This week, two things happened that caught my attention:

• On an altered art list, someone asked a question about a term. An experienced member replied with a brief answer, and provided a link for more information. Someone replied to her message, telling her it wasn’t descriptive enough for new members, and could she elaborate. If the person sending this reply had taken the time to click the link provided, she would have found a wealth of information.
• Someone sent me a message through the contact form on my web site (which is clearly marked for business contacts only), asking me to provide a link to some PhotoShop brushes I mentioned in the description of one of my pieces. I ignored it, because the description names the web site where I found them. The same person emailed me in reply to last week’s newsletter, asking for the same information. I replied that the information I provided was sufficient to find the web site. She replied that the brushes weren’t there. I told her to read the message posted on the web site—the site owner has moved on, and is no longer offering the brushes.

In my world, there’s a time to ask questions, and a time to go off and find the information on your own. Both of these people could have answered their own questions, instead of expecting someone else to provide their answers. This is an ongoing problem for many experienced artists—that the bulk of the emails we receive are questions that can be easily answered by doing a quick search. Speaking for myself, I just don’t have the time or energy to be someone else’s personal search engine. I’m busy doing my own searching!

Perhaps the problem is that nobody has taught these folks how to search effectively. When I was at Michaels.com, there was an ongoing joke amongst the staff that I could find anything on the Internet in two minutes or less. I rarely do a search that doesn’t produce some sort of relevant result. It’s an aquired skill—the more you search, the easier it becomes to find information quickly.

So, in my ongoing effort to make basic things easier for the altered art world, here’s my crash course in searching for information. Since it’s on the forefront of my mind at the moment, let’s use one of the words that caused a problem this week: zettiology.

Let’s say I’m a member of an altered art group, and someone says the word zettiology in their email. I could email them back and demand that they explain the term, but I’m an impatient girl, and want the information right this very second. My first stop would be to search the group’s archives, to see if this term has been used in previous messages. All groups, message boards and email lists have some sort of archive. Look for an empty box, with a button next to it that says Search. Type in the word zettiology, hit the button, and see what comes up.

Well, let’s say that some messages using the word zettiology come up, but after clicking one or two, I don’t see a definition. That’s OK—I can use a search engine.

So, let’s talk about search engines. These are places that attempt to index all the information on the Internet. Google and Yahoo are probabaly the best known search engines. You all know the concept, right? You type in a word or two, hit the button, and a list of web sites containing that word appears. Sometimes, it’s a pretty hefty list. The key to effective searching is to type in enough words to create a narrow search, but not so many that you eliminate sites that might be helpful to you.

In my day to day work, I use Dogpile for my searching. Dogpile searches many search engines at once, so I can pull search results from Google, MSN Search, Yahoo! Search and Ask.com all at the same time. That means I’m sifting through a lot more information, but I’m often getting more relevant results.

So, here’s what happens when I type the word zettiology into Dogpile:

zettiology search results, in a new window

Go on, click it. Here’s what I see when I’m looking at the page:

There’s a site at zettiology.com. If I explore that, I’ll find journals from Tracy Moore, and a line of rubber stamps called Zettiology. Hmm, maybe this is what that person was talking about in her email. If I continue down the Dogpile list, I can see that there are a lot of people listing Zettiology stamps—and lots of them are into altered art. They all seem to be pointing toward Tracy’s site, so I’ll give that a read, and learn all about Zettiology.

Let’s try a harder one: the PhotoShop brushes I listed on my site, from 8nero.net.

This seems pretty simple. First stop is the address: 8nero.net. I don’t see any PhotoShop brushes there, but there’s some text in Italian: “lascio chiudere la Porta a chi resta. io me ne sto andando via”. I don’t speak a lot of Italian, so I need to translate this to see if there’s a clue. For translation, I use Babel Fish. Just copy the line of text into the translator, choose Italian to English, and click the button. Roughly translated: “I close the door to whoever remains. I’m going somewhere else”. Gee, sounds like whoever runs the site has closed up shop. Still, I might be able to find more information about those free PhotoShop brushes somewhere else. Let’s try Dogpile. If I type the words 8nero brushes into the search box, here’s what I get:

8nero brushes, in a new window

Go ahead, click it. I get an interesting list of links—the 8nero site, which we already know is closed. Then, a bunch of sites that have linked to 8nero at some point. I dug around, clicked a few links, and discovered that there’s no hidden door back to those brushes—all the entries have been removed. OK, no free brushes from 8nero, but I kept my eyes open for other sites that offer free brushes of the same quality. I found a directory I really liked:

Free Photoshop Brushes - Photoshop Brush DIRECTORY

So, with one search, I’ve established that 8nero really is closed, but also found a great resource for endless free PhotoShop brushes—all without emailing anyone.

One more? Let’s try a question I’m asked endlessly—where to find virgin bottle caps.

My search on this one is a little more complicated. First, since the people asking me this question have clearly seen them somewhere on my site, I’ll search my own site for the information. Yes, you can search here—look in the right column for the search box. I’ll type in bottle caps, and here’s what I get:

bottle caps search, in a new window

OK, some articles on bottle caps, but no listing of a source anywhere. Well, let’s try Dogpile:

bottle caps search on Dogpile, in a new window

Homebrew Heaven sounds like a place that would have blank bottle caps, doesn’t it? I clicked through their link, and found that they’re selling them in assorted colors, in one pound packages. Nice! (If Homebrew Heaven is not the first link that pops up in the Dogpile list, then do a search on Homebrew Heaven.)

That’s all you need to know to find your own information. Now, wasn’t that easy?