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IN THIS ISSUE:
Inspirational Quote
Editor's Notes
Great Sites
Making Money on the Internet
Feature Article
Researching the World Wide Web
Tips & Tricks
Shameless Self-Promotion
Feedback
Advertising
Subscribe/Unsubscribe Instructions
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Inspirational Quote:
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What Is Success
What is success?
To laugh often and much;
To win the respect of intelligent people
and the affection of children;
To earn the appreciation of honest critics
and endure the betrayal of false friends;
To appreciate beauty;
To find the best in others;
To leave the world a bit better, whether by
a healthy child, a garden patch
or a redeemed social condition;
To know even one life has breathed
easier because you have lived;
This is to have succeeded.
Most people who are connected to the Internet, search for some
kind of knowledge they are interested in from time to time. You
might want to know the latest breaking news, the best price on
something, what stocks to buy, what new software you might
need, etc. Search engines are the most common way of finding
information, and they are the subject of this edition of What's
New About-the-Web.
About-the-web.com is a resource for new users to the Internet.
Our mission is to provide newcomers a place to learn about
browsers, e-mail programs, search engines, making money,
avoiding scams, creating and promoting web sites, and some
simple tips for a better web surfing experience. More advanced
users will find useful links to other sites on about-the-web.com.
We welcome your comments, questions and suggestions. We also
welcome any tips, tricks or great web sites that you would like
to share. Send me an e-mail and we'll publish all the most
relevant ones in the next newsletter.
Welcome to the second issue of What's New About-the-Web! We
intend that you find this newsletter interesting and inspiring.
Please pass it along to a friend.
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Great Sites:
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Whether you are looking for tips on searching the web or are a
webmaster looking to improve your search engine ranking, you'll
find lots of great information at Search Engine Watch http://www.searchenginewatch.com/
. Discover search engine
submission tips, web searching tips, search engine listings,
reviews, ratings & tests and much more.
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Making Money on the Internet:
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If you're looking to both save money on your everyday purchases,
and to make some money on the Internet, here's a great way to do
both. Members of the DHS Club get discounts at many well-known
retail outlets on the Internet such as Borders.com, Etoys.com,
Furnture.com, OfficeMax.com, Pets.com and many, many more. You
get a percentage of your purchase mailed back to you as a rebate
at the end of the month.
You can become a member in the DHS Club for FREE by going to
http://about-the-web.com/making-money/dhs.html and clicking on
the JOIN FOR FREE button. Members also save up to 1/2 the retail
price on all purchases at the DHS Club Outlet Center!
You can also earn money by becoming a DHS Club Partner or VIP
(Vested Interest Partner) member in the DHS Club. As a Club
Partner you pay a one time registration fee of only $34.95 (all
prices are in USD) and then earn $15 commission for each
subscription sale you make to the club's "Super Saver's Service"
(SSS) and the "Internet Marketing Service" (IMS). Sell six
subscriptions in a calendar month and earn a free upgrade to
become a VIP Member.
To become a VIP member, you just need to purchase a "SSS" (for
people in the US and Canada) or an "IMS" (for people in other
countries) for a one time fee of only $49.95. Then pay only $25
per month in order to enjoy all of the following benefits:
* Get Double CashBack rebates on personal purchases.
* Earn a commission of $15.00 USD for each "SSS" and "IMS"
subscription you sell.
* Get your own DHS Club Website to which you may send prospective
members.
* Access your own VIP Resource Center which includes a Training
Center, Business Manual and much more!
* Receive a matching CashBack Credit Commission on your Member's
purchases at the ClubShop Mall.
* Earn Commissions on the sale of DHS Club services (such as our
low rate long distance service).
* Hold a position in the Club's VIP network so you can utilize
the DHS Club's unique team building "Vertical Integration Plan".
As a result, you can successfully develop a downline network
of VIPs, which creates a Vested Income for you.
* Earn override commissions on the monthly "SSS" and "IMS"
subscription fees generated by your network of VIPs in
conjunction with the DHS Club's VIP Compensation Plan. This is
network marketing like you have never seen before and how you
can develop an increasingly large, monthly, residual income!
As a VIP, you are not responsible for taking or making orders for
your network or keeping track of their volumes or paying them
checks. Whether you have 10 VIPs or 1,000 VIPs in your network,
they all order on their own. So as your RECURRING RESIDUAL INCOME
grows, so do your time options!
With the large numbers of people joining the DHS Club and then
upgrading to VIP member, you will have hundreds of people in your
downline very quickly. For more information go to http://about-the-web.com/making-money/dhs.html
now.
>>>Finding what you're looking for on the World Wide
Web
Searching the Internet for specific information can be both
rewarding and frustrating. The are many tools available to choose
from, including search engines (automated search services), human
compiled directories, search services and search utilities. Which
you choose depends on your needs.
If you do a lot of searching, you will probably benefit from a
service or utility such as Copernic (http://www.copernic.com/)
or
Alexa (http://www.alexa.com/whatisalexa/index.cgi).
Both of these
tools have versions for Windows and Macintosh that you download
onto your computer. Copernic simultaneously consults the best
search engines and lists summaries of the most relevant sites.
Alexa provides information about the page you are on and suggests
related pages. It also offers a web archive and desktop reference.
JotBot Search (http://www.windspirit.com/jotbot/)
began as an
alternative interface to HotBot and grew to support six major
search engines: AltaVitsa, Yahoo, HotBot, DejaNews, Four11, and
UBL. Using a tiny JavaScripted input window, JotBot facilitates
immediate searches at speeds up to 10 times regular -- all by
avoiding those large front pages and skipping directly to the
data. There is nothing to download and the service is free to use.
For very advanced searches check out Direct Search
(http://gwis2.circ.gwu.edu/~gprice/direct.htm)
or the Librarians'
Index to the Internet (http://lii.org/search). Both of these
provide links to information not available to most search engines
or directories.
If you only have occasional need for searching the web, then "web
portals" are probably the logical choice. These include many of
the search engines listed below. (In this article the term
"search engine" will be used to mean both the service and the web
site that uses it.) In addition to search directories and search
engine results, they offer current news, weather, stock info,
chat rooms, e-mail accounts and many other services. Check out
the list below and make your favorite one your browser's home
page for easy access.
There are two ways to proceed with most search engines. The
easiest approach is to just type in one or more words and then
sift through the long list of sites. The second method is to use
the directory that the service provides. This involves choosing
(and in some cases guessing) which category you think the
information you're looking for might be in.
Using the search feature is certainly quicker and easier. You
will get back a list of web sites that theoretically have
something to do with the words you searched for. They will be
listed by relevancy, determined by a mysterious formula.
Unfortunately, most of the time, many of these listings will not
be relevant, or will be outdated, or will be duplicates.
Often the more methodical approach of using directories is more
rewarding. You get back a list of web sites that have been
categorized by humans rather than computer programs, which means
that there will be no irrelevant or duplicate listings. You may
still find that some of these web sites no longer exist or that
the information they contain is not what you're looking for.
Using a combination of the two search methods often produces the
best results. Start by doing a search by using words that have to
do with the topic you have in mind. Then after checking out the
first few listings, check the related categories or search terms
that the page recommends. This should lead you either to a
directory page that has more relevant listings or a page of
search listings that may be more relevant than your first attempt.
There are about twenty major search engines and they are often
shared by different "web portals". Almost all of the major
"search engines" also maintain directories that list web sites in
a more orderly fashion than you get by merely doing a search.
Similarly, there are perhaps a dozen major directories and these
too are shared by several different companies. The Open Directory
is one of the most popular choices.
The Open Directory Project has approximately 2 million web sites,
collected and organized by more than 20,000 expert editors
worldwide, with more than 3,000 new sites added daily. These
editors are dedicated to an open-source volunteer effort to make
the best human-edited Directory on the Web.
>>>Here's a rundown of the major search engines:
* AOL NetFind (http://search.aol.com/)
- offers search listings
and a directory based on the Open Directory Project. The
directory and search engine also bring thousands of additional
sites to AOL Search from AOL and AOL.COM.
* AltaVista (http://www.altavista.com/)
- In terms of pages
indexed, AltaVista is one of the largest search engines on the
web. It has very comprehensive coverage and a wide range of power
searching commands, which make it a particular favorite among
researchers.
* Ask Jeeves (http://www.askjeeves.com/)
- A humanized search
service that attempts to direct you to the exact page that
answers your question. If it fails to find a match within its own
database, then it will provide web pages from various other search
engines.
* Direct Hit (http://www.directhit.com/)
- Direct Hit's
technology provides highly relevant results for any Internet
search. By analyzing the activity of millions of previous
Internet searchers, Direct Hit determines the most relevant sites
for your search request. Direct Hit is a subsidiary of Ask Jeeves.
* Excite (http://www.excite.com/) - One
of the most popular
search services on the web. Offers many features such as email,
news, weather, etc. along with a very good search engine and
directory.
* FAST Search (http://www.bos2.alltheweb.com/)
- Formerly called
All The Web, FAST Search aims to index the entire web. It was the
first search engine to index 200 million web pages. However it has
no related search feature and no directory.
* Go/Infoseek (http://go.com/) - Go has many partners
including
ABC.com, Disney.com, Family.com, ABCNEWS.com and ESPN.com. They
have good directory that is compiled by "Go Guides" and a popular
search engine called Infoseek.
* GoTo (http://goto.com/) - Unlike many other
search engines,
GoTo sells its listings. Companies can pay money to be placed
higher in the search results, which GoTo feels improves
relevancy. This model is now being adopted by several other
search engines.
* Google (http://google.com/) - Google claims
to have indexed
1,060,000,000 web pages. They have recently partnered with Yahoo
to create probably the most comprehensive Directory/Search Engine
combination.
* HotBot (http://hotbot.lycos.com/) -
Like AltaVista, HotBot is
another favorite among researchers due to its large index of the
web and many power searching features. In most cases, HotBot's
first page of results comes from the Direct Hit service (see
above), and then secondary results come from the Inktomi search
engine, which is also used by other services. It gets its
directory information from the Open Directory project. HotBot is
part of the Lycos network (see below).
* LookSmart (http://www.looksmart.com/)-
Another human-compiled
directory of the web. In addition to being a stand-alone service,
LookSmart provides directory results to many other partners.
* Lycos (http://www.lycos.com/) - Lycos'
main listings come from
the Open Directory project, and then secondary results come from
spidering the web. Lycos also features another directory of web
sites called Lycos Community Guides. Lycos is one of the oldest
search services, around since May 1994.
* MSN Search (http://www.msn.com/) - Microsoft's
MSN Search
service has a complete directory and a full-featured home page.
Search results are good, but there's no related search feature.
* Netscape Search (http://lii.org/search)
- Netscape Search's
results come primarily from the Open Directory and Netscape's own
"Smart Browsing" database, which does an excellent job of listing
"official" web sites. Secondary results come from Google. At the
Netscape Netcenter portal site, other search engines are also
featured. Here's a FAQ about searching with Netscape Navigator.
* Northern Light (http://www.NorthernLight.com/)
- Another
favorite search engine among researchers. It features one of the
largest indexes of the web, along with the ability to cluster
documents by topic. Northern Light also has a set of "special
collection" documents that are not readily accessible to search
engine spiders. There are documents from thousands of sources,
including newswires, magazines and databases. Searching these
documents is free, but there is a charge of up to $4 to view
them. There is no charge to view documents on the public web --
only for those within the special collection.
* Snap/NBCi (http://home.nbci.com/) - NBC
recently acquired
SNAP.com and offers a full featured home page and very good
search results. Sites in NBCi's LiveDirectory collection are
ranked according to their popularity in search. The most popular
sites rise to the top of the list in their respective topics.
* WebCrawler (http://www.WebCrawler.com/)
- Has the smallest
index of any major search engine on the web -- think of it as
Excite Lite. The small index means WebCrawler is not the place to
go when seeking obscure or unusual material. However, some people
may feel that by having indexed fewer pages, WebCrawler provides
less overwhelming results in response to general searches.
* Yahoo (http://www.Yahoo.com/) - The web's
most popular search
service has a well-deserved reputation for helping people find
information easily. It is the largest human-compiled guide to the
web, employing about 150 editors in an effort to categorize the
web. Yahoo has over 1 million sites listed. Yahoo now supplements
its results with those from Google. Yahoo is the oldest major web
site directory, having launched in late 1994.
For more information about Search Engines, see About Using Search
Engines (http://www.about-the-web.com/shtml/search.shtml)
Did you know that in most browsers, you can type a question mark
followed by one or more words to do a quick search. For instance
to search for "dog houses" you would type "? dog house" into the
address field and hit return or click go.
If you use Internet Explorer you'll be connected to MSN which
gives very good search results. Netscape has their own search
engine of course, with equally good results.
In addition to creating and updating about-the-web.com, I also
work on other people's web sites. So if you have one that you
need some help with, or would like help setting one up, email me
at garth@about-the-web.com and I'll give you a free estimate
of
time and expenses.
If you're in the market for some photography, be sure to check
out my collection of stock photography at http://about-the-web/photos/ where
you can download a wide
variety of images (mostly nature photos) for printing or just
viewing on your computer.
I've spent a lot of time lately improving my shareware program.
Here's a press release concerning my latest version:
>>>Improved Time and Expense Tracking Software Released
Redwood Valley, CA 10/04/2000 -- Today, SpiritWorks Software
Development released their improved project, activity and expense
tracking system. Activity & Expense Tracker(TM) (formerly called
Activity Tracker) helps self-employed professionals, or small
businesses, to keep track of time and expenses spent on any
number of projects.
Now writers, programmers or any consultant can easily record the
amount of time they spend on specific activities and make notes
on tasks and expenses. They can then quickly generate invoices
and reports that can be printed or exported to word processing or
spreadsheet programs.
New features in this version include: Quick Check - an instant
report on the number of hours spent on a project or activity; the
timer can now be paused and restarted any number of times;
billable hours can now be rounded off to the nearest quarter
hour; invoice headers and footers that can be saved and imported
for multiple clients; easier date and time input controls; the
ability to search the improved online help; customizable
background and button colors as well as the highlight color.
Activity & Expense Tracker works well for small businesses or
work groups too. Each person keeps track of their own time and
expenses, exports the data and sends it to an administrator, who
imports them all, and then generates invoices, and time and
expense reports.
Students, teachers, athletes and hobbyists can use Activity &
Expense Tracker to keep track of time spent on their projects
too. Volunteers will find the program useful for keeping track of
time and expenses for tax purposes.
Users can try out the software free for 30 days, before
registering it for only $35. Activity & Expense Tracker runs on
most computers including, Windows 95/98/2000/NT, Macintosh and
many UNIX operating systems.
> I really appreciated your newsletter. I am a newcomer to the
> computer world and I know that I will benefit. I am sending a
> copy of this newsletter to my two sons. I am sure they will
> subscribe. I live in Oaxaca, Mexico.
> Hello!:-) The site is very interesting and I really
> enjoy surfing it. The letters are extremely useful
> and I share the information with friends. Everybody is
> happy. Best regards and thank you for the intelligent
> efforts. Letitia :-)
> Aloha Garth,
> Your lovely wife sent me your newsletter. Good Stuff.
> I was told by my server that the speed at which I can
> receive information is also dependent upon how far away I am
> from a telephone exchange terminal. They said that if I'm
> more than 3.5 miles away I'm not going to do any better than
> my current 26,000 even though I have a 56k modem. Is this
> true? Thanks for the other tips also. Keep em coming.
As far as the distance from a telephone exchange terminal, I
think that may or may not be true. It depends on how old the
telephone lines are among other things. The wiring in your house
is probably more of a factor.
It is true that unless you have very clean lines you may
never do any better than about 33Kbps.
Where I live, unless I stepped up to ISDN, I don't have any
way to get better than about 28K myself. But, on good days, it
seems fast enough for now. It definitely helps to have a fast
computer.
Regards,
Garth Catterall-Heart
--------------------
Let me know what you think about this newsletter, our web site,
or what topics would you like to see discussed, either in this
newsletter or on our web site. Just send me an e-mail! Please!
Thanks for participating in this Internet experience!
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Make your time usage more effective and profitable!
Keep track of your time and expenses, plus generate
invoices and reports with this new productivity
software. Available for all types of computers.
Get your Risk-Free 30 day trial copy today. http://about-the-web.com/aetracker/main.shtml
Save 10-50% On Your Everyday Purchases!
Benefit from group buying power! Receive discounts from
many major e-tailers. Join the club for free and start
saving money today! You can even earn referral and monthly
residual incomes. For all the details visit http://about-the-web.com/making-money/dhs.html
Katstorm.com - The Free Resource Center
Our directory provides affordable small business assistance
in the designing, building and promoting a successful
online presence. We offer free web sites, email, auto-
responders, information, software, webmaster tools and
services. Join our community http://www.katstorm.com
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