Short Review

Google: The Missing Manual
By Sarah Milstein, Rael Dornfest
May 2004
Series: The Missing Manuals
ISBN: 0-596-00613-6
311 pages, $19.95 US, $28.95 CA, £13.95 UK

a very good book. :) :) :) :) of 5

A lot of people use Google and use it a lot. And while Google doesn't come in a box, it's reasonable to think of this book as the manual you would want to have found in the box, if Google did come in a box.

Unless you are a programmer, this book likely addresses what you need to know about Google.

If you are a programmer and wish to use a program to access Google or Google pages, I recommend the "Google Hacks" book. You may wish to take a look at my review of it.

If you want more, you may wish to take a look at my somewhat longer review.

George Woolley of Oakland.pm & Camelot.pm

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Miscellaneous

Chapter Titles

• Google 101
• Superior Searching
• Googling Further: Images, News and the Directory
• Googling with Others: Groups and Answers
• Shopping with Google
• The Google Toolbar
• More Cool Google Tools
• Becoming a Search Result
• Making Money with Google

Note

• See the O'Reilly catalog entry for the full table of contents

Searches I Learned Of

• define: googol
• (510) 839-7781

Note

• Before reading this book, I wouldn't have tried the above searches.

Alternatives to Google

• for acronyms, Acronym Finder
• for definitions, One Look

Notes

• The book points out it may be good to consider alternatives to Google, in some cases.
• The above are examples of possible alternatives for specific needs.

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Fun

Fun Definitions

• googol = 1 followed by 100 zeroes
• Google = name of a company
• googolplex = 1 followed by a googol zeroes
• googleplex = a Google facility

Fun Links

The book makes reference to

• Google Fight
• Google Holiday Logos
• Google Patterns & Trends
• Google Whacking

The following is also fun

• Google Pigeon Rank

There's lots out there. You may wish to try some Google searches too, for example

• Google fun

Fun Quote

• "The book that should have been in the box."

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Somewhat Longer Review

Contents

• The Title
• About the Reviewer
• What You Get
• Other Books
• Gripes
• Final Thoughts

Note:

• Published by O'Reilly.

The Title

what's google?: Google is a search engine for identifying web pages of interest. Google is noted for having an uncluttered aesthetically pleasing interface for requesting searches.

But you can find more than web pages. You can also find: images, news and discussion group postings.

Google searches over 4 billion pages. In that respect, it's the leading search engine.

But Google is much more than just a search engine. For example,

• You can do online shopping through Google
• You can get questions answered by knowledgeable people through Google (for a price)

what's a missing manual?: "Missing Manual" is an O'Reilly Series.

A book in this series is supposed to

• be the manual you wish had been provided
• be clear enough for a novice
• be deep enough and detailed enough for a power user
• be complete
• be warm, witty and jargon-free
• provide a real-world perspective.

does the book fit the title?: Well, the book sure is about Google. And it has good coverage for assisting you to better use Google as a search engine, for shopping on-line, for getting questions answered and much more.

Google is simple enough and clear enough that most people can get by without a manual. But Google is used so much by many of us that having a manual is really nice. And generally this book fits the criteria for a missing manual. However, I didn't find the book particularly witty.

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About the Reviewer

google: I'm not a novice at using Google. It's been my favorite search engine since at least 2001.

operating system: I do most of my browsing in Opera, Netscape, or Konqueror on a PC running the Linux OS. So I can't say much, for example, about tools that work only on IE running under certain versions of Windows.

other books: I've read and reviewed two other O'Reilly books about Google: "Google Hacks" and the "Google Pocket Guide".

programming: Since getting out of school, I've made my living as a programmer.

publishers: I'm a big supporter of O'Reilly. Most of the technical books I use a lot are published by O'Reilly.

Through time, I've learned that O'Reilly also publishes some rather interesting non-technical books.

I've read and reviewed many O'Reilly books.

search engines: My main interest in Google is as a search engine. For the types of research I do, I've only occasionally found search directories helpful.

Google is my favorite search engine (and has been since at least 2001). I prefer Google because of its minimalist but aesthetically pleasing interface. And it produces as good results as any search engine, though there are now IMO other engines that produce comparable results.

shopping: I don't generally shop online.

text editors: I create quite a bit of web content. I mostly use a text editor to do so.

webmaster: I'm the webmaster of a number of personal and group sites.

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What You Get

Below I touch on some of things covered in this book.

searching normal web pages on the web: The book covers the basics of searching normal web pages on Google as part of a chapter titled "Google 101". And the book goes beyond the basics in a chapter entitled "Superior Searching".

some other kinds of searches: It's not just normal web pages you can search through Google.

You can search

• discussion group postings
• news
• images

This book tells you how in parts of two chapters entitled "Googling Further: Images, News and Directories" and "Googling with Others: Groups and Answers".

alternatives to searching: But doing Google searches from the Google search interface isn't the only way to keep informed. The book addresses a number of other possibilities.

Recently, I've been using Google News Alerts and Google Web Alerts as an alternative to doing the same search periodically. :) The book has a page plus on Google News Alerts in the chapter on "Googling Further: Images, News and Directories". Google Web Alerts are an experimental tool that the book does not discuss. However, the book does have several pages on Google's experimental tools and a link to where you can learn more about them.

Another alternative to using the Google search interface is to use Google to hook up with a knowledgeable person who can answer the question you have. The ins and outs of doing this are explained in detail. The service is called Google Answers (duh).

Personally, I'm partial to the Google search interface. But for some people, I gather, working through a directory structure is better. For some types of searching, this makes a lot of sense. The book addresses when and how to use the Google Directory.

search tools: There's a Google Toolbar that enhances Google searches and some other aspects of browsing. There's a whole chapter on it entitled "The Toolbar".

The Google Toolbar is not available for the MAC and Linux. :( However, there is a tool called the Googlebar which is available for the Netscape, Mozilla and Firefox browsers which has many of the same capabilities. :) There are several pages in the book that are focused on the Googlebar.

The book also addresses a number of other tools for enhancing your searching experience in a chapter entitled "More Cool Google Tools".

showing up in search results: If you are a webmaster, you presumably want others to visit your site, so you want to show up near the top of searches on terms related to your site. This book has a chapter on "Becoming a Search Result" which addresses that concern.

other things you might want to do: This book isn't just about searching. There's a whole chapter on "Shopping with Google" and one on "Making Money with Google" too.

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Other Books

Notes

• To see the catalog entry, click on the cover image for the book.
• To get a better idea of the relative sizes of these books, see dimensions & pages in the table in the next section.

Here's a comparison between three O'Reilly books on Google.

Of the three books, my favorite is the "Google Pocket Guide". It covers a lot of ground really well. But it's an O'Reilly Pocket Guide; it assumes that reader is generally experienced (though perhaps new to Google) and covers a lot of ground by being concise.

If you want to write programs that interface with Google or Google pages, the Hacks book addresses that.

If you are a normal user, this book should be more than adequate; and it is the most recent of the three books.

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Gripes

humor: I don't experience this book as light or humorous. Hm, maybe I'd see things differently if I hadn't already read and reviewed two other books on Google.

text editor: The author doesn't mention text editors as a tool for building web pages. That's what I and a number of people I know use. Hey, it may well be that most people shy away from them. Personally, I find them much easier to deal with than word processors.

toolbar: It's annoying that the Google Toolbar is not available for the MAC and Linux. However, the Googlebar, which has many of the same capabilities, does work on the MAC and on Linux. As a result of doing this review, I've been using the Googlebar a lot; and it definitely enhances my browsing.

The Googlebar is missing some proprietary features that the Google Toolbar has. Personally, these features don't seem critical to me.

If you use IE on Windows, like most people, this gripe presumably won't matter to you. If you use a MAC or do your browsing on Linux, you can use the Googlebar as a replacement for the Google Toolbar, if you want to.

summary of gripes: IMO, it's likely that none of these gripes will matter to most people.

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Final Thoughts

If you use Google a lot or think you well may in the future, I'd get this book. Think of this as the manual you would like to have found in the box, if Google came in a box.

If you are a programmer looking for ideas for scraping Google pages or using the Google API, the Hacks book addresses that.

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