Tech Tips

December 2003

Amazon’s Search Inside the Book

by Barbara J. Feldman December 30, 2003

Joel Mokyr, professor of economics and history at Northwestern University, compares the importance of Amazon.com’s new Search Inside the Book capability with the invention of the encyclopedia. To search the contents of 120,000 books, simply enter a phrase into Amazon’s regular search box. For more details on how this works, see Amazon’s help page.

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Home Networking Help

by Barbara J. Feldman December 17, 2003

Are you installing a home network this holiday season? Here are three key definitions to get you started. A hub is a simple, unintelligent device that sends incoming signals out to ports. A switch is more selective, and only sends incoming traffic to specific ports. A router is the most intelligent, and can be programmed [...]

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Google Definitions

by Barbara J. Feldman December 16, 2003

Google now supplies definitions through its search function. Simply search for either “what is your-term-here” or “define your-term-here” and you will see a Web definition at the top of the search results. To see only definitions (and no search results) try “define: your-term-here” . What’s interesting about the results is that they do not come [...]

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Internet Cookies

by Barbara J. Feldman December 9, 2003

Cookies are small files on your computer created by websites to record your visits and other data that you provide to the website. For example, a weather site might use a cookie to save your zip code so on your next visit you will not have to enter it again. For an introduction to cookies [...]

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Product Manuals

by Barbara J. Feldman December 1, 2003

There should be corollary to Murphy’s Law (“If anything can go wrong, it will”) that states “If anything goes wrong, you won’t be able to find the product manual.” But help is just a few clicks away. Live Manuals and Amazon.com both offer free user manuals for many manufacturers. And, last but not least, many [...]

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