Did you know there’s a difference? Search and Find are two different players in computer land. They go together like Stockton and Malone.

For me, Search is the core purpose of computers. I’ve spent YEARS in libraries, digging through card catalogs and books. Nowadays, you can search the equivalent of an entire city library in a matter of seconds. But unless you know Find, you’ve only scratched the surface. Let’s meet this power couple.

Search is like a library butler. Search stands at attention in his designated post, usually at the top of the computer screen, waiting for your request. He might be holding an empty box out, ready for your search term. Or he might be politely posing as a magnifying glass.

When you want something, you type your request into Search’s box. Let’s search the SPVCA archives for Olsen’s fundraiser. As I suspected, that exact phrase doesn’t exist in the archives. So we just give Search the term ‘Olsen’. Search briskly collects links to all documents that contain ‘Olsen’. All 500 of them. He arranges them in some organized fashion and lays them on our desk to peruse at our leisure.

Okay, let’s read the first one. It’s a board meeting report. Blah blah blah…

Ten rabbit holes and twenty minutes later… There’s Olsen. No fundraiser.

Sigh. Open the next document and read. Blah blah blah…

We are now half an hour into this simple request, with dozens of pages left. I keep forgetting what I’m reading for. There must be a better way.

YES! There is a better way! Find is here to save the day. But Find does not stand at attention like Search. Find is another secret handshake you must remember:

CTRL-F. (Or CMD-F, for those Apple Macs who probably don’t read my PC newsletter.)

Control-F. It is the soul of my entire computer life. The ancient Davinci code that saves me from having to read hours of hay to find the needle. If it’s in the document, Find will find it faster than I can blink.

Okay now. Let’s open the next document that Search brought us. CTRL-F, ‘Olsen’. Find jumps to the first Olsen and colors it for us. But it’s not about a fundraiser. Find says there are two more ‘Olsen’s in this document. Next; nope. Next; nope. Done.

Open Search’s next document. CTRL-F ‘Olsen’.

OOP. There it is! Olsen’s fundraiser.

So I ask, what good is Stockton without Malone?

And what good is Search without Find?