15 Awesome Google Search Tips and Tricks

1. Identify Local Time for Any City in the World using Google

If you want to know current local time in a particular city, use the following method. To see the current local time in Los Angeles do the following. Go-ahead and try this yourself for your local city and see how it works.

Syntax: time in PLACE

time Los Angeles

Fig: Find out current time of any worldwide city

2. Exclude Keywords in the Search

If you want Google to exclude a word while searching the web page, use – (minus) before the search as shown below. This example searches for the pages which has the word ebooks, and without the word free.

ebooks -free

3. Search for Keywords with Similar Meaning. Include Synonym Keywords in Search

Instead of searching for only the given word, using ~ before the keyword you can instruct Google to search for webpages with the exact given word or the words which has same meaning. In the following example, giving ~tutorial also searches for keywords: guide, manual, reference etc.

nagios ~tutorial

(or)

debian installation ~tutorial

4. Match Any Single Word in the Search Using *

While searching, if you are not sure about which keyword to be placed in the phrase, you can match any single word using *.
 
For example, if you want to search for examples of vim substitution, and you are not sure whether to search for “vim editor find and replace examples”, or “vim editor search and replace examples”, then use * , which will match either find, search or any other word, as shown below.

vim editor * and replace examples

Note: You can also match multiple words by using multiple number of *’s respectively.

5. Use OR in Google Search

Using OR operator in between the words makes the following kind of search possible in Google. Following example will search for bash examples or bash programs.

bash examples OR programs

 
Note: The keyword OR should be in uppercase

6. Identify Definition a Word

To view the definition of a word use the following method.

Syntax: define: 

define: tech savvy

7. Search for a Range Using ..

If you are looking for a product in a specific price range use the following. It will search for the pages with text PDA, and $400 to $450 ranged text.

Syntax: text $100..$125

PDA $400..$450

8. Mathematical Calculations using Google

Normally for doing the metric conversions we will be using some online conversion websites or conversion softwares. However just by using Google search box you can do calculations, unit conversions and money conversions as explained below.

You can use the Google search box as your scientific calculator as

sqrt(10)

9. Unit Conversion using Google

The following will show the equivalent pounds for one kg.

kg in pound

So when you want to know what is the equivalent pounds of kg you can view it as:

Fig: Online Unit Conversion using Google

Following are few other possible conversions. Click on these link to see the results.

• km in mile
• inch in feet
• acre in square feet
• sec in ms
• kilobyte in byte
• You get the idea now. Try your own conversion and see how it works.

10. Money Conversion using Google

Following converts US Dollars in Euros (or) US Dollars in Rupees.

USD in Euro

(or)

USD in INR

Fig: Currency Conversion Using Google

11. Searching within a Specific Website

You can search for a text in a specific website. The following example shows how to search only within our blog – www.sureshkumarpakalapati.in

examples site:www.sureshkumarpakalapati.in

Note: There is no space between site: and the website address.

12. Google Search for a Given Keywords (both without and with sequence)

Basic Search for a Given Keywords – Without Sequence

The very basic feature of Google which everybody is using today is searching for pages which has the given text as:

linux command line history examples

Fig: Basic Google Search for Keywords with no specific sequence

Note: Highlighted words are not in the order as we given in the search box.

Basic Search with Keywords In a Given Sequence

If you want Google to show only the pages which has the words in the given sequence, then double quote that search string as:

"guide to install php5 from source"

Fig: Basic Search for Keywords in a specific sequence

Note: Highlighted words are in the same order as we given in the search box.

13. Search Based on File Type

The following examples searches only the matching keywords inside a Power Point presentations. In the same way, you can search for the doc, pdf and other file types.

linux introduction filetype:ppt

14. Google Advanced Search Page

If you are not able to remember some of the advanced search syntax mentioned in this article, then use the Google Advanced search page as shown below.

Fig: Google Advanced Search Page

15. Identify Local Weather for Any City in the World using Google

To see the current weather in Los Angeles do the following. Go-ahead and try this yourself for your local city and see how it works.

Syntax: weather PLACE

weather Los Angeles

15 Practical Usages of Mysqladmin Command For Administering MySQL Server

In all the 15 mysqladmin command-line examples below, tmppassword is used as the MySQL root user password. Please change this to your MySQL root password.

1. How to change the MySQL root user password?

# mysqladmin -u root -ptmppassword password 'newpassword'

# mysql -u root -pnewpassword
Welcome to the MySQL monitor.  Commands end with ; or \g.
Your MySQL connection id is 8
Server version: 5.1.25-rc-community MySQL Community Server (GPL)

Type 'help;' or '\h' for help. Type '\c' to clear the buffer.

mysql>

2. How to check whether MySQL Server is up and running?

# mysqladmin -u root -p ping
Enter password:
mysqld is alive

3. How do I find out what version of MySQL I am running?

Apart from giving the ‘Server version’, this command also displays the current status of the mysql server.

# mysqladmin -u root -ptmppassword version
mysqladmin  Ver 8.42 Distrib 5.1.25-rc, for redhat-linux-gnu on i686
Copyright (C) 2000-2006 MySQL AB
This software comes with ABSOLUTELY NO WARRANTY. This is free software,
and you are welcome to modify and redistribute it under the GPL license

Server version          5.1.25-rc-community
Protocol version        10
Connection              Localhost via UNIX socket
UNIX socket             /var/lib/mysql/mysql.sock
Uptime:                 107 days 6 hours 11 min 44 sec

Threads: 1  Questions: 231976  Slow queries: 0  Opens: 17067
Flush tables: 1  Open tables: 64  Queries per second avg: 0.25

4. What is the current status of MySQL server?

# mysqladmin -u root -ptmppassword status
Uptime: 9267148
Threads: 1  Questions: 231977  Slow queries: 0  Opens: 17067
Flush tables: 1  Open tables: 64  Queries per second avg: 0.25

The status command displays the following information:

• Uptime: Uptime of the mysql server in seconds
• Threads: Total number of clients connected to the server.
• Questions: Total number of queries the server has executed since the startup.
• Slow queries: Total number of queries whose execution time waas more than long_query_time variable’s value.
• Opens: Total number of tables opened by the server.
• Flush tables: How many times the tables were flushed.
• Open tables: Total number of open tables in the database.

5. How to view all the MySQL Server status variable and it’s current value?

# mysqladmin -u root -ptmppassword extended-status
+-----------------------------------+-----------+
| Variable_name                     | Value     |
+-----------------------------------+-----------+
| Aborted_clients                   | 579       |
| Aborted_connects                  | 8         |
| Binlog_cache_disk_use             | 0         |
| Binlog_cache_use                  | 0         |
| Bytes_received                    | 41387238  |
| Bytes_sent                        | 308401407 |
| Com_admin_commands                | 3524      |
| Com_assign_to_keycache            | 0         |
| Com_alter_db                      | 0         |
| Com_alter_db_upgrade              | 0         |

6. How to display all MySQL server system variables and the values?

# mysqladmin  -u root -ptmppassword variables
+---------------------------------+---------------------------------+
| Variable_name                   | Value                           |
+---------------------------------+---------------------------------+
| auto_increment_increment        | 1                               |
| basedir                         | /                               |
| big_tables                      | OFF                             |
| binlog_format                   | MIXED                           |
| bulk_insert_buffer_size         | 8388608                         |
| character_set_client            | latin1                          |
| character_set_database          | latin1                          |
| character_set_filesystem        | binary                          |

skip.....

| time_format                     | %H:%i:%s                        |
| time_zone                       | SYSTEM                          |
| timed_mutexes                   | OFF                             |
| tmpdir                          | /tmp                            |
| tx_isolation                    | REPEATABLE-READ                 |
| unique_checks                   | ON                              |
| updatable_views_with_limit      | YES                             |
| version                         | 5.1.25-rc-community             |
| version_comment                 | MySQL Community Server (GPL)    |
| version_compile_machine         | i686                            |
| version_compile_os              | redhat-linux-gnu                |
| wait_timeout                    | 28800                           |
+---------------------------------+---------------------------------+

7. How to display all the running process/queries in the mysql database?

# mysqladmin -u root -ptmppassword processlist
+----+------+-----------+----+---------+------+-------+------------------+
| Id | User | Host      | db | Command | Time | State | Info             |
+----+------+-----------+----+---------+------+-------+------------------+
| 20 | root | localhost |    | Sleep   | 36   |       |                  |
| 23 | root | localhost |    | Query   | 0    |       | show processlist |
+----+------+-----------+----+---------+------+-------+------------------+

You can use this command effectively to debug any performance issue and identify the query that is causing problems, by running the command automatically every 1 second as shown below.

# mysqladmin -u root -ptmppassword -i 1 processlist
+----+------+-----------+----+---------+------+-------+------------------+
| Id | User | Host      | db | Command | Time | State | Info             |
+----+------+-----------+----+---------+------+-------+------------------+
| 20 | root | localhost |    | Sleep   | 36   |       |                  |
| 23 | root | localhost |    | Query   | 0    |       | show processlist |
+----+------+-----------+----+---------+------+-------+------------------+

+----+------+-----------+----+---------+------+-------+------------------+
| Id | User | Host      | db | Command | Time | State | Info             |
+----+------+-----------+----+---------+------+-------+------------------+
| 24 | root | localhost |    | Query   | 0    |       | show processlist |
+----+------+-----------+----+---------+------+-------+------------------+

8. How to create a MySQL Database?

# mysqladmin -u root -ptmppassword create testdb

# mysql -u root -ptmppassword
Welcome to the MySQL monitor.  Commands end with ; or \g.
Your MySQL connection id is 705
Server version: 5.1.25-rc-community MySQL Community Server (GPL)

Type 'help;' or '\h' for help. Type '\c' to clear the buffer.

mysql> show databases;
+--------------------+
| Database           |
+--------------------+
| information_schema |
| mysql              |
| sugarcrm           |
| testdb             |
+--------------------+
4 rows in set (0.00 sec)

Note: To display all tables in a database, total number of columns, row, column types, indexes etc., use the mysqlshow command that we discussed in our previous articles.

9. How to Delete/Drop an existing MySQL database?

# mysqladmin -u root -ptmppassword drop testdb
Dropping the database is potentially a very bad thing to do.
Any data stored in the database will be destroyed.

Do you really want to drop the 'testdb' database [y/N] y
Database "testdb" dropped

# mysql -u root -ptmppassword
Welcome to the MySQL monitor.  Commands end with ; or \g.
Your MySQL connection id is 707
Server version: 5.1.25-rc-community MySQL Community Server (GPL)

Type 'help;' or '\h' for help. Type '\c' to clear the buffer.

mysql> show databases;
+--------------------+
| Database           |
+--------------------+
| information_schema |
| mysql              |
| sugarcrm           |
+--------------------+
3 rows in set (0.00 sec)

10. How to reload/refresh the privilege or the grants tables?

# mysqladmin -u root -ptmppassword reload;

Refresh command will flush all the tables and close/open log files.

# mysqladmin -u root -ptmppassword refresh

11. What is the safe method to shutdown the MySQL server?

# mysqladmin -u root -ptmppassword shutdown

# mysql -u root -ptmppassword
ERROR 2002 (HY000): Can't connect to local MySQL server
through socket '/var/lib/mysql/mysql.sock'

Note: You can also use “/etc/rc.d/init.d/mysqld stop” to shutdown the server. To start the server, execute “/etc/rc.d/init.d/mysql start”

12. List of all mysqladmin flush commands.

# mysqladmin -u root -ptmppassword flush-hosts
# mysqladmin -u root -ptmppassword flush-logs
# mysqladmin -u root -ptmppassword flush-privileges
# mysqladmin -u root -ptmppassword flush-status
# mysqladmin -u root -ptmppassword flush-tables
# mysqladmin -u root -ptmppassword flush-threads

• flush-hosts: Flush all information in the host cache.
• flush-privileges: Reload the grant tables (same as reload).
• flush-status: Clear status variables.
• flush-threads: Flush the thread cache.

13. How to kill a hanging MySQL Client Process?

First identify the hanging MySQL client process using the processlist command.

# mysqladmin -u root -ptmppassword processlist
+----+------+-----------+----+---------+------+-------+------------------+
| Id | User | Host      | db | Command | Time | State | Info             |
+----+------+-----------+----+---------+------+-------+------------------+
| 20 | root | localhost |    | Sleep   | 64   |       |                  |
| 24 | root | localhost |    | Query   | 0    |       | show processlist |
+----+------+-----------+----+---------+------+-------+------------------+

Now, use the kill command and pass the process_id as shown below. To kill multiple process you can pass comma separated process id’s.

# mysqladmin -u root -ptmppassword kill 20

# mysqladmin -u root -ptmppassword processlist
+----+------+-----------+----+---------+------+-------+------------------+
| Id | User | Host      | db | Command | Time | State | Info             |
+----+------+-----------+----+---------+------+-------+------------------+
| 26 | root | localhost |    | Query   | 0    |       | show processlist |
+----+------+-----------+----+---------+------+-------+------------------+

14. How to start and stop MySQL replication on a slave server?

# mysqladmin  -u root -ptmppassword stop-slave
Slave stopped

# mysqladmin  -u root -ptmppassword start-slave
mysqladmin: Error starting slave: The server is not configured as slave;
fix in config file or with CHANGE MASTER TO

15. How to combine multiple mysqladmin commands together?

In the example below, you can combine process-list, status and version command to get all the output together as shown below.

# mysqladmin  -u root -ptmppassword process status version
+----+------+-----------+----+---------+------+-------+------------------+
| Id | User | Host      | db | Command | Time | State | Info             |
+----+------+-----------+----+---------+------+-------+------------------+
| 43 | root | localhost |    | Query   | 0    |       | show processlist |
+----+------+-----------+----+---------+------+-------+------------------+

Uptime: 3135
Threads: 1  Questions: 80  Slow queries: 0  Opens: 15  Flush tables: 3
Open tables: 0  Queries per second avg: 0.25

mysqladmin  Ver 8.42 Distrib 5.1.25-rc, for redhat-linux-gnu on i686
Copyright (C) 2000-2006 MySQL AB
This software comes with ABSOLUTELY NO WARRANTY. This is free software,
and you are welcome to modify and redistribute it under the GPL license

Server version          5.1.25-rc-community
Protocol version        10
Connection              Localhost via UNIX socket
UNIX socket             /var/lib/mysql/mysql.sock
Uptime:                 52 min 15 sec

You can also use the short form as shown below:

# mysqladmin  -u root -ptmppassword pro stat ver

Use the option -h, to connect to a remote MySQL server and execute the mysqladmin commands as shown below.

# mysqladmin  -h 192.168.1.112 -u root -ptmppassword pro stat ver

15 Practical PostgreSQL Database Administration Commands

1. How to change PostgreSQL root user password ?

$ /usr/local/pgsql/bin/psql postgres postgres
Password: (oldpassword)
# ALTER USER postgres WITH PASSWORD 'tmppassword';

$ /usr/local/pgsql/bin/psql postgres postgres
Password: (tmppassword)

Changing the password for a normal postgres user is similar as changing the password of the root user. Root user can change the password of any user, and the normal users can only change their passwords as Unix way of doing.

# ALTER USER username WITH PASSWORD 'tmppassword';

2. How to setup PostgreSQL SysV startup script?

$ su - root

# tar xvfz postgresql-8.3.7.tar.gz

# cd postgresql-8.3.7

# cp contrib/start-scripts/linux /etc/rc.d/init.d/postgresql

# chmod a+x /etc/rc.d/init.d/postgresql

3. How to check whether PostgreSQL server is up and running?

$ /etc/init.d/postgresql status
Password:
pg_ctl: server is running (PID: 6171)
/usr/local/pgsql/bin/postgres "-D" "/usr/local/pgsql/data"
[Note: The status above indicates the server is up and running]

$ /etc/init.d/postgresql status
Password:
pg_ctl: no server running
[Note: The status above indicates the server is down]

4. How to start, stop and restart PostgreSQL database?

# service postgresql stop
Stopping PostgreSQL: server stopped
ok

# service postgresql start
Starting PostgreSQL: ok

# service postgresql restart
Restarting PostgreSQL: server stopped
ok

5. How do I find out what version of PostgreSQL I am running?

$ /usr/local/pgsql/bin/psql test
Welcome to psql 8.3.7, the PostgreSQL interactive terminal.

Type:  \copyright for distribution terms
\h for help with SQL commands
\? for help with psql commands
\g or terminate with semicolon to execute query
\q to quit

test=# select version();
version
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
PostgreSQL 8.3.7 on i686-pc-linux-gnu, compiled by GCC gcc (GCC) 4.1.2 20071124 (Red Hat 4.1.2-42)
(1 row)

test=#

5. How to create a PostgreSQL user ?

There are two methods in which you can create user.

Method 1: Creating the user in the PSQL prompt, with CREATE USER command.

# CREATE USER ramesh WITH password 'tmppassword';
CREATE ROLE

Method 2: Creating the user in the shell prompt, with createuser command.

$ /usr/local/pgsql/bin/createuser sathiya
Shall the new role be a superuser? (y/n) n
Shall the new role be allowed to create databases? (y/n) n
Shall the new role be allowed to create more new roles? (y/n) n
CREATE ROLE

6. How to create a PostgreSQL Database ?

There are two metods in which you can create two databases.

Method 1: Creating the database in the PSQL prompt, with createuser command.

# CREATE DATABASE mydb WITH OWNER ramesh;
CREATE DATABASE

Method 2: Creating the database in the shell prompt, with createdb command.

$ /usr/local/pgsql/bin/createdb mydb -O ramesh
CREATE DATABASE

* -O owner name is the option in the command line.

7. How do I get a list of databases in a Postgresql database ?

# \l  [Note: This is backslash followed by lower-case L]
List of databases
Name | Owner | Encoding
----------+----------+----------
backup | postgres | UTF8
mydb | ramesh | UTF8
postgres | postgres | UTF8
template0 | postgres | UTF8
template1 | postgres | UTF8

8. How to Delete/Drop an existing PostgreSQL database ?

# \l
List of databases
Name | Owner | Encoding
----------+----------+----------
backup | postgres | UTF8
mydb | ramesh | UTF8
postgres | postgres | UTF8
template0 | postgres | UTF8
template1 | postgres | UTF8

# DROP DATABASE mydb;
DROP DATABASE

9. Getting help on postgreSQL commands

\? will show PSQL command prompt help. \h CREATE will shows help about all the commands that starts with CREATE, when you want something specific such as help for creating index, then you need to give CREATE INDEX.

# \?

# \h CREATE

# \h CREATE INDEX

10. How do I get a list of all the tables in a Postgresql database?

# \d

On an empty database, you’ll get “No relations found.” message for the above command.

11. How to turn on timing, and checking how much time a query takes to execute ?

# \timing — After this if you execute a query it will show how much time it took for doing it.

# \timing
Timing is on.

# SELECT * from pg_catalog.pg_attribute ;
Time: 9.583 ms

12. How To Backup and Restore PostgreSQL Database and Table?

We discussed earlier how to backup and restore postgres database and tables using pg_dump and psql utility.

13. How to see the list of available functions in PostgreSQL ?

To get to know more about the functions, say \df+

# \df

# \df+

14. How to edit PostgreSQL queries in your favorite editor ?

# \e

\e will open the editor, where you can edit the queries and save it. By doing so the query will get executed.

15. Where can i find the postgreSQL history file ?

Similar to the Linux ~/.bash_history file, postgreSQL stores all the sql command that was executed in a history filed called ~/.psql_history as shown below.

$ cat ~/.psql_history
alter user postgres with password 'tmppassword';
\h alter user
select version();
create user ramesh with password 'tmppassword';
\timing
select * from pg_catalog.pg_attribute;