Strange search results!

[FelixCold]

Recently I found I can't exceed 12x CD actual write speed.

As I remember from earlier readings at this forum, this could be related to DMA problem, so I entered "dma" into a search field, but ... it didn't get any results.

Then to be sure this wasn't caused by "case sensitive" I changed a search term to "DMA" - same result.

So, I thought - OK, where these DMA related explanations could be here?

Let's start from the beginning - "Announcements" - no, "Drives & media" - no, "FAQ" - oh, here they are!

Well, maybe if I'll try to search from this FAQ page, results will be different?

Regrettably, still nothing.

At last I've tried the same steps regarding term "speed" - to check if search will work at all.

"All around" worked fine, but in "FAQ" section I've got no results again.

There's no too much text in this section, so I've checked "manually" for the word "speed" in it & I saw that instead of it "speeds" was used & this one leaded to a correct search result, despite some disappointment because this means that no succesfull search can be done using just a part of a word.

 

But how about "DMA"?

What's the problem with it?

[blutach]

Most search engines on forums limit the number of characters. In this case, the forum might be set at 4 characters or more.

 

Regards

[LIGHTNING UK!]

The forum limit is set to 3 but the SQL application on the server is set to 4 I believe.

 

I've changed the forum to 4 now so it matches and doesn't just return an empty set of results.

[FelixCold]

Thank you for your replies!

 

Now it's slightly better - instead of no search results error message appears.

 

If I got it right, there isn't an easy method to set that limit to at least 3 characters?

As I've been told at some other forums, the reason why this limit exists is that there would be too much search results if it would be done using less than say 3 characters term, especially if results where a search term is just a part of the whole word would be included too (as I can see this isn't the case at this forum!), but what's the sense of having this limit when it leads to no results at all?

Edited December 31, 2007 by FelixCold

[Cynthia]

For smaller words Google is much better to use than searchfunctions on boards.

 

Try this in Google:

 

DMA ImgBurn

 

[FelixCold]

Thank you for your advice!

 

I really found what I searched for in "more results from forum.imgburn.com"

 

I'll try this method regarding other forums too!

 

(Google still rocks!)

[spinningwheel]

You can also use google to find out what the acronym stands for and then plug it into the search engine. You can also try to expand the term you're looking for - in your own mind - and then plug that into the engine to see what it returns. The more you practice data-mining the better you will get at it. It will help you here as well as with engines on the web since you are helping the boolean model expand on what you are searching for.

[FelixCold]

You're of course right spinningwheel regarding more basic & fundamental research on given term, but in this case I was just searching for some minor details in an area that is generally already known for me & I was surprised that indirect "Google search" way is more efficient than direct "Imgburn forum search" one.

 

Recently a similar situation occured again, when I tried to find some data regarding quality of Verbatim's DVD+R dye "MCC-004-00" using local forum "search":

 

MCC-004-00 - no results,

*MCC-004-00* - 13 pages (limited to 1000) of results,

*MCC-004-00 - no results again,

MCC-004-00* - 13 pages of results again.

 

By switching to Google I found what I searched for very quickly (the third result was exactly the topic at this forum about testing this media on different drives), but this left me again with a doubtable feeling about local search feature ...

Edited February 12, 2008 by FelixCold

[blutach]

Acronyms? Did I hear acronyms? DILLIGAF about acronyms?

 

Regards

[LIGHTNING UK!]

For some reason, the 'full text' search method doesn't pick up any results for mcc-004-00 etc but the 'manual' one does - so I've changed it to use manual now.