Search Assistant in Splunk 4

Being a software developer whose passion evolves about search, mobile applications and analytics and love to look at log files, I find that the most useful and technically attractive feature as I play along with the free version of Splunk> is the Search feature. It is so helpful that contextual suggestions will be given to you as you type your search phrases in the textfield. Initially I was completely clueless about how to perform a search.

The screenshots are as shown below. The top most image is the untouched search string. At first I was afraid to type anything into the textfield having the similar fear that Google might crash if we search for "google". Nah ... just kidding:P As a fail-safe software developer I assume that Splunk has an excellent exception handlings. However, I tried searching for the usage manual but I did not know how to search for it (for example the appropriate search strings to search for the manual and such).Imagine myself greeting you "Hi, this is Nicholas Key and I'm a software engineer. EEErrrggghhh..."This video provides you an excellent way to get started, in my opinion.

Update: Actually there is an introduction that teaches you how to use the Search feature but I overlooked it. Instead of clicking at Getting Started, I clicked at *NIX. You may find a brief explanation about using various techniques to perform search. Screenshots are as below: