The Internet puts a wealth of information at your fingertips, and all you have to know is how to find it. Google is your ultimate research tool--a search engine that indexes more than 2.4 billion web pages, in more than 30 languages, conducting more than 150 million searches a day. The more you know about Google, the better you are at pulling data off the Web. You've got a cadre of techniques up your sleeve--tricks you've learned from practice, from exchanging ideas with others, and from plain old trial and error--but you're always looking for better ways to search. It's the "hacker" in you: not the troublemaking kind, but the kind who really drives innovation by trying new ways to get things done. If this is you, then you'll find new inspiration (and valuable tools, too) in Google Hacks from O'Reilly's new Hacks Series. Google Hacks is a collection of industrial-strength, real-world, tested solutions to practical problems. The book offers a variety of interesting ways for power users to mine the enormous amount of information that Google has access to, and helps you have fun while doing it. You'll learn clever and powerful methods for using the advanced search interface and the new Google API, including how to build and modify scripts that can become custom business applications based on Google. Google Hacks contains 100 tips, tricks and scripts that you can use to become instantly more effective in your research. Each hack can be read in just a few minutes, but can save hours of searching for the right answers. Written by experts for intelligent, advanced users, O'Reilly's new Hacks Series have begun to reclaim the term "hacking" for the good guys. In recent years the term "hacker" has come to be associated with those nefarious black hats who break into other people's computers to snoop, steal information, or disrupt Internet traffic. But the term originally had a much more benign meaning, and you'll still hear it used this way whenever developers get together. Our new Hacks Series is written in the spirit of true hackers--the people who drive innovation. If you're a Google power user, you'll find the technical edge you're looking for in Google Hacks.

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Google Hacks Review,  July 26 2003
Submitted by John Styles   [Respond | View]

As a big fan of O'Reilly and of Google I bought this book sight unseen, and was very disappointed. I felt that the main thing the book demonstrates is that there isn't a book to be written on the subject.

There are far too many examples of programs that use the programmatic interface to Google to do more or less the same thing in lots of different ways and programming languages.

By the end of the book the examples show a certain degree of desparation.


Google Hacks Review,  June 03 2003
Submitted by Stephane Cottin   [Respond | View]

Even good for French readers !

A very useful cookbook for all information professionnals, from the (not really) beginners to the absolute geeks.

Read my full review (in french)


Google Hacks Review,  April 14 2003
Submitted by Danny Yee   [Respond | View]

"readers will need at least a little programming experience to appreciate most of it ... I consider myself a pretty experienced Google user, but I learned a couple of new things from this material" - read my full review


Google Hacks Review,  March 22 2003
Submitted by George Woolley   [Respond | View]



A very good book.

If you use Google a lot

and haven't mastered the capabilities involved

(such as allowed by special syntaxes),

likely you'll learn far more than enough from this book

to justify the cost.

If you are a programmer and

you are primarily interested in this book

for what it can teach you about the

Google Web API,

this is likely a good book for you too.

However, I suggest looking around for another review

as I didn't use the API or write any programs based on this book.

And/or you may wish to take a look at the

table of contents and

browse the book on Safari.

(detail)




Google Hacks Review,  March 13 2003
Submitted by Marcus P. Zillman, M.S., A.M.H.A.   [Respond | View]

"Google Hacks" is an excellent industrial strength tips and tools book that both the novice newbie as well as the seasoned veteran will appreciate and keep next to their computer as a important search reference! Definitely appreciate and enjoy the no nonsense to the point style of information delivery offered by this book!

The information, layout and format of the book all relate to obtaining information quickly and concisely in the same way that it shows one to receive the same from Google(tm). I consider "Google Hacks" to be a "must have" for anyone interested in searching the Internet using Google(tm) as their primary source! I will mention it in my national speeches and talk show interviews.

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