The LangaList 8-Jul-99 A Free Email Newsletter from Fred Langa About BrowserTune, HotSpots, Columns, Tips & Tricks, and Other Activities In This Issue: What's The Best Search Engine For Serious Searching? Share That Web Access And Save! 40,000+ Testers Can't Be Wrong Hmmm. Anyone Else Have This problem? PT Barnum More on "Y2K BS" Hot, Hot, Hot NT Bug Parade Continues About Those Books I Mentioned. Sorry, No Ginzu Knives Just For Grins More! What's The Best Search Engine For Serious Searching? Search engines are sure in the news lately---every portal is trying to tout its engine as the "best" and to back up the claim through mergers, acquisitions, partnerships and technology improvements. But what's "best" for home surfers sure isn't best for business users, nor vice versa; search engines are definitely a place where one size does not fit all. Despite the fact that there are literally hundreds of engines out there and dozens of large-scale engines, the quality of their search results varies enormously. In fact, search engines might seem like a commodity, but they're definitely, absolutely, positively not. Let me give you one quick example: Go to Yahoo, type in "CMP Media" and you'll get exactly one hit--- the CMP Media home page. OK, that's useful, but not very. Try the same search at Lycos, and you also get exactly one hit: But it's ridiculous--- it's a sub-page on something called the "Wall Street Directory" that's reviewing CMP's "TechInvestor" service, with no mention of anything else. LookSmart's "most visited" option gives essentially the same results for "CMP Media" as does Lycos, pointing just to TechInvestor. LookSmart's more general search is even more useless: It points to "World - Entertainment - Music - Genres - Other Genres - New Age - Artists A-L - Enya - Photos & Multimedia." Now, I'm no longer a CMP employee, but I`m pretty sure CMP has nothing whatsoever to do with photos of pop musician Enya. Netscape's vaunted "New Search" feature serves up 10 hits, but the top one is a two-year-old press release. How about the bottom one? Well, (drum roll, please) it's another two year old press release. And all the Netscape results are, in fact, pulled from just two places: CNET and Wired. That's probably in part due to the fact that Netscape's new proprietary search is a Yahoo-like list of sites reviewed by some 13,000 volunteer editors. That's fine for the reviewed sites, but of the 300 million or so web pages out there, they've only gotten to 675,000. Plus, as this example shows, even the reviewed sites may not be at all up to date. What good is that for really serious searching? In fact, a recent AP story ranked the search engines according to how much of the web they actually indexed. The winner---if you can call it that--- was NorthernLight: it covers all of 16% of the total web. Imagine that: The best you can do is to search just 16% of the web! The other engines cover these pathetic percentages: Snap: 15.5 Altavista: 15.5 HotBot: 11.3 Microsoft: 8.5 Infoseek: 8.0 Google: 7.8 Yahoo: 7.4 Excite: 5.6 Lycos: 2.5 Euroseek: 2.2 Despite these obvious shortcomings, search engines still are essential for serious research. You gotta use `em. In this week's InformationWeek column, I'll tell you which search engine I keep coming back to (and believe me, I've tried `em all!). Then it's your turn: Of all the engines out there which ones have you found useful for serious research, and why? Which services let you cut through the clutter? Which ones give you results broad enough to be useful, but not so broad as to leave you drowning in data? Conversely, which ones are the dogs that return old data, dead links, or simply have too much noise and too little signal? Let's pool our knowledge: Join in the discussion at http://www.informationweek.com/langaletter --------------Please Visit This LangaList Sponsor!---------- Free PHOTO greetings! Share your special moments with family and friends. New PHOTO greetings at Zing.com! Send animated cards starring you or choose from thousands of photos. Tons of funny, cute, cool and animated cards for you to customize. Zing.com - the hottest new place for online greetings! http://www.zing.com/z?e40c50z11 AOL Users: New PHOTO Greetings ------------------------------------------------------------ Share That Web Access And Save! You'll find lost of great posts from your fellow readers in the ongoing WinMag "Dialog Box" discussion of ways to share all kinds of Internet access--- dial-up, cable, satellite, etc. (Did you know that two or more people can simultaneously share a 56K modem usually with little or no apparent loss of speed or responsiveness?) Check out my column (with links to tons of into to get you started) and then join in the discussion at http://bbs.winmag.com/columns/archives/070499/monday/column.asp?frames=yes Let's pool out knowledge: Join in! 41K+ Testers Can't Be Wrong As of today over 41,000 users have run the BT2K demo version. With this week's update, this may be your last chance to try the demo version of BT2K before we go live with the full beta! Check it out at http://www.browsertune.com/bt2kdemo/ Hmmm. Anyone Else Have This problem? Reader Bruce Liddy sent in an unsettling report of an Office 2000 bug I hadn't heard of. I'll mention it here as a possible warning, and also in hopes that perhaps some other readers can tell us if they've encountered the same thing: I am usually a silent reader. However after last weeks episode with MS 2000 Premier upgrade. I wanted to tell someone who could get the word out. As you know, Premier comes in 3 CD's. The 2nd CD has a hell of booby trap. If upon install, you see an error #2355 Abort immediately. I did not :-( and continued the install, having MS restart my computer. I was never able to have windows boot up again ! So after paying for the $35 "Premier" tech support, Format C: was the only solution ! The curious thing was... the Techie spoke of "we know of this error and should have a solution soon" Wow !! a bug of this proportion, and there is NO warning out there ! I hope my experience was a rare one, I suspect it is not. Keep up the good work and I hope my note helps Bruce Thanks, Bruce! Anyone else run into this? PT Barnum You folks are amazing! LangaList readers come from all over the world and span every walk of life. And with the enormous range of interests you collectively have, each week's batch of reader mail brings fascinating tidbits. Take the item in last week's issue on the new AOL PCs, for example. (See http://www.langa.com/newsletters/June-29-99.htm#aolpc ) I ended the item with this: PT Barnum was wrong--- there's not a sucker born every minute: there are boatloads of them born every minute. This led to some lively email having nothing to do whatsoever with AOL or free PCs, but with PT Barnum! Some highlights: The site at http://home.nycap.rr.com/useless/barnum/barnum.html lists the many phrases from Barnum that have entered common usage in American English ("come rain or shine" is one and "let's get this show on the road" is another). But the site claims that "there's a sucker born every minute" is not a Barnum expression! Instead, it attributes that saying to David Hannum, the perpetrator of the "Cardiff Giant" hoax. But another site ( http://www.netfunny.com/rhf/jokes/91q2/ptbar.html) says that Barnum did indeed popularize the "sucker a minute" phrase, and offers an old anecdote (about, believe it or not, cherry-colored cats) as soft evidence. Check `em out, and decide for yourself! More on "Y2K BS" Last issue's article on Y2K BS (see http://www.langa.com/newsletters/Jul-06-99.htm#y2k ) also generated some excellent reader mail, but this was a lot more serious than the for-fun PT Barnum information. Reader Jeff Brielmaier wrote: Worse than Y2K test programs that claim you need to buy the "retail" version are the folks trying to hawk the plug-in ISA cards that claim to fix the Y2K problem. Reading their web pages, most people will think that their life/data is at risk if they don't buy the card. There are *free* Downloadable Y2K O/S drivers available. Below are three that I've found. So, for those folks that have a non-Y2K complaint system, perhaps one of these free drivers will keep them going without having to spend their $$$ for a "commercial" program. Acer (DOS/Win3x/Win9x/WinNT/Novell4): http://www.acer.com.tw/service/y2k/ Dell (DOS/Win3x/Win9x): http://support.dell.com/filelib/download/index.asp?fileid=946&libid=7 Holmes (DOS): http://www.wsnet.com/~designer/holmesfx/ Thanks, Jeff! Speaking of Y2K information, some readers reported problems with the WinMag link to my feature article on free, easy Y2K fixes; specifically, they had trouble accessing http://www.winmag.com/library/1999/0101/fea0061.htm The fix is simply to refresh or re-try the page: It almost always works the second time. According to the folks at WinMag, it's a subtle server problem, and they're working on it. (This is the kind of server problem that drives site administrators nuts. 8-) ) Hot, Hot, Hot Every day, the HotSpots page serves up one of "The Best, Most Interesting, Most Useful, and Strangest Sites the Web Has To Offer! Recent HotSpot choices have included: Amazingly stupid stuff ( http://rinkworks.com/stupid/ ) A site as informative as it is depressing ( http://cgi.pathfinder.com/cgi-bin/Money/retire.cgi ) A pile of complete hooey (http://www.blairwitch.com/mainflash.html ) Bet you can't click just one... ( http://fathom.org/opalcat/virtualbw.html ) A computer accessory for vain geeks ( http://www.pcmirror.com/ ) A "blackmail" site that doesn't seem to have anything at all to do with blackmail (http://www.blackmail.com/pictures/pictures.html ) And coming up are sites like these: DHTML like nothing I've ever seen some very non-PC but very funny humor a site about not merely illegal aliens, but let's say improbable ones an eclectic and kinda cool cultural site a very nice compendium of HTML info and more! If HotSpots isn't on your favorites list, maybe it should be! Check it out---it's different every day! http://www.browsertune.com/flanga/hotspots.htm NT Bug du Jour It's been a long time since Microsoft released a new Win9x patch---it seems that either (1) they've decided that Win9x is perfect and bug-free (ha!); or (2) that they're putting all their efforts into getting NT as good as it can be before Windows 2000 ships. The NT bug du jour is the "Unprotected IOCTLs Vulnerability" in which a hacker could run a program that disables keyboard and mouse input on a PC running NT Workstation 4.0 or Server 4.0 (also including Server 4.0 Enterprise Edition and Terminal Server Edition). Grab a patch at: Windows NT Server and Workstation 4.0: ftp://ftp.microsoft.com/bussys/winnt/winnt-public/fixes/usa/nt40/Hotfixes-PostSP5/IOCTL-fix/ Windows NT Server 4.0, Terminal Server Edition: ftp://ftp.microsoft.com/bussys/winnt/winnt-public/fixes/usa/nt40tse/Hotfixes-PostSP4/IOCTL-fix/ About Those Books I Mentioned. I mentioned several books in the last issue; alas, Amazon killed one of the discounts I told you about. It had been available for weeks. Ah well. Obviously, have no control over Amazon's pricing, and they do change prices frequently. But you always can get the best- available price on any book, CD or video from Amazon via the "associates" link on this page: http://www.langa.com/book.htm ------------- your ad here? ----------------------- It's more affordable than you think! See http://www.langa.com/rate_card.html --------------------------------------------------- Sorry, No Ginzu Knives It doesn't slice, dice, or julienne. It doesn't make radish flowers. It won't cure acne or bad breath. It won't help you lose unsightly dandruff. It contains no collections of old songs from artists you've forgotten. It contains no pheremones. And it won't shine your car for a year. But it just may help you make the most of your hardware, software and time online; it will always try to inform you honestly and fairly; and it just might make you smile from time to time. It's the LangaList, of course---the free newsletter you're now reading. And while I can't throw in a set of razor- sharp, look-you-can-even-cut-a-tin-can-with-them Ginzu knives, I can make it super-easy for you to share the newsletter with a friend or co-worker who might also find the newsletter interesting or useful: Use the 60-second form over at http://www.langa.com/recommend.htm to instantly email your friends a free, no-obligation sample issue of the LangaList in your name. There's just one of me on this end of the newsletter, but there're many, many of you--- if you could just take a moment to send a free sample copy to just one person, you'd be helping me a lot! Thanks! Just For Grins: Reader "Esther" sends along this fervent prayer, which I wholeheartedly endorse. 8-) Caffeine is my shepherd; I shall not doze. It maketh me to wake in green pastures: It leadeth me beyond the sleeping masses. It restoreth my buzz: It leadeth me in the paths of consciousness for its name's sake. Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of addiction, I will fear no Equal: For thou art with me; thy cream and thy sugar they comfort me. Thou preparest a carafe before me in the presence of The Starbucks: Thou anointest my day with pep; my mug runneth over. Surely richness and taste shall follow me all the days of my life: and I will dwell in the House of Mocha forever. Amen See you next issue! Best, Fred ( fred@langa.com )