Finding stuff online - a beginners guide
Accepting that this is rather ambitious I am trying to provide some examples of useful sites on the internet and some of the cool stuff you can use it for - this is clearly not going to be in any way comprehensive and is absolutely going to be subjective but my hope is that it will inspire new users to use the internet effectively to achieve some common tasks.
Finding Stuff
The most important starting point is figuring out how to find what you’re looking for - 99% of the time it will be there and most often they’ll be 10 or 1,000 sites offering what you’re looking for so this is where we need to start.
Search engines / Buying Stuff
There are several search engines (internet websites which will help you find stuff) such as Google, Yahoo, MSN, Ask and many others. To keep it simple I suggest you use Google, and specifically use Google Toolbar. Use the auto-complete suggestions as these are most likely to provide the results you’re looking for.
How to search - the key here is to be explicit and direct. Think about what you want to find and be specific - there are a ton of sites and you want to narrow yourself to those which are actually about the subject you want. More is better.
For example “digital camera” is probably not going to help you if you want to buy a new camera. You need to decide what you’re looking for (maybe find a buyers guide) - so “digital camera buyers guide” is much better.
PS Amazon does this really well for most stuff and is where I’d start. Once you’ve decided which one you want then use this as your search “canon ixus 65″ will take you to the shopping comparison sites:
I know that Amazon and eBay aren’t really comparison sites but for an awful lot of stuff they’re the cheapest place to go (and often won’t be listed by the actual comparison sites). Also for product reviews Amazon is second to none - though don’t be put off by the odd bad review - there’s a lot of funny people out there!
Really useful reference site
Wikipedia - the world’s largest resource for knowledge - this is an amazing social experiment - anyone can create and edit an entry - this is the sum of all human knowledge - if you want to find out about anything then this is a great place to start.
Travel
- Train times - you can tailor this to your requirements - so for me I have Epsom to Waterloo to see when my next train is.
- London - tubes, trains, buses
Flights
All the major airlines have their own site - I won’t list them all, but there are a couple of nice comparison sites
- Which Budget - lists routes for all the budget airlines - so if you’re planning a mini-break to Budapest you can see who flies there
- TravelJungle - finds the cheapest flights for a given route
- CheapFlights - ditto
- EasyJet - really well laid out site - easy to find a cheap weekend - it will suggest other dates so if you’re not bothered about when you travel you can easily find out when is best to go.