Googling

My Googling knowledge:"if I want to find this" then put it in quotesIf I want to find out about GABA, then put in "Gamma AminoBuytl Acid" so as to avoid a heap of "Buy GABA at Super Low Prices" pagesif I'm not relying on quotes only, then a little bit of thought about what might constitute sensible search words is recommended....and that's about itAny other must-know tips would be welcome

I don't know much either and will be glad to see answers here but I've found it useful to use the advanced search and restrict the search to a specific site.I use that to search for things instead of the builtin search functions. Note that neither is perfect and I don't really know how the builtin one works either.

You can make something a mandatory part of your search by adding a + before the word (or - to exclude).

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Aslan is not a Tame Lion

I've had a lot of success by searching for not only the direct thing I am seeking, but also related things, or specific examples of the thing.For example, if you're looking for a classic saying, rather than searching for classic sayings, try to seach for answers you already know. Type this at Google: "a stitch in time saves nine" "don't count your chickens before they hatch" - with those quotes, and you will immediately get proverbs, sayings, cliches, etc. etc. It usually gets me what I want really fast.

Was this thread the one that "Smokey'd you out" then Welcome

If you mean that was my first post here. Yup.Oooo... now I've done two!

Message # 2 ...it seems like only yesterdaySo, what has you here then... Evo/Creo (or as the street language goes...fundi)/undecided/something else

I have been lurking here on and off for a while, and thought I might chime in if I have something concrete to say. There certainly is a lot of vitriol here though. So I've been putting off registering.I'm not going to say at this time what my biases are. In due time, and if there's a true need in the discussion.

You can also limit your search to a specific .xxx for example, to look at all education links, you can add site:edu, or if you want us government sites, you can put in site:gov

You have been lurking haven't you. Occupational hazard it would seem. ...sound of patiently drumming fingers.Night Smokey..and welcome again. And thanks for the tip. Lateral thinking... must remember that

If you wanted to search for something like GABA, try clusty.com. This search should demonstrate clusty's great context clustering. It clusters the search results like this:Acid, Gamma (52)
Receptor (35)
Association (16)
Nutrition (12)
Vitacost (11)
Oral, Care (9)
Pictures (9)
Gaba Supplement (9)
Modulation (10)
HGH (9)

You can search by filetype: say,

battlestar galactica +filetype:torrent

Whenever I want to use an expression in English and I don't know the exact phrase, I just google some words from the expression and look at the results. If more than one of them uses the phrase in the same way, I conclude that that is the right way to use it. Works most of the time.Another nifty thing is a combination of a Firefox feature and the possibility to google pictures: whenever I need a picture of something, I type "pic " in the address bar (not the google bar) of Firefox to get what I want very quickly. I have defined 'pic' as a smart keyword for the search box of google pictures.Other smart keywords I use regularly are:

'def' (definitions in Merriam-Webster)

'syn' (synonyms from Merrian-Webster's thesaurus)

'wik' (Wikipedia)

'wiknl' (Wikipedia, Dutch pages)

'film' (IMDb)

'book' (Amazon books)

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Smart keywords are an amazingly efficient way of finding things.

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Another very handy Firefox extension lets me look up words very quickly by double clicking them. The following picture shows an example. (I have double clicked the word 'thesaurus'.)

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Nice one Mod. I tried it with a couple of items for which I know the search has been a bit of a trawl and the items were included in a relevant sector each time. Added to favorites for further investigation under real life conditons

Could you explain further Crash?Say I wanted to see footage of a Bf 109. I tried typing inBf 109 +mpeg:torrentbut nothing relevant came up. What'd I do wrong