Put your hands together for Jeremy Langhans everyone for completed the 3rd SourceCon Challenge!!  Way to Go!  It's on in the finals!

With all three challengers in place, this should be a really awesome event!  If you're not already registered, go register now!!!
http://www.sourcecon1.com

cheers^^

I came across this today and I think it's one of the best things ever.  You all know Google comes in lots of different languages per country, but this really takes the cake.  Apparently Google also has a version of itself for those hACK3r$ (hackers) who read and write in Leet Speak.  This is just plain awesome, way to go Google! 

Check it out here: http://www.google.com/intl/xx-hacker/

51MPly 4M4ZIN9

Today's Thought: I've often heard that Turkey's, despite being clever creatures, are silly enough to look up at the sky when it rains and drown themselves?  I've been wondering if there is any truth to the matter or if anyone has any experience in the subject.  I can't help to imagine a field full of drown turkeys who simply couldn't figure out how to open their umbrellas^^

I've spent some time over the last week playing with a plethora of different search engines and there are a few that have really, and I mean REALLY impressed me. Since every search engine has it's own unique little features it takes a while to really get to know what your options are and in this post I've decided to cover the first of three very unique engines which all have some really FUN features! I'll cover each engine in 3 separate posts so I don't take away from each of them.

The engine I'm most excited about is an engine called Ujiko. It's done by the great people who brought your Kartoo.com and it's got a similar feel as it's also a visual engine.  The engine itself uses the latest in Yahoo! search technology which for me is very nice because I rely so heavily on Google. For all of those familiar with the coop concept, this is a very exciting engine because it embraces a lot of the features, just applied to yahoo in a very neat manor! Now before I break down all of the features, I need to explain something important or else you might not grasp how to make them work or unlock them.

Ujiko is almost like playing a game as you start out with a basic search engine and build it up over time. For every result you visit while using Ujiko you accumulate 1 point. Once you have 10 points you gain a level. When you gain a level, you get access to more and more features each time. Let's have a look at some screen shots


This is Ujiko at Level 0 and in it's most basic form.  Here you can search and edit it's appearance, but not a whole lot of other stuff going on.  Now let's take a look at what it looks like at level 10 which is the equivalent to opening 100 search results that it's brought back for you.


You'll notice that it's added a whole lot more buttons to press and things to try.  It adds a favorite button for bookmarking, lists of saved queries and another list for successful queries in the top left.  It allows you 5 different folders to save links to which can be named and specified right next to those first three buttons.  It also provides links to search Kartoo, Yahoo News, Yahoo Images, and also Yahoo Video on the top right side.  At this point you have two other buttons as well, one which emails you the results and another which allows you to change the skin of Ujiko down in the lower left side!

Now, if this wasn't enough enhancement, let's take a look at what Ujiko looks like at level 20, which is 200 results opened!


Now on the top right side you'll notice one additional button for Wikipedia searches, but also a whole mess of new buttons on the bottom!  Those buttons are the real gems when it comes to Ujiko!  The first button looks like a trash can and is the button to apply or remove the filters you set.  Similar to Google's coop, you can eliminate the pages you don't want to return!  The next two buttons are for "Parental Filters" and "Parental Filters+" and I think that's self-explanatory. 

Now the next 5 buttons are really exquisite!  They allow you to build strings of words you want to apply for either removal or keeper or url, or domain, etc...  They're all very versatile in their capabilities and let you create the comparison of Google's coop refinements!  Pretty sweet huh? 

All this aside, the interface is really amazing as it will build you keywords and color code them into groups which connect to the results.  It will also show you how many times you've visited the link with a little number in a while bubble next to the result.  It can even change the summaries that you see for the sites so you can notarize them however you'd like! 

Now, just when you thought you had everything you could want in a search engine, Ujiko goes a few steps further.  Not only can you skin the browser, but you can upload and skin it in your own images, it saves your levels and lists in it's cookies, but it also links to Alexa!  Yes, you can check web stats for the results you're looking at, and while you're at it, connect to the WayBack Machine and see older versions!!  By clicking on the little piece of notepaper next to the result you're interested in, this menu will display.



So you've heard all the good stuff about Ujiko, now unfortunately it's time to cover some of it's problems.  There aren't too many issues with the engine and on the whole I really like it a lot, but some of mention include:

1. The design can be a little flakey and shift focus easily making you have to go back and click over and over again.
2. It handles boolean a little funny despite being Yahoo ready, but nothing to really complain about.
3. It uses cookies to store the information as opposed to having a login. 
4. Clicking 200 of it's results to get to the good stuff can be a bit annoying to those who need a good search engine on the fly.  (But then again, anything in this world worth having doesn't come easily).
5. Limited to 12 results at a time.
6. I have no idea what else comes after level 20.  The one I use at work is up to about level 45 or so and I haven't seen any additional changes.
   

All that aside, the engine works great, gets great results, and gives you a lot more customization that any other engine out there short of the coop, but with 10x as many easy to access features!  On the whole I give this search engine a 9.5/10.  Great work to everyone over at Ujiko, I can't wait to see what future Levels Hold! 

Happy Searching^^

Ok, so the other day, the Great Rob McIntosh and I were working on finding the "Holy Grail" of email strings using Google.  We came to some interesting conclusions, but neither of us finalized any solutions.  Today I did some playing with it a bit and here's what happened.

The initial string we were trying to figure out looked something like this:

@gmail.com -http:// -https:// -www email    Results

The weird thing about this string was it actually worked, but what was even weirder was that if you made the keyword "email" into a negation, it worked even better (a wider number of results with a little extra garbage)...

@gmail.com -http:// -https:// -www -email    Results

So I got to thinking today and I realized the obvious as people often do when they take a step back from the trees in order to see the forest in front of them. 

By removing the http:// and the https:// and the www, we were in a sense, screwing ourselves out of a lot results.  Any page containing those values within their text was being eliminated!  Boy I feel silly reflecting now, but heres what I discovered upon this reflection...

*@gmail.com -intext:www.gmail.com   Results

Now, given the fact that the results are fewer than the previous searches, all the garbage has been pulled out.  So take a moment, take a company, possibly your own, and give it a shot.  See what kind of results you find.  Be aware that if the company has subdomains, you can expect them to come up so you might want to include some -inurl statements once you figure out all of their sub domains. 

Happy Searching^^

I've decided that there are far too many questions in this world that I need answers to and so I've opted to start a daily column where I will pose these questions to the public and see what kind of responses I get.  I suppose this is similar to a Yahoo answers, but completely focused on myself and my random thoughts. 

Today's Question:
What would a leprechaun buy if they were able to spend their pot of gold as they wanted to?  Furthermore, why are they so stingy? 

Please post your comments and let me know what you think^^

Last week I completed my AIRS Xtreme Lab training and also the AIRS Fearless Cold Calling class, both of which were taught by the wonderful Kelly Dobbins.  Although the classes didn't go as far as I personally would have liked, I did take quite a bit away from each of them and highly recommend them to anyone who has the time and opportunity to do so!  Kudos again Kelly!

Happy Searching^^

Yeah, you heard me!  For anyone who is a fan of the show, this could be the best news any of us have gotten all year!  See this blog over at Animation News for more info!

Huzzahs are in order!

Cheers^^

So I don't know if using this has any legal grounds for discussion so I advise using this at your own risk I suppose.  Also I was advised by a colleague of mine not to share this information so I know I'm not the only one questioning it's use.  But here goes anyway...

Google's URL system uses a system based around hexadecimal values.  Hexadecimal or "Hex" values are a system of numbers that essentially acts as shorthand for the language your computer speaks(binary). 

Using the hex value system, one is able to convert text into hex which both humans and computers are able to read in essence.  For the every day user they're looking at something completely incomprehensible that looks like a bunch of nonsensical numbers, but to someone with a bit of IT experience, it's an entire story board. 

Now, as mentioned, Google uses hex values in their URL generation which lead me to conclude that if you fed them to the engine as hex values it would return those values.  Now lets think for a moment about possible uses for this in recruiting... Not too many at face value, but if you look a little deeper the value could be quite promising.

Seeing as how the subject of this blog is about emails I'll cut right to the point.  If you take the "at" or @ sign so common in emails and convert that into a hexadecimal value you arrive at the value 40  .  So because of the way Google functions you need to include a "percent" % sign before the value to specify that you're using a hex value.  So let's put it all together.

String:     +%40gmail     Results

Well would you look at that... tons of embedded gmail accounts.  Emails which were altered with hex and other conversion numerics for the purpose of masking and hiding and preventing much of the world from viewing... 

So what's the value to recruiting and sourcing?  Well let's take our new found email "operator" and apply it to a large company, re-paginate for all the results, then run an extraction tool of your choosing over it to pull out all of the email addresses, sort them, find/replace all with the @ sign, filter for duplicates and you have a list of previously embedded email addresses. 

With so many companies using a combination of first and last name in the address you can pick apart names to run searches against.  Worth the time and effort?  Yes, definitely, especially if you automate the whole process. 

Because this also unearths some other embedded and encrypted information I'm going to stop here and leave you all with the conceptualization behind it and come up with your own directions... 

Happy Searching^^

Ok, I've recently made some really cool discoveries in the world of search strings and Google so I figured I'd start out with one of my favorite tricks. 

I haven't tested this on the new IE yet, but it definitely works with Firefox.  So here's what you do.

1) Put together a string in your favorite search engine (going to use Google for my example). 

            ~resume java ("los angeles" | california) -job

2) Go to the website directly via your address bar, ie: http://www.google.com

3) Enter your string into the search box within the page and click search. 

4) Bookmark your results page.

5) Go to Bookmarks > Organize Bookmarks

6) Select the bookmark with your results, right click and select properties. 

7) You'll see something that looks like this in the URL box:
         http://www.google.com/search?source=ig&hl=en&q=%7Eresume+java+%28%22los+angeles%22+%7C+california%29+-job&btnG=Google+Search

8) Where the skill set is you want, in this case being java, you replace it with a "  %s  "  so it'll look like this now:

http://www.google.com/search?source=ig&hl=en&q=%7Eresume+%s+%28%22los+angeles%22+%7C+california%29+-job&btnG=Google+Search

9) Give the bookmark a name and a keyword.  Make the keyword something simple that you'll remember like "dev" or "developer"  than click 'ok'.

10) Go back to Firefox and in the address bar enter the keyword you added for that search string followed by a space and then the skill set you want to apply that string to.  It'll look something like this:

         dev perl

11) Hit enter and Wallah!  The skill set you entered will be automatically inserted into the string you bookmarked with the other criteria you specified and run within Google! 

Talk about a real time saver!  I personally made about 15 of these bookmarks and they all run slightly different results based on the select keywords I used for location, resume, alumni, etc.... 

Anywho, I'll post more on some of the other neat tricks I've put together real soon, I promise!

Happy Searching^^

Today I stumbled upon a new command which I think is absolutely brilliant when candidate searching on Yahoo!  When I went to do more research on the command itself I stumbled across a posting by Moises Lopez who runs the The Sourcing Corner where he already covered it, but I felt like rehashing anyway!

The new command I'm so fond of is the "feature:homepage" command.  What's so great about this command?  Well it basically tells yahoo to only return results of individuals home pages,  it's really that simple.  How does it do such a thing?  Well, when directory structure is being setup typically the tilde (~) is added after the directory and leading into the individuals index.  An example of what I mean is:

http://eden.ruters.edu/~name/

Most Universities use setups like these because the individuals accounts are usually hosted on separate and larger servers and it's a simple way of specifying a directory/path. 

So, let's give it a shot.  Lets try:      feature:homepage java "los angeles" resume


Well, would you look at all those personalized home pages with tons and tons of information about what they're up to, where they've been, and how to contact them! 

Ok, I'm done for now, I was just really excited at the initial discovery of the command!

Happy Searching^^

If you haven't heard or don't know, Suzy Tonini of Deloitte took the 2nd SourceCon challenge this past week by storm.  In the eyes of most the challenge was incredibly difficult, yet while most of us were stumbling over ourselves trying to find real direction for the answer, Suzy was the only person to see it through as to my knowledge. 

A big Congratulations to you Suzy, without a doubt you seriously earned it! 

Now if I could only get over the nervous vibes I get from knowing your my competition in the finals, all would be right with the world!  Can't wait to see you there!

Happy Searching^^

 

Just finished the AIRS course "Googling for Candidates" and although I didn't take much from it, I will say that for anyone on the ground level of all this internet sourcing business it was a great collection of information on Google.  If you've taken the SearchLab it's a great follow-up and if you haven't it's a great place to start.  Big thanks to Lisa Brusack for teaching the course, excellent presentation! 

Happy Searching^^

I've gotten one or two emails now about the passwords not working.  If you're having a problem with them, please contact me immediately and I'll check the status.  In all of the demo runs I've tested myself they appeared to work fine, but I figured I'd put that out there.

For specific inquires relating to the Paper please email me at:  coop@feedthebeagle.com. 

Thanks to everyone who's purchased and my apologies for any glitches.

Happy Searching^^

If you're an internet sourcing junkie like myself than I'm sure you've come to realize that even getting as many as 100 results at a time just isn't enough...  Curse all those search engines that don't allow for more! 

Well...  this just isn't a problem anymore for all you FireFox users outer there anymore!  Lets say you want 500 results out of Google... how about 1,000 results or 10 pages worth of 100 results a piece?  What about 4,000 results?  Oh yes, it can be done!  Sounds like fun huh?  Here's the trick..........


Re-what?  Basically Re-pagination opens up your results pages on top of each other.  In short you'll have one browser displaying however many results page you chose one after another.  So scrolling to the bottom of your screen you'll see the bottom of your first 100 results then scroll a bit further and you see the next 100 results starting, and so on and so on...  Where/how do I do this with Firefox you ask? 

You do it very simply with this marvelous extension https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/2099  !  Just download, install and right click on the next results page number after performing a search and wallah! 

Now... what use does this truly hold aside from looking at long lists and saving yourself from changing pages?  Well, for one thing, Google's results tend to change randomly.  Based on the time, day, traffic, stars, and tide, your results may be different on page 3 the following day...  so although it's not really a productive use of time, you could leave a tab open with 1000 results and compare the next day! 

Ok... something productive.  Now this kind of violates Google's TOS so I don't advise this in any capacity, but you could open a page with 1,000 results and run a spider over them.  You could extract documents, emails, resumes, etc...    Now you could always do this with the 100 result cap, and it might take a bit of time, but not that long where you'd set it up over night.  Now amplifying your results 10x you can literally get a nice 8 hours and your spider will work diligently through the night for you extrapolating everything and everything you want. 

**Not all search engines have TOS regulations against the use of an automated search.

Well, that's all I've got for right now, I was trying to come up with a real solid rational for why someone would need this many results but it's kind of... well, I'm sure the reasons exist, I'm just very tired.  Please comment with suggestions...  In sum, I think Re-Pagination is swell.

Happy Searching^^

Ok, so you've all been waiting for my wonderful CSE white paper and it's finally available for purchase...  
That's right, for $19.99 you get:

• 30 pages of highly detailed step by step instruction from setup to finish
• All of the keywords I use within the refinements of my CSE including Resume keywords and Negations (Over 90)
• You get any updates I make to the White Paper
• Personal 1on1 time with me to ask questions and pick my brain for help
• Sneak peaks of some of my latest search technology!

Happy Searching^^

Ok, so this is my third post in a row and yes, I could have done them all in one single posting, but I figured they were each deserving of their own. 

A long time ago I purchased the domain FeedTheBeagle.com.  The domain was purchased for the display of personal information and after 9 months I've decided that I don't have time to post much personal fun stuff so now it's for my experiments in sourcing.  I figured if for anything else I might as well keep continuity as my blog is also named as such. 

So here's what's happening.  I'm going to keep my blog here with the wonderful community that is Live.com and run lots of neat other things from my site.  When will all these neat things be operational you ask?  I honestly don't know but the basics of the site have been redone and just need to be filled in so hopefully sooner than later. 

I will be posting links to purchase my CSE White Paper there... FINALLY, this weekend so keep your eyes peeled.  The cost is going to be $19.99 and I'll share all the wonderful details of what it contains and what you get with it on the actual addition to the site.  Oh, and I'll probably link back to it from here too. 

Happy Searching^^

Well, if you hadn't heard from a little bird, you can now see winner of the first SourceCon challenge!  Yeah, I'm on a roll or something because I never win anything, but there are two spots left so go get em!  http://www.sourcecon1.com. 

Oh yeah, and having set my sights on this win in previous blog, I'm going to say right now that my next target is title of Grand Master of Sourcing!  To anyone else who competed or intends on competing, you better be good because you're in for a fight this September!

Happy Searching^^

I recently took the AIRS Certified Diversity Recruiter course and I would highly recommend it. As an "agency recruiter" I don't spend a whole lot of time asking diversity questions, but I think that's about to change. The value in the diversity is apparently a lot deeper than I ever thought and really got me thinking. I've decided to create a diversity CSE using Google Co-op and making it available for public so keep an eye out. Oh, and before I forget, I'd like to send a special thanks to Peggy DeLong who was my instructor for the course, Great Job yesterday!!

More on AIRS, I actually just completed my CIR certification also by completing their SearchLab 3.0 course.  Another course I would highly recommend for anyone looking to build a strong fundamental base on internet sourcing and recruiting.  For those with a bit more experience it might be a little simplistic though I did learn a few new things and I'll report more once I've completed their advanced course "Xtreme Lab".  This time I would like to send a special thanks out to Kelly Dobbins for teaching the course!  Awesome Job!

Happy Searching^^