1. The best way to begin searching harder with Google is by clicking the Advanced Search link.

2. This lets you search for exact phrases, “all these words”, or one of the specified keywords by entering search terms into the appropriate box.

3. You can also define how many results you want on the page, what language and what file type you’re looking for, all with menus.

4. Advanced Search lets you type in a Top Level Domain (like .co.uk) in the “Search within site of domain” box to restrict results.

5. And you can click the “Date, usage rights, numeric range and more” link to access more advanced features.

6. Save time – most of these advanced features are also available in Google’s front page search box, as command line parameters.

7. Google’s main search invisibly combines search terms with the Boolean construct “AND”. When you enter smoke fire – it looks for smoke AND fire.

8. To make Google search for smoke or fire, just type smoke OR fire

9. Instead of OR you can type the | symbol, like this: smoke | fire

10. Boolean connectors like AND and OR are case sensitive. They must be upper case.

11. Search for a specific term, then one keyword OR another by grouping them with parentheses, like this: water (smoke OR fire)

12. To look for phrases, put them in quotes: “there’s no smoke without fire”

13. Synonym search looks for words that mean similar things. Use the tilde symbol before your keyword, like this: ~eggplant

14. Exclude specific key words with the minus operator. new pram -ebay excludes all results from eBay.

15. Common words, like I, and, then and if are ignored by Google. These are called “stop words”.

16. The plus operator makes sure stop words are included. Like: fish +and chips

17. If a stop word is included in a phrase between quote marks as a phrase, the word is searched for.

18. You can also ask Google to fill in a blank. Try: Christopher Columbus discovered *

19. Search for a numerical range using the numrange operator. For example, search for Sony TV between £300 and £500 with the string Sony TV £300..£500

20. Google recognises 13 main file types through advanced search, including all Microsoft Office Document types, Lotus, PostScript, Shockwave Flash and plain text files.

21. Search for any filetype directly using the modifier filetype:[filetype extension]. For example: soccer filetype:pdf

have no time to do a full length pseudo-geeky post now now, but will expand on it after i’ve tested it out. :)

from codex

update: whoops. those two links seem to be for category styling as opposed to having posts from different categories appear differently on the home page.

these two seem to be more of what i’m looking for. Styling Posts by Category and Category-Specific Images, using wordpress categories to style posts

much more complicated too. ;p

deep breath

in the earlier layout, i used wordpress’ built-in Query_posts, placing following syntax into the index.php file of my theme. (whitespace makes no difference.)

<?php
   if (is_home()) {
      query_posts("cat=-23");
   }
?>

but for some reason, this method didn’t work with derek powazek’s awesome minimalist DePo skinny theme (which, if you hadn’t noticed, i’m currently loving).

so, i googled this trick. just pop in

<?php query_posts($query_string . “&cat=-23″); ?>

before the line that says:

< ?php if (have_posts()) : ?>

ta-dah! done.additional: for hemingway reloaded template, insert &cat=-23 into existing query like so

<?php query_posts(‘showposts=10&cat=-23‘); ?>

also, when you google for help on how to remove this “comments off” you get smart alecky answers on how to entirely remove the option of commenting from your blog. leaving your millions of fans without a voice (or trolls without any dinner).

so, intermediate users can head down to your server and edit the file in wordpress root > wp-includes > comment-template.php

find and delete bolded text as follows:

$more = ‘% Comments’, $css_class = ”, $none = ‘Comments Off‘ )

if you don’t believe me, i got it from the codex

Line 720 of wp-icludes/comment-template.php has the words ‘Comments Off’ as the value of the variable $none (in the comments_popup_link function)