>> forward (November 2001)

October 31 [update] front page, science, site specific, more
I changed the layout of the front page a little, the first time since I opened Fagan Finder. Then I decided it sucked, and put it back to almost exactly as it was. The difference is that now people using Internet Explorer will see what they have selected, on the options bar. I added six new links to the science page, one link to the Health & Medicine page, and made other small changes to the basic reference, government, and search engines page. I finally added the Site Specific page to the main screen, and I added Google's Cache, the Wayback Machine, and AltaVista links to it. I'll soon have information to explain that page if you don't get it.

October 31 [news] Google & Invisible Web
Google has announced that their search engine now includes DOC, XLS, PPT, RTF, and PS files, along with the PDF files they already included, and of course normal HTML and HTM files. What does this mean? It means that a lot of valuable content that could not have been searched before can now be searched, including Microsoft Office documents such as Word, Excel and PowerPoint, can now be searched. There are far fewer of these file types, but they can be very useful and are not included in most other search engines. You can also view any of these files in HTML (like normal pages), so that you don't have to open another program. I noticed that a lot of the PowerPoint files' HTML versions have really big text, but its not the end of the world. Remember that you can use the filetype: operator, for example "search engines" filetype:pdf OR filetype:doc will find pages containing the phrase "search engines" that are PDF files or DOC files. Anyways, I have updated the Google page accordingly.

October 30 [update] Halloween Colours, changes.xml, more [news] Google, .US
Well, I've figured out where all my new traffic is coming from. Google's index has been updated, although it is still a little old. Fagan Finder was indexed on October 4th, before it even opened. The new index is used by Yahoo, not the old one. ResearchBuzz has told us why changes.xml is so great, and they say it better than I would, so I suggest you read it. I added links on AltaVista, HotBot, and AllTheWeb to pages on WebSerch (yes, I spelled it correctly). WebSerch seems to be a pretty good website, relatively up to date, and definitely informative, so I have added it to the Search Links & Resources page. Lastly, the US government has sold the rights to the .us country code top level domain. Read the article.

October 30 [news] Alexa's Wayback Machine
For those of you who don't know, Alexa has been storing multiple copies of web pages since 1996. Some versions of Netscape and Internet Explorer uses Alexa information for their "related links" function. Anyone can download the Alexa toolbar (Internet Explorer only), which allows you to see information about a web page and see older versions of it. It is these older versions that Alexa, with the Internet Archive, have released on their Wayback Machine. Enter a URL (website address), and you will see a listing of all the snapshots that Alexa took of that page, and what date they were taken. This is a wonderful tool for so many reasons. Many quality websites no longer exist, but Alexa may have them. Crazy Alexa has stored 100 terabytes of information, more than you can imagine. They have released a number of special collections including September 11th and the 2000 US Election. I suggest that you take a look, unfortunately so many people are using it that it may not be available. Alexa is owned by Amazon.

October 29 [update] Science, more, traffic
Sometime today (10:00 or so by my time), traffic to Fagan Finder went up dramatically. I don't know why (not that I'm complaining), and my tracker recorded "unknown" for how these people came to my website. So tell me where you found Fagan Finder if you entered this site from the front page (not biographies or anything). Anyways, I've been working on the Science page. I added the search tools SciNet, SciSeek, and search4science (the direct search version). I also added a search on NASA, Scientific American (its a magazine), and I moved HowStuffWorks from a link to a search. The search searches all of HowStuffWorks but the ^link goes directly to the Science & Technology section. I also added a link to Explore Science, an interactive website. I made minor changes to the Scirus, Directories, Read News, Health & Medicine, and Government & Military pages.

October 29 [news] MSN, multimedia search tools
MSN backed down a little on their new website not being accessible to other browsers. I think that today most browsers should be able to visit it. Read the article here. There was another interesting article today, about the future of multimedia search tools. It talks about Google as well as Singingfish and Friskit, both of which should be on this website in the next few days.

October 28 [update] Advanced Reference, more [news] FAQs.org
I have been working on the Advanced Reference page, which has encyclopedias and information sites. I added searches for The Canadian Encyclopedia (the English version) and Wikipedia (which is open-content, and I encourage you to contribute). I also moved the Google Directory on that page from a link to a search, changed the Bartleby search to reference only and moved it to "encyclopedias," and I added links to RefDesk, Gary Price's Fast Facts, Probert Encyclopedia, and theFAQts.com. Speaking of FAQs, the Internet FAQ Consortium is in trouble. Unless they get more money soon, it will shut down. It is a great website, and would be a big loss, so consider making a contribution. On the Science page I added a link to HowStuffWorks' Science & Technology section. A minor correction was made to the MSN Search page.

October 27 [update] Metas, Directories, News, more
I have added Zworks, BigBlueC, and Query Server to the Meta Search Engines page. For Query Server, I added both the clustered (by topic) search and the non-clustered. I also rearranged the subcategories a little. On the News page, I added The Paperboy, moved the Google Directory to a different subcategory, and added a link to NewsIsFree. I added a link on the Biographies page to the RefDesk Bio page. Also, I added Quango to the Directories page, and a link to RefDesk's Government page on the Government & Military page. Lastly, note that the date at the top of this page now also shows what day of the week it is.

October 26 [news] MSN, Google, Overture
Microsoft is further on the implementation of their .NET strategy: today MSN.com sports a new look (and so does Passport), just like Hotmail's recent design change, and Windows XP is officially launched. The new MSN will work only in Microsoft's Internet Explorer browser, other browsers will get an error message (see article). Google is considering a subscription service to increase their profits, see articles on Silicon.com, The Register, and Business 2.0. Overture (formerly GoTo) is making a profit (see article), which is rare in the current e-economy. Also, Overture is not allowing bidding on terms related to the Sept. 11 attacks.

October 25 [update] Bartleby, RhymeZone, RocketNews, more
I have completed two brand-new third-level pages today. Bartleby, which is part of the Advanced Reference section, and Lycos RhymeZone, which is part of the Basic Reference section. On the Biographies page I added a link to Columbia Encyclopedia Biographies. Acting on a tip from ResearchBuzz, I added searching to RocketNews on the News page. It is quite good (even the free version), I suggest you try it.

October 24 [update] Biography, News, Directories, more
I added Delphi to the Mailing Lists page, IAMetaSearch to the Meta Search Engines page, and Yuntis to the Search Engines page. On the Biographies page I moved Mr. Showbiz from a link to a search, and removed a dead link. On the Search Links page I added Researchville, Backflip, and HotLinks. To the Directories page I added MyPiranha, Re: Quest Dot Net, and SelectSurf. On the Advanced Reference page I added HowStuffWorks.com, and links to HomeworkSpot and LibrarySpot. To the News page I added WorldNews, Lycos, HeadlineSpot, The Toronto Star, MagPortal, and several links. On the Government & Military page I added three new links. I fixed a small mistake on the Lycos page, and added a link to the Science page. The News page now has over thirty sources and is getting a little crowded. Lastly, I added a "add to favourites" link at the top (only in IE).

October 23 [update] Daypop, more
Daypop again changed the advanced search (although it is a good change), and so I have changed the Daypop page. Daypop has introduced a meta tag so that websites can specify not to be cashed. Also, Daypop is doing some advertising and may soon sport some ads to keep it running. I've added a link on the links page to Age of Dot Com, which is a good site similar to this one. I've added some info and links to the search engines and meta search engines pages, and added a ! to the Hoppa link on the directories page to give it more prominence. Several people have expressed the need for better colours (or colors for those Americans) on Fagan Finder, so tell me how you feel about the colours now. Also, WiseNut seems to be indexing dynamic pages. Anyone know anything about that?

October 22 [update] News, Biography, Google Directory, more
I have done a lot of work on the News page, adding twelve sources including the Washington Post, LA Times, USA Today, and sources for elsewhere (UK, Canada, Australia). I also added three new links. I have added an option on the Google Directory page to search within any of the top-level categories. This should save a few clicks. I also added ^links (links to the sources) on the Login page. The login page, if you haven't seen it, is for logging into Hotmail, Yahoo, etc. Lastly, I added an athletes search to the Biography page, which has now surpassed the front page as the most visited.

October 22 [update] My promotion efforts
Looksmart is one of the big three directories, so of course I want it to list Fagan Finder, but I don't want to pay any money. So I registered with Zeal (owned by Looksmart), passed the membership quiz, and submitted several Fagan Finder pages. Three have been added, but not the main page. It was rejected because FF already has three entries. So I'm seeing if I can get this fixed, even if it means losing one of the entries I have now. Anyways, popularity has been going up, and more websites have agreed to link to FF. If you've got a website, I'd really appreciate a link!

October 21 [update] Biographies
Try a search on Biography Center. If you get no results, then they suggest you try Fagan Finder's Biography page. I can't thank the owner of Biography Center enough. I've already gotten more visitors from them than everywhere else combined. And so I felt I should improve the bio page, which I did by adding some new links.

October 20 [update] Biographies, Maps & Geography, SurfWax
I've done quite a lot of work on the Biographies page, including adding six new sources, eight external links, and some information. Several sources unfortunately require writing George Bush, while others require Bush, George, so I have written on that page how to format for each source. I have also done some work on the Geography & Maps page: I added Maps.com and ProFusion's Map Search and added some quality links. I added SurfWax SiteSnaps to the Site Specific page. On a different topic, I have an idea on how directories could improve searching. Searching within a category should follow @links, which are links that look like subcategories, but are actually located in a different part of the directory hierarchy. Any comments? Oh yeah, I also added to the Why Use Fagan Finder page.

October 18 [update] iBoogie, Calculator, News, Meta Search [news] iBoogie, more
I have added explanation to the calculator page, and made it more workable from Netscape. I've also fixed the read news page so that it displays and works better in Netscape. I've added information to the meta search engines page, and I also added iBoogie to it. iBoogie is a decent meta search engine with decent topic clustering, but I noticed that they have recently added ODP data in folder-tree style, which is something I like. So I also added a link to iBoogie in the Open Directory section. I also added a little to the Why Use Fagan Finder page. The quality news service Excite NewsTracker will be dead as of November 15. Also, go to ResearchBuzz for information about the new archive of websites about the September 11 terrorist attacks. Lastly, I'm happy to say that in less than a week open, Fagan Finder is already getting some visitors. Welcome!

October 16 [update] Links, Search Engines, Law, SOandSO, forums
SOandSO has been added to the directories page, and famous.SOandSO to the biographies page. I've added LLRX to the Law page, added some information to the search engines page, and moved PageSeeker to the Pay-Per-Click section. I've also added links to WebLens, 4Search, and Searching at Suite101 to the search links and resources page, and modified the How to use FF page. Oh, and I added links to forums about specific searches at Search Engine Forums on the individual pages. Don't forget about the still-in-development Site Specific page, which I will soon add a link to from the main page. And lastly, I have been doing a little promotion, and visitors are increasing from zero to several. I've got a lot of work to do!

October 16 [news] Yahoo sells Webring
Yahoo has sold Webring (see story). I can understand this, as it must have cost money to maintain and did not produce any revenue. Yahoo acquired Webring when it bought Geocities a few years ago. I wonder if this means that webrings will go from ill to dead, or will have a re-birth. One thing is for sure, all the old webrings will be gone, because every webring member must re-register. When Webring has actually moved, I'll update it on the Groups page.

October 13 [update] Grand Opening (and more)!!
Well, today is the Grand Opening, and also my birthday. Nine minutes from now, though it'll be the 14th. Anyways, I've completed the About page, added the advanced searching to the Daypop page, began a Site Specific page (which I'll explain later), and added several more news categories to the read news page. I've also added UKOnline to the Government page, added several searches and links to the Maps & Geography page, updated the Google page, modified the xrefer and Open Directory page, and modified some other things, but I can't quite remember what. Now that Fagan Finder is open, I will begin some promotion.

October 10 [update] Keywords, Government, more [news] GoTo, About
I've moved RealNames to a new Web Keywords page. I've also began a Government & Military page, which now has international, US, Canada, and UK, but mostly US. I've added Official Search to the Directory page. I've added searching to Google Directory categories to Law, Science, and Government. I've also reworked the subsections and made modifications to the Search Engines page, which includes showing which databases are being searched. Speaking of search engines, GoTo officially made the name change to Overture two days ago. A new page has been created for helping guides of axed About guides create their own websites. I've added the ^links to the Image Search page, and made numerous other small changes that I forget them. Oh yeah, I've removed some of the old news and archived it and updated the site map.

October 8 [update] site down, site pages, more[news] Daypop, Blogdex
For some reason Fagan Finder was down for a few hours, hopefully it won't happen again. I've completed several pages in the site section, including help, how to use Fagan Finder, why use Fagan Finder, and the Privacy Policy. I also made some adjustments to the search engines, directories, and meta search engines pages, including adding Ithaki to the meta search engines. I also fixed the RealNames and Vivisimo on the directories and meta search engines pages. Also, Daypop now has an advanced search which will be added to this page when it is complete, and Blogdex has implemented the new design.

October 6 [update] Daypop, The Net 1, WebTop News, Blogdex
The Daypop page is complete. It is one of my favourite search tools, great for timely information. I also added Daypop (just weblogs) to the People, Interest Groups & Opinions page, where I also added Blogdex's URL search. Speaking of which, Blogdex will soon sport a new look [revision: it now has the new design] with more info. I added WebTop's news search, which uses Moreover, and adjusted the News page with a separate Moreover section. I removed The Net 1 from the Search Engines page, because it seems to no longer exist. Ditto for a link on my Searching Resources page.

October 4 [update] Scirus
The Scirus page is complete. Its a great science search engine. I've added links to it from all pages with it, and added it to the law page, because for some reason they have a law section. I've also update the AllTheWeb page, and made fixed a little problem on some other pages. Updated the site map too, I haven't for a while.

October 3 [update] RealNames, GO button
I fixed the RealNames search on the Directory page, and added plain RealNames Go, which takes you directly to the website, not search results. I also added this to the front page (its called Keyword). Some options on Fagan Finder require pressing the GO button instead of just pressing enter. Now if you forget, you will get a message that reminds you.

October 2 [update] Vivisimo
The Vivisimo page is complete, and links have been added to it from the front page, meta-search engines page, and all pages of search tools which can be searched with Vivisimo.

October 2 [news] Google
Amazing. I was just thinking yesterday about how Google's home page could be improved, and they've implemented almost the same thing. Now you can go directly from Google's main page to Images, Groups, and Directory. Also, Google has made a deal to expand into Latin America, and they recently acquired Outride, a company originally from Xerox. Google.

September 29 [news] Ithaki, Excite
Ithaki is now the second meta search engine I have found which searches WiseNut and Teoma.
Excite@Home is officially filing for bankruptcy. Their search engine isn't much, but I am wondering what will happen to their quality news search and the WebShots photo community website.

September 27
Fagan Finder will officially open soon. For information, contact m_mintoff@hotmail.com

No news or updates were written before this. See the origin of Fagan Finder.