ResearchBuzz

When Google first released their API (which I think was spring of 2002) there were things in the API documentation that weren’t normally discussed at the Google site. Like a syntax called daterange:.

Daterange allowed you to do a search for all pages added to Google’s index, or refreshed by Google’s index, within a certain date range. Dates were specified with Julian dates, which are static and change at noon. (Today’s Julian date, for example, is 2454252.)

Taking my knowledge of the daterange syntax, I created a tool called GooFresh, which you can use at http://www.researchbuzz.org/wp/tools/goofresh/ . GooFresh allows you to search Google’s Web results for date-based content. (And it converts dates to Julian for you too.)

I got an e-mail from a Google engineer today telling me that the way the daterange syntax was being handled has changed slightly. Before a Web page was marked with a certain date when it was added to Google’s index and whenever it was refreshed in Google’s index — in other words, whenever Google re-indexes it. NOW, a Web page will be found on one date only — the date that it’s added to Google’s index. It doesn’t matter how many times it’s refreshed by Google’s spider, the only time it’ll appear in response to a daterange search is the date it was indexed.

(Note that just because Google indexes a page on a certain date doesn’t mean it’s a brand-new page; Google may have just discovered it. Keep that in mind.)

For those of us who like to monitor additions to the Web, this is great news. It’ll allow you to do date-based searches without having to plow through tons and tons of repeat pages that get indexed on a regular basis (like home pages, or section pages.)

The engineer I spoke to said that the new way of handling daterange is currently being rolled out and should be updated by the end of the week. So you may try this search and get weird results. I found a couple of times I’d do a search and get huge numbers of results ( site:us daterange:2454251-2454251 ) but when I revised the search to add a little more syntax I’d get reasonable numbers of results ( site:us inurl:us daterange:2454251-2454251 ). You’ll have to do some experimenting.

Feel free to use GooFresh to do that experimenting. But be warned; Google was awfully quick on the trigger about stopping me after a search and saying, “Pardon us but you look like a scraper. Please prove you are not with this CAPTCHA.” This got real old real quick…. I didn’t think I was typing THAT fast…

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GARY GOT MARRIED?!! Dang it, I miss everything. Oh, they’re adorable. Congratulations to the happy couple. Gary, can I send you a fish slice? How about enroll in the Henderson Grit-Of-the-Month club? Engraved boiled peanuts?

GMail has increased its attachment limit.

Copyright law resource.

It’s designed to search the Arabic Web, but has an English interface available: Onkosh.com.

Florida parents! The state of Florida has released a database on the quality of pre-kindergarten programs statewide at https://vpk.fldoe.org/ . The state has not yet set their minimum standards, so you won’t be able to view those alone, but you will be able to get a list of pre-K providers, rated on a 300-point scale.

New database of summer opportunities for Boston youth: http://www.bostonyouthzone.com/summer/ .

Want to find band pages on MySpace? http://www.epidemix.com/ . Looks to be pretty new.

So Google-the-Company has its own page on DMOZ?

Public schools (and public school news) on Google Maps.

State of Ohio generates database of state-owned properties.

State of Pennsylvania now offering Kennel Inspection Database.

Database of chemicals possibly linked to breast cancer: http://sciencereview.silentspring.org/ .

Explore the rare species of Michigan.

National Library of Scotland: Medical history of British India.

Dell selling Ubuntu machines. There is so much happy buzz around Ubuntu that I’m checking myself for defects — it runs like cold molasses on every machine I’ve tried it on. Xubuntu is much faster, but I’ve never gotten Xubuntu to install off the live CD (and I’ve tried it on three. different. machines. using CDs burned on three different machines.)

Google’s buying Feedburner? oy…

GPSVisualizer.com. Interesting…

TV Guide now has a search engine for finding video content at http://video.tvguide.com/ . This search engine is focusing on “professional content” — trailers, etc. — so while that will get you more focused it means that you won’t get the chicken police, the David Blaine parody where the guy gets Cheez-Its in his soda cup, etc.

Actually despite the fact that this IS a search engine, it’s very browsable. A Nav on the left lets you go through popular videos, picks, etc. — even a list of videos broken out by TV show. (American Idol has over 2300 videos; the search engine claims to over video content for over 13,000 shows.) You can also browse by network, celebrity, etc.

The search engine is simple keyword; I did a search for parody and actually got 72 results. Results were everything from MadTV to a CNN story to several results for some short online offering called “Monkey’d Minutes”. Once you’ve searched you can do another keyword search within results, or narrow your search down to just clips or complete shows (when I tried narrowing down my search to complete shows I narrowed it down a LOT. Bear in mind, though, that the video search engine appears to try to determine whether an item is a clip or not by length — several Jimmy Kimmel parodies that were complete were denoted as clips.)

Results come from a variety of places, from iTunes, iFilm, network sites, etc. Some of the site were free, some were pay. Obviously searching for full-length episodes you’ll find a lot more pay sites. I did an experiment, however; several people at work really like Heroes and have been encouraging me to watch it. I did a search for Heroes here and found many free episodes and clips at NBC, as well as many paid episodes at iTunes. I suppose if I can’t wait for the box set to come out in August…

This post came from ResearchBuzz, a site with news and information about online data collections. Visit us at ResearchBuzz.com .