*** ANSWERMAN INTERNET EXTRA *** Sunday, July 28, 1996 This is a weekly newsletter for the community of Internet users on America Online. It is brought to you by AnswerMan, AOL's area for those learning to use the Internet. Come see what's new at keyword ANSWERMAN. Got comments about this newsletter? We want to hear them! Send 'em to Kevin Savetz, "savetz@aol.com". ||| IN THIS ISSUE || | AnswerMan's Update -- 532 words o' wisdom Purple's Picks -- find those long lost friends Upcoming AnswerMan Chats -- get a job! The End -- how to reach us or unsubscribe ||| ANSWERMAN'S UPDATE || | Letters, we get letters... A reader named Mary wrote asking "I know you just had a chat on 7/7 on making your own Web page, but I missed it. Is there any software you can suggest that can help?" Let me answer that in two parts: first, if you missed an AnswerMan chat (shame on you :-) all is not lost. Just go to keyword AM CHAT and press the "What We've Talked About" button. There you will find logs of past AnswerMan chats. Just scroll down until you find the chat you missed (more recent chats are at the bottom of the list) and voila -- your very own copy. Incidentally, I did answer Mary's question about what Web page software to use during that chat -- my answer goes something like this: I use the simplest text editor I can find, like SimpleText (on the Mac) or WordPad (on Windows.) There are a lot of HTML editors out there, but HTML is NOT difficult to do on your own, and I find that having to input the HTML commands yourself, instead of having an editor do the dirty work, gives one a better understanding of what's going on behind the scenes of a Web page. OK, OK, so some disagree with me -- to each his own. If you really want an HTML editor, go to keyword FILE SEARCH and look for (what else?) "HTML EDITOR". You'll get a bevy of choices. Last week I promised that this week I'd take you on a tour of an exciting, free Internet service that sends you customized news, sports and financial reports via e-mail. That's just what I'll do... If you care at all about the world around you, you'll appreciate Mercury Mail. Here's how it works: go to http://www.merc.com/ and have a look around. You'll see listings for news, weather, snow (apparently snow isn't weather to these guys,) stocks, sports, entertainment and calendars. Pick one (say, News) and you'll be able to fill out some forms to tell Mercury Mail what you're interested in: politics, news headlines, international news, and so on. It will ask for your e-mail address, too. Then, you will receive a daily newspaper *via e-mail*, in the morning or the evening (or both, your choice.) The entertainment section features horoscopes, top movie listings, movie reviews, and TV highlights. The stock quotes section will e-mail you daily data on just the stocks and markets that you care about. The reminders are customizable, too: you can have Mercury Mail tell you about birthdays and so on. This is all free: the only feature that cost$ is the calendar function: you can have Mercury Mail send a daily quote or anecdote to yourself or a friend (akin to those Page-A-Day desk calendars.) Yes, you can use all the other features without subscribing to this one. Anyhow, I'm smitten with Mercury Mail and you may like it too. You know the drill: if you have any comments about the newsletter, please send then to me at savetz@aol.com -- if you have any questions about the Internet (you know you do!) take 'em to keyword ANSWERMAN and press the ASK ANSWERMAN button. ||| PURPLE'S PICKS - Olympic Fever || by Sarah Nehrer (CJ Purple) | Hi again everyone! Hope everyone has had a nice July...hard to believe August is around the corner! Where does time fly? :-> Speaking of which...this week we'll take a look at some Web sites that specialize in helping you find those long lost friends, relatives and acquaintances that you somehow lost track of a few years back and are now dying to contact. The first, Switchboard (http://www.switchboard.com), is a lot like a giant phone book. It provides addresses and phone numbers of 90 million people. If the person you are looking for has registered with Switchboard, there will also a personalized update and an e-mail address. (Funny, but street addresses and phone numbers are considered public domain, while e-mail addresses are considered to be private information that can only be given out with the owner's permission.) Registration is free. Another option on Switchboard is a business finder, for finding 10 million businesses across the U.S., even if they are not yet on the Web. In the registration link is an option called "knock-knock." This allows you to keep your privacy but still be informed of people looking for you. When someone searches for you when your information is set to "knock-knock", the searcher will be given the option to send you e-mail which will be sent to you without actually disclosing your e-mail address to that person. Then you have the option of returning the e-mail thereby disclosing your address or simply ignoring the inquiry. Unfortunately, of the 6 names I tried to find, Switchboard wasn't able to find any (including myself). [Note from AnswerMan: ooh, I've always wanted to jump into an article with an editor's note! I've had better luck with Switchboard than Sarah: Several of the dozens of people that I looked up were in there, including myself (although my address was from a placed that I used to live. I didn't want the world to have even that, so I told Switchboard to keep my info hidden.) Basically, Switchboard seems to get its information from the phone book: if someone has chosen to be listed in the white pages, they are probably in Switchboard.] The second site, Four11 Corporation (http://www.four11.com), offers 6.5 million e-mail and Web addresses. There is also a telephone directory, which was offline when I tried to access it earlier this week. When you list yourself on Four11 (also free of charge), you get expanded services for your own searches. These expanded offerings include more search hits, some privacy features and the ability to search by more select criteria such as high school, college, research interest, profession, etc. For example, I found 56 matches of people who listed themselves as having attended my liberal arts college. Of the four searches I did with Four11 (including myself), I found only 1 person, and that listed an out-of-date e-mail address. :-( There are other sites that will help you find people. Briefly, these include Deja News (http://www.dejanews.com) covering those people who post to Usenet newsgroups; ClassMates Online (http://www.classmates.com) which claims registrants from 15,000 high schools in the U.S. and Canada, and Reunion Hall (http://www.xscom.com/reunion/) which is another registry of high school alumni. But as you can see from my attempts, the power of these search sites is somewhat limited. Still, if you have no alternative way to find someone, these sites are worth a try at the price! :-> [Also, try the Internet Address Finder at http://www.iaf.net, BigFoot at http://www.bigfoot.com, and WhoWhere at http://www.whowhere.com - all are pretty good people-finding tools. Don't ask me why there world needs so many so them.] Remember, you can always contact me at cjpurple@aol.com with any questions or comments. Until then! ||| UPCOMING ANSWERMAN CHATS || Chat live with AnswerMan in these hour-long sessions | Pick an interesting topic & bring your questions | How do you participate? Just log in a few minutes before the session is scheduled to begin, then go to Keyword: AM CHAT. (To go to a keyword, just pick KEYWORD from your GO TO menu.) Then press the button to enter the auditorium. Get a job! Finding employment on the Net - Sunday, August 4, 6PM ET Back by popular demand -- If you've been looking for work in all the wrong places, here's your chance to learn all about Internet sites that specialize in helping folks find gainful employment. You can explore free jobs databases, post your resume, or even attend an electronic job fair. AnswerMan will show you where these sites are, and will give hints on using the Net for your job search. Open Forum Internet Q&A - Sunday, August 11, 6PM ET Have questions about the Internet? Can't browse the Web? Need to find a site, but don't know where to look? Need to find a friend's e-mail address, but don't know how? Bring your Internet questions--AnswerMan will help you get online, find the information you need and get surfing the 'net in no time. Have questions about the Internet? Can't browse the Web? Need to find a site, but don't know where to look? Want to find a friend's e-mail address, but don't know how? Bring your Internet questions--AnswerMan will help you get online, find the information you need and get surfing the 'net in no time. Internet Classifieds and Online Auctions - Sunday, August 18, 6PM ET Are you looking for a rare old record, or trying to sell your obsolete computer? Maybe you want to trade an old truck for a faster modem? This hour, the Internet AnswerMan talks about classified ads on the Internet. He'll show you how you can use Newsgroups, the Web, and e-mail to find the perfect item, or sell your old stuff, using the Net. Learn how to find the right venue, and also get advice on making deals with strangers and avoiding scams. 20 things you didn't know you could do with e-mail! - Sunday, August 25, 6PM ET Maybe you think electronic mail is just for business, or for sending love notes to your sweetheart. Maybe you don't think e-mail can be very useful to you. This session, AnswerMan will show you ten things you might not know that you can do with e-mail -- like send a free fax, play games, and get free technical support for your computer software. If you think e-mail is ho-hum, this session might change your mind. ||| THE END || | That's all for this week. Please send any comments or suggestions about the AnswerMan Internet Extra to "Savetz" (from AOL,) or "savetz@aol.com" (from the Internet.) To unsubscribe from this mailing list, send an e-mail message -- To: LISTSERV@LISTSERV.AOL.COM Subject: UNSUBSCRIBE Body: UNSUBSCRIBE ANSWERMAN This newsletter copyright 1996 by America Online and Kevin Savetz. 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