CONTENTS:

• GDNet's Writing for the Web
• Google Toolbar

GDNET'S WRITING FOR THE WEB

Are you now responsible for setting up or revamping your research department's Web site? Not sure how writing for the Web is different? Don't panic! GDNet, The Global Development Network, has a great site with information about how users read on the Net and how to set up your Web presentation accordingly. And yes, the site follows its own advice.

While targeted toward the presentation of academic research, there is quite a bit that's applicable to setting up any type of Web site.

The best bits are in the sections titled:

• Usability: the key to Internet success
• Crimes against usability: some basic design issues
• How do people read on the Web?
• Writing for the Web
• What's wrong with academic writing on the Web?: inverting the pyramid
• Applying the inverted pyramid principle to electronic dissemination of research

http://www.ids.ac.uk/gdn/tools/writing.htm

GOOGLE TOOLBAR

Google, one of my favorite search engines, quietly expanded its functionality in an extremely helpful way. Behold! The Google Toolbar. Da ta da da.

Or not. There really was no fanfare by Google. I actually made this Googlishious discovery reading "Smarter Tools to Scour a Wider Web" by Stephen H. Wildstrom (Business Week, March 26, 2001) http://www.businessweek.com though there is a link to the download page at the bottom of the Google home page, http://www.google.com.

The toolbar is a download, but a pretty darn quick one. It comes with the prerequisite warnings and hedgings by the purveyor. One is of particular note: If you choose to download the advanced features, every time you use Google, it sends information about the pages you visit to Google, which does promise not to share your personal information with the world. Please be sure to read the privacy disclosure statement.

The toolbar is like a Swiss Army knife for Web search. Alas, it only works with Microsoft Internet Explorer 5.0 and up. Google is reportedly looking into integration with other (unnamed) browsers. Hear the big sigh from Netscape fans.

The toolbar lets you use Google's simple Web search without going to the Google site. Alternately, click on the Google button to directly access Google's own Advanced, Usenet Group and Web Directory search pages.

There are more great features. You can search the site you are visiting, which is quite handy when a site doesn't have its own search function. Wildstrom says, in his article, that the Google search actually did a better job than some of the site engines he tried (sorry, but I'm going to take that on faith, rather than test his claim). Use the Word Find feature in Google Toolbar, too. It allows you to find each occurrence of a word or phrase just like your word processing program does.

Several other interesting functions are offered by the Page Info button. Use it to find similar Web pages, see the pages linking to the one you are in, or even translate the page from several languages into English, which is (oh no!) a beta feature.

And so you can whistle while you work, right click on the Search the Web button and enable the radio feature. You can set up your favorite online radio stations using Windows Media Player and listen while you Google.

I highly recommend setting search preferences and toolbar options, features found on the drop down menu of the Google button on the toolbar to help you focus your searches. Preferences, for example, is where you set up the translation function I mentioned previously.

I also strongly advise reading the FAQ and other help pages before you download. There are hidden gems in them . . . and words of caution too, as the FAQs reveal potential 'techniculties' of implementing and operating the toolbar.

There are even more functions than I have described. Explore away at:

http://www.toolbar.google.com

Chris Mildner

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