Computing With Bifocals by Nancy Carroll Gravley A column for people who remember what the world was like before there was color..... Searching on the Net and Other Mac Adventures September 30th, 1998 There are a couple of useful tools that can short cut a lot of what you may want to find on the net. We will look at both of them in this column. Search Engines There are a number of search “engines” available to you. Most all of them are free. The providers get paid by advertisers who run banner ads at the sites. Some search engines are designed for business use and some for the general user. Each has distinctive aspects. For instance: Yahoo! [www.yahoo.com] presents information in categories. If you ask for a search on stamp collecting you will be directed to sections on business and economy, recreation, and regional sections. Each section will then have individual sites, with brief descriptions, that you may access. Lycos [www.Lycos.com] will also offer you categories and list individual sites by category and description. This engine will also suggest other ideas in a category called “Check This Out.” For our stamp collecting hunt it suggested that we search for books on the subject, news items on the subject, etc. Alta Vista {www.Alta vista.com} provides a listing of all the sites it found, including brief descriptions of each site and the option of translating to or from English and other major languages. You can open each of these sites and search. By the way, be sure to take advantage of your bookmark option to save sites that you like or expect to use frequently. It is a great time saver. Your individual internet service will have directions for accessing your book marking options. We could go on and on describing the various search engines that are available to you. However, there is one source that will automatically search them all for you at once, do it quickly, and give you the top site choices from each engine. This engine is Dogpile [www.dogpile.com]. According to their home page they search the following: The Web: Yahoo!, Lycos' A2Z, Excite Guide, GoTo.com, PlanetSearch, Thunderstone, What U Seek, Magellan, Lycos, WebCrawler, InfoSeek, Excite & AltaVista. Usenet: Reference, Dejanews, AltaVista and Dejanews' old Database. FTP: Filez and FAST FTP Search. (Only the first word will be passed on to FTP Search.) Weather: Enter in any City, State or Zip code in the world. Stock Quotes: Enter Tickers or Company Name. Business News: Search for Business News. Africa News , Agency France , M2 Airlines, Asiainfo, Business Wire , Canadian Corp , Content Factory, Fednet, Infolatina, Inter Press, Interactive Sports, Itar-Tass, M2, Phillips, PR News, PIO, Resource News, SABI, UPI, UPI, US Newswire, Washington Tech, WENN, Xinhua. Other News Wires: Yahoo News Headlines, Excite News and Infoseek NewsWires. I have been using this primary search engine for about 6 months and I have never had any trouble accessing the search engine itself or in finding the subject I was researching. If any of our readers have had good experiences with other search engines and are willing to pass on the information, I will be happy to include the information in future columns. The Big Eye The second tool is The Big Eye [www.bigeye.com]. This is a very interesting source of documents and information. The site is well maintained and frequently updated. It is also extremely user friendly. A recent addition is the availability of searching by categories of: News, Education, Liberty, Shopping, Space, Category, and Financial. The Big Eye currently maintains 12 pages of sources and sites with 99 listings for each page, so the category listing is very helpful if you are interested in a specific topic. You have options of searching only The Big Eye itself for topics, or you can access the ability to search all of the net. Personally, I would not go this route to search the net unless I was already in The Big Eye. Otherwise, you are just adding unnecessary steps. I strongly recommend that during your first trip to this site that you take the time to simply browse all the options. You will find sources that are left wing, right wing, moderate, political, educational, and special interest. Among the interesting things that I have found on this site was a listing related to Andrew Lloyd Webber musicals; one that included the test to all the Hans Christian Andersen fairy tales; a site completely devoted to cookie recipes; a site that provided sources for college scholarships; and sites for world wide weather, dictionaries, world wide telephone numbers, the Mir space station, a list of America’s Most Wanted and The Louvre. The Big Eye contains cute graphics scattered throughout the pages. Fortunately, they have recently modified the really obnoxious music that played automatically as each page was opened. You can still have the music, but only if you request it. Coming up soon this column will focus of how you can create your own web page without cost and reviews of software of particular interest to us. Please send any comments you have concerning the column and subjects you would like to have discussed. If there are specific kinds of software related to your special interests or hobbies please let me know and we will arrange to review what is available. Copies of Nancy's book Tips, Hints, and Solutions for Seasoned Beginners Using Apple Macintosh Computers With OS X are available in PDF download versions  for US$9.57 and in print version for $18.15 plus $4.00 shipping.   To view sample pages and get ordering information visit the September 14, 2004 column. Post your comments below. Check out Nancy's complete index of all her columns for the most complete list of tips anywhere. The list is categorized and is a great reference when you are looking for help! A Capacious Catalog Of Computer Tips Talking to a generation that remembers what the world was like before there was color, covers issues for people who don't care how their computer works, but rather what their computer and the internet can do for them. Nancy has a Master's degree in Human Services Administration and prior to her retirement she worked for almost 30 years in field of mental health and mental retardation. She has been a Mac user for 11 years, and has recently developed an avocation of teaching basic computer skills in both group and one-to-one settings. Most Recent Computing With Bifocals Columns Of iPod Cases and System Preferences - August 30th Cool Tips, Kudos for Bob, & a Review - July 31st Two Apps for Reading and Browsing - June 23rd Other "Computing With Bifocals" Columns