I received a notice from My Health Online. It was to inform me of a message regarding a recent blood test result. I take a medication called Lamotrogine. The result of the test revealed that I had low levels of the drug in my body. This means, though I am taking my medicine, it is not being absorbed properly. This is no surprise to me. I have Leukemia and I am taking a chemo drug which causes me to have a constant upset stomach. This is not well controlled because the usual nausea meds conflict with the absorption of the chemo drug.
It is necessary that I take the Lamotrogine because I have a seizure disorder, plus it works well for another medical problem I have. In fact it works better than any other medication I have ever taken for that condition. Therefore, when I learned I was not absorbing it properly, I did a Google search to learn more about it. As usual when I do a search like this, I am so fascinated with the facts that one search leads to another and another and another. I just enjoy learning so much that I'm like a bee gathering pollen.
I soon became frustrated because I felt things were not moving fast enough. Like a little kid, I just want to ask, "What does that mean?" and be instantly satisfied by having the answer. So, I wrote a letter to Google. I didn't send it. I'm sure the answer will come to me.... But, I'm posting it here, just in case someone has an thought on the question.
(Though, now... as I am finishing up this post, I realize I could easily use my Droid to speak the new search term and get the answers I am looking for faster than using the computer!)
This is the message to Google:
Dear Google,
When I am reading something in my Kindle and come across a word I am unfamiliar with, I can select it, click on it, and get a description of what the word means.
I would like to be able to do that with Google, too. If I'm reading a website, for example, come across a subject I would like to know more about, I would like to be able to automatically Google that word (or phrase) and have Google search results pop up.
I know I can copy and paste the word or phrase I'm looking for into another browser page, but that takes extra steps. Is there some way, I can just click and have an instant Google search response?
Thanks,
Elizabeth Munroz
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Showing posts with label Google search. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Google search. Show all posts
Wednesday
How to buy your favorite books online... cheap!
I had in mind to re-discover an old recipe book I once had. Would it still be in print? I certainly couldn't find it at my local book store, and though they offered to find it for me, I thought I'd rather google it myself. I remembered the title was something like Quick Bread or Fast Breads.
I rely a lot on Amazon to help me find what I'm looking for though I don't always buy from them. Google is too vast when I want to narrow down a title and pay the lowest price. Not only will Amazon have titles of books in print, but also books not in print, even ones not available from their site. How cool is that?
So, I'm at the Amazon website, I select "books" and type in the title, "Quick Breads". The results indicate there are 342 related subjects. I don't bother to check them all. If you look on the left column there are subcategories.
I selected the Cooking, Food and Wine Department, which then breaks down categories further. Two seemed the most logical, Baking (114) or Quick and Easy (77). Of course, I took the easy way out. Process of elimination! I really don't want to spend a lot of time looking for this old book and will be giving it up as a waste of time pretty soon. Only, I'm stuck on the nostalgia of the days and weeks I enjoyed spending time in the kitchen whipping up these fast breads.... and best of all, eating the finished product. So, I keep looking.
Wait a minute! That was the title of the book... "Fast Breads"! A quick search gives me two books that might be the one I want. Since I know I am looking for an older book, the two top selections I can immediately eliminate from my search. The next two have publish dates in the 1980's so this narrows it down. Since there is no picture of the books in question I will not recognize it by sight, and truly a picture may not match up anyways, because publishers often change the cover as each new edition is released.
My next step is to look for a review, which will reveal enough about the book to help me know which one is mine. And there it is. Fast Breads (Crossing Press Specialty Cookbooks.) by Howard Early and Glenda Morris. As it turns out, I did not recognize the authors names.
It is easy to see there are 2 brand new copies available at forty bucks each. Yikes! I wouldn't want to buy a new copy unless I can get it for very little. So I look at the list of used books. I'm not particular. If a book is used and not too dilapidated I don't mind paying a penny for it, plus postage.
So, looking at the list of book sellers offering "Fast Breads" for a penny, I want to buy from what I consider a reliable seller. I must admit I am hesitant to buy off a new seller, someone who has only sold a hundred books in the last two years, or who has less than 90 percent customer satisfaction rate. (You can look up their customer's comments, by the way.) Unless of course, the only one offering the book I want is a couple of new sellers with few sales and questionable ratings. Then, I have to decide how bad I want it. If the seller doesn't come through, or sends a copy that is not "acceptable" quality, then I will need to deal with the ensuing hassle of getting my money back.
But in the case of "Fast Breads", there are several penny books offered by sellers with high ratings and a long term sales history. If I have the opportunity I like to buy from charities. One of my favorite is Better World Books and I will always pay a little more for a book from them if the lesser prices don't give me much confidence.
The four that are offering for one penny are equally reliable in my opinion so I read what they have to say about the quality of their "good" book. Most seem reasonably the same so I order from the first one.
I prefer not to pay extra to have faster service. So, I order with the lowest shipping rate, which is $3.95. Now all I have to do is watch for the mail carrier and warm up the oven.
What are your favorite ways of purchasing books?
~~~~~~~
Note: I also use www.half.com and www.paperbackbookswap.com
So, I'm at the Amazon website, I select "books" and type in the title, "Quick Breads". The results indicate there are 342 related subjects. I don't bother to check them all. If you look on the left column there are subcategories.
I selected the Cooking, Food and Wine Department, which then breaks down categories further. Two seemed the most logical, Baking (114) or Quick and Easy (77). Of course, I took the easy way out. Process of elimination! I really don't want to spend a lot of time looking for this old book and will be giving it up as a waste of time pretty soon. Only, I'm stuck on the nostalgia of the days and weeks I enjoyed spending time in the kitchen whipping up these fast breads.... and best of all, eating the finished product. So, I keep looking.
Wait a minute! That was the title of the book... "Fast Breads"! A quick search gives me two books that might be the one I want. Since I know I am looking for an older book, the two top selections I can immediately eliminate from my search. The next two have publish dates in the 1980's so this narrows it down. Since there is no picture of the books in question I will not recognize it by sight, and truly a picture may not match up anyways, because publishers often change the cover as each new edition is released.
My next step is to look for a review, which will reveal enough about the book to help me know which one is mine. And there it is. Fast Breads (Crossing Press Specialty Cookbooks.) by Howard Early and Glenda Morris. As it turns out, I did not recognize the authors names.
So, looking at the list of book sellers offering "Fast Breads" for a penny, I want to buy from what I consider a reliable seller. I must admit I am hesitant to buy off a new seller, someone who has only sold a hundred books in the last two years, or who has less than 90 percent customer satisfaction rate. (You can look up their customer's comments, by the way.) Unless of course, the only one offering the book I want is a couple of new sellers with few sales and questionable ratings. Then, I have to decide how bad I want it. If the seller doesn't come through, or sends a copy that is not "acceptable" quality, then I will need to deal with the ensuing hassle of getting my money back.
But in the case of "Fast Breads", there are several penny books offered by sellers with high ratings and a long term sales history. If I have the opportunity I like to buy from charities. One of my favorite is Better World Books and I will always pay a little more for a book from them if the lesser prices don't give me much confidence.
The four that are offering for one penny are equally reliable in my opinion so I read what they have to say about the quality of their "good" book. Most seem reasonably the same so I order from the first one.
I prefer not to pay extra to have faster service. So, I order with the lowest shipping rate, which is $3.95. Now all I have to do is watch for the mail carrier and warm up the oven.
What are your favorite ways of purchasing books?
~~~~~~~
Note: I also use www.half.com and www.paperbackbookswap.com
Sunday
The Google Search Writing Trigger Technique
.
When writer's block hits me, this is a method I've developed to free me from the shackles.
Using one word is a well known technique for triggering writing, even if it only squeezes a single sentence from our brains. But, that is not the only part of my scheme. So hang with me, here, as we still need that one word to begin the process.
Pick a word any word.
Can't think of one?
Grab the nearest printed object. Mine says Ipod. Okay, so I grab the word, pod, and write about it. "the pea pod was like velvet in my hand, the peas, like the food of the gods, blessed my mouth with flavor".
Yes, it's corny. But, let's not judge. Whatever you come up with will work. A stream of conciousness will suffice. (pod... dod... god... blessed.. food...). It's a trigger, not to be taken too seriously. Anything to stimulate creativity when we're wanting to unleash ourselves from our greatest enemy is a gift.
Now, take the full amount created and put it in Google search. The above one word trigger sentence brought forth a lot about peas in the google search, a lot about food. But, let's say you want something more creative to help you get moving. Something, unrelated to cooking or growing peas. In fact, let's delete the peas and anything that might bring up a food reference out of our search. Might as well get rid of the extraneous adjectives, and get a cleaner search.
pod velvet hand gods blessed mouth
Let's see what happens...
Ah ha! Look at that. Pod still wins out with food references. We can go with this or narrow down further. Even though pod was our trigger word, let's throw out the pod.
There it is! Many new trigger words to get your fingers jumping over the keyboard. Not just one.
Now, here is the important thing, and I mean important! No matter how interesting the response looks, DO NOT GO THERE! You will end up spending the next hour perusing the site and all the fascinating new information. After all, a writer is a word junky. Words call us home to luxuriate in their warm embrace. DON'T GO THERE! This is an exercise in self control. No, this is an exercise in creativity. Yes, both.
Here's what you do next. Looking at the Google responses you will see jumbled parts of sentences containing your words. This combination of phrases is enough to trigger some writing. One of my Google responses is from the site: Book of Riddles - Strolen's Citadel: A Role Playing Community
"A golden bird did in its mouth abide The serpent drank the water, ... Jewel on black velvet, pearl in the sea Unchanged but e'erchanging, eternally. .... For our ambrosia we were blessed, by Jupiter, with a sting of death. ..... A sieve/collander (Sphere of Annihilation) Though desert men once called me God, ..."
This is not an exercise in plagiarism, so it's not a good idea to turn this into a little poem. It looks like it already is part of one. If there is one turn of phrase that really stands out for you, write it down, and go from there:
Here's my example:
The serpent drank the water as the dew formed. I was more fascinated by the drops of moisture than I was of his tiny eyes staring fire into the dawn.
I don't care for serpents and I would find myself avoiding the visual stimulation to go further with this, so if I change serpent into butterfly... maybe. But, the researcher in me will want to verify if butterflies actually drink dew at dawn, unless I'm going to give myself poetic liscence, and go with the flow.
Another method is to make a list of all the significant words so that you will have something more substantial to keep you going. Perhaps create a whole piece with those words.
golden
bird
mouth
serpent
drank
water
Jewel
black
velvet
pearl
sea
Unchanged
eternally
ambrosia
blessed
Jupiter
sting
death
sieve/collander
Sphere
Annihilation
desert
men
God
I am so tempted to go into that website and discover how all those enticing phrases are related! What wonderful words these are!
We could easily spend an hour or two perusing a dictionary to delight in all the nuances of these words. Couldn't we? If you have time and no deadline to meet, enjoy yourself. See ya later. Come back when you're ready to play some more. But, If you are still in the "let's see where else this will take us" mode, stay here.
If you are still not feeling particularly creative, the simplest thing would be to make one sentence each with one of the words in it. In the past, I would have done this on small cards and put them away until later to use as triggers. But, now we can simply keep them in a document, we call, triggers list, or simply, sentence list.
Here are some examples of sentences I might create if I am totally in left brain mode:
Her hair had the sheen of a newborn black colt
The hillsides looked like velvet.
He liked the feel of the pearl handled gun.
The sea was alive with fury that day.
Later on, we can go back to these sentences and ask the who, what, where, why's, etc. and maybe a novel will be born.
If you want to go a next step further, take all the words and make a poem or story.
I won't share mine right now. I think I've got 50,000 words on the way!
When writer's block hits me, this is a method I've developed to free me from the shackles.
Using one word is a well known technique for triggering writing, even if it only squeezes a single sentence from our brains. But, that is not the only part of my scheme. So hang with me, here, as we still need that one word to begin the process.
Pick a word any word.
Can't think of one?
Grab the nearest printed object. Mine says Ipod. Okay, so I grab the word, pod, and write about it. "the pea pod was like velvet in my hand, the peas, like the food of the gods, blessed my mouth with flavor".
Yes, it's corny. But, let's not judge. Whatever you come up with will work. A stream of conciousness will suffice. (pod... dod... god... blessed.. food...). It's a trigger, not to be taken too seriously. Anything to stimulate creativity when we're wanting to unleash ourselves from our greatest enemy is a gift.
Now, take the full amount created and put it in Google search. The above one word trigger sentence brought forth a lot about peas in the google search, a lot about food. But, let's say you want something more creative to help you get moving. Something, unrelated to cooking or growing peas. In fact, let's delete the peas and anything that might bring up a food reference out of our search. Might as well get rid of the extraneous adjectives, and get a cleaner search.
pod velvet hand gods blessed mouth
Let's see what happens...
Ah ha! Look at that. Pod still wins out with food references. We can go with this or narrow down further. Even though pod was our trigger word, let's throw out the pod.
There it is! Many new trigger words to get your fingers jumping over the keyboard. Not just one.
Now, here is the important thing, and I mean important! No matter how interesting the response looks, DO NOT GO THERE! You will end up spending the next hour perusing the site and all the fascinating new information. After all, a writer is a word junky. Words call us home to luxuriate in their warm embrace. DON'T GO THERE! This is an exercise in self control. No, this is an exercise in creativity. Yes, both.
Here's what you do next. Looking at the Google responses you will see jumbled parts of sentences containing your words. This combination of phrases is enough to trigger some writing. One of my Google responses is from the site: Book of Riddles - Strolen's Citadel: A Role Playing Community
"A golden bird did in its mouth abide The serpent drank the water, ... Jewel on black velvet, pearl in the sea Unchanged but e'erchanging, eternally. .... For our ambrosia we were blessed, by Jupiter, with a sting of death. ..... A sieve/collander (Sphere of Annihilation) Though desert men once called me God, ..."
This is not an exercise in plagiarism, so it's not a good idea to turn this into a little poem. It looks like it already is part of one. If there is one turn of phrase that really stands out for you, write it down, and go from there:
Here's my example:
The serpent drank the water as the dew formed. I was more fascinated by the drops of moisture than I was of his tiny eyes staring fire into the dawn.
I don't care for serpents and I would find myself avoiding the visual stimulation to go further with this, so if I change serpent into butterfly... maybe. But, the researcher in me will want to verify if butterflies actually drink dew at dawn, unless I'm going to give myself poetic liscence, and go with the flow.
Another method is to make a list of all the significant words so that you will have something more substantial to keep you going. Perhaps create a whole piece with those words.
golden
bird
mouth
serpent
drank
water
Jewel
black
velvet
pearl
sea
Unchanged
eternally
ambrosia
blessed
Jupiter
sting
death
sieve/collander
Sphere
Annihilation
desert
men
God
I am so tempted to go into that website and discover how all those enticing phrases are related! What wonderful words these are!
We could easily spend an hour or two perusing a dictionary to delight in all the nuances of these words. Couldn't we? If you have time and no deadline to meet, enjoy yourself. See ya later. Come back when you're ready to play some more. But, If you are still in the "let's see where else this will take us" mode, stay here.
If you are still not feeling particularly creative, the simplest thing would be to make one sentence each with one of the words in it. In the past, I would have done this on small cards and put them away until later to use as triggers. But, now we can simply keep them in a document, we call, triggers list, or simply, sentence list.
Here are some examples of sentences I might create if I am totally in left brain mode:
Her hair had the sheen of a newborn black colt
The hillsides looked like velvet.
He liked the feel of the pearl handled gun.
The sea was alive with fury that day.
Later on, we can go back to these sentences and ask the who, what, where, why's, etc. and maybe a novel will be born.
If you want to go a next step further, take all the words and make a poem or story.
I won't share mine right now. I think I've got 50,000 words on the way!
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