Nancy Slonneger -
Technology Integration Specialist
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Savvy
Search Tips & Resources
If your favorite search engine just doesn't cut it anymore, you'll be happy to know that finding a better alternative is a piece of cake. There are quite a few search engine resources available on the Internet that list links to popular and top-ranking search engines, so you don't need to search them out on your own. Here are a few to get you started:
Safe Surfing, Searching, and Chatting is now a link on the left called Online Safety Savvy Searching
8 Learn the Net http://www.learnthenet.com is a great way to learn about the Internet. So is WebTeacher at http://www.webteacher.org/winnet/indextc.html. Start with either of these two excellent resources for learning general information about the Internet as well as search techniques, all about e-mail, what emoticons are, etc.
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Backing
Up a URL Here's a scenario that has happened to us all at one time or another: You conduct a search that displays what appears to be a promising link, but when you follow that link, you discover that it is no longer valid. What do you do next? Try shortening the URL to the next subheading (that is, delete the end of the URL to the next slash) and try again. If it still isn't valid, shorten it to the next slash and give it another go, repeating as necessary until you get to the root address. This tactic doesn't work all of the time, but it is often useful because sites frequently change how they organize their information, which means that the page you're seeking may still be available but at a new place on the site. Once you get to a part of the link that works, you can begin to dig your way back down to locate the page you were originally seeking. For example, suppose the original (dead) link looks like this: http://familypc.zdnet.com/learning/index.html Start by truncating it to this: http://familypc.zdnet.com/learning/ And then to this: http://familypc.zdnet.com/ At this point, you find an active page.
8 Let's Go Shopping! Shopping Bots - (bot is short for robot) BotSpot is an all-in-one resource listing many bots that will do your searching for you. Bots offer the power of intelligent agent technology to make comparison shopping on the Internet quick, easy, and almost painless. They crawl the Internet looking for the best prices on the items you're looking for. What's a Bot? explains exactly what a bot is. Some of the most widely used bots are: mySimon, bottomdollar, BizRate, and NexTag. Some price-comparison sites don't crawl at all, relying not on intelligent agents, but on merchant-provided data that is constantly updated. These include sites such as PriceWorld and C/netShopper. Even though they don't strictly fit the definition of bots, their vast databases make the difference all but transparent to the user. Caveat emptor (let the buyer beware) - Bots aren't perfect, though. If they were, they'd all come up with the same results. There are some bots that return results only for sites with which they have a business relationship. Also, even with bots, comparison shopping on the Web requires doing your homework. The merchants themselves can make the process even trickier. Some include shipping in the advertised price; others add it later -- a problem if you're trying to compare prices quickly. Still others add a "handling" charge after you've entered your credit card information. Sometimes the best prices will come from the manufacturer or even your local store. Click here to read an important article about how to protect yourself when Internet shopping on ZDTV's "Call for Help" - Six Essential Security Tips for Online Shopping. 8 Copernic Here's a search tool that I've found very useful: Copernic (http://www.copernic.com). It has a freeware and shareware version. The freeware is pretty impressive even with its limited search areas. Based on what you're searching for it will search in commonly known areas of the Internet. For instance, if you want to search for something on the web it will use the most popular search engines (Yahoo, HotBot, InfoSeek, AltaVista, etc.). Looking for a book? It will search Amazon, Barnes & Nobles, and Borders. How about a job? It searches monster.board, jobEngine, CareerWeb, etc. A real time saver! Copernic will update itself to reflect these areas for searching (called channels) next time you launch it.
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InferenceFind www.inferencefind.com, now inFind, does pretty much the same thing as Copernic without having to download any software. InferenceFind is the first and only search tool that calls out in parallel all the best search engines on the internet, merges the results, removes redundancies, and clusters the results into neat understandable groupings. Inference Find queries the best 6 search engines on the web, but can be configured to call any search engine.
8 Online Coloring Book Sites - an article from ZDTV's Call for Help. "Online coloring book sites are great. They have tons of pictures that are waiting to be painted and require zero preparation. Since some of the sites lack functionality, the best thing to do is go through them with your kids and pick out a few of their favorite pictures. Once you've saved the pictures they like as .bmp files to a designated folder on your computer, show your kids how to open the files in MS Paint."
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Check
out Clay's Bookmarks http://www.clayl.com/searchlinx.html Clay has been both an instructor and teaching assistant for ZDU's Internet Search Techniques class, and has put together an amazing resource of search tools for you. Topic headings include: General WWW Resources; Usenet, News and Software Resources; White & Yellow pages, Financial Resources; US Government, Telnet and Gopher Resources; Medical & Legal Search Tools; Search Tools for Miscellaneous Specific Topics; General Reference & Academic Subjects Search Services; The WWW Virtual Library. Don't forget to bookmark this page--you will want to come back to it often! 8
Zip
Plus Four Whether you're searching for a Zip code to match an address you already have or seeking the extra digits to a Zip+4 code, the Postal Service is here to help. Just stop by the Zip+4 Code Lookup site and enter the address. The server returns the zip code. http://www.usps.gov/ncsc/lookups/lookup_zip+4.html Also see http://www.four11.com/, the Yahoo People Search, and http://www.555-1212.com/ which now charges for its service, but AnyWho, http://www.anywho.com doesn't. 8
Check
out The Samizdat Express Richard Selzter, is an Internet writer, speaker, consultant, and visionary. He is the Co-author of The AltaVista Search Revolution, and a speaker at numerous events worldwide. His Samizdat Express page is chock-full of information. While the topic range is wide, you will want to especially check out Richard's Internet-related resources and writings. 8
Getting
information you've already paid for Your tax dollars support lots of information gathering by the U.S. government. Many departments compile significant collections of data. For example, the Department of Labor tracks employment by profession and region, among other things. The FedStats Web site lets you search through just one of these departments at a time or all of them at once--everything from ChildStats to the CIA. The search form has excellent examples to help you phrase your search precisely, which is especially helpful given all the information out there. You can also browse to find links to agencies, programs, and regional statistics. http://www.fedstats.gov 8
PC
Magazine essay reviewing search engines Right here at Ziff Davis, PC Magazine has published an essay reviewing a lot of search engines. It also has downloadable bookmarks. Check it out. http://www.zdnet.com/pcmag/features/websearch98/index.html 8
Article
from USA Weekend edition (dated 11/98) Twelve Steps to Search The Internet Successfully http://www.usaweekend.com/98_issues/981108/981108net_search.html 8
Dictionaries
in Abundance Chances are you've got at least one dictionary lying around the house or office--probably in your native language. But did you know you also have quick access to more than 400 dictionaries of more than 130 different languages? All you have to do is point your Web browser to Bucknell University's Web of Online Dictionaries page. Here, you'll find links to dictionaries of languages from Afrikaans to Xhosa. In fact, this site is so thorough that you can even find dictionaries of made-up languages, such as Klingon. http://www.yourdictionary.com/ This tip came from: The
Dummies Web Site, which has tons of practical tips and advice on topics ranging
from investing to the Internet, wine to Windows, and love to Linux. 8
Here
are two fun sites if you're looking for an expert on a certain subject. The Yearbook of Experts, Authorities, and Spokespersons at http://www.yearbooknews.com/ has a searchable database - there is a directory but it isn't that great - the search engine is better. It does include URLs and email contacts when applicable. Online Experts at http://www.experts.com has a searchable database or directory. I didn't see any email addresses or URLs for the experts unfortunately. 8
Webferret
I obtained a download for a machine called Webferret from ZD Net. I'm not au fait with the details of it but it seems to act like a meta site. Being a newbie to the game I've found it great for whatever sought. Their web address is http://www.ferretsoft.com/netferret/index.html 8
Mapping
sites Try Mapquest at http://www.mapquest.com Here's the mapmaker link from Switchboard: http://www.mapsonus.com/ 8
Using
One Form for Many Searches Scott Martin has developed a handy site called The Ultimates to help you contact people and businesses. With it, you can search several different reference sources by filling out one online form. The site is great for locating people or businesses because it enables you to search White Pages, Yellow Pages, or e-mail directories through a common interface. You can click the Ultimate Email Directory, for example, to search six different directory services, including BigFoot, WhoWhere, and Four11. Just fill out the first form--in this case, Four11--and when you tab to the next field, Martin's scripts automatically copy your entry to the corresponding fields for the other services. Once you track down an address, you can even use the Ultimate Trip Planner to find maps and routes for getting there. http://www.theultimates.com 8 I ran across this site and it provided a lot of insight on why the various search engines bring back very different results lists. Also some tips for folks with web sites to get more traffic. The site is http://www.searchenginewatch.com 8
About
Hit Ranking... http://www.iglou.com/sgrant/hit/ An interesting article about search engine hit ranking from the perspective of somebody who wants their page to be found (as opposed to all of us who want to find a page!). 8
http://sunsite.berkeley.edu/InternetIndex
This web site is a directory of subjects (mainly academic) where each site is reviewed by librarians. It is sponsored by the California State Library and you can also search it using keywords. So if you desperately need to find a web site with in-depth coverage of the Battle of Hastings, this is your place! 8
A
Speech by Richard Seltzer about AltaVista http://www.samizdat.com/script/title.htm From the man who seems to know every single thing there is to know about AltaVista! 8
50+
Great Sites A collection of sites that are recommended for preschool-elementary age children and their parents by librarians, who work with children and the Web every day. They include members of the Association for Library Service to Children, the American Association of School Librarians, the Public Library Association, the Young Adult Library Services Association and other divisions of the American Library Association. Recommendations apply only to the sites listed, not to any sites that may be linked from these sites. http://www.ala.org/parentspage/greatsites/50.html 8
Dealing
with Stop Words (Part 1) A considerable percentage of the words in the large search engines like AltaVista are commonly used words, such as: the, of, or, university, and Internet. Common words create problems for search engines because they often produce results that you really aren't interested in. That's why database administrators invented stop words. Stop words are words that search engines ignore because they create false hits (irrelevant search results) when included in a search query. For example, when you search the word "Internet" in a large search index, the search engine software responds with no documents to match the query. That's because the word "Internet" appears so often that most index administrators instruct the index's search engine query program to ignore the word. Stop words are indexed, but you can't access information with them outright. Common stop words include a, the, in, up, if, an, at, out, and to, which makes searches for quotes like "To be or not to be" rather difficult. In addition, search engine often ignore symbols such as @, #, $, %, >, and & and certain punctuation marks (!, ', and :). Other common stop words include the terms: business / program Using stop words in your search text means that a search engine must constantly rank large queries, which slows down the search engine's response time and provide little information for you. Taken from: ZD Journals' Inside Netscape Navigator journal 8
Dealing
with Stop Words (Part 2) As we explained last week, stop words are words that a search engine ignores because they create false hits (irrelevant search results) when included in a search query. You can use several query methods to avoid false hits caused by stop words. Avoid using articles Try not to use stop words in your queries. Avoid using articles (such as a, an, and the) when possible, and simplify your keyword queries to include only the subjects you want to work with. Use quotation marks when searching for phrases When you're searching for a quote or phrase, use quotation marks around the query, which instructs a search engine to look for the phrase as a single word. For example, the quote "To be or not to be" includes only stop words and will result in zero results in most large search engines. However, if you put quotation marks around the phrase, you'll get much closer to the results you want. Uppercase Boolean operators Make sure you read the tool's Help files to determine if Boolean Operators (and, or, not, near) need to be typed in ALL CAPS. (For example, AltaVista does not require this, but Excite does.) Taken in part from: ZD Journals' Inside Netscape Navigator journal 8
454
DICTIONARIES IN ONE OneLook Dictionaries is a site that allows you to "metasearch" as many as 454 online dictionaries to find the definition or spelling of a particular word. According to the site, more than two million words are accessible through its search engine. After you enter a word, OneLook provides a listing of dictionaries defining that word--which can help you find one in the right context. For example, a search of the word "rascal" provided links to the Phrase and Fable dictionary, a Shakespearean dictionary, an acronym finder, and Jane's Defense Index, where you can find that RASCAL is also an acronym for "Radar di Scoperta e Controllo Aereo Locale," a short-range air radar used in Italy. Choosing the General option gives you access to standard sources, such as various versions of Webster's dictionaries, while choosing the All option goes after the word in all available dictionaries (which may take a bit longer, of course). 8
Found
a site worth looking into. It's called Infoplease.com. It's an almanac offering LOADS of information which could save you time in searching for almanac-type information. It's structured by directories and allows searching within itself. Check it out! http://www.infoplease.com/index.html 8
Netscape
Navigator Tip: Clearing your cache If your Navigator browser is slow, one simple solution is to clear its cache. Each time you open a Web page, your browser creates a cache file (a temporary copy) of the page's text and graphics. When you open the page again, for example, when you click on the toolbar Back button, your browser checks the Web site server for changes to the page. If the page has changed, your browser retrieves a new version over the network. If the page hasn't changed, your browser uses the cache files from your RAM or hard drive to display the page. Netscape Navigator caches Web pages to both memory (RAM) and disk (hard drive) until the respective cache is full; Navigator then rotates out pages based on age. Netscape designed this system to help load Web pages quicker. However, if you've viewed lots of Web pages, you may have an overloaded hard disk cache, which Navigator will require time to check before it loads a new page. You can check your cache by typing ABOUT:CACHE in the Location box and pressing Enter. Navigator will display a breakdown of cache statistics and a file-by-file listing. To clear your cache in Navigator 3.x, go to the Options menu and select Network Preferences.... Then select the Cache tab and click both the Clear Memory Cache Now and Clear Disk Cache Now buttons. To clear your cache in Navigator 4.x, go to the Edit mane and select Preferences..., then go to the Advanced category, select Cache, and click both the Clear Memory Cache and Clear Disk Cache buttons. Clearing your cache will not adversely effect your browser in any way. This should help increase your page-download time and (if your low on hard disk space) your computer's general performance. From--The Cobb Group's Inside Netscape Navigator journal 8
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new "smart" meta-search tool I found an article in the local newspaper here about a new "smart" meta-search tool. I thought you might be interested. http://enquirer.com/editions/1999/03/07/fin_search_engine_hits.html 8
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Research Site for Legal Professionals "Since Summer 1996, The Virtual ChaseTM has assisted legal professionals conducting research on the Internet. Though it began as a simple means by which to disseminate articles and teaching aids to law librarians and other instructors of Internet research, it has evolved into a site comprising more than 250 pages of information about resources and research strategies. Designed especially for lawyers and other experienced legal researchers, the site attempts to sift through the Internet chaff to find the grains of quality wheat." This tip came from: The Dummies Web Site, which has tons of practical tips and advice on topics ranging from investing to the Internet, wine to Windows, and love to Linux. 8
World
Wide Women The WWWomen site bills itself as the "most inclusive, up-to-date search site for women's topics." Through dedicated and constant effort, it obtains, qualifies, maintains, and organizes a very wide variety of sites dedicated to topics ranging from Arts & Entertainment to Women Throughout History. If you don't think the list of topics is encompassing, just skip the Search feature and browse the FactSheet link. You'll probably find a few things you didn't even know you were looking for. 8
Internet
Movie Database which is an enormous site at http://www.imdb.com.
They have all different ways to search so read the search help file and you should find that answer easily. 8
Ask
Jeeves For the more trees or people (I'd guess there are more trees) question, I'd go to Ask Jeeves at http://www.askjeeves.com. First you'd ask Jeeves what is the world's population which you should find quickly. I believe there are actually web sites that will give you up-to-the-minute population numbers. The trees will be harder but I'd post question that also at Ask Jeeves. There's also an Ask Jeeves section just for kids (http://www.ajkids.com/) that you might want to try also. 8
Global
Access to Local News If you're looking for a local news source online, one place to start is GoThere's HomeTown Free-Press page. From the Free-Press page, you can browse a series of links to locate a news source (newspaper, magazine, radio, or television) from any of more than 1500 sites around the world. Whether you're looking for The New South Polar Times in Antarctica, the Birmingham Online Magazine in Alabama, or anything in between, HomeTown Free-Press will take you to the local news cities around the globe. Unfortunately, no search engine is available, so if you already know the name of the news source you're looking for, it may be faster to use your favorite search engine instead. http://www.hometownfreepress.com/index.htm 8
Handyman's
Advice via the Net The
Natural Handyman promises "A Feast of Home Repair Help, http://www.naturalhandyman.com/index.shtm 8
Re:
How is it that the search engines can perform searches on something so vast as
the internet in so short a time? Actually, they are not searching the whole Web. They are searching their index (database, catalog) that was previously drawn by searching the Web. A computer program called a "spider" (or crawler) actually trolls the web and passes its information to the index. Here is a direct quote from: http://www.searchenginewatch.com/webmasters/work.html "The spider visits a web page, reads it, and then follows links to other pages within the site. This is what it means when someone refers to a site being "spidered" or "crawled." The spider returns to the site on a regular basis, such as every month or two, to look for changes." Go to the http://www.searchenginewatch.com/webmasters/work.html location and explore the wealth of information about "howd day do dat" on major search engines! You might want to subscribe to the Search Engine Watch newsletter. 8
This
is such a fun web site! Calendar Zone (formerly Calendar Land) has links to virtually every online calendar available in categories such as events calendars, holidays, women’s, historic, reform, etc. So if you're looking for the Today in Movie History Calendar or just want to know how many minutes to Y2K, this is your place. 8
Bard
Quotations Have you ever wished you could get an exact reference to the play, act, and scene containing any quotation from any of William Shakespeare's works? (If not, you might be surprised at the number of people who actually answer "yes" to this question.) Thanks to the hardworking Jeremy Hylton, you can. Just stop by his Complete Works of William Shakespeare site and use the handy search feature. http://tech-two.mit.edu/Shakespeare/ 8
Home
Maintenance Tips Michigan State University Extension Services has a no-frills database of hundreds of tips on caring for your home and the stuff you put in it. You can find tips on everything from stain removal to controlling carpenter bees to fixing a plugged drain. The folks at MSUE are updating the site, but you can find a lot of great information in the database already. http://www.msue.msu.edu/msue/imp/mod02/master02.html
8 Looking for a good place to eat? The Zagat Survey is the best bet in town. http://www.zagat.com A restaurant survey compiled from the comments of the general public, rather than professional critics. The best (and worst) establishments are listed with quotes from survey participants, describing what they like and dislike about particular eateries and hotels. They offer the survey content free of charge. They plan to set up an automatic Web-based reservation service.
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Search
Engine for Teens Searchopolis is a new and growing Internet portal and search engine designed especially for teens and students. The site emphasizes places to go for information on completing homework and school research projects and preparing for college. You can also find teen-centered discussion groups and message boards through Searchopolis. The site's editors check out the linked sites to make sure that their content is appropriate for and useful to younger people. Yahoo also has a site for youngsters that allows searches as well as directory drill-down. It’s called Yahooligans the Web Guide for kids – http://yahooligans.com. 8
Using
Veronica, Jughead, and Archie
to search gopher and FTP servers?>> Here are some sites: Regarding Gopher (Veronica & Jughead): http://dir.yahoo.com/Computers_and_Internet/Internet/Gopher/ Regarding Archie: http://dir.yahoo.com/Computers_and_Internet/Internet/FTP_Sites/Searching/Archie/ 8
Biographies
Galore The highlight of the Biography site (based on the popular program from the A&E Television Network) has got to be its Find feature, which lets you quickly search more than 20,000 biographies, straight from the Cambridge Encyclopedia Database and Cambridge Dictionary of American Biography. Search by entering a full or partial name, using either capital or lowercase letters. You can even search by well-known nicknames (Jackie for Jacqueline, for example). 8
PedagoNet
Learning Resource Search Engine PedagoNet is a learning resources search engine. 8
Webliography Maintained by librarians and staff of Louisiana State University Libraries, the Webliography is a collection of annotated listings for WWW sites and resources. This guide is compact and easy to use, while still managing to be thorough--which is exactly what you'd expect from a site designed by librarians. Among other things, you can find useful links to electronic publications, governmental organizations, and a whole bunch of reference materials. http://www.lib.lsu.edu/weblio.html 8
Media
on the hunt for search engine companies http://www.zdnet.com/zdnn/content/zdnn/0304/291291.html An interesting article about the part the media could play in determining search engine content. 8
Beaucoup
d'stuff Beaucoup has more than 1,200 listings of engines, directories and indices across the world to help you find whatever you're looking for! 8
B.J.'s
Homework Helper is a terrific site with over 500 links to academic references. An 11 year old boy (and his dad) put all these links together and even though I'm not a kid, I like using it for general reference searching. http://school.discovery.com/homeworkhelp/bjpinchbeck/ 8 Try www.valupage.com This site will provide a printout of items that when purchased at your participating grocery store, will get web bucks. The next time you go to the store you can use the web bucks just like CASH. 8
Ever
wonder why things work the way they do? Check out The Why Files at http://whyfiles.news.wisc.edu - you can search either by topic or with keywords. The site is funded by the National Science Foundation and its purpose is to teach people about science using current events. Also check out The Way Things Work - http://www.waythingswork.com/. How Stuff Works, http:howstuffworks.com, (voted Cool Site of the Year in 1998) is the brainchild of Marshall Brain (really!) who is the author of several books, including The Teenager's Guide to the Real World. 8
I
find this dictionary of Internet terms extremely
helpful – you can even use the pocket dictionary to keep on your desktop as you surf the web. Net Lingo is at http://www.netlingo.com 8
From
Harold Goldstein, Tue Mar 2 03:34:16 1999 GMT [message 16106] A Site Harold Goldstein put together, updated continuously and used for introductory Internet classes is at http://goldray.com/search.htm. It was laid out to print on one page and, therefore, anything added means something removed. He would appreciate any comments on it directly emailed to searchpage@goldray.com in terms of other suggested sites, other categories, things to remove, etc. 8
Links for Protecting Against Spam Coalition Against Unsolicited Commercial E-mail http://www.cauce.org/ Electronic Frontier Foundation Electronic Privacy Information Center Federal Trade Commission Junk E-mail Resource Page Slam That Spam: advice http://www.fastcompany.com/online/12/spamslam.html In addition to these and many other sites, there are spam protection software products (some shareware). Just use your favorite search engine and you'll find plenty.
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The
Man of the Year started in
1927 with Charles Lindbergh - the URL noted here starts in the
twenties (you can read each article too) and then you just keep moving up a
decade. http://cgi.pathfinder.com/time/special/moy/twenties.html A better URL for the Man of the Year list so you don't have to start at the 1920's if you don't want to - it is http://cgi.pathfinder.com/time/special/moy and has links to all the decades.
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Search
Engines Worldwide gives links to HUNDREDS of search tools all over the world. Make sure you bookmark this! http://www.twics.com/~takakuwa/search/search.html 8
Some popular travel sites are Expedia,
Preview
Travel,
Cheap
Tickets, Priceline,
Smarter
Living and Travelocity. For travel guides check out Lonely Planet, Rough Guides, and the CIAs Factbook.
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