In my first week of posts, I received comments from two readers that provided additional tips to what I'd written. While I replied to them in the comments, and added the updates within the posts themselves, it occurred to me that people who had already read those entries may never go back and will, therefore, miss the extra information, which they may find useful.
So, every Monday, I'll post a list of updates that had come in the previous week, with links back to the original post, so people have a chance to check them out again if interested.
Save Ink When Printing Web Pages
Reader Debbie added a comment that you can also reach the Print Preview function by clicking the Print icon on the browser toolbar or the arrow beside it. I'm not sure what combo of browser/operating system she's using, but my Firefox browser doesn't have the printer icon by default in the toolbar. When I add it, it doesn't have the down arrow beside it.
However, my Internet Explorer browser does have both the icon and, when I click on the down arrow, I do get the Print Preview command. If I click directly on the button, though, the page goes straight to the default printer.
Thanks for sharing this info, Debbie. It's always great to have options available, so we can each work in the way that is most comfortable for us.
Enhanced Google Search Options
Reader Susan Weiner uses a slightly different method for finding definitions, as follows:
define: [search term]
I tried it for my example (define: Luddite) and this is what I got:
Definitely different! This page has a long list of definitions of the term, as opposed to a single definition at the top, followed by links to different reference sources.
I'm not sure I like this alternative better, because the authority of the sources used in this list doesn't seem as strong as in the other results. For example, Merriam-Webster Online, which is my go-to online dictionary, doesn't appear. However, someone's personal web page of "Cool Words" does.
One nice feature of this option, though, is that there are links to definitions of the term in different languages at the bottom of the page, something that doesn't appear in the format I used previously. (Note that for this particular search term, there are only three languages available—French, German, and Portuguese—and they're all from those versions of Wikipedia.
One other thing I discovered is that putting in "define [search term]", without the colon, brings up yet another version of the results page, similar in format to "[search term] definition", but with a different order of links. So you can try the different options to find the one that works best for you.
Thanks Susan!
