<div id="popup_box_thanks" style="display:none" onClick="close_popup_thanks('popup_box_thanks', 'ts')"><br>Thanks for submitting your tip! All submissions are moderated by an editor before appearing online. We've reset the form so you can enter another tip. Or you can close the tip submission box. <div class="x_close" id="thanks_upper_right"><a href="javascript:void(0)" onmousedown="close_popup_thanks('popup_box_thanks', 'ts'); return true;">Close</a></div></div>
<div class="tbf_row"><div class="tbf_wide_extra_top not_bold">Please submit only technical tips that will help other TidBITS readers better use their Macs, iPhones, and related software and hardware. All product announcements should be sent to <a href="mailto:releases@tidbits.com">releases@tidbits.com</a>.</div></div>
<div class="tbf_left">URL</div><div class="tbf_right"><input type="text" value="" name="tip_link_url" tabindex="3"><span class="tip_description"><br>Enter the URL to a Web page that supports your tip.</span></div>
</div>
<div class="spacer"></div>
<div class="tbf_row">
<div class="tbf_left">Linked text</div><div class="tbf_right"><input type="text" value="" name="tip_link_label" tabindex="4"><span class="tip_description"><br>Enter the name of the page linked above.</span></div>
<div class="tbf_wide"><input type="submit" value="Preview Your Tip" name="preview_tip" onClick="fill_preview('tipbits_enclosure_preview', 'ts', this.form); return false;" tabindex="7"> <input type="submit" value="Send Us Your Tip!" name="submit_this_tip" onClick="handle_tip_submission('ts', '', this.form, 'tip'); return false;" tabindex="8"></div>
</div>
<div class="spacer"></div>
<div class="tbf_row">
<div class="tbf_wide"><span class="fine_print">When you submit a tip, you give us permission to use it. Read <a href="javascript:void(0)" onClick="generic_show_hide('tip_terms')">our terms</a> for more details. All submissions are reviewed before publication.</span></div>
<div class="tbf_wide"><span class="fine_print">Our terms: By submitting a tip, you agree to assign TidBITS Publishing Inc., a non-exclusive, worldwide, perpetual license to reproduce, publish, and distribute your tip in connection with the TidBITS Web site and associated products in any media. You agree that you created the content you submitted, and that you have the right to assign us this license. You give us permission to use your name, but your email address won't be publicly displayed or shared. We review all submissions before publication, and reserve the right to select which submissions we feel are appropriate for our readers and to edit those we publish.</span></div>
<div id="comment_thanks" style="display:none" onClick="close_popup_thanks('comment_thanks', 'comm')"><br>Thanks for submitting a comment! Please check your email for a link that, when clicked, will verify that you're a real person and cause your comment to appear immediately. <div class="x_close" id="comment_upper_right"><a href="javascript:void(0)" onmousedown="close_popup_thanks('comment_thanks', 'comm'); return true;">Close</a></div></div>
<div class="tbf_wide"><span class="fine_print">Our terms: We reserve the right to edit or delete any comment, so please post thoughtfully. We use your email address <i>only</i> to send you a one-time verification message confirming that you posted this comment. We also store your address to allow you to verify using other Web browsers in the future. For more info, see our <a href="http://db.tidbits.com/privacy.html">privacy policy</a>.</span></div>
<li><a href="/feeds/tidbits.rss" title="Subscribe via RSS" class="gettb">RSS <img src="/images/feed-icon-12x12.gif" width="12" height="12" border="0" class="nav_img" alt="Subscribe via RSS"></a></li>
<li><a href="http://itunes.apple.com/WebObjects/MZStore.woa/wa/viewPodcast?id=276986548" title="Subscribe to the podcast" class="gettb">Podcast <img src="/images/feed-icon-12x12_podcast.gif" width="12" height="12" border="0" class="nav_img" alt="Subscribe to the postcast"></a></li>
<li><a href="http://www.twitter.com/TidBITS" title="Get Article Updates via Twitter" class="gettb">Twitter <img src="/images/feed_icon_12x12_twitter.png" width="12" height="12" border="0" class="nav_img" alt="Get Article Updates via Twitter"></a></li>
<li><a href="http://www.facebook.com/pages/TidBITS/195314925519" title="Go to the TidBITS Page at Facebook" class="gettb">Facebook <img src="/images/feed_icon_12x12_facebook.gif" width="12" height="12" border="0" class="nav_img" alt="Go to the TidBITS Page at Facebook"></a></li>
<li><a href="javascript:void(0)" title="Sections" class="tabhead" onClick="return showhide('articleslist')">Sections <span id="articleslist_triangle"><img src="/images/nav_triangle_open.gif" width="9" height="9" border="0" class="navtriangle" id="articleslist_tri_image" alt="Click to show or hide the contents of this section."></span></a></li>
<li><a href="javascript:void(0)" onClick="return showhide('stafflist')" title="Staff" class="tabhead">Staff <span id="stafflist_triangle"><img src="/images/nav_triangle_closed.gif" width="9" height="9" border="0" class="navtriangle" id="stafflist_tri_image" alt="Click to show or hide the contents of this section."></span></a></li>
<li><a href="javascript:void(0)" title="Issues" class="tabhead" onClick="return showhide('issuelist')">Weekly Issues <span id="issuelist_triangle"><img src="/images/nav_triangle_closed.gif" width="9" height="9" border="0" class="navtriangle" id="issuelist_tri_image" alt="Click to show or hide the contents of this section."></span></a></li>
<li><a href="javascript:void(0)" onClick="return showhide('abouttidbits')" title="About TidBITS" class="tabhead">About TidBITS <span id="abouttidbits_triangle"><img src="/images/nav_triangle_closed.gif" width="9" height="9" border="0" class="navtriangle" id="abouttidbits_tri_image" alt="Click to show or hide the contents of this section."></span></a></li>
<li><a href="http://www.thedatarescuecenter.com/">The Data Rescue Center</a></li>
</ul><div class='sponsor_sidebox_bottom'> </div>
</div>
<!-- end sponsor_sidebox -->
</div> <!-- end leftcolumn div -->
<!-- end left column -->
<!-- begin centercolumn_border -->
<div id="centercolumn_border">
<div class="center_top">Thoughtful, detailed coverage of the Mac, iPhone, and iPad, plus the best-selling <a href="http://www.takecontrolbooks.com/?pt=TB-TAGLINE" style="color:yellow">Take Control</a> ebooks.</div>
<!-- begin centercolumn -->
<div id="centercolumn">
<!-- begin rightcolumn_container -->
<div id="rightcolumn_container">
<!-- begin rightcolumn -->
<!-- rightcolumn is embedded within centercolumn so featured text wraps around it -->
</div><!-- end tearoffbox_wide_container for watchlist items -->
<!-- begin tearoff box wide -->
<div class="tearoffbox_wide_container">
<div class="tearoffbox_wide_tips">
<div class="tip_display">
<div class="tips_sponsor_logo">
</div>
<h6>Option-click to Hide Apps Quickly</h6>
<p><p>This trick has been available in the Mac OS for years, but many people still don't know it. If you have too many windows cluttering up your screen, you can hide specific ones easily as you work. When you're in any application, hold down the Option key and click on another app's window, on the Dock, or in the Finder to switch to that other app and simultaneously hide all the windows in the previously current app.</p></p>
</div>
<div class="tearoffbox_wide_bottom_tips">
<div style="padding-bottom:35px"><div class="tip_display" style="float:left"><p><br><a href="/tipbits/80">Link to this tip</a></p></div><div class="tip_display" style="float:right; width:150px">
<p class="credit">Written by<br><a href="/author/Adam%20C.%20Engst">Adam C. Engst</a></p></div></div>
<div class="tbf_wide_80" id="hc_rc_4040">To help us avoid automated posts and misuse of our site, please enter the words below.</div><div class="x_close_row" id="hc_upper_right2_4040"><a href="javascript:void(0)" onmousedown="HidePopupContent('hc_4040', 'hc', '4040'); return true;">Close</a></div>
<div id="article_box_4040"><P>One of the burdens of publishing for nine years is that there are nine years' worth of back issues that must be archived, organized, and made available to readers in useful ways. TidBITS's efforts in this area go all the way back to our first issue - published as a HyperCard stack that automatically integrated future issues - and continues today with the latest features in our Web-based article database.</P><P><<A HREF="http://www.tidbits.com/search/">http://www.tidbits.com/search/</A>></P><P><STRONG>Webward Ho!</STRONG> In late 1996, with the Web undergoing explosive development, Matt Neuburg converted our back issues to HTML, pointing the way toward a full Web-based archive. A few months later, Adam fired the starting gun on a race to provide a way for readers to search the entire contents of TidBITS via the Web, signalling an end to readers needing to maintain local archives of TidBITS (see the article series "Search Engine Shootout").</P><P><<A HREF="http://db.tidbits.com/article/00826">http://db.tidbits.com/article/00826</A>><BR><<A HREF="http://db.tidbits.com/series/1045">http://db.tidbits.com/series/1045</A>></P><P>Adam's search engine shootout was a tremendous idea: it let TidBITS cover a variety of Macintosh-based search engine technologies without requiring us to become experts with all of them - and, in the end, TidBITS would get its own search engine! We announced the contest, reviewed the entries, and (with considerable consternation) selected a winner based on Apple e.g., a search technology from Apple that eventually became part of products like AppleShare IP, WebSTAR, and even Mac OS 8.5's Sherlock.</P><P>A month or two before the search engine went online, I'd begun experimenting with an online article database for TidBITS, built using FileMaker Pro and Blue World's Lasso. Although implemented as more of a thought experiment than a serious effort, it evolved into an adjunct of the full-text search engine that we called an "Author/Title" search. It didn't allow users to search the full text of articles but was handy for locating articles by a specific author or within a particular date range.</P><P>More significantly, the FileMaker-based system gave us a way to refer to specific articles instead of a complete issue of TidBITS. We'd been wanting this level of focus for years (and it wasn't offered by our Apple e.g.-based search engine), so we rolled this capability into the major Web site redesign unveiled in October of 1997 in <A HREF="http://www.tidbits.com/tb-issues/TidBITS-400.html">TidBITS-400</A>. From that point on, GetBITS URLs (like the one below) have been liberally sprinkled throughout TidBITS issues, pointing readers directly to relevant articles we had previously published.</P><P><<A HREF="http://db.tidbits.com/article/04179">http://db.tidbits.com/article/04179</A>></P><P><STRONG>A Sinister Plan</STRONG> -- Although I didn't explain it to anyone at the time, I had a secret agenda for all those GetBITS URLs. While they have an immediate benefit of taking readers to the right thing (an article, a MailBIT, an update, an article series, or, more recently, threads in the TidBITS Talk database), I thought they might also have a long term benefit. After all, we were integrating new articles into the database every week, and those articles contained GetBITS URLs that pointed to related resources in the <EM>same</EM> database. Over time, I hoped those links between items would become useful in and of themselves.</P><P>This may not come as a great revelation to many readers, but the fundamental strength of a database is not searching through information, but the capability to organize that information in useful ways. Fundamentally, a search just finds things, while a database can make those found objects smart - how smart depends on the database design and the point of view of the user. I hoped that by capturing the information about what other TidBITS material was relevant to a particular article, I'd eventually be able to make articles smarter.</P><P><STRONG>Foiled!</STRONG> Unfortunately, even our best laid plans don't always work out. I don't recall the precise moment when our collective frustration with the Apple e.g.-based shootout winner reached critical mass, but I hit my limit while Adam and Tonya were in Australia during the beginning of 1998 and I spent hours trying to prevent Apple e.g. from crashing constantly. Despite our best efforts, it seemed we'd have to provide a TidBITS search engine ourselves, and the "Article/Title" database was pressed into service.</P><P>Without getting into a lengthy discourse on the numerous issues and performance bottlenecks involved in serving FileMaker Pro databases to the Web, let's just say that the transition was not without difficulty. The situation was further complicated by the premiere of the TidBITS Talk archive, our most ambitious database project to date, and the introduction of Sherlock, Mac OS 8.5's Internet-savvy search tool.</P><P><<A HREF="http://db.tidbits.com/article/05012">http://db.tidbits.com/article/05012</A>><BR><<A HREF="http://www.tidbits.com/search/talk.html">http://www.tidbits.com/search/talk.html</A>><BR><<A HREF="http://db.tidbits.com/article/05274">http://db.tidbits.com/article/05274</A>></P><P>How could Sherlock impact our databases? As useful as Sherlock might be, it's responsible for many inappropriate (and unintended) queries to Internet search engines. Since Sherlock doesn't make it convenient for users to activate or deactivate search resources selectively, users tend leave all their plug-ins enabled. So, the TidBITS article database regularly receives queries unrelated to TidBITS. Sherlock search queries from this morning include "Beatles lyrics," "screenwriting tips," and "MIDI violin" - and unpublishable queries for adult materials. These searches tie up the database, and although we've implemented query requirements to reduce the burden, inappropriate searches remain troublesome. In any case, finding ways to reduce the database load caused by Sherlock took time and prevented me from working on my master plan for smarter articles... until now.</P><P><STRONG>Towards Smarter Articles</STRONG> -- Articles retrieved from the TidBITS database now present considerably more contextual information, which will hopefully be useful to TidBITS readers. It might be helpful to follow along in a Web browser, using Matt Neuburg's review of Conflict Catcher 8 from <A HREF="http://www.tidbits.com/tb-issues/TidBITS-446.html">TidBITS-446</A> as an example.</P><P><<A HREF="http://db.tidbits.com/article/05086">http://db.tidbits.com/article/05086</A>></P><P>If you've accessed items in our database before, the first new thing you'll notice is a set of links to the right of the article's text, collected into several colored boxes. These boxes group together items related to the current article, including articles that appear in the same TidBITS issue, series the current article belongs to, specific TidBITS items referenced by the current article, and most significantly, articles that later referred <EM>back</EM> to the current article.</P><P>Looking at Matt's Conflict Catcher review, you'll see the article was later referenced by two additional TidBITS articles discussing subsequent updates to Conflict Catcher. (By the time you read this, that review will also know that this article refers to it.) You can also see that Matt pointed back to three previous Conflict Catcher reviews that have appeared in TidBITS over the years, as well as an article about the demise of quality printed documentation and a review of InformINIT. You'll also see that the review is part of a series, along with a list of other articles that appeared in <A HREF="http://www.tidbits.com/tb-issues/TidBITS-446.html">TidBITS-446</A>.</P><P>Because we've been using GetBITS URLs for only about eighteen months, they don't appear in our older articles and, hence, older articles may not yet know about articles that refer to them or articles to which they themselves refer. Nonetheless, I have completely cross-linked about 550 articles going back to the latter part of 1994, while about 200 earlier articles still need to be fully integrated.</P><P>Since introducing TidBITS Talk last year, we've been repeatedly startled by the quality of discussion and information traversing that list, and it seemed appropriate to make relevant TidBITS Talk material available from TidBITS articles. So, if a TidBITS article mentions a discussion in TidBITS Talk or is itself specifically referenced by a message sent to TidBITS Talk, we display a link at the top of the article that takes you directly to the appropriate items in the TidBITS Talk archive, using a new browser window. (The TidBITS Talk links are also one of the few instances where we use more than one graphic on a Web page - with a total transfer burden of 367 bytes, I couldn't resist.)</P><P><STRONG>Towards a Smarter Presentation</STRONG> -- Along with making TidBITS articles more useful and context-sensitive, we've also tried to enhance other ways people interact with our database. GetBITS URLs now appear in browser location fields and history lists, so it's easier to bookmark specific articles and see which items you have previously visited. We've also enhanced our search results pages, and our main search form now offers some pre-formed queries that display recent articles TidBITS has published in particular categories, as well as listing the most popular articles in our database. In general, the HTML served by the database is cleaner; we've implemented some discrete changes that make the archive more accessible to Windows users; and commonly accessed items are much more Lynx-friendly. Finally, queries now search the contents of both TidBITS and NetBITS issues.</P><P><STRONG>Today Searching, Tomorrow the World!</STRONG> We hope you enjoy these database changes in honor of TidBITS's ninth anniversary, and that they make our content more accessible and useful to you. As usual, there are other grand schemes, plots, and enhancements we hope will bear fruit in the future - but we can't tell you about them now. It would spoil the suspense!</P><!-- Adding Context to TidBITS Searches Geoff Duncan --></div>
<!-- end article text -->
<!-- PayBITS -->
<p> </p><div class="sponsorbox">
<div class="sponsortext"><A HREF="http://markspace.com/bits?source=tidbits"><IMG SRC="http://db.tidbits.com/images/badges/mark-space.gif" ALT="" HEIGHT="50" WIDTH="50" BORDER="0" ALIGN="left"></A>SYNC YOUR PHONE with The Missing Sync: Sync your calendar,<br />address book, music, photos and much more between your phone<br />and Mac. Supports ANDROID, BLACKBERRY, PALM PRE and many<br />other phones. <<a href="http://markspace.com/bits?source=tidbits">http://www.markspace.com/bits</a>></div>
