Live.com

MSN Search becomes Windows Live

There I was, standing in front of a workshop full of seriously proficient Internet searchers, and running through my list of Google alternatives. I get to MSN Search, hit the bookmark and stand there in bemused silence for what seemed like an eternity but was probably only about 10 seconds. In the couple of hours since I had checked the site, MSN Search had become Windows Live (http://www.live.com/).

The screen may look very different but the search features and commands, some of them well hidden, are the same. The home page is the most obvious difference but the Search Builder, now renamed Advanced Search, has disappeared. It reappears once you display your results list. Why? I can only assume that Microsoft thinks that all searchers only resort to advanced search options when their initial basic search has failed. Not that it really matters, since some of the really good advanced options are not listed in the menu anyway and you have to use them by going into ‘command line’ mode.

For example:

car ownership UK filetype:xls

The home page now has links for Web, Images, News and Local search but the free access to Encarta has been dropped. I have, though, seen various reports saying that you can still get to it by searching on encarta plus your search terms or site:encarta.msn.com plus the terms.

It would also be helpful to have the More option on the home page rather than having to generate a results page to see it! At present More gives you access to a Feeds search and Academic Live, both of which are still in beta. I first reviewed Academic Live in April 2006 (http://www.rba.co.uk/rss/2006/04/windows-academic-search.html). Not much seems to have changed in functionality but I note they have added many more journals to the database, including biomedical and healthcare titles. I subscribe to just about every official Microsoft alerting service but the enhancements do not seem to have made it to any of them. This is an ongoing problem with MSN Search/Windows Live; if you want to keep up with developments you have to regularly hunt around the site for changes and review the help files for the new and really useful commands*.

The Local search works pretty well, but I need to look at it in more detail and compare it with other similar services before I pass final judgement. One problem that struck me straight away was that although it started off with a UK map it transported me over to the US when I searched for churches in Caversham. I had to include UK in the location to force it back to the UK. The satellite images are slightly higher resolution and crisper than Google’s for my location, and they seem to be more up to date.

Apart from Academic Live, I am not yet convinced that I should be using Live.com as my regular search engine. The web search results still seem to be more consumer and retail orientated than Google and Yahoo, and I am usually looking for research or statistics on a subject. A search on ‘gin vodka sales uk’ in Google and Yahoo will bring up market research reports and industry stats galore: on Live.com, the first is a statistical overview but the remainder on my first result page are online stores where one can buy gin and vodka! This is not actually a problem, and there are times when you may want to bias the search in this way, but it is as well to be aware of it.

Overall, a nice clean interface but very little has changed under the bonnet and some useful search features have disappeared from view.

*One useful command that you might have missed is the feed command. The scenario: you are, like me, a news and RSS feed junkie. You have found a really good news site covering your subject or industry sector but surely it cannot be true that they do not have RSS feeds? Check by using the Live.com feed command combined with the site command. For example:

site:superduperwidget.co.uk feed:superduperwidget.co.uk

Try it on the BBC web site and you’ll discover that they have 1,956 feeds!

Top 10 Business Sites

Business Information: Top 10 Sites and Tips

Another day another workshop. This time it was Business Information on the Internet organised by TFPL on September 27th, and attended by information professionals from the private, academic and banking sector. As usual I asked them to come up with a group Top 10 Sites and Tips. If you are loosing track of the top 10s that have been popping up on this blog, I shall be compiling two combined lists in December: one for business and market research, and the second for search tips.

This is the order in which the participants nominated the sites:

  1. Resource Shelf – http://www.resourceshelf.com/ – “where dedicated librarians and researchers share the results of their directed (and occasionally quirky) web searches for resources and information. The editorial team is headed by Gary Price and Shirl Kennedy. Use the search option to hunt through the archives for recommended sites on a topic, and subscribe to the RSS feed to keep up with the latest additions to the ‘shelf’.
  2. Google – http://www.google.com/, http://www.google.co.uk/ . It can be temperamental and it doesn’t always do what it says on the tin, but for much of the time Google still comes up with the goods. Make sure that you are using the advanced search features for example file formats searches, limit by domain, numeric range search, synonym search etc. and that you are using the right ‘bit’, for example News, Blogsearch, Google Books.
  3. Yahoo Finance – http://uk.finance.yahoo.com/ . Good starting point for companies listed on the UK stock exchange and a selection of other countries stock exchanges. For some markets there are free, daily historical share prices for 10 – 15 years (varies depending on the country and exchange) and free intraday charts. If you are into share price data and analysis click on the Technical Charts and you can play around with wonders such as Bollinger Bands.
  4. Google and Yahoo News for the last thirty days of news stories. Go to Google or Yahoo and click on the News options. Both have good international, national and local coverage, and offer alerting services. Google recently launched a Google News Archive service going back 200 years for some story lines and publications. (Many of the articles are priced). Also try Ask (http://www.ask.co.uk/ or http://www.ask.com/) and Accoona (http://www.accoona.com/)
  5. Alacrawiki Spotlights – http://www.alacrawiki.com/ . Click on the Alacra Spotlights link in the top left hand corner of the screen for access to overviews of key resources on industry sectors. Great for bringing yourself up to speed on industry specific sites and as introduction to sectors that are new to you. Although this is a wiki, the Spotlights area is locked so that only Alacra editors can change the content of the pages in this section.
  6. Intute – http://www.intute.ac.uk/. The Resource Discovery Network is dead – long live Intute. Do not be put off by the academic address. This is an excellent starting point for evaluated, quality sites on a wide range of subjects and industries. If you are looking specifically for business information, these can now be found under http://www.intute.ac.uk/socialsciences/business/.
  7. FT.com – http://www.ft.com/ . What can one say? “No FT – no comment according to the advert strapline. To get the most out of this site you will need to subscribe, that is pay money. Level 1 costs £98.99 a year and gives you access to subscriber-only FT content and tools including personalised news alerts, FT analysis and the 5-year archive. Level 2 costs £200 a year and gives you Level 1 access plus access to 500 global press sources and financial data on about 18,000 companies worldwide.
  8. PWC EdgarScan – http://edgarscan.pwc.com/ (click on the EdgarScan link). Repackages the US official SEC filings data and makes it easier to search and identify relevant official documents from US listed companies. There is a wide range of search, display, export and analysis options, all of which are free of charge.
  9. Freepint Newsletter + Bar – http://www.freepint.com/ . Fortnightly newsletter available on the web and by email covering a range of information related issues and subjects. The “bar is a web based discussion area where you can ask for help with tricky questions. But “Where’s the free beer? asked one workshop participant.
  10. Marketresearch.com – http://www.marketsresearch.com/. A good starting point for pay as you go market research reports. Also try Mindbranch (http://www.mindbranch.com/) and Research and Markets (http://www.researchandmarkets.com/ . You may find that publishers do not always supply the whole of their catalogue to these content aggregators or that the reports are embargoed for varying periods of time. If you find an interesting report via one of these aggregators, double check with the original publisher to see if there is a more relevant or up to date report available direct from them.
Google, RSS

Google RSS Reader Revamped

Thank Heavens! Google has totally redesigned its RSS feed reader. The old interface was a disaster: hideous, confusing and non-intuitive. I suspect that many users who were new to RSS feeds have given up on the technology forever as a result.

Having got that whinge out of the way how does the new reader compare with what is already out there? For starters, the default display will now be familiar to existing RSS junkies like me. The left hand side of the screen lists your feeds, and in folders if you have decided to organise them in that way. The individual items are displayed in the central area of the screen, and there is a tips and tricks box on the right hand side of the “Home” page.

Google Reader now allows you to view just new items, all items in a single list, all items by folder or items by individual feed. For me, a variety of viewing options is essential. I need to view individual, priority feeds as soon as I fire up my reader in the morning but I am then quite happy to scan through all the UK news feeds, for example, as one long “folder” list. The only serious gripe I have with the display of the items and feeds is that Google Reader does not include the feeds own icons. It may seem a minor point but it is a quick way of identifying the feed source when scanning through a combined list of all your new items. One point to watch is that the default in Expanded View is to mark items read as you scroll through them. This is a feature that I find extremely irritating but is easily put right by going to Settings, Preferences.

There are two ‘views’ for items: Expanded View gives you the title, source and as much of the article that the publisher has decided to include in the item. The List View gives you the title, the first few words of the article and the date in just one line. To view the original or source document just click on the title or the double chevron next to the title.

For each item you can Star, Share, Email, Mark as read and Edit tags. When I tried these out only the Email and Mark as read options worked: the others gave an “error has occurred message”. But it is early days with the new interface so hopefully these glitches will be addressed soon. The email option defaulted to my Googlemail account so there could be a problem if you want to send headlines or stories to colleagues and clients using your corporate email account. Other web based readers such as Newsgator use your default email reader. Also, you cannot send more than one headline or item per email – a failing with many web based RSS readers. Another notable omission is that you cannot keyword search your feeds or set up alerts, again a non-feature of most web based readers.

You can easily import and export your existing list of feeds and adding a subscription is straightforward. Google Reader, though, does not support user authentication so if you have Factiva feeds, for example, it is back to your PC based reader or Newsgator.com.

Overall, I am impressed. Until now I have been telling RSS newbies who want to just dip a toe in the RSS stream to avoid Google’s reader like the plague. It is still not perfect, and I shall continue to use Omea on my laptop, but I have now added Google Reader to my list of recommended web based readers.

Before the revamp..

After…

Techie Stuff

Tech Talk: The Laptop Battery Recall Scorecard

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If you have bought a new laptop, and are wondering if yours is affected by the latest series of battery recalls, this posting on Tech Talk gives links to the relevant pages on manufacturers’ web sites. My particular model of Toshiba seems unaffected but I shall be monitoring the Toshiba page in case that changes. For the Tosh machines the batteries do not burst into flames – they just stop working.

Tech Talk also has information on Dell’s free recycling programme, an inititiative that Dell have completely forgotten to tell me about in the numerous emails and newsletters that they send me. The link in Tech Talk takes you to the US site but a quick check on the UK Dell pages revealed that it is available over on this side of The Pond as well. You can use the service to recycle defunct Dell equipment, or if you have just bought a Dell you can recycle your old equipment regardless of manufacturer. Looks promising. In my location one has to pay for computers to be collected for recycling so I have filled in the form and am awaiting further instructions.

Presentations

Investing in Eastern Europe Conference

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Investing in Eastern Europe: Focus on Assets, Ownership & Governance
6th International Conference on Commercial Information Gathering & Analysis
Thursday 19th October 2006, Strand Palace Hotel, London
Registration Fee: GBP 250, EURO 375 per person

The former state controlled economies of Central and Eastern Europe all face a challenge to build full market economies based on private ownership. Whilst legislation can be put in place to act as a guide for ownership structures what is actually needed is the political will to ensure that commercial advancement is not impeded. This specialist one-day conference will examine some of the influences and factors relating to this issue and provide an insight into how the problems are slowly being addressed.

The European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD) and Effective Technology Marketing are, once again, co-hosting the conference at the Strand Palace Hotel, London to discuss the practical identification, acquisition and analysis of commercial information in the region and its application.

Programme

Chairman – Paul Byfield, Legal Information Specialist, EBRD

Keynote Address
The role of the Russian judicial system in protection of shareholders’ rights in Russia
Olga Anisimova, Partner, Solicitor, Orrick, Herrington and Sutcliffe and former Russian Judge

Politics and the Bankruptcy of Russia’s Richest Company:
Analysis of the Yukos affair
Alan Rousso, Lead Counsellor, Office of the Chief Economist, EBRD

Corporate Governance in Action.
The situation in Central and Eastern Europe and the Balkans
Gian Piero Cigna, Counsel, Office of the General Counsel, EBRD

Has eastern Europe benefited from privatisation?
speaker to be confirmed

Overview of the investment climate in The Caucasus
Anna Walker, Senior Editor & Economist for Eastern Europe, Economist Intelligence Unit.

The BIG THREE and others – commercial online east European business information services
Dr Frank Ryan, Manager, Business Information Centre, EBRD

Overview of free sources on the Internet relating to company ownership
in central and eastern Europe
Karen Blakeman, Consultant, Rhodes–Blakeman Associates

The conference is supported by a focused exhibition of leading commercial information providers.

Details and registration forms at http://www.dataresources.co.uk/confintro.htm
PDF brochure download http://www.dataresources.co.uk/EEBIC%202006.pdf

Search Strategies, Top 10 Search Tips

Top 10 Search Tips

Delegates on the recent Advanced Internet Search Strategies workshop held at Manchester Business School came from the commercial sector, charities and the NHS. It was a lively day and the group came up with a very interesting list of Top 10 Tips:

1. It isn’t you!
You run your search a second time in Google and you get a completely different set of results despite having run the same search a mere 20 minutes before. Or you run a site search in Google but the results come from here, there and everywhere. Or your results bear no resemblance whatsoever to your search strategy. Don’t worry – it isn’t you. Google does play up at times and results are rarely consistent or reproducible from one moment to the next. If you are having serious difficulties getting any sense out of Google, don’t struggle. Try another search engine (Yahoo, AlltheWeb Livesearch, Ask, Exalead, Windows Live).

2. Google.
OK – we slagged off Google in Tip 1 but it can still deliver the goods a lot of the time and is the first port of call for most of us. Make sure, though, that you are using the advanced search features to the full and that you are using the right part of Google for example News for current headlines, Images, Blogsearch etc.

3. AlltheWeb Livesearch – http://livesearch.alltheweb.com/
Start typing in your search and AlltheWeb Livesearch immediately displays results and alternative search strategies that change as you type. The changing results help you spot when you are starting to go wrong with your search and the suggested alternative searches can be useful if you are unsure of how to tackle a subject.

4. Google Maps/Local – http://maps.google.co.uk/.
Great maps combining ordinary street maps with satellite images. (The business search option is not always reliable, though, and Google does not seem to want to tell you where railway stations are).

5. Use the Wayback Machine (http://www.archive.org/) to see what was being said on a web site in the past or to track down “lost” documents and pages.

6. Remember that you are searching an out of date index of the web when you are using Google et al. Google is the least up to date: Yahoo and MSN/Windows Live seem to be the most frequently updated.

7. Explore Blogs as potential sources of information opinions on industry events, products etc and RSS feeds as a means of delivering search alerts and current news headlines. You will need a feed reader for RSS feeds: try Newsgator.com (web based reader) or Omea (http://www.jetbrains.com/omea/reader/) if you are looking for a PC based reader.

8. Trovando – http://www.trovando.it/
Enables you enter your search strategy once and run it in different types of search tools one by one for example web, images, news, blogs, audio, video.

9. Repeat the most important terms or terms in your search one or more times. This will often change the order in which your results are sorted and give you different results.

10. If your search involves numbers, distances, weights, prices or measurements of any sort use the numeric range search in Google. For example:

toblerone 1..5 kg

to find online shops selling large(!) bars of toblerone

or

TV advertising spend forecasts 2005..2012

to look for forecasts mentioning years from 2005 to 2012.

Top 10 Business Sites

Market Research on the Web – Top 10 Tips

Information professionals from the commercial sector, universities and government agencies attended the workshop Market Research on the Web, held at Manchester Business School on September 6th. A regular feature of the courses that I run is the Top 10 tips, sites and tricks that I ask the participants to compile at the end of the day. This time, they came up with an interesting mix of sites and search techniques.

  1. Use search tools’ Advanced Search screens and commands to help refine your search.For example restrict your search to PDFs for large reports, XLS for spreadsheets containing data. Use the site: option to limit your search to types of organisations or an individual site, for example site:gov.uk for UK government sites or site:statistics.gov.uk to search just the UK national statistics web site.

    Use the link commands to find pages that link to a document that you already have and which is highly relevant (pages that link to one another tend to have similar content). Use the Yahoo link command to find pages that link to a specific page (syntax – link:http://www.rba.co.uk/sources/stats.htm) or the linkdomain command to find pages that link to any page on a site (syntax – linkdomain:rba.co.uk)

  2. Use the Google define: command to locate definitions of acronyms, abbreviations and jargon terms, for example define:cpm. Alternatively, in any search tool use the search ‘what is….’, for example what is cpm.
  3. Wikipedia – www.wikipedia.org – for quick overviews on topics. [Note: this site was not covered in the course but several of the participants mentioned it as one of their starting points on subjects that are new to them]
  4. Alacrawiki – www.alacrawiki.com – a guide to business information companies, publishers and databases. The Alacra Industry Spotlights in particular are extremely useful in providing reviews and commentary on industry specific web sites that have statistics, market research and news. Invaluable if you need to get up to speed on key resources in a sector or industry.
  5. Make sure that you are using the right keywords and jargon related to the industry that you are researching. These can also vary from country to country, for example clothes washers versus washing machines. Also be aware that different directories use different coding systems and categorisations, and that there are different national official coding systems.
  6. Fita: Import Export Business & International Trade Leads – www.fita.org. Good starting point for country and industry specific directories, market research sites, general information on trading in other countries and cultural differences in doing business.
  7. Bureau van Dijk Free Directory – www.bvdep.com – click on the Free Directory link. This can be a useful way of identifying companies active in a sector in a country or region. You can also limit your search to size of company (for example large, medium, small, very small). Free Information includes name of the company, town, country and official registration number. Results can be exported in a variety of formats.
  8. Use the free executive summaries and tables of contents provided by market research publishers for keywords and to identify major players in a market.
  9. For smaller companies export directories often provide more free information than the official company registries. Information may include names of sales, marketing, export directors; key export markets and the products involved; turnover band; employees band. Search on the phrase export directory combined with a country and/or industry sector. Also try fita.org for directories or Marketingfile.com for searchable mailing lists including exporters/importers.
  10. Try social bookmarking services, for example www.furl.net , to see what other people have identified as relevant in a particular area and to set up your own list of useful resources. The service is hosted on an external web site so you do not have to be at your own computer or at work to access your lists. Lists can be kept private, shared between colleagues or made completely public. [A participant on this course explained how her organisation uses FURL to share resources on topics between different groups and departments.]
Presentations

Investing in Eastern Europe: Focus on Assets, Ownership & Governance

6th International Conference on Commercial Information Gathering & Analysis
Date: Thursday 19th October 2006,
Venue: Strand Palace Hotel, London
Registration Fee: £250, €375 per person

The former state controlled economies of Central and Eastern Europe all face a challenge to build full market economies based on private ownership. Whilst legislation can be put in place to act as a guide for ownership structures what is actually needed is the political will to ensure that commercial advancement is not impeded.

This specialist one-day conference will examine some of the influences and factors relating to this issue and provide an insight into how the problems are slowly being addressed.

The European Bank for reconstruction and development (EBRD) and Effective Technology Marketing are, once again, co-hosting the conference at the Strand Palace Hotel, London to discuss the practical identification, acquisition and analysis of commercial information in the region and its application.

Speakers include:

Chairman: Paul Byfield, Legal Information Specialist, EBRD
Keynote speaker: Olga Anisimova, Partner, Solicitor Orrick, Herrington and Sutcliffe
Alan Rousso, Lead Counsellor, Office of the Chief Economist, EBRD
Gian Piero Cigna, Counsel, Office of the General Counsel, EBRD
Dr Frank Ryan, Manager, Business Information Centre, EBRD
Karen Blakeman, Consultant, Rhodes-Blakeman Associates

Further details of the programme and registration forms are available at http://www.dataresources.co.uk/confintro.htm

Uncategorized

Blog – PetrolPrices.com

My blog posting on Petrolprices.com is the entry that receives the largest number of hits by far. Not surprising as petrol prices continue to rise and there is a wide variation in pump prices even within a small area. The site now has a blog and recent articles include discussions on biodiesel and a special 4p/litre off promotion in Northern Ireland. RSS and Atom feeds are available so you can keep up to date with the topics via your favourite feed reader.

Assessing Quality

Intute – the best Web resources for education and research

A reminder that the Resource Discovery Network (RDN) has been replaced by Intute.

“Intute is a free online service providing you with access to the very best Web resources for education and research. The service is created by a network of UK universities and partners. Subject specialists select and evaluate the websites in our database and write high quality descriptions of the resources.”

I find the new service much easier to navigate and I can find relevant gateways much more quickly than with the old RDN. There are 4 main areas: Science & Technology; Arts & Humanities; Social Sciences; and Health & Life Sciences. If you are intrested in business information, the resources covered by the busines and management section of SOSIG are now at http://www.intute.ac.uk/socialsciences/business/. Although their target audience is students, staff and researchers in higher and further education this collection of resources is of value to anyone who uses business information.

News and comments on search tools and electronic resources for research