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The
Ultimate Guide to Finding People on the Net
by Ketaki Banga
Computers@Home Online
January 2000 |
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Remember
the last time you bumped into some old school friend? All you
talked about were the good old days. ‘Whatever happened to Amit?’,
‘Any news of Sheila?’, ‘Remember that funny math professor?’,
and so on. What wouldn’t you give to locate those old friends
and associates of yours? Before you shake your head sorrowfully
and call this a hopeless case—why don’t you switch on that computer
and get online? For all you know, your buddies might be waiting
for you to click your way to them.
The Net is a storehouse of the tracks of millions of people
who tread the information highway. In this age of e-mail, home
pages, discussion boards, chat and all sorts of online activities—chances
are that your friends have probably left some sort of an electronic
trail behind. Now all you have to do is sniff it out. And like
an expert detective, you have to arm yourself with as much information
about what you’re dealing with, first. What are the places they
are likely to visit, how do you find them and how do you sift
through the mind-boggling results? Of course, there is a possibility
that a person might not be found—despite your best efforts.
What could be the reason for that? It could either be because
she hasn’t ventured online yet, or is an expert at not being
found. Covering your e-tracks is not impossible, after all.
So if all the cyber-detectives are aboard, pardon me, online—and
ready for this voyage into cyber space—let’s start searching.
Rev up those search engines
The Net is teeming with search engines that send out their crawlers
to millions of Web pages on a regular basis. Crawlers are robot
programs which bring back and index the text of these pages.
All search engines have their own style of sorting and springing
up information. When you enter a query, engines such as Excite
or Google would rank results on the basis of popularity (the
number of visits), and Altavista would rank it on the basis
of relevance. Which mode you choose depends solely on who you’re
looking for. If your friend happens to be a celebrity or an
avid participant on well-known message boards and forums, then
popular sites might just bring her up. But a normal girl-next-door
might not have heavy traffic at her homepage—so the number of
hits won’t really count.
At this point, you must be clear about the difference between
a search engine and a directory. While search engines scout
the Web and index pages, directories such as Yahoo categorize
the various submissions made to them. Nowadays most major engines
have directories of various topics set up as well. Leave those
in peace for now. A foray into them will definitely make you
more knowledgeable on, say automobiles, but unless your friend
has her own famous auto shop, you’re not quite likely to find
her there.
So let’s look at the regular query box for searches. First try
a simple search in various engines such as Altavista (www.altavista.com),
Google (www.google.com), Infoseek (www.infoseek.com), and so
on. Do go through their help tips. You must remember that each
engine has its own language, and style. Follow the syntax for
accurate results. For the sake of convenience, we are going
to take up Altavista as an example here.
Go to Altavista and type your friend’s name (let’s call her
Monica Manchanda), in the query box. Keep it all in lower case
(monica manchanda). This is because Altavista is case sensitive.
But if your query is in lower case, then it will consider all
possibilities (such as Monica Manchanda, monica manchanda, MONICA
MANCHANDA, and so on). Don’t use any quotation marks yet.
Ready? Now click the search button right next to the query box.
This search will bring up pages that have either or both those
words in their text. Pages with both words will appear on top
of the list. And those with just one match will be towards the
end.
Start exploring the top results. To find that name on a Web
page, go to Edit-Find in your browser’s menu (we are assuming
that to be IE5). A dialog box will come up, type the name here
and click Find Next. This will take you straight to the relevant
word. If you don’t find it on this page, that means the page
was probably edited after it was entered in the search engine’s
index. No problem, try the next entry on the list.
The rarer the name, the easier it will be to find. A search
for something uncommon will yield fewer Web pages. If the full
name is rare, then type it with quotation marks. The search
engine will consider it to be a phrase and bring up only those
pages which have the entire name. In fact, the quotation marks
technique is common to most search engines.
If your friend has an uncommon nickname, maybe she’s used that
as her signature on the Web. For instance "monica darling manchanda".
So try a search with that too. If she uses initials in her name,
then type the complete name with initials (in quotation marks)
in the query box. You don’t need to use periods. But keep in
mind that "M D Manchanda" is not the same as "MD Manchanda".
If in doubt, try a search with both the options.
Another trick is the wild card (*). This is used to denote unknown
letters. And is placed after the few letters you do know. Maybe
your friend is also called Mona. Try searching for "mon* manchanda".
This will bring up all the possibilities such as mona, monica,
and even some unwanted ones like monish. Another trick is to
use plus (+) and minus (-) signs to include or exclude certain
words from your search.
The thing to remember here is that even if you don’t find your
friend, you could find someone who knows her and has mentioned
her on his page. If not your target, you could at least find
a lead.
Did the simple search leave you as clueless as ever? Then it’s
time to move on to the bigger, better deal. Once again, for
the sake of convenience, we are using Altavista as an example.
You’ll find a link to Advanced Search above the query box. That’s
your key to a Boolean query, which is a language used for highly
specific and sophisticated searches.
In Advanced search, you’ll find a ‘Boolean query’ box, with
a ‘Sort by’ box under it. Initially, just remember the four
golden commands—AND, OR, AND NOT and NEAR. This is how you put
them to practice:
Perhaps your friend’s last name is mentioned before her first
name (Bond, James Bond). Or there are some initials between
the first and last name. You can painstakingly try each of those
options in the simple search, or try entering monica NEAR manchanda
in the Boolean box. This will bring up all the pages containing
these two words, within ten words of each other—in any order.
Remember the first exercise in simple search, where you typed
both words without any quotation marks. This does bring up pages
that have both or either of those words. But Altavista now takes
common sequences of words and names to be phrases. Which means,
they often function as if they’ve been put in quotation marks.
So for more accurate results of pages containing either word,
try the OR option. Try monica OR manchanda in the advanced search.
You can even use OR when you want to check out various options
at the same time, such as "MD manchanda" OR "monica manchanda"
OR "M D manchanda".
If you want results which must have both the words, then put
AND between the words. Conversely, if a certain word should
not be there, then type AND NOT before it. Such as monica AND
manchanda AND NOT lewinsky. This would be useful if you discover
that your search keeps bringing up a Ms Lewinsky, about whom
you don’t really want to read up right now.
Once you have understood these simple terms, you can combine
them for more complex ones. What if Monica is married? Maybe
you recall her husband to be some Kapoor—but can’t be sure if
she still uses her maiden name or her husband’s name. At this
point, use brackets or quotation marks for further choices.
Try (("monica darling") OR (monica) OR ("M D") OR (MD)) NEAR
(manchanda OR kapoor) for an all-in-one solution. Notice that
there are quotation marks within the first and third sub-brackets.
This is because we want the search engine to recognize monica
darling and M D as phrases.
You’ve tried all this, but is there still no clue about your
buddy? Let’s put the ‘Sort by’ box into action. If you recall,
this is placed under the ‘Boolean query’ box. It can be used
to further refine your search. Do you have lots of options in
the boolean box. Put them in the Sort by box as well. This will
make the search engine place pages with all those terms right
on top of the results, those with fewer matching terms—further
down, and ones with just a single match, right at the bottom.
Thus saving you from going through a random list.
Another use of 'Sort by' is when you have additional clues about
that person. Now if Monica had won an award, stayed in Melbourne,
went to a certain college, or liked Pink Floyd a lot—chances
are those things might be mentioned along with her name. So
put them in 'Sort by', and the search will automatically place
pages having these clues, right on top.
If you feel that your search is bringing up lots of irrelevant
pages, then start decreasing the options in Boolean and Sort
by, one by one. You’ll be surprised how much it can alter the
results. This way you’ll weed out unwanted elements and move
in for a more focused kill.
Try out an advanced search on several other engines too. For
instance Infoseek has a form you can fill out to specify, widen
or narrow down your search parameters. It's called ‘Search options’
and is right under the query box.
But what if all permutations and combinations with search engines
yield no results? This doesn’t necessarily mean your friend
is absconding from the Web. You just have to shift the investigation
to other places—starting with newsgroups.
Note the newsgroups
A long time ago, much before the World Wide Web had been spun,
people used to exchange online views via newsgroups. These are
basically e-mail messages posted on labeled bulletin boards.
People with common interests participate in newsgroups related
to that topic. All this is great—but how does it help you find
your friend?
Here’s how—if you know her interests and hobbies, chances are,
she might be participating in newsgroups related to those subjects.
And if any of her postings can be traced, you’ll have her e-mail
address in a jiffy. But considering the mind-boggling number
of postings—it’s like trying to find a needle in a haystack.
Or is it?
If you’re still toying with Altavista, click on ‘Discussions’
on the home page. You have a discussions tab at the bottom of
the results page too. These try out your query on newsgroups.
Another, site to look up is www.deja.com. Scroll through the
‘Search Tips’. Next, go to ‘Power Search’ besides the tips link.
This will take you to a form where you can specify the criteria
for a newsgroup search. The query language here is quite similar
to that of Altavista’s advanced search—quotation marks, AND,
OR, wildcard (*), etc.
Start by entering keywords in the search box. "MD manchanda"
OR "monica manchanda" OR "M D manchanda" should do for starters.
In the Limit Search section, you can fill in the e-mail address
of the person you are looking for. Obviously, if you knew that,
you wouldn’t be searching in the first place. So leave it blank.
But if you do have some vague idea about the address, use a
wildcard (asterix). Maybe Monica studied in MIT—try an address
like *@mit.edu. Similarly you can take lucky guesses in other
criteria too.
The search will bring up postings at newsgroups that match your
query. Click on them and follow the lead. Once again, if not
your friend, you could find someone who knows her.
Dive into directories
Another rich source of information are Web directories such
as AnyWho (www.anywho.com), Switchboard (www.switchboard.com)—incidentally,
the ‘People Search’ at Altavista is through Switchboard, WhoWhere
(whowhere.lycos. com), people.yahoo.com. They list e-mail addresses,
phone numbers, location and what have you.
Go to the Open Directory project at www.dmoz.org, and enter
‘directories’ in the query box. Then click on ‘Reference’ and
finally ‘Addresses and phone numbers’. You’ll get an exhaustive
list of the various online directories. Each one lets you fill
in the parameters and carry out a search for the missing person.
If her e-mail is listed with them, you’ll get it.
You can also access the databases of some directories from Outlook
Express. Go to the menu, click the arrow next to Find and select
People. Choose the directory you want to look up. Fill in the
name and any other information available and click ‘Find Now’.
This method lets you conveniently search, without having to
go to the respective sites. Another such facility is available
on Windows. Go to Start-Find-People and take it up from there.
But most of these directories are very US oriented, so you can
search for directories of specific regions through search engines.
For example, type "indian directories" in the query box.
Look in the alumni lists of schools and universities, too. Search
for the institution, or look up www.alumni.net, where
schools of many countries have been listed. Member directories
of popular e-mail sites (such as Hotmail) can also be of help.
I seek you
It’s possible to find out which of your contacts are online
and send them instant messages, files, chat with them and more
using ICQ. To search for someone, click ‘Add’ in the program
window. There’ll be options to find users by their e-mail address,
nickname, first name, or last name. Click on the ‘White Pages’
to search for people by their location, hobbies, age, gender,
language, organization and so on. Download ICQ from www.icq.com.
It’s also there in the ‘Keep in Touch’ section of this month’s
Megadisk.
With a little help from strangers
Even if all your efforts till now have been in vain, don’t give
up. You’ll be surprised to see what a small world it is. As
mentioned earlier, your search could lead you to people who
just might know your friend.
If your friend is very interested in something, she might be
interacting with people sharing the same interests. And newsgroups
are the watering holes of such like-minded folks.
It’s possible to search, view and post to thousands of newsgroups
by registering at www.deja.com. You’ll find ‘Register’ under
‘My Deja’ on the left-hand side of the main page. A ‘Search
Discussions’ tab will be at the bottom of the ‘Register’ page.
Enter topics that you think might interest your friend, and
click search. Scan the results to see if something looks hopeful.
Go back to ‘My Deja’ and click ‘Subscribe to a new forum’. Enter
that newsgroup’s name, and click ‘Find Forums’. On the next
screen, click ‘Subscribe’.
After this, whenever you go to ‘My Deja’, you’ll see a list
of the newsgroups you’ve subscribed to. Click on their links
to view excerpts of the postings. If something catches your
eye, click on it to read the full text. Post a reply to the
message, and state your search politely. Mention relevant details
of your friend, ask if anyone knows that person, and seek suggestions
on how to track someone with those interests. This reply can
be read by all the members of that group. You can also send
a personal message by clicking on the author’s e-mail address.
A helpful site to search for forums is www.forumone.com. Forums
are also Web based, bulletin board-style discussions. Enter
a topic in the search and click on the promising results. You’ll
be directly linked to the respective sites. Once there, it’s
possible to read and post messages, and continue with your investigation.
Another site to search for forums is www.remarq.com.
If you haven’t had enough of scrolling down long lists in search
of your elusive friend—then go to www.liszt.com. You will find
mailing lists for all sorts of topics here. Who knows, your
buddy just might be on one of them!
To have access to lots of people, you can subscribe to some
mailing lists, too. Just be aware that your mailbox can be flooded
with tons of messages everyday. Save the subscription information,
in case you ever feel you’ve had enough and want out.
Did you know that according to a popular school of thought,
everyone on this earth is connected to each other by a maximum
of six degrees of separation? So you and someone in Timbuktu
will never have more than six people leading from one to the
other. In fact, there’s even a site based on this principle,
www.sixdegrees.com. You can register there and start looking
for your friend, or people who might know your friend. There
are several specific-interest communities within six degrees.
Try posting messages to their forums or in their chats. But
first of all, check out your own list of ‘Degrees’. For all
you know, your friend might already be on your list. You can
also search for people according to their country, hobbies,
qualifications and more.
Set a trap
‘Won’t you come into my parlor?’ said the spider to the fly.
That’s just the way it works with people too. If you can’t find
them, make it possible for them to find you. Set up a bait on
your home page. Mention names of old friends and common hobbies,
school teachers, achievements, text books and anything else
that you feel your friends could be searching for. In fact,
it’s been noticed that lots of people love to search for themselves
on the Net—especially when they have nothing else to do. So
if you submit your URL to search engines, they will index it,
and an ego-surfer might just be lured to your page.
Talking of ego-surfers—go to www.egosurf.com and type your name
in the query box. This site searches for Web pages that contain
your name. Perhaps some friend of yours has set up a trap for
you too. While you are at it, enter names of other people you
want to locate, as well.
Recruit robots
Thousands of pages are added to the Web daily. Even if your
search has been futile up till now, maybe your friend crops
up on any one of those new pages, sometime later. Does that
mean you carry out the same search over and over again? Well,
there’s nothing stopping you from doing that—but it would be
more convenient if a robot automatically searched for you, on
a regular basis.
Move on to www.peacefire.org/tracerlock. Register yourself,
and log in with your password. Under ‘Alta Vista search term’
enter the query using Altavista’s advanced search language.
Under ‘UseNet search term’ enter queries for newsgroups using
the same syntax. Tracerlock will check with Altavista everyday
to see if any pages matching your query have been added. And
will update you about it, as and when that happens. Do remember
to remove your query once your search is over—unless of course,
you don’t mind receiving updates for the rest of your life.
Another place for automated search is karnak.com. Its language
is somewhat like Altavista’s simple search. However do scroll
through ‘Suggest improvements to this request’ under the query
box, for tips.
Now that we’ve reached the end of this search saga, let’s look
back at the things to be kept in mind through all the blind
alleys, dead ends and missed turns. First and foremost, be as
imaginatively logical as possible. In other words—use your imagination
to come up with numerous logical search combinations. Next,
practice, practice and then practice some more. No one was born
the Sultan of Search—the more you experiment, the more adept
you’ll become. And finally, don’t get disheartened—if after
all this you still can’t find your friend, then she probably
hasn’t made her grand entry online as yet. Or she’s an expert
at covering her tracks, which means she doesn’t want to be found
anyway. Just keep your overcoat, magnifying glass and pipe ready
for those times when the urge to play detective overpowers you.
And enjoy the chase. |
Copyright
Holder: Computers@Home Online (http://computersathome.com/)
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