January 15, 2001
OverHall IT! Issue

Welcome to OverHall IT! All administration and publication
information is now located at the end of the newsletter.
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January 15, 2001
Vol. 2, Issue 1
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Table of Contents:

1. Welcome Message
2. Computer Corner
3. Tip of the Month
4. Events
5. Jokes, Quotes, and Anecdotes
6. Products, Books, and Web Site Reviews
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1. Welcome Message

SPECIAL NOTE: OverHall IT! is now published bi-monthly.
The Computer Corner section will be published each month
in the middle of the month, and the OverHalling and Balance
section will be published towards the end of the month.

How many times have you gotten on the Internet to find
some information as quickly as possible and hours later you
still haven’t found what you’re looking for? Check out the
article in the Computer Corner to help you speed up your
searches and find what you’re looking for.

I’m proud to say that this has been the busiest month in
OverHall history! I have had the pleasure of working
everyday with new (and some old) clients, and I even went
to NJ and lived with a family of five to help them get their
lives and home organized.

I’m now preparing to leave for my SE speaking tour, where
I’ll be writing OverHall IT! from the road. Please see
Events to see if I’ll be coming to your town.

Okay, ready to start "OverHalling"?
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2. Are You Finding What You REALLY Need?:
Internet Searching Techniques
By: Janet L. Hall

Remember the game Hide & Seek? Just like the game,
websites can be hiding from you on the Internet while you try
to seek out particular information, services, or products.
How do you find what you are seeking?

The Internet is like the KING of all Libraries. Among the
stacks you seek. Among the librarians (search engines and
directories) you perform a query. But if you don't know the
language, the search criteria, or your way around, you can
get lost playing endless hours of hide & seek.

In order for you to locate the information or site you're
seeking, several things must have happened:

>> The site owner must register or submit their site with the
directory in which you are doing a search. Then a real
person goes and checks out their site and decides if the site
is worthy of getting listed in their directory.

>> The site owner must register or submit their site with the
search engine in which you are doing a search OR the
search engine’s robots or spiders must have * crawled
through * their websites which will rank them by many
different factors. The most important factor is the use and
weight of the site owner’s use of keywords.

When you do a search or a query, you type in a word or
phrase of words, right? Here is where you might not find
what you are looking for because the site owner or
webmaster didn't put in the keywords you are typing in the
search window.

Therefore, the site owner or webmaster must determine
what keywords are important for each page on their website
and what word(s) you will type in a search window to find
their site. The words you type in might not be the
webmasters keywords, so you don't find what you are
looking for.

To make matters worse, each search engine and directory
can have their own search criteria; however, most are very
similar.

Using particular search strategies can help narrow your
search and hopefully find the stuff more relevant to what you
are seeking.

Seven Searching Techniques to try:

>> Read the help section of the search engine or directory

>> Put word(s) in quotation marks; tells most search engines
you're looking for that exact term

>> Type in lowercase letters; many search engines are
case-sensitive

>> Be specific - instead of typing in organizers, type in professional organizers

>> Type in the plural form of the word

>> Type in the word(s) misspelled, such as organizers or
organisers or orgnaizers

>> Type in a longer variation of the word, instead of
organize, type in organizing.

Anthony Muller, President of Web Mercs, said in his article,
* How to Avoid the Most Common Myths and Blunders of Search Engine Optimization *:

* There are hundreds of search engines, but only 20-30 main
ones, and just four-five of them account for 60-75% of the
total search engine traffic. For example, Altavista gets about
17% of the total engine market and it equals roughly 40
million searches a day; as opposed to Lycos or HotBot which
each get 2-3% of the market. It would shock you to know
Yahoo only gets about 24%! *

My two favorite search engines to locate what I'm looking for
is dogpile.com and alltheweb.com

dogpile.com allows you to search through 14 search engines
at the same time! Type in your word(s), click on FETCH,
and WaLA! You’ve just worked a little smarter, not harder.
At dogpile.com you can choose to search through images,
audio, auctions, news, FTP, Discussion, and Small Biz.

At dogpile you can use advanced searching techniques, by
using additional syntax, that will help * you gain added
control over your search and weed out any unwanted
results. *

Additional Syntax for Searching Techniques:

>> Type AND between words or the symbol + before a word
thus allowing a specific combination of words to be present
in all search results.
Example: Home AND Clutter or Home + Clutter will result in
different search results.

>> Type NOT between words or the symbol – before a word
Example: Dogs NOT Cats or Dogs – Cats will result in sites
when only dogs appear but not cats.

>> Type OR to include both words.
Example: Office OR Clutter

Not all search engines support these syntaxes in dogpile;
therefore, dogpile will only search the engines that support
the syntax you use, allowing a more tailored result.

alltheweb.com searches for documents on the Internet that
contain your search word(s). They offer a pull down menu to
the left of the search window where you can choose from
different syntaxes. They also offer an advanced search
where you can perform word filters, word(s) that should be
included or excluded from your search.

To learn or read more about search engines, directories, and
searching, check out the Review section near the end of this
newsletter.

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To schedule an organizing consultation or coaching session
for your life, call Janet at 800-687-3040 or
mailto:janet@overhall.com
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3. OverHall IT! Computer Tip of the Month

I’d like this section to be yours! If you have a computer tip
that you'd like to share, please email it to, mailto:janet@overhall.com?subject=ComputerTip

I’d love to hear from you so we can all learn something new!
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Looking for a new way to add revenue to your business
or to improve your website? Check out Tom Antion's
Electronic Marketing Butt Camp CD at
http://www.antion.com/t.cgi/123221/buttcampcd.htm
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4. OverHall Events

LOOK and SEE—I might be coming to your town!

Paula Langguth Ryan and I are kicking off our 2-week winter
2001 tour (OverHall Your Life for More Space, Time and
Money & Break the Debt Cycle—For Good!) on January 29
and will be speaking in the following towns:

Feb. 4, 2001 (1:30-4:30 PM)
Christ Unity Church
105 McBrien Rd.
Chattanooga, TN

Feb. 6, 2001 (7-10 PM) PLEASE NOTE—NEW TIME
Unity Center of Fletcher
2041 Old Fanning Bridge Road
Fletcher, NC 28732

Feb. 7, 2001 (6-9 PM)
Unity of Greenville
37 E. Hillcrest Drive
Greenville, SC 29223

Feb. 9, 2001 (6:30-9:30 PM)
Unity of Charlotte
1000 E. Woodlawn Rd.
Charlotte, NC

Feb. 10, 2001 (10 AM-1 PM)
Unity in Greensboro
6026 Inman Road
Greensboro, NC 27410

Feb. 11, 2001 (1:30-4:30 PM)
Unity Church of Durham
2604-H Carver Street
Durham, NC 27705

Feb. 13, 2001 (6-9 PM)
Unity Church of Cary
222 E. Chatham, Suite A-6
Cary, NC 27511

Feb. 15, 2001 (6:30-9:30 PM)
Unity in Greensboro
6026 Inman Road
Greensboro, NC 27410

Feb. 18, 2001 (1-4 PM)
Unity of Roanoke Valley
3300 Green Ridge Road, NW
Roanoke, VA 24019

To get these seminars on audiotape, give us a jingle!
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AUDIO Organizing Tapes now on SALE!
http://www.overhall.com/Tapes.htm
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If you don’t have a product and would love to learn how to
create one, check out, * Make Your Knowledge Sell * at
http://www.sitesell.com/overhallsales.html http://www.sitesell.com/overhallsales.html Ken Evoy’s
manual will tell you step by step on how to develop a product
and how to sell your product.
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Have you gotten your * tickle * for the day? Check out the
secret organizing tool that ALL organized families and
successful people use on a daily basis at
http://www.overhall.com/tickler_file.htm
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5. Jokes, Quotes, and Anecdotes

Computers can now keep a man's every transgression
recorded in a permanent memory bank, duplicating with
complex programming and intricate wiring a feat his wife
handles quite well without fuss or fanfare.
--Lane Olinghouse

. . . inspiration never arrived when you were searching for it.
--Lisa Alther

As long as one keeps searching, the answers come.
--Joan Baez

I roamed the countryside searching for answers to things I
did not understand.
--Leonardo da Vinci

Nothing came easy. I was just born with a need to explore
every toolshop of my mind, and with long searching and hard
work.
--Gordon Parks

~~ If you have a joke, quote, or anecdote that would fit well
into OverHall IT!, please feel free to email it to me.
mailto:janet@overhall.com
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6. Products, Books, and Web Site Reviews

>> Search Engines 101 at:

Please visit these other OverHall Consulting sites

Get Organized:	Bedroom Clutter	Car Clutter	Children & Clutter	Closet Clutter	Debt & Clutter	Paper Clutter	Tickler File
	All Organizing	Office Clutter	Kitchen Clutter	Desk Clutter
Feng Shui:	Feng Shui Office
Energy Medicine:
Business:	Become an Organizer	Kick Start Web Sites	FrontPage Show & Tell	Gurus of IM
Article Directories: