Mac and Microsoft Searches / Google For Dummies

Mac and Microsoft Searches

Apple Macintosh and Microsoft Windows: two operating system behemoths representing a fundamental polarity in the computer world. Nobody can claim that the Mac is a behemoth in terms of market share, because Apple sells less than 5 percent of all new computers. But when it comes to ferocious loyalty and PR stamina, Apple owns world-class clout. Google has assembled a trove of Web sources relating to each system and segregated them into distinct search engines.

Tip

A favorite game of mine (I am very easily amused) is to open two browser windows, one for the Mac search engine and one for the Microsoft search engine. Then I search both for the same terms. Try internet explorer, ipod, “steve jobs”, and “bill gates”. Compare results for mind-twisting alternative perspectives. Good times!

Because Apple and Microsoft both maintain substantial Web domains, those pages tend to appear disproportionately. Get around this by using a minus sign, which is the symbol for the NOT operator (see Chapter 2). When searching the Mac engine, blot out microsoft.com, and when searching the Mac site eradicate apple.com. Here are two example search strings:

itunes specifications -site:apple.com
windows 98 networking -site:microsoft.com

Tip

You can override the limitations of the Mac and Microsoft search engines by using the site operator, pointing it to any site. This is a marginally useful tip, granted, but there might be a time when you want to break out of Macland or Microsoftville by searching another site without tracking your way back to the Google home page. Of course, this point is superfluous if you use the Google Toolbar. Are you using the Google Toolbar? You should be. See Chapter 9 for more tiresome exhortations.