My Tech Tips

In an earlier post I explained about search engines and how they are the key to finding information on the internet. There are many hundreds of different search engines although by far the most popular is Google with 70% of the market. Each has its own quirks and it is usually a case of using the one that you feel most comfortable with. In this post I am going to look in more depth at how we use search engines and offer some tips about how to get the best out of them.

It is quite astounding how fast search engines work and how many “hits” they return (a hit being every time it lists a website that matches the words or phrase that you have entered into the search box). I just typed the word “Christmas” into Google and got 3 Billion results in less than 1 second. Clearly it would take me an eternity to go through each result to see what the site was, what it held about Christmas and whether it told me what I was looking for.  For this reason we need to be more specific in how we ask the search question. If I type in Christmas 2030 (thirty) I get a ‘mere’ 96 million results but can go to a site to create an advent calendar for that year or find out what day of the week it falls on.

Because of the large number of choices we are presented with in the list of hits it is hardly surprising that most people just skim down the first page of results and go from there. That is perfectly OK and nine times out of ten you will find what you are looking for or a link to another more appropriate site.  However, if you scroll down to the bottom of the first screen you will see something like this
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which indicates that there are many other pages of results.  Lots of these are repetitions but sometimes, if you are looking for an obscure topic, it is worth going towards some of the later pages of results where you will inevitably find sites that people have never managed to scroll down to reach. Click on one of the numbers and it will take you to that page of hits. Conversely the lower down the hit list the less likely it is to match exactly your search term. This because the search "algorithm" (couldn't get away without using that word!) will also find items that are near to but not quite the same as your request. Also the list of results is calculated not necessarily by the nearness to your search term but rather by the popularity of the site based on the number of people using that term who have visited a particular site.

As I explained in an earlier post, be particularly careful not to jump to the first results in the hit list, bearing in mind that the first ones will invariably have the terms “Ad” or “Sponsored” against them. This means that site owners have paid sums of money to the search engine in order to rank their site above all others. Not surprisingly this is no guarantee of an accurate response to your search. Remember that if you click on one of these results someone somewhere makes money (a sort of referral fee).

Occasionally you may find that a site is unreachable. This may be because the site is currently down (out of order) or there is a problem with finding its internet address. You may see a screen that says '404 Error. Page not found'. A little trick you can try if this happens is to look along the line of the title of the site in the results list where you will often see a downward-pointing black arrow.
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​If you then click on this arrow the word Cached appears.

​Cache (from the French word meaning ‘hidden’) is often used in English to denote a secret hiding place or store. In computing a cache is a temporary store where the most recent information that the search engine has found is put by. Each browser we use has a cache which holds sites we have recently visited. This is the basis of the browser history that stores all the sites you have visited. The purpose of the cache is to save the computer time going off to look elsewhere. If the information has recently been requested then the cache can present it again without a full internet search. Similarly, search engines like Google use a cache that holds the results of all the answers to searches that people across the world have sought answers to. Google will look through this cache first and offer up what it finds.  Thus it does not actually have to search hundreds and thousands of internet sites if it already has the answer in its cache.

When the word cached appears, if you click on it you will see a record of the contents of the cache for that particular site or query. Thus Google still has the record of the site even if the site is temporarily unobtainable. Here is what you might see on the cache for one of the hits for the term “Christmas 2030”. The cached screen will display the website but across the top will be the following wording and instructions:
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This is Google's cache of https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b006qj8q. It is a snapshot of the page as it appeared on 27 Nov 2020 12:45:24 GMT. The current page could have changed in the meantime. 

If you want to read more about the Cache feature click here (although note that this is Google-specific)

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This is extremely useful because, by clicking on one of these in the list, you can limit your search to a particular window of time (past 24hrs, past week, past month, past year or all hits). This is a way to find the most up-to-date information. Similarly, there is often the option to limit the search geographically (to the UK for example). Note that you can also limit the search to looking for images, videos, maps and so on.  At the end of the line is the word More with three dots. Click on that and it gives further options such as Shopping, Books, Finance etc.

Lastly, you can also achieve the same effect (of using these tools menus) by, instead, entering more sophisticated search terms in the search box. Look out for another post that examines this in more details.
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Now let’s look at Search Engines. To be able to find information on the internet you need to know where it is located.  Individual websites all carry a unique reference number known as an Internet Protocol address (IP address). For example, the IP address of one of the BBC’s computers is 38.160.150.31.  This IP address can be translated into something more readable called a Uniform Resource Locator (URL). The URL for the BBC’s IP address is www.bbc.co.uk (where WWW stands for World Wide Web). The hundreds of bits of news and information held by the BBC each have their own URL prefixed by the BBC’s URL.  Thus News would www.bbc.co.uk/news. The numbers and letters that follow the / sign after the BBC URL can be very complex indeed. Very often they consist of a number or unique reference representing the exact web page where the particular website holds its information.  For example, the starting point for information on the BBC about the latest lockdown in Scotland can be found at https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-55028035.

Of course if you know the exact URL of the site you want to visit it can be easier to find that on the internet by putting the address into your browser. But very often we want to find out about something but either do not know the exact web address or (more probably) we have a generic question. This is where Search Engines come into their own. A search engine is the start point for a query. It lets you type in what you are looking for and it then “goes off” and searches the internet for sites that might contain what you are seeking. The engine then displays (returns) a vast number of “hits” usually in order of the most relevance to your search. You can then click on one of these “hits” and the search engine will take you to the appropriate site. One search might find thousands of hits and the resultant list can go on for several pages. It is quite rare not to have any hits at all but you might have simply mistyped your search query and entered a unintelligible word. With Google there is a thing people try to do called "Google Whacking" where they try to find an obscure word or topic that defeats Google and returns NO hits.  Have a go yourself!

There are quite literally hundreds of search engines globally. Many are generic and others are subject-specific. A comprehensive list of these engines can be found at this link http://www.thesearchenginelist.com/. However, if you ask most people they will tell you that they use Google.  Google makes up for about 70% of the search engine market. NB. Google is NOT a browser but it DOES own CHROME which is a browser. You can, though, use Google with any browser. 

An important point to make about search engines is that they get paid for finding web sites and presenting them to you in a list. If you “click” on a link and go to a website a fraction of a penny will go to the search engine and, if you consider that Google alone handles some 3.5Bn searches every day, those fractions soon add up. Not only this but some companies pay large sums of money to ensure that their sites appear as near to the top of the list of hits as possible.  This is why you should always look out for the word Ad alongside the hit list which indicates a paid-for entry which is not necessarily the best answer. 

Search engines also present you with their list of hits based on the popularity of particular web sites or the prominence of the topic in the latest news.  If you are looking for obscure references and subjects it is often worthwhile going much further down the list of hits and seeing what is there. One other point to note about search engines concerns the choice of words you use to put into the search box. Many think that you need to write lengthy, full sentences to get an answer.  Say, for example, that you need to find out about wiring a United Kingdom plug.  There is no need to write “Please tell me how I can wire a United Kingdom plug”. Simply typing “wire uk plug” will get the same answers.  Note also that you don’t need capital letters in a Google search.

A browser (or web browser) is the software that enables you to look around the internet. Think of it as the layout of a large bookshop where all the items are held in different sections, usually labelled, and it is up to you to browse the shelves to find what you are looking for. Similarly, a browser on your computer is where the internet can be displayed on your screen. Browsers are not the same as Search Engines although the two go hand in hand.

All browsers have an address box and this will show the internet address of the site you are visiting (that is its exact location on the internet).  If you already know the site you want you can also start your browser and enter the site address yourself in this address box. Most browsers have facilities like Favourites, Bookmarks and History so that you can go straight back to a previously-visited site without having to type in a lengthy address. Nearly all browsers also have their own search box where you type in what you are looking for in plain English instead of having to know an exact address. Part 3 of Simplifying Computers - Search Engines goes into this in more detail.

Like search engines, there are many browsers; some are Microsoft-specific others are not. The traditional Microsoft browser was Internet Explorer that newer versions of Windows now call Edge. Other popular browsers are Firefox (produced by a company called Mozilla), Opera (originally developed by a Norwegian company called Telenor but now called just Opera) and Chrome (which is produced by Google).  In fact, there are literally hundreds of browsers around the world. Some are generic for everyday use and others are subject or profession specific.  Wikipedia (the encyclopaedia of the internet) has a huge list of browsers with a description of the use of each and links to them so that you can see what they look like. See Web Browsers on Wikipedia.  The article shows the percentage of use as at October 2020 and you can see that Chrome accounts for 70% of the market - way ahead of its rivals.

Here is a screenshot of the Chrome Browser on my computer showing the principal components. I happen to use Google as my search engine (see Part 3) but this is personal choice. Most browsers actually allow you to type in a search query in the address bar also. Note the arrow to Browser Extensions. These are little programmes that can be added to your browser to perform special tasks. The green box above the arrowhead is actually an extension called Roboform which is a password manager. (More in another article).

Put simply the Internet is the place where the sum total of all human knowledge can be accessed. You may say that actually human knowledge can be found in books, writing, pictures and articles, which all existed long before the internet.  This is true but the internet can lead you to where this information can be found. That is why I use the term "can be accessed" instead of "is stored".  But what is the internet? A common misconception is that it is a massive computer hidden in a mountain range somewhere in America or India or Russia. In fact the information is stored on thousands of computers all around the world. Information about one particular subject might even be spread across several different computers in different countries. Some individuals permit their own computers to be used to store information that other people can access. Don’t worry, however, that your own computer might be being used in this way. You would have to give explicit permission to allow this to happen. One good example is where people participate in a scientific programme trying to solve a problem that would take years of computing power to answer. They offer up the spare processing time on their computers (such as at night time when they are not using it) to contribute to the programme. Here is one such project predicting climate. https://www.climateprediction.net/
Another fascinating project addresses the problem of trying to break 3 Enigma messages from WW2. Believe it or not several coded messages from U-Boats remain unbroken to this day! https://www.networkworld.com/article/2247101/still-trying-to-crack-nazi-enigma-messages.html
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On the other hand, say that you share some information with others (perhaps by way of a post on Facebook for example), and the recipient then shares that with others who similarly republish it; you can see how several versions of that information can exist around the world thanks to the internet. Furthermore you may delete your initial post (having had second thoughts about it) but you can’t delete the many instances of its repetition around the internet. Thus the maxim that one must remember “What goes on the internet stays on the internet.”

This may help you to understand that the internet is not one big computer “in the sky” but exists as a massive collection of computers all connected by electronic communication.  It is true that a great deal of the information is stored on massive computers. Amazon for example hold their information on lots of huge super computers (called ‘servers’) all interconnected.  While we are about it, the expression I used about computers “in the sky” is maybe the origin of the other term for the internet that you often hear – ‘the Cloud’.

However, before you can access information on the internet there are some essential pre-requisites. First you must either own or have access to a computer. Of course the word computer can cover many different forms of device. I will look a little more at this another time. Second you require a means to connect your computer to the internet which means you have to have a contract with a telecommunications company who becomes your Internet Service Provider (ISP). Once you have connected you need a means of displaying information on your screen.  This is called a Browser. Look out for more on this on another post.