Date: Fri 18-Jul-1997

By Previous Employees

Published: Aug 11, 1999 12:00 am

Publication: Bee

Author: BILLB

Quick Words:

Search-Engine-Internet-Brand

Full Text:

Internet Info for Real People: Search Engine Update

Search engines continue to be a source of bewilderment to Web surfers. The

amount of information on the Net piles up faster than it can be organized. If

your frustration level has gone over the edge, don't give up quite yet. While

I covered this topic in an earlier article (http://www.thebee.com/iinfo39),

progress has been made. Try these two tips.

Live Topics

Digital Equipment's Alta Vista sports a new feature: Live Topics. Here is a

step by step method on how to use it. Visit the website:

http://www.digital.altavista.com. In the Search window, enter your topic. In

this example, I entered: "Internet Info" (notice the quotes to clue the phrase

together). When I hit "Submit" Alta Vista returned 4,000 matches. None of the

matches on the first page were articles I wrote. On the left side of the page

you will see the following lines:

Way Cool Topics

Tables for JavaScript

Text Only - any Browser

This area is called Live Topics. Because my Netscape 3.01 browser is JAVA

savvy, I clicked on Tables. (If you get an error message, try Text only). A

screen opens which displays the most commonly found keywords within the 4,000

matches. Scrolling down the screen, at about the midpoint, there appeared a

heading: Surfing. It contained the following subtopics: thebee, brand, ISP

provider, providers, travels, fairfield. At the top of the heading appeared X

and check boxes.

Clicking on an X excludes a topic from the next round of searching; clicking

the box includes it. I checked: thebee and brand. At the bottom of the screen

the "Submit" button activated the next round of searches. This time I was

rewarded with 29 matches - every single one was relevant!

So often, you may be looking for specific information on a broad topic. Just

enter the topic and let Live Topics provide suggestions in order to narrow the

search. It works like a charm. You will love the Live Topics tool. I use it

all the time.

One last word about Alta Vista. The site has added multilingual searching

capabilities. It can search in 25 languages. I didn't know that there is an

Icelandic language. If you can write it, you can search Alta Vista in

Icelandic. It is no small wonder that this is one of the most popular sites on

the Internet.

Have you noticed how intelligent ads now appear at many search engine sites?

By this I mean, when you enter a topic to search, often a banner ad will

appear on the screen that relates to your topic. Search engine sites garner

huge amounts of ad revenue for these little messages. This is how the "free"

service pays the bills.

Inference Find

People who use search engines with regularity often find retrieval of matches

can take longer than they would like. Sometimes you are not sure whether there

are just too many people at the site where you are or the Internet is just too

overcrowded. You might want to try a new site:

http://www.inference.com/ifind/.

Inference Find is called a meta-search engine site. Here, the query gets sent

to the best search engines on the Web all at the same time in tandem. The

results come back with the information clustered into groups of related items.

The benefits are speed, broad-based searches, and grouping of the information.

In addition, duplicates are eliminated for the most part. When I entered

"Internet Info" as the keyword phrase, the results were disappointing.

However, when I entered "Internet Info for Real People," 19 matches were

returned, all relevant.

A user-friendly feature added to Inference Find is the ability to set a time

limit for searching. As you start to narrow down the subject to something that

is very specific, you can extend the time. I find this to be very helpful. I

use Inference Find as one of my primary search tools.

The Search Goes On

Frankly, I have been disappointed that more progress has not been made with

search engine technology. However, Inference Find and Live Topics are moving

the technology forward. Searching the Web (and Usenet newsgroups) will

continue to frustrate new and experienced surfers alike. These tools will help

to cut down the exasperation. Good luck.

Additional Info

Michael Tchong publishes ICONOCAST, an e-list that often contains meaty

information about the Net. For example, in the most recent issue, he included

a statistic that search-engine pageviews have hit 59 million per day. Sheesh!

You might find this well written cyber-publication of interest. To subscribe,

send a message to majordomo@iconocast with the following command in the body

of the message: subscribe iconocast. Highly recommended.

A final note

For Juno fans, D.E. Shaw automatically updated its users to version 1.38. One

minor problem that I had been experiencing (losing the font style after the

first page was printed) has been corrected. I have noticed that V 1.38 seems

to "hang" (freeze up) my Pentium more frequently than previous versions. The

problem manifests itself when displaying the ads and may be more prevalent on

high activity systems like mine.

I hope Juno will fix this quickly.

URLs (Uniform Resource Locators) of interest:

http://www.altavista.digital.com/

http://www.inference.com/ifind/

http://www.555-1212.com/whte_us.htm

http://www.four11.com

http://ds.internic.net/ds/webfinder/WebFinder.html

(Note: This is the 60th of a series of elementary articles designed for

surfing the Internet. Next, "Deep Blue" is the subject on tap. Stay tuned.

Until next week, happy travels through cyberspace.

Previous issues of Internet Info for Real People can be found at

http://www.thebee.com. Please email comments and suggestions to

rbrand@JUNO.com or editor@thebee.com.)

Next HRRA Household Hazardous Waste Drop-Off Event Scheduled In Newtown

Genealogy Club's Next Program To Dig Into 'Dissecting A Civil War Pension Record'

Choral Society Planning ‘Voices Of America’ Performance

Newtown Earth Day Festival Was A Success

Local Fourth Grader To Host ‘Gaming For Change’ On May 16

The editorial took no position on the budget going up or down so you're reading things into the editorial that simply aren't there. The turnout is tied to the lack of passage, in that people who came out to vote last time did not this time, indicating a lack of support on their part. Perhaps it wasn't spelled out clearly enough, but that's what the editorial was driving at, people showing lack of support by not casting a vote. The editorial did address likely concerns among voters that may have led to lack of support and lack of turnout. This lower turnout also follows increasing turnout over the past four referendums in three years (meaning it is an aberration from that), and increased turnout is something that I do push for regularly in editorials. Any disappointment you might be seeing is at the break in that trend, not at whether the budget passed or not. I'd rather see more people come out and vote "no" then not vote at all.

Lower Turnout Results In Two Budget Defeats

Clearly, property owners no longer want to bear the burden of expenses while the state does not meet it’s responsibilities. Rising costs must be addressed by actions that do not include yearly increases of property owners’ taxes. The state of CT must meet its share of the educational costs, and other costs.

Town And School Budgets Fail At Referendum

This feels like an oddly misleading headline and narrative, particularly coming from the Editorial Board. The headline "Lower Turnout Results in Two Budget Defeats" pushes a misleading narrative regarding voter turnout, and then seeks to tie the outcome of the referendum to that misleading narrative. Sure, voter turn out for this year's referendum, 18%, was lower than last year's. However, last year's turnout, 25.4%, represented the highest turnout in the most recent 10 budget referendums. If you take the time to examine turnout percentages between 2017 and 2026 (2017: 19.9, 2018: 15.7, 2019: 17, 2020: 0, 2021: 8.98, 2022: 7.7, 2023: 8.8, 2024: 15.1/17.49, 2025: 25.4, 2026: 18), this year's turnout was actually the third highest in the past 10 cycles. Perhaps the headline of this article should say "Lower Voter Turnout Than Last Year", which is more accurate, rather than creating an impression that this year's turnout is some type of aberration - a narrative that the turnout numbers, in all their binary glory, simply do not support. Further, the headline of this article appears to tie the "lower turnout" to the defeated budgets. Sure, that could be true. But, perhaps, its more likely that Newtown residents are feeling the squeeze of multiple economic influences. In Newtown, we've experienced property revaluations and increased municipal spending. Eversource continues to raise rates. The state legislature gives PURA the authority to impose Public Benefit charges that benefit a tiny percentage of the public (and subsequently burdening the rest of us). At the national level, inflation has run rampant for years and many of those costs remain high to this day. In short, the data tells a far less dramatic—and far more honest—story than the headline suggests. This wasn’t an electorate vanishing in apathy; it was a fairly typical turnout delivering an verdict that, perhaps, some at the Editorial Board didn't like. At some point, it’s worth considering that residents aren’t confused, disengaged, or misled by turnout; they’re simply doing math at their kitchen tables and concluding that “no” is the only responsible answer left.

Enjoyed the forum which only confirmed my support for Brandon Moore as the Democratic candidate to run for the state representative position. Brandon Moore did not waiver about his duty to all the people, if elected, when an issue presents itself that requires that he voice a difference of opinion for the wellbeing of Newtown residents. If Michelle Ku’s 16 years have led to her loyalty being to other elected officials, as she implied, then Newtown is going to continue to witness actions that do not protect its residents. She could not unseat republican, Mitch Bolinsky, during a Blue Wave, and once again, will not do it now. Winning that seat is critical for all. That explains why her previous campaign committee now campaigns for Brandon Moore. It explains all the endorsements he has received from local elected democratic officials. It’s why we need Brandon Moore to be the democratic candidate to run for state representative.

Second Newtown DTC, League Of Women Voters Candidates Event Planned

Appreciated the opportunity to hear from both candidates as we were present for the College Dems forum but only heard from Brandon Moore. It was an opportunity to see who can unseat the Republican incumbent and there is no doubt that Brandon Moore should be the Democratic candidate. One concerned parent posed a question about discrimination unaddressed by the school district and interestingly enough, Michelle Ku, who proudly speaks of her Board membership years, said little, while Brandon Moore passionately addressed the issue along with his experience as an Apache Helicopter Commander. This family is supporting Brandon Moore. We need change and someone who is not afraid to disagree, especially about the rising costs of living in Newtown.

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Date: Fri 18-Jul-1997

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