Busnet Computer Club: newsletter

Today, modern "smart TV" sets come with advanced remotes that, in many cases, use Bluetooth wireless technology so that you don't even need "line of sight" to your television to adjust the settings. Prior to the introduction of wireless standard remote controls, however, infrared light ruled the living room for decades where it cheaply and efficiently enabled generations of TV watchers to aimlessly channel surf from the comfort of their couches.

Long before we had either of these things, however, the very first television remote was a much different affair that didn't employ any sort of wireless or light-based communication between the remote unit and the television set. Instead, it was tethered, quite literally, to the TV set by a long wire.

The very first TV remote was created by the Zenith Radio Corporation in 1950 and was, appropriately enough, called the "Lazy Bones". The remote was egg-shaped to fit into a closed hand with the buttons operated by the user's thumb. From the remote, which was tethered to the TV set by a 17 foot cable about the width and shape of a lamp's power cord, you could adjust the volume up or down and flick through the channels one by one as if turning the knob on the TV set by hand.

The remote cost $30 as an add-on for new compatible Zenith television sets. For the curious, that early 1950s $30 upgrade is equivalent to approximately $322 today when adjusted for inflation. For perspective, the TV seen in the photo here, Zenith's 1951 19-inch "Byron model" console, would have retailed for around $450 dollars (which is approximately $4,832 when adjusted for inflation). In the early days of television, these simple and small black and white sets were modern cutting edge technology equivalent to the wall-filling premium flat screen TVs of today.

Adobe Photoshop is the king of image editors and it costs a pretty penny. But don't worry, there are other online photo editors like Photoshop that work in your browser on any platform and are also free.

No, we aren't talking about the usual popular online Photoshop alternatives like PicMonkey, Pixlr, SumoPaint, and others. Instead, we're focusing on relatively little-known image editors that make it easy for anyone to apply basic effects on their photos. Naturally, none of these apps are going to be as powerful and full-featured as Photoshop itself. Adobe has hundreds of engineers working on a single product, while these online apps are usually labors of love. But each of these does a great job to become a free Photoshop alternative online.

There is no debate about this. Forget about Pixlr, forget about SumoPaint, forget about anything else you've tried. Once you use Photopea, you can't go back. It's the best free online editor like Photoshop, even giving you a similar look and feel. There are detailed tutorials available for it so that you can learn how to use any feature. All the popular Photoshop features are available, like clone stamp, layers, filters, and so on. You can even open a PSD file or save an image as PSD. Photopea's best part is that it does all its computation offline, so your pictures are never sent to the cloud. Open the website and that's it, the rest of the work is happening on your computer. That not only makes it faster than working online but also protects your data.

Photopea has been around for some time, but never really got its due. With its regular updates to add new features, it has been gaining more popularity. Hop on this bandwagon now. Chromebook users should especially give this one a whirl.

Mara slipped under most people's radar when it launched, but it's a brilliant and simple image editing app. If you're looking for a free online Photoshop alternative, it mimics many of the bigger software's features through a whole bunch of effects, filters, and tools. First, you need to select the effect you want to apply. You can find all the options listed on the homepage. There are the common image editing options like Resize, Crop, Rotate, Type, Pop, Vintage, Art etc.

You will also find many other features like Bulge/Pinch, Wave, Splitter, Color Tint, Bump, Palette Extractor, Optimize Palette, GIF Editor, APNG/AWebP Editor, Mirror, Kaleidoscope, ASCII Art, 3D Anaglyph, Glitcher, RAW, EXIF, PNG Metadata, Steganography, ANSI Art, and even a Vector Graphics Editor.

You can then upload the image from your desktop, cloud drive, or share a URL. Each effect has multiple tweaks you can make, choosing how deeply to apply the effect. And yes, once you apply an effect, you can transfer the image to another tool or effect.

The simple interface is great for novices, making Mara among the easiest online Photoshop alternatives for basic photo editing.

Remove BG is one of the best single-purpose online photo-editing apps available. It's almost magical. In Adobe Photoshop, the magic wand tool lets you select the main subject of an image and then remove the background in the picture. Well, Remove BG is the free online Photoshop alternative to do that in any browser.

You have to try it out to see how well it works. Upload a picture from your computer or paste a URL. Remove BG will work on it for a few minutes and then you'll get a result of the before and after version of the picture. You can download and save it to your computer for free, without any watermark. It's fantastic.

Remove BG is by far the best free Photoshop alternative online we've seen for this feature. Others don't offer the same accuracy or make you pay to remove watermarks. Bookmark this web app, you'll need it.

Photoshop's scripts make it easy to resize a batch of images quickly. If you want a free online Photoshop alternative for that, Image Toolbox has your back. The web app lets you resize a bunch of images at the same time. You can resize them based on specific resolutions for width or height, or by percentage of the original picture.

At the same time, Image Toolbox can also convert all images to JPEG or PNG, depending on what you want. As always, you can choose the quality of the JPEG or PNG file, which determines the file size too. One nice feature is that you don't need to re-upload the pictures if you don't get it right the first time. There's an option to "Re-edit and retry", which saves the time and energy of uploading a huge number of images a second time to get it right. That's a smart online photo editor offering a key feature of Photoshop.

Photoshop scripts make it easy to convert one image into several different sizes for different social media uses in one click. Promo created a handy online photo editor like Photoshop to make this free and simple.

It's surprisingly easy to use. First, upload a picture or add it from a URL. Then scroll down to select the types of image sizes you want. Promo has templates for everything you'd need in Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, YouTube, Pinterest, LinkedIn, Snapchat, Email and Blog, and Google Display Network. These include every type of profile picture, cover image, story and other space where you can upload the image.

The downloaded package of zipped files has the image type in the file name, so it's easy to know what to upload where. It's a fantastic tool that makes life much easier.

The multitude of options and features in Photoshop isn't for everyone. Many people need something simpler. For them, these free online Photoshop alternatives are a much better option as they do not require deep knowledge of image editing. In fact, the new trend seems to be to make online photo editors like Photoshop but without the confusing interface. You'll get all the features and tools, but a simpler way to apply them. The new Pixlr X and Pixlr E and the super-simple Doka are but two examples of such free and modern online photo editors that you should check out.

Free stuff is great. And you can easily find audiobooks for free online. But you don't just want to download any ole' free audiobooks. You want to listen to THE BEST free audiobooks! Right?

Audiobooks are so popular these days. Which means there are more ways than ever to enjoy them without going broke. But, as they say, you get what you pay for. And I've seen lots of listicles with websites to download free audiobooks that were really disappointing. Either the mentioned audiobook services were not available to everyone, the productions had bad quality, or the web sites simply looked illegal.

Not having to pay anything is only half of the story. Just like I don't watch every movie on Netflix only because it’s "free" for me, I don't listen to every audiobook just because I can download it for free. I want awesome stories and the best voice actors! I want to be thoroughly entertained!

So it was time to make my own list on how you can get audiobooks for free online that are really worth your time! On the following websites, you will find great selections of entertaining books performed by professional narrators. And you have so many titles to choose from that you're likely to find a bunch of new five-star listens, no matter which book genre you like.

Listen to Audible audiobooks of your choice for free! When you sign up to the AudiobookBoom email list you'll receive a weekly email with a selection of free audiobooks. Follow the link on the book you're interested in to get an Audible download code.

You don't even have to create an account, just click and listen! PodBean offers a selection of classics that are professionally narrated and produced. You can simply stream and listen to the audiobooks for free online or you can download the PodBean app and listen on your phone.

More free Audible audiobooks! This is a new website to download free audiobooks. You can choose from a list of books and request Audible book codes. You'll then receive the code directly from the author or narrator via email and download the audiobook for free from Audible.

Hassle-free Audible codes! Audiobooks Unleashed is a fantastic website and probably my favorite on this list. Their service is particularly user-friendly and they have a huge selection of audiobooks from all genres. Unlike the previous sites, you don't even have to search around in your inbox or wait for your code. Just look through the lists on the website, pick an audiobook, and you'll instantly receive a code for the Audible marketplace of your choice.

Audible itself offers a selection of audiobooks for free online that don't require a membership or subscription. The link above takes you directly to their page of actually free audiobooks.

Free Audiobooks for Teenagers! This is a special project from AudioFile magazine for teenagers. Throughout summer, popular audiobooks from big publishers become available every week. But you need a U.S. library card for this one!

Audiobook review copies are a little known but absolutely awesome thing! Indie authors, narrators, and publishers give you an audiobook for free (usually in the form of an Audible promo code). And you return the favor by leaving an honest review on Audible to help other listeners make their buying decision.

The best way to find review copies are Facebook groups. And don't worry, writing an Audible review isn't all that difficult. No one will expect you to write a long book discussion! You can usually be done in three to five minutes. Check out my list with the best places to find audiobook review copies!

Many libraries work with Overdrive Libby or Hoopla so you can get ebooks or audiobooks for free online from your local library. Please check your library's website to find out which digital program they are part of and how you can access their audiobooks.

Free trials are always a fantastic thing! And what's particularly great about the following subscriptions is that you can listen to as many audiobooks as you want during your free 30 day trial. However, once your trial month ends, you won’t have access to any of these audiobooks anymore. Think of it as a Netflix for audiobooks. You can only browse the catalogs while you are signed up.

You might or might not find one of these services so great for you, that it's worth the following monthly subscription cost. I recommend all of them to audiobook fans. Which one's best for you depends on your personal taste!

Chances are, you already have a Kindle Unlimited subscription. Make sure you check out the free audiobooks that are included! However, if you didn't take a closer look at Kindle Unlimited yet, the included audiobooks are definitely worth that free trial. Kindle Unlimited is perfect if you like to mix things up and want to listen to audiobooks from many different genres and discover new authors.

Audible Plus is Audible's new unlimited audiobook subscription. You can choose from thousands of Audible Originals and Audible Studios productions and you can listen to as many audiobooks as you like. If you have an Audible membership already, Audible Plus is entirely free for you!

Unlike the two other subscriptions, Scribd isn't actually fully unlimited. There are some rules in place. Unfortunately, Scribd isn't very forthcoming with information on how much or which kind of titles you can listen to before certain audiobooks become unavailable for that billing period. That being said, Scribd offers audiobooks for lots of popular, hyped titles from big publishing houses for a very fair monthly fee.

A great way to get specific audiobooks for free online are trial months with audiobook stores. All big websites offer free trials, and authors and narrators get paid when you listen to their audiobooks during your test month (but not if you return a book to get another one!). If there's a specific audiobook you want, grab a test month with one of these stores to get it for free and keep it!

Audible is the biggest audiobook store and you'll find pretty much anything you want here. During your test month, you get a free audiobook that you can pick from their entire catalog, and you get access to the entire unlimited Audible Plus catalog as well. After canceling the subscription, you'll keep the audiobook you bought with a credit and can re-listen to it in the Audible app as often as you like. Audible often offers special deals when you cancel your membership!

Like Audible, you can choose one free audiobook from the entire catalog. You can also download one additional title from a monthly changing selection of audiobooks free of charge. However, you don’t get to keep this second audio-book after canceling your membership. You can keep and relisten to the audiobook you bought for your free credit.

Libro.fm works pretty much the same way as Audible and Audiobooks.com. The big difference is that you support an indie bookstore of your choice instead of Amazon or Google. They often have awesome offers and deals, too! So, I recommend you check this audiobook store out and grab an audiobook for free here.

Today we think about word processors in terms of sophisticated text editing applications that we may use to actually print something (but might just as easily use to create an internal document for our company that is never printed, a newsletter that will be converted to PDF and emailed, or any other number of things that never result in an actual printed document).

The first word processing program was most certainly print-oriented, however, as it was written specifically to output text to a typewriter. It seems archaic in the modern world where a printer may or may not even factor into one's creation of a document, but in 1961 when Steve Piner and L. Peter Deutsch wrote "Expensive Typewriter" as a program for the DEC PDP-1, a double refrigerator sized computer, the sole purpose of the program was to take digitally created text and output it to an IBM Selectric electric typewriter (a letter-quality printer). Why nickname the application "Expensive Typewriter"? At the time, the DEC PDP-1 cost approximately $100,000.

The first webcam, like many inventions, was built to save time. Back in the 1990s, the Computer Laboratory at the University of Cambridge had a rather inconveniently located break room, known to faculty and students as the Trojan Room. In 1991, Quentin Stafford-Fraser and Paul Jardetzky collaborated to put an end to the frustration of trudging across the entire building to the Trojan Room only to find out that the coffee pot was empty. Using the X-Windows protocol running under the Unix operating system, they wrote a client/server model that broadcast a simple low-resolution video feed of the coffee pot over the local network.

Two years later in 1993 when early web browsers adopted in-line image display, the camera setup received an upgrade. Daniel Gordon and Martyn Johnson connected the camera via streaming server to the Internet; it began serving up live shots of the coffee pot at the rate of one frame per second. Although checking to see if a pot of coffee was full or not might seem like a trivial thing to modern media-saturated Internet users, the Cambridge coffee pot was one of the most visited websites on the early Internet.

The coffee-cam remained online from 1993 until 2001 when the computer department moved to new facilities.

You might think it would have been San Francisco or another American city but, in the early 2000s major cities around the world were dropping press releases filled with their plans to build free and far-reaching municipal Wi-Fi networks to serve all their citizens. Jerusalem beat everyone to the punch in 2004 with the launch of the world's first city-wide Wi-Fi network.

Trailing Jerusalem by just a few months, Mysore became India's first Wi-Fi enabled city and shortly after that Sunnyvale, California became the first Wi-Fi enabled city in the United States. Since then dozens of cities around the world have set up municipal Wi-Fi systems including Singapore, Luxembourg, Paris, Venice, Toronto, Denver, Houston, and Philadelphia.

These days we are used to being inundated with spam messages - unsolicited advertisements that pile up behind our email spam filters every day. In the early days of computing, however, it was considered poor form to waste precious resources with such commercial pandering. All that changed in 1978 when a young Gary Turk fired off an unsolicited email to 400 people on ARPANET (the precursor to the Internet) pitching his new line of personal computers.

The email proved so unpopular, and the backlash against sending an unsolicited commercial email was so great, it was over a decade before anyone else tried their luck with shotgunning commercial emails out over the network.

Whether you use Google search for research or entertainment, you should know that it has tremendous capabilities that extend far beyond simple keywords and phrases. You may have already delved into various tabs that help narrow down your search by Image, News, Video and more, but did you know that there are over a dozen other tricks to maximize your search efficiency?

Want to know the basketball score? Just type in the name of your team. Need a PDF guide on creating a website? Simply use filetype:pdf create a website and Google will search for that specific file type. Don't settle for a quick result without tapping into everything Google search has to offer. By using the search engine more efficiently, you will not only improve the time it takes you to find exactly what you need but also the quality of the content you are searching for.

Sometimes you just want to find exactly what you're searching for, without related suggestions. To do this, simply use quotes to minimize the guesswork. This tells Google to search for the entire phrase as it is written. For example, if you search for The way the web was meant to be, the Google engine will look for any of these keywords in a variety of order and positions on different sites. However, if you place the same phrase in quotations, it will search for the sentence exactly as you typed it. This will let you find specific information that may not be sorted correctly.

The English language contains dozens of ambiguous words that are open to interpretation. Bright could mean shiny or intelligent. Mustang could be a horse or a car made by Ford. To remove results that are not relevant to your search, simply add a hyphen (-) to tell the search engine to ignore content with specific keywords. For example, Jaguar -animal will remove results that include any animal references, leaving you with pages containing nothing but the finest British automobiles.

There may come a time you need to find articles or references specifically within a particular website. This is used largely to perform research about company pages that have tons of content and is very simple to implement. Let's say you want to find all information related to SEO on www.wix.com without having to flip through every blog and article. Simply type site:wix.com seo in the search engine and it will bring up everything on the company's website related to SEO, while removing any other websites.

Do you ever want to know which websites contain links to your website? Well, this fun query will let you do that in an instant. Perhaps you have a blog or article published somewhere and you want to see who is referencing it. Simply type link:yourblogarticle in the search engine and it will bring up every site on the internet that links back to your article. You will probably not use this trick very often, but it is extremely useful when you need it.

If you're wondering whether you should eat the pizza or hamburger, Google can help you decide by giving you the nutritional information of the food you are searching for. Simply type the name of your favorite food and Google will give you a breakdown of calories, fat, cholesterol and vitamin information so you can make a more informed decision about what you are eating. You can search for nearly any type of food, from fruits and vegetables to bacon and chocolate cake.

Google is one smart cookie. Not only does it index every public page on the internet, it also has time to perform all kinds of calculations. You can ask it basic questions like how many litres are in a gallon? or even complex equations like what is the square root of 423?. We don't recommend you use it on your next calculus assignment, but it is a handy tool when you need to do some quick math without overwhelming your brain or when you simply don't have a calculator near by.

You don't need fancy apps to help you translate foreign languages. With an internet connection readily available everywhere, Google provides a simple solution to help you communicate in any language. If you are using your mobile phone, you can even take advantage of the voice activated feature to translate whatever you are listening to. Simply type translate in the search window before the phrase you want to translate and watch how Google works its magic.

Google image search is the newest addition to finding what you're looking for on the web. By simply uploading an image to the search bar, you can find similar images, sites that include your image, and other sizes of the image you searched for. This tool also works very well on mobiles if you are on the go and want to find the origin of a poster you see on the street, or perhaps do a quick background check on the online match you're talking with to make sure they're not lying about their identity.

Have I Been Pwned? (HIBP, with "Pwned" pronounced like "poned", and alternatively written with the capitalization 'have i been pwned?') is a website that allows internet users to check whether their personal data has been compromised by data breaches. The service collects and analyzes hundreds of database dumps and pastes containing information about billions of leaked accounts, and allows users to search for their own information by entering their username or email address. Users can also sign up to be notified if their email address appears in future dumps. The site has been widely touted as a valuable resource for internet users wishing to protect their own security and privacy.

Have I Been Pwned? was created by security expert Troy Hunt on in 2013. As of June 2019, Have I Been Pwned? has averaged around one hundred and sixty thousand daily visitors; the site has nearly three million active email subscribers and contains records of almost eight billion accounts.

The primary function of Have I Been Pwned? is to provide the general public with a means to check if their private information has been leaked or compromised. Visitors to the website can enter an email address, and see a list of all known data breaches with records tied to that email address. The website also provides details about each data breach, such as the backstory of the breach and what specific types of data were included in it.

Have I Been Pwned? also offers a "notify me" service that allows visitors to subscribe to notifications about future breaches. Once someone signs up with this notification mailing service, they will receive an email message any time their personal information is found in a new data breach.

In September 2014, Hunt added functionality that enabled new data breaches to be automatically added to HIBP's database. The new feature used Dump Monitor, a Twitter bot which detects and broadcasts likely password dumps found on pastebin pastes, to automatically add new potential breaches in real time. Data breaches often show up on pastebins before they are widely reported on; thus, monitoring this source allows consumers to be notified sooner if they've been compromised.

Along with detailing which data breach events the email account has been affected by, the website also points those who appear in their database search to install a password manager, namely 1Password, which Troy Hunt has recently endorsed. An online explanation on his website explains his motives and maintains that monetary gain is not the goal of this partnership.

In August 2017, Hunt made public 306 million passwords which could be accessed via a web search or downloadable in bulk. In February 2018, British computer scientist Junade Ali created a communication protocol (using k-anonymity and cryptographic hashing) to anonymously verify if a password was leaked without fully disclosing the searched password. This protocol was implemented as a public API in Hunt's service and is now consumed by multiple websites and services including password managers and browser extensions. This approach was later replicated by Google's Password Checkup feature. Ali worked with academics at Cornell University to formally analyse the protocol to identify limitations and develop two new versions known as Frequency Size Bucketization and Identifier Based Bucketization. In March 2020, cryptographic padding was added to this protocol.

It is packed with features not available on Windows Media Player and is free to download from the official VLC website.

Recently I finally managed to get my high end ASUS audio device to work on my PC. However I was not able to find the very nice equaliser software that originally went with it.

I downloaded the latest VLC software and found the tools I was looking for including a 10 point equaliser with additional presets. These are Live, Flat, Dance, Classical, Full Bass, Full Treble, Headphones, Large Hall, Party, Pop, Reggae, Rock, Ska, Soft Rock and Techno.

The program will also save personal settings. The video and audio menus are packed with tools that will satisfy the most demanding audio or video buff.

In case you ever lose your phone or it is stolen, having your IMEI (International Mobile Equipment Identity) number will make it easier for the police to identity it and get it back to you. It is a 15 digit number specific to your phone. If you have this written down somewhere safe that you will remember, you can quote it to the police if your phone is lost or stolen.

To find out what your IMEI is, either look on the packaging which came with your phone, or press *#06# and then call or send

Can't remember your mobile number? Dial #150# and press call. This will give you the number of the phone you are dialling from.

From Telstra News: how to block your number when calling someone. Perhaps you've received a call from a number you don't recognise, and you want to call back to check who it is without revealing your number. You can do this on both your home phone and mobile phone.

From a home phone, dial 1831 then the number you're calling
From a mobile phone, dial #31# then the number you're calling

Most mobile phones include a "show my caller ID" settings in the settings, which you can turn off.

For an iPhone, this is located in Settings > Phone > Show My Caller ID
For Android phones, this is located in Phone > Settings > Call Settings > More Settings > Caller ID (or similar)

For home phones, you can ask your service provider to hide your number when you call others permanently. This should also block your details so that your name, phone number and address are not published in the White Pages directory or on directory assistance services. Telstra no longer charges to do this.

In grave emergencies, your mobile phone can be a lifesaver or an emergency tool for survival.

The emergency number worldwide for all mobile phones is 112. If you find yourself out of the coverage area of your mobile network and there is an emergency, dial 112 and your mobile will search any existing network in your area to establish the emergency number for you, and interestingly this number 112 can be dialed even if the keypad is locked. This works on all phones worldwide and is free.

If you lock your remote keyless car keys in the car and the spare keys are at home, call someone at home on their mobile phone from your mobile phone. Hold your mobile phone about 30 centimetres from your car door and have the person at your home press the unlock button on the spare key, holding it near the mobile phone on their end. Your car will unlock. Saves someone from having to drive your keys to you. Distance is no object. You could be thousands of miles away.

All handphones have hidden battery power. To activate, press the keys *3370# (remember the asterisk). Do this when the phone is almost dead. Your mobile will restart in a special way with this new reserve and the instrument will show a 50% increase in battery life. This reserve will be recharged when you charge your handphone next time. This secret is in the fine print in most phone manuals which we skip without realising.

To check your handphone's serial number, key in following digits on your phone: *#06# (ensure you put an asterisk before the #06# sequence). A 15 digit code will appear on the screen that is unique to your handset. Write it down and keep it somewhere safe. If your handphone is ever stolen, phone your service provider and give them this code. They will then be able to block your handset so even if the SIM is changed, your handphone will be totally useless. And even if you don't get your phone back, at least it can't be used/resold either. If everybody did this, there would be no point in people stealing mobile phones. This secret is also in the fine print of most mobile phone manuals. It was created for the very purpose of trying to prevent phones from being stolen.

If you should ever be forced by a robber to withdraw money from an ATM machine, you can notify the police by entering your PIN number in reverse. For example, if your pin number is 1234, then you would put in 4321. The ATM system recognises that your PIN number is backwards from the ATM card you placed in the machine. The machine will still give you the money you requested but unknown to the robber, the police will be immediately dispatched to the location. All ATMs carry this emergency sequencer by law. This information was recently broadcast by Crime Stoppers. It is, however, seldom used as people just don't know about it.

This is the kind of information people don't mind receiving, so pass it on to your family and friends.

Problem with your iPhone? Look up this site for several easy ways to fix it yourself.

Millions of people use Google search every day for a variety of reasons. Students use it for school, business people use it for research, and millions more use it for entertainment. Did you know that you may not be using Google search to its full potential? Here are twenty tips and tricks to maximize your search efficiency.

The first tip is to use the tabs in Google search. On the top of every search are a number of tabs. Usually you'll see Web, Image, News, and More. Using these tabs, you can help define what kind of search you need to do. If you need images, use the Image tab. If you are looking for a recent news article, use the News tab. It's rudimentary and most people use the tabs already. If you are not, then it's highly recommended to get associated with them. They can cut search times dramatically if utilised properly.

When searching for something specific, try using quotes to minimise the guesswork for Google search. When you put your search parameters in quotes, it tells the search engine to search for the whole phrase. For instance, if you search for Puppy Dog Sweaters, the engine will search for content that contains those three words in any order. However, if you search “Puppy Dog Sweaters”, it will search for that phrase exactly as you typed it. This can help locate specific information that may be buried under other content if not sorted out correctly.

Sometimes you may find yourself searching for a word with an ambiguous meaning. An example is Mustang. When you Google search for Mustang, you may get results for both the car made by Ford or the horse. If you want to cut one out, use the hyphen to tell the engine to ignore content with one of the other. For example Mustang -car tells the search engine to search for mustangs but to remove any results that have the word "car" in it. It can be wildly helpful when finding information about something without getting information about something else.

There may be an instance where you need to search for articles or content on a certain website. The syntax is very simple as we see here: Sidney Crosby site:nhl.com will search for all content about famous hockey player Sidney Crosby, but only on NHL.com. All other search results will be removed. If you need to find specific content on a particular site, this is the shortcut you can use.

This Google search tip is a little obscure. Instead of searching for a specific page, you're searching for a page that links to a specific page. Think about it this way. If you want to see who cited a New York Times article on their site, you would use this trick to find all the sites that link to it. The syntax is link:nytimes.com. That will return all pages that link to the New York Times official website. The URL on the right side can be practically anything. Be aware, though, that the more specific it is, the fewer results you'll get. We know not a lot of people will likely use this Google search trick, but it could be very useful for some.

The asterisk wildcard is one of the most useful ones on the list. Here's how it works. When you use an asterisk in a search term on Google search, it will leave a placeholder that may be automatically filled by the search engine later. This is a brilliant way to find song lyrics if you don't know all the words. You could type: Come * right now * me. To you or me, that may look like nonsense. However Google will search for that phrase knowing that the asterisks can be any word. More often than not, you'll find they are lyrics to The Beatles song "Come Together" and that's what the search will tell you.

This is a unique one that could be used by practically everyone if they knew it existed. Let's say you have a favorite website; it can be anything. However that website is getting a little bit boring and you want to find other websites like it. If you entered: related:amazon.com you won't find a link to Amazon; instead, you'll find links to online stores like Amazon. Sites like Barnes & Noble, Best Buy, and others that sell physical items online. It's a powerful tool that can help you find new sites to browse.

As a college student, I can attest that I use this one rather frequently. Google search can actually do math for you. This is a rather complex one to describe because it can be used in so many ways. You can ask it basic questions or some more difficult ones. It is important to note that it won't solve all math problems, but it will solve a good number of them. Here are a couple of examples of the syntax:

8 * 5 + 5 will return 45. It will also show a calculator that you can use to find answers to more questions. This is handy if you need to do some quick math but don't want to do it in your head.

So it can do math, but it can also help you solve math problems by showing values for known mathematical terms.

Google search is flexible. It knows you may not find what you want by searching only a single word or phrase. Thus it lets you search for multiples. By using this trick, you can search for one word or phrase along with a second word or phrase. This can help narrow down your search to help you find exactly what you're looking for. Here is the syntax. “Best ways to prepare for a job interview” OR “How to prepare for a job interview” By searching that, you will search both phrases. Remember the quotes tip above? It’s being used here as well. In this instance, these two exact phrases will be searched. It can be .done by word too, like this: chocolate OR white chocolate This will search for pages that have either chocolate or white chocolate!

Searching for a range of numbers is another tip we don't anticipate a lot of people using. The people that do use it, though, will probably use it quite a bit. People interested 'n money or statistics will find this tip particularly useful. Essentially, you use two dots and a number to let Google search know you’re looking for a specific range of numbers. Like this:

In the first instance, the search will return the team that won the Stanley Cup in 2004. The two dots with only one number will tell the search that you don't need anything before or after 2004. This can help narrow down searches to a specific number to improve search results. In the second, Google will search for the numbers 41, 42, and 43. It is obscure, but wildly useful if you happen to need to search for numbers like this.

Now we are getting into the general tips. Google search knows how to search for a lot of things. What this means is you don't need to be too specific. If you need a pizza place nearby, use Pizza places nearby. Google search will grab your location and deliver a variety of results about pizza places that are near you.

There will come a time when Google search doesn't shovel out the results you expect. In this instance, keeping it simple may not be the best option. The best method is to start with something simple then gradually get more complicated. For example:

First try: job interviews
Second try: prepare for job interviews
Third try: how to prepare for a job interview

This will gradually refine the search to bring you fewer, more targeted terms. The reason you don't go straight from the first try to the third try is because you may miss what you're looking for by skipping the second step. Millions of websites phrase the same information in a number of different ways; using this technique lets you search as many of them as possible to find the best information.

This is a very important one. When people use Google search to hunt the web, they generally search for things using the same language that they would use for speaking. Unfortunately, websites don't say things the way people do; instead, they try to use language that sounds professional. Let's look at some examples.

I have a flat tire could be replaced by repair a flat tire.
My head hurts could be replaced by headache relief.

The way Google search works is to take what you search for and match it with keywords in online content. When you search for too many words, it may limit your results. That means it may actually take you longer to find what you're looking for. So it is better to use only the important words when searching for something. For example:

Don't use: Where can I find a Chinese restaurant that delivers rather try: Chinese restaurants nearby or Chinese restaurants near me.

Doing this can help Google find what you need without all the clutter. So remember, keep it simple and use important words only.

A number of commands can be entered to give you instantaneous results. Like the math example above, Google can immediately give you the information you need that is displayed right at the top of the search results. This can save time and effort so you don't have to click a bunch of bothersome links. Here are a few examples of some commands you can enter into Google:

Weather *zip code* - this will show you the weather in the given zip code. You can also use town and city names instead of area codes, but it may not be as accurate if there are multiple area codes in the city.

What is *celebrity name* Bacon Number - this is a fun little one that will tell you how many connections any given celebrity has to famed actor Kevin Bacon. The popular joke, Six Degrees of Kevin Bacon, is that no actor is more than 6 connections away from Kevin Bacon. Mark Zuckerberg has a Bacon Number of 3.

What is the definition of *word* or Define: *word* - this will display the definition of a word.

You can check any stock by typing its ticker name into Google. If you search for GOOG, it will check the stock prices for Google.

These quick commands can take a web search that is usually multiple clicks and condense it into a single search. This is very helpful for information you need repeatedly.

Google search has gotten a lot smarter over the years. These days, you don't even need to spell words correctly. As long as it's pretty close, Google can usually figure out what it means. For example if you search Nver Gna Gve Yo Up Google will automatically assume you mean to search for “Never Gonna Give You Up.” If by chance your misspelling was intentional, Google gives you the option to search for the misspelled term instead. This trick is great if you happen to forget how to spell something or are not altogether sure how something is spelled. It can also be helpful when searching for obscure words. This applies to capitalization and grammar as well.

An often forgotten feature of Google search is the ability to search for a specific file or file type. This can be infinitely useful if you need a specific PDF or PowerPoint file that you previously viewed or need to use for another project. The syntax is quite simple:

In the above example, you simply replace the search term with whatever you're searching for. Then use the filetype command and enter the extension of any file type you can think of. This can mostly be useful for scholarly purposes, but business presentations and other assorted presentations can benefit from this kind of search as well.

Google search can quickly and accurately convert both measurement units and currency value. There are a variety of uses for this, like checking to see the conversion rate between two currencies. If you happen to be a math student, you can use it to convert from feet to meters or from ounces to liters. Here's how to do it:

miles to km - this will show the conversion factor for miles to kilometers. You can put numbers in front to convert a certain number. 10 miles to km will show you how many kilometers are in ten miles.

USD to British Pound Sterling will convert a US dollar to British pounds. Like the measurements above, you can add numbers to find exact conversions for a certain amount of money. It's true that this tip is geared toward math students and international business people. However, you'd be surprised how often this feature is used by regular people.

Our last trick is to use Google search to find out where your packages are. You can enter any UPS, USPS, or Fedex tracking number directly into the Google search bar, and it will show you the tracking information about your package. This is much easier than going to the specific sites, waiting for them to load, then searching for your packages there. No examples are really needed for this one. Just type your tracking number in and see where your package is.

Google search is a very powerful search tool. Using the tips outlined above, you can find anything and everything you could ever need on the World Wide Web. Whether it's avoiding Wikipedia for a school essay project, finding the latest stock prices, or even finding song lyrics, there is a way to make Google search work for you.