Article provided with permission by Interesting Stuff. © 2001 Curt Davis.

Interesting Research Stuff By Curt Davis - February 13, 2001 (From the Interesting Stuff Newsletter) I thought I would start this time with an excellent website with a ton of information! The Living Internet is the net's most comprehensive, free, online reference source about the Internet. It has also been called the net on the net, the first place to look with a question about the Internet, and a great place to find great sites. http://LivingInternet.com Here is a great Internet research tool - The CyberSkeptic's Guide to Internet Research is a printed, monthly newsletter about the use of the Internet in research. The guide is an _excellent_ resource and the January 2001 edition is available on the WWW. There are also other previous editions available at the bibiodata homepage that are definitely worth checking out! http://www.bibliodata.com/skeptic/200101/toc.html Hoover's List of Lists has some excellent links to external lists to a variety of sources that rank companies and people in a number of ways. You'll find dozens of lists that rank companies by size, sales, reputation, and many other criteria. http://www.hoovers.com/company/lists_best StartSpot is one of my long-time favorite stops! Most folks are familiar with LibrarySpot, but I am guessing that a lot of people have no idea how much this great resource has grown! One of the newest Spots is HeadlineSpot, a powerful new gateway to breaking news and thousands of the best sources by topic, media type and location. http://www.headlinespot.com/ If you aren't familiar with ALL of the StartSpots - see what you have been missing here (some *really_great* resources): http://www.startspot.com/network Searcher.com helps you Search for information throughout the wide expanse of the Internet. Searcher's ongoing mission it to search new galaxies and explore new worlds... Hmmmmmmmmmmm Still, there are some pretty good references at the Searcher reference section worth seeing! http://www.searcher.com/reference.html Lots of people know Deb Flanagan from her excellent guide to finding company information on the Internet. However, Deb's guides don't stop there! Deb's Web Search Tutorial is one of the best around and it is being updated all the time. Just a great tutorial! http://home.sprintmail.com/~debflanagan/main.html While you are at Deb Flanagan's Web Search Strategies, don't miss the links on the left - especially the one for specialty databases. "Sometimes a specialty database will be more effective at finding what you need than a general search engine. Specialty databases are dedicated to collecting relevant sites for a particular subject." http://home.sprintmail.com/~debflanagan/specialty.html PepeSearch is a lively Internet portal and search engine with instant access to search, shopping, games, news, software. PepeSearch now supports searches in 48 languages and has indexed more than 575 million Web pages. http://www.pepesearch.com If you ever find yourself needing to find information about federal court cases and information, the PACER system can help! The Pacer Service Center is the Federal Judiciary's centralized registration, billing, and technical support center for electronic access to U.S. District, Bankruptcy, and Appellate court records. Registration is free and the cost to use Pacer is very reasonable. http://pacer.psc.uscourts.gov The Home Depot has put together a great collection of online calculators. You can use the calculators to automatically estimate the amount of materials you need for popular home improvement projects. These online calculators are very handy - You may never buy more materials than you need again! http://homedepot.com/prel80/HDUS/EN_US/diy_main/pg_diy.jsp?CNTTYPE=NAVIGATION&CNTKEY=calculators/index.jsp McAfee.com's World virus map is very interesting! You can check out virus infection statistics and information for several criteria - you can even zoom in and out for selected regions around the world. http://webmap2.mcafee.com/servlet/com.esri.esrimap.Esrimap?name=VirusMap&cmd=Map&resolution=off&b=NS I have been a fan of Academic Info for a long time! Academic Info is a GREAT reference resource and also your Gateway to Quality Educational Resources. One (of many) new features at Academic Info is a listing of "What's New" which is a great reference in itself! http://www.academicinfo.net/new.html SearchShots is a new kind of visual search engine that provides preview screenshots of every site. A pretty cool concept and it looks very interesting! http://www.searchshots.com Next time you find yourself searching for Internet survey results, give the NOP Research Group a try. NOP has some interesting survey results available online for Internet, Business, Financial and Public Opinion surveys. The Internet surveys are here: http://www.nop.co.uk/survey/survey_internet.htm FindSpot is one of those search sites that has been around for a while, but new content and tips are continually being added to this great search resource. If you're tired of searching the Internet, but rarely finding what you really want, FindSpot can help. FindSpot is a collection of the best search tools on the Internet combined with the help and tips you need to use them successfully. http://www.findspot.com WebBrain says it has the smartest way to see the web... WebBrain lets you search the Web visually, so you can explore a dynamic picture of related information, instead of searching through long lists of text. WebBrain lets you easily browse the Web and discover what’s out there. http://www.webbrain.com/open_NS.htm In my last newsletter I mentioned some of the great genealogy classes available at genealogy.com... If you do genealogy research, don't forget the Genealogy SiteFinder for a great list of resources and an online database. http://www.genealogy.com/links/c/c-computers,online-database.html Here is a cool website I stumbled on... getmapping.com has aerial photographic maps of the UK - Zoom into Britain on the Millennium Map. Check out the map of the week and other aerial photos. http://www.millennium-map.com Family Detective specializes in locating living persons nationwide such as lost family and friends, former classmates, military buddies, unknown heirs, and birth families. http://www.familydetective.com If you want to "do it yourself" the Family Detective's online articles will help you out with some great resources for genealogy research! http://www.familydetective.com/links.html SearchEnginez has a pretty good Web Search Tutorial to help you find your way on the Internet... The tutorial includes a number of general tips to help make your web searching more effective. http://searchenginez.com/tutorial.html Outsmarted is your Search Portal! The site looks pretty good with an Internet search, shopping search and webmaster tools as well as a directory of most main categories you would find on other directories. http://www.outsmarted.com Mining the 'Deep Web' With Specialized Drills is a recent NY Times article with lots of links and helpful information for searching and finding what you are looking for... The article is a pretty good read! http://www.nytimes.com/2001/01/25/technology/25SEAR.html Research Info claims to be "The web's most comprehensive site for free market research and marketing research resources." So the next time you need market research information or would like to learn some new stuff, give Research Info a try! http://www.researchinfo.com Find It On The Net is another directory/search site trying to get some attention. Find it on the Net says it is your guide to navigating the Internet. http://www.FindItOnTheNet.com Here is one those cool sites that I like! Where is the International Space Station? Well, now you can find it if you use this website. http://liftoff.msfc.nasa.gov/temp/StationLoc.html NetFactual is your Guide to finding Facts about the Internet! NetFactual information is compiled from the facts. It's information is about the Internet compiled from the Internet to provide actionable information at your fingertips. Just the facts! http://www.netfactual.com Wired news ran an article a few months ago entitled "Ask a Librarian, Not Jeeves." The article includes several helpful links and also highlights the Collaborative Digital Reference Service (CDRS) which links academic, public and governmental libraries (be sure to check out CDRS as it has gotten a lot of attention recently). http://www.wired.com/news/culture/0,1284,40308,00.html Well, I guess that's about enough Interesting Stuff for now... :)