These days, everyone’s a pro at Google Search. I mean, even my mother-in-law uses Google on a daily basis!

And while many (most?) people know about basic Google operators like + and -, there’s a whole list of operators to refine your Google searches.

These are what I believe to be the most useful and relevant Google operators. While not all-inclusive, there’s virtually nothing in the Google machine that isn’t within your immediate reach with these operators.

Sure, many of these attributes are available under Googles “Advanced search” menu item… but who uses that thing? Keep in mind that many, if not most of these Google operators work in other Google searches, such as Google Image search. Also remember that most of these operators can be combined with each-other for some serious precision.

What’s your favorite Google trick?

Definitely Differant.

I saw this gem on my way home from Costco. I did a u-turn through 3 lanes of traffic just to get a picture of it. Well worth the time.

As usual, my GoDaddy account required some configuration for what should have been some menial task.

I wanted to start sending e-mail using a Godaddy SMTP account, via Gmail to get rid of that annoying “On behalf of” tag line that was giving away my super-secret gmail account name (or something like that).

I went into GoDaddy and created a brand new SMTP mail account, then went to Gmail and tried to add it as a valid SMTP account to send from. I kept getting messages like:

Your other email provider is responding too slowly. Please try again later, or contact the administrator of your other domain for further information

I was using smtpout.secureserver.net like GoDaddy told me to, but it turns out, it was a GoDaddy configuration issue. To resolve this, log into GoDaddy’s creepy web interface then:

• Click on the Settings tab
  • Click on Display Settings menu item
• Click on the Other tab
• Check the Use Full-Time SSL Mode checkbox
• Click the OK button

When configuring the account in Gmail, make sure to check “Always use a secure connection (SSL) when sending mail” and use Port 465.

I actually found most of this information by putting together a bunch of forum posts, but it was misplaced enough I thought consolidating it into one “typical GoDaddy…” post would be appropriate.

Since Windows Server 2008, Microsoft has been deprecating Microsoft Indexing Service in favor of Windows Search. You can still install Indexing Service, but the “Query the Catalog” option has been removed from the MMC, as well as the Indexing Service Query Form that made it really easy to test Indexing Service.

I put together a simple ASP form that can be installed on any IIS installation that is running indexing service, in order to test querying the catalog. It doesn’t have all the features of the previous “Query the Catalog” page, but it should be sufficient to know whether indexing service is returning results at all.

Simply toss the file into an IIS directory and hit it with your browser.

Download: Indexing-Service-test-page.zip

This software is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License.

I could easily go into a classic rant about Alan Grayon’s latest political advertisement, targeting his Republican adversary. But instead, I’ll let him do the talking. Check out both the videos and decided for yourself:

Congressman Alan Grayson:

Grayson’s Republican opponent, Daniel Webster:

I don’t endorse either candidate. Why would I? They’re not in my State and I’m not expertly familiar with either of their campaigns… but I’m pretty sure if I lived in his State, Congressman Alan Grayson would not be getting my vote.