So, you want to help at TS?

[Xairbusdriver]

Update your "profile" to reflect your hardware and OS version(s). That's the info that appears in all your posts, just below your avatar and screen name. Include the basic info that your "About this Mac" menu will show you. That info will save you some typing and everyone else, also, because they won't have to ask.

Sign-in, if necessary, then use the "My Controls" link and select "Edit Profile Info..." At the bottom of the items in your profile is one titled, "My Mac(s)" There ya go!

Other details, that are related to the question, can be put into your first post. It doesn't usually help, in my humble opinion, to always include printer brands, external drive types and number, color of the Mac or your age. But the basic info can be of immense help. You may get a faster response and fewer questions.

Note: This is a non-admin post.

Thanks!

[Paddy]

Thanks, Jim. It is immensely helpful to have your Macs listed (see Jim's for a good example of what to include) and therefore not have to add it to requests for help - though if you've got more than one Mac, do make sure you tell us which one is having problems if that is not obvious.

[Xairbusdriver]

As long as I have the mic, here's a request for those providing answers. Try to read all the posts in the thread. Slowly. I can't count the number of times I've miss-read the problem or suggested the same solution that didn't work earlier!

Of course, it also helps to start a thread after searching for similar problems. And try not to start discussing a different problem than the one that originated the thread. There may be a quick and useful solution but it will make searching for it harder.

OK, I think I see the director giving me the 'hurry up and finish' sign, so I'll put the mic back in the stand...thank you, thank you. You've been a great audience! Please, please, no more applause! Just throw money...

[dboh]

Could someone please explain how the search function works here? I've tried using it more than a few times, and 9 times out of 10, I get no matches. I've used searches at other forums, so I'm not ignorant, and I'm not looking for anything particularly esoteric here, but I keep coming up empty-handed.

What am I missing?

[Paddy]

Can you give us some examples? Do you search on the entire thread or just the titles? (Searching on the entire thread is more effective - not everyone titles their help requests well )

[Highmac]

QUOTE(Paddy @ Mar 29 2010, 04:21 PM) <{POST_SNAPBACK}>

Can you give us some examples? Do you search on the entire thread or just the titles? (Searching on the entire thread is more effective - not everyone titles their help requests well )

Sometimes it's the Atlantic Divide that's the (added) problem.

Most of the default options work well for me but I have found that clicking Result Type to 'Show results as posts' can help where it's a very long thread.

[dboh]

QUOTE(Paddy @ Mar 29 2010, 10:21 AM) <{POST_SNAPBACK}>

Can you give us some examples? Do you search on the entire thread or just the titles? (Searching on the entire thread is more effective - not everyone titles their help requests well )

I remember that the last search I used was because my nephew's MacBook was acting hinky. There had been a recent post here about the different kinds of noises a computer might make and what they indicated, but none of the sounds sounded like what I was hearing. I used "hard drive failure" and "hard+drive+failure" as in this screen shot:

[attachment=1829:Picture_2.pdf]

While I used the by-topic option, I checked all of them and looked for the highlighting. I noticed that I was getting every instance of "hard" and "drive" and "failure." I'm surprised that that 3-word combination never would have been used before.

I must not be coming up with the right wording, but I can't figure out what would have been a better way to search for it.

[jchuzi]

It has been my experience that Google is a much better vehicle than the actual site. For example, searching Fine Tuned Mac, the old MacFixit Forums, or even Apple Tech Support becomes much easier via Google. You could try putting the actual wording (like "hard drive failure") in quotes and then type site: techsurvivors.com before hitting Return.

[Xairbusdriver]

Actually, the "right" words are important. But using to many of them between quotation marks or by placing a "+" between them tells the engine to find only items that exactly match ALL of those words or contains all those words in the exact sequence you listed them. While the human brain (usually) expects to drill down into data, one layer at a time:

drive
hard
failure

Most of these databases are merely an index of words and finding an item that includes every word you include may be very difficult and even impossible with a less than robust database. Google obviously has a much more robust cataloging as well as indexing system. I don't even know if the index here is updated each time a message is posted, once an hour, once a day or at each new moon. How and whatever, it is obviously not the best in the world. Some forum software developers concentrate on that function more than others and some software packages base their costs on how robust that function might be.

Botom line, at TS (and similar forums) use as few words as possible but select them carefully. And, generally, don't put them in quotation marks or add "+" between them. It can be much faster to limit the time frame, also. No use searching the archives from 2006 for references to Snow Leopard, for example. Remember, the computer is not as smart as you are! "K.I.S.Sir"