Compiled by PETER SINCLAIR
Welcome to InBox, where we attempt to answer your Internet questions.
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John Chisholm e-mailed us with the crucial question which baffles 95% of all newbies: "what is the best way of asking for quite specific information over the Internet…is there a particular strategy?"
There is, John, and it's called "Boolean logic." But don't panic – simple to acquire and use, it's one of the most rewarding Net skills. To pick it up, go to AltaVista, click "Help" and read their tutorial; or to Danny Sullivan's Search Engine Watch and study his very thorough treatment. You too can become a power searcher!
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"This one is very simple, but I cannot find an answer," says Ken Richards. Just our sort of question, Ken. "I cannot work out how to send an e-mail address so friends can just click on it to send a message."
Do this: in Outlook, go to Tools/Option/Mail Format/Message Format and select 'HTML' [Hypertext Markup Language]; or, for individual messages, just open the Format menu and tick HTML. Then, when you type or paste an e-mail address, it will magically turn into a live link when you hit the spacebar.
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Talking of e-mail, Carol Shearman wants to know how you run e-mail attachments with 'application vnd.ms-powerpoint.'
It's a PowerPoint presentation, Carol; you'll need to have the Microsoft application of the same name installed on your machine to be able to see it.
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"If I'm searching the Net and find something of interest [this is Jan McKenzie at the keyboard] how do I know which country is the source? Particularly if I was considering buying it?"
Good question. Plenty of URLs have a national suffix tacked on the end [you'll find these listed at www.ics.uci.edu/pub/websoft/wwwstat/country-codes.txt if you want to print them out]; but what about the dotcoms?
No problem - Network Solutions, who control dotcom registrations, have a nice little search-engine at www.dotcomdirectory.com/nsi/basic.hm which can tell you where they are – even if they're lurking in the Virgin Islands or some other shady locale.
If there's anything you want to know about the exciting world of the Web, just email inbox@herald.co.nz. We promise to answer, in language you can understand. We're also putting the Web to work for you. Try our new Inbox forum, a place where you can post your Net problems asking others for help.
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