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Homework Page
Homework Week 6
Google Search
Google Search has many different search options to make searches more efficient. They have standardized many common search queries such as weather, time, sunrise, sunset, and definition of words. For most of these you can type a single word such as "define" then type any word you want a definition of. Time will give you the time anywhere in the world, and sunrise and sunset will let you type in any place in the world and get that information. If you type in "earthquake" followed by a location or zip code it will give you details of the most recent earthquake there. Type in "map" with a location and you get the map of that location. You can also get public data such as unemployment rates and population for specific U.S. cities and states.
You can type in author names, people, bands and sports teams and get information on them. Also you can type in stock ticker symbols and get the current market data for it.
There is a calculator where you can type an equation in and get an answer plus a currency convertor and measurement convertor.
For entertainment you can type in "movies" and your zip code and get show times while you can also type in a type of food or business with your zip and get reviews and contact information.
They also have some good public health references such as medication identification (type in the medication name), poison control hotline info, suicide prevention, various diseases and medical conditions, and if you type in "flu" it will show you nearby locations to get a flu shot.
Two other useful searches are flight status where you can type in the airline and flight number, and package tracking for UPS, Fedex and USPS. Patent numbers can also be searched for.
It will also automatically spell check any word you type into the search box.
There are various query refinements you can use to make your searches more specific. Google will ignore common words such as the, a, where and how. If you want those words (or any) included you can put a "+" sign in front. You can as Google to fill in the blank by putting an asterisk "*" at the end of the sentence. If you want pages that are related to a certain website just type "related:" in front of the website.
There are also advanced search techniques to narrow down your results. If you put quotes around you a phrase it will search for that exact phrase. To search within a specific site type "site:". To exclude terms use the minus (-) such as in [impala -car]. That will search for impala but exclude results about cars. To search for something exactly as you type it use a plus (+) sign. If you want either one of several words you can type OR in all caps.