Have you tried searching for a class on Google?  

Wouldn't that be one of those 'chicken & egg' situations?

As for the idea of it being a 'skill', I rather think it's more of an 'ability'.  What I means is that calling it a 'skill' implies that it can be learned.

I have a couple of Army buddies, one's even a former CIA Deputy Director, who claims that more often than not, they're totally frustrated using Google search  and have started sending their 'requests' to me instead since I can generally find what they're looking for in 2 or 3 queries, max.  My wife does the same thing.  And few people at work as well.

I don't consider my choice of the words which I enter into the search field as having been chosen based on 'skill', but rather as the result of some sort of mental pre-processing which took place as I was contemplating what might be the most relevant string of text to be entered.  If that's a 'skill' I don't where I would have learned it, except perhaps as the result of a lifetime of being a voracious reader of all sorts of books and periodicals.

Now don't get me wrong, I'm not bragging nor am I suggesting that there's nothing anyone can do to hone their 'abilities' to construct an effective search creteria, just that hoping to find a useful class or tutorial covering this topic may prove disappointing unless of course, as the 'Limey' suggested, you 'Google' it.  But then if you do manage to find something relevant inside of a few seconds, perhaps there's no need for further 'training' after all

John R. Baker, P.E.
Product 'Evangelist'
Product Engineering Software
Siemens PLM Software Inc.
Industry Sector
Cypress, CA
http://www.siemens.com/plm
UG/NX Museum:   http://www.plmworld.org/p/cm/ld/fid=209

To an Engineer, the glass is twice as big as it needs to be.
 

A class seems rather excessive.

Quotes, booleans, NOT (-), SIMILAR (~), wildcard (*)

http://www.dumblittleman.com/2007/06/20-tips-for-more-efficient-google.html

Agree with JohnRBaker.

'Er indoors always used to ask for help with a WWW search and then get really annoyed when I could find her target with a seemingly simple search.

- Steve
 

does this help:

http://www.lmgtfy.com/?q=class+in+efficient+internet+search

f-d

¡papá gordo ain't no madre flaca!

you may find this helpful:

if you want to search for "tax exemptions" but are only interested in findings from the site, "irs.gov"  type this:

tax exemptions site:www.irs.gov

this is a helpful tip!

f-d

¡papá gordo ain't no madre flaca!

CIA doesn't know how to use Google?
That answers a lot of unasked questions.

John,
what else do you do for the CIA?
Wet Jobs?


 

JMW
www.ViscoAnalyser.com

 

Wait a minute, wait a minute,
George Bush ( ) was a CIA director wasn't he?
'Nuff said.

"Did you get it this time Georgie? or do you want me to explain it again?"

JMW
www.ViscoAnalyser.com

 

Note that there are many CIA directorates, each headed by an individual deputy directory.  My old Army buddy was the Deputy Director of Science & Technology (he retired almost 4 years ago), which meant that his organization developed spy satellites and other equipment used to gather intelligence data.  As he explained it, "We only designed and built the hardware, it was someone else's job to actually put it to use and interpret the data that was gathered."

That being said, considering that he was the HEAD of an organization which consisted of something like 4,000 engineers and scientists, I suspect his personal computer skills was not a critical factor in the overall performance of his directorate

John R. Baker, P.E.
Product 'Evangelist'
Product Engineering Software
Siemens PLM Software Inc.
Industry Sector
Cypress, CA
http://www.siemens.com/plm
UG/NX Museum:   http://www.plmworld.org/p/cm/ld/fid=209

To an Engineer, the glass is twice as big as it needs to be.
 

This changes the entire conversation that this thread has produced so far:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B8ofWFx525s

John R. Baker, P.E.
Product 'Evangelist'
Product Engineering Software
Siemens PLM Software Inc.
Industry Sector
Cypress, CA
http://www.siemens.com/plm
UG/NX Museum:   http://www.plmworld.org/p/cm/ld/fid=209

To an Engineer, the glass is twice as big as it needs to be.
 

That's very scary ... and just plain wrong.

That IS scary.  So how do I filter out Yahoo Answers?

"Gorgeous hair is the best revenge."  Ivana Trump

Ditto.
Ditto.
DITTO
And we were worried that Google's "search within results"
(a) was taken away and
(b) was a fraud anyway.

Small potatoes compared to this.

There was a situation were we were happy that the internet was actually doing the reverse of censoring our results when we were able to get, via the internet, what MSM was denying us... the other side of the story about Climate Change.
Now I wonder just how much was hidden and what was revealed.

But think about it.
A great many people put their reliance on google these days, not the public library.

So no wonder that the sides are polarised and getting more polarised all the time.

What these filters do is reinforce a bias, concious bias or unconscious bias. An unwitting bias.

The first thing you search for thus colours the selection of what you are offered for the second thing you search for.
And so on.
And reinforced by regional bias.
If you live in a particular country these filters ensure that you conform, and do not question.

It has to mean that each side of an argument will find itself  googling and moving further apart and further away from any resolution because each side is actually fed the information that supports their case and denied the information that refutes it.

It doesn't matter if it is about pop songs or movies or religion.... whoa, religion. Nationalism.
There are some heady topics out there and this is the last thing that is needed.

So where does it end?
Where logically would this lead except to a more polarised and more dangerous society.
The internet isn't freeing people, it is enslaving them.

If young people spend all their lives on the internet and on facebook and chat rooms, and have no other major inputs they cannot help but be rendered into extremists.
Extremists fed a very unbalanced diet of information.
This is the sort of thing that could end up in blood.

Whoever writes these filters and for whatever motive, it means very simply that our lives are yet again being controlled by a small minority whose motives and drives we don't understand.

The best that can be said is that they never intended it to be this way. The danger is that recognising the power such control gives that if not now then sooner or late someone will be deliberately influencing our lives and that said, probably already are.
Actually, we know they are.
We know the deals done by Google and others with the Chinese.
And what if the deals some companies or their employees make are with some country that not only wants to influence what its own people see and access but what other people in other countries can see and access?

Scary is right.
Scary and dangerous.



 

JMW
www.ViscoAnalyser.com

 

The algorithms need a little tuning and expanding perhaps.  I use Google a TON at work, and I "know" that certain keyword choices and patterns produce markedly different results.  I'm not talking totally different words, but rather synonyms.

The way Google handles very closely related words borders on the comical (sometimes) or frustrating (more often).

It's ~95% right, but the work-arounds can be challenging on that other 5%.

It is better to have enough ideas for some of them to be wrong, than to be always right by having no ideas at all.

This is a good website for Google tips

http://www.googleguide.com/