Google Thanks

Many times in my life I think about where I've been, where I'm going, what I'm doing. Your basic twenty-something stuff.

Well, as I thought about what I've done and learned and how I've "gotten where I am today," I stumbled on one part of just how that happened.

An integral part of that journey has been Google. Now I know it's cheesy and lame to be a Google fanboy (just like it was with Yahoo and Altavista, back in the day), but the truth is I couldn't do my job without that search engine.

Spend a week without Google and see how much the quality of your life lessens with each day of non-use. Chris Pirillo did this and after a week ran back to his search oasis like a man dying of thirst.

While most of my job does not require Google, a good majority of it does. The better you are at analyzing what keywords are important to your search, the better geek you can be. Sometimes Network Administrator really means what it says. Other times it just means I Can Google Better Than You.

Simple and true. I've seen it so many times over the years I'm not even writing a caveat into this one. People who can keywordize better than others can simply get more things done faster.

When you first see the problem, you Google for the error.

When that doesn't help, you Google for troubleshooting information.

If that doesn't help, you Google for user communities or forums.

If that doesn't help you look on Google Groups, as they still have some good information, even if they ARE largely ignored by the internet populus.

Lastly, when you're at your wits end, you look on the official site (by doing "search_query site:officialsite.com" and hope that turns up something.

THEN, if you're completely out of options at that point, you can try the official tech support line/email, or you can hop on IRC.

Either way, figuring out problems is what geeks are paid to do. We may be able to setup this or figure out that, but mostly its seeing a problem (bad website, ugly process, new server rollout) and figuring out the best way to accomplish it.

There is a lot more strategy in the rollout of a new software product than you think. Geeks spend a good majority of their lives focused on strategy games, whether those be electronic, console based, board games, or D&D. We want to find the nugget of information that lets us get beyond and get ahead and we'll be damned if we give up without figuring it out.

Figuring it out usually requires help. And that help normally comes in the form of a search engine.

So, with no hint of irony, I'd like to thank the good folks at Google. Without them, my job would be about 1,000x tougher.

Hell, without them, I could point out plenty of instances where their help saved my job. And for the geeks reading this, I'm guessing they're nodding their head as well.

We may call Microsoft the evil empire, and we may worry about Google and their privacy policies, but in the end we should be grateful. Software like this only comes along once in a lifetime.

As for other companies and software packages to thank, I can't think of any (shy of my undying love of Onfolio) that deserve such credit and attention.

I mean, I could start eschewing the benefits of Windows, but Microsoft killed too many baby seals on the way to the bank with that one. At least Adsense makes sense (hah) and is a logical aversion to banner ads.

Until next time, here's hoping Google doesn't have its eye on any baby seals.

Wake up in the morning with a head like 'what ya done'?
This used to be the life but I don't need another one.