Newsletter No. 91
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Free Pint
"Helping 39,000 people use the Web for their work"
http://www.freepint.com/
ISSN 1460-7239 5th July 2001 No.91
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IN THIS ISSUE
EDITORIAL
MY FAVOURITE TIPPLES
from Geoff Harrison
FREE PINT BAR & STUDENT BAR
In Association with Factiva
a Dow Jones & Reuters Company
Reviewed by Simon Collery
JOBS
Reading Development Manager | Market Analyst
Research/Editorial Assistant | Information Manager
TIPS ARTICLE
"D.I.Y. Site Design"
By Duncan Parry
BOOKSHELF
"Poor Richard's Creating eBooks"
Reviewed by Caryn Wesner-Early
FEATURE ARTICLE
"Obtaining Grants"
By Harris Rosenberg
EVENTS, GOLD AND FORTHCOMING ARTICLES
CONTACT INFORMATION
ONLINE VERSION WITH ACTIVATED HYPERLINKS
<http://www.freepint.com/issues/050701.htm>
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>>> ABOUT FREE PINT <<<
Free Pint is an online community of information researchers. Members
receive this free newsletter every two weeks packed with tips on
finding quality and reliable business information on the Internet.
Joining is free at <http://www.freepint.com/> and provides access to
the substantial archive of articles, book reviews, jobs, industry news
& events, with answers to your research questions and networking at
the "Free Pint Bar" and "Student Bar". Please circulate the newsletter
which is best read when printed out and viewed in a Courier font.
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EDITORIAL
It seems that everyone these days is talking about protecting their
investments and assets. Many people have seen their stock market share
holdings crumble recently, and I'm very pleased indeed that we didn't
finalise the fund raising last year for Free Pint. I'm pretty certain
that had we done so Free Pint would not be around today.
That's why our first major content partnership has been with ICC, to
give Free Pinters the ability to research a UK company to confirm it's
identity and assess credit worthiness. Indeed, my announcement in the
last issue that we're giving away a free Financial Report worth 24
pounds to every user has gone down a storm. However, many members have
written to ask exactly what amount of data is included in this report.
As well as statutory information, a Financial Report has detailed
accounts information going back five years (profit and loss, balance
sheet, notes to accounts, ratios, filing history), details of
ownership (including names of directors, group structure,
subsidiaries) as well as risk information, including county court
judgements, suggested credit limits and a comparison of the company
against others in the same industrial sector.
Remember, every member of Free Pint is entitled to one free Financial
Report, on a UK company of your choice, until the end of July. All you
have to do is to purchase any other report from the system, with
prices starting as low as 2 pounds. To find out more, run a free
search and see samples, please visit <http://www.freepint.com/icc>.
In today's Free Pint we've got some really super articles, covering
topics which are regularly asked about at the Bar. There's a great
overview to building your own Web site, as well as a very informative
guide to finding out about grants online. We've also packed in the
regular mix of tips, reviews, job listings and a run-down of the
latest enquiries at the Free Pint Bar.
We've been protecting our assets too, and I'm delighted to announce
that 'Free Pint' is now officially registered as a trade mark.
If you consider Free Pint an asset, then please don't protect it too
much. Do pass this issue on to your colleagues and share the benefits
of free membership. They can sign up at <http://www.freepint.com>.
Cheers
William
William Hann BSc MIInfSc, Founder and Managing Editor
Email: <william@freepint.com> Tel: +44 (0)1784 455435
Free Pint is a registered trademark of Free Pint Limited (c) 1997-2001
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The information world is changing ... and so are we!
The new Information World Review launches in September.
To ensure your copy, subscribe today.
http://orion.learned.co.uk/iwr/subscribe.asp
or call +44 (0)1795 414964
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>>> INFORMATION RESEARCH JOBS AROUND THE WORLD <<<
<http://www.freepint.com/jobs>
Free Pint Jobs: Listing of 100 information jobs around the world
Job Seekers: Search for free and set up an email alert profile
Advertisers: Match your vacancies against 200+ user profiles
Agencies: Include all your jobs for one low monthly fee
<http://www.freepint.com/jobs>
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MY FAVOURITE TIPPLES
from Geoff Harrison
* Webferret <http://www.zdnet.com/ferret> - a desktop based meta
search engine which trawls through 20 of the top search engines at a
time. My first port of call whenever Google doesn't come up trumps.
* FindArticles.com <http://www.findarticles.com/> - The first place I
look for technical material - a searchable database of technical and
scientific articles from several hundred journals.
* The Quotations Page <http://www.quotationspage.com/qotd.html> -
Daily quotes from the great and good. Usually very funny and
sometimes even quite inspirational.
* <http://oposite.stsci.edu/pubinfo/pictures.html> - Stunning
photographs of the cosmos from the Hubble telescope. Puts things in
perspective sometimes.
* teldir.com <http://www.teldir.com/eng/> - Most of the world's online
telephone directories in one place.
Geoff Harrison is a systems analyst and compiler of
<http://www.thebigproject.co.uk>, used by ex-colleagues at a recently
closed petrochemical engineering consultants to keep in touch and
search for jobs.
Tell us about your top five favourite Web sites. See the guidelines at
<http://www.freepint.com/author.htm> and email <simon@freepint.com>.
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Confirm basic details for free, pay for detailed financials if needed.
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FREE PINT BAR
In Association with Factiva
a Dow Jones & Reuters Company
Reviewed by Simon Collery
<http://www.freepint.com/issues/050701.htm#bar>
Free Pint Bar <http://www.freepint.com/bar>
-------------------------------------------
[Note: To read a posting enter the message number in place of
XXXXX in the address http://www.freepint.com/go/bXXXXX ]
Supposing you had a floppy disc that contained vital information and
it had been damaged by humanoid gremlins. You could throw up your
hands in despair or you could post a message in the Free Pint Bar
(10884). The latter course has got to be worth a try, whatever your
problem, and in this case it worked. And if you have a mobile phone
that doesn't work in your locality you should get some good advice in
the Bar about that too (10635).
In fact, Free Pinters have been especially resourceful recently,
whether the question was about VAT on Road Fund Tax (10719), lists of
towns and cities in the UK (10848) or recycling CDs (10668). Who would
have thought you could do all those things with them?
If that's all too low brow, you may prefer to join a discussion about
the etymologies of Whigs and Tories (10881, 10730), help out with some
Norwegian to English translations (10800), suggest a good definition
for the term "data mapping" (10652) or visit the Bar's fast growing
Latin Quarter.
But some of us have to be content with workaday matters, such as
finding information on Russian companies (10836), UK company results
(10847), company contact details (10849) and companies in a specific
market segment (10864).
And matters such as content management for Web sites (10597), news
feeds (10661), content management for intranets (10669), fair dealing
in UK copyright law (10841), finding psychology journals online
(10860), free current awareness alerts (10585) and supplying a field
sales force with up to date information (10648).
Unemployed and underemployed Free Pinters have been enquiring about
Spanish translation work (10672), recruitment agencies in West
Yorkshire (10620), systems engineering work in Hong Kong (10655), work
permits for non EU contractors (10657) and library and information
related jobs in Seattle (10898).
Marketing and related fields have had a look in too. There are
postings about database branding (10593), branding, advertising and
marketing strategies (10599), marketing in an information environment
(10614), classification systems for marketing information (10787) and
property management marketing data (10743).
Researchers have been checking out online gambling (10673), house
buying (10903), companies that provide specialist services for the
voluntary sector (10767), change management (10689), electricity
supply in New Zealand and Ireland (10740) and song lyrics (10742).
Search is back on the agenda, too. That's not surprising after our
recent article on Google and there have been mentions of the Google
browser add on, iLOR, (10732), a brand name search engine (10589),
Google's new image search function (10745) and the fact that Google
sometimes gives you results from Google.de, the German version
(10701). And I took time out to review Diggit, an interesting image
search tool (10736).
Those who insist on figures and statistics have been asking for the
top twenty UK food companies (10670), UK temperature statistics
(10763), IT spending within financial institutions (10775), historical
exchange rate data (10857) and international tourism statistics for
the last ten years (10861).
Inevitably, there were technical questions galore about PDF files
(10613), designing logos (10619), hyperlinks in Word and Excel
(10662), setting a browser to open automatically on startup (10674),
uninstalling programs (10797), creating ads (10869), printing
favourites (10917) and introductory tutorials on designing Web sites
(10773). And there's the vexing problem of finding information
resources for analysis of the properties of inductors in electronic
circuits (10706).
We are still waiting for a list of the UK's business book publishers
(10805) and a list of the US states that have limited or no punitive
damages awards (10819). We are also hoping to hear what a social grant
is in the UK and who they are paid to (10900).
Once again, you could throw up your hands in despair if you were
looking for a wholesaler of those horrible plastic horns that children
get at parties (10813), anecdotes about knowledge sharing (10828),
answers to some cryptic music questions (10765), examples of good
engineering design (10601), places to sell books on the Web (10671),
free email list hosts (10783) or Dutch classical guitar music (10838).
Or you could post a message in the Bar.
Free Pint Student Bar <http://www.freepint.com/student>
-------------------------------------------------------
[Note: To read a posting enter the message number in place of
XXXX in the address <http://www.freepint.com/go/sXXXX>]
As well as looking for advice on what courses to do and which are the
best institutions for various subjects, students have been asking
about grants available for part time researchers (1528), getting the
best from work placements (1534), finding a job in Cyprus (1557) and
UK admissions procedures for non EU students (1533).
Something tells me that most students are now either on holidays or
doing exams. We wish them all the best of luck.
Simon Collery, Content Developer <simon@freepint.com>
If you have a tricky research question or can help other Free Pinters
then do post a message at the Bar <http://www.freepint.com/bar> or
the Student Bar <http://www.freepint.com/student>.
To have the latest Bar postings sent to you every other day, log in to
your account online or send a blank email to <digest@freepint.com>.
For the Student Bar Digest contact <studentdigest@freepint.com>.
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FREE PINT JOBS
<http://www.freepint.com/jobs>
Free Pint Jobs has details of many information-related vacancies
around the world. The following are a selection of featured jobs:
Reading Development Manager <http://www.freepint.com/go/j349>
An excellent opportunity in the public sector for those not wed to
corporate information!
Recruiter: Sue Hill Recruitment
Market Analyst <http://www.freepint.com/go/j386>
For leading IT client, tracking markets and trends. Excellent
numerical (Degree) and analytical skills essential
Recruiter: Glen Recruitment
Research/Editorial Assistant <http://www.freepint.com/go/j315>
An indexer / editor, preferably with knowledge of SICs or
online searching
Recruiter: Business Database Production Ltd
Information Manager <http://www.freepint.com/go/j387>
With 5 years experience to develop, promote and enhance all
Information resources
Recruiter: Glen Recruitment
[The above jobs are paid listings]
It is free to search Free Pint Jobs and you can set up a profile to be
notified by email of relevant new vacancies.
List your vacancies and receive significant publicity. Recruitment
agencies can also automatically upload all their jobs.
Find out more today at <http://www.freepint.com/jobs>
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>>> ListBot Closing 6th August 2001 <<<
If you're a customer of Microsoft's ListBot service
then you might not be aware that it's closing.
Read more about this announcement and find out about Free Pint's
reliable list hosting service as a cost-effective alternative.
<http://www.freepint.com/go/b10798>
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TIPS ARTICLE
<http://www.freepint.com/issues/050701.htm#tips>
"D.I.Y. Site Design"
By Duncan Parry
So you have been online a while and you have an idea for a website.
Where do you start? In this article I'll provide some introductory
advice and pointers to useful sites.
PART ONE : PLAN IT!
===================
It might seem obvious, but planning your site is crucial before you
build it. Do this right and you'll save time, tears and frustration.
Too often somebody immediately starts building their site without
planning it - these sites are the sites we all visit once - and only
once.
Before you plan the layout of your site, stop to consider how you are
going to build it - and learn a little about the constraints you
should place on your design to make it compatible with browsers,
screen resolutions etc. This isn't too hard - I recommend
<http://www.echoecho.com/dzine.htm>. It's easy to follow and covers
all you need to know.
More advice can be found at :
<http://www.merlet.com/diy.htm> Nice beginners guide
<http://www.netmag.co.uk/webbuilder> Regular articles
<http://www.web-source.net/web/>.
Domain Names
------------
Domain names are important - decide on something easy to remember, and
if it's not a company name, try to find something that describes the
topic of your site. Shop around for the best deal, and if you are
buying web space make sure you get a good deal for the two.
URL Redirection
---------------
An alternative to buying a domain name is a URL redirection service -
turning something like http://members.tripod.co.uk/mysite/index.html
into http://go.to/mysite. These are free, and sometimes advert
supported:
<http://xiy.net/>
<http://www.v3.com/>
Offers formats like http://come.to/ and http://go.to/
Web Space
---------
Before you build your site decide on how you are going to put it
online. There are three options - web space that you pay for, free
space from your ISP, and free homepage services e.g.
<http://www.tripod.co.uk/>. These offer free online site building
tools that require no HTML knowledge.
Guides to commercial web space and domain name companies include:
<http://www.bigbytez.co.uk/>
<http://www.thewhir.com/>
<http://www.findwebspace.com/>.
Decide whether you are happy with adverts on your site (common with
free providers), what technologies you need the web space to support -
e.g. CGI, PHP - and if you need direct access to the server.
PART TWO : BUILD THAT SITE
==========================
HTML and WYSIWYG
----------------
There are two ways to build your site - write HTML code or use a
WYSIWYG tool. These let you 'draw' your site and cut and paste, just
like you would in Word.
Examples include the professional product Dreamweaver
<http://www.macromedia.com/software/dreamweaver/>, FrontPage
<http://www.microsoft.com/frontpage/> and many shareware and freeware
products.
These offer the advantage of limited HTML knowledge being needed to
create a site, the ability to use templates to create new pages based
on a fixed design and change every page in a site with ease (by
changing the template). However they can sometimes produce incorrect
code.
Of course, if you want to learn HTML there are books and sites galore
to help, including:
<http://hotwired.lycos.com/webmonkey/> - Extensive tutorials, easy
to follow
<http://www.echoecho.com/html.htm> - In depth walk guides
<http://www.htmlprimer.com/> - 7 step primer.
Meta Tags
---------
Most people think of keywords when you mention meta tags. Keywords
are important for search engine placement, but there are several other
tags to be aware of - Description, Abstract, Revisit, Robot, Author
and Copyright. See <http://www.submitcorner.com/Guide/Meta/> for more
information.
Remember that any tags in your code add to file size and therefore
increase load time. Make sure you get your site rated by a 'safe
surfing' scheme and include the tags they provided in your code - this
will make sure browsers set to filter 'adult' sites can visit yours.
See <http://www.icra.org> to rate your site for free and
<http://www.w3.org/PICS/> to learn how this works.
Graphics
--------
Images can convey more information than several paragraphs - or leave
the user waiting three minutes for one page to load (or more likely
they are on a competitor's site by then). So make sure your graphics
are streamlined (and avoid those annoying animated GIFs).
Optimisation services and software are available to compress images -
<http://webopt.com/> Software
<http://www.spinwave.com/> Online service.
Finding Graphics - Photos
You can buy royalty free photos but this can be costly. Other sites
provide photos and design templates on the understanding you must link
back to them. Check before using these.
One of the best sites for free photos is
<http://www.freeimages.co.uk/>. Commercial services include
<http://www.gettyone.com/> and <http://www.cadmium.co.uk/>. For free
web graphics, try some of the links at the bottom of the article -
there are hundreds of these sites.
Of course you can create your own graphics with a little practice.
The sites below will help with this, using programs like the Gimp.
More information on:
<http://graphicssoft.about.com/compute/graphicssoft/> Software guide
and links
<http://www.gimp.org/> Freeware Software
<http://www.widearea.co.uk./designer/> Tutorials for web graphics
<http://www.wastedyouth.org/> Software tutorials.
Site 'Add Ons'
--------------
There are many free services that add features to your site. Although
they are free, shop around - some offer more features, better
customisation or related free services. I've highlighted some below.
Visitor Counters
----------------
There are several free services which provide visitors information and
keep your visitor numbers hidden. Most of these require you to
display a small graphic on every page - so take this into account in
your design. These services offer a variety of information - how many
unique and return visitors your site receives, where they are in the
world, browser they use etc. This information can be useful for
profiling your visitors so you can design and promote your site
accordingly. Advertisers like to know about this, too.
<http://www.webtrendslive.com> - With a useful graph of results
<http://www.thecounter.com> - Invisible
<http://www.linkcounter.com> - Use to monitor how often a link is
clicked.
Site Search Engines
-------------------
Previous topics in the Free Pint Bar have discussed ways to search
sites that don't offer a search facility. Several companies offer you
a free search engine for your site, so there's no excuse for this.
These include Google
<http://www.google.com/services/customsitesearch.html> and WhatUSeek
<http://www.sitecrawler.co.uk/>, both of which also offer visitors the
opportunity to search the web. WhatUSeek is my favourite as the
search box is available in different sizes and can be customised.
Other services offer a search engine with customisable results pages,
the ability to exclude certain files and tweak how pages are rated.
<http://www.picosearch.com> Free, easy to use
<http://www.searchtools.com/> Guide to services.
Visitor Feedback
----------------
One way to encourage visitors to send you feedback is to use a form
that e-mails you from a web page. These use CGI - but if you don't
want to learn this (or your server doesn't support CGI) you can use
third party hosts e.g. <http://www.htmlgear.com> or
<http://www.formsite.com/>.
Other 'add ons' include guest books, online polls, 'recommend this
site' boxes and message boards. Sites offering these include:
<http://www.htmlgear.com>
<http://www.bravenet.com/>
<http://www.everyone.net/>
<http://www.mycomputer.com/>
Content Sources
---------------
There are several sites that offer free content for your site,
normally integrated by inserting code they provide you with. Topics
include headlines <http://www.moreover.com/> articles
<http://www.web-source.net/syndicator.htm> or
<http://ezinearticles.com/>, and cartoons
<http://www.cartoonlink.net/>.
Site Promotion
--------------
Before you start promoting, it's best to set up a new e-mail account
to use - you will, unfortunately, receive an amount of spam e-mail
from some sites.
Free accounts -
<http://www.lycos.co.uk/service/lycosmail/> 10MB mailbox, POP3 access
<http://www.purpleturtle.com/> - supports Turtle conservation.
Promoting your site can be time consuming and frustrating. It doesn't
have to be - target your work and hopefully you'll get results. You
can find relevant search engines to submit to via these sites:
<http://www.allsearchengines.co.uk/>
<http://www.searchking.com/>
<http://www.searchenginewatch.com/links/>.
Note : avoid sites that submit to FFA (free for all) pages - they
rarely generate visitors but do generate spam.
Search Engines and Directories
------------------------------
Software and online services abound for promoting to these. You can
submit to the top engines on Free Pint
<http://www.freepint.com/submit>
and to Lycos UK here < http://www.lycos.co.uk/service/addasite.html/>.
Understand that search engines produce results by querying a database
of sites and that directories are human maintained into categorical
structures. So be prepared to submit to both. Prepare a text file
with your site title, URL, keywords and a short site description, and
cut and paste from this when submitting. Consider buying software/a
service to re-submit your site to search engines on a regular basis.
Reciprocal Links
----------------
If you know of sites that are targeted at the same audience consider
approaching their webmaster to exchange links. Include your URL, site
title and a brief description of your site when you contact them.
Banner Advertisements
---------------------
If you decide to join a banner advertising network, you will be able
to show your banner across the network - but the number of times it is
shown depends on how many times your site is visited.
E-zines
-------
Adverts e-zines can bring visitors to your site - try to find those
that deal with topics related to your site. Consider writing for
sites like Free Pint, too.
Useful sites for finding e-zines:
<http://209.53.3.96/newsletters/>
<http://www.list-city.com/adexdb.html>.
Newsgroups/Forums
-------------------
Promoting on sites with forums (or newsgroups) is a good source of
visitors if you choose the right ones. Read some of the messages they
contain and the terms of use before posting. Try not to be too
blatantly commercial and don't fall into bad habits like using lots of
capital letters or explanation marks - you'll just get ignored, and
your message may be removed. Always use your spam e-mail account.
Useful Links
------------
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About this Newsletter
- Publication Date: 4th July 2001
- Plain text
- Link: https://www.jinfo.com/go/newsletter/91
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