Search engines are a valuable tool for any hacker, neo or admin. "Google it" can be an insult, but it is good advice.
When you are talking about a topic like a network device or protocol, you should have access to the "big picture" to understand how something works. To talk about a topic like a network switch, the person listening needs to have access to quickly look up a keyword, definition, or reference to have a clear understanding. No matter how dedicated a newbie is, no matter how caffinated the mentor is - you still should "google it" before asking a question. Mentors should not be afraid to refer to internet sources of nfo - avoid the "not-invented-here" syndrome - where nfo has to be recreated or modified for the stake of copyright. It should be considered sharing of nfo and thats what the internet was designed for.
Before there was Wikipedia "the free encyclopedia", you had to link everything together yourself.
A look on Cable modems on wiki, its all so simple
1 History (of cable modems)
1.1 Hybrid Networks
1.2 LANcity
1.3 Com21
1.4 CDLP
1.5 IEEE 802.14
1.6 DOCSIS
2 Cable modems and VoIP
3 Network architectural functions
4 Cable modem manufacturers
5 See also
6 References
7 External links
The only problem is you don't want to trust just one source: wikipedia. Or maybe the data is too simplified - so you want to search for it on the internet. The other kinds of data you can find can be technical manuals, forum converstations, or even access interface screens meant for the network admins. As you read from sources you pick up on a trail by new keywords mentioned in documents - device name or propriety numbering code. As you drill down, you'll find the databases (knowledgebases/tech forum/support) that will give you the technical stuff you need.
Besides tech specs, you also search the internet for explaination: TCP/IP is a structure, but how it is explained can be modified so you can understand it. Look up the word Hacker and you'll find hundreds of references to it, one of them you might understand it better. You have not understood TCP/IP because you read it once somewhere and heard of it once before - you understood it because the idea evolved in your mind as other people described it in their own way.
Here is a short reference on search engines. Do take the time to check out google advance search tips, they can apply to other databases.
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Search Engines, each database has its own organization and search parameters - some are better than others. Cross reference your search terms by checking results on various databases.
•Alexa Web Search - analyzes site traffic including ranking, global users, pages linking to the site, and links to related pages of interest
•AllTheWeb - returns results quickly from an extremely large database gathered by the Yahoo crawler; offers multimedia and news searches; has a good advanced search interface
•AltaVista - searches Web sites and Usenet newsgroups with advanced Boolean and field search options. See also Babel Fish, the AltaVista translation service.
•AOL Search - engine that defaults to AND logic and offers an Options template for easy search construction; has an option to view results by popularity; offers a directory based on the Open Directory
•Ask.com - general search engine enhanced by a number of specialty searches including a dictionary, thesaurus, currency converter, encyclopedia, maps, news and more (Site is a merging of the former search engines Ask Jeeves and Teoma)
•BananaSlug - uses the Google search mechanism and seeds your search with a random word from the category of your choice to return unusual results
•ChaCha - search engine that offers live human guides to help answer queries
•Cuil - searches a very large index of Web pages and includes thumbnails of sites in its search results
•Exalead - offers concept clustering of results, thumbnail images of retrieved sites, and customization options such as organization of results by file type, geography or modification date
•Factbites - beta engine that searches for full topic matches and returns meaningful, full sentence excerpts of sites in its results list
•Google - ranks pages by tracking the links links from pages ranked high by the service.
Google offers a number of services besides Advanced Search, these are worth exploring:
◦Google Blog Search, for searching blog entries
◦Google Book Search, for searching the full text of books from most publishers in the U.S.
◦Google Directory, for searching the Google version of the Open Directory
◦Google Scholar, offers the full text, abstracts, and/or citations to scholarly materials including books, journal articles, documents in academic repositories and the free Web. This link will allow you to access the full text of articles in journals to which the Libraries subscribe when you are off campus.
◦Google U.S. Government Search, a searchable database of U.S. government Web sites (.gov and .mil) ranked by link popularity
◦Searchmash Google's experimental general search tool
•Hakia - accepts plain English queries; derives results from the Ask.com index
•IceRocket - offers searches of the Web, blogs, and other sources, creates an RSS feed of search results, tracks search terms cited in blog postings, and offers a free RSS builder
•iSEEK Education - offers authoritative resources from university, government, and established noncommercial providers; organizes results into concept clusters, and also allows users to recommend and rate sites
•KoolTorch - returns results organized by graphical icons into general category clusters that, in turn, generate results within that category
•Live Search - Microsoft's search engine that offers searches of the general Web as well as some deep Web sources and focused search including health, local, and questions/answers
•Lycos - general search engine that also offers searches of a few deep Web content sources including people look-up, yellow pages and multimedia
•Quintura - displays a type of tag cloud with keywords related to your search that can be selected to generate new results
•SearchEdu.com - service that limits results to the .edu, domain; also offers to search well-known dictionaries, encyclopedias, almanacs, etc. See also:
◦SearchGov.com - .gov domain
◦SearchMil.com - .mil domain
•SnappyFingers - searches millions of Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs) for answers to user queries
•Ujiko - features a number of results customization tools in a visual environment that also offers topic classification for subsequent searches
•Webbrain - offers results in visual layout of related terms for subsequent searching
•Yahoo! - portal with a general Web search and many other content services
Meta Search Engines combine different search engine databases:
•Cacti Search - search Google, Yahoo, MSN and Ask, and retrive a collated results list with an option to view results from each engine separately
•Chubba - search the Web, a dictionary/thesaurus and encyclopedia
•Clusty - tool from the creators of Vivisimo that clusters results from a variety of surface and deep Web sources and organizes them into clusters by topic, site or URL; also offers a variety of customization options, including the creation of a Clusty Cloud
•Don Busca - searches the Web, blogs, news and software and offers a variety of options with each result including concept clusters, a visual thumbnail of the site, a cached version, a link to the site archive in the Wayback Machine, site info from a variety of sources and various bookmark management options
•Dogpile - search 20+ search engines and retrieve results by relevance or separate source engine; also presents concept clusters for viewing results organized by keywords or topics
•Fasteagle - Recommended! Offers searches of many types of Web sites, including the deep Web and the social Web
•Findelio - searches a handful of popular engines and includes a list of related searches along with each set of results
•FindForward - searches multiple sources and offers numerous search options including chat search, tags, wildcard and grow word search
•iBoogie - offers searches of the Web and multimedia, and supplies real-time concept clustering of results
•InfoGrid - offers meta and news searching; portal interface also features the Open Directory, topical InfoGrids, with additional customization of topics available in a free download
•Intelways - offers a search of multiple search engines, content providers and media types with access to results sets from the individual sources
•Ixquick - ranks results based on top ten rankings from the source sites; allows any type of search syntax and will translate and direct your search accordingly
•Kartoo - categorizes content into relevant concepts and sites and displays results on a graphical map; requires Flash or offers an HTML version
•Keotag - type a keyword or phrase and retrieve results from the past 30 days of blog postings from numerous blog aggregators; you can subscribe to an RSS feed to track this search
•KillerInfo - retrieves information from the general Web and various topic-specific sources and organizes results into concept clusters based on Vivisimo's technology
•Mamma - retrieve results in relevancy ranked order; power search offers a user-friendly template for building a query
•MetaCrawler - retrieve results in relevancy ranked order; useful power search available with a template of search options
•metaEUREKA - sorts results by relevancy and offers a "Site info" link that returns information on the server, date last modified, size, and descriptive information if available; also links to site history via the Wayback Machine and popularity ratings from Alexa
•Mnemomap - provides results in a graphical format that provides search refinements and draws results from Yahoo!, Flickr and YouTube
•Monster Crawler - simultaneously searches Google, Yahoo!, LiveSearch and Ask
•Mooter - meta engine that presents initial search results in graphical format and organizes results into concept clusters
•Own Mine - searches major search engines and offers the option to chat with users conducting similar searches
•Pandia Search Central - searches multiple engines and directories and also offers searches of news, books, music, videos and other specialty databases; includes a searchable version of the Open Directory
•Slurk - searches Google, Yahoo and MSN, and gives keyword search suggestions and immediate results as you type
•Sproose - allows users to comment on and vote on its search results
•SurfWax - offers options to see a quick view of sites in the search results list to determine relevancy and choose alternative search terms for a subsequent search from a thesaurus; offers personalization options; offers SurfWax LookAhead with "Dynamic Search Navigation" that retrieves results from RSS feeds as you type various kinds of queries
•Trexy - tracks "trails" of the Web pages visited and therefore valued by other searchers; users can Add Engine to extend the range of the search engines that Trexy uses
•URL.com - returns the top ten results from Google, Yahoo! and MSN, and allows users to comment on and vote on the results
•Virtual Learning Resources Center - searches several high quality directories; also offers its own directory
•Yooci - metasearch tool that retrieves no more than 250 results for any search
•ZapMeta - organizes results by relevance, popularity, title, source or domain, allows users to set preferences, and features a useful advanced search interface
•Zuula - searches the Web, images, news, blogs and jobs postings, and returns results from multiple search tools in configurable separate tabs
Search Engine Collections - these are not meta search engines, but a list or collection of search engines. Smaller search engines made by local ISP or even government agencies in little known areas like Cuba or Tibet..
•SearchBug.com - offers searches organized by topic, and searching of single or multiple search services
•Search Engine Colossus - directory of hundreds of search tools from more than 200 countries around the world
•Search Engine Guide - topical collection of 3000+ engines, directories and portals
Updated: 2 March 2009 Laura Cohen Internet Tutorials
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The Wayback Machine, older version webpage archive
http://www.archive.org/web/web.php
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Sort of a toplist for search engines..
www.altsearchengines.com/
www.thesearchrace.com/
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http://www.nexplore.com/
http://www.kosmix.com/
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DNR
Its not just about Google (search engine tut)
Its not just about Google (search engine tut)
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He gives wisdom to the wise and knowledge to the discerning. He reveals deep and hidden things; he knows what lies in Darkness, and Light dwells with him.
He gives wisdom to the wise and knowledge to the discerning. He reveals deep and hidden things; he knows what lies in Darkness, and Light dwells with him.