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Hack 67. Google on the Go
Being on the go and away from your laptop ordesktop doesn't mean leaving Google
behind .As the saying goes, "You
can't take it with you." Unless,
that is, you're talking about Google. Just because
you've left your laptop at home or at the office,
that doesn't necessarily mean leaving the Web and
Google behind. So long as you have your trusty cell phone or
network-enabled PDA in your pocket, so too do you have Google.Whether you have the top-of-the-line Treo 600, Blackberry, or
Sidekick with integrated web browser; base-model cell phone that your
carrier gave you for free; or anything in between, chances are that
you're able to Google on the go.Google caters to the "on the go"
crowd with its Google wireless interfaces: a simpler, lighter,
gentler PDA- and smartphone-friendly version of Google, a WAP (read:
wireless Web) flavor for cell phones with limited web access, and an
SMS gateway for messaging your query to and receiving an almost
instantaneous response from Google. There's even a
mobile interface to Google's Froogle (http://froogle.google.com) product search.
5.10.1. Google by PDA or Smartphone
Google PDA Search (http://www.google.com/palm) brings all the
power of Google to the PDA in your palm, hiptop on your belt, or cell
phone in your pocket.
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"in like Flint" dinner-table
argument without leaving your seat. Find quickie reviews and
commentary on that Dustmeister 2000 vacuum before
making the purchase. Figure out where
you've seen that bit-part actor before without
having to wait for the credits.Your modern PDA and the smarter so-called
smartphones sport a full-fledged web browser on
which you can surf all the Web has to offer in living
coloralbeit substantially smaller. You find the usual Address
Bar, Back and Forward buttons, Bookmarks or Favorites, and
point-and-click (or point-and-tap, as the case may be) hyperlinks.
While the onboard browser might just be able to handle the regular
Google.com web pages, the Google PDA Search provides simpler,
smaller, no-nonsense, plain HTML Pages. And results pages pack in
fewer results for faster loading.Just point your mobile browser at http://google.com/palm, enter your search
terms, click the Google Search button, and up come your results, as
shown in Figure 5-27.
Figure 5-27. Google PDA Search (left) and results (right) on a Nokia smartphone
although it might be more than a little challenging to enter those
quotes, colons, parentheses, and minus signs.
5.10.2. Google by Cell Phone
If you have a garden-variety cell phoneof the sort your mobile
provider either gives away free with signup or charges on the order
of $40 foryou may yet find you have a built-in browser...of a
sort. Don't expect anything nearly as fast,
colorful, or feature-filled as your computer's web
browser. This is a text-only world, limited in both display and
interactivity.That all said, you have the wealthif not the
Technicolorof the Web right in your very pocket.Step one, however, is to find the browser in the first place.
It's usually hidden in plain sight, cleverly hidden
behind some (possibly meaningless) moniker such as WAP, Web,
Internet, Services, Downloads, or a brand name such as mMode or
T-Zones. If nothing of the sort leaps out at you, look for an icon
sporting your cell phone provider's logo, take a
stroll through the menus, dig out your manual, or give your provider
a ring (usually 611 on your cell phone).
" since your phoneyour first set of results show up (as shown in Figure 5-28, center). Scroll to the bottom of the results
and click the Next link (shown in Figure 5-28,
right) to move on to the next page of results.
Figure 5-28. Google wireless search (left), first results (center), and link to the next 5 results (right)
would in a normal browser. You'll notice immediately
that the pages you visit by clicking a result link are dumbed
downsimilar to Google's wireless search
itselfto suit the needs of your mobile's
display abilities.Truth be told, you're not visiting the resulting
page directly at all. What you see on your screen and in Figure 5-29 is courtesy of the Google WAP proxy, a service
turning HTML pages into
WAP/WML (think of it
as HTML for wireless devices) on the fly. Click another link on the
resulting page and you'll continue browsing via the
Google proxy, Google essentially turning all the Web into a mobile
Web.
Figure 5-29. An ordinary web page as seen through the lens of the Google WAP proxy
Google WAP proxy. Find your mobile browser's Options
menu and click the Go to URL link. In the resulting page, enter any
web site URL into the Go to URL box and click the Go button to visit
a mobile version of that page.
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5.10.3. Google by SMS
As a New York Times article
("All Thumbs, Without the Stigma";
http://tech2.nytimes.com/mem/technology/techreviewl?res=9E00E6DE163FF931A2575BC0A9629C8B63) suggested recently, the thumb is the
power digit. While the thumboard of choice for executives tends to be
the Blackberry mobile
device (http://www.blackberry.com/), for the rest of
the world (and many of the kids in your neighborhood),
it's the cell phone and Short Message Service
(SMS).SMS messages are quick-and-dirty text messages (think mobile instant
messaging) tapped into a cell phone and sent over the airwaves to
another cell phone for around 5 to 10 cents apiece.But SMS isn't just for person-to-person messaging.
In the UK, BBC Radio provides so-called
shortcodes
(really just short telephone numbers) to which you can SMS your
requests to the DJ's automated request-tracking
system. You can SMS bus and rail systems for travel schedules. Your
airline will SMS you updates on the status of your flight. And now
you can talk to Google via SMS as well. Google SMS (http://www.google.com/sms/) provides an SMS
gateway for querying the Google Web index, looking up phone numbers
[Hack #6] , seeking out
definitions [Hack #10] , and
comparative shopping in the Froogle product catalog service
(http://froogle.google.com).Simply send an SMS message to U.S. shortcode 46645
(read: GOOGL), as shown later in Figure 5-30, with one of the following forms of query: Web Search
Search the Google Web by prefixing your query with a
G (upper- or lowercase). You'll
receive the top two results in return, formatted as text snippets,
hopefully containing some information of use to you. g capital of south africa
G answer to life the universe and everything
Google Local Business Listing
Consult Google Local's business listings by passing
it a business name or type and city, state combination, or Zip Code. vegetarian restaurant Jackson MS
southern cooking 95472
scooters.New York NY
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Residential Phone Number
Find a residential phone number with some combination of first or
last name, city, state, Zip Code, or area code. augustus gloop Chicago il
violet beauregard 95472
mike teevee ny
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Froogle Prices
Check the current prices of items for sale online through Froogle
(http://froogle.google.com/). To
trigger a Froogle lookup, prefix your query with an
F (upper- or lowercase), price,
or prices (the latter two will also work at the
end of the query). g nokia 6230 cellphone
price bmw 2002
ugg boots prices
Definition
Rather than scratching your head trying to understand just what Ms.
Austen means by disapprobation , ask Google for a
definition [Hack #10] . Prefix the
word or phrase of interest with a D (upper- or
lowercase) or the word define. D disapprobation
define osteichthyes
Calculation
Perform feats of calculation and conversion using the Google
Calculator [Hack #47] . (2*2)+3
12 ounces in grams
Zip Code
Pass Google SMS a U.S. Zip Code to find out where one might find it
in the country. 95472
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You'll receive your results as one or more SMS
messages labeled, appropriately enough, (1of3, 2of3, etc.), as shown
in Figure 5-30. Notice that there are no URLs or
links in the responses: what's the point when you
can't click on them?
Figure 5-30. A Google SMS query (left) and response (right)
5.10.4. Froogle on the Go
If you wish you could compare prices at that "One
Day Sale" on kitchen gadgets without leaving the
store, Wireless Froogle (http://froogle.google.com) is as much a part
of the shopping experience as that credit card.Point your mobile browser at
wml.froogle.com, tap in the name
of the product you're about to take to the checkout
(Figure 5-31, left), and up pops a list of prices as
advertised by online vendors (Figure 5-31, right).
Figure 5-31. Wireless Froogle Search (left) and results (right)
yogurt makers, abacuses to faux yak fur coats on Froogle.At the time of this writing, Wireless Froogle is nowhere near as
complete as one might hope. You can't constrain your
results by price, group them by store, or sort them in any way.
Results don't link to anywhere. That said, it is a
still a handy price-check tool as you're standing in
that checkout line.$49.99 for a pashminalemme at it! Sometimes instant
gratification is worth it; sometimes paying only $49.99 for silk is
well worth the wait.
