Yahoo! Hacks: Tips & Tools for Living on the Web Frontier (Paperback)

by Paul Bausch (Author)
Key Phrases: web services, image search, local search, Internet Figure, Web Search, Program Yahoo (more...)

Editorial Reviews

Product Description
Yahoo! took the world by storm in the 1990s as a one-of-a-kind, searchable list of interesting web sites. But ten years later, it has expanded into a department store overflowing with useful and innovative tools and services-from email, blogging, social networking, and instant messaging, to news, financial markets, shopping, movie and TV listings, and much more. Today's Yahoo! keeps you connected with every aspect of your life and every corner of the Web.

Yahoo! Hacks shows you how to use, expand, personalize, and tweak Yahoo! in ways you never dreamed possible. You'll learn how to:

• Fine-tune search queries with keyword shortcuts and advanced syntax
• Manage and customize Yahoo! Mail, using it as your universal email client to access all your other accounts
• Explore your social networks with Yahoo! 360, blogging your life, keeping up with friends, and making new contacts
• Store, sort, blog, feed, track, and otherwise share photos with Flickr and RSS
• Make My Yahoo! your Yahoo!, and personalize Yahoo!'s many properties
• Roll your own Yahoo! applications with Yahoo! new Web Services API and Perl, PHP, Java, Python, Ruby, or the programming language of your choice
• Visualize search results and topics, mash up images from around the Web, and remix other web content
• List (or hide) your site with Yahoo!, and integrate Yahoo! Groups, Messenger, contextual search (Y!Q), or other Yahoo! features

Whether you want to become a power searcher, news monger, super shopper, or innovative web developer, Yahoo! Hacks provides the tools to take you further than you ever thought possible.

About the Author
Paul Bausch is an independent Web Application Developer and Technical Author living in Corvallis, Oregon. He was a co-creator of the weblog software Blogger, and currently maintains a directory of Oregon-based weblogs at ORblogs.com. When he's not working on connecting weblogs, Paul connects applications with Web Services and lives to write about it.

Product Details

• Paperback: 489 pages
• Publisher: O'Reilly Media, Inc.; illustrated edition edition (October 17, 2005)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0596009453
• ISBN-13: 978-0596009458
• Product Dimensions: 8.9 x 6 x 1.1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.3 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars See all reviews (5 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #1,201,931 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

• This item is part of The O'Reilly Hacks Series.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

7 of 7 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars I'm not dead yet!, November 22, 2005

By	Thomas Duff "Duffbert" (Portland, OR United States) - See all my reviews (TOP 50 REVIEWER)    (REAL NAME)

"The reports of my death are greatly exaggerated." That quote might apply to Yahoo when you look at all the mindshare that Google has garnered of late. It's almost as if Yahoo is irrelevant and Google owns the search world. Not quite, and Paul Bausch's new book Yahoo! Hacks - Tips & Tools for Living on the Web Frontier reminded me of all the good and incredibly valuable things you can do with Yahoo...

Contents: Search; Services; Communicating; Web Services; Applications; Webmastering; Index

Like all Hacks titles, you have a number of cool tips and tricks that you can do using Yahoo as your technology starting point. In this case, there's 100 of them that cover a wide range of topics. For instance, tip #39 - Monitor Your Commute shows how Yahoo can provide updated traffic conditions overlaying a map of your driving commute. Even better, those traffic updates can be formatted in RSS and put on your My Yahoo page. I did that one right away. Tip #83 - Randomize Your Windows Desktop Background shows how, using Yahoo's web services API and some VBA code, you can create a random Windows wallpaper each day. Just hope you don't choose a search term that isn't "work safe". :) The whole Web Services chapter shows how you can access Yahoo's API using a variety of languages such as Perl, PHP, Python and a few others. Once you get the basic core structure down, you open up a whole universe of possibilities in terms of programmatic integration of Yahoo into your applications. This is really cool stuff...

I've been just as guilty as the next person of getting all "Google"-y eye'd at other search engines and forgetting the site that opened up a whole world of internet realities. Many of the things we take for granted now were ground-breaking ideas that Yahoo was pushing in the early days. Having two strong competitors in the search arena will lead to even more innovative thinking as they play off of each other. I can see how the Yahoo! Hacks title could go into multiple editions without even trying...

Excellent read with lots of code you can use immediately. If you've wandered away from Yahoo for other pastures, perhaps it's time to wander back and see what other options are out there. Yahoo Hacks will expand your thinking as to what you can do with search engines...

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Everything to know about tweaking Yahoo! is here, March 17, 2006

By	D. Donovan, Editor/Sr. Reviewer "California B... (California, USA) - See all my reviews (TOP 1000 REVIEWER)

Paul Bausch's YAHOO! HACKS: TIPS & TOOLS FOR LIVING ON THE WEB FRONTIER tells how to personalize and use Yahoo! In new ways, from using keyword shortcuts and advanced syntax to get more from search queries to customizing Yahoo! Mail, using its blogging features and file share programs, and even building applications using Yahoo! web services. Everything there is to know about customizing and tweaking Yahoo! is in this book.

4 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Get The Most Out Of Your Yahoo! Experience!, November 23, 2005

By	Daniel McKinnon (Tewksbury, MA USA) - See all my reviews (TOP 500 REVIEWER)

When Yahoo! was created in 1994 by Jerry Yang and David Filo it was the simplest of web sites. Just a collection of web pages laid out in a simple unordered list, the entire Yahoo! web site was only a handful of pages with only a single, simple use: to list sites on the web separated out by the content they provided. Probably when someone today thinks of Yahoo! the first thing they think of is that it is a search engine. Well the 1st generation of the Yahoo! web site didn't even have that. There wasn't even a form field present, the only thing being a bunch of hyperlinks which navigated to more hyperlinks for the few sites that were in existence back in the day.

My what changes a decade brings.

When you think of the Internet today, probably the first couple of web sites that come to mind are eBay, Google, amazon and Yahoo!. It is safe to say that with thousands of employees and millions upon millions of revenue that Yahoo! is one of the greatest success stories on the web, and to think that only 10+ years ago this site was just a simple list that grew into so much more. Yahoo! has evolved to not only provide a way of searching the Internet, but it is now a portal site that provides News, Weather, Sports, Games... basically if you can think of something that you can find on the Internet then Yahoo! is a great place to go to start your web experience. There is so much to do and so many places to go when you use Yahoo! that it can become mind-boggling and that is where "Yahoo! Hacks" can be used to make your net experience the best it can be.

Providing 100 tips and tricks of how to best use Yahoo! to your advantage, Paul Bausch pulls no punches and doesn't skimp on the details. From learning how to use and customize 'My Yahoo!' to setting up and controlling your mail to setting your own personal TV listings, you can learn how to do this with this guide. From tracking your investments to created advanced searches that remember personalized settings to installing Yahoo! Messenger, you will learn the ins and outs with this book. This is just the tip of the iceberg when it comes to discussing all that Yahoo! Hacks has to offer. RSS, blogging, Calendar, sharing photos... the list goes on and on.

After reading Yahoo! Hacks you will soon feel like there is so much to offer from Yahoo! that you could do everything you needed to at one web site and never have to go anywhere else! Now with this guide you can get the most out of your Yahoo! experience and have fun while doing it.

This is what Hack books are supposed to be about!! For all Yahoo! enthusiasts out there who want to learn how to use Yahoo! to the fullest, this is the book for you!!

***** HIGHLY RECOMMENDED