Subject: Free Pint No.25 - Desktop Delivery and Competition Free Pint "Helping 13,500 people use the Web for their work" http://www.freepint.co.uk/ ISSN 1460-7239 29 October 1998 #25 > = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = IN THIS ISSUE EDITORIAL TIPS AND TECHNIQUES "Delivered to your Desktop" by Ben Heald FEATURE ARTICLE "Making it part of your life" by Ian Watson FREE PINT FEEDBACK CONTACT INFORMATION ONLINE VERSION WITH ACTIVATED HYPERLINKS http://www.freepint.co.uk/issues/291098.htm > = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = ARE YOU MAKING THE MOST OF THE INTERNET? If not, you need to read Net Profit. http://www.net-profit.co.uk/ "Other newsletters I skim through. I read all of Net Profit." Mark Buckley Birds Eye Wall's. Net Profit is Europe's leading publication covering electronic business from supply chains to web advertising. Net Profit is jargon-free. It is written for business managers by prominent business journalists and analysts. Request a FREE sample copy. Email: info@net-profit.co.uk > = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = [np251] EDITORIAL Brimming, bursting, chock-a-block, jam-packed and stuffed ... ... are all good words for describing this issue of Free Pint! We have articles packed full of useful links. We have a Feedback section containing letters about charity links, searching, Internet access and even a competition where you can win rare movie merchandise by helping a Free Pint reader promote his Web site on a tight budget. Have you visited the Web site recently at http://www.freepint.co.uk? You can read and download all past issues of Free Pint as well as seeing the handy index of links on the Free Pint Community page at http://www.freepint.com/ >>> EARLY CONGESTION WARNING ~ Avoid stand 414 at "Online 98" <<< May I now invite you to read on and enjoy your twenty fifth Free Pint! Kind regards, William William Hann MIInfSc, Managing Editor e: william@freepint.co.uk t: +44 (0)1784 455435 f: +44 (0)1784 455436 PS: Printing Free Pint means you can read it at a more convenient time. The newsletter looks best in a fixed width font like Courier and you can reserve your free copy by visiting http://www.freepint.co.uk/ or email with the message "subscribe" now. > = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = *** DO YOU NEED TO STAY UP TO DATE WITH THE INFORMATION INDUSTRY? *** If so, then you should be reading Information World Review. With key coverage of online, Internet, intranet and CD-ROM content worldwide, IWR is all you need to stay informed. To receive all this every month for only 38 pounds UK/ 45 pounds ROW please visit www.learned.co.uk or email: customerservice@learned.co.uk > = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = [li252] >>> Shouldn't you be advertising in Free Pint? <<< http://www.freepint.co.uk/advert.htm > = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = TIPS AND TECHNIQUES "Delivered to your Desktop" by Ben Heald One of the things that often surprises newcomers to the Net is the ability to subscribe to electronic newsletters on all manner of business and leisure pursuits; most of which are entirely free. You will end up settling on just a few, but I want to run through some of the wires that I've used over the last year that can be worthwhile from a business perspective. There are literally gazillions of these wires, and as with everything on the Net, the search engines can be a good place to start. Type "newswires" or "newsletters" into Yahoo and you will be faced with hundreds of sites that offer these things. http://www.yahoo.com/ There are also many other services that you can pay for, which I'm ignoring! But if you want some resources pre-sifted for you - read on ... HM Treasury releases as they break ---------------------------------- For quite some time now, the UK Treasury has been offering a service that emails you their press releases. Pithy, this is the stuff the journalists start with, but if you want it in its unadorned state! http://www.hm-treasury.gov.uk/pub/html/news.html NewsPage -------- NewsPage is a service from NewsEdge that you can either configure as your own free page that you visit or for a subscription of $4.95 per month, you can have 20 stories a day that meet your profile delivered to you by email. You only get sent the first paragraph; and then link to your personalised page at NewsPage. http://www.newsedge.com/products/newspage/index.htm NetMind ------- The premise of NetMind is slightly different. You register as many web addresses as you like with it. It then sends you an e-mail whenever the page you register changes. Not so good for dynamic sites that change every day, but invaluable if there is something you're waiting to see happen. These days, what people are saying on their web sites can be useful. http://www.netmind.com/ ITN --- ITN has just announced 'Britain's first personalised desktop news service', which is stretching it rather a long way, as the only degree to which you can personalise it is whether you choose 1, 2 or 3 stories in three categories (World, UK and Business stories). http://www.itn.co.uk/desktopnews/webpage/preferences.htm The Economist ------------- The Economist sends out a summary of the week's news every Thursday night. It is really no more than a taster, but if you want to spend no more than 2 minutes gaining some perspective on the business deals of the week, this is for you. http://www.postbox.co.uk/economist.htm Infobeat -------- Infobeat is a service that has quite a good range of business and finance wires (with a US focus), plus weather and sports. It even has a First Tracks alert that will be starting up again soon that tells you when there has been more than 3" of snow at your chosen ski-resorts. Particularly if you are interested in the business of Internet sites, you need their 'Internet Daily'. http://www.infobeat.com/ Ziff Davis alerts ----------------- Inevitably the best exponents of the genre are from the computing industry. Try Jesse Berst's Alerts from Ziff Davis. These are really quite opinionated, and when you follow the link to the full story, you get both links to other relevant stories and the opportunity to 'sound off' on the subject. http://www.anchordesk.com/ Notable absentees ----------------- Particularly in the UK it is still interesting to note who is absent from this list. Wouldn't it be great if The Times sent out the equivalent of their First Section back page every morning? The dilemma for The Times (and all the other broadsheets) of course is that they don't want to cannibalise their traditional revenue streams. For example the FT has a 'while you're away' service but this is just a one off rather than something you can register for. This will all change completely next year as the publishers realise that while they sit on the fence new businesses are only too delighted to be given the opportunity to fill the void. > - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - Ben Heald is the Director of Virtual Communities at Sift plc. He can be contacted at bheald@sift.co.uk Sift plc own three focussed communities for UK business professionals, AccountingWEB, BusinessZONE and TrainingZONE, all of which include free weekly newswires that sift and alert users to developments and features made available on sites within their sector. http://www.accountingweb.co.uk http://www.businesszone.co.uk http://www.trainingzone.co.uk > = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = INTRANET MANAGEMENT - A TFPL GUIDE TO BEST PRACTICE This report will assist in getting the maximum return from an intranet and reducing the risk of disappointment that staff often feel when the hype fails to match the reality. Of particular assistance to managers and intranet project teams who have been asked to develop an intranet strategy and are committed to achieving success through good content management. COST 85 pounds & PP. Email kim.mullings@tfpl.com or visit http://www.tfpl.com/consult/intranet_management_tfpl.htm SPECIAL OFFER: 5 pounds discount to freepint readers quote ref: FP123 > = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = [tf253] >>> Recommend Free Pint to colleagues and friends easily <<< http://www.freepint.co.uk/reco.htm > = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = FEATURE ARTICLE "Making it part of your life" by Ian Watson In Free Pint No.9 I suggested that to get the best from the web you have to incorporate it into your life and work. This column looks at some sites which have proved useful both in my work in a newspaper library and socially. First, work. The Editor & Publisher Interactive (http://www.mediainfo.com/) is a well designed site full of useful information about trends in the newspaper business, especially the online versions. It has links to the world's online newspapers and an archive which costs about 10 US dollars a month for access. At the time of writing it has an article predicting that the 'free content' times on the web may be coming to an end. Fees for obtaining popular online information - from movie reviews to airline fares to stock market quotes - will rise at the same time that the cost of gaining access to the Internet will continue to decline. Many helpful sites are still free however. Take the Internet Movie Database (http://www.imd.com/) which allows searches by TV/Movie title, cast & crew and character name. Very useful for checking out the work of specific artistes or directors, finding who has played a certain character or for general background on a film. The UK Government has made a lot of progress in providing free information on the web. Scottish devolution is a big issue at present and up-to-date information is available at http://www.scottish-devolution.org.uk/ The Register of MP's Interests is available at http://www.parliament.the-stationery-office.co.uk/pa/cm199798/cmre gmem/memi02.htm while the Number 10 home page (http://www.number-10.gov.uk/) is worth a visit for, amongst other things, some history of the Prime Minister's official residence, a list of past PMs (including short biographies), cabinet committee membership and discussion forums on government policy. On the international front http://www.trytel.com/~aberdeen/index.html is the route to finding addresses for world politicians (including e-mail), while for economic, social and political background information on countries the CIA World Factbook (http://www.odci.gov/cia/publications/factbook) is a convenient source. The DTI provides export market information at http://www.dti.gov.uk/ots/emic/ which includes vital statistics for all countries. Finding out about policies and places is an important part of everyday work but finding people is something newspapers need to do from time to time. Courtesy of Dutch company Bureau van Dijk, the UK electoral register can now be searched on the web (http://cameo.bvdep.com/). It's not free but is certainly worth checking out if your business requires finding people. You need to buy credits and the more you buy the cheaper it gets. Entry level is 1000 credits for 500 pounds while 250,000 credits will cost you 13,400 pounds. It costs 2 units to kick off a search on, say, surname, but you can refine the subset of surnames at no charge. Displaying addresses costs another 2 units. You can also get socio-economic profiles of the locality for 1 credit. It works very well but there are some problems with content. For example, I live in an eight flat tenement property but the service was unable to work out who lives in which flat: in fact it seemed to think we all live together in a communal establishment "like an old folks home". Charming! On checking with the supplier I find that they must re-key all the information from the electoral registers in the UK. What a waste: this data must exist electronically so why not make it available to resellers? If you need find out if someone is disqualified from becoming a company director have a look at http://www.companieshouse.gov.uk/ You'll also find out how to get information on UK companies. A good jumping off point for UK business information is Sheila Webber's site at Strathclyde University: business.dis.strath.ac.uk. Sport is well covered on the web. Match Facts (http://www.matchfacts.com/) is a treasure trove of football results, fixtures, club and player profiles, and league tables. It also includes a news section on transfers and managerial moves. The subject of football provides a seamless link from work to play ... Off-duty, I have a social life to organise and the Web can be quite useful. First, with some friends I wanted to find a restaurant in Edinburgh, so I went to http://www.leisurehunt.com/ This service had changed since my last visit, the useful feature of clicking on a map having disappeared to be replaced with a simple search box for name, type of restaurant etc. Having found a restaurant, you can call up a map showing its location and there is a useful feature of looking for other restaurants in the locality. Unfortunately 'locality' means within 5km which is effectively the whole of Edinburgh. Not much use if the one you want is fully booked and you'd like to try another nearby! The Restaurant Marketing Association (http://www.nosh.com/) also claims to provide guidance on eating establishments in central Scotland. Inexplicably, for Glasgow, it lists only 21 restaurants, none of which would be classed among better known city establishments. For each establishment there are buttons for a photograph, menu and wine list, none of which were active. Eventually I took the Rough Guide to Scotland off the shelf and found the place we wanted in minutes. The lesson here is that although the web can be a great source of information, some sites are not all they claim to be, but neither are many printed directory and listings services. Still in adventure mode I turned to http://www.multimap.com/ for interactive maps of the world. This is a useful service which allows you to zoom from a map of the world right down to city level and then search for local information. Or you can search by postcode, locality or telephone code, or (London only) for street names. The local information available includes cinema listings, hotels, restaurants and tourist information points, but the information can be patchy. Multimap is quite useful for picking up local information but these travel sites do give the impression that content is lagging behind technology. Hotel booking by the web is quite easy. For example on http://www.travelweb.com/ you can browse hotel listings, look at photographs and make a booking. Before a trip to Berlin a visit to http://www.berlin-info.de/ proved very worthwhile. From a map of the city you can check out hotels in the various Bezirks and search by price and facilities. There are an increasing number of hotel booking services available: a search for city name and hotels on search services like Yahoo, Ask Jeeves or Excite will provide the necessary links. The facility to make a booking from your terminal is very convenient. If you don't want to spend ages on the phone asking about rail travel, Railtrack offers a web-based alternative. Go to http://www.railtrack.co.uk/travel/index.html and enter details about where you want to go, from where and when you want to leave or arrive and it will suggest a train. You can then ask for earlier or later trains. Most of these services are free but if the predictions are right we will soon see charging mechanisms for some. Last word to Rajiv M. Dewan (http://www.ssb.rochester.edu/) of the University of Rochester as reported in Editor & Publisher: "The Internet is fast becoming an amusement park that charges both for admission and tickets to individual attractions. As the cost of admission drops, more Internet attractions will charge higher fees." > - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - Ian Watson is Information Services Manager at The Herald & Evening Times. He can be contacted by email to iwatson@cims.co.uk > = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = >>> How do YOU use the Web at work? <<< > = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = FREE PINT FACT Through manual tracking of new subscribers, we know the geographical location of 93% of our subscribers How many Internet services can boast that percentage? > = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = FREE PINT FEEDBACK > - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - Subject: Competition - Web Site Promotion From: Robert Lyn Davies, Editor, media01 Date: Thursday 22nd October 1998 "As a regular reader of Free Pint I have recognised the expertise of your staff, correspondents and readers as something of great value. Especially since I have a new advertising conundrum to sort out: I publish an arts and entertainment interests Web site called media01 (http://www.media01.com/). Its purpose is to provide news and reviews, publishing opportunities for new talent, online games, and other additional information related to the very wide area of interest it encompasses. The problem is that traditional marketing techniques apparently do not apply to such an unfocused publication - which means we are not getting through to the audience we would like to reach ... although our experience is that, on the Web, the problem should vanish and perhaps become an advantage. The question I would like to put to your readers is: How do we attract as many visitors to the site as possible? Since media01 is currently being run on a shoestring how can we do this on the smallest budget possible? I do not expect such useful comments for nothing and would therefore like to offer this up as a competition. We have a bag full of film stills, merchandising, and other hard to get items up for grabs and will gladly give it to the Free Pint reader who supplies the best solution to this problem." Robert Lyn Davies, Editor, media01 William Hann, Managing Editor, adds: We think this is a great idea and very inventive. Send your suggestions and ideas to . We will print the winning entry in a forthcoming issue (along with other useful suggestions). We have the bag of goodies here in the office and can confirm that it does indeed contain some rare merchandising (including Godzilla yo-yo's no less!). > - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - Subject: Charity Links From: Rex Cooke, Editor, Free Pint Date: Wednesday 28th October 1998 In Free Pint No.24 we had the following query from a reader: "I am trying to ascertain some decent sites that contain information on UK charities (any kind of info!)." We had a tremendous response and here is a summary of the feedback: Charities Direct - http://www.caritasdata.co.uk/index.htm "Covers around 5,000 of the UK's leading charities with information drawn from CaritasData's Charities Database." DM Charity Commission - http://www.charity-commission.gov.uk/ Charity Net - http://www.charitynet.org/ UK Fundraising - http://www.fundraising.co.uk/ "I myself spent quite some time looking at charity related sites a while back, following the death of my grandfather, who was heavily involved in UK fundraising, and I found UK Fundraising to be an excellent source of information." DS Voluntary Organisations Internet Server - http://www.vois.org.uk/ National Lottery Charities Board - http://www.nlcb.org.uk/index.htm Demon Charity Pages - http://www.demon.co.uk/charities/ http://www.phon.ucl.ac.uk/home/dave/TOC_H/Charities/ It is a page of links to various charities and associated organisitions (I have found it a little slow to load however!)." LR http://www.oneworld.org/ "I'd like to recommend that the gentleman tries OneWorld as it links to lots of charities and also the Reuters site (http://www.alertnet.org/) which has good coverage of what is going on all over the world." SW We would like to offer special thanks for their help to: Juliet Eve, Central Library, Croydon http://www.croydon.gov.uk/ Donald M Mackay, Health Education Board for Scotland http://www.hebs.scot.nhs.uk/ Leonie Reynolds Dan Sumption Sinead Wilson > - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - Subject: Internet Connection Costs From: William Hann, Managing Editor, Free Pint Date: Wednesday 28th October 1998 In the last issue we asked the question "How would users in other countries feel if they had to pay per minute charges for their Internet connection as we do here in the UK?". Here are some of the responses: "I think I would lose my mind if I had to pay per minute for an internet connection. I don't see how it's quite fair." Jon D. Atwood - http://welcome.to/options.unlimited "As regards to having to pay /minute for internet access ...Glad that has changed. In summary: Lower rates = (de-regulation + Competition + users) Government de-regulation of telephone companies (+ most utilities we use) brought about competition, which in turn ensured lower rates for both internet access and long distance. As well, I expect we have many more individuals on-line within North America than the UK, which obviously supports the competitions' profit + loss statements. For the past 12 months I have been paying Cdn$21.95 per month for both unlimited internet access, as well as discounted 'any time or day' long distance calling. I have NEVER had a problem with internet busy/slow responses. However, my ISP (http://www.acc.com) is not widely known in Canada as yet. Other companies local to my area are quickly adopting rates similar to what I have been paying this past year - but I often hear complaints about access difficulties." Anonymous, Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada "I'm here in the UK too. I also thought that HomeHighway would be great. Alas, no dice. I have been told that ADSL and 1MBit access will be extensions to HomeHighway in the future, but I don't know when they will be available. You have probably heard of BT Click, BT's light user service. Cable & Wireless made a package to compete with BT Click, but introduced it before BT introduced theirs. I confronted the Customer Service manager of C&W (Alasdair King) and told him that what we needed was permanent, fast connections at affordable rates. He has told me that they are working on it. I think that within 6 months, we will see some changes in the way we access the Net here in the UK. Incidentally, I was playing on the T1 line at the college where I study currently, and managed to download a 12 Mb file in 4 minutes. In the middle of the day. A record! Thanks for a great Free Pint!" Mike Reed, Reeds Web Hosting, http://www.reedsweb.net/ "I had no idea you guys had to pay by the minute. Why is that? I have seen a fledgling company in the U.S. which doesn't charge any access fees at all, only about $100us for the software and setup fees. They are still working out the bugs, and getting advertisers, but it sounds like a good deal. Please explain to me why you have to pay by the minute. Are there just no ISP's willing to start some competition. I am looking forward to your response." Jay Burgess, Texas, USA > - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - Subject: Search Engines From: William Hann, Managing Editor, Free Pint Date: Wednesday 28th October 1998 Search engines is an important topic which fills out postbag and so here is a selection of some the feedback: "Sorry, the voice of scepticism once again but ... I thought I'd try out Mamma after it was recommended in Free Pint. However, I am not convinced it is entirely accurate. It seemed to miss obvious links that would appear at the top of a search in various engines. Anybody else had the same problem? Thanks." Olly Ogg "Another search engine, a rival to Mamma and Dogpile, would have to be "ProFusion". I've used this since it started at the University of Texas. Since then, it has its own domain http://www.profusion.com/ and has won numerous awards. Need I say more?" Mike Reed "I would like to introduce you and your readers to a new search engine tool EXPRESS BY INFOSEEK(TM) available at http://express.infoseek.com/ This new software is amazing in that it searches 300 sources on your desktop and is free!" Phil McKinney, Phil&Moke's Secret Free Place http://www.maxpatch.com/ "Reason for my message regarding the similar sites search is to mention to you the alexa.com software, which you probably have come across but I didn't see mention of in the article. Alexa has some other good analysis features too and it's available as a free download (basic version). It is a handy tool. Thanks for your great resources and editorials." Jan > - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - DO YOU HAVE A QUESTION, COMMENT OR REPLY? Let us know your feedback or favourite site by sending an email to the Free Pint team now by email to remembering to include your name, title and company or organisation. Please note, if you write to us we may publish your letter in whole or part for the interest of our subscribers unless you request otherwise at the time of writing. Please let us know if you wish your contact details to be withheld. > = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = Thank you for reading Free Pint. We hope you will forward this copy to colleagues, friends and journalists, or ask them to visit our Web site soon at http://www.freepint.co.uk/ See you in two weeks! Kind regards, William Hann, Managing Editor william@freepint.co.uk (c) Willco 1998 http://www.willco.co.uk/ > = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = FREE PINT FUTURE ISSUES 12/11/98 #26 - Cookies and CD-ROM and the Web 26/11/98 #27 - Innovation and What to expect at "Online 98" 17/12/98 #28 - Best of the Year and Review of "Online 98" [Provisional] > = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = > = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = CONTACT INFORMATION William Hann MIInfSc, Managing Editor e: william@freepint.co.uk t: +44 (0)1784 455435 f: +44 (0)1784 455436 Rex Cooke FIInfSc FRSA, Editor e: rex@freepint.co.uk t: +44 (0)1784 455435 f: +44 (0)1784 455436 Jane, Administrator e: jane@freepint.co.uk Address (no stamp needed) Willco "Free Pint", FREEPOST (SEA3901), Staines Middlesex, TW18 3BR, United Kingdom Web - http://www.freepint.co.uk Advertising - ads@freepint.co.uk Subscriptions - subs@freepint.co.uk Letters & Comments - feedback@freepint.co.uk Latest Issue Autoresponder - auto@freepint.co.uk > = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = 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. To subscribe, unsubscribe, find details about contributing, advertising or to see past issues, please visit the Web site at http://www.freepint.co.uk/ or call +44 (0)1784 455 435. Please note: The newsletter is published by the information consultancy Willco (http://www.willco.co.uk/) providers of Internet consultancy, training and publishing services. 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. Product names used in Free Pint are for identification purposes only, and may be trademarks of their respective owners. Free Pint disclaims any and all rights in those marks. All rights reserved. > = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = > = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = =