Archive
Index
What's
New Return to
Internet Search FAQ
or URLs
for a rainy day Past additions made month by month to the Internet Search FAQ.
Archive
Index
What's
New
Return to
Internet Search FAQ
or URLs
for a rainy day
Most recent at the top. Click on the bouncing
to
return here.
November
1998
1. Those busy people at Alta Vista have revamped the site again and it now has an even simpler layout. It's much easier to locate and use the Categories section for example, which acts like a Web Directory - and the search engine automatically offers to explain and refine key terms in your search. Note also the new address: http://www.altavista.com/.
2. While Alta Vista still sets the standards that everyone else must be judged by, new search engines keep appearing. One new and good addition is OnlineSpy. If offers a range of different searches, from general web searching to finding specific song lyrics, pictures, newsgroup postings and even maps (and not just USA!). Basically it's a "Meta" search facility, using other search engines to do its work. Worth giving a try for that difficult query.
3. And sticking with search facilities, Lloyd Colston writes to me about Snap. a clean and simple search engine and directory combined. One good thing that it does is give the directory location of each item that's found, which means you can easily tell if the "hit" is in the right subject area. Another worthy challenger in the search engine stakes, however as Lloyd says, it's "hard to break old habits".
4. Smithsonian Without Walls brings us Revealing Things an exhibition still under construction which shows old posessions, ironing boards to ancient televisions, in a personal light, with quotes from their owners.
5. Fed up with getting stuck in the Internet traffic jams. Try Internet Traffic Report to find out when's good to get on-line and which parts of the world are less jammed than others.
6. Finally, a research resource for us paranoids with the catchy name of Appraisal of Technologies of Political Control. This is a lengthy and frighteningly authoritative survey, still in draft, produced for the European Union, about the different technological means that goverments exercise social and political control. Not without its Kafka-esque moments. Read and be chilled.
New Sites
October
1998
1. It has come to my attention that Sal Towse, contributor to the FAQ, has an interesting article on web searching in "Computer Bits". Well worth a read: www.computerbits.com/archive/19980700/web_searches.htm
2. Every now again people email me asking about the correct form to use when citing Internet sources in articles, research papers, etc. Well, a new site - A Research Guide for Students - gives a number of links to information on citations. It also contains useful links for research.
3. I've just come across a very nice new search facility, called Inference Find! - with thanks to Alice Kehoe's "Alice's Virtual Restaurant" (see below). What this site does very nicely is sort the hits according to what kind of website they come from, eg: homepage, educational, European, etc. which makes it easy and quick to locate the best type of site for your purposes. You can also set a maximum time for the search, from 1-60 secs. Excellent, even on obscure searches.
4. The Direct Hit ranking system is now working on
HotBot. Just perform a search,
and you'll see an option to view Direct Hit lists at the top of some of
the results. Direct Hit works by listing the pages most visited by web
users - the theory being that these may well be the most useful pages for
your search. The usefulness of course can depend on your chosen search
topic. Read more about the system in
Counting
Clicks and Looking At Links
See also www.directhit.com/
5. Regular users may have noted that the distinction between search engines and directories is becoming increasingly blurred. Many directories now have a "web search" option, while a number of search engines, offer directory-like services (in Alta Vista, check out "Categories")
6. I've split the FAQ's Archives into different years, for ease of navigation and loading, now that there's so much new information in there. Have a browse around some time.
New Site:
September
1998
1. Further to last month's item that new questions to HumanSearch now cost $8, we can reassure you that you can still search their index of previously answered questions for free.
2. GovBot is a search engine for only US .gov webpages, a great number of US government webpages.
New Sites
August
1998
1. Encyclopedia Britannica have revamped their free search and browse "BIG" service, making it faster and neater, adding daily editorial features for "newbies and veterans alike" and up-to-date listings of on-line chat. They still filter for quality and award ratings of up to five stars. The name's been changed to eBLAST (who thinks of these names?) though for the moment you can also still find it on the old link to BIG - www.ebig.com.
2. Some responses on Intelligent Agents. Vic Justice recommends "a search device called webferret, which is a free download. He says:
"It calls up 500 responses to the subject query and does it faster than, say Yahoo or others. To my computer illiterate mind, it searches the search engines.
"A major advantage of webferet is the contents index that pops up as the mouse cursor touches the item title, so that you only need call up items specific to your search. This saves time."
3. Bruce Krulwich who is professionally employed in bringing agents to market has also written a number of articles on the subject - http://www.geocities.com/ResearchTriangle/9430/
4. A more unusual tool for research comes from NameBase. In addition to a database of useful articles in a number of fields, particularly social, political and commercial, you can perform a "proximity search". Search on a name, and their database creates a "network diagram", linking a wide range of related names, grouped according to how close or frequent the link is found to be.
Easier to use than to describe, try it out.
5. Humansearch - where real human beings guide the lost on the Information Superhighway, has decided to charge for its services -$8 a search.
Other New and Revised Links:
Finally, new help for those who want to download information, files, etc, without a web browser. Bob Appleton has updated his files which show in specific detail how to get just about anything by email. The files are free and everything mentioned in them is also free. To get these files individually or together in zipped format as well as in text format, send a message to: agora@dna.affrc.go.jp and in the body of the message put:
send ftp://ftp.crl.com/users/iv/iverham/XXX
where XXX stands for one of the files listed below:
| email4u.txt | getit4u.txt | fun4u.txt | pix4u.txt | ||||
| email4u.zip | getit4u.zip | fun4u.zip | pix4u.zip | ||||
| 4useries.zip |
Repeat the line for each additional file requested. In addition the .txt (but not the .zip) files are available here:
send http://members.aol.com/bombagirl/freeware/XXX
send http://www.wireworm.com/4useries/XXX
Another way is to send a blank message to: 4useries@wireworm.com. (The subscription option we mentioned before is no longer available).
May
1998
Nothing new to report this month, except that I posted a request for experiences of using Intelligent Agents (IAs).
Let's be clear - IAs are not writers agents with nous, but computer programs that help with searching. There are a number of different types of IA, but basically they aim to make internet searching easier by
(a) learning your preferences in an "intelligent" way and/or
(b) going onto the net and searching while you are offline, thus saving
time and money and/or
(c) (theoretically) returning with a more targetted, useful list of hits
- by avoiding duplication, eliminating dead links, and generally being
more efficient than your average bog-standard search engine.
I received a grand total of one reply (from a reviewer) and zero replies from researchers and writers, from which I conclude that either IA's are not much use, or that no-one who uses them saw my message or (most probable) that researchers and writers are too busy researching and writing to take valuable time wrestling with unknown bits of software.
The jury is still most decidedly out. Please tell me if you've tried IAs and find them scintillatingly useful, totally useless, or somewhere between the two.
Want to find out more? Try:
Software:
Autonomy
ZurfRider
SSSpider
AgentSoft
Alexa Internet
Reviews and Discusion:
UMBC Agent Web
IBM Intelligent
Agents Home Page
Web Review:
Where are the agents? (1 of 4)
Crawling
towards Eternity (Web Techniques, May 1997)
Stroud's
Internet Agent Reviews
(Most of these links courtesy of Jen - thanks.)
April
1998
1. News has just come in of Debriefing - an efficient new "meta" search engine. It supports quick and advanced searching, shows which search engines hold details of each link, and it also reports back if it finds that one domain seems to be particularly relevant to your search. Perhaps most useful of all it says it removes duplicates, so you shouldn't be inundated with 200 links to the same page. Languages: English and French.
2. There's nothing like a good story. Greatest Films gives highly detailed synopses of over 100 of the greatest (mostly US) films ever made.
3. The Poynter Institute offers useful links and bibliographies for a range of topical issues and other subjects. Although they run journalist training courses, the site's usefulness goes beyond journalism, but you will also find useful articles on journalism and writing in general.
Other new links:
March
1998
1. A new site well worth checking out for help in research is Windweaver Web Resources with over 100 pages of useful Internet search guides and links.
Created by an Internet trainer who specialises in research resources, it offers useful comparisons of the strengths and weaknesses of the different search engines, etc, along with guides, help pages, and many, many links. Highly recommended.
Among other things, Windweaver has a list of search resources for finding mailing lists which I have also added to the Mailing List section of the FAQ.
2. If you want to lobby on a world-wide scale, here's Politicians of the World - a complete address directory for the state/provincial governors and Presidents/Prime Ministers of every country. Phone, fax, and e-mail addresses are also provided where available. Even has the Web pages of the Pope and the British Royal Family.
3. Quotation Center. Just what you needed, another quotation search site! But this one comes highly recommended and has a large database.
4. Finally, currently under test but worth looking at is Ask Jeeves for Kids - a protected version of the rather good grown-up Ask Jeeves site. Try it out.
February
1998
1. I've finally managed start doing some housekeeping, tidying up the "Urls for a Rainy Day" list of resources, checking for dead links and generally trying to make the FAQ pages easier to use. If you still find any bad addresses, please do take the time to tell me.
2. Ellie Kuykendall writes to me about Escotet. She recommends it highly as "really a fabulous research site. They have links to sites all over the net in every category - humanities, social sciences, economics, etc." It certainly is worth noting, although it takes a little time to find your way around such a rich site.
3. And thank you to Richard A. Danca for telling me about Martindale's Reference Desk. He says, "You won't believe the wealth of odd and unusual, and timely, references you'll find there". Loads and loads of useful stuff for those research emergencies.
January
1998
1. There's a new page of archived changes. This is to make it easier for people to find the latest changes, without having to download all the previous additions I've made over previous months. So the What's New page will always show what's new on the FAQ - usually updated around the last weekend of the month. Old changes will be archived on this, er, Archive Page.
2. I generally don't find multi-search pages as useful as you'd expect but Search Spaniel is an honourable exception, with a remarkably wide range of general and specific search facilities available at a single click. You can configure it to suit your own preferences and the results can come up in individual windows, or a single multi-frame page. One to bookmark.
3. On a more entertaining note, the Random Word Generator is a repository of lesser known words of interest to writers. Great fun to use, once you've loaded the page you can go off-line and the Word Generator still works. (Another great Internet Research FAQ Money Saving Tip - if you pay for online time). The Webmaster promises new features, including a search facility.
4. For those who want to go into more academic detail about research - online and otherwise - I can recommend the massive, if slightly sprawling, Information Research FAQ (not to be confused with our own production). Articles on a wide range of topics related to finding information fast.
5. WebRings are an interesting new development. Groups of sites on a topic are linked together so that you can browse easily through the sites, forwards and backwards. In theory, a WebRing should also provide a certain guarantee of quality. Check them out.
© Charlie Harris 1996-1998
(This FAQ may be copied in whole or in part for non-profit making purposes only, provided you tell me you're doing it, adequate credit is given to those who helped towards it and the home address is given http://www.search-faq.com. In addition, if anyone wishes to post any part anywhere on the Net, you must commit to keeping the posting up-to-date on a monthly basis - there's too much out-of-date stuff on the Net already. Our Disclaimer which disclaims responsibility for everything in the entire universe can be found in the main FAQ)