Tales from the Terminal Room

June 2001, Issue No. 22

Archives

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Tales from the Terminal Room (TFTTR) is a monthly newsletter, with the exception of July and August, which are published as a single issue. TFTTR includes reviews and comparisons of information sources and search tools; updates to the RBA Web site Business Sources and other useful resources; dealing with technical and access problems on the Net; and news of RBA's training courses and publications.

In this issue:

• Updates to the RBA Web site
  • Google launches image searching
  • UK Business Advice Online moves
  • Factiva.com 1992
  • UK SIC Codes
  • MarketEye to close
  • CountyWeb and List Locator
  • Lists Now
  • UK Business Data Online
  • Dun & Bradstreet
  • Kelly's
  • Kompass British Exporters
  • Kompass UK
• These things are sent to try us
  • Brush up your search strategy jargon
• Meetings and Training
  • AIOPI Conference
  • BL Best Of Business

Information Resources

Search Strategies for the Internet http://www.rba.co.uk/search/

Google launches image searching

Google has launched an image search option. It is currently in beta test, but generally available, and can be found at URL http://images.google.com/ or via the Advanced Search screen.

It's all very straightforward and, like all of Google's search features, very fast. Type in some search terms and Google comes up with images that are on pages containing those terms, or images with the term or term in their file name. The results page displays 20 images at a time as thumbnails and for each image you are given height and width of the image, URL of the page containing the image, image size and file name. Buttons, icons, and banner ads are automatically filtered from the search results.

Clicking on a thumbnail splits the screen into two horizontal frames: the top frame shows a slightly larger version of the thumbnail whilst the lower frame displays the Web page that contains the image. From the top frame, you can click the thumbnail to display the full-size image, remove the frame to display the entire page, or return to your search results.

According to the help files, you are also supposed to be able to limit your search to a specific kind of image file by using Google's "filetype:" operator in your query. For example, if you wish to see images of the Eiger that are in .jpg format, then enter eiger filetype:jpg in the search box. At the time of writing this newsletter, however, this did not work but could well have been a temporary glitch; the image search is clearly labelled as "Beta".

As a result of this new search option, the following files on the RBA Web site have been updated:

Google Supplement http://www.rba.co.uk/search/googsumm.pdf (Available to subscribers only)

Google Summary Sheet http://www.rba.co.uk/search/googsumm.pdf or http://www.rba.co.uk/search/googsumm.htm (both freely available)

Searching for Images http://www.rba.co.uk/search/subscribers/images.pdf (Available to subscribers only)

With all the recent additions to its service it looks as though Google is aiming to provide every service an Internet searcher could desire. However, I note that there are no coffee making facilities. As Google does not always announce its new features, my colleagues have suggested that I have not looked hard enough. I am still looking!!

Support for SMEs http://www.rba.co.uk/sources/sme.htm

[fx:Victor Meldrew] I don't belieeeeeeve it!!!!

Just when I had got used to the UK government's decision to move the Small Business Support information to www.businessadviceonline.org, it decides to redirect me to a completely new site at http://www.businesslink.org/. So for the next five minutes that's where the UK gov's SME support will be. After that - who knows?

News sources http://www.rba.co.uk/sources/news.htm

Factiva.com http://www.factiva.com/
On June 11th, Factiva (formed by Dow Jones and Reuters) announced the launch of Factiva.com. To quote from their press release:

"Factiva.com will replace Dow Jones Interactive® and Reuters Business Briefing, and deliver for the first time the content sets from these two existing products to provide a universally indexed, global content collection of nearly 8,000 sources in 22 languages from 118 countries."

"Based on extensive customer research, Factiva.com offers users a powerful new set of tools for researching and monitoring the news and business information that affects their companies, ensuring that critical decisions are based on the most relevant, timely information available. Through Factiva Intelligent Indexing, a coding scheme that is universally applied to Factiva content, users have precise access to reliable information, ensuring that time is spent analysing, not searching, for content, which effectively raises enterprise productivity."

Nothing really new for those of us who have been using these services for donkeys years, apart from the fact that Dow Jones Interactive and Reuters Business Briefing are now "one". On further investigation, the "Factiva Intelligent Indexing" appears to be the Reuters coding system, of which I always found the company codes invaluable. But these services have, until now, been aimed at the corporate sector and required up-front subscription. As someone who now prefers to use pay-as-go services I was jubilant to see on the right hand side of the screen "Not a Subscriber? Search our news archive using your credit card."

For the credit card option you can search for free and pay for stories that you wish to view at USD 2.95 per article. You can search for your terms as keywords or phrases, company name, or company symbol and use Boolean AND, OR, NOT. This service is a direct competitor to the Lexis-Nexis news service that was mentioned in the May issue of Tales from the Terminal Room (http://www.rba.co.uk/tfttr/archives/2001/may2001.htm) and which charges USD 2.50 per article.

Before you get your credit card out, though, do check through the sources of both the Factiva and the Lexis-Nexis results. A significant number are likely to be accessible free of charge via the publishers' own Web sites, for example the Daily Telegraph, Guardian, Times. Nevertheless, another very useful site for those of us who need comprehensive coverage or archival news stories at an affordable rate.

Miscellaneous day to day essentials http://www.rba.co.uk/sources/misc.htm

ONS 1992 UK SIC Codes
http://www.statistics.gov.uk/nsbase/themes/compendia_reference/ articles/downloads/structur.pdf
I found this little gem purely by accident via Google. The old UK Official National Statistics Service Web site had an HTML listing of the UK SIC codes but this seems to have disappeared from the new official UK statistics site. Anyway, this is an extremely useful PDF file of the 1992 UK SIC codes.

Stock Markets & Company Financials http://www.rba.co.uk/sources/stocks.htm

Marketeye (www.marketeye.com and www.marketeye.co.uk) has been removed from the RBA listing as Thomson will be closing it down. At the time of writing, the Web site was still up but a message stated that "editorial content is no longer being updated".

Background on the closure can be found in a story in The Register at http://www.theregister.co.uk/content/23/19924.html

Direct Marketing http://www.rba.co.uk/sources/marketing.htm

CountyWeb http://www.countyweb.co.uk/
The Direct Marketing section no longer takes you to the Dun and Bradstreet marketing database but to Listlocator (http://www.listlocator.co.uk/) where you can search 2.45 million UK companies by category and region/county. Records cost GBP 25/1000 or GBP 200/1000 depending on depth, usage and quantities involved. There is a minimum order of 1000 records. Looking for the sources of the data, the Web site says "The data has been sourced over 6 years and has recently been cleaned by the Countyweb Call Centre in partnership with Equifax. The data is constantly refreshed by the team of 60 operators and by the businesses themselves who are able to add or amend entries online."

Lists Now http://listsnow.com/
This site has been around for quite a while but for some reason I had not got round to adding it to the listing. This site provides links to direct mail lists for the US and World-wide. The US Business section covers Centrus, Zapdata, Acculeads and Experian. The lists are searchable by a number of criteria including US SIC code. Charges are based on the number of records and amount of information per record that is downloaded. Payment is by credit card.

UK Business Data Online http://www.yellowpagesbusiness.co.uk/
This is a new pay-as-you-go service from UK Yellow Pages. You can search by yellow pages category, geography, and number of employees. The basic records (business name, contact name where available, address, Yellow Pages category, 1980 UK SIC code) cost GBP 110 per thousand. Additional fields e.g. telephone number costs an extra GBP 25 per 1000 (there is rate card which gives you all the details). There is a minimum order of GBP 25. The database is searched via a Java applet which can take several minutes to load, so be patient. If you have a dial up Internet connection, go and make a cup of coffee and the search screen should have loaded by the time you get back!

Dun & Bradstreet http://www.dnb.com/
Dun & Bradstreet have completely restructured their Web site(s). I initially thought that they had removed their pay-as-you-go UK marketing database, but it is still there. You first have to make your way to the UK site. Then look down the left hand side of the screen and click on "Find new customers by targeting the right prospects", and then on D& B Market Place UK - Order with Credit Card.

Company Directories http://www.rba.co.uk/sources/directs.htm

Over the last 6 months there have been significant changes to a number of UK directories, three of which are described below.

Kelly's UK Business Finder http://www.kellys.co.uk/
This site has improved greatly. The general appearance of the site is much better, it is easier to search and display results, and the requirement to register has been removed. Kelly's covers 110,000 UK suppliers of industrial and commercial products and services. You can search by product/service, company name, town, street name, post code or trade name. Information on each company includes full address, telephone number/fax number, a link to their Web site if available, an email option and location map.

Kompass British Exports Interactive http://www.britishexports.com/
This site used to be a disaster as far as navigation was concerned: click on your browser back button instead of the site's own back button and you'd completely mess up your search. That has all changed and now you are taken directly to the search screen. The service contains details of 17,000 UK exporters and you can search by products & services, trade names, company name, agent country, export region, turnover band, number of employees, or location. If you search by products and services, you are presented with a list of matching product categories from which to choose. The amount of information on each company varies depending on whether or not the company has opted to pay for the display of detailed information on their products. The service is free of charge but you have to register for an ID and Password in order to display all of the information.

Kompass UK http://www.kompass.co.uk/
This site, which covers approximately 180,000 manufacturing and service companies, has now adopted the interface and appearance of the main world-wide Kompass.com. The main difference when accessing the co.uk version is that the search default is set to the UK and there are additional links to other Web sites that may be helpful to UK users. You can view a list of your companies showing the name, town, county and telephone number. Detailed information for some companies, which can include names of executives, product and trade name listing, ultimate and immediate holding companies and subsidiaries, is free but the full service is charged for. Charges vary depending on how many "units" you pre-purchase. The minimum purchase is 95 Euros or USD 80.

These things are sent to try us!

Brush up Your Search Strategy Jargon

So you think you know your way round search engines, are au fait with all the advanced search tricks, and have no problem seeing the "Invisible Web"? How about "flip searching", "x-raying" and "peeling back a URL". No? Well don't panic because these are well established, everyday techniques that you are probably using already. They have just been given new names that appear to be extensively used by the recruitment industry.

Let's tackle the last one first: Peeling back a URL.

This is sometimes referred to as "climbing the tree", "retracing the path" or "backtracking" and is commonly used when one gets an Error 404 (file not found) in order to locate the information elsewhere on a site. For example, I was recently asked if I could find a site that gave free historical LIBOR rates. A search in Google came up with what looked like the perfect match:

http://www.bba.org.uk/html/1704.html.

But this gave an "error 404 file not found" message and Google's cached copy consisted of a page of broken image links. Assuming that bba.org.uk was the British Bankers' Association and, therefore, likely to have the information somewhere on its site, I truncated the URL to www.bba.org.uk/html/. Still no joy so I "peeled" the URL back to the home page at http://www.bba.org.uk/ where I found a link to "For Media and Research" followed by an option for LIBOR.

Researchers also use this trick to see if there are other pages within the same Web site similar to the one that they are currently viewing. In the recruitment industry it is used to find additional CVs or candidates on a specific Web site. Say you have a client who wishes to recruit an expert in widgets. You carry out a standard keyword search and come across information about Joe Bloggs on http://www.superwidget.com/staff/jbloggs.htm. The URL suggests that there may be additional information on this site about other staff so "peeling back the URL" to www.superwidget.com/staff/ may reveal a list of people that are potential candidates for interview.

Now let's look at "Flip searching".

If you are a lawyer or experienced on-line searcher you will know this as citation searching: you take a known document and search for documents that contain references or citations to it. On the Web you can work back from a specific Web page and find other pages that link to it. This can be a neat and quick way of finding pages that are similar in content, the assumption being that pages that link to one another are likely to cover similar subject matter. In the recruitment industry it is used to find people who have links to, or have worked for, a specific company. For example, if you are looking for someone with Oracle skills, potential candidates may have links from their Web CVs to the Oracle Web site.

Some search engines offer a "More like this" or "Similar pages" option next to entries in the results list but you can often search for linked sites directly using a "link:" command. Going back to our expert on widgets example, to find pages that link to the Superwidget site:

HotBot has two options: the plain link: command will find links to the exact URL that you enter whilst the linkdomain: command will find links to any pages within the whole site.

One drawback is that you will pick up links within the Web site itself. With AltaVista you can exclude those by including -host:superwidget.com in your search strategy.

Whilst this technique can work for general research, it is grossly over-hyped within the recruitment sector. Yes, you may find CVs but the bulk of the results are likely to be made up of company directories, portals, subject/company listings and general company related information. You are going to have to spend a lot of time sifting through unwanted hits.

And what is X-raying? (No - not the medical variety!). This is the most over-hyped of the three. X-raying is limiting your search to one site. For example, if you wanted to find pages on just the Superwidget site:

So far so good, but some recruitment agency sites do talk a load of rubbish when addressing the subject of "x-raying".

"X-ray allows you to ask a search engine for every web page on a server."

WRONG! Search engines rarely index every page on a server or Web site. They certainly do not index password protected pages or dynamically created pages.

"Many times companies will have pages on their server that are not linked to any of their main pages. Search engines still index those pages."

Possibly - but it depends on the structure of the site and how the pages are created.

"X-Raying shows you what's really inside a source company by helping you see through walled-off areas of Web sites."

What do they mean by "walled-off"? If they are password protected or only accessible from specified IP addresses then "x-raying" will NOT reveal those pages.

"Companies link you only to the pages that they want you to see. [True] But search engines index all of the pages on a server"

Not that old chestnut again. WRONG! Any experienced searcher will tell you how annoying it can be trying to locate information that you know is somewhere on a site, only to find that the search engines have not got round to indexing the relevant pages. And many a Web site owner would love to have all of their pages indexed by the search engines but know only too well that the engines are selective.

Jargon can serve a useful purpose in that, if used correctly, it provides a valuable form of "shorthand", especially if it is descriptive. "Peeling back a URL" and "flip searching" do fulfil those criteria. However, if overused, misused, or incorrectly applied and described then it should be immediately added to your Bullshit Bingo card. And that is where "x-raying" deserves to be!

[If you are new to the concept of Bullshit or Buzzword bingo, or would like to generate your own bingo cards, visit http://misterharold.com/joker/bingo/]

Meetings and Workshops

Karen Blakeman will be presenting the following course:

July 9th-11th
"The Future of On-line Hosts in an Internet Environment" at the AIOPI Annual Conference
Organised by: AIOPI
Venue: Cheltenham Park Hotel, Cheltenham, Gloucestershire
Web: http://www.aiopi.org.uk/conference.htm

July 17th
"Company Sources on the Web" and "Market Research on the Web" at The Best of Business Information on the Internet
Organised by: The British Library
Venue: The British Library Conference Centre, 96 Euston Road, London NW1 2DB
Web: http://www.bl.uk/services/stb/courses.html

TFTTR Contact Information

Karen Blakeman, RBA Information Services
UK Tel: 0118 947 2256, Int. Tel: +44 118 947 2256
UK Fax: 020 8020 0253, Int. Fax: +44 20 8020 0253
Address: 88 Star Road, Caversham, Berks RG4 5BE, UK

Archives

TFTTR archives: http://www.rba.co.uk/tfttr/archives/index.shtml

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