Finding an old flame

I was having lunch with a couple of girlfriends yesterday and we started talking about old boyfriends.  One of my friends said she wanted to see what an old boyfriend looked like, but she searched online and couldn't find a picture of him.  I said I could find it for her!  I don't want to give out names, but here is the process I used:

I took his full name including his middle initial (which she gave me) and entered it into Google Search.  A website called SpokeO.com returned a number of matches along with photos.  So I dug deeper there and found out where he lived.  I then used his name and his location to begin another search.  I was getting a number of text results, but no photos.  I tried using his name and his profession to search.  Again, only text results appeared.  So I tried a different search engine - Yahoo.  I used his name and location and the first result was a wedding announcement.  I recalled that his wife's name appeared in the spokeo search result, so I went back to see if that was the same one.  It was.  Then I went back to Google and typed in their names together.  The first result included a photo of the couple together at an event.  Voila!

My wire whip broke

There I was trying to whip up a meringue shell only to discover that my Kitchenaid Stand Mixer's Wire Whip is broken.  What's a girl to do?  I guess go online and try to find a replacement.

Here is the search I did at Google Shopping:


"kitchenaid mixer" "wire whip" replacement

And I found a replacement for $7.10 at thepartsbiz.com:

http://www.thepartsbiz.com/KitchenAid-Mixer-Replacement-Wire-Whip-K5AWW_p_170.html

Why were there helicopters circling overhead?

There was some police activity along with several helicopters circling overhead the other night.  All the talking over the megaphone and the noise from the helicopters were driving our dog nuts and he was barking out of control.  We were wondering what it was all about.  We live in Tarzana.  So I did a search.  In the Google news tab I typed


Helicopters Tarzana

The results showed that a couple of hikers had been missing, but they had been found.  Read the good news here:

http://www.dailynews.com/news/ci_20003126

Travel Search

I am thinking of taking my family to a dude ranch in Idaho this summer.  I wanted to learn more about the Red Horse Mountain dude ranch, and specifically about the Eagle's Nest Family Suite there.  To make sure this was a good choice, I entered the following in the Google Search box:


site:tripadvisor.com  "red horse mountain" "eagle's nest"

I found exactly what I was looking for.  This review raved about the ranch and specifically the family suite that I am interested in.


http://www.tripadvisor.com/ShowUserReviews-g35475-d645748-r119018383-Red_Horse_Mountain_Dude_Ranch-Harrison_Idaho.html

Lost my jelly headband/hairband

I had this wonderful jelly hairband and I lost it.  Well, I know where it is, but it's too far away to bother to go get it.  So I am looking for a new one.  I don't know what brand it is, so I am going to look in Google images to see if I can recognize it.  On the Google Images search page, I type:

jelly headband

I don't see the exact one that I am looking for, so I click on Google Shopping.  My search term is carried over and on the second page of results I see one that is pretty close to what I am looking for, so I order it.

Water filter

I heard an awful story on the radio about how sewage is being "treated" and then directed to our taps and it dawned on me that I haven't changed our water filter cartridge in a long time.  So I decided to order a new one.  The problem is, I couldn't remember what the name of the filter is.  I didn't feel like walking downstairs, taking everything out of the cabinet and crawling under the sink to read the brand on the label.  So I went to Google Images and typed in:

water filter cartridges

thinking that I would recognize it when I saw it.

I did.  It was an Everpure water filter. 

Then I went to my desktop search software, X1 Desktop Search to find my previous order for the filter.  I typed:

Everpure

My previous order with Amazon appeared.  I went to Amazon to check on the price.  The filter was now $20 more than I paid for it the last time I bought it.  So I went back to Google to find a better price.  This time I knew the exact model from the order form, so at the regular Google Search box, I typed in

"Everpure H-300"


efilter.com appeared and they had a lower price, so I bought it from them.

Noodle Kugel Recipe

I'm looking for a good noodle kugel recipe.  I like all kinds of noodle kugel, but my family won't eat the ones with cottage cheese or sour cream.  And I prefer apple pieces to raisins.  We all like cinnamon.  So here is my search string for a kugel that will satisfy my family:



"noodle kugel" apple cinnamon -"cottage cheese"

I put the phrase NOODLE KUGEL in quotes because I only want results having to do with NOODLE KUGEL and not NOODLES or KUGEL.  Then I added apple and cinnamon because I want to make sure those two words in any order turn up somewhere in the result.  And finally I used the minus sign to REMOVE any search results that have the phrase "COTTAGE CHEESE" in them.

I came up with this one and it looks pretty good!

http://www.cdkitchen.com/recipes/recs/755/AppleCinnamonNoodleKugel72439.shtml

Did you hear that Facebook is going public?

If you have not heard the big news - here it is.  Facebook filed it's S-1 for its initial public offering.  I had some time today and wanted to read the prospectus.  I knew that Edgar (the Electronic Data Gathering, Analysis, and Retrieval system) would have it on file, so I went to Google to find it with these search terms:

Edgar SEC Facebook

And now you know how to find the Facebook S-1 filing.

Wanna buy a used textbook?

I am looking for a good place to sell back my son's college textbooks from his first semester.  I know that there are services that tell you which company will offer the highest price for your books. I typed in:

textbook buyback comparison

And I found www.bookfinder.com which will suit my needs.

I need a new book to read

Today I was looking for a new book to read.  I picked a book from my “books read” list that I keep in my email inbox and chose one of the memoirs that I liked - Orange is the New Black by Piper Kerman.  So to find another book that I think I will like, I went to Amazon's search box and typed:

Orange is the new black

I selected the first result which was the Piper Kerman book.  The page for that book includes a section called “Customers Who Bought This Item Also Bought.”  I went to that section and scrolled right and left to see what other books might pique my interest.  There were some great books in there – Unbroken by Laura Hillenbrand, Persepolis by Marjane Satrapi and Bossypants by Tina Fey.  I clicked on Bossypants to see what books were associated with that one in the "Customers Who Bought This Item Also Bought" section.  The new Carrie Fisher memoir was listed there - Shockaholic.  I remember seeing her in a one-woman stage show called Wishful Drinking while I was on an airplane.  I thought she was hilarious, so I decided to put this book on my library wish list.

I went to LAPL.ORG (my local public library site) and typed in the search box there:

Shockaholic

The system displayed both the regular book and the audiobook. I selected the book and placed a hold.

"Hey Joey, you're wearing a noun!"

You know how songs from your past just pop into your head?  That happened to me today.  I remembered this lyric, "Hey Joey, you're wearing a noun." from one of the computer programs we developed at Knowledge Adventure, JumpStart Second Grade.  Leonard D'Ambrosio and I loved singing the lyrics of the Noun song to each other over and over when the product was going through the Quality Assurance process.  But today I couldn't remember the rest of the song, so I wanted to see if I could find it online.  Here is the search I submitted to Google:

"jumpstart 2nd grade" "you're wearing a noun"

I put quotation marks around the two phrases with a space in between because I only wanted search results that contained both phrases.  If I didn't put quotes around the phrases, then Google would have returned results that contained all the words that I typed in, but the results would just have the words somewhere in the text, not necessary next to each other.

The first result Google returned was a YouTube video of two kids acting out and lip-synching to the original recording.  They were hilarious.  And I was able to hear the lyrics that had faded in my memory:

Noun Noun Noun Noun Noun Noun Noun
Noun Noun Noun Noun Noun Noun Noun
Hey Joey
Yeah
You're Wearing a Noun
I'm what?
Hey Joey
What?
You're Wearing a Noun
In a manner of speaking
A person, place or thing
Like a hat, a shirt, a ring,
Each are a noun
So you're wearing a noun.

I see

Hey Merrily
You're eating a noun
I'm eating what
Hey Merrily
You're eating a noun
I thought it was peanut butter
In a manner of speaking
A person, place or thing
Like bread or chicken wings,
Each are a noun
So you're eating a noun.

Welcome to my search blog

Thank you for coming!  In this blog, I will be sharing with you, by way of example, all that I have learned about online search over the last 20 years.  I will share what it is I am searching for and how I got there.

My background is that I have a B.A. in Economics from University of California, Santa Barbara and an M.B.A. in Finance and Management Information Systems from Indiana University.  I spent four years in M.I.S. consulting at Price Waterhouse, followed by five years as Producer, Executive Producer and V.P. of Operations at Knowledge Adventure, followed by 10 years at Idealab and various Idealab companies, most notably (for this blog) as Vice President of Recruitment (Search!) and in Sales at X1 Search.  Now I stay at home with my husband, three kids and our dog and I enjoy my eBay PowerSeller activities and hiking, among many other things.

My hope is that you can learn better ways of finding what you are looking for.