From: Patrick Douglas Crispen [SMTP:crispen@CAMPUS.MCI.NET] Sent: Thursday, May 29, 1997 8:17 PM To: TOURBUS@LISTSERV.AOL.COM Subject: TOURBUS -- 29 MAY 1997 -- INFERENCE FIND /~~~~~~~~~|~~~~~~~~~~~~/~~~~~~~~|~~~~~~~~~~|~~~~~~~~~~~~~/~~~|~\ | "Why | Surf When / You Can | Ride The | Bus?" / | \ |__________|__________/__________|__________|___________/ | \ / /______|----\ | Visit the TOURBUS website to see the Archives, |//////| | | FAQ, and Subscription Information! |//////| | | http://www.TOURBUS.com |//////| | | |//////| | ~~~/~~~\~~/~~~\~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~/~~~\~~~~ \___/ \___/ T h e I n t e r n e t T o u r B u s \___/ TODAY'S STOPS: INFERENCE FIND TODAY'S ADDRESSES: http://www.tourbus.com/tbfaq.html http://www.inference.com/ifind/ If you have been a passenger on our little bus of Internet happiness for a while and know my world-famous "squirrel story" (which can be found in the TOURBUS FAQ file at ), I have a story that will give you a chuckle. Mark Henderson sent me the following e-mail message a few weeks ago: Hi. I run squirrel.com. It is a small private site on the Internet. I've been wondering for months why people keep telnetting to my machine and trying to login as Patrick. I have a grand total of two users, myself and my wife. No "Patrick" here. People from all over the world try to login to squirrel.com as Patrick on a more or less daily basis. Finally, I did an AltaVista search on the web on Patrick NEAR squirrel.com. Lo and behold, I finally understand. I guess, like it or not, I am going to be forever linked with Alabama's squirrels! :) Seriously, though, I have a question that I'd like to ask y'all. As you have probably gathered by now, Bob and I tend to use a lot of ASCII graphics (like our bus) in each of our TOURBUS posts. Well, we have a few TOURBUS riders who are visually impaired and who "read" TOURBUS with the help of text-to-speech translators. While our ASCII graphics may *look* cool (well, *I* like them), each of the graphics *sound* something like "slash tilde tilde tilde tilde tilde tilde tilde tilde ..." Granted, that's NOWHERE as annoying as "m-bop," but it is still quite annoying. :) Anyway, my question is: Is there a command or "flag" that can be put in the body of an e- mail message that would tell text-to-speech readers (like Kurzweil readers) to ignore the next X number of lines in that message? If you know the answer, let me know. *-------------------------------------------------------------* Q: As a business owner, how can I take orders on the Net and be able to put the money in my bank account the same day ? A: mailto:chekfaxx@mailback.com for details in 2 mins. *-------------------------------------------------------------* [Oh, by the way ... I am *STILL* working on that virus software post. As I said last week, I should have something to send you in a week or two.] INFERENCE FIND -------------- Okay. I'll admit it. We've talked about search engines a lot recently. We've visited "single" search engines like AltaVista (TOURBUS, 24 April 1997) and InfoSeek (TOURBUS, 10 October 1996), and "meta" search engines like MetaCrawler (11 April 1996) and Dogpile (27 March 1997). However, thanks to the help of several friendly TOURBUS riders, I've found a *new* search engine that gives even Dogpile a run for its money. The new search engine is called "Inference Find" and you can find it on the Web at http://www.inference.com/ifind/ Like MetaCrawler and Dogpile, Inference Find is a meta search engine. That means that Inference Find sends your queries to a whole bunch of different search engines, increasing the likelihood that you will actually find what you are looking for. What makes Inference Find unique is that it sends it searches out in parallel. Most meta search engines work something like this: 1. They send your search query to one search engine. 2. The meta search engine then sits around waiting for that particular search engine to reply. 3. Once that first search engine replies, the meta search engine receives the results and then sends your query to another search engine. 4. The meta search engine then sits around waiting for that second search engine to reply. 5. Etc., etc., etc. In other words, with most meta searches, there is an awful lot of waiting going on. That's why some meta searches can take up to several minutes to complete. Inference Find bypasses this problem by sending your search query to a whole bunch of different search engines simultaneously (a.k.a. "in parallel"). Inference Find's "pool" of search engines is not quite as large as the other meta search engines -- currently, Inference Find only queries AltaVista, Excite, InfoSeek, Lycos, WebCrawler, and Yahoo -- but I've discovered that the quality of Inference Find's "hits" is still quite high. And, thanks to the fact that the queries are sent out in ks to Sharon-Bob for today's word) YOU CAN FIND ALL OF THE OLD SOUTHERN WORDS OF THE DAY ON THE SOUTHERN WORD HOMEPAGE AT http://ua1ix.ua.edu/~crispen/word.html ====================================================================== Join : Send SUBSCRIBE TOURBUS Your Name to LISTSERV@LISTSERV.AOL.COM Leave : Send SIGNOFF TOURBUS to LISTSERV@LISTSERV.AOL.COM Archives: On the Web at http://www.TOURBUS.com =--------------------------------------------------------------------= For info on my new book "Atlas for the Information Superhighway" Visit http://ua1ix.ua.edu/~crispen/atlas.html --------------------------------------------------------------------- PROMOTE your business, service or storefront on the Internet TOURBUS. It's one of the most effective and least expensive ways to advertise online. Reach over 80,000 people worldwide in a net-friendly way for a fraction of the cost of web banners. Our sponsors say "It works!" Make it work for you - contact BobRankin@MHV.net for details. ====================================================================== TOURBUS - (c) Copyright 1995-97, Patrick Crispen and Bob Rankin All rights reserved. Redistribution is allowed only with permission. Send this copy to 3 friends and tell them to get on the Bus! .~~~. )) (\__/) .' ) )) Patrick Douglas Crispen /o o \/ .~ The University of Alabama {o_, \ { crispen@campus.mci.net / , , ) \ http://ua1ix.ua.edu/~crispen/ `~ '-' \ } )) _( ( )_.' Warning: squirrels. '---..{____}