RE: [cobalt-users] Had Enough of Dan Kriwitsky (NOT !)

["Dan Kriwitsky" <webhosting@xxxxxxxxx>]

> Hey Dan, would you happen to have any links for tutorials on advanced
> search techniques, or would you consider writing one yourself? I have
> been around this list for about 7 months, and I too have been amazed
> at how well you can find things. I have always considered myself a
> pretty good researcher, but I concurr that most of us could learn alot
> from you, especially when it comes to using search tools.

I've had to get good at it since I'm no Linux expert. The other reason I
learned early on was I made the mistake of posting to one of the
comp.infosystems.* newsgroups a few years ago and got my a$$ kicked for not
being able to find what I was looking for in a search engine. Since I was
just starting out on this stuff I spent some serious time learning where to
look.

It's basically a kind of Sherlock Holmes thing. Looking very carefully at
the subject and trying to find specific keywords to search on which aren't
too general. In the case of the Cobalt archives, I try to use the exact
phrase from an error message that isn't too general. Maybe the 4th, 5th and
6th words instead of the beginning which usually contains the word "error"
and returns too many results. Try searching the archive for anything and
include a word like error and you'll get tons of results from posts with
very general subjects. (One reason the META FAQ pointer on using very
specific subjects is important if the archive is to be useful.)
In that case, try searching for "Illegal division by zero" instead of
"script error" and you'll get fewer results.

Another example, Google's advanced search is helpful for searching the
Cobalt archives, http://www.google.com/advanced_search.html or if you know
the format, you can enter "include.conf site:cobalt.com" (without the
quotes) in Google's main search box which leads to the helpful post:
http://list.cobalt.com/pipermail/cobalt-users/2000-October/024470.html
In the above case I happened to remember that someone had used the term
"include.conf" for the way they accomplish the often requested method of
adding sites without the GUI or redirecting to a sub-directory.

I'm sure there are some sites out there, probably in about.com on search
tips. I'll leave it as a search exercise for anyone to find a few links.
--
Dan Kriwitsky