searching for Apple's generic "apps"

At 9:32 Uhr -0800 08.02.2005, Danno Sullivar wrote:
>Apple's generically named applications--"Mail" and "Pages"--make it
>strangely difficult to search for help and info on them. Anyone else
>have this difficulty? Any tips on narrowing down a search? Even find
>info on .Mac is tricky.
>
>Danno S

I suppose you mean to search in search engines (google etc.)?

I usually use "mail.app" to distinguish, and of course "os x".

Kei.

For the applications, I've found that adding ".app" to the end of the
word helps immensely. Rather than Googling for "Mail" I use "Mail.app"
instead. A quick test with Pages showed that using "Pages.app" helped as
well. Adding other related search terms, such as Apple or "Mac OS X" can
also help narrow down the results. This assumes you're talking about
using a search engine web site to search for help, of course.

Hope this helps,
Mike W.

On Tue, 8 Feb 2005, "Danno Sullivar" <largecorpmac.com> said:
> Apple's generically named applications--"Mail" and "Pages"--make it
> strangely difficult to search for help and info on them. Anyone else
> have this difficulty? Any tips on narrowing down a search? Even find
> info on .Mac is tricky.

Kei Ishii wrote:
> At 9:32 Uhr -0800 08.02.2005, Danno Sullivar wrote:
>> Apple's generically named applications--"Mail" and "Pages"--make it
>> strangely difficult to search for help and info on them. Anyone else
>> have this difficulty? Any tips on narrowing down a search? Even find
>> info on .Mac is tricky.
> I suppose you mean to search in search engines (google etc.)?
>
> I usually use "mail.app" to distinguish, and of course "os x".

http://www.google.com/mac

..tends to solve my problems.

Also, Yahoo's new Y!Q search lets you provide a context to your search
that tends to avoid Mac vs. non-Mac confusion.

http://yq.search.yahoo.com/splash/start.html

(scroll to the bottom for the Firefox extensions)

--Chris

It can also help to use Google's Mac-specific search page
http://www.google.com/mac.html - it only searches Mac related sites.

If you do a search for mail.app on it, you get 84,100 results, compared to
248,000 on the normal google with a different selection on the first page.
It saves always having to put in search restrictors like "Mac OS X" and
"Apple".

HTH

dfx

> Initial message <<a href="/webx?13@@.3c5833a8">largecorp, "searching for Apple's generic &quot;apps&quot;" #, 8 Feb 2005 9:32 am</a>>
> Posted by largecorp on 05:04pm Feb 8, 2005
> Posted via email
>
> Apple's generically named applications--"Mail" and "Pages"--make it
> strangely difficult to search for help and info on them. Anyone else
> have this difficulty? Any tips on narrowing down a search? Even find
> info on .Mac is tricky.
>
> Danno S

--On Tuesday, February 8, 2005 9:32 AM -0800 Danno Sullivar
<largecorpmac.com> wrote:

> Apple's generically named applications--"Mail" and "Pages"--make it
> strangely difficult to search for help and info on them. Anyone else have
> this difficulty? Any tips on narrowing down a search? Even find info on
> .Mac is tricky.

On a related note... I was a bit frustrated when I tried to do a TidBITS
site search recently to find something for my iPod.

Is it possible that the "five or more characters" search restriction could
get a loophole for certain obvious terms like "iPod", "iMac", and ".Mac"?
Flagging "iPod" as an invalid search seems user-unfriendly to me.

[Secret trick for now: just search for "iPod iPod" and it will work. The searching will change entirely when we move the database to Web Crossing. -Adam]

* Dave Scocca (davescocca.org) --R. Thompson *