It's All Geek To Me - July 2nd 2003

Dive in baby! Every kid knows that if you're going swimming you'll need a few things. Goggles, flippers, a floatation device or two ... and don't forget the sunblock! It's no different when it comes to swimming through the sea of information out there on the internet. Read on to learn how to swim like a pro.

As always, this newsletter is brought to you by KISS Computing, and focuses on giving you practical, interesting insights into how to successfully use technology as a tool to improve the way you do business.

If you have an idea for something you'd like to see here in the future just send me an e-mail at amy@kisscomputing.com.

One of my favorite things about the Internet? The analogies people use to talk about it.

Bob was as perplexed as a hacker who means to access T:flw.quid55328.com\aaakk/ch@ung but gets T:\flw.quidaaakk/ch@ung by mistake

(ok, ok, of the thousands of people who might be looking at this no more than two are smiling) How about:

Doing research on the the Internet is like panning for gold in a muddy
river. The information you are seeking is small compared to the mounds of
mud that surround it.

It depends on how you count but it is reasonable to say that there are about 10 billion web pages on the Internet right now – that’s 10,000,000,000 pages.

The biggest database ever known is quite an understatement.

We all know people who can, in what seems like just a few mouseclicks, put their browser right on the needed information nugget – professional swimmers.

Have you spent much time thinking about how well you swim or how to improve your surfing (swimming) skills?

Government databases, town archives, newspapers, scientific research, legal opinions, maps, encyclopedias, museums, and much more exist.

Good swimmers take three steps: prepare, find, and evaluate.

Preparation is as simple as it sounds but the most important part. Think about your needs and then read a general article about the topic – that will help you define your keywords and choose your search tools.

Once you have a sense of the topic from a general article you need to understand the three types of searches most engines accept: Boolean, Truncation, and Phrase.

Boolean Searching is including or avoiding specific terms, Truncation is using part of a term, and Phrase Searching is looking for an exact string.

Some Boolean Searches:

Cats and Dogs not Retrievers
Cats or Dogs

These are also known as plus (+) and minus (-) searches. Google has a good page on these issues here.

Once you have found your results you need to evaluate them. This covers issues of fact vs opinion, currency (up-to-date), authority, publishing body, and things like that.

Basically – can you trust it? Lots of Researchers use the CARS checklist – which stands for credibility, accuracy, reasonableness, and support. A search for “The CARS Checklist” will give you lots of resources and explanations.

So remember: prepare, find, and evaluate – you’ll be surfing like a pro in no time. Have fun swimming.

Tech Tip: Google your computer problem.
by Jared Daubert

Ever get an error message on your computer and have no idea what it means or how to fix it? Like:

TA00057 - Fatal Exception Error 0E @ 0028:C165BE8F vbx mcscan32 in Outlook, invalid page fault in module Kernel32.dll at 0157:BFF99DBF (TA00057)

A simple thing to do is to type the exact error message in to a search engine like Google. This will usually provide the exact cause of the problem as well as a solution.

You usually don't need to enter the whole error message when searching. In our example above, searching for "0028:C165BE8F" will probably get you the information you need.

As always if you have any questions feel free to e-mail me at jared@kisscomputing.com.

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