Web Reviews

Finding (Nearly) Anything

Indianapolis, IN - December 20, 2005

“Wikipedia bills itself as "the free encyclopedia," but, in fact, it's much, much more.'”

- Jim Cota

I like a challenge, I'm a fan of obscure information, and I have a bit of a reputation as someone who can find nearly anything on the Internet. My secret is Google. Actually, since the majority of all searches on the Internet are performed at Google, this hardly seems like a secret. To be more precise, my secret is really the ability to form search queries to have the best chance of returning the desired result. In some cases, this is more art than science, but there are some things you can do to improve your own results. The easiest way to do this is to use Google's Advanced Search. This form gives you far greater control over how your terms will be interpreted by the search engine. A quick glance will help you form better queries to achieve better results. Finally, I highly recommend that you spend a little time looking over their advanced search tips. A few minutes here could save you a lot of time later.

But occasionally, even Google fails to deliver a suitable answer. It's at this point that the digging really starts. If I'm looking for information related to a general topic that I need to understand (a black hole, for instance), the next stop would be How Stuff Works. If you're trying to find out the facts behind any general concept, this is the next best thing to knowing yourself. The site has grown dramatically since I last wrote about it, but it still maintains a place in my heart for providing just the right answer to an amazing variety of questions. How Stuff Works works by combining the talents of the original site creators with Publications International, Ltd. (PIL), a 30-year-old publisher of mass-market books that produces more than 600 new titles annually. Through this alliance, HowStuffWorks has exclusive online rights to more than 10,000 books and 1 million images, access to over 350 writers and editors, and all future content.

That covers a lot of ground, but even How Stuff Works might not have what you're looking for. Since How Stuff Works is primarily concerned with, well, how stuff works, you might need to go elsewhere for more in-depth consideration of a non-working topic. Something like a concept or history or geography. For instance, both Google and How Stuff Works may not provide a suitable result for "outsider art". It is in these cases that I turn to Wikipedia. Wikipedia bills itself as "the free encyclopedia," but, in fact, it's much, much more. Built on the philosophy that information wants to be free, Wikipedia enlists it's readers to become contributors, essentially operating as a massive internet-based collective. For instance, if you have a particular area of expertise, you can contribute to the entries on Wikipedia. Know more about Donkey Kong than your nearly any other living person? Or perhaps you've been kicking around Pappus's hexagon theorem in your spare time? Either way, if you have a piece of information to add, you're encouraged to do so. This allows Wikipedia to be an ever-expanding, user-driven encyclopedia of knowledge. Since this knowledge base is constantly evolving, the site will let you browse by recent changes or by articles that contain the most revisions; both of which can be handy if you're just browsing. Otherwise, the search engine will quickly lead you to your topic of interest.

In retrospect, it may be more accurate that I have more than one secret for finding things. But one well-worn tenat remains: "If at first you don't succeed, try, try again."