Top 10 Obscure Google Search Tricks

10. Get the local time anywhere

What time is it in Bangkok right now? Ask Google. Enter simply what time is it to get the local time in big cities around the world, or add the locale at the end of your query, like what time is it hong kong to get the local time there.

9. Track flight status

Enter the airline and flight number into the Google search box and get back the arrival and departure times right inside Google's search results.

8. Convert currency, metrics, bytes, and more

Google's powerful built-in converter calculator can help you out whether you're cooking dinner, traveling abroad, or building a PC. Find out how many teaspoons are in a quarter cup (quarter cup in teaspoons) or how many seconds there are in a year (seconds in a year) or how many euros there are to five dollars (5 USD in Euro). For the geekier set, bits in kilobytes (155473 bytes in kilobytes) and numbers in hex or binary (19 in binary) are also pretty useful.

7. Compare items with "better than" and find similar items with "reminds me of"

Reader Adam taps the wisdom of the crowds by searching for like items using key phrases. He writes in:

Simply search for, in quotes: "better than _keyword_"

Some example results:

Results 1 - 100 of about 550 English pages for " better than WinAmp".

Results 1 - 57 of 57 English pages for " better than mIRC".

Results 1 - 100 of about 17,500 English pages for " better than Digg". (Wow. Poor Digg.)

The results will almost always lead you to discovering alternatives to whatever it is you're searching for. Using the same concept, you can use this trick to discover new music or movies. For example, " reminds me of _someband_" or "sounds like _someband_" will pull up artists people have thought sounded similar to the one you typed in. This is also a great way to find good, no-name musicians you'd probably never know of otherwise.

Examples:

Results 1 - 88 of 88 English pages for " reminds me of Metallica".

Results 1 - 36 of 36 English pages for " similar to Garden State".

Results 1 - 66 of 66 English pages for " sounds like The Shins".

Just get creative and you'll, without a doubt, find cool new stuff you probably never knew existed.

6. Use Google as a free proxy

What, your company blocks that hip new web site just because it drops the F bomb occasionally? Use Google's cache to take a peek even when the originating site's being blocked, with cache:example.com.

5. Remove affiliate links from product searches

When you're sick of seeing duplicate product search results from the likes of eBay, Bizrate, Pricerunner, and Shopping.com, clear 'em out by stacking up the -site:ebay.com -site:bizrate.com -site:shopping.com operator. Alternately, check out Give Me Back My Google (original post), a service that does all that known reseller cleaning up for you when you search for products. Compare this GMBMG search for a Cruzer 1GB flash drive to the regular Google results.

4. Find related terms and documents

Ok, this one's direct from any straight-up advanced search operator cheat sheet, but it's still one of the lesser-used tricks in the book. Adding a tilde (~) to a search term will return related terms. For example, Googling ~nutrition returns results with the words nutrition, food, and health in them.

3. Find music and comic books

Using a combination of advanced search operators that specify music files available in an Apache directory listing, you can turn Google into your personal Napster. Go ahead, try this search for Nirvana tracks: -inurl:(htm|html|php) intitle:"index of" +"last modified" +"parent directory" +description +size +(wma|mp3) "Nirvana". (Sub out Nirvana for the band you're interested in; use this one in conjunction with number 7 to find new music, too.) The same type of search recipe can find comic books as well.

2. ID people, objects, and foreign language words and phrases with Google Image Search

Google Image search results show you instead of tell you about a word. Don't know what jicama looks like? Not sure if the person named "Priti" who you're emailing with is a woman or a man? Spanish rusty and you forgot what "corazon" is? Pop your term into Google Image Search (or type image jicama into the regular search box) to see what your term's about.

1. Make Google recognize faces

If you're doing an image search for Paris Hilton and don't want any of the French city, a special URL parameter in Google's Image search will do the trick. Add &imgtype=face to the end of your image search to just get images of faces, without any inanimate objects. Try it out with a search for rose (which returns many photos of flowers) versus rose with the face parameter. What's your favorite ninja Google search technique? Tell us about it in the comments

Free Tools to Manage New Year's Resolutions

To reach the goals you've set out for yourself in '08, follow through each and every one of the next 365 days—several free tools can help you with just that. Track your progress and help motivate yourself to stick to your New Year's resolutions with our favorite goal tracking webapps and tools. More >>>

How to Set Up Your New Computer

Trick out your new rig with our favorite system tweaks and downloads for Windows XP, Vista, Mac, and Linux.

Windows XP and Vista

• Top 10 Free Windows Downloads
  "Our top picks of free Windows software downloads that will make your PC faster, stronger, more functional and productive."
• Power Replacements for Built-in Windows Utilities
  "How many times have you wished Notepad had tabs, Paint supported layers or Windows Explorer let you bookmark frequently-used folders? Power users need power utilities, and Windows' default system programs barely get the job done. Over time third-party developers have stepped up and built superior replacements to programs like Notepad, Paint, Windows Explorer and the Command Prompt."
• Top Windows tweaks
  "Hop in for a quick ride around Windows dialogs, tabs, menus and toolbars to get your XP fitting like a glove."
• Windows Vista Power Tips
  "After weeks of test-driving Windows Vista full-time, there are several tips and tweaks I wish I'd known before I started."
• Top 10 Free Windows File Wranglers
  "Windows Explorer and its weak band of file manipulation functions just doesn't cut the mustard for people with lots of data and only a little time, but several free utilities can help out."
• Automatically Load and Update Your Windows Systems
  "One of the best parts of getting a new computer for the holidays--other than that new computer smell--is setting up a fresh, clean system exactly how you want it." More >>>
  

Linux Directory Structure

The directory structure of Linux/other Unix-like systems is very intimidating for the new user, especially if he/she is migrating from Windows. In Windows, almost all programs install their files (all files) in the directory named: `Program Files.’ Such is not the case in Linux. The directory system categorises all installed files. All configuration files are in /etc, all binary files are in /bin or /usr/bin or /usr/local/bin. Here is the entire directory structure along with what they contain:

/ - Root directory that forms the base of the file system. All files and directories are logically contained inside the root directory regardless of their physical locations.

/bin - Contains the executable programs that are part of the Linux operating system. Many Linux commands, such as cat, cp, ls, more, and tar, are locate in /bin

/boot - Contains the Linux kernel and other files needed by LILO and GRUB boot managers.

/dev - Contains all device files. Linux treats each device as a special file. All such files are located in /dev.

/etc - Contains most system configuration files and the initialisation scripts in /etc/rc.d subdirectory.

/home - Home directory is the parent to the home directories of users.

/lib - Contains library files, including loadable driver modules needed to boot the system.

/lost+found - Directory for lost files. Every disk partition has a lost+found directory.

/media - Directory for mounting files systems on removable media like CD-ROM drives, floppy disks, and Zip drives.

/mnt - A directory for temporarily mounted filesystems.

/opt - Optional software packages copy/install files here.

/proc - A special directory in a virtual filesystem. It contains the information about various aspects of a Linux system.

/root - Home directory of the root user.

/sbin - Contains administrative binary files. Commands such as mount, shutdown, umount, reside here.

/srv - Contains data for services (HTTP, FTP, etc.) offered by the system.

/sys - A special directory that contains information about the devices, as seen by the Linux kernel.

/tmp - Temporary directory which can be used as a scratch directory (storage for temporary files). The contents of this directory are cleared each time the system boots.

/usr - Contains subdirectories for many programs such as the X Window System.

/usr/bin - Contains executable files for many Linux commands. It is not part of the core Linux operating system.

/usr/include - Contains header files for C and C++ programming languages

/usr/lib - Contains libraries for C and C++ programming languages.

/usr/local - Contains local files. It has a similar directories as /usr contains.

/usr/sbin - Contains administrative commands.

/usr/share - Contains files that are shared, like, default configuration files, images, documentation, etc.

/usr/src - Contains the source code for the Linux kernel.

/var - Contains various system files such as log, mail directories, print spool, etc. which tend to change in numbers and size over time.

/var/cache - Storage area for cached data for applications.

/var/lib - Contains information relating to the current state of applications. Programs modify this when they run.

/var/lock - Contains lock files which are checked by applications so that a resource can be used by one application only.

/var/log - Contains log files for differenct applications.

/var/mail - Contains users’ emails.

/var/opt - Contains variable data for packages stored in /opt directory.

/var/run - Contains data describing the system since it was booted.

/var/spool - Contains data that is waiting for some kind of processing.

/var/tmp - Contains temporary files preserved between system reboots.