December 28, 2004
|
Year in Review |
Links will open in new window. Close it when you have finished with that site.
Five Top Stories
Google astonished universities by first creating a search engine for only scholarly materials (Google Scholar) (Nov 18) and then announcing its plans to work with top libraries to digitize book collections (Dec 14).
Microsoft launched its new search engine in the USA and Canada (Nov 11) to mixed reviews.
Amazon turned its search engine A9.com into a powerhouse of personal web-search features (Sep). Ask Jeeves and Yahoo added features too.
Google released its Desktop Search product (Oct 14). Since then we have seen Blinkx 2.0 (Nov 15), Copernic, Ask Jeeves, Microsoft and others. None do the whole job.
Search engines in the USA market were obsessed with providing Local search for products and services. Only Google came out with a version for Canada (of modest capabilities) (Sep 22).
Year in Review: Search Gets Ready to Rumble By Matt Hicks in eWeek. (Nov 28, 2004)
2004 in Review.Search: Looking for a Winner News.com - headlines Feb to Dec.
Search Engine Trends in 2004 at Pandia (Dec 31). Thorough review with additional information about desktop search..
2004: The Search Engine Year in Review SearchEngineBlog.com - humourous account of the year's stories.
November 20, 2004
|
Shop Canada |
Links will open in new window. Close it when you have finished with that site.
Holiday shopping online is forecast to increase this year. Forrester Research has put it at $13.2 billion (US) for the US online retail market, a boost of around 20%.
In Canada, 42% polled have said they plan to buy gifts online, up from the 32% who did in 2003.
Canadians Holiday Shopping Online MarketNews (Nov 17)
This poll was done by MSN Canada who hopes to pick up many of those shoppers at Sympatico/MSN Shopping where they can find several big name stores.
Other malls Canadian shoppers might try:
Yahoo Canada Shopping has many features, good navigation, and rivals MSN in big name stores.
Canada.com Shopping has an e-store directory.
Canada Shopping Links "Supports Canada's small and large retailers, entrepreneurs, and at-home businesses". Sandra Colbourne of Guelph, Ontario, owns and manages this small business.
Canada Retail 1000 stores. Has a travel section.
Sears Canada has a wide selection and doesn't seem to be in any of the malls.
October 15, 2004
|
Online Calculators |
Links will open in new window. Close it when you have finished with that site.
If you are close to your computer and the Internet you can do just about any conversion or calculation online.
Try conversions at Ask Jeeves - just enter the question in the search box - convert litres to quarts.
Yahoo has calculators for time, weights and measures, and math.
Google does math and weights and measures too.
If the conversion capabilities of these three don't meet your needs try these sites.
Online Conversion.com has over 5,000 units and 50,000 conversions. It handles distance, temperature, speed, mass, dates and time, clothing sizes, energy, astronomy. You name it. There is even an HTML colour picker - select the colour and get the value.
Martindale's Calculators On-line Center has nearly 19,000 calculators. There is a huge selection for science and math including management and business. There are calculators for librarians - a cataloguing calculator and a linear footage calculator.
Even if you can't think of a calculator for your profession, there is likely one at Martindale's.
Yahoo Directory has more Online Calculators.
Find the calculators you need and add them to your tool kit.
September 12, 2004
 |
Links will open in new window. Close it when you have finished with that site.
Is Microsoft's hold on the browser market slipping? In July market share slipped below 95%. Internet Explorer has had no significant new features for two years, it's the target for adware, malware, spyware, and highjackers, and Microsoft has said only XP users will ever see enhancements.
People looking for a better browsing experience are finding it with Firefox. This is a free, full function browser built by the Mozilla Organization, a team of developers who were sprung loose as independents from AOL's Netscape division.
Firefox blocks popups, has tabs, displays fonts at a larger size than IE does, has built-in search bars, saves passwords, and has a good bookmark manager. The latest version (Sept 14) will also handle RSS feeds as live bookmarks for easy viewing. There are many extensions to the browser available at the Firefox web site.
There is also the Mozilla Suite with browser, email, newsgroups, IRC chat, and HTML editing.
Paul Boutin at Slate is one of many converts. Are the Browser Wars Back? How Mozilla's Firefox trumps Internet Explorer (June 30, 2004).
Gizmo at Tech Support prepared this Guide to Migrating to Mozilla FireFox to installation and troubleshooting (on the rare chance that there is a problem).
firefoxIE.net has tools to enhance the Firefox browser. The best of these is the Googlebar which will do all that the IE Google Toolbar does and more.
Flexbeta has a A Guide To Firefox Extensions (Sep 5, 2004)
Get news on browsers from PC World - Browsers.
August 14, 2004
 |
Online Giving |
Links will open in new window. Close it when you have finished with that site.
Online giving increased 50 percent in the last year in the United States as donors became more comfortable with the payment systems and nonprofit groups made their websites more attractive and effective.
Online Donations Surge "Fund raising tops $100-million, Chronicle survey finds" By Nicole Wallace. The Chronicle of Philanthropy (June 10, 2004)
CanadaHelps.org is a "portal for charitable giving". Charities can set up an online presence and payment system. Donors will find 78,000 charities registered in Canada and through MyCanadaHelps can manage their giving using the personalized record-keeping services.
Charity.ca also offers eCommerce and eMarketing solutions. Donors can reach about 800 charities.
CharityVillage is a meeting place for nonprofit organizaitons, volunteers and donors. For the nonprofits there are news items, tips, management resources, and online discussion. Individuals can find organizations in their area needing volunteers. Donors can find registered charities by type in the Nonprofit Neighbourhood. As well there is advice on making online donations.
Residents of the USA can choose from a long list of philanthropic organizations at Yahoo - Philanthropy.
July 22, 2004
 |
Tech Support |
Links will open in new window. Close it when you have finished with that site.
With the plague of spam, viruses, malware upon Windows users and the increasing complexity of personal computers (in spite of claims to the contrary) good tech support is in high demand. There are many sources on the Web that can help.
PC World lives up to its slogan of "technology advice you can trust" online and in the monthly print magazine. The topic guide at the website covers tips, computers, electronics, software, and technology news.
The Best Free Software appeared in the August issue: "94 tools and sites that help you work smarter, communicate better, and have more fun--all great, and all gratis."
Steve Bass writes a lively and informative weekly e-newsletter called Home Office with loads of good advice on getting the most from personal computing. Subscribe to this newsletter at PC World's Free Newsletters.
Tech Support Alert has tech utilities and support resources. Ian Richards sends out a free monthly newsletter called Support Alert containing reviews of tech sites, utilities and other useful stuff.
Lockergnome caters to all technical interests through a suite of weblogs. These are most suitable for the advanced tech person. Technobabble is the most general.
Previous sites Last issue: Google Galore
June 9, 2004
 |
Google Galore |
Links will open in new window. Close it when you have finished with that site.
People never tire of reading about Google - or writing about it. There are new books, new blogs, and new tip sites.
Google Spawn: The Culture Surrounding Googlea feature article in Searcher by Paul S. Piper containing a master list of sites and topics related to the Google industry.
Google Guide an online tutorial by Nancy Blachman. It's quite good and nicely presented.
Google: The Missing Manual by Sarah Milstein and Rael Domfast. Oreilly. Has a sample chapter and is getting good reviews.
Weblogs about Google at Dmoz - its own category with 4
entries. Here are two more:
. Unofficial Google Fan Club
. Google Blogscoped
En français aussi - Weblogs Google en français
Previous sites Last issue: Social Networking
April 29, 2004
 |
Social Networking |
Links will open in new window. Close it when you have finished with that site.
Social networking has taken hold on the Net. The idea is that you join and invite your friends. Then they do the same. Each person sets up a personal profile and in time there is a large enough network for everyone to make some useful connections - whatever they may be. Centres are springing up for job hunters, pet lovers, dating wannabes, searchers, business people - to name a few.
Friendster was among the first. It is for dating and making new friends.
Eurekster watches the searches you and your friends do and on new searches will adjust the ranking of results according to derived usefulness. It is only successful to the degree that there are enough similar queries and interests.
Orkut is by invitation only - making it even more desireable. Once inside you can meet people who share hobbies and interests.
Spoke is for business relationships and is principally aimed at increasing sales productivity.
Tribe.net is affiliated with Knight Ridder who hopes to connect the networks and online classifieds. "Tribes" may organize events, post classifieds, send messages. It's also possible to join a tribe without an invitation.
Dogster is for dogs and their owners to yap about stuff.
Social networkining is the main topic at the Social Software Weblog.
April 10, 2004
 |
Search Engine Marketing |
Links will open in new window. Close it when you have finished with that site.
Search engine marketing is exploding on the Internet as companies strive for maximum return from online marketing programs. Search engine optimization - making sure a site places well in search results through website design and use of keywords - is one aspect of this. Advertising programs involving pay-per-click and paid inclusion are central as is close attention to website analytics.
There are several weblogs and websites that serve the SEM community and supply some of the best writing about search engines and state of the industry.
SearchEngineWatch by Danny Sullivan has been the lead authority for years. SearchDay is a free daily newsletter featuring new tools, changes at a search engine, and search engine marketing. There is a for-fee bi-weekly newsletter about SEM.
Andy Beal writes Search Engine Lowdown - "search engine news as it happens" - lead stories and insightful comment about search technology and SEO news. Has a news feed.
Garrett French is senior editor at WebProNews. Topics covered include search engine optimization, ecommerce tactics, enterprise computing, Internet marketing trends, programming and much more. Offers a newsletter and news feeds.
Search Engine Journal is a "news journal on Search Engine Industry News, Search Engine Optimization, and Search Engine Marketing".
Jennifer Laycock at WebSearch About.com picks up the main stories and keeps lists of search tools.
February 28, 2004
 |
Broadcast Archives |
Links will open in new window. Close it when you have finished with that site.
Broadband and the digital revolution are making it possible for public broadcast networks to make their archives of audio and video available to the public.
Canada's CBC has led in bringing together selections from its radio and television archives to create the CBC Archive. In 2004 the collection has grown to more than 5,000 radio and TV clips as well as images and notes. The earliest entry in the clip index is a radio news broadcast dated 1936 about the Dionne quints.
The material is organized into 8 themes. A timeline and indexes help in navigating the site.
BBC in the UK announced in August 2003 that it would make the BBC Creative Archive available to all. Delivery is promised for this fall (BBC News March 3, 2004). To begin, though, BBC has been running a Treasure Hunt to assemble the programming. Some clips are available there.
British Pathe in the UK put 3,500 hours of film from 1896 to 1970. Archive covers news, sport, social history and entertainment.
National Public Radio in the United States has seven years of audio archives. This can be searched by keyword and by program.
January 28, 2004
 |
Consumer WebWatch |
Links will open in new window. Close it when you have finished with that site.
Over 60% of adults in the United States and Canada use the Internet to meet a wide range of information needs. But are they aware that often information is biased, outdated, or wrong?
Consumer WebWatch works to change this by educating users. Its mission is "to investigate; inform; and improve the credibility of information published on the World Wide Web."
Research work to date has concerned evaluation of health sites, online travel services, and the practices of search engines.
A Report on the Evaluation of Criteria Sets for Assessing Health Web Sites (Sept 2003)
False Oracles: Consumer Reaction to Learning the Truth About How Search Engines Work (June 2003)
The website has the complete archive of research reports. Consumer WebWatch news items are on the front page. There are also guidelines for website owners and resource list of other consumer protection groups.
The monthly newsletter has additional tips and news.
Consumer WebWatch is a grant-funded project of Consumers Union, the publisher of Consumer Reports. Partners include The Pew Charitable Trusts, the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation, and the Open Society Institute.
January 8, 2004
 |
Year in Review |
What mattered most to people in 2003? Search engines have year-end tabulations of what their users looked for. By and large the results suggest a populace devoted to entertainment and celebrity watching.
Jack Kapica of the Globe and Mail commented on the results in What we look for (Jan 4, 2004)
Google's Year-End Zeitgeist has lists by country.
Lycos 2003 Review lists the Top 100 searches.
Yahoo!Search 2003 has Top 10 searches in several categories.
Jeeves IQ prepares a weekly report.
Inquiring minds will be more interested in the best-of and top-10 lists compiled by Rex Sorgatz in Minneapolis for his weblog, Fimoculous.
Fimoculous 2003 Year in Review -- Top media stories, technology and science, booksmusic, film, art, photos, sports, theatre, business and more.
Archives January - December 2005
|