NetBloke.com - Lost and Found

Editorial 21st February 2001

G'Day!

I hope I helped some of you out of a tight spot last week with my Valentines Day suggestions.

This week I am going to look at a few search engines. Hopefully this will help you find what you are looking for on the Internet quicker. There is nothing worse than sifting through all the rubbish to find that one little gem of a site!

On a personal note my plans to relocate to the USA and settle down with my soon to be wife are well under way. It looks like I will be heading up to Sydney for the day to see the good folk at the US Consulate for my Visa interview. So wish me luck!

I would like to ask you all of your experience of signing up for NetBloke. Did you find it easy? Did you realise you don't have to sign up for Topica as well? Topica host the mailing list for free, however 'suggest' you sign up for their own lists when you sign up for mine. If people aren't happy with it I will look for another list host. However so far I have been very happy with Topica.

Anyway I love getting your feedback and suggestions so keep it rolling in!

Seeya later alligator!

Nathan Allan

Register ($12.95) or Transfer ($10.95) Domains at Thinkers Domains.

Great Hosting packages available at Thinkers Hosting.

Definition: Hard Yakka

Is a common term in Australia used to describe hard work.

For example; "Shearing those sheep sure was hard yakka!"

Web Site Review: Search Engines

Well you got yourself onto the Internet. You have worked out the basics of Internet Explorer or Netscape, but now you need to find a good way to find that site you are after!

The answer my friends is a search engine.

All search engines are basically big databases of information (like a filing cabinet). Now there are two types of search engines, ones that are edited by people (the people write the reviews that go in the filing cabinet) and 'spiders' or 'robots' (where computers write the reviews that go in the filing cabinet).

It is pretty simple really. The computer driven search engines like Google have bigger databases but their reviews are not written by a person they are instead produced from the contents of the Web pages.

In contrast search engines that have reviews written by people tend to have less Web sites mentioned however they mention a greater proportion of quality sites. The best examples of these are Looksmart and Yahoo. Looksmart was actually stated by a couple of Aussies!

If you are looking for a search engine that you can ask a simple question to try Ask Jeeves. It allows you to enter a question and then will try and match that with a category or more specific question that it has an answer to.

In the end you will probably find a search engine you like and stick to it. The ones I have listed and talked about are some that I use, however there are many more out there. Some specific to a region or topis and others for languages other than English.

Well I hope that gets you out of a pickle!

http://www.google.com
http://www.yahoo.com
http://www.looksmart.com
http://www.askjeeves.com

Internet Tip

Have you ever wondered how to quickly and easily add to the Web sites on your Internet Explorer (IE) 'Links' bar? (It sits at the top of IE near where you type in the Web site addresses and have the navigation buttons).

If you have wondered here is the answer!

You simply surf to the Web site you want to add to the Links bar (For example http://netbloke.com).
You then put your mouse point on the little icon that looks like a little 'e' on a piece of white paper.
To finish you hold down the left mouse button and drag the mouse pointer to the Links bar.

Hey presto you have added a new link to the Links bar!

If you want to rename the link or delete any of the others, you simply point to the link with your mouse pointer and right click. You will see a number of options including delete and rename.

Tech Riddles

I've got a question for ya, NetBloke! ;-)

My company's email servers were down for two days after they were swamped by the 'Anna Kournikova' virus. Besides going out and buying an expensive antivirus program, is there any common-sense advice you can give on avoiding these kinds of disasters?

Answer: Well this is a lot simpler than it seems. If you don't have outlook you are partially safe, however if you do turn off the automatic preview pane. What most of these files that end in 'vbs' do is run a small program that will go through your contact list and send copies of itself to everyone on the list.

The simple cure is to NOT open any attachments from people. Especially people you do not know or are not expecting an email with an attachment from.

The Great Australian Joke

It was the day of the grand final when officials took a call from one of the members gatekeepers. "There are two life-members here. They are close friends of one of the umpires and they have lost their tickets." "Throw them out," said the official. "They are liars. Whoever heard of an umpire having two friends."