Category: google

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Finding Old/Historical/Archived Content – The Cache Operator & Archive Services

Is your bookmark leading to an empty webpage? Did that link you found on a forum post dated 5 years ago no longer work? Perhaps you need some information from a site and it’s currently down for maintenance?

Fortunately, Google has you covered. The cache: operator shows you the given web page as Google saw it before. Using it is easy: type in cache: and then the URL you need to see. Make sure there is no space between cache: and the address.

As an example, see below:

cache:reddit.com

After you hit the search button, you’ll get something similar to this:

On some occasions, Google won’t be able to find a cached page, and you’ll see an image similar to the below:

In these cases, it’s time to pop over to archive.org and use the Wayback Machine: put the URL you want into the Wayback Machine prompt:

You’ll see options to select a year and a specific date: Click the blue circled dates to see the web page as it was on that date.

The Wayback Machine is useful for seeing historical snapshots of web pages as well, and seeing how web pages change through time.

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Google Doodle

Today’s Google Doodle celebrates the 57th birthday of “Crocodile Hunter” Steve Irwin, who was a famous wildlife conservationist, zookeeper, and TV personality.

This is what the Google homepage looked like with the doodle:

Clicking on it goes to a slideshow showcasing many aspects of Steve Irwin’s life.

Many other organizations are also taking the opportunity of celebrating Steve’s life, such as Animal Planet on Twitter:

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Listening To Music Offline With Google Drive

Do you need to transfer text/music/pictures from your desktop/laptop PC to your iPhone? Do you need these files available to look/listen to even when your iPhone can’t get a signal?

I frequently need to transfer audio files/music from my laptop and listen to them on my iPhone, even in areas that don’t have cell reception. Fortunately, Google Drive offers the ability to mark files as available offline – to download the files to the iPhone’s local memory so they’re available at all times.

To do this, first use your PC to upload files to Google Drive. Then on the iPhone, open up the Google Drive app, find the audio file, and click on the three period symbol (inside the purple box) below:

Google Drive iOS app. Click on the three dot symbol.

A context menu will pop up below:

Google Drive file context menu.

Use your finger to pull the menu up (towards the top of your phone). You’ll see the full menu. Where it says Available Offline, pull the switch to the right until you see blue.

Use the available offline switch to mark the file as available at all times.

You’re done! A prompt should show up, where Drive acknowledges the offline request:

The notice that pops up when the file will be available offline.

To make sure the file is fully downloaded, leave the Google Drive app open a moment before you close it out.