Resources: Images

Friends don’t let friends use bad clip art

Resources for photos and graphics

The next time you’re looking for an image to include in a presentation you’re putting together…stop…put your hands in the air and step away from the cheesy clip art, mister.

Here are some good non-cheesy places to start:

1. iBank

iBank is a service from Corporate Communication’s interActive media group that has AEP related photos and graphics including maps and logos.

http://ibank

2. Microsoft Office Online

With over 150,000 free images searchable by category and image type this is usually my first stop when I’m looking for photos or clip art.

http://dgl.microsoft.com

3. Creative Commons Search

Creative Commons Search will help you find photos (and other types of material) that are free to share or build upon utilizing Creative Commons enabled search services at Google, Yahoo!, and Flickr.

http://search.creativecommons.org

4. EveryStockPhoto.com

This site aggregates photos licensed for reuse from several free stock photo sources.

http://everystockphoto.com

5. flickr CC

This site lets you search the photo site flickr.com for creative commons licensed photos

http://flickrcc.bluemountains.net/

 

Seek and Ye Shall Find (Part 3 of 3)

This is the last in a series of three tips on better searching with Google. If you missed either of the first two you can check them out here: Part 1 and Part 2

Can’t remember them all? Hungry for more?

By clicking Google’s “Advanced Search” link you don’t need to remember anything. There are tons of search options right there for you in a nice, easy to use, fill-in the blanks form. Check it out for yourself.

Here is another website (www.soople.com) which also makes it easy for you to do complex google searches without knowing all the behind the scenes tricks.

Google Cheatsheet & Guide:

Finally, here are two other great references for getting the most out of your Google searches.

• Google Cheatsheet is a handy quick reference to use for your future Google searches.

• Google Guide is an online interactive tutorial and reference for experienced users, novices, and anyone in between. Definitely worth checking out.

Next week we’ll share some great resources for finding graphics for your presentations and other projects.

If you have anything you’d like to see covered here please Stand UP and Be Heard and send them to me.

Seek and Ye Shall Find (Part 2)

1.Use the ~ symbol to search for synonyms

Put a tilde (~) in front of a word to search for that word plus the word’s synonyms the any alternative endings for the term as well.

For example, ~inexpensive will return “inexpensive,” “cheap,” “affordable,” and “low cost” while ~run matches “run,” “runner’s,” “running,” as well as “marathon”

The tilde operator works best when applied to general terms and terms with many synonyms.

2. Search for Images Only

Looking for the perfect picture for your next presentation? Did you know that you can search for images? Just click the Images link or go directly to http://images.google.com

** Don’t forget to make sure you aren’t infringing upon any copyrights.

3. Search for particular types of documents

By using the filetype: operator you can limit your search results to one of the following document types:

• Adobe Acrobat (.pdf)
• Microsoft Word (.doc)
• Microsoft PowerPoint (.ppt)
• Microsoft Excel (.xls)
• Rich Text Format (.rtf) – this is a text format often used to exchange documents between MS Word and other word processing software.

For example, “confined space entry” filetype:ppt

will result in PowerPoint files containing the exact phrase “confined space entry”

Next week we’ll wrap up our series of search tips with a few resources you can use to learn even more great search tips.

Seek and Ye Shall Find (Part 1)

Tips for better web searches:

1. Exact Phrase in Quotes:

Sometimes you’ll only want results that include an exact phrase. In this case, simply put quotation marks around your search terms.For example, “Rigging Safety Training”

Try this search both with and without the quotes. With the quotes Google returns 1,063 results while without the quotes you get over 1 million results!

2. Exclude Terms:

Putting a minus (-) sign in front of a word in your search means that your search results MUST EXCLUDE that word.For example: rigging -sailboat

3. Include Terms:

Placing a plus (+) sign in front of a word means that word your search results MUST INCLUDE that word.For example: rigging +scaffold

4. Site Search:

Have you ever wanted to search only one specific web site? You can use google to search a single specific site. This is handy if the site doesn’t provide a search function of their own.For example: “Getting Started” site:www.questiomark.com

This search will return all results from the Questionmark.com website that match the exact phrase of “Getting Started”

Try these out and you’ll be able to get the information you’re looking for quicker and easier.

Stay tuned for even more great search tips next week.