Saturday, November 22, 2008
Shower. Patrick made my favorite breakfast. Wrapped gifts and prepared for mailing. Edited and uploaded photos. At yesterday's New Faculty Orientation I saw some PowerPoint presentations that included long URLs, and I realized that instead of publishing a long URL or a TinyURL (which some people still don't trust), another thing you can do instead is tell people what to search on in Google to find the same page. This works particularly well if you can craft a Google search to find exactly the document you want with a minimum of search terms. Or, to help people pick out the content to which you are referring, also show them a thumbnail or sample page. People intuitively use a search methodology like this when wanting to share fun or interesting things. For example, it's likely that no one has memorized the URL https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dMH0bHeiRNg, but most people who have seen this video know that if you visit youtube.com and search on dance history or dancing history you'll be able to easily find it. Indeed, if you search google.com on youtube dance history or youtube dancing history, the video appears (today) as one of the 2 first results with a thumbnail as a bonus. It's much easier for people to jot down a few search terms than an entire URL exactly. Archived documents and photos. Patrick took a nap. Lunch at home by myself: leftover noodles and dumplings. For the first time ever, I noticed the Promote feature appear in Google search results. I didn't know what clicking it would do exactly beyond move the result higher up on the page I was looking at, so I didn't click it. This reminded me of the gold treasure chest in the top right corner of amazon.com which I never click because to me it's like Pandora's box rather than something useful or beneficial to me—it's not entirely clear what will happen if I click it. Errands: post office, alterations drop-off, drug store, sewing supplies, cost plus, party supply. Lunch for Patrick and midafternoon meal for me: Daphne's. Gasoline. Clothing maintenance. Wrapped gifts. Organized out-of-season and other clothes. Cut my hair. Napped. Went to Lookout for Bruce's surprise-not-surprise birthday party.