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Summary: Yet another 'essential'
Review: O'Reilly has done it again. They have managed to publish a book that will probably never leave my desk. This book is probably one of the best non-programming books O'Reilly has ever published.So much of my work is done via internet search engines and of course my engine of choice is Google. Google never lets me down, always providing me the answer with minimal clicks. If any of your work relies on finding information via the Google search engine then this book should be part of your arsenal. There are a lot of functions provided Google that I never knew about. The first 70 pages of the book are dedicated to performing actual searches and what can be done to tweak them. Chapter 2 goes more into the other services that Google provides. The authors have done a great job providing an overview of the more advanced features this search engine gives you. Chapters 4, 5 and 6 deal with API applications that use internal Google functions or use other programming languages to maneuver those functions such as PHP, Java, Python, C# and VB.net. Chapter 7 is a great chapter dealing with pranks and games. Overall, if you can't already tell, I really like this book and can't think of anything that I don't like. Even if you aren't in the IT arena this book is an easy reading and informative addition to your bookshelf.
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Summary: Google Hacks: 100 Industrial-Strength Tips $ Tools
Review: REVIEW: GOOGLE HACKS: 100 INDUSTRIAL-STRENGTH TIPS $ TOOLS by Jocelyn Paine My brain seems to turn off when I'm exposed to the advanced terminology, much less faced with wading through the web. I've not been as intimidated by the search engine Google, though, because it seems to facilitate exploring the millions (billions?) of choices now available on the World Wide Web. I've always felt I'm not utilizing it enough. So I was very glad to see "Google Hacks, 100 Industrial-Strength Tips & Tools," by Tara Calishain & Rael Dornfest, published by O'Reilly & Associates ... Only recently did I learn that 'google' is a pun on the mathematical term: googol, a one followed by a hundred zeros. There isn't anything that large in the universe, so it is a mythical term, but it aptly symbolizes the magnitude of information available on the Web. I believe that all good reference books have extensive Indexes. The one for "Google Hacks" leads me to a whole new world of Google. I find out that there's something called Google API that users like me access, but for the brave of heart and reliable of fingers there's code available for 'scraping' beyond the surface of the usual pages. Whew! This is way above my head, but I'm fascinated by the possibilities. The authors also responsibly define what is and what is not allowable according to Google's terms of agreement and what can lead to being banned from Google! A handy thermometer reference classifies each hack into beginner, moderate and expert categories. Just leafing through the table of contents makes it clear to me that there is lots I don't use in Google. I liked the arrangement of the book, very much like a 'Dummies' reference book. The writing is very clear, non technical and well explained, with step-by-step guidelines, and clever and humerous to boot. A lot of the book is devoted to actually creating a page for Google, which I have no aspirations to do, but who knows what's in my future? Highly recommended for the novice, like me, or the advanced computer geek. Now we don't know any of those, do we?
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Summary: Misleading Title
Review: The bulk of this book deals with applications created using the Google API. Even the discussion of the API itself is limited. All of the hacks relevant to the search engine itself are contained in the Google Pocket Guide. If you are looking for ideas on what can be done with the Google API, or how to use the applications that others have written, then this book might be for you. However, if you are looking for tips and things to tinker with - hacks, regarding the search engine, do not bother with this book.
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Summary: Google Hacks by Calishain & Dornfest pub by O'Reilly
Review: The World Wide Web aka www is not a straight line to information, as many computer users envision its use. The important word is "Web"..like in Spider. There is a constant network of crosshairs and links, and finding your way to a destination can be difficult. Luckily, there is a search agent called "Google'" that does all the hard work, and turns the impossible into just difficult. The book "Google Hacks" is 325 pages of information, which has one hundred tips and tools about using the service. It is well written, and even illustrated with computer windows that help readers make their Internet searches less of an ordeal. It is intense reading but well worth the effort. Although the term "hacker" is familiar as it refers to the "bad guys" in cyberspace, O'reilly is launching a new series of books which will use the term to reflect on those "good guys", who are striving to make it a better world.
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Summary: Google Hacks is a Must Have Book
Review: This book is a must on your bookshelf if you are a Google power user or a developer who in interested in making Google work for you and your customers. It tells the whole Google story, where it came from, how it became so popular and how to take advantage of the greatest search engine ever.
This is the book by which all other books about Google will be measured. Don't go searching without it!
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Summary: Must-have reference tool.
Review: This book is one that every computer geek should own. Google Hacks is a companion reference book for the mother of all search engines, Google. This awesome volume contains the history of how Google came to be, tips and tricks to get the search engine to give you exactly what you need, and fun games you can play on Google - such as the ever popular Google Whacking. I plan to not only buy a copy of this book, but also recommend at the next staff meeting that all my co-workers read at least the first part of Google Hacks.
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Summary: Something for Everyone
Review: This book is useful, fun and, in parts, bemusing. It presents one hundred numbered "hacks" that range from simple, but very useful tips, to moderately ambitious programming efforts. The great strength of "Google Hacks" is that it has something for everyone. The first few chapters are perfect for those who have no knowledge of programming. The bulk of the book is appropriate for those who have at least some programming experience and are interested in accessing Google programatically. There are many examples scattered throughout that will be of interest to webmasters who want something cool for their website. The final chapter, "The Webmaster Side of Google", is devoted to managing your web site's lineament on Google. Particularly appealing is the fact that, although most of the programmatic hacks are in Perl, there are examples in no fewer than nine languages. Html, java, php, python, C#, .NET, VB, asp, and possibly other languages, are represented. Many of the simple tips presented early in the book illuminate useful methods that Google.com itself should do a better job promoting. Google's special syntaxes are a prime example. Want to find John Doe in Mira Mesa? Enter "rphonebook: John Doe 92126" in google's text box. The rphonebook: tells google to look in the residential phone book. 92126 is the zip code for Mira Mesa. The site syntax is very useful. To quickly find the mirror sites for redhat, use "site:redhat.com mirrors". There are many more special syntaxes that use the colon character Some of the hacks are for amusement only. One must be in the right mood to properly appreciate the "Google Mirror" hack (#91) or the "The No-Result Search" (#86). The neighborhood hack (#65) may be the most ambitious in the book. It consists of about five pages of Python code. It collects all the sites that link to a given site, then within the collection determines how many times each site is referred to by one of the others. The hack was written by Mark Pilgrim, who has also published a free Python book. You can try the hack yourself at diveintomark.org, where you'll also find a link to Mark's excellent book. How quickly will "Google Hacks" become dated? Certainly the web itself is growing exponentially. There can be no doubt that Google will change and grow as well. However, I suspect that the majority of principles exposited will continue to work and be relevant for years to come. "Google Hacks" came out in Februray 2003; it is mid July as I write this review. Given the length of the publishing pipeline and the rate at which things change on the web, I expected significant portions of the book to be out of date. This was not the case. I only found a couple of urls that had changed as well as a single typographical error. The folks at O'Reilly must have gone over the manuscript with a fine-tooth comb! Acknowledgment: The review copy of the book was donated by O'Reilly to the Kernel Panic Linux Users Group.
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Summary: A Money-Saving Compilation
Review: This book is what exactly you expect from O'Reilly - great tips, well written, carefully organized and attractively formatted. It may be that all this information is available for free at various sites on the internet. That does not detract from the value of having valuable information at your fingertips when you need it. Each hack in the book can be located and read in minutes, saving hours of "free" search time. That alone makes the book's price a bargain.
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Summary: Expert only?
Review: This book isn't as fun and easy as it sounds. I was able to play with a few "hacks", but on the whole, I didn't find this book too user-friendly or easy to comprehend.
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Summary: Not just for programmers
Review: This book isn't at all what I expected - and this was a very welcome surprise! From the colophon for the first time not being a member of the animal kingdom (a pair of locking pliers dresses the book's cover) to the content within, this is another achievement for the fine folks at O'Reilly. I first got a copy of the book thinking it was an end-to-end collection of code snippets on using the Google API to write custom apps to access Google's massive data store, but it's so much more than that. The book is wholly a collection of 100 quick-reading tips and tricks on using Google, but not exclusively from a coder's point of view. For that reason, it's very flexible to a wide audience. It's subdivided into distinct sections that focus on using the various services and features offered by Google, such as time-saving query syntax, to customized programming with the Google API, to off-the-wall tricks. The book also gives great examples of performing searches that have little-to-no documentation from Google, such as doing lookups for stock symbols or phone numbers. The authors also do a great job of highlighting several utilities and apps built within and outside of the scope of the Google Terms of Service agreement to access its data. The games are quirky, but cool. You're unquestionably going to find something in the title's pages you'll find neat and want to replicate/morph for your own use. It may tend to disappoint codeheads who buy it just for syntax and rippable code samples for using the Google API, but it does more than make up for it in being a reference for getting the most out of what's undoubtedly the world's most popular search engine. The only criticism I have is that the book was very top-heavy in examples written in Perl, so it's more applicable to that crowd, especially given that the book's back cover advertised examples in .NET, Java, Python, and PHP. (There was ONE example for each of the aforementioned languages and platforms in the chapter on programming against the Google API). However, my fellow .NET developers can surely use the Perl .NET or if you're up for a good challenge, cross-translate the Perl syntax into the equivalent of your favorite .NET language. But outside of that, the book's great. It's quick, fun, organized and won't force you to give up a couple nights to get through it. And it not being solely a programmer's book, it's also applicable for others in your school, office and household. I've let several people read it - namely a teacher, a couple of students, and some Web surfers - and they all enjoyed it thoroughly. You read what you need to read, and get on with your life. And at US$...it's a steal.
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