007 Web Tools

Google and the all the other also rans have made is quite a bit easier to find what we are looking for on the Internet. In a future post we will discuss some tips for enhancing your ability to use these great tools. Today I would like to point out some nice new tools for finding text on an individual web page. Most browsers provide a “Find in this page” or “Find on this page” function to search for text on a page and move to the next or previous occurrence of your keywords. The Google Toolbar (free download) offers a few additional tools that you might find helpful.

But first, let’s distinguish, for the purposes of this discussion, the difference between search text and find text:

Search text refer to the keywords you type into the Google Search box
Find text refer to the exact words you enter into the Find box

When the ‘Highlight” icon is enabled each word from your Google search text will be highlighted on the page (each word in a different highlight color.) When you enable ‘Word Find’, the toolbar will generate an individual button for each word in the search text and each click of the button will find the next occurrence of that word. If you are searching for a phrase, place quotation marks around the phrase, e.g. “Illinois Wesleyan”. Try it out and let me know what you think.

Click here for help with Google Toolbar features

When you want to find a word or series of words on a page, use the ‘Find on this page’ function to open a Find box. If you are using Firefox 2.0 or later (highly recommended) use the shortcut Ctrl-F to bring up the find box at the bottom of the screen just above the status bar. As soon as you begin typing Firefox will begin to locate words beginning with those letters and offer a next, previous, and highlight option for your current find text. If you’re still following this, you will realize that it is possible that both search text (from your Google Search) and find text (from the ‘Find on this page’ function) will be highlighted at the same time.

In a later post, we will discuss what to do with the text once you find it. Use the comment section of this blog to let me know what you do now…bookmark?…cut and paste into another document?

Note to Safari users:

Use the Edit> Find> Find command (Cmd-F) to open a Find banner at the top of the webpage. Use the arrow keys to move to the previous and next occurence of the find text. Click Done when you’re finished.

I have recently upgraded my browers to IE 7 and Firefox 2 and am currently experimenting with some of the new features. Ive added to Google toolbar to Firefox and the Windows Live toolbar to IE. I’m hoping to find an optimum solutions for faculty that will allow them to check their mail, blogs, and maybe IM and text messages in one location. I’ve opened a new notebook in Google notebooks (which I have open all the time in both browsers) to collect clips and resources for my research.

I’m still searching for way to approach the faculty that will provoke them without pissing them off.