Phil Bradley trawls the internet to find the answers to this month’s readers’ queries.
Q I’m trying to find a domain name for my website, but every time I think of something I find that it’s already been taken. I’m using a resource on a hosting website to check out available names, but do you know of anything better?
A There’s a really nice site called PCNames Domain Search (www.pcnames.com/) and it works very simply – you just start typing in the name of the site that you’d be interested in registering and it immediately starts returning domain names based on what you’re typing. It’s virtually instantaneous and quite impressive. It will also tell you if the domain name is available or taken. You can then go back to your hosting site and register the name. The only disadvantage is that it will only look up .com, .net, .org, .info, .biz, .us rather than the perhaps more useful .co.uk or .eu but nonetheless it’s going to save you so much time you can check any others and still have time to spare!
Q Can you tell me about this ‘Ms Dewey’ search engine that I’ve been hearing about?
A This is a Microsoft project, pulling results from its own search engine. The talking point is that it has employed an actress to play the part of ‘Ms Dewey’ who provides a running commentary on the searches that you run, which is sometimes appropriate and more often not. I mentioned it in my weblog recently (in less than glowing terms) because although it makes a change from the ‘traditional’ image of a librarian I still didn’t find her customer care to be of the highest quality. I’ll accept that I may be missing the joke, but if Microsoft really think this is what librarians are like we’ve got an entirely different mountain to climb. You can take a look for yourself at www.msdewey.com but you’ll need a powerful PC and good connection to make the best of it.
Q I’m a school librarian and I’d like to show the pupils that they shouldn’t believe everything they read on the internet. Are there some websites that look ‘real’ but the information they contain is entirely fake?
A I’d point you towards two sites in particular. Wikiality (www.wikiality.com/Main_Page) is a spoof of Wikipedia, so I’d suggest that you might want to show both versions to the students for a proper comparison. It’s also worth explaining how Wikipedia was created and where it gets its data from. Second site that’s worth looking at is Snopes (www.snopes.com) which looks at urban legends. Although this isn’t an example of data on the web that is false – indeed it’s doing the exact opposite – it’s worth using to show the type of nonsense that gets written on the web. You might also want to point out the sites that talk about the Moon Landing hoaxes (such as www.ufos-aliens.co.uk/cosmicapollo.html).
For a more serious set of examples, depending on the age group you’re dealing with, try a search for ‘martin luther king’ and look at www.martinlutherking.org/ though I would NOT advise peeking beyond the home page, even if your filter system will let you. Finally, you might want to try searches for ‘Miserable failure’ ‘liar’ ‘french military victories’ for examples of how Google isn’t very good at telling what is real from what is not.
Site of the month
Given that it’s nearly the festive season, I thought it was time for a little jollity, so you may be amused by some of the following sites: My Cat Hates You (www.mycathatesyou.com/), The Shakespeare Insulter (www.pangloss.com/seidel/Shaker/index.html?), The Virtual Stapler (www.virtualstapler.com/) and Make a Snowflake (http://snowflakes.lookandfeel.com/).
I hope you have a happy Christmas and excellent New Year!
Phil Bradley is an internet consultant, trainer, web designer and author. Visit www.philb.com for free information on internet introductions, search engine articles, web design tips and a host of other free information. New: 3rd edn of The Advanced Internet Searcher’s Handbook is now available! If you have any questions about the internet send an email to philb@philb.com with the subject header ‘column query’.
Updated: 08 March 2007