Tales from the Terminal Room

February 2003, Issue No. 40

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:

• Secure online shopping with the Cahoot webcard
• Information Resources
  • eBizSearch
  • News service from World Chambers Network/Dialog
  • Business Information Update
  • Official company registers
  • Top 10 Business Sites
• Gizmo of the Month
  • PawSense
• Meetings and Workshops
  • Business Information: Resource Management Strategies
  • International Graduate Summer School

Secure online shopping with the Cahoot webcard

The Web based credit card company Cahoot (owned by Abbey National) has introduced the Cahoot webcard. Described as a "virtual online payment card" it claims that you will "never have to expose your Cahoot card details over the web" and that you'll be able to "shop anywhere online without your plastic".

In order to use the Cahoot webcard you must already be a Cahoot credit card or current account customer. If you are, you register for your webcard on the Cahoot web site. Once you have been accepted you download the webcard software and install it on your computer.

A webcard icon sits in your system tray. When you need to make a purchase you simply click on the icon. The webcard prompts you to enter your Cahoot security details which consist of your ID, password and one of the three memorable data specified by you. You then type in the maximum amount that you wish to spend on this transaction and Cahoot generates a unique transaction number (structured like a credit card number). This transaction number can be used only once.

If you are shopping with one of the partners listed on the Cahoot Web site you can use the Instant Form Fill and all payment and delivery instructions are automatically filled in. On other sites, you drag and drop the webcard details including the transaction number into the form.

I have only just started using it but so far am impressed. In fact, I prefer it to using standard credit or debit cards. I have not been a victim of serious credit card fraud but have spotted unauthorised transactions on two occasions. In the first case, a software company accidentally debited my card twice. With the Webcard the second debit would not have been allowed because it would have exceeded the maximum amount specified by me. In the second instance, an information provider decided unilaterally to "upgrade" my account and charged the annual subscription to a card that I had used with them a few months earlier. Again that cannot happen with webcard because a transaction number can only be used for one transaction.

If you would like to find out more about the webcard there is a demo at http://www.webcard.cahoot.com/ (requires Flash).

Information Resources

eBizSearch http://www.ebizsearch.org

The eBusiness Research Center (eBRC) at Penn State University has launched eBizSearch, a new specialised search tool that finds and indexes documents about e-business, e-commerce and related topics. eBizSearch crawls the Web sites of universities, companies, consultancies, research institutes, and government departments for articles. It currently has about 20,000 documents.

Users can search by keyword or citation, which enables you to see where an author or document has been referenced. eBizSearch currently uses Boolean search syntax and if you type in two words without an operator they are treated as a phrase. This means that if you type in Fred Bloggs, eBizSearch looks for Fred immediately followed by Bloggs; it will not pick up citations or documents where the author is given as Bloggs, Fred or Bloggs, F. eBizSearch recommends that you search on the last name only or list all variants found in citations separated with "or".

eBizSearch performs a citation analysis of all the academic articles in your results and lists them in order of their citation rates in academic papers (the most cited articles are listed first). For some documents, the database only stores the hyperlinks to those documents. Articles available through the eBizSearch engine can be downloaded free of charge. Some articles may have only the abstracts listed, and have to be purchased directly from the original source or through a document delivery service.

World Chambers launches pay-as-you-go business information

The World Chambers Network (WCN) has agreed a deal with information provider Dialog to offer pay-as-you-go access to business and industry information. The WCN Web site (http://www.worldchambers.com/) has a customized search form enabling users to search for articles by title, the full text of articles, industry sector, company name, country and date.

The initial Dialog content available via WCN includes global news, industry and business news. Company profiles, market research and other categories of content will be added soon.

It is tempting to carry out a very specific search but I would advise against filling in too many of the boxes. For example, I found that searching for information on the Australian company PaperlinX and the country Australia did not find anything more recent than December 4th, 2002. Leaving the country search box as "any country" gave me more recent Australian news articles from February 2003! There is also a significant lag time while the results are retrieved from Dialog, which I found exasperating.

Searching is free and users may purchase the full text of articles by credit card. In the test searches that I conducted, prices varied from USD 2.90 to USD 4.70 per article. I compared the results with my usual main news service Lexis-Nexis (http://www.lexis-nexis.co.uk/). Lexis-Nexis proved to be more comprehensive, faster and cheaper at USD 2.50 an article. Nevertheless, WCN/Dialog is a useful pay-as-you-go service to have in your favourites.

Keeping up to date http://www.rba.co.uk/sources/uptodate.htm

A new electronic newsletter called Business Information Update (http://www.dataresources.co.uk/biu.htm) has been launched. This is a practical monthly newsletter, published by Effective Technology Marketing Ltd, on the acquisition, interpretation and application of business information and focusing on the needs of SMEs. Business Information Update is delivered by email in PDF format. Annual subscription GBP 25. I have to admit to a vested interest in this as I am the editor!

Official Company Registers

Finding information on large companies is generally straightforward, especially if they are listed on a stock exchange. Some countries such as the US provide free access to filings and many listed companies make their accounts and annual reports available via their own web sites. The problems start when you are trying to track down smaller companies who may not be required to disclose any information at all. Official company registers, for example the UK's Companies House, can be a good starting point and will at least confirm contact details. But whether or not a company is required to register even these basic details depends on the regulatory requirements of the country in which they are trading.

For European companies, Euroinfopool (http://www.euroinfopool.com/) pulls together information from the main official registers but you do have to pay for even the most basic information. For free information, you may have more luck by going direct to the individual country registers. We have started to try and track these down and hope to be able to pull together a separate Web page under the RBA Business Information Sources listings. In the meantime they are included in the Company Directories section (http://www.rba.co.uk/sources/directs.htm).

Below is the first batch with a brief description of what is available from each of them.

Finland

National Board of Patents and Registration of Finland http://www.prh.fi/
Official company register for Finnish companies. As well as information on registering a company, there is a Trade Register of 470,000 Finnish companies that can be searched via BIS Search (http://www.ytj.fi/). Search by business ID, name and company type. Information includes main and auxiliary trading names, form, municipality, line of business, address, when registered and previous business IDs/names. There is also a searchable Register of Associations. Free of charge and available in Finnish, English and Swedish.

France

EURIDILE - Le Registre National du Commerce et des Sociétés - RNCS http://www.euridile.inpi.fr/
Official register of over 3,200,000 French companies. Basic company information, including name, number, address, legal form and activity, is free of charge. There is a priced service for detailed information and accounts. In French.

Latvia

Lursoft http://www.lursoft.lv/
Provides information about all enterprises, public organizations and foreign company agencies registered within Latvia including their managers, shareholders fixed capital and annual accounts. The information is based on original documents of the Register of Enterprises (RE). Basic company information is free of charge and includes name, address, telephone, company type, company number, share capital, activity descriptions (NACE), officials, shareholders, and key financials if available together with comparative indices. There is a priced service for more detailed information such as accounts. In Latvian and English.

Netherlands

Kamer van Koophandel : Trade Register http://www.kvk.nl/
In the Netherlands registration in the trade register is compulsory for almost every trading company. Searching the trade register is free, but there is a charge for the business extracts, accounts and other information products. In Dutch and English but only the Dutch pages have the search options enabled.

Norway

Brønnøysund Register Centre http://www.brreg.no/
The Brønnøysund Register Centre is a government body under the Norwegian Ministry of Trade and Industry, and consists of several different national EDP registers. These registers contain information and key data on: liabilities and titles in mortgaged movable property; 280,000 business enterprises; 1,300,000 annual accounts and auditor's reports of limited companies; bankruptcies and compulsory liquidations. This is a priced service with no free information at all. In Norwegian and English.

Spain

Central Mercantile Registry. Legal Information of companies, statistics and company names http://www.rmc.es/
No free information available at all and a subscription is required to access the service. In English, French, German and Spanish.

Sweden

PRV - Swedish Patent and Registration Office http://www.prv.se/
PRV has been registering limited liability companies in Sweden since 1897. It has now expanded to include all enterprises from one-man businesses to companies of all sizes, including Swedish branches of foreign companies. They also maintain a register of bankruptcies and bans on conducting business. Priced service. In English and Swedish.

UK

Companies House http://www.companies-house.gov.uk/
The official UK body for company registrations. This site gives free access to the Disqualified Directors database and the Companies Name and Address Index. Accounts and company documents are priced.

Top 10 Business Sources

http://www.rba.co.uk/sources/top10/

The delegates on the latest Key Business Sources on the Net workshop (24th February) voted the following as their Top 10 Business Sources:

1. Google http://www.google.com/ - good general purpose search engine with options for searching Usenet, news and images.
2. Companies House http://www.companieshouse.gov.uk/ - starting point for information on UK registered companies.
3. Governments on the WWW http://www.gksoft.com/govt/ - the most extensive collection of links to national and local governments, government departments and political parties organised by country.
4. Trade Association Forum http://www.taforum.org/ - searchable directory of UK trade associations.
5. The Scholarly Societies Project http://www.scholarly-societies.org/ - a wide ranging International collection covering trade and research associations, royal societies, international unions and federations.
6. BBC News http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/ - access to current and archive news on events world-wide plus links to background information and relevant sites.
7. Marketing file.com http://www.marketingfile.com/ - collection of pay-as-you-go direct marketing lists
8. ICC Plum http://www.iccplum.co.uk/- information on all UK companies required to file at Companies House, including those who have ceased trading.
9. RBA Business Information on the Net http://www.rba.co.uk/sources/
10. Official Statistics on the Web http://www.auckland.ac.nz/lbr/stats/offstats/OFFSTATSmain.htm - key starting point for official statistics sites on the Web

Gizmo of the Month

PawSense

http://www.bitboost.com/pawsense/

This month's gizmo is for cat owners. If your moggy has ever deleted urgent emails and critical files by walking or lounging across your keyboard, this gizmo is for you!

PawSense is a software utility that helps protect your computer from cats. It quickly detects and blocks "cat typing", and also helps train your cat to stay off the computer keyboard.

PawSense will automatically start up in the background to watch over your computer system. It constantly monitors keyboard activity and analyzes keypress timings and combinations to distinguish cat typing from human typing. PawSense normally recognises a cat on the keyboard within one or two pawsteps. Once a cat has been recognised, PawSense blocks the cat's keyboard input and makes a sound that annoys the cat. If the default sound file does not work, you can change it via the Advanced Settings or even record your own.

PawSense costs USD 19.99 (plus shipping and handling)

Meetings & Workshops

Workshop: Business Information: Resource Management Strategies
Organiser: UKOLUG
Course leader: Karen Blakeman
Venue: CILIP, Ridgmount Street, London
Date: Wednesday, 16th April 2003 9.15 - 16.45
URL: http://www.ukolug.org.uk/meetings/meetings.htm
Cost: GBP 100 + VAT (GBP117.50) for UKOLUG members; GBP 130 + VAT (GBP152.75) for non-members.

Dates:

25-27 June 2003. Collection Management in the Digital Library. Tutors: Ray Lonsdale (Reader, DIS) with Chris Armstrong (Director of iGSS)
30 June - 2 July 2003. The Electronic Library: Information Literacy and Management. Tutors: Professor Peter Underwood (University of Cape Town) and Hugh Preston (Lecturer, DIS)
7-9 July 2003. Placing your Library on the Web. Tutors Chris Armstrong, Lucy Tedd (Lecturer, DIS) and Karen Blakeman (RBA Information Services)

Cost: Each course is residential and costs £785.
Further information: Joyce Wallace Administrator, Department of Information Studies University of Wales, Aberystwyth Tel 01970 622157 Fax 01970 622190 Email Joyce.Wallace@aber.ac.uk
URL: http://www.dil.aber.ac.uk/IGSS/

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

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