog, but it's an often misunderstood issue that is raised frequently within companies -- an issue I've had to address many times.) The short answer, whether searching your companies (public) website or intranet (website), is that your company websites are not like the Internet and therefore the same technology that Google has developed for you to search the Internet will not work for your company. "But Google sells a search appliance for the Enterprise -- why can't I just use that?" Well, you can use Google's Search Appliance, and it may even be better than your current solution, but it wont live up to using Google to search the Internet. I have ...

As nice of a phone as the Droid is, its Outlook integration is not yet up to what you can accomplish with the iPhone. Previously I blogged about how to get your Outlook email onto your Droid , as the instructions that come with the Droid are not clear. The rest of this post will tell you how to sync your Calendar (events) and Contacts between your Droid and Outlook. It takes three things to make this work. Compatible version of Outlook: Outlook 2003 or 2007 on Win XP (32-bit only) and Vista. Gmail account: You should already have this, since it's required for the Droid. Google Calendar Sync application: The Google Calendar Sync program will sync your calendar and contacts between your Outlook account and your Gmail account -- your Droid can interact with your Gmail account. Download this from Google onto your computer that's running Outlook. Once you've downloaded the Google Calendar Sync program, install it. Just a few simple steps, and you'll have your Contacts a...

I've been doing quite a bit of research lately on technical topics, where the results would frequently include results from a pay site, Expert Exchange. If you;re familiar with Expert Exchange, they've been very successful in getting their pages to return high in the list of Google results. I have found it very frustrating when I inadvertently click-through on one of their pages. With a little research, I found that Google has a custom search option, where you can include and exclude certain websites. I have created a custom search that includes all Google results with the exception of Expert Exchange. To make it really useful though, I needed it to be in my search bar in Firefox, which I use almost exclusively for new searches. I found a Firefox Add-on to do that too. Here's how you can make your own custom search. If you don't already have one, you must have a Google account. Go to the Google Custom Search page and click "Create a Custom Search" I had to...

Since Microsoft killed off Netscape (Browser Wars, the original), most users were not aware of any alternatives until Firefox (FF) came on the scene ( Mozilla vs. Godzilla - Browser Wars II). Actually, there was a 3rd browser that was and is quite good, Opera . More recently, Google announce their own web browser, Chrome , while Mozilla had released Firefox 3 (now FF 3.5 is available) and Apple released Safari 4. Since Microsoft released Internet Explorer 5 (IE5), I've been quite unhappy with the browser. It has suffered from security holes (predominately due to ActiveX), proprietary solutions (ActiveX again raises its ugly head), and slowness. I've also come to really like Firefox due to its extensibility with Add-ons. With the popularity of Firefox and now the additions of Chrome and Safari, you could say that Netscape is finally getting their revenge, sort of. Since Firefox came out of the aftermath of Nestcape and the additional fire power of Google and Apple, Microso...

UPDATE June 25, 09: I heard back from GoDaddy Support this morning, we clear and accurate instructions. I think by the time you see this, you will be able to once again get to my blog at www.CHRISdotTODD.com -- now I just need to get CHRISdotTODD.com to work. I thought I knew my way around the web, how to develop and post content and apps, etc. One area I've not spent time with is domain registration and management. When I started CHRISdotTODD.com , it took about 3 clicks and $10 to get setup on Blogger (part of the Google family). I was led to believe that Blogger would make sure I had a chance to renew, and never lose my domain -- very similar to how they remind me annually to pay an extra $10 for extra space I use. This seemed like a great way to have my own domain, and not have to learn any more about the real guts that keep the Internet working for us. Well, turns out on May 1st my domain registration had expired and Blogger never bothered to notify me. Since I've been b...

Polaris is a cross-platform Google Analytics desktop widget with Adobe Air. With Polaris, you have easy access to your Dashboard, Map Overlay, Top Content, and more. With 8 simple reports, the interface is easy to use and puts data right on your desktop whether using Windows, a Mac, or Linux (Fedora 8, Ubuntu 7.10, openSUSE 10.3). A single-site version is free while the full multi-site version is only $15 annually. This is just the first of 4 announced products coming from a new company, Desktop Reporting .

On Jan 16, 2009, I wrote about troubles with Picasa 3 and no longer supporting it as a photo manager. Since then, I have tried 4 other photo managers and I have solved my Picasa problem. First, the fix. I took these steps to restore Picasa back to normal. File > Add Folder to Picasa Removed every folder referenced -- this led to no photos listed in Picasa File > Add Folder to Picasa Selected the folders I wanted to re-include in Picasa --Picasa reloaded Smiled and was happy :-) That simple process seemed to do the trick. As I mentioned, I have tried 4 other photo managers, though I'm going to stick with Picasa -- assuming it behaves. Not that they other 4 are not as good, but for one reason -- Picasa integrates so nice with their hosting service. Here are the 4 other photo managers (in no particular order), and a few comments: 1. ACDSee Photo Manager 2009 If I were to replace Picasa, I think this would be my choice. Some features I liked: Loads fast as a replacement for W...

I'm very frustrated to report that Google's Picasa version 3 has been nothing but trouble. I am now on Picasa 3.1, this being at least the third version of 3.x. I first noticed with the first version 3 update that a few captions were wrong. I corrected a few, but as I looked closer, many of them were wrong -- the captions and pcitures were no longer correctly associated. After the next update, I noticed that Picasa was slower, often hanging for a while. This also included causing screen refresh problems with my other applications that were running at the same time. I just finished allowing another version 3 update, and I notice it seems to be re-building my library -- I now seem to recall it did this with the first version 3 update. I also noticed with pictures that I've added after the prior update also have incorrect captions on some of them -- I hadn't put captions on any of them, yet. Update 17-Jan-09: I've re-opened Picasa, and now the thumbnails are mixed up t...

UPDATE 18-Nov-08: I missed this one; not sure what changed -- Google Docs DOES NOT allow sharing of PDFs. Of course a single user can store and view a PDF; you just cannot share it. "Please note, at this time you can only share PDFs from the Docs list, not the PDF itself. Publishing a PDF so that anyone can view has not yet been implemented." I guess I am back to finding an alternative. I looked into free file hosting, to see if I could find a place to store a few PDFs for this blog. The real need came from my current host, Blogger, not providing this service when I last checked in August. It is free, so I can't really complain, yet it is part of Google that gives me 10 GBs free for using their Gmail and Picasa services -- that are also free. Of course I could use Google Docs, but then that forces me to format my documents to fit their tool. STOP - I spoke too soon, Google Docs now supports PDFs; I can host any PDF up to 10 MB in size (and I can always purchase more ...

Well it has been a week since Google released Chrome, a week since I've tracked my Internet bandwidth usage, and 5 days since Microsoft released its ads to compete against Apple. Let's take a look and see how each are doing. =============== I wrote a little about Google's surprise announcement of their new browser Chrome last week, highlighting some of its features. One feature that intrigued me was the ability to "tear-off" a tab and turn a browser window into a pseudo application on your desktop. I did just that with my email and RSS reader -- I replaced Thunderbird with a direct window into my Gmail account and replaced the RSS reader with Google's RSS reader. I had looked and tried many RSS readers before settling on Thunderbird, but found that over the last six months that I've used it less and less. I like the Google Reader interface much better than Thunderbird and others and Chrome has made it just a little easier to access it. In addition, in th...

Live blog from CNet Webware Today at 11 am PST, Google will announce a new browser from the search giant, Chrome. Chrome promises to start off on the right foot with many great features . Sandboxing: kill one tab while the rest of the browser tabs continue running Blacklists: one for phishing and one for malware, both maintained by Google Plug-ins: dedicated processes Faster Javascript: designed for speed and important enough to be built by its own Google team Multiprocessing: separate process for each task Tabs: placed at the top of the window, giving each tab its own URL (Omnibox) box Google has published a comic book to cover all the features. It will be interesting to watch the responses from the current browser incumbents Microsoft ( IE ), Mozilla ( Firefox ), Apple ( Safari ), and Opera Software ( Opera ). For example, Google is signed up to be Firefox's biggest contributor through 2011, with $56 million of $66 million coming from Google in 2006. As they say in the tech in...

In looking up some locations in Google Maps today, I found that the map images were not displaying. The searches worked, and I did get the list of possible matches on the left side. Thanks to some searching through Google I found the problem. The current Skype add-on (v.2.2.0.87) for Firefox is causing this problem. I'm not sure how they are related, but by disabling the Skype add-on fixed the problem. It appears this Skype Add-on is also causing screen redraw issues for some users of Firefox as well.

If you have ever explored Google's advanced search capabilities, you would know that it can be very powerful in finding specific content. For example, you can use it to find web directories with music from your favorite artist. Take this code for example, which you can enter into the Google search box: -inurl:(htm|html|php) intitle:”index of” +”last modified” +”parent directory” +description +size +(wma|mp3) “Stevie Ray Vaughn” Your results would be something like this: You can even add different file formats and wildcards for the search string: -inurl:(htm|html|php) intitle:"index of" +"last modified" +"parent directory" +description +size +(wma|mp3| ogg ) "stevie ray vaughn % " How does this apply to Firefox? Well I'm glad you asked! You may recall that by entering a keyword into the field of a bookmark, you can retrieve the bookmark in the Address Box by just entering the keyword. Firefox also supports wildcard parameters, so you can ...

I recently was on vacation and was reminded how much I like Google's Picasa to manage my digital photos. Each night as I returned from my activities, I inserted my memory card into my laptop, launched Picasa, and had it load my new photos into a folder unique for that day. Occasionally I took a few additional sunset photos, and common to camera memory cards, when loading I ended up with duplicate file names. Picasa handles this for me by automatically renaming the new files as they were saved to my laptop. Once the photos were on my laptop, it was very easy to take care of basic photo editing -- perfect for most of us non-Photoshop experts. For example, removing red-eye is simple; I can also sharpen photos; and of course rotation is a single click. Once my edits are complete, Picasa will save my original, so that I can always go back to it later. Once I finished my edits, I viewed all the photos from the day using the slide show feature. And when I was happy with what I saw, it wa...

As companies try to develop a better search engine, it turns out it is much more difficult to dethrone Google than I believe most realize. I looked at four new search engines, Snap , Ms. Dewey , ChaCha , and Rollyo , and found that they all had a long way to go. To be fair, I did not do an exhaustive test, but in most case the user interface is bad enough to not want to use the search engine. In two cases, if you have a particular niche need, you might find help. If you are struggling to find something on the Internet, you might try ChaCha's guided searches, where someone will actually help you. Or, if you search for the same topics over several sites, frequently, Rollyo may be worth a further look. Before I share all the details, as I said, I did not do an exhaustive test. What I did do is search for these four phrases: 1) content effectiveness; 2) fingertip knowledge; 3) Chris Todd; and 4) Excel tips. I also considered that for a successful search, it takes two things: 1) a good ...

I had tried the free Google Desktop at work, twice, and each time uninstalled it. First because I could not search my network drives. (I like to use network drives to share files with my colleagues, and to make sure they are backed up.) Later I had decided to try again, and then discovered the possible security issues. I was pleasantly surprised to learn that Google now has addressed the security concerns and they have released an update that will index networked drives. I have been running this now for about two weeks, and it generally has performed well. The Google Desktop Search is based on keywords, so it does not always give you the most relevant results. I also had some troubles with PowerPoint running very slow while editing. (I turn the search off when I am working in PowerPoint.) With those caveats, it seems to be a good solution. A nice, new feature is that if you hit your CTRL button twice, a search dialog appears in the center of your screen. Of course Google Desktop will ...

Did you know that you could use your Gmail account to store files? With nearly 3 GBs of space, this is an easy way to store files that you may want to access from multiple computers or that you want to make sure get archived off site. Rahul Jonna has created a simple Firefox Extension , making it very easy to store files from Firefox. I made a 1.5 minute how-to movie to demonstrate how this works. [The quality of the movie does not match my desire, but I had to use a program that would output a format that could be accepted by Google.] Be sure to watch the last 3rd of the video as it demonstrates how to write a filter in Gmail, so the files do not show up in your inbox.

How do you solve technical problems with your computer? I have 6 PCs on a wireless network at home, plus my work laptop. In addition I support family and friends on occasion. There are so many things to know and learn, it is nearly impossible to have an answer all the time. (I did get A+ certified once, but that was a long time ago.) Amazingly enough, if you have an error code or message, or you can describe the issue in 3 to 6 words, you can often find the answer through Google. I even use Google when I know that it is an answer that I will likely find at Microsoft -- Google is easier. If you are not doing this already, it is time to start. Take for example when my firewall tells me I have a new program trying to access the Internet ( You do have a software firewall, right?! ). Recently compaq connections.exe came up -- I entered it in Google and found many results . Within the first three, I had found enough information to feel comfortable about the action to take. This part is impo...