TYS Tech Sessions

Found this great list of Google Search Tips that I have refined down to the best and most useful tricks that can make searching faster and most efficient.

1. Convert units. Whether you want to convert currency, American and metric units, or any other unit, try typing in the known unit and the unknown unit to find your answer (like “how many teaspoons in a tablespoon” or “10 US dollars in Euros”).
2. Get a definition. If you want a definition without having to track down an online (or a physical) dictionary, just type “definition:word” to find the definition of the word in your results (i.e.: “definition: serendipity” will track down the definition of the word “serendipity”).
3. Search within a specific website. If you know you want to look up Babe Ruth in Wikipedia, type in “site:wikipedia.org Babe Ruth” to go directly to the Wikipedia page about Babe Ruth. It works for any site, not just Wikipedia.
4. Search for a specific file type. If you know you want a PDF (or maybe an MP3), just type in “filetype:pdf” and your search term to find results that are only in that file type.
5. Calculate with Google. Type in any normal mathematical expressions to get the answer immediately. For example, “2*4″ will get you the answer “8.” Google Quick Reference Cheat Sheet
6. Time. Enter “what time is it” and any location to find out the local time.
7. Use Show Options to refine your search. Click “Show Options” on your search result page to have access to tools that will help you filter and refine your results. Check out “wonderwheel” and ” timeline” – two new features.
8. Movie Showtimes – Type the name of the movie and your postal code (eg. where the wild things are +  m4r 1h5)
9. Flight Tracking - Flight name and Number – AC123
10. Want directions? – Just enter an address
11. Google Custom Search – Create a search engine for a specific topic – Elementary School Custom Search
12. Google Safe Search – now has a lock feature
13. Google Translate just got better –
14. 17 World Development Indicators (list below*) are now conveniently available to you in Google search. You can now quickly access more data with a broad range of queries. To see the new data, try queries like [gdp of indonesia], [life expectancy brazil], [rwanda's population growth], [energy use of iceland], [co2 emissions of iceland] and [gdp growth rate argentina].
15. Google Trends – Ex – Google flu trends