Although I consider myself to be quite the techie nerd (as far as amateurs go) there seems to be something new I learn weekly that just blows my mind. Wether it’s a time saving tip or just the latest and greatest Web2.0 link, the surprises seem endless.
Today, Google takes the cake. If you’re online for more than 5 minutes a day searching stuff then surely you’ve already made the switch to Google as your primary search engine. If not, then go to www.Google.com and then make that the homepage of your browser. If you use the search bar found in the upper left corner of the top 3 browsers, make sure it’s set to use Google. Yes, professional techies, I know that it’s gotten a little bloated over the years and they are putting more and more paid-for sites at the top of the list, but I still feel that Google has a higher success rate than any other engine.
Now, the tip that instigated this post. Visit http://www.google.com/intl/en/help/features.html and you will be able to see for yourself.
Adding keywords like “movies” before your search term will put special results right at the top that are probably what you’re looking for. My favorites are:
1) Weather - type “weather” and then the city, zip code you’re curious about.
2) Movies - type “movies” and the movie title or zip code you’re in and see some perfect results. Click the links to hone in on the movie, theater you’re looking for.
3) Time - type “time” and the city (anywhere in the world) to see the exact time there. Perfect after studying abroad in Germany. 
4) Flight Status - (REALLY!) type the airline name and flight number. You’re .002 seconds away from knowing if you’re kid’s flight is delayed 45 minutes.
Scroll down the list on the provided link to learn about more of them. Everyone seems to use different ones.
Sure, try to memorize the most common ones so that, like trained Olympic wrestlers, you can type it in without even thinking about it and get the results faster than anyone else. The trend you should find, however, is that you really don’t need to memorize anything. When you’re confronted with some small bit of information that you want to look up just put this thought process in your head:
1) What information do I want to find?
2) If it’s on the web Google probably has the info readily available?
3) What keyword would I put in front of my search term to let someone know what I’m looking up.
4) try it!
The whole point is that Google is the Phelps of gold medals in search engine simplicity. They’ve made it “grandma simple”. So next time you’re searching, try these shortcuts and see how many precious seconds it saves you!
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