Logan Daily News

Net Watch
by Bob Green

Several weeks ago I discovered a powerful tool that I'd like to share with all of my readers who are already into the Internet. I was talking with an elderly executive in a staunch old bureaucracy in Washington, D.C. last week and I shared my discovery with him. Based upon the dry, creaking utterance that arose from his throat, I knew I'd stumbled onto something very good. What did he say? . . . ."Cooowalll"! Translated that means "cool". In just a few moments, we'll start our computers and go to that site, but first let me tell you about some of the other areas and subjects we'll discover in today's column.

I'm going to share with you how you can send a fax through the Internet without having to purchase any special software and it only costs a dime a minute. I'll also point you to a site where you can learn how to reduce your inter-LATA long distance calls to three cents per minute. That would include long distance calls to Columbus. There are some other "system-beating" pointers that can be learned from this site as well. How about learning how to make phone calls right from your computer anywhere in the world for free? That's right, absolutely no long distance charges at all! This emerging technology is sure to be "disappeared" rather quickly by the communications giants, but you might be able to cash in on it for a little while anyway. Are you looking to buy a new or used car? Want to make sure you're getting the best deal? There are some great sites that will give you all the information you need to insure a good decision.

Are you ready to start surfing? O.K., lets turn on our computers, log into the Internet, and using your Netscape Browser 2.0 (or higher) select File>Open Location and type in http://www.search.com and hold onto your hats. You're about to experience mega searching power heretofore undreamed of. The site that we come to is a collection of over 250 search engines.

For the uninitiated, a search engine is a tool that you can use to search for specific information. As an example, you might want to hear the latest information about your favorite musician or group. You would type in the name of the artist and click the search button, and the search engine goes out into areas of the Internet to find it. You would typically get a list of locations that matched the word/s submitted. You can click on any of those locations for an expanded view to see if it holds the info looked for. Whether it's rock groups or the chemical composition of rocks, different search tools can often provide widely varying results.

Let me draw your attention back to the Search.com page. The main page lists eight of the most popular search tools. Try typing in any subject into the Alta Vista search tool and see how many thousands of matches come up. Bear in mind, this is just one of the tools listed here. It would take weeks to wade through and try all of these, but let me point you to a few good ones. If you are using the Netscape 2.0 browser, then you will see a frame to the left that lists a menu and under that a listing of Search Engines. It starts with Arts, Automotive, . . .and ends with Web. Using your mouse pointer and clicking on Web you will be brought to a page that lists some of the favorite search tools specifically related to the Web. Scroll down until you find Metacrawler. This is my absolute favorite search tool that I've used up to this point. It takes your request and sends it to ten of the most powerful search engines and then sends back all of the results. This is great to use if you are looking for some type of very specific information.

I've been working in the Internet on a daily basis for the past several months, and one of the problems experienced is when a fax needs to be sent. My computer has a fax software program that enables me to send files and/or whatever I have on my computer screen to a customer's fax machine. This can be a real time saver, but the problem lies in the fact that it requires an open phone line. If I'm working in the Internet, then that phone line is already in use. The only option is to shut down the Internet connection to send the fax which can be very inconvenient. I thought that I'd heard something about a way to fax directly through the Internet. I went to the Metacrawler search engine listed above and typed in "fax through the Internet". Among the results was one listed as "sending faxes through the Internet". Bingo. The following information came up at this address (http://www.faxaway.com):

Faxaway is the world's easiest and most cost?effective e?mail to fax service, allowing anyone with an E-mail account to send faxes anywhere in the world at a fraction of the cost of conventional faxing. Faxaway users can send a fax to anywhere in the United States from anywhere in the world for as little as 5¢!

To avoid boring you with too many details, I tried it and it worked. Now I can send faxes without having to shut down from my other work and it's cheaper than faxing to a long distance number.

To learn how to get the three cent a minute long distance calls, another wonderful site I've discovered is called Phone News Online (http://cedar.cic.net/~davidb/vas/telecom/phonenews.html). It's a little detailed to handle in this column, but check it out and write me back. Let me know how it works for you.

Go to (http://www.vocaltec.com/) and download a free copy of the Internet Phone and you can learn how to make long distance calls through your computer absolutely free of charge. This is an emerging new technology and there are still bugs that need to be ironed out before it becomes user friendly for the masses, but it's still fun to experiment with.

Let's go back to the search.com home page (http://www.search.com) and select Automotive in the menu to the left. The section that comes up is very self explanatory. You have numerous search tools that can be used to search for new or used cars. You can specify the price range you are looking for or the model and get detailed comparisons of many different makes. It's a great set of tools for anybody looking for a new or different set of wheels.

Well, once again, it looks like my space is used up for this week. We'll definitely be coming back to this site in future columns. Surf safe and we'll meet again next week.