This month as we look at some tips for making the most of search engines, new websites released by Strobe Net and some handy governmental websites.

The 1980’s

Do you remember the days of Cocktail, Sixteen Candles, Breakfast Club and Close Encounters of the Third Kind? Making mountains out of mashed potatoes.

Well – I’m a big fan and although those times have past I’m rediscovering them on DVD and using the internet to find these hidden treasures. The really great (scary?) thing is there are websites created by people just like me who are fans of the 80’s movie too. Case in example - http://www.fast-rewind.com.

My point is this… through the Internet you can just about find anything you are looking for if you know how to look and how to search. I’ve included a few tips on using the search engines to help you on your way to sourcing the movies of your childhood or creating the perfect golf swing.

• Look at the About page in the search engine you are using. Most will have a page describing how their engine works and tips for using their site.
  
  
• Use double quotation marks (" ") around phrases to ensure they are searched exactly as is, with the words side by side in the same order.
  EXAMPLE: "bye bye miss american pie"
  (Do NOT put quotation marks around a single word.)
  
  
• Put your most important keywords first in the string.
  EXAMPLE: dog breed family pet choose
  
  
• Type keywords and phrases in lower case to find both lower and upper case versions. Typing capital letters will usually return only an exact match.
  EXAMPLE: president retrieves both president and President
  
  
• When searching within a document for the location of your keyword(s), use the "find" command on that page. For Internet Explorer this Find is found in the Edit menu at the top of your browser window.
  
  
• Use more than one search engine. No search engine indexes all Web sites and Web pages. So if your first search doesn't produce the results you want, try searching with at least one other search engine.
  
  
• Get targeted results by being specific and more results by being general. The more specific your search word, the more targeted your search results will be and vice versa.

Some of my favourite search engines include:

http://www.Google.co.nz
http://www.DogPile.com – This one takes the top few results from a combination of the major search engines and directories – all in one step.

Happy Searching!!

Statistics of Interest

** Federal Trade Commission **

Get rich suing spammers or your money back! If offers like that (which we have no intention of honouring, by the way) get your goat, you're not alone. Angry consumers forward about 130,000 spam messages to the Federal Trade Commission every day, Chairman Timothy J. Muris said at the FTC's first Spam Forum last month. As recently as 2001, the average was just 10,000 per day, he said.

** NewZealand.com **

The Government paid just under $1 million for the internet domain name NewZealand.com.

** One in five European seniors online **

Almost 20 percent of European seniors have Internet access, according to a new study from Forrester Research.

New Websites Released

* Albertland Museum :

On May 29th 1862 the migrant ships "Matilda Wattenbach" and "Hanover" departed from the London Docks bound for the Albertland Settlement in New Zealand with the first of over 3000 settlers. Albertland also known as Wellsford and the surrounding rural areas has a very interesting history of which some is stored in this museum.

* Health and Sports :

Strobe Net has recently redesigned the website for Health and Sports fitness clubs. The new look is more closely aligned with their offline brochures and marketing efforts.

WEBSITES OF INTEREST

* IRD Money Outstanding

This is extremely handy and shows monies left untouched for six years or more in financial institutions such as insurance companies. It also includes unclaimed funds such as cheques or wages.

* IPONZ.govt.nz

Search the trade mark, patent and design databases using the IPONZ Database.

* Companies Office

This website is a searchable database of companies in New Zealand.

Quote of the Month

"We need men who can dream of things that never were."

John F. Kennedy (1917 - 1963), speech in Dublin, Ireland, June 28, 1963

Remember if you have any queries or would like assistance - please do not hesitate to get in touch.

Have a great month!

Amanda and the Strobe Net team.