1. Tips from the Trenches Arming Yourself to Tangle with the Web Searcher’s Academy InfoToday 2002 17 May 2002 William C. Spence, MLS CTO, Information Today, Inc. spence@infotoday.com

2. To do good work, one must first have good tools. – Confucius www.bartleby.comwww.bartleby.com Prepare Yourself …  RAM is dirt cheap – max it out!  www.crucial.com www.crucial.com  www.alphamemory.com www.alphamemory.com  Wheel Mouse – you’ll never go back!  CD-RW– the floppy disk of the new millennium!  www.pcconnection.com www.pcconnection.com  www.warehouse.com www.warehouse.com  www.cnet.com www.cnet.com

3. Dave, I can see you're really upset about this. – HAL 9000 Protect Yourself …  … from intrusion  Shields Up! – www.grc.comwww.grc.com  … from viruses  www.mcafee.com www.mcafee.com  www.symantec.com www.symantec.com  … from catastrophic loss  backup, backup, backup! (Hint: use that CD-RW)

4. If you do not want something, you will get ten of it in the mail. – Anna Quindlen E-mail Common Sense  Don't open unexpected attachments!!!  As a courtesy, let recipients know attachments are real and intentional  Be especially wary of.VBS files  Reconsider Outlook  www.satirewire.com/news/0103/outlook.shtml www.satirewire.com/news/0103/outlook.shtml

5. What does it matter what practical systems we adopt in our search for the truth? – Quintus Aurelius Symmachus Which Browser?  Netscape 4.x or 6.2 – OK; 6.0 -- Avoid  Internet Explorer 6.0 – OK; 5.0 or lower – upgrade  Opera, NetCaptor & Others  www.tucows.com www.tucows.com

6. If you do not use the tools, they use you. – Ralph Waldo Emerson Browser Basics and Beyond  “The key is quicker than the mouse”  Hint: search IE Help for ‘Netscape’  Related Sites Netscape 4.x – “What’s Related” Netscape 6.x – “My Sidebar” Internet Explorer – “Tools, Show Related Links”

7. He who would search for pearls must dive below. – John Dryden Browser Basics and Beyond  Related sites  Powered by Alexa (Alexa Snapshot)  www.alexa.com www.alexa.com  The Internet Wayback Machine  www.archive.org www.archive.org  How did they do that? Netscape – View Page Source (Ctrl-U) Internet Explorer – View Source (Alt-V-C)

8. I sigh the lack of many a thing I sought. – Shakespeare Browser Basics and Beyond  Essential Plug-ins Adobe Acrobat Reader — www.adobe.comwww.adobe.com Flash, ShockWave — www.macromedia.comwww.macromedia.com QuickTime — www.apple.comwww.apple.com Windows Media Player — www.microsoft.com/windows/windowsmedia/ www.microsoft.com/windows/windowsmedia/ WinAmp – www.winamp.comwww.winamp.com RealPlayer — www.real.comwww.real.com  Note: Privacy Issues

9. Even my tools are the wrong ones for what I have to do. – Adrienne Rich Beyond the Browser  Use your browser for FTP? – Puh-leeze! FTP – WS_FTP Pro – www.ipswitch.comwww.ipswitch.com  Use Windows’ Telnet client? – Puh-leeze! Telnet – QVT/Term – www.qpc.comwww.qpc.com

10. If our web be framed with rotten handles, when our loom is well nigh done, our work is new to begin. – Elizabeth I Web Page Design  What’s wrong with this picture? NetMechanic – www.netmechanic.comwww.netmechanic.com AnyBrowser – www.anybrowser.comwww.anybrowser.com  Authoring software A matter of taste  www.tucows.com www.tucows.com  www.cnet.com www.cnet.com  Internet & Personal Computing Abstracts

11. I have told you enough of this. For my part I'll not meddle nor make no farther. – Shakespeare Questions? William C. Spence, MLS CTO, Information Today, Inc. spence@infotoday.com View this and others at: www.infotoday.com/it2002/presentations