This is taken from a modified post of mine in the LiveSoapBox group, and I thought I would blog it:
Well, as you know finding anything on Live isn't easy. One way to find this group is with a search engine. In fact, most of the stuff in Live is indexed. It's that, other than for people, there really are no search pages to make this process easy, but there are some tricks.
And People searches do have an advanced web page - well, an advanced link allowing you to search on interest, gender, age, location, work, etc.
Type in your query and click “Search people” or just hit enter as it defaults to people.
Another page will open like the one below, but you’ll probably have to click “Advanced” to see all the options here:
Go to the search box at the top of this page (where it says "Search for people or web") and put "Live domain:groups.live.com" into it (without the quotes) then click "Search the web" and this group, LiveSoapBox, is about 35 items from the top. This tells Live Search to look for the word "Live" in the “groups” area of Live. Since the search engines don't log in, I believe this will only search the "Ask to join page." So search for words in the group name or that would be on this page.
BTW: Windows uses searches like this too (Vista and later versions automatically, and others versions with the desktop search installed) - see my blog on that here:
You can search for:
Groups using "search terms domain:groups.live.com"
where the “search terms” are some words you’re looking for. But instead of the “domain” keyword it is shorter to use the keyword "site" as here:
Search for Groups using"search terms site:groups.live.com"Spaces using"search terms site:spaces.live.com"Profiles using"search terms site:profiles.live.com"Events using"search terms site:events.live.com"Documents, Photos and Albums using"search terms site:skydrive.live.com"QnA using
"search terms site:qna.live.com"plus more... Leave the quotes off these. These searches are what’s between the quotes. And quotes in a search have special meanings.
Each part after the "site:" and before the "live.com restricts the scope of the search to a sub portion or area of the live.com domain (site). You can use this to search the entirety of live.com too or just a part. Here is an example where you want those quotes because you want to be sure both words are included and in order:
For the entire Live.com domain:- or restricted to QnA -Note: Keep the quotes on this search as you want to find both the word "windows" followed by a number "7" and in that order. Quotes mean to use it as it is between the quote, in order, and won't find entries that have either the word "windows" or the number "7" but not both. For example, the search won't return "Windows Vista." You want both "Windows" and "7" and in that order.
Now, Qna has its own built in search, but the concept is the same, and this work outside of QnA. So it’s just an example.
You can search inside some applications like Live Mail (web version) by entering queries like the following into the “search your e-mail” box:
search terms from:user@something.comFor example type in the “search your e-mail” box: “ from:windowslive” without the quotes, and you’ll probably get a list of all the messages that Windows Live sends you about users wanting to join your network, and private message alerts, etc. Well, if you haven’t deleted them. I know I get them! Note that the example is partial and not a full email address. This is OK.
There are probably a lot more options for all these, but definitely more for mail. There should be some for attachments, contacts, etc..., But these are some that I have used.
For example, try the search:
technogran site:spaces.live.com
( Technogran is the owner of LiveSoapBox)
Interesting, eh? It results in all her blogs, and other blogs that she has commented on, etc. If you review my blog from above you’ll see how you can use “AND”, “OR”, and “NOT” as well as other things to fine tune your search.
But it's just a pain to have to type all this in, and most users have no idea they can do this, and it’s hard for many users. This is sort of "power user" type stuff, and the Live web app really needs searches built in for each area. So, I hope they are working on it! If you like this idea then please go to Improve Live Search over the Live.com domain and vote to have this feature improved.
BTW:
Searches also work in WLPG, Outlook, WLM, and your desktop. I like using them in WLPG to get an intersections of tags. For example, “Ali pool” in the “Find a photo” box shows just pictures that both my niece is in as well as the pool! Just about any search engine that indexes Live.com will work, but the syntax from one engine to the next can vary.
You can do interesting things with searches...
