How to use Google to get the best results -Part I-

What are you doing when you open Google ?

Do you just type in a keyword or a sentence and look on the first page which results Google presents you?

Hmm, perhaps you should take another look at Google and use it's full power by choosing different settings for your search results?

Here my series of "How to get the best search results with Google" will start. You will find a lot of new options and settings to get better search results and perhaps find some other interesting stuff with Google!

Show options

Did you recognize already that after you entered your keyword, you will see in the top left corner under the search term a link named "Show options"?

What is hidden behind this link?

First of all, it will open a small menu on the left hand side of your search results. There you can find the following items and new search and filter options

1. All results, video, blogs, forums
   
2. Any time, recent results, results from the last hour, 24 hours, past week, past year, specific date range
3. Standard view, Related searches, Wonder wheel
   
4. Standard results, Image from the pages, Fewer/more shopping sites, more text
   

Let's look for today on the first two options. Sometimes you just want to find results which are not from the mainstream media or the news agencies.

Therefore you can choose now more precisely the information, may it be just what persons are writing about this topic on their blogs or in forums or if they posted some videos about your specific keyword.

Now you could narrow your results a little bit more by not only choosing a specific website category but also by choosing different time frames.

If the news is so actual like perhaps the death of a celebrity like Micheal Jackson, in this case it happen that Google shows you older news at first as they are already established and kind of "branded"!
Then it could be necessary that you just want to see the most actual news which were released in the last hour or in the past 24 hours. Click the links and you will get the desired results within a second.

After you choose one of the time options, another option appears - Sort by relevance or sort by date. You can play with these now, too. Usually relevance is more useful for me :)

It will be from now on an easy game for youb y clicking the link "Show options" to find faster, easier and better search results in Google!

Next time we look at the last two options and some more tweaks for better search results in Google!

Image via Wikipedia

Apology for the Blog Layout!

I'm sorry that the blog is at the moment without any graphics :(

I'm using a FREE Blogger template for this blog and the person who provided this template does seldom upgrade his Photobucket account.

It seems in the last two months that his bandwidth gets exceeded in the last week of each month. I hope i can download the pictures as soon as his account is upgraded again.

I thought perhaps it's better now to store the used pictures here in Blogger/Picassa as they provide 1 Gigabyte free space and unlimited download volume and you could open several accounts for free with each of them giving you additional 1 Gigabyte free space :)
But on the other side it's quite time-consuming to change the link code for each picture.

Save Money, use Freeware!

In case you never heard about Freeware yet:

It's software which is completely free of charge. You can download it and copy it as often as you want and share it with your friends and relatives.

There is a lot of free software in the Internet available for each category you can think of from Antivirus-Programs to Games, from Anti-Spyware to Firewall and Security-Programs, you even can get a FREE Office-Program (OpenOffice.org) instead of buying the expensive Microsoft Office Package.

Some of these freeware programs are even better than the paid versions of their opponents. Give it a try, you will love it, too!

Here are some websites which offer you this kind of software as freeware or shareware!

• FileHippo.com
  My favorite website as they also provide the FREE update checker which looks for new updates of their supported programs!
  
  
• BrotherSoft.com
  Over 100.000 Programs available, some are Shareware which means it's sometimes with a time limit or you have to pay money to get all functions!
  
  
• Freeware Files
  Over 14.000 programs available, lot of updates
  
  
• Nonags.com
  Thousands of titles that are tested, rated, reviewed and safety approved.
  

Picture from http://www.flickr.com/photos/klabusta/ / CC BY-NC-ND 2.0

How to get rid of ants -Part II-

This article is a compilation of the comments i received from my first article about How to get rid of ants in the house / kitchen.

The advices of the following visitors have been:

Roy Blacksail from Interblagmoney wrote:

Ant traps are always an option. Try to put them where the ants enter the house, that way it's the first thing they find and carry the yummy poison home right away.

I'm pretty sure I also heard that ants wont cross a line of salt. So if you know where they come in, you can make a barrier. This isn't a permanent solution, just something to help while you clean up whatever is attracting them. I'd double check that one though.

Daisy the Curly Cat wrote:

Well, it doesn't get rid of the ants, but there is a great product called "The Antser." It's a small raised platform that has a water-filled moat on the inside. The ants cannot cross the barrier. Use it to put pet food bowls and the ants stay out of the food. You can also place your kitchen trash can on it to keep the ants away. And it's completely safe and non-toxic!

Not John Chow added

1. Boil a pot of water.
2. Dissolve in some sugar (about one cup).
3. Add Boric Acid (amount equal to the sugar).
4. Boil for two minutes.
5. Let cool.
6. Leave in saucers or containers that ants can get into around the house.
7. Wait.

Ants will find the sweet mixture and start to eat it and take it back to the hive. It will at first appear that your ant problem will get worse, but then it should stop completely.
What happens is that the boric acid will dehydrate them and then they will die in the hive but, not before they deliver more "poison" to the hive. This mixture is should be kept away from animals and children but, is unlikely to harm them.

betchai from The joys of simple life said

i use cayenne pepper (have not tried the black pepper), and so far it is also very effective in scaring the ants away.

Krystal from Solsisters Handbags wrote

Very lightly dust counters (almost so you can't even see it) with boric acid

Lucky Girl from Make everyday your lucky day mentioned

My favorite ant fixer is instant grits. Sprinkle them around the problem areas dry (it doesn't work if the grits get wet). The ants will eat the grits, the grits swell with the moisture in the ant's digestive system, and POP! go the ants.

Thank you to everyone for your suggestion. I hope these new suggestions might also been helpful for other readers who face the problem "How can i get rid of ants in my house / kitchen".