TODAY'S TOURBUS TOPIC: RIDER'S REVENGE #24

Hi all... it's time for another Rider's Revenge issue, where I share sites that your fellow Tourbus riders think are useful, fun, cool or otherwise worthy of attention. If you have a favorite site that's of interest to an international audience, send it along for the next Rider's Revenge!

HANGING OUT AT THE TASK BAR

Jan Esman from Australia spake thusly:

> Hi Bob, Last week found the most useful thing that I have ever found on the
> internet. Big call you say? Well, after discovering that the latest
> update of the Google bar stalled my Explorer, I just happened across
> Dave's Quick Search Taskbar. It is heaven, type something in and it
> opens a new search in Google. Type "dic revenge" and it opens a new
> window with the search results at dictionary.com, type 100USD>AUD and
> it opens a new window with the results in xe.com, not to mention the
> hundreds of other features and functions. It truly has revolutionised
> the way I access the internet.

http://www.dqsd.net

Editor's Note: Dave's Quick Search Taskbar is like a swiss army knife for the Internet. In addition to launching Google searches, it provides shortcut commands for Yahoo, Switchboard phone lookups, M-W Dictionary, Bloomberg stock quotes, and has a built-in calculator. You can even drag and drop text on DQST to open a new search. And it's free. :-)

WHAT A DEAL!

Phillip Garding, deep inside the walls of the Evil Empire in Redmond Washington, had this to say in reply to my article on price comparison search engines:

> I used MySimon for a long time, but I have found a site that I like even
> more: DealTime. DealTime seems to find lower prices over a broader
> range of merchants. DealTime also has a set of privacy, customer
> service, etc. standards, and merchants can earn an endorsement if they
> meet all of the DealTime's standards. I've quit using MySimon
> altogether since I found DealTime.

http://www.dealtime.com

Editor's Note: We at TOURBUS don't really think Microsoft is evil. Well, maybe not totally evil. It's just that the folks at Yahoo sent me a couple of free t-shirts, and Bill Gates no longer invites me to his holiday parties. So I really have nothing to lose by calling him the Evil Emperor, do I? And after all the nice things we've said about Google, you'd think their PR department might send me a Pecan Truffle Cheesecake, but no such thing has happened. Sheesh.

HOUSTON, WE HAVE A PALADIN

Rick Spencer, Reference Librarian at the NASA Headquarters Library in Washington DC offered up these words of flowing eloquence:

> A site I strongly recommend to my patrons is Consumer Search.
> The founder created the site after becoming frustrated with having
> to run from publication to publication (and from site to site) to
> read reviews of products. His site sums up reviews from numerous
> print and online sources, reviews the reviewers (did they really
> test the equipment or are they just reading from the manufacturer's
> promo materials - what was their test criteria - how comprehensive
> was the test - are these people even suited for testing this
> product), and provides short and long reviews and a bibliography
> of what reviews they consulted. Fabulous!

http://www.consumersearch.com

IT SLICES, IT DICES

Carolyn Brown, floating untethered in cyberspace, opined:

> After reading the latest newsletter about video, I thought I'd
> throw in my two cents for my favorite "still" viewer. I don't
> know if you already reviewed it, since I am not a long time
> bus rider, but, in my opinion, it's a doozy. And it's free.
> IrfanView's image enhancement tools saved a couple of digital
> photos I took, changing them from dark and dismal to bright. It
> has plugins to read everything from AVI to music CD's. You
> have to see it to believe it. I registered my copy by sending
> $10 to Irfan Skiljan, but it probably works just as well without
> registration. I enjoy the application so much, I felt guilty
> using it for free.

http://www.irfanview.com

Editor's Note: IrfanView is a great little tool for viewing, manipulating and converting almost any type of graphic file. You may be surprised to find many of the same image editing tools as PaintShop Pro, and the price is right.

And Carolyn - if you ever feel, you know, a little guilty about getting TOURBUS for free, please don't send money. An Amaretto Cheesecake covered with sliced almonds would be fine, really. You know, the kind with the graham cracker crust. Mmmmmmmmm.

YOUR TAX DOLLARS AT WORK

Derek Scruggs from Denver Colorado wrote:

A few months ago I received spam selling mortgages, so I forwarded it to the Federal Trade Commission at uce@ftc.gov, which I assumed is basically a black hole given the volume they receive. Imagine my suprise when I received an email today from an FTC lawyer who's investigating it. Apparently they received numerous complaints about this particular spammer and are going after him. So the moral to the story is, forward your spam to uce@ftc.gov -- someone actually sifts through it!

That's all for now, I'll see you next time! --Bob Rankin

   Thanks to AOL for hosting the TOURBUS on LISTSERV since 1995!
      *******************************************************
                Exclusive Offer for AOL - Free Trial!
            http://free.aol.com/tryaolfree/index.adp?350127 
      *******************************************************