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Home Search Central Powersearch Metasearch People Search Newsfinder Radio Search Tutorial Bookstore Resources Newsletter |
The Pandia Post Newsletter No. 4
No. 4, August 2000 The Pandia Post is the newsletter of the Pandia Search Central, your online guide to Internet searching. EDITORIALDear fellow searcher, Welcome to the fourth issue of the Pandia Post, Pandia Search Central's newsletter on Web searching and search engines. The number of visitors to Pandia has increased by some staggering 1000 (one thousand!) per cent since last year, so we are obviously doing something right. However, we are eagerly awaiting your comments and suggestions. If there is something we could do differently, or if there are features missing, please let us know. As some of you may know, Pandia is not part of any large "dot com" conglomerate. The two of us are running this enterprise on our own free time, and so far we have not earned a dime. It is actually not that expensive to publish on the Internet, which makes the Web a powerful tool for pluralism and democracy, but there are costs that have to be covered. Although some of you may find banner ads annoying, they will hopefully make it possible for us to continue producing the Pandia Search Central in the future. Hence, if you could recommend Pandia to a couple of friends, and by doing so increase our number of visitors, we would be very grateful. And please feel free to forward this newsletter to anyone. It is free, after all! Click here to recommend Pandia: http://recommend-it.com/l.z.e?s=328530&r=t (When using this "Recommend-it" page you may actually win 10000 US Dollars or a DVD player from the Recommend-it company. You never know, do you? :) THE NEW PANDIA RADIO SEARCH DIRECTORYHere is a fact that many Web surfers are unaware of: If you have a fairly new computer with a sound card and loudspeakers and a standard modem connection (28.8 or 56K) you may actually use your Internet connection as a radio. More and more radio stations are broadcasting their programs over the Net. In order to listen in, you need a radio player or so-called "streaming media software". There are two standards on the market, Real Audio and the Windows Media Player, and both applications may be downloaded for free. If you are using one of the latest browser versions, however, chances are that you already have one of these programmes. So when you are ready to listen to your favourite music, the latest news or maybe some exotic programming from the other side of the globe, what do you do? This summer Pandia launched a new directory for online radio and TV stations in co-operation with the TVRadio Network. The directory lists hundreds and hundreds of stations from all over the world. Click on the "Category" and "Location" buttons in the upper left corner to change between category and country/state listings. You will find the radio and TV stations listed in the centre frame. Some are marked "live", meaning that you will be listening to their ordinary "wireless" broadcast, others are recorded for the Web. To the right you will find two columns, one for the Real Player format, the next for the Windows Media Player. Select the format that suits you best and click on the connection speed that fits your computer and modem. Most radio stations have transmission rates that fit an ordinary 28.8 or 56K modem (i.e. a standard phone line connection). If you have an even faster connection, select a "high" transmission, if available. You can gather your favourite stations in a folder called "my stations", making it easy to get back your favourite news or music. Click on the "?" to get more help and the "Get Plug-ins" button to download the necessary software. Researchbuzz has called Pandia Radio Search "a good directory with plenty of information divided into useful categories," and the Go directory has given it a top three star ranking. The Pandia Powersearch page has links to even more radio and TV directories. Go to the "Broadcasting" section in the left margin. Pandia Radio Search: http://www.pandia.com/radio/ THE GOALGETTER AND EDUCATIONAn increasing number of teachers and university lecturers are using our Goalgetter Internet search tutorial in their teaching. We are glad to be of help, and are very liberal when comes to granting permission to use parts of the material in the classroom. Pages from the tutorial have even been included in university course CD-ROMs. However, we will ask any staff or faculty that wish to do so, to send us an email first. If the material is to be used for non-profit, educational purposes, you will normally be allowed to use selected pages for free. And, of course, anyone may link to our site, without asking us for permission. Per and Susanne Koch SEARCH TIPSPEOPLE FINDERSAs more and more people get connected to the Internet, the Web has become and valuable source of information for people looking for people. You can find biographies, home addresses, company phone numbers, email addresses and — even — someone's criminal record. Let us say you were looking for a lost friend — from high school, maybe, or someone you met on Hawaii in 1985. As more and more companies and organisations have their own websites with phone directories and presentations of their employees, chances are you might find him or her by doing a regular Web search. Who knows, this particular person may even have his or her own homepage. If you are searching for a celebrity you may use a search directory like Yahoo! or Pandia Plus. Some famous people may even merit their own category. Most of us, however, do not get our own personal listing in Yahoo!, so your best bet is using a normal search engine or a metasearch engine like Pandia Metasearch. Put the the name of the person in quotes to delimit the name as a phrase. If you search for "William Hanson", you avoid getting pages listing other members of the Hanson family (or rather: families). If there are several variants of this person's name, you should list them all. If you are using Boolean search terms, you can write: "William Hanson" OR "William R. Hanson" OR "Bill Hanson" A similar query using search engine maths would render: "William Hanson" "William R. Hanson" "Bill Hanson" Please note, there are no plus-signs in this query, as entering + before these variatons would mean that all forms of the name must be present on all the pages listed by the search engine. That is not what you want. (For more information on Boolean queries and search engine math, see the Goalgetter tutorial at http://www.pandia.com/goalgetter) Still, it is often better to use one of the specialised people finders on the Web. There are, for instance, several White Pages directories that list persons, phone numbers and addresses. Among our favourites are Infospace and Switchboard. Americans may find these extremely useful. They also list people from other parts of the world, but the coverage is far from good. However, Non-Americans who want to find people from their home country, may find the information they need at Phonenumbers.net or Populus. Pandia recently launched a special people finder for the US in co-operation with InfoUSA.com. The engine will give you a person's mail address and phone number. You may even do a reverse search by phone number! There exists no global (or even national) email address directories. Most email directories are based on data given voluntarily by visitors to these sites. Hence, if you want people to find you, register! If you cannot find the address you are looking for using one engine, try another. Our favourite email address finders are Yahoo! People and Infospace E-mail. When using search services like these, there are certain procedures that may improve your results. For instance: - Enter as much information as possible, at least the family name and state (two-letter code) or country. - If you know only a part of a name, enter that part and use a wildcard (normally an asterix) to fill in the blank. Is it William or Wilhelm? Write Wil*. - In some countries married women are listed under the name of their husband (yes, we know, we are entering the 21st century, but this is how some people like to do it!) - Some list their phone numbers without using their full first name. Try using an initial. As there is not one perfect people finder, we often use a people metasearch engine to find persons on the Web. These search several of the best people finders in one go. We have included a search form for one of these on our new people search page. This page also includes links to all the services mentioned in this article, as well as a lot of other sites devoted to people searching: email address finders, white pages, yellow pages, public records, educational registers, genealogy sites, home pages, biography listings and more. If these cannot help you, you'd better hire a private detective! Pandia People Search: http://www.pandia.com/people/ PANDIA SEARCH WORLDTHE END OF REMARQ AS WE KNOW ITOne popular part of the Net lying outside the Web is the Usenet, containing hundreds of discussion groups for any topic you could think of. Normally you will have to use a special Newsreader to take part in these discussions (included in Netscape and Outlook). RemarQ and Deja.com have, however, provided Internet-surfers with Web based alternatives. At these sites you can read messages, take part in the discussions and -- what is even more important -- search in the text of the various messages. Now, however, it seems that RemarQ is history. RemarQ has been acquired by a company called Critical Path, and this company has moved the Usenet content to a new site called Supernews. The service is no longer free, however, the monthly fee varies between USD 13.95 and 99.95. A 30-days trial is available. We suppose that this means that most of us will go to Deja.com for Newsgroup searching. Critical Path: http://www.cp.net/ NEW ALTA VISTAThe new Alta Vista is up and running, with a new dark blue look and new features. We have no problem with the new design, which is simpler and probably faster to download. This is, however, Alta Vista's fourth new design in a year. As soon as searchers have learned how to use one interface, there is a new one. Alta Vista may easily loose users this way. Although Alta Vista continues to focus on its portal services - including shopping and free e-mail - the home page is devoted to searching. There you will find the old Alta Vista search form for simple searching and the Alta Vista version of the Looksmart directory. The advanced searching alternative has been moved from its own tab, down to a link in the left margin. Click on this to go to the page for Boolean searching and tips on advanced searching. Alta Vista is now following search engines like HotBot and Fast in providing an alternative to Boolean searching based on pull-down menus, here called "Power Search". It is definitely more useful than the simple search option. However, it cannot be used to build more complex queries. Another new feature is the "search guides", short introductions to how you can search systematically for common topics like holidays, shopping, computers, online music files and more. It is a good idea and the page is definitely worth a look. There is also a new page for "search trends" with lists of the most popular search terms right now. Alta Vista: http://www.altavista.com/ THE NEW RAGINGAnd while they are at it, Alta Vista has also changed Alta Vista's sister site: Raging. Those of you that do not like the cluttered front pages of portals like Alta Vista, may prefer the clean interface of Raging. Raging is using the same database as Alta Vista. Like in Alta Vista (see above) you may choose between "simple", "advanced" and the new "power search" options. When using Raging, however, you must customise the interface to your liking. As soon as you have done this, you will meet your favourite search option the next time you visit the site. You may also customise the colour scheme of the search page (!), and decide how the results are to be presented. This last measure is particularly useful if you want the search engine to present more than 20 results on each page. Raging is also beta-testing Alta Vista's new search engine for WAP mobile phones, called Raging Search Unplugged. The webpage simulates a Nokia 7110 in addition to giving a traditional Web listing of results. Raging: http://www.raging.com/ GOOGLE ADVANCED SEARCHOur favourite search engine, Google, has also added a page for advanced searching. Like Alta Vista's new "Power Search", it is based on pull-down menus. This is a great improvement on Google's rather limited search features. It would be even better if they could add the possibility of true Boolean searching, though. Google has also launched a test version of a site search service that will allow Web masters to use Google to get a "search site" form on their own websites. As the excellent newsletter Researchbuzz points out, this service may also be used by searchers who want to control the way Google presents search result in greater detail. Go to Researchbuzz to read more about it. Google Advanced Search: http://www.google.com/advanced_search.html For more Internet search news, visit Pandia Search World at http://www.pandia.com/searchworld/. The headline section (left margin) is updated daily! SITESEEINGABOUTAbout is what we can call an "alternative" Web directory for the Net. As well as links to various online resources, it includes articles on the topics concerned. This can be very useful indeed, as some of the links in the standard directories are more than cryptic. The site is divided into more than 700 sub-sites, each one dedicated to a special theme and edited by a professional guide. Chris Sherman is the About guide on Web Searching, and he has written many interesting pieces on search services and search strategies. All in all About has more than 100 articles on Net searching in their archives. The site is very well organised. Moreover, it has a useful discussion forum for Web searchers like you and me. Take a look! About: http://www.about.com/ FREE PINTHere is a British site devoted to Internet searching for the business enterprise sector. It has useful links to a wide array of search resources, and several in depth articles on specialised searching. One of the site's most valuable aspects, however, is the Free Pint Bar, where readers can discuss matters of common interest. You should also take a look at the free newsletter. Fee Pint: http://www.freepint.co.uk/ EXCITEWe visited the US this summer and found a huge billboard for the Excite search engine and portal at Times Square in New York. It had a picture of a peculiar looking cowboy with a leopard skin hat (?), accompanied by the slogan "Excite turns you on!" Maybe it is a cultural thing, but honestly, Excite does not turn us on. The home page is cluttered and unimaginative, and it takes ages for the search engine to update. That being said, Excite had some features that could make it interesting. Like all search engines it looks for pages that includes your exact search query or phrase. But that is not all. It also searches concepts closely related to the words in your query. For example, if you search for "elderly people financial concerns" It will also find sites mentioning the economic status of retired people and the financial concerns of senior citizens. Excite's search engine knows that a relationship exists between words and concepts like "elderly people" and "senior citizens." Excite Search learns about related concepts from the documents. However, professional researchers may find this annoying, as it may make it difficult to get a precise search result. The use of Boolean search terms like AND or AND NOT, however, will turn off concept-based searching. In June 2000 Excite introduced Excite Precision Search, introducing less clutter in the result pages and more precise search results. Excite's index is not one of the largest on the Web. On the other hand it may include information from outside the Web, like news and company information. Excite: http://www.excite.com/ FINALLY...If you are using newer versions of Internet Explorer or Netscape: Enter "pandia" (without the quotation marks) in the address field and hit Enter. The browser will take you directly to the Pandia Search Central. Do you like Pandia? Click here to recommend it to a friend: http://www.recommend-it.com/l.z.e?s=328530 The Pandia Post is edited by Per and Susanne Koch Pandia Post Home Page: http://www.pandia.com/post/ Send suggestions and comments to: editor@aviana.com The Pandia Post is copyright 2000 P&S Koch. All rights reserved. Visit the Pandia Search Central for more information on Internet searching: http://www.pandia.com/ Sign up for our free newsletter today! |
