Phil Bradley trawls the internet to find the answers to this month’s readers’ queries.
Q I’m just starting to use Flickr (www.flickr.com) to post and share my photographs. I’m aware that I can add them to different groups, but how can I find out what groups there are? It all seems a bit of a mess.
A Flickr, in common with lots of other Web 2.0 applications, does tend to look a little anarchic when you first try and explore it. However, there are several ways in which you can quickly find groups to join, and then post your photographs to. Firstly, take a look at the directory structure (like the old-style Yahoo!) at www.flickr.com/groups_browse.gne which lists categories that you can drill down into. From this page you’ll see in the top right-hand corner a search box that you can use to search for specific groups. You can also click on the ‘Explore’ menu item to see recent photographs, or view geotagtagged pictures to see if there are any in geographic areas that interest you.
Finally, start looking at other photographs and see what groups they have been added to, or look at your contacts profiles to see what groups they are members of. If all else fails and you can’t find what you want, you can always start your own!
Q I noticed that Google has created a Shakespeare Centre. Are there any other similar resources for checking out Shakespeare’s work?
A There are actually rather a lot of them. Google has the ‘Explore Shakespeare with Google’ collection (http://books.google.com/googlebooks/shakespeare/) but there is also a collection of his works that is searchable at www.it.usyd.edu.au/~matty/Shakespeare/test.html
But my favourite would have to be the Clusty search engine version, at ‘Shakespeare Searched’ (http://shakespeare.clusty.com/), which not only allows full-text searching, but results are clustered.
For a fuller discussion of these, try the Search Engine Watch article (http://blog.searchenginewatch.com/blog/060912-093721 ).
Q Is there a good list of internet abbreviations and emoticons that are used in chatrooms and informal
communication anywhere?
A For emoticons try www.computeruser.com/resources/dictionary/emoticons.html
Instant Messenger emoticons are at www.traviscarden.com/etc/dictionary-of-emoticons/ and a discussion of them is located at www.pcworld.com/article/id,88686-page,1/article.html
Or try Ask.com and simply type in the one that you’re interested in; the search engine has a specific section for just those queries.
Site of the month
My site of the month is Search Medica (www.searchmedica.co.uk/searchmedica/) which is a medical search engine, designed by and for GPs. I’ve already found that it’s a helpful resource even if you’re a layperson with a limited understanding of medical matters.
Phil Bradley is an internet consultant, trainer, web designer and author. Visit www.philb.com for free information on internet introductions, search engine articles, web design tips and a host of other free information. New: 3rd edn of The Advanced Internet Searcher’s Handbook is now available! If you have any questions about the internet send an email to philb@philb.com with the subject header ‘column query’. This column and its hotlinks are available on www.cilip.org.uk/update under Online Articles.
Updated: 16 October 2006