Searching is good when you don't know the answer, but unnecessary when you do. I've got a couple of tips about where to find things, and a shortcut to get to the places you already know.

You don't need to search if you know where it is!

In the past two weeks, I've had several readers and a few clients ask me the same question. "How come when I type in the name of the website and click "I'm feeling lucky" I don't always go to the site?"

We'll get to that in a minute. But first, I have a question. If you already know the name of the site, why are you typing it into a search box?

Search engines like Google and Yahoo! and Live Search are useful when you don't know what site you want, or when you don't know the "address" of a site. But if you do know where you want to go, you can just type that information into the address bar at the top of your browser, press the Enter key on your keyboard, and go right there.

Take a look at your browser right now. In the top left area of the window, you should see the Address bar. This always displays the URL of the site you're looking at. (URL is kind of the site's address.) If you know that from wherever you are you want to go to castanet.net, or to expedia.ca, or to some other site, you can just type that in. You already know the answer, so you don't have to search for it.

On the other hand, if you want to know the name of a site and you can describe it somehow, enter that description into a Search bar, like the one on the Google or Yahoo site. For example, if you wanted some news about Kelowna, and you couldn't remember (or didn't know) the URL of the site you want, you could go to the Google.ca page and type in "news in kelowna, bc" (without the quotes). If you click the "Search" button, you'll see a list of sites. If you click on "I'm feeling lucky" you'll go right to the first one on the list.

No matter how lucky you're feeling, if you know the address you can go right there, leaving nothing to chance.

Find the missing manual

As long as we're looking for things, I found a great resource for user guides. Check out SafeManuals.com. I finally figured out why I can't get the radio to come on before the alarm goes off on the Bose Wave Radio we have here. Are you feeling lucky? Maybe the manual for your gadget is there. Just type safemanuals.com into the Address bar to find out!

Find which program handles a file

Every Windows file has a file extension, whether we can see it or not. The file extension is the part of the file name after the "dot." The file extension tells Windows which program to use to handle the file.

Sometimes we end up with files that confuse Windows (if you can believe that). To find out what program is supposed to manage a certain type of file, you can visit the "Every File Extension in the World" website, here:

File extension list

or the FILExt site, here:

Filext

If you know the file extension, these sites will find the likely program. If you have no idea what the file is, try the Online TrID Identifier, here:

Online TrID

You can upload the file for analysis.

Thank you everyone who wrote with questions, comments, and suggestions. You can add yours by sending email to cate@rlis.com. The column archives are always available for browsing at http://rlis.com/column.htm.

Happy Fathers Day!