Ask MetaFilter questions tagged with searches

I want to see what Google sees

BobbyVan — Tue, 18 Nov 2008 15:56:45 -0800

How can I make my Vista desktop display what people are searching for on Google? I was watching this video about Google's NYC headquarters, and they had a cool floor display that projects what people are searching for on Google in a cool, Matrixy kind of way.

So I was thinking that it would be cool if there was some sort of widget for Vista that could display live Google searches the same way, preferably covering my entire desktop background. I just want to see the randomness of the Internet cascading across my screen.

Is there anything like that out there?

Why are our names still linked?

amysk — Sun, 09 Nov 2008 14:34:47 -0800

I was engaged, but never married to, a guy 11 years ago - somehow our names and my mother's address are linked together in several combinations out in cyberspace and on direct-mailing lists. How can I unlink them? I can find myself with his last name in online people searches, my mother gets catalogs and credit card offers with his first name and my last name, my first name and his last name. She even gets mail with his wife's first name and my last name. To my knowledge, we had one credit card together that had my maiden name on it, but that card was reported lost years ago.

I haven't lived in my mom's house in 10 years and I am happily married to someone else and have taken his name. Luckily with my married name I am only linked to my husband.

I thought I was rid of this creep for good! Can someone give me any ideas? He is so not worth all the junk mail that he is generating! (Hopefully he and his wife get mail with my name on it!!!)

UK police wants to search me on a public road - do I have a choice?

krautland — Thu, 25 Sep 2008 12:07:15 -0800

UK police wants to search me on a public road - do I have a choice? I just got searched by a bunch of cops on a public street in London.
For the third time in two months. I'm tired of this.

(Previous searches have been at a tube station and outside a shopping mall.)

The cops are usually kind and civil but I am being told I have no choice but to allow them to pad me down. These are instances where they do this to almost everyone walking past them. Often they bring a metal detector gate with them. The usual explanation is that they are trying to prevent knife-crime.

The Metropolitan Police website tells me that indeed I do not have a choice but to submit to such searches. I may not have to give my name or assist them in any way but I cannot deny them this search.

Are they correct? What is the legal situation here?

Automatically creating a long list of Google Reader searches?

jbickers — Thu, 03 Jul 2008 07:41:10 -0800

Is there a way to automatically create Google Reader news searches from a long list of topics? I've got a text file that contains the names of about 50-100 companies. I want to monitor Google News for each of these companies - that is, I want one search per company in Google Reader.

The way I've done this in the past is (1) Search Google News for the company, (2) click "RSS" on the left hand side of the results page to add to Google Reader.

But there must be some way to automatically pull RSS news searches for each one ... isn't there? Others within the company need to do the same thing, and their lists are even longer than mine.

I know how to find Tony Curtis and Kirk Douglas. How do I find Wilt Chamberlain and Mick Jagger?

rileyray3000 — Wed, 02 Jul 2008 12:42:31 -0800

Is there anything like an IMDB for rock music? or for sports figures? I'm trying to do a search for famous men over 65 who haven't kicked the bucket yet. With IMDB it's pretty easy to do so for guys in entertainment (TV, Film, radio even). But when it comes to rock or sports, not so much. Any idea if such sites exist with similar functionality to IMDB?

Change searching in windows in Firefox

Mo Nickels — Sun, 29 Jun 2008 07:25:56 -0800

How can I change the behavior of searching in windows in Firefox? The Firefox search-in-browser bar is, and has always has been, awful. [I posted this to the Firefox forums and got no response.]

I am not referring to searches done using URL shortcuts nor am I referring to searches done using search box in the upper right corner of the browser window.

The search-in-browser bar is what I am calling the bar that appears at the bottom of the browser window when you search for content inside of the page that is currently loaded by hitting ctrl-F on Windows or command-F on Mac. I use Firefox 3.0 for both platforms.

The search-in-browser bar is broken (or, if you prefer, intentionally coded in such a way that it behaves in a broken fashion) in that it:

a. Continues to appear on the screen even long after it has last been used.

b. Continues to appear on the screen when a link is clicked and a new page is loaded.

c. "Match case" seems to be arbitrarily selected in between searches.

d. Takes up an inordinate amount of screen real estate, especially in a browser window that fills the monitor. This is particularly problematic on a laptop with a small screen.

What I would like to find is a way to change this behavior. I have looked for things to change in about:config and for an appropriate extension but found no joy.

What I'd like to have happen in Firefox:

1. The search-in-browser bar should disappear in user-settable amount of time after it has last been used, either X amount of time after the last search is made or after the last time a related search key command is entered. I know that you can sometimes hit escape to get the search-in-browser bar to disappear, but that doesn't always work either--it sometimes stupidly requires that you click back into the search field and *then* hit escape--not even rehitting ctrl-F/command-F and then hitting escape works.

2. The search-in-browser bar should disappear when a link is clicked and a new page is loaded.

3. "Match case" should never be selected by default or at the start of a search; or, it should be a user preference as to whether it is a default or not.

4. Ideally, the search-in-browser bar should be able to be turned off. It should return to being a pop-up window as it was on previous versions of Firefox, or it should be a user preference as to whether it should be attached to the window or should be a free-standing pop-up window.

How do I find text inside php?

czechmate — Wed, 23 Apr 2008 05:11:26 -0800

Is there a program that will do a deep text search inside php and html files? I have to find a certain text line inside hundreds of php and html files on my computer.
I've already used Total Commander and Windows Grep (I have no clue.. just found it while I was searching for an answer) and so far it's not turned up anything at all.
Anyone know of a program that could help out?

Where can I go to hunt down old employment information?

Jujee — Mon, 20 Aug 2007 06:28:29 -0800

I have a week to hunt down DH's employment information starting from 1988. Where do I begin? We definitely don't have any paperwork around from '88! TIA

Alternative in IE Scrapbook feature?

ParisParamus — Mon, 20 Feb 2006 06:57:24 -0800

Please help me find an alternative to IE Scrapbook Scraps, which allow field text to be saved for future searches For several years, I have used the Scrapbook function of IE for Mac to search a public database of law firm court appearances (I think it's a protected, SQL databased; this is the URL where I do the searching: http://portal.courts.state.ny.us/pls/portal30/CMS_DEV.ATTORNEY_COURT_SCHEDULES.show).

IE's scrapbook feature is unusual in that it allows one to enter, e.g., search info into a web page field, save the page (the "Scrap"), and then re-open the Scrap with the info saved in the field still usable (in this case, to conduct a new search).

For example, if I Scrapbook the above-referenced page with the law firm "Dewey Cheatm & Howe" in the field, in two weeks, I can call up the scrap, and just it return to conduct the same search; I do searches for the schedules of dozens of law firms, so this is a tremendous feature.

I have looked for alternatives for the Scrapbook feature on IE for Mac, without success. I have been unable to find an equivalent feature on the PC platform, nor anything with Firefox and Safari for Mac. I can save the web page with the other browsers, but in the process, the text in the field either disappears, or becomes unusable for a future search.

AGAIN, I need to be able to open the saved web page, and have the field text usable for a new search.

So, I am either looking for:

--The direct equivalent of Scrapbook with another Browser; or

--Some alternative process on the Mac platform for quickly conducting the same searches repeatedly.

Thanks,

PP

what the hell is happening to this country?

brandz — Mon, 26 Dec 2005 18:20:16 -0800

there are, at least to my mind, many nefarious things going on in this country, at all levels. i recently voiced a specific complaint to a friend of mind. his reply was 'this is the way the 'man' wants it.' who is this 'man' anyway?

MySQL Fulltext searching

esch — Fri, 25 Mar 2005 21:39:37 -0800

Is it possible to implement full-text substring table searches in MySQL? I'm relatively new to MySQL, and have been developing a website that uses its FULLTEXT search function. This works okay, but the issue is that the builtin search only searches whole words, and doesn't perform a substring search. For example, if "Metafilter" was in the index, a search for "filter" won't return it. I've checked the MySQL manual to no avail. Is this possible to do this using MySQL, or will I have to switch DBMSes? This is pretty important to the functionality of the site.

Ebay Favorite Searches

rushmc — Wed, 02 Feb 2005 10:01:00 -0800

eBay used to have a feature where you could set up an ongoing search on a term and it would email you when any auction was listed containing that term. I can no longer find this on the site and have driven myself crazy looking for it a couple of different times. Did they remove it?

Recommendations for a good music lyrics search engine?

jca — Wed, 14 Jan 2004 13:46:24 -0800

Recommendations for a good music lyrics search engine? While Google usually does the job, I was wondering if there were any good lyric search engines/resources?

Last time I looked, all that was available were pop-up/banner ad farms that dispensed everything but lyric searches. What happened to all of them?