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How to Use Google to Track USPS, UPS, and FedEx Packages
Google’s hidden talents are almost endless! The standard Google search box is capable of tracking packages from the three major United States shipping companies. This little-known fact could save lots of people lots of time.
When you want to track your package, many times you end up going to the homepage of the shipping company and waiting for it to load. You may have to click on your region of the world, and load your entire region’s homepage. Then you have to quickly scan the resulting page for a little box to input your tracking number.
Rather than wasting all that time, just type the tracking number into a Google search box. Luckily, all of the three major shipping companies in the United States utilize a different format for their tracking numbers. This enables Google to automatically figure out which company’s package you are trying to track.
After you click on Search, Google will display a page similar to the following if you search for a package from FedEx:
Here is how it looks for UPS:
And finally, here is an example of tracking a package from USPS:
Google can effortlessly take you to the shipper’s homepage and show you the vital information you need about your package. This is just another way that Google can simplify your life!
How to Use Google to Expose Urban Legends
A couple of days ago, I was reading a blog that had a post commemorating the life of George Carlin. The author had attributed a short literary piece entitled The Paradox of Our Time to George Carlin. I vaguely remembered reading this exact same story in an email that had been forwarded to me from my mother some time ago. The only difference was that it had been written by a student from Columbine High School.
I found it interesting that this version of the story was prefaced with the following text:
Isn’t it amazing that George Carlin - comedian of the 70’s and 80’s - could write something so very eloquent…and so very appropriate. Excerpts from A Message By George Carlin:
I immediately used Google to try to find out who had really written this vignette. A few moments later, I found myself at a reputable myth-debunking website, Snopes.com.
What I found out about this story was literally shocking! Not only had this story not been written by George Carlin, George actually had gotten quite upset about it. He said the following on his website (profanity removed):
One of the more embarrassing items making the internet/e-mail rounds is a sappy load of [crap] called “The Paradox of Our Time.” The main problem I have with it is that as true as some of the expressed sentiments may be, who really [cares]? Certainly not me.
So who was it that wrote The Paradox of Our Time? The credit goes to a pastor by the name of Dr. Bob Moorehead. Although you may want to consider the following that the Snopes.com site has to say about Pastor Bob:
Those intent upon taking inspiration from “Paradox” should consider the following: during Bob Moorehead’s tenure as pastor of Overlake Christian Church, seventeen members of his congregation reported that he had sexually assaulted them. These allegations, which surfaced in 1997, prompted his resignation in 1998. After a year of publicly supporting Moorehead the church elders withdrew their support, their own investigation into the charges having led them to conclude their pastor had indeed been guilty of molesting a number of male churchgoers.
The Moral of the Story
I want to get across the fact that you can’t always believe what you read in your inbox. Even if it was sent to you by someone as loving as your own mother.
Also, if you are proactive, you will be able to find out on your own whether or not that amazing story you just heard is true or not.
How to Use Google to Expose Urban Legends
In order to find out whether the Paradox of Our Time was really written by George Carlin, I performed a site search of some different hoax-busting sites that I’ve found to be credible over the years.
I want to make it easier for the many Googlers out there to expose hoaxes though, so that you don’t have to type the following into a Google search box every time you want to uncover an urban legend:
site:http://www.snopes.com/ site:http://urbanlegends.about.com/ site:http://www.truthorfiction.com/ site:http://www.breakthechain.org/ site:http://www.hoaxkill.com/ site:http://www.nonprofit.net/hoax/ site:http://www.vmyths.com/ site:http://www.f-secure.com/virus-info/hoax/ site:http://www.museumofhoaxes.com/ site:http://www.hoaxbusters.org/
site:http://www.urbanlegendsonline.com/ [Your Keywords Here]
Simple Search: Hoax Hunter
So I decided to create a custom Google search that will search all of those sites for you while only requiring you to enter your keywords. All you have to do is type in a few key words from the email or story you’ve received (such as the title), and let the Hoax Hunter go hunting for you.
You can go to the Hoax Hunter by clicking on the link here, or by going to the blue menu bar at the top of this page and hovering your mouse over Simple Search and then clicking on Hoax Hunter.
All you have to do then is type in a key word or name from the suspected hoax. For example, if you type in George Carlin, you will see the Paradox of Our Time hoax as the second and third search results, as shown below.
Let me know if you have any questions or suggestions. Thanks for reading!
Using Google as a Spell Checker
Believe it or not, I actually was the winner of the 4th grade spelling bee at my elementary school. Since then, I haven’t ever won any sort of spelling competition. That’s why Google comes in handy… a lot!
Let’s say you’re trying to write a letter by hand to somebody and you can’t remember how to spell a certain word. What do you do? Well, you could look it up in a dictionary, or start up Microsoft Word and type in the word and run spell check, or… You could use Google to spell check the word for you!
Let’s try one of the longest words in the English language: antidisestablishmentarianism. You can type something into the Google search bar that is remotely similar to the world you are trying to spell, and more often than not, Google will say, at the top of the search results:
Did you mean: [Proper spelling of word here]
Check out the screen shot below to see this in action.
Chances are you’ll never want to spell antidisestablishmentarianism. However, one of the 100 most misspelled words in the English Language is daiquiri. Now, let’s try to throw two words at Google that are spelled wrong: strawberry and daiquiri. Check out what happens:
Not only did Google correct the spelling of both my words, it actually knew that I was trying to spell daiquiri even when I didn’t include any of the three i’s in my misspelled version. Plus, I can take comfort in knowing that 42 people spelled strawberry and daiquiri wrong on their webpages at some point — even Carlos, a 22 year old male from The Loma, California. However, it looks like he had an excuse for misspelling it since he “sure did [have] too much strawbery daquary..heehee.”
If you aren’t amazed yet by the power that Google has in spell checking, look at the next screenshot where I type in the following phrase into a Google search box:
kan youu tel mee howw tu spel wurds?
Hopefully nobody would knowingly type this into Google, but if they did, Google would let them know in a very polite way that perhaps they had spelled all eight words they typed incorrectly. They could also rest assured knowing that Target.com is interested in selling to phonetically challenged people like themselves.
Drawbacks
Of course Google isn’t perfect. If a lot of people have misspelled certain words and they appear a lot on the internet, then Google may think that it is a proper way to spell that word and hence will not suggest another way to spell a misspelled word.
However, it appears that Google has changed their algorithm as the frequency of this occurring isn’t nearly as often as it was when this feature was first implemented. If you can find any occurrences of this, let me know in the comments section below.
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