While setting up a Google Mini search for a site recently, I kept getting an error message like this:

/export/hda3/4.3.105.M.6/local/conf/frontends/default_Frontend/domain_filter (No such file or directory)

When trying to use the XML API to get the results back. I tried various things and eventually contacted the host to make sure their setup wasn’t blocking anything. Eventually I realised the Collection and Front End settings are case sensitive and I had mine in all-lowercase as I’d been told, whereas the Mini was actually set up with capitalised first letter. Once I’d matched what they were in the Mini, the error stopped. You can also get the same error with the Google Search Appliance.

Simple, but so easy to get caught out by it!

I’m happy to announce my latest Google Mini project: Course Searcher

It’s a search engine that covers educational courses for 14-19 year olds in Brighton and Hove (the area of the UK I live in.) I’ve written up what I did for the project in on my freelancing site.

We’ve used custom meta tags on the school’s websites to allow an advanced search, and also to feed information in to a database powering the ‘Pathways’ system, which leads to customised searching on the schools courses.

I’d like to thank the team I worked with on the site, who made it an enjoyable project. Here’s hoping a lot of students find it useful for finding the courses they should be doing next to help their future career.