By Sandor Panton, ContributorJUST WHEN some thought they had seen it all in search engine development, along comes Google with another little surprise. The world's most popular search engine now has a built in calculator function.
Try it. While it will easily produce the result of a simple equation as simple as 100100, it can also handle complicated formulas and measurement unit conversions. In this regard, the Google calculator will quickly solve semi-structured alphanumeric queries such as "what is 100 squared" and "convert 100 miles to kilometres."
In a relatively short period, Google has become the search tool of choice to find just about anything, from images to price comparisons on products, to updated news.
Some of the more useful and interesting Google tricks and functions include:
The Google Zeitgeist http://www.google.com/press/zeitgeist.html The Zeitgeist is a compilation of the search trends and patterns of searchers that use Google. Organised by year, month, week and sometimes day, it gives interesting insight into what the more popular search terms were for a given period, reflecting this in numerous lists and graphs that are more than just fun to read.
Google News http:// news.google.com/ Who needs CNN when Google News is continuously providing summaries and links to the most popular current news items draw from over 4,500 sources.
Google Toolbar http:// toolbar.google.com/ This is a nifty shortcut to the regular Google search engine. With the toolbar and its built-in search box installed in your browser (Internet Explorer 5 or higher), you can search the web using Google, but without the inconvenience of having to go directly to the actual Google.Com page to start off your search.
Froogle http://froogle .google.com/ Simply put, Froogle is Google's e-commerce/shopping search engine, a tool that should be especially useful for on-line shoppers. It provides price details and a link to the specific store.
Google Answers http:// answers.google.com/ If you have a really hard question that you can't seem to find an answer for, chances are Google Answers will be able to help. It is a forum where researchers will do the 'grunt' work for you, and find the answer to your question for a small fee.
Google has a number of other popular and useful services including the Google Image Search, Google Translate, Google Catalogues and Google Groups, to name a few.
Sandor Panton is an Internet specialist and consultant. Send comments to him at feedback@jamaica-gleaner.com. This series is brought to you by www.go-jamaica.com, the portal web site of The Gleaner.
