Web tools that make life easier.

Donna Fryer, President, Global Information Search and Retrieval, dfryer@searchitright.com
Dale Tincher, President, ConsultWebs, dtincher@consultwebs.com


When doing research on the internet, do you ever feel like you get lost in the "World of Too Much Information"? It can be a daunting feeling. It’s not unusual to feel like everyone else knows more than you do about different internet tricks.

How can you tame the internet, be more proficient, and spend less time spinning your wheels? A few Web tools can help you be more organized and feel more in control. Most of the software discussed in this article are is downloadable. Not all are free, but many are relatively inexpensive. There may be similar product offerings, but the products mentioned are the ones with which we are familiar.

Capturing information

Ever have a presentation to do and need screen prints in your Power Point presentation? You have to capture the whole screen and do a lot of cropping. Fortunately, TechSmith's SnagIt allows you to easily capture only the part of the screen that you want and removes the extraneous additions such as sidebars, extra spaces, and advertisements. SnagIt is one of our favorites – it’s so simple to use. When you find a document and want to capture a portion, just drag a box around that area, copy it, and then paste it to the final document. No cropping needed!

If you are a small company that wants to look like a major corporation (including the budget), TechSmith's Camtasia is the product for you. Camtasia's motto is "Show them how." According to Camtasia, this tool "creates videos of onscreen activity from any application, and allow you to easily show people how to use software and web sites."

There are quite a few of these products on the market, but according to some trainers that regularly use these type of products, Camtasia compacts the information better and creates a smaller document. This software allows you to record video files of a screen, window, or particular region with a single click. You can then embed this into a PowerPoint presentation or other targeted document. Once you have developed the video you can add text, drawings, and cursor highlights. You can even narrate the video during or after recording.

Spam and pop-ups

Do spam and pop-ups drive you crazy?! It seems like you cannot go to a website without getting two or three ads popping at you -- singing, making noises. How about receiving annoying spam? According to research from Executive Summary Consulting, Inc. and Quris, 28% to 37% of all e-mail is spam. Again, there are several products that would like to eliminate these annoying problems. Let's mention a few:

MailWasher is a good product for managing spam. MailWasher gives you control of which e-mails get passed through to your inbox. It differs from other spam filters, which automatically delete unrecognized emails, by giving you control of the e-mails that are passed through to your inbox. In addition, you can bounce back an e-mail to make it look like the address is invalid and possibly eliminating future spamming from the same source. This download is free. However the MailWasher owner is not against a "donation" for the software if you like the product.

Besides spam, pop-ups are like a bad dream that you cannot wake up from. Several products out there reduce pop-ups, but none of them are perfect. However, one product that was named "PC World's Best Bet" and c/net's Editor's Choice is AdSubract Pro. AdSubtract Pro stops pop-ups, pop-unders, flash ads, standard banner ads, freezes GIF images, blocks spying cookies, and erases browsing history, enabling better privacy. The result of all this blocking will speed up your internet time because you will not have to wait for these ads to download.

Information organization

There are two products that aid with information organization that are excellent. The first one that I'll talk about is AskSam's SurfSaver. SurfSaver is a browser add-on which lets you store valuable web pages in different 'cabinets' and folders for future referencing. It allows you to save text, graphics, frames, and -- the best part -- hypertext links. Not only can you save the original page but several layers of links. When you save the web page, you have the option of adding a title, keywords, and notes to make it easier to retrieve the information. Search terms are highlighted when you open a results page.

AskSam has two versions of SurfSaver. There is a free version that has good functionality but is not as versatile as the lower cost version. This version ,called SurfSaver Pro, allows you to save multiple pages at once, store SurfSaver folders in any drive including CD ROM drives, and directly import HTML and text files into SurfSaver folders.

CatchTheWeb is similar to SurfSaver and is designed for anyone who has to deal with informatiom management, not only from the Web but also pulling general information together. CatchTheWeb enables the researcher to capture web content into a database, annotate pages, add sticky notes, include Word docs and spreadsheets, and finally compile an entire project into a single file for presentation or archiving purposes. The presentation can easily be e-mailed to a client or posted to an intranet site.

Additional features include full text searching of all collected documents, time and date stamped pages including original URL or document location, and highlighting important text in documents. For those who give presentations or do training, CatchTheWeb makes creating your presentation from your database fast and simple. CatchTheWeb Player, a freely distributed software program, enables you to deliver your presentation either on-line or off-line.

Since both SurfSaver and CatchTheWeb date and time stamp their documents, these can definitely be used for archival and litigation purposes.

CatchTheWeb does not have a free version but you can download a trial version. CatchTheWeb is priced relatively low considering the feature functionality of their product.

Web tool uses

Whether you are doing research and need to find a better management system than just using your browser's bookmarks or your responsibility includes presentations or training, it is important to use the most cost effective, efficient processes. Just think what future technological developments can do for work productivity!


Background:

Donna Fryer is a research consultant and owner of Global Information Research & Retrieval, LLC in Greensboro, NC. She has developed training CD's on how to search the internet efficiently and CLE CDs for attorneys - Search it right packaged training. She also does secondary competitive intelligence research for businesses. Her website is www.SearchitRight.com.

Dale Tincher is president of Consultwebs.com, a Raleigh, North Carolina-based web development and search Engine optimization firm. Consultwebs.com specializes in helping businesses maintain a professional web presence as well as helping them obtain high search engine rankings. His website is  www.ConsultWebs.com.

scip.online, issue 23, January 23, 2003