If you are looking for a photo on a particular topic, or are just browsing interesting shots, it’s worth taking a close look at the Smithsonian’s collection. By choosing one or more tag words from the list conveniently provided, you can quickly zero in on images of your choice, then step through them. This is a powerful search tool that will repay time spent in learning its features. (Kim Komando)

Here’s a useful ‘mashup’.  Family Watchdog combines information from various state Sex Offenders data bases with maps so you can pinpoint and identify them in your own neighborhood. Enter your zip code and you’ll see who these people are, what their convictions were and where they live. It’s not clear how up to date the reports are, and I couldn’t find that information. Still, be aware. (Les Kizer)

You’re probably familiar with the logos for YouTube, National Geographic and ESPN. But what about All My Faves, where they have gathered together a page full of logos that you can click on to go to the site? Since there are hundreds of logos, the site has gathered them into convenient categories, so you can quickly find what you are looking for. It’s probably the most colorful page on the Internet.  (George Lott)

Perhaps you are familiar with clip art of which you can find a ton at Microsoft’s Clip Art site. But the same site also lets you access thousands of sound files that you can attach to an email, for example. You type in a term like “baby” and select sounds from the adjacent drop-down list. Then you can preview and download clips of baby crying, laughing, cooing, talking, etc.  (Gary Stanley)

When Google or Yahoo! return you millions of hits, if you are like me you look only at the first few before choosing one. The second thing is that the text of each hit is not so spiffy and sometimes makes little sense. Enter the Ms. Dewey search engine where the text of the hits is very readable and helpful. However, she is a pushy woman whose slinky videos of herself distract me from my inquiries, and I could soon get tired of her nagging instructions. But you might enjoy it. (Kim Komando)

I wonder whether those clever folks at Google realized what they had wrought by releasing Google Maps. It seems that you can combine a Google Map with many different kinds of data and show the world how and where that data is distributed – the result being known as “a mashup.” Many people have seen an opportunity here, and some of the intriguing results can be found at a blog called Google Maps Mania: World Cup sites, Iraq War Casualty Map (by home town), and where Tom Cruise or Halle Berry live. (Netsurfer Digest)

We have been able to search the Web for text-based documents since its 1995 beginning, a mere ten years ago. Later was added the ability to search for images (photos and graphics) and now, for some time, we have the chance to search a vast collection of millions of video clips at the Yahoo! collection. Enter your keyword(s) into the search box, and up pops a list of clips; and alongside each is a single frame from its clip and a brief description. Clips are displayed in your choice of media players, and the images will be rather small and of low resolution—even with a broadband connection; but it is a start. Yahoo does not speak for the copyright of these clips. (Netsurfer Digest)

Not to be outdone, Google is at it again, this time with a large library of video clips that you can search from the familiar Google search box. Some clips are just a few seconds long, some an hour or more. This effort is still (12/05) in Beta, or public test, mode and in my opinion deservedly so. It's all very well to show you a series of still frames from a keyword search, perhaps with some text to tell you what to expect. There's too much dross—amateur clips of poor quality and incoherent or no sound, made with handheld cameras panning aimlessly around. "We simply index what content owners upload and have no control over the quality and sound of the resulting content" says Google.  I also found some delightful nuggets here; you’ll need to take your time to find them.  (Netsurfer Digest)

If you are searching the Web for something specific, you can enter your query in a search engine like Google or Yahoo! Alternatively, you can drill down through a formally structured directory as in Yahoo! or Google. If you don't know what you are looking for—that is, you are just browsing from one site to another at random—you may enjoy the experience but also feel you are not really getting anywhere. Halfway between these approaches is the use of a portal site such as refdesk.com. Its home page is structured informally yet is wonderful to wander through and is stuffed with links, some of which you're sure to find useful. It's a bit like impulse buying when you're wandering through Wal-Mart, really, and is tempting enough to consider making it your own home page. (Netsurfer Digest)

Discussion Groups have been a phenomenon on the Internet for many years, long before the World Wide Web. Those with a certain interest, however specialized, can find those of a like mind and can share their knowledge and expertise with others in a willing audience. One of the best ways of locating a group to match your interest is through Yahoo Groups. From this index, I chose Hobbies & Crafts, then Collecting, and then Antiques, where I found over 700 groups to choose from. I quickly located the public Antique Auction group--with 1494 members--and viewed several recent messages; plus, I can browse its message archive. There are also private groups you have to register for. If you never participated in a Group before, first take a look at Help in the top right-hand corner of any Yahoo! Groups page. (Yahoo!)

You may have become used to a Google web search producing a list of several hundred thousand hits within a fraction of a second, and that is indeed an impressive feat. However, Vivisimo claims to have moved the ball even further forward with its "clustering technology." Your Vivísimo query produces a hit list as usual but accompanied on the left with a context index of several folders as subheadings. It's an attempt to make it easier for you to get closer to exactly the link you want. For example, I entered "african violets" and the context index showed folders that included Care, Books, African Violet Society, African Violets Forum, Greenhouses, Pots & Watering. I'm not yet certain this system is best for me, but take a look--it may be right for you. (Netsurfer Digest)

If you've surfed the web a lot, you've probably accumulated very many favorites, in folders and sub-folders. To help you find favorites that may be buried a few layers deep, try installing the Dzsoft Favorites Search engine, which is a free download. It expands all folders and files whose name or URL contains the keyword you enter. (Neat Net Tricks)

At Google's Zeitgeist page, they count keyword inquiries in many categories and rank them according to frequency. So, according to them, the world's most popular athlete is David Beckham.  David who? I hear you ask?   (Beckham is a football star in the UK, hero worshipped throughout the world.)  Similarly find the top ten men, women, movies, TV shows, destinations, and news stories of the year. You can also see how some of these top lists vary by country: USA, France, Germany, Japan and UK. (Seann Alderking) 

They say a picture is worth a thousand words -- or at least, a graphic is. Another interesting attempt to present the results of a search in a more compelling way can be found at KartOO.  Rather than trying to describe it, I  suggest you visit the site of this meta search engine, key in your inquiry and sit back and relax for a few moments.  You'll immediately get a good intuitive understanding of what's best among the results, but to get the very best from them, click the Help button.  Requires Flash. (Neat Net Tricks)

The Open Directory Project is "the largest, most comprehensive human-edited directory of the Web. It is constructed and maintained by a vast, global community of volunteer editors."  What that means is that for a given topic, say baseball, a human editor maintains an index of subtopics, say from Amateur to Youth.  Within a subtopic he lists a series of links each introduced by a sentence or phrase.  He is committed to listing only "the best" links and proudly keeps them up to date.   (David Henry)

In the early days of the Web, Yahoo! came up with a widely imitated, user-friendly way of searching, with its multi level indices.  Now a librarian has done the same thing at Digital Librarian, but with the professional's thoroughness and comprehensiveness.  This easy to use directory surely will help you locate practically anything you want on the Web.  (Net Surfer Digest)

It looks like Google has done it again, this time at its (beta-) Image Search site, where you enter your keywords as usual, but get back a page full of thumbnail images, mostly photos.  You can then see the full sized image in isolation, so to speak, or in the context of its website.  They claim to have 150 million images available as of July 2001.  (Net Surfer's Digest)  Google also brings you expertise on practically any keywords you enter, through the medium of the old Usenet.  Just visit its familiar interface at Google Groups, also in beta (7/01). While you are about it, visit also the new Google Zeitgeist - The most common search queries, trends, and surprises according to Google. (Tourbus).

About.com has evolved from Mining.com but retains its approach that the best way to index Internet information is through one of several hundred dedicated experts. Each introduces and maintains links for his/her own specific topical area of expertise, reviewing them and keeping only those of high quality.

The most convenient and compact yet comprehensive portal to the Web I've found is at HotSheet.  It's worth considering making this the start page you see when your browser opens since you can get practically anywhere from here.  What is more you can now customize it. (John Milburn)  

You're probably comfortable searching for text documents on the Web, but did you know you can now search in the same way for photos, audio and video clips - at Altavista? Just click the appropriate radio button above the search box and proceed as normal.

Are you fed up with obtaining 23,753 hits on a simple request using a search engine?  Get selective and go to Magellan which attempts to evaluate sites.  Or you can try Web 100 that lists the top 100 sites by (its idea of) quality or Hatbox that lists the top 1000 by frequency of access.

Another search engine, Northern Lights sorts the results into useful categories.  Even more sophisticated is Ask Jeeves, highly popular with rookie searchers.  Submit your question in plain English and you'll surely be pleased with the helpful results.  Try clicking first on its What can I ask? Button.  A new and rather different searching approach is the so-called Web Ring.  Choose a topic from this site's categorized listing; sites relevant to this topic are connected in a ring.  All such sites have a box on the main page with links to the other related sites in the ring.  There are already rings on thousands of topics.

Alexa is named after the great library in Alexandria, Egypt during the era of the pharaohs.  You can download this free, innovative browser add-on that pulls together lots of useful information in one place: a search engine, a reference desk and ratings of sites.  Its most innovative feature lets you avoid those pesky Error 404's when a site is missing.  Instead, Alexa will serve up an earlier version of the page from its enormous web archive.