by Duncan Kelly

Created on: June 19, 2008   Last Updated: June 27, 2008

One of the reasons that the Google search engine has always remained so popular is that it never ceases to surprise. You get an idea, and think to yourself "I wonder if Google can do this?" and sure as nuts, it does it! I've started to wonder if there's anything they haven't thought of.

OK, I know they're only human, so there's bound to be something they've left out, but nevertheless, there's a lot of very useful things you can do with this search engine that make life a lot easier.

Here are some of the things I've discovered; Most of these give you instant answers without having to visit a web page:

To get the present time in any country in the world, just type into the Google search box "time in xxxxx" where xxxxx is the name of the country or town.

To convert between measurement units: I want to convert mph to knots, so I type in the search box "50 mph in knots" and I get the answer. You can also type in "half a cup in teaspoons" and get an answer!

It also does calculations for you, so you can type in (eg). 5*7+67 and it will give you the answer.

To find definitions: type in "define mass" and we get a standard definition, without having to go to a web site. I haven't tried it with "define the meaning of life" but it will probably give you that as well!

If you want to track the flight of an aeroplane in the United States, type in it's name and number, as in: "United flight 654" and it will give you the departure and arrival times and if it's on schedule!

To find the capital of a country, type in (eg) "capital of Zambia"
Want to know the number of people in Yemen? Type in "population of Yemen"

To find how much 500 yen is in dollars, just type in (eg) "500 yen in dollars"

To check the weather, type in "weather " and your town. Include the country if you are outside of the USA. eg.: "weather Durban South Africa"

To get stock prices and a graph for a share, type it's code in the search box, eg "SNV"

And some other useful tips:

Add a tilde ~ before your search phrase to get related terms, eg "~horse" will return results for horse, pony, stallion, etc.

Add the text &imgtype=face at the end of your image search phrase if you only want faces of people and not all the other things, like when you are searching for a lady called "Rose" you don't want all the other things like flowers, quartz, and so on to appear. eg: "Rose&imgtype=face "

These things come in really handy at times, especially when the boss is breathing down your neck and you need an answer fast! It is fast and time saving, because you don't have to first navigate to a site, and wait for all their advertising banners and pictures to load, in order to get the info you need.

It really is nice to find what you want intuitively.

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