"Internet Tips & Tricks",

shown on Good Day Sacramento, KMAX-31, 99/9/1.

• Begin any research project with one broad request across many search engines to see which ones have the most information on your topic.
  • Use a multiple-company search site (such as Dogpile) to save time & typing.

  • Try a variety of search engines — there's a large list, annotated by folks from the Internet Users Group of Northern California at http://www.dcn.org/go/rahance/engines.html.

  • If you have a new iMac, use "Sherlock" to easily search a multitude of sites (again, saves time & typing).

• Find sites by "authorities" and use their reference links. For example, use a professional non-profit organization related to your topic.
  • Some search engines or directories only list people who pay to be included in them. "Browser beware" is a good thing to remember on the Internet!

• Select "New window with this link" from the mouse-menu, so your original search-results document doesn't have to be re-loaded when you've finished looking at one item and you're ready to move on. [To do that: move the pointer onto the link, then hold down the mouse (on a Mac) or right click (on a Windows PC) to display a menu list; and choose appropriately. ]

• Use bookmarks or favorites to store links you don't have time to explore thoroughly. You can delete or re-organize those entries later.
  • Select "Add bookmark for this link" from the mouse-menu. [To do that: move the pointer onto the link, then hold down the mouse (on a Mac) or right click (on a Windows PC) to display a menu list; choose appropriately. ]

• You can't get EVERYTHING from any one place!

• FIND PEOPLE to explore with — either a computer-specific users group (MacNexus for Mac users, Sacramento PC Users Group for non-Mac folks); or a topic-specific club (Seniors, Geneology); or an Internet-specific group (Internet Users Group of Northern California) — or a neighbor or pal.

  Adult classes are available in most School Districts; and private tutoring & commercial classes also exist in many cities.

1. Open your bookmarks editing window. (Your program may call them "favorites" or "a hotlist" instead of bookmarks; but all browsers have something similar.)

2. Save your current bookmarks file to your hard drive (look for "Save..." in the File menu), name it something, and REMEMBER what you called it & where it is being stored. [You can only put these items back later if you save them now.]

3. Did you save? Okay, then DELETE all your bookmarks now.

4. Go to your main browser page and ADD BOOKMARKS.

5. Go to the bookmarks editing window and edit each bookmark — change the title and/or add comments. [Here is where one can also IMPORT bookmarks if you have gotten or made such a file.]

   -- Repeat steps 4 & 5 as desired. —

6. When you have added all the bookmarks you want on this list, go to or open your bookmarks editing window again.

7. Save your current bookmarks file to your hard drive (using "Save..." in the File menu), name it something topical which ends with ".htm", and WRITE DOWN what you called it & where it is being stored.

8. Go to your main browser page and OPEN this new HTML document. (From the "File" menu choose "Open document" or "Open file", in the resulting window, find your topical.htm file and select it.)

9. Voila!! Your very own annotated bibliography!

Get up,

get going,

go birding!

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