Jinfo: Newsletter No. 3

Newsletter No. 3

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                             Free Pint
          Helping you find quality information on the Web

ISSN 1460-7239                                     4 December 1997 #3
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             Welcome to the third issue of Free Pint!

The newsletter is going from strength to strength with the number of
subscribers increasing on an hourly basis.  However, we still need
your help: please pass the newsletter on to colleagues, family or
friends who you think would benefit from being able to find better
information on the Internet.

It is show time for the online information industry next week as the 
Online Information 97 conference and exhibition comes to Olympia,
London from the 9th - 11th December. If you use the Internet to find
business information then I strongly recommend that you attend.
To help you get the most out of your visit, David Simmons gives a 
light-hearted guide in the Tips & Techniques section.

The Feature Article this week gives you the insider low-down on how
to get even better results from your Internet searches. As always, I
would strongly recommend that you print-out Free Pint as this makes
it much easier to read and use.

Please do let me know if you find Free Pint useful and practical, and
if there is anything you would like to see covered.

All the best,
William Hann
Editor
w.hann@freepint.co.uk

PS: If you don't already receive Free Pint automatically, then
register to receive your free fortnightly copy at:
                   http://www.freepint.co.uk/

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                           IN THIS ISSUE

                        TIPS AND TECHNIQUES
                "Getting the Most Out of Online 97"

                          FEATURE ARTICLE
         "Getting Even Better Results from Search Engines"

                       LETTERS and QUESTIONS

                            ADVERTISERS

    Information Access Company, BizWeb2000, Learned Information,
    Investext, RBA Information Services and Riverside Promotions

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many articles you download. Further information: iacinfo@iacnet.com

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                        TIPS AND TECHNIQUES

                "Getting the Most Out of Online 97"
                         by David Simmons

It's *that* time of year again!  The time of year when we brave
sub-arctic conditions and congregate at Olympia for one/two/three
fun-filled days of product demos, hospitality (if you're lucky) and
(above all) lots of freebies.

This will be my seventh consecutive 'Online' exhibition ... but I'm
still looking forward to it immensely.  Why am I so positive ?  Well,
I've discovered that there is an art to getting the most out of
'Online', and I thought I'd share with you some handy hints for
maximising your enjoyment of the whole experience, as well as some
tips for surviving the event. 


Top 5 Handy Hints
-----------------

1)  Please note - this year 'Online' has expanded to a new and larger
venue - the National Hall (which is adjacent to its normal venue
Olympia 2)

2)  Before you arrive (or immediately after arrival) take some time
out to familiarise yourself with the layout of the exhibition, and
highlight all the stands you particularly don't want to miss.  There
are over 300 exhibitors this year, so it would be nigh-on impossible
to do them all justice.  Concentrate on your key exhibitors, and
obtain sweets and stress-balls from the others!

3) Take advantage of the 'information trails'.  These are new
features designed to improve the ease of navigating around the
exhibition.  There are six in total - Information Management,
Electronic Publishing Services, Financial & Corporate Information,
News & Media, Legal & Government Information and Science, Technology
& Medical Information.  Follow that trail!

4)  When your feet become weary, and you can't find a seat in the
restaurant areas, try the Apex Suite.  Here you can escape the
hurly-burly of the exhibition hall, and watch a series of free
fifteen-minute product presentations from exhibitors whilst you
do so.

5) To check out all the latest information about 'Online' on the Web
see http://www.online-information.com.


Top 5 Survival Tips
-------------------

1) Try to fit in some weight training in preparation for 'Online'.
This will stand you in good stead when it comes to lugging around
carrier bags crammed full of product literature and free Internet
magazines.  Failing that ... be selective about what you pick up.

2) Invest in a good pair of shoes (alternatively, bring along some
blister cream)

3) Take plenty of coffee breaks.  Apart from giving you a chance to
take the weight off your feet, the caffeine will help you stay alert
during the sales pitches

4) Make sure you bring along your own sandwiches (unless your
employer is happy to pay any expenses you incur), as the food
available at Olympia is not well known for its excellent value for
money .  If you fancy something a bit more substantial, find out
beforehand where all the hospitality events are, and try to get added
to some of the invitation lists.  If successful, you can ensure at
least one free (and normally rather splendid) lunch.  Swot up on the
company concerned beforehand, as this will aid small talk, and not
draw attention to the real gastronomic purpose of your visit!

5) Wrap up warm - and bring a brolly - as on your return journey you
can face quite a wait at Kensington (Olympia) tube station, and it's
in the open air.  Again, with a good hot lunch inside you this will
help to minimise excessive amounts of teeth-chattering.

Final thought ... has anyone ever actually forked out £10 to
attend "Online" ??

David Simmons

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David Simmons has worked in the information industry for 18 years.
He was employed by the BBC for 12 years in a variety of information
researcher posts, before joining FT Profile in 1992.  After working
initially in a marketing role he was appointed Business Intelligence
Analyst, where he provided a competitor and market intelligence
service for Financial Times Information's Electronic Business
Information division.  He was responsible for closely monitoring the
activity of all FT Profile's competitors, and for providing a daily
current awareness/alerting service on competitor and online industry
developments. He now works as a freelance information consultant, and
has recently written an article on competitor intelligence for the
December 1997 edition of "Business Information Review".

David can be contacted at david@skyblues.demon.co.uk

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     Is Free Pint useful? Let us know: letters@freepint.co.uk

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              Thinking about advertising in Free Pint?
   See the notes and special offers at http://www.freepint.co.uk/

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              Dan Wagner to open Online Information 97
Chief Executive Officer of The Dialog Corporation is to deliver this
year's Opening Address at Online Information 97.  Under the heading
"Online Industry in Context", the morning session of this year's
conference will analyse the rise of the Internet as the potential
market for professional information services.  Other speakers in this
session include Bill Bass of Forrester Research Inc, Tim Andrews, Dow
Jones Interactive, Ben Tomkins, Broadview Associations and Jeffrey S
Galt, The Dialog Corporation.

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                          FEATURE ARTICLE

         "Getting Even Better Results from Search Engines"
                          by William Hann

In the last issue I described when to use CAPITAL letters in the
keywords you type into Internet search engines.  Now I would like
to cover how you can tell a search engine which words are important,
which are unimportant, and indicate the meaning of those words.

This can be done in one of two ways: using plus and minus signs, and
using Boolean.

Plus & Minus Signs
------------------

Most Internet search engines allow you to use a plus "+" and a
minus "-" sign in front of keywords to indicate whether the term
should be present or not present respectively.  The plus or minus
sign is placed directly in front of the search term (no space
in-between). For instance:

              +halifax "west yorkshire" -"nova scotia"

would retrieve a list of Web pages which:

- all contain the word "halifax"

- optionally contain the phrase "west yorkshire". Notice that I have
  identified the phrase (words next to each other) using quotation
  marks.  Pages containing this phrase will be listed higher in the
  results than pages without.

- do not contain the phrase "nova scotia".

[Notice that in my search terms I only used all lower case letters.
If you would like to know why, then please see Free Pint Issue 2
which is on the Web site at http://www.freepint.co.uk/]

You can use plus and minus signs in Yahoo!, Excite, HotBot, Lycos,
Northern Light and Metacrawler. AltaVista offers this on the default
search page, but not on the Advanced search page.

Be careful with InfoSeek as it offers the plus sign but reserves the
minus sign to identify phrases, such as "west-yorkshire". Webcrawler
on the other hand doesn't offer this facility at all.


Boolean
-------

Boolean is different to the above in that it uses the three operators
AND, OR and NOT.  At first glance it looks simple to use but there
are a number of traps of which you should be aware.

AND
---
The AND operator is used to find pages which contain a
word/phrase AND contain another word/phrase.  For instance:

                   halifax and "west yorkshire"

This would give me a list of pages containing both the word "halifax"
and the phrase "west yorkshire".

Simple. Well sort of: the problems start when we look at ...

OR
--
The problem is that Boolean OR sometimes means the same as the
everyday English language word "and".  For instance, if I wanted to
ask you for a list of pages containing details of building societies
which have recently converted to PLC status I may say:

    "I am interested in Abbey National and Halifax and Woolwich"

However, a search engine would read this as meaning you only wanted
links to pages which contained ALL these words (like a Boolean AND).
Therefore you would have to use Boolean OR to say that you are
interested in pages linking to one or many of the above. The syntax
would be:

    "abbey national" or halifax or woolwich

Hopefully this indicates the first problem.  Remember, if all
words/phrases MUST be present then use Boolean AND, and if any of the
words/phrases MAY be present then use Boolean OR.

NOT
---
Boolean NOT is similar to the minus sign earlier.  You use it to say
what you do not want. For instance, if I am only interested in
Halifax town or Halifax PLC, then I may use:

                     halifax not "nova scotia"

This would list pages containing the work "halifax" but not those
which also contained the phrase "nova scotia". This example was used
in the first issue of Free Pint and the problems of NOT were
described therein.  To reiterate, be careful when using NOT because
you may exclude pages which are useful.  For example, a page that we
are interested in may contain the phrase at the bottom "oh, and by
the way, we are not based in Nova Scotia".  As a result of using
Boolean NOT this page would be excluded from your list of
search results.

Brackets
--------
Obviously, using Boolean we can construct much more complex search
strategies than simply using plus and minus signs. However, this
complexity can also cause problems.  Take the following example:

          halifax and "west yorkshire" or "plc"

Now to you and me it is perfectly clear what I want.  However, a
search engine may not perform the above search in the correct order.  

What I mean is that a human being would look at the whole search
statement and have an understanding of the _meaning_.  Computers
cannot understand meaning and so they have to perform the above
search in two stages: It would look firstly at one operator, and
then the other.

If it looked at the AND first, then the resulting list of pages would
contain documents containing both the word "halifax" and the phrase
"west yorkshire", and pages containing the word "plc". This is not
correct as I am not interested in pages just containing the
word "plc".

If it looked at the OR first, then it would correctly produce a list
of pages which contained the word "halifax" and the phrase "west
yorkshire", including a list of pages containing the words "halifax"
and "plc".

The way that you make the meaning more clear to a search engine is by
using parenthese (brackets).  Quite simply, a crystal clear version
of the above search would be:

              halifax and ("west yorkshire" or "plc")


So Boolean consists of AND, OR and NOT, and most search engines
implement some or all of the above.

AltaVista uses Boolean only on its Advanced search page (plus and
minus do not work on this page). Here you can use AND, OR and AND
NOT (notice that to use Boolean NOT you must put "AND NOT"). Excite
works in the same way, and the Boolean operators must be in capital
letters with a space on either side.  You can also use parentheses.
It also has a "power search form" which performs a similar thing
without the need for Boolean.

Yahoo! offers Boolean on the Search Options page (click on the
hypertext word "Options" next to the search box). HotBot offers
Boolean on the default screen, but not in conjunction with the
pull-down menus saying "all the words", "any of the words", etc.
It also uses parentheses as does Webcrawler with its Boolean
operators. Lycos offer Boolean only in its "Lycos Pro" mode which is
accessible from the US based Lycos page.

InfoSeek does not allow Boolean, and Northern Light only offers OR
and NOT (it doesn't offer AND at this time but will in the future).
Metacrawler recommends against using Boolean (remember that this
service searches across numerous engines).  It does however have the
option to search for "any" or "all" of the words, but this only
allows for the simplest of search strategies.


Summary of results
------------------
Hopefully the above has given an introduction to the usefulness of
using Plus & Minus and Boolean.  However, it is always worth
remembering that all search engines are different: they index
different Web pages and have different searching options. Also
remember that Web pages are not formally structured like records on
other information systems, and so searching is a very uncertain
process.

Although the data about individual search engines is available on
their Help pages and FAQs (Frequently Asked Questions), these won't
tell you the pitfalls and problems of using these facilities.  For
that information you can rely on Free Pint!


Here is a handy summary of the functionality offered by the major
search engines:

Boolean and Plus & Minus
------------------------
Yahoo! --------- http://www.yahoo.com/
               - Boolean only on Search Options page
Excite --------- http://www.excite.com/
               - Boolean NOT = "AND NOT"
AltaVista ------ http://altavista.digital.com/
               - Plus and minus on default search screen
               - Boolean on advanced screen
               - Boolean NOT = "AND NOT"
HotBot --------- http://www.hotbot.com/
Lycos ---------- http://www.lycos.com/
               - Boolean only in Lycos Pro
Northern Light - http://www.northernlight.com/
               - no Boolean AND

Plus & Minus Only
-----------------
InfoSeek ------- http://www.infoseek.com/
               - only uses Plus
Metacrawler ---- http://www.metacrawler.com/

Boolean Only
------------
WebCrawler ----- http://webcrawler.com/

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William Hann is the founder of the information consultancy Willco.
The company offers Internet training and Web site services.
More details can be found on the Web at http://www.willco.co.uk/

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               Link To Us And Win Free Advertising!
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             Free Pint: what do you like and dislike?
            Please let us know: letters@freepint.co.uk

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                 RBA Information Services
For publications and training on how to use the Internet more
effectively, contact us at RBA. Topics that we regularly cover in
our workshops and seminars include Internet search tools, using the
Internet for business information, beginners guide to the Net,
choosing the right software, how to avoid and get rid of junk mail.
Tel: 0118 947 2256, E-mail: enquiries@rba.co.uk
http://www.rba.co.uk/

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                       LETTERS and QUESTIONS

We've had a great response to Free Pint, but keep those letters and
questions coming. Write to letters@freepint.co.uk

Please note, questions and letters may be edited for content or
length and we cannot guarantee a reply.

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A quick scan of the first two issues and it looks good. Is it
possible that you can have special features in the future for sites
on particular subjects, e.g. sites giving full text from brokers
reports.

John Barber
Information Manager
PharmaVentures Ltd,
Oxford

---------------------

William Hann answers:

Dear John

Thank you for your letter.

We are going to start introducing subject specific issues from the
New Year.  We currently have issues lined up to cover IT/Telecom's,
Engineering and Current Awareness.

If you know of authors that might be interested in writing for Free
Pint, then please ask them to contact us here.  Guidelines for authors
are on the Web site at http://www.freepint.co.uk/
I would very much like to include an article about sites containing the
full text of broker reports.

Thank you once again for your support.

William Hann
Editor, Free Pint
w.hann@freepint.co.uk

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I just recieved the second Free Pint mailing list. Thank you. As an
internet consultant I found the information valuable enough to use in
my day to day work.

Regards,
Peter
------------------------------------------------
Peter Boersma                     General Design
http://www.design.nl/~peter/  Internet Solutions
 Anagram #16 of Peter Boersma : Team pro beers

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         Promotional gifts supplied by Riverside Promotions
                Tel: 01784 454785  Fax: 01784 466157

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Well, I am afraid that's it for another fortnight.  If you have found
the newsletter useful, then please tell everyone about it!  Feel free
to send as many copies as you like to who you like.

                       See you in two weeks!

                       William Hann, Editor
                      w.hann@freepint.co.uk

(c) Willco 1997
http://www.freepint.co.uk/
ISSN: 1460-7239

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Free Pint (ISSN 1460-7239) is a free email newsletter for anyone who
uses the Internet to get information for their work in any business
or organisation. The newsletter is written by professionals who share 
how they find quality and reliable information on the Internet.

More details about subscribing, contributing or advertising can be
found on the Web at http://www.freepint.co.uk/

Please note: The newsletter is published by the information
consultancy Willco (http://www.willco.co.uk/), and the publishers
will NEVER make the subscriber list available to any other company
or organisation.

The opinions, advice, products and services offered herein are the
sole responsibility of the contributors. Whilst all reasonable care
has been taken to ensure the accuracy of the publication, the
publishers cannot accept responsibility for any errors or omissions.

This publication may be freely copied and/or distributed in its
entirety. However, individual sections MAY NOT be copied and/or
distributed without the prior written agreement of the publishers.
All rights reserved.

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