HACKS

TOP 10 GOOGLE HACKS

Google has proven itself to be THE choice for many everyday internet-related activities: web search, mail, mailing lists, maps, document sharing, source code sharing… Some users don’t take the full advantage of those services due to lack of knowledge and information. Let’s fix that with this 10 cool hacks!

GOOGLE HACKS NO.1 : HACK THE SEARCH STRING

Google provides you a possibility to make some advanced search queries.
For example to search for PDFs, type in filetype:PDF.
You can also use a wildcard: * to replace any text. For example, if you would like to search for anything free online, just type in; “free * online”.
If you wish to search only within a site, type in “site:<sitename>”. For example, to search for the phrase “how to play” within site hackspc.com, type in:

site:hackspc.com how to play

GOOGLE HACKS NO.2 SHARE YOUR SEARCH QUERY

If you want to share your search query, just send the recipient(s) an URL with the following format:
www.google.com/#q=<word1>+<word2>+<word3>+…
For example, if you want to direct your friend to use Google to find out about cheap flights in Europe, just send him or her this link:
www.google.com/#q=cheap+flights+in+Europe 

GOOGLE HACKS NO.3: CREATE A MAIL FILTER

You receive mails form a certain adress and you wish them to be sorted apart from other mails you receive in your inbox? No problem, you just need a mail filter. To set it up, follow these steps:

1. Log in to your gmail account
2. Click “Settings”
   
3. Click Labels -> Create new label
4. Enter the new label name
5. Click Filters -> Create a new filter
6. Enter the “From” address
7. A pop-up will show up asking: “Your changes have not been save. Discard changes?” Click OK.
8. Tick the box “Skip the Inbox” (Archive it) and select the label you wish to apply. 
   
9. Click “Create filter”

And that’s it. The mails you receive from the address you entered shall be directed to the selected label (folder) and not your inbox.

GOOGLE HACKS NO.4: SHARE A MAP

If you wish to share a map on Google Maps, just expand the right side bar, and either copy the URL or embed the HTML code on your site or blog.

GOOGLE HACKS NO.5: CREATE AND SHARE A DOCUMENT

Google Docs is a great tool for online collaboration on working with documents. Just create a new document and add the list of people you want to share it with. Note that each of them has to have a Google account.

GOOGLE HACKS NO.6:CREATE AND SHARE A DOCUMENT COLLECTION

If you want to share a collection of documents, first you need to create a new one. Once you have created a collection, each document you add to that collection will be shared with all the people you shared the collection with.

GOOGLE HACKS NO.7: CREATE A SOURCE CODE REPOSITORY

You are a programmer and you need to share your project with other collaborators? Google Code is a pretty good free service. You can choose between Gilt, Mercurial and Subversion control system with 4 GB storage space available.

GOOGLE HACKS NO.8: EMBED YOUR CALENDAR

You need to inform other people about your daily activities? You can use Google Calendar. If you want to embed it on your blog or site , select your calendar and click “Calendar settings”.  Then copy the HTML code.

GOOGLE HACKS NO.9: MAKE GOOGLE TRANSLATE MORE EFFECTIVE

Google Translate is a very useful and powerful online translation tool, but in many cases far from perfect. Let’s say you have to translate a Chinese text to another language that is not English (e.g. Russian), and you don’t speak Chinese but you do speak Russian and English. To improve the usability of Google Translate, rather than translating from Chinese to Russian directly, translate from Chinese to English and than manually from Russian to English (with help from Google Translate if necessary). This will avoid appearance of many senseless translations.

GOOGLE HACKS NO.10: HAVE SOME FUN WITH GOOGLE TRANSLATE

You can use Google Translate to make some pranks. Wonder how would sound a rusty old car attempting to start in the middle of winter, with the temperature well below freezing? Check this LINK out :)