Advanced Usage of this Board

[Ed Hall]

(Please forgive me if some of the below formatting attempts didn't work out)
I see a thread down a bit with lists of things you can't do with this board. I'd like to mention a few you can and how to do them. (I would like to thank Darren Hain for this first item which he posted back on 8 Jan 02.)

<i>To look for any subject mentioned on this board you can use Google Advanced search specifically against TargetTalk rather easily:</i>
- Go to <a href="http://www.google.com/">Google Search Page</a> and choose "Advanced Search" to the right of the entry block.
- Type your search criteria into the upper portion. As an example place <b>toz 35</b> in the "with all of the words" entry block.
- Type <b>midcoast.com</b> into the "Domain" entry block located right above the words "e.g. google.com, .org More info."
- Click on "Google Search"
If you tried <b>toz 35</b> you should have gotten a search result page with several messages that had "toz 35" somewhere in them. When you choose one of the results you're in the thread for that message. From there you can go up or down the thread in the normal manner.

<i>To look for messages by a particular poster:</i>
- Open your browser's "Find on this page" search utility. (I must confess to not being familiar with browsers other than IE, but if they don't have this type of utility, I'd be surprised.)
- Enter the name of the poster. For example <b>pilkguns</b>.
- Invoke the search. Note that this will find all occurrences of "pilkguns" on the page whether it is a message by or a mention of "pilkguns."

<i>To look for newer messages:</i>
This is a bit more cumbersome, but with a little forethought it can be made a bit easier. I'll enter some more information below on this.
- Again, open your "Search Utility" and this time enter a date. Let's choose 8 Aug 03 since there were some medals mentioned then (always a nice touch) and I want to point out something important. The dates on this board include a leading 0 for numbers less than 10. Although this zero isn't necessary for the month, it is necessary for the day. So, for example, place <b>08/08/03</b> in the entry block and invoke the search. This will take you to each of those messages. To look for messages posted today, no matter where in the list, try today's date.

<i>Additional notes:</i>
- Redundant items can be saved in a text file and copied from the file to paste into a message. I have a text file with such stuff with an icon to load it. I put the most commonly used info at the top and other items further down. For example, if I want to enter some links to the bottom of a message, I can just grab them from the text file and Copy and Paste them to the message. This works for names, email addresses and home page links as well as other things.
- Messages can be composed off line (new messages or replies) and then pasted into the "Entry Window" on line.
- If you want to look for messages for more than the last few days, it might be easier to compose a text file with those dates and Copy and Paste them into your "Search Utility." But then again, you'd still be typing them at some time, so maybe not an advantage. <smile>

A big <b>Thank You</b> to Pilkguns for sponsoring this board. I hope this post has been (or will be) helpful to TT users.
Take Care,
Ed Hall
<a href="http://www.airforceshooting.org/">USAF Competitive Shooting</a> <--- (Copied and Pasted from a text file) (Actually, this entire message was composed off line.)

ed_ka2fwj-at-juno.com.46036.0

[mako]

Ed ... thanks for putting this together ...
makofoto-at-earthlink.net.46037.46036