A tribute to Google and meaningful search queries

I thought I’d start the week with a tribute to Google and its ability to return useful results to meaningful search queries.

Projectors were eliminated from Kodak’s line of products in late 2003, much to the dismay of aging family men and old-school salesmen. For only $65 I managed to get one such projector on Craigslist; the price even justified driving to Daytona Beach to get it.

When faced with a situation where the newly acquired but rather aged (16 years old) Kodak projector kept firing up slides non-stop, I had no recourse but look online for help.

Googling the model number didn’t help much; the results involved an endless line of eBay auctions and such.

Then I searched for “Kodak Carousel 4400 keeps moving slides” and sure enough I found a meaningful result in the form of an online resource of problem-posting and problem-solving.

The Fixya.com web page contained even a schematic diagram of how to fix the problem; after taking apart the projector and pondering about the complexity of hardware made in the US, it took me just 5 minutes to fix the problem.

As it happens in those cases, it took me 30 minutes to put the projector back together but that’s a totally different story.

Thanks Google. You nailed it this time.