The value of search engines

Before we were able to find solutions to our technical problems by asking people at work or to read a manual. In the last 15 years the search engines have taken over this responsibility. I'm a huge fan of engines like google.com to help me when I'm stuck on a technical problem.

Often that is my first respons when people ask me about a technical problem.
"Have you tried to google it?".

This brings me to another side of the search engines. It can really be hard to find the answer you are looking for if you do not know how to make your search good enough.

Take this problem I just had on my lovely Dell XPS m1330. Dell have been really stupid and added their own software thats connected with one of the buttons on the keyboard. So for me that have Ubunbtu Linux installed instead of the prepackaged windows, it creates a huge problem. When I press the button, the laptop cannot start the operating system again.

There is virtually no documentation of how the Dell Media Direct program works or even how it is installed. Because when pressing a "special" button on the keyboard the laptop tries to start Dell Media Direct. This crashes my normal ubuntu install and destroys what is called a MBR. This MBR is what enables me to actually start any operating system on a pc.

After reading alot of forumposts and various blogs I finally find one that helps me out.

If I accidentally hit the MD key, my partitions gets fudged and I have to repair them manually.
Response:
Have you tried pressing the button a second time? I notice if I press it it ruins my partitions as well, but if I press it again everything is perfect again... Not sure what it actually does...

This solves my problem and voilá I can boot into ubuntu linux again.

To find this forumpost, I had to tweak my search and narrow down the findings to an amount that I could actually be able to read. It took me about one hour to find this little piece of information.

But at the same time as doing this I read a lot of other interesting things too. Maybe the search engines not only helps us with the problem at hand, but helps us to know more in general? It reminds be of the work we are doing in the company on semantic web and the use of this technology to find information.
I wish there was an easier way to tell the search engine what I am looking for.

Share the information

I have to mention a situation I experienced the other day when riding the train for work, like I do every day.

I am waiting for a train which is announced to be "delayed" ,but decide to move to another platform and try to catch another train. This train also stops at my destination and is scheduled to depart in five minutes. Train arrives and I get in, but when I had been sitting in this train for about ten minutes there is an announcement on the radio, telling the passengers that the train is actually waiting for the train-employee that actually "drives" the train. I thought my decision to change train was still a good one since my first train was probably coming in very late. Minutes came and went.. Another train passed the platform, this third train also stops at my destination, but I then thought that I would not make that one. And I was not about to run out of the train again to catch the other train.

A while after the third train left the platform we where still waiting for our chauffeur and the first train arrived the station. I did not want to move back to that platform either, afraid of loosing both trains while running between the platforms. Ok.. That train leaves as well! Now I was actually getting irritated and wanted more information. The train started moving in about 10 minutes after this. I had spent more than 30 minutes waiting. When the conductor comes for the tickets I ask why we where so late. She said the train driver had been on the first train I was waiting for.. Just this tiny and crucial piece of information could have changed my choices during my wait. (if they had this information earlier themselves of course)

I can just imagine when one is in business situations and that little piece of information is not available to you. All the difference it could make. Projects has to reinvent the wheel because the information is not found or provided to them. You waste both time and motivation on doing tasks that can be done faster and probably easier if you had the right information.

Bottom line is: Share the information!