The Using the Internet for Research FAQ for this month is now out in the following newsgroups: misc.writing, alt.movies.independent, alt.union.natl-writers, misc.writing.screenplays, alt.answers, misc.answers and news.answers The FAQ is available on the web at <www.purefiction.com/pages/res1.htm> Last-modified: 26 Sep 1999. Expires: Sun, 31 Oct 1999 00:00:00 GMT Latest update to the Using the Internet for Research FAQ (c) Charles Harris 1999 We're back. The film has been filmed and is being editing and I finally have time to get back to a bulging in-box of suggested additions to this FAQ. Thank you everyone for being so patient. 1. I've added a new section on finding people. It's still very embryonic, so any comments, suggestions, criticisms, etc would be gratefully accepted. (Usual house rules: only recommend sites which you know from experience are of general use to a fair number of people. If recommending your own site, try to back up the suggestion with some evidence from an unbiased satisfied customer or two). 4.1.4 How can I find specific people? There are many resources on the Net that can help you locate and even make contact with specific people - famous or not, individuals or companies. Whether they'll be of any use to you will depend on a number of factors, not least geographical. As with so much on the Internet, the vast majority of resources are devoted to the USA. So there's little difficulty in finding directories and databases with look-up or even reverse look-up facilities covering just about every member of the US population, alive or dead. (Particularly intriguing, in passing, is Ancestry.com <http://ssdi.ancestry.com/> which among its useful resources for genealogical research allows you to find the social security number and other details of any dead American.... and then offers a facility to write a letter! Do they know of some postal service that we don't?) More wide-ranging are the directories of email addresses. However these are far from all-inclusive, even assuming your target has an email address. Some Internet Service Providers - such as CompuServe and AOL used to provide a look-up service which included all subscribers (and probably still do) but only for other subscribers, as I understand. For the rest, directories such as BigFoot <http://www.bigfoot.com> rely on finding email addresses of those who have web-pages or post regularly to newsgroups. By no means does this include everybody. Expect to have to try a number of sites before you find a lead. In Urls For A Rainy Day - Section 9 - there are numerous search facilities. 9.3.4, 9.3.5 and 9.11.2 give a number of meta-search engines, people searchers and reference sites which offer specific people-finding databases. Particularly useful are those such as All-In-One <http://www.allonesearch.com/> or Langenberg <http://www.langenberg.com/> which have links to many different "people" sites on one page. There are also databases devoted to certain types, eg: politicians (9.13.2). Organisations are generally easier to find through a search engine. But even then it is not always easy - especially if the organisation doesn't have a web page of its own. However, David Brager tells of one very useful site. If you know an organisation or individual's domain name (ie: the bit of the web address before .com, .co.it or whatever) you can use it to find all kinds of details, from contact e-mail and snail-mail addresses to phone numbers at <http://www.vservers.com/before/dnscheck/>. Whether looking for people or organisations, in difficult cases you may need to try the more refined methods for finding information by using Search Engines, or posting questions on Newsgroups or Mailing Lists (as described in the FAQ section 4.2). 2. I must say I'm fairly jaundiced when it comes to metasearch engines, as I seem to get notice of a new site almost every month, and most seem fairly similar, so I didn't hold out much hope when I heard from the makers of theinfo.com <http://www.theinfo.com>. More fool me. Theinfo.com is not actually a metasearch engine at all, but I suppose you'd call it a "multi-search" engine. When you enter your search terms, it opens a window for each of the search sites individually. Beware, this can be a bit overwhelming if you've selected all possible sites! Theinfo.com makes no attempt to combine search results, so you have to be prepared for a fair bit of sifting, but that can be an advantage in some cases, as different search engines rate sites in very different ways. So this approach is useful for those more difficult searches, where your search terms may be less easy to narrow down. For example, I tried to find a site relating to the feature film "Go". Now being both a verb and a game the word "Go" is likely to appear on a million pages, even capitalised, so I wasn't surprised to find zilch on the first attempt. I closed the myriad new search windows that theinfo.com had opened (and selected a few less sites!) and tried "Go AND cinema". Some metasearch engines have difficulties with search terms that use expressions such as AND, OR, +, - etc. In this case, some of the sites used by theinfo.com still came up with nothing useful, but others put the film "Go" at the very top. (Additional Note: If I'd looked carefully enough I'd also have noticed they have a set of specialist search sites, including a category for "Movies". There are ten specialist categories - good, but not as wide-ranging as the 23 in Search Spaniel <http://www.searchspaniel.com>.) Theinfo.com doesn't pretend to be the only search engine you'll ever use. Like any search source, you need to have the right kind of query. But most of us tend to be lazy and stick with just a couple of search engines that we are used to. One bonus that comes with using a multi-search engine like theinfo.com or Search Spaniel is that you get a chance to discover new engines you may never have seen before, and to catch up on the latest advances of those you may not have touched for months (or even years!) Thus it can be a quick way to test the strengths and weaknesses of different search engines against each other. There is even a page on the site that explains when it's useful to use theinfo.com as opposed to other sites, an excellent feature I wish more search engines would adopt: <http://www.theinfo.com/about/whyuse.html> 3. Liszt <http://www.liszt.com/> the directory of mailing lists have been bought by Topica <http://www.topica.com> an even larger list of mailing lists - and one which also helps people put mailing lists together, subscribe, unsubscribe, read on-line and of course search for topics. Both directory and search engine, it will not only locate useful mailing lists for you, but allow you to search them for relevant messages and discussions. It's attractively laid-out, easy to use and covers a myriad subjects, with a list of links to other directories of lists, in case you can't find what you want on-site. They'll even help you start a mailing list of your own to cover your favourite search subject if you so wish! 4. If you're looking for specific pictures or sound, I hear more good things about the search engine HotBot <http://www.hotbot.com> which provides tick boxes to allow your search to include still images, video or audio sound clips, or even shockwave animations. Said to be one of the best MP3 search engines at the moment. 5. Finally: Want to find out more about urban legends and/or computer viruses? Here's a couple more sites to debunk those myths and leave you sleeping easier at night - with thanks to Khem who supplied them. - DATAFELLOWS: one of the best sites for the latest on virus myths: <http://www.europe.datafellows.com/virus-info/hoax> - MININGCO URBAN LEGENDS AND FOLKLORE: <http://urbanlegends.miningco.com/> MORE NEW AND UP-DATED URLS - ACRONYM FINDER - more than 89,000 general and specialised acronyms and abbreviations in many languages, new web-address: <http://www.AcronymFinder.com/> - ALL-IN-ONE - with a research link for dictionaries,thesaurus, maps, telephone directories, etc.: <http://www.allonesearch.com/> new web-address - ALTERNATIVE SCIENCE - a non-hysterical resource for starting research into some of the less conventional reaches of science. Intelligent and thought-provoking: <http://www.alternativescience.com/> - CINEMEDIA - still growing, with over 5,000 sites devoted to actors as well as links to over 700 magazines and journals, 800 film and video festivals, and 400 TV networks and channels, new web-address: <http://www.cinemedia.org> - ROYAL MAIL - UK Postcode lookup: <http://www.royalmail.co.uk/> ---- Online resources for film/TV studies may be found at ScreenSite http://www.tcf.ua.edu/ScreenSite