The SurfReport from Surflogic LLC  -- http://www.surflogic.com/
Internet Agent News You Can Use
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v1.1 -- May 20, 1996
Copyright (C) 1996 Surflogic LLC.  All rights reserved.
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In this issue:

1. Editor's Note
2. Surflogic and Surfbot in the News
3. One Month of "Agent of the Week"
4. Tips and Tricks
5. Customer Profile: A Philosopher's Tale
6. Contacts and Suggestions
7. Subscribe/Unsubscribe
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1. Editor's Note

In early April, we sent out a customer survey to existing Surfbot users.
Thanks to all of you who took the time to complete the survey. The high
response rate and your great suggestions made it clear that Internet
productivity tools are very important to you. We've analyzed your feedback
and are using the data in our current product development.

Here are a few highlights drawn from the user survey and the ever-growing
SurfReport mailing list:

* About 80% of you use Netscape as your primary Web browser; 15% prefer
Microsoft Internet Explorer; and 5% use something else. The share of MSIE
users is steadily increasing.

* Your platform of choice is Windows 95, with a handful using Windows NT,
and a great number requesting Macintosh and Windows 3.1.  (Nope, no new
platform announcements in this issue...)

* You are heavy users of Surfbot's scheduling and dial-up networking
features, with most of your connections ocurring over a modem.

* Almost half of you are international customers.

If you didn't get a chance to participate in the last survey, we will be
updating it along with our next product release. As ever, Surflogic always
welcomes your product suggestions. See Contacts and Suggestions for ways
you can help shape Surfbot's future!

- Kirk Scott
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2. Surflogic and Surfbot in the News
   April/May 1996

Online Tactics: "The Hottest Thing Online is Offline"
April 1996, Simba Information Inc. (http://www.simbanet.com/)
A review of offline delivery strategies for content providers.

Newsweek Cyberscope: "Going Online Offline"
April 29, 1996
  "...getting the Web sites you want automatically downloded to
   your hard drive so that you can browse them much faster at your
   leisure."

PC Magazine: "The Ultimate Utility Guide"
May 16, 1996, Ziff Davis Publishing (http://www.pcmag.com/)
Editors Choice: Internet Organizers
  "If you need industrial-strength Web scanning and organizing in an
   elegant, up-to-date interface, you won't find anything better."

ZDNet: Shareware of the Year
April 1996 (http://www.zdnet.com/)
Finalist: 1996 Shareware of the Year Awards
  "It has an exceptionally clean interface, displaying the titles of
  your favorite pages and information about them. It even lets you
  create agents that can be distributed to others so they can share
  your surfing."
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3. One Month of "Agent of the Week"

Each week, Surflogic publishes new Agents that you can download and run
with Surfbot on your own machine. These Agents are optimized to deliver
high-value Web information on a timely basis.  Here are the last month's
selections, available from http://www.surflogic.com/agents.html

May 20, 1996
  The Daily Scoop from Tripod gathers links from major news, sports, and
international sites and wraps them in original editorial material. If you
like their selections, schedule this Agent for your daily dose. 

May 13, 1996
  Before you hop on that plane to visit San Francisco, run this Agent or
the latest local information from City.Net. Provides the latest news,
weather, events, maps, restaurants, guidebooks, and more. City.Net is
Excite's service that has listings for hundreds of other towns - look for
yours! 

May 6, 1996
  Suck 2.0 is the Hotwired vehicle that picks apart Web ventures, media
hype and questionable business plans. Now with advertising, more links,
and an expanded staff. 

April 29, 1996
  MSNBC -- the joint venture of Microsoft and NBC News is on the Web. Check
out their feature debut coinciding with the Today Show broadcast from
Ireland. A very impressive collection of Web material: Irish history, the
Gaelic language, and complete coverage of the current political
situation.

April 22, 1996
  Robert Seidman has been covering online services and the Internet since
1994. His weekly newsletter, Seidman's Online Insider, is posted at the
beginning of each week. Browse the back issues to get some perspective on
various Internet initiatives -- where they've been, where they are now,
and where he thinks they're headed.
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4. Tips and Tricks

Did you know:

* Both Netscape and Microsoft Internet Explorer support drag and drop.
Dragging a location (underlined blue text) to the desktop will create an
Internet Shortcut (.url) file.  You can use Surfbot to monitor your
desktop folder (C:/Windows/Desktop).

* A quick way to monitor multiple Web locations is to create a folder in
the Windows Explorer, and populate it with links that you drag and drop
from your Web browser.  Then use Surfbot's Agent Setup Wizard to monitor
the folder you created.

* Although Surfbot 2.0 currently limits "crawling" to one level of links,
You can use Surfbot to "crawl" through more than one level of links at a
Web site by creating an Agent which monitors multiple locations or menu
pages within a Web site. Try it using the two tips above.

* Netscape opens a new instance of its Web browser for each HTML file you
double-click in the Windows Explorer. By contrast, Microsoft Internet
Explorer will reuse a single window for pages opened from the Explorer.
(Don't you agree that it's confusing to have 2 programs called Explorer?)

* Surfbot can store passwords and user names for Web sites which require
authentication. You can set up Surfbot so that Agents log into your
password-controlled sites unattended or overnight.
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5. Customer Profile: A Philosopher's Tale
Submitted by Andrew Carpenter <phlos-ad@violet.berkeley.edu>

To Surflogic:

I thought you might want to know how indispensable Surfbot has become to
me! I now use it to automate a myriad of Web-browsing tasks, all of which
are useful but the sheer number of which is so great that I could never
keep up by "manual" surfing!

Here is what my "Surfbot Schedule" looks like:

Weekday mornings:

1. Download Financial Times of London at 6:00am
2. Download New York Times at 6:30am
3. Download San Francisco Chronicle at 7:00am

This gives me my morning new updates. The Chronicle is my old hometime
newspaper -- it's nice to be able to keep track of things in the Bay Area.
The New York Times is my favorite newspaper, but it isn't available for
home delivery where I live in Maryland -- the Surfbot-delivered Web
version is a gift from heaven!

4. Download the Chronicle of Higher Education at 8:30am

I am getting my Doctorate in Philosophy and teach at a college. This is the
premier journal of record for events and news in academia. I can start my
workday with all the news about higher education, and get a good preview
of the hot issues/events in academia. (This site--you need to subscribe to
the print edition for access--gives the complete text of the print edition
plus additional daily reporting. It really has a wealth of good
material.)

Weekday Afternoons:

5. Download Tech News (the user-supplied Agent from your Web site)
   at 6:00pm
6. Download the Wall Street Journal at 6:30pm
7. Download Time Daily at 7:00pm
8. Download CNN Interactive at 7:30pm

After work, I find out what has been going on in the day. The Tech News
Agent keeps me abreast of all the marvelous happenings afoot in the
computer world. The Wall St. Journal will contain analysis of that day's
market action and business news. The Time and CNN sites give me
up-to-the-minute information on breaking news.

Friday Morning:

9. Download "Jobs in Philosophy" at 7:30am
10. Download "Deadlines in Philosophy" at 8:00am 

The Chronicle of Higher Education keeps track of job openings and
conferences, fellowships, etc. These Agents use a search Agent at their
site to keep me informed about new events in the world of philosophy. I'm
looking for a full-time position, and the listings on the Web site get
published at least 3 days before the print version reaches subscribers --
I get a good leg-up on preparing applications for new jobs. The
"deadlines" Agent does a similar search to give me a similar advantage for
fellowship competitions, calls for papers, etc.

Saturday Morning:

11. Download "Meetings in Philosophy" at 7:30am
12. Download "Grants in the Humanities" at 8:00am

These are more searches of the Chronicle of Higher Education site. The
"meetings" Agent gives me an updated list of all the upcoming philosophy
conferences. The "grants" Agent gives me prompt notice of new grant
competitions. Again, I retrieve these items several days before the
printed version is out.

13. Download industry rumors at 9:30am
14. Download Seidman's Internet report at 10:00am

Entertaining perspectives on the Internet.

Sunday Morning:

15. Download "People in Philosophy"
16. Download "Academic News"
17. Download "Philosophy News"

More searches from the Chronicle of Higher Education site. The first Agent
gives me a report of all deaths, new appointments, promotions, job
changes, etc. in philosophy departments around the world. The academic
news Agent searches the full-text database for any mention of my alma
maters or the schools where I've taught. The philosophy news pulls up all
recent articles about philosophy, philosophers, or philosophy
departments.

Finally, I download the NYT and read the Time and CNN sites for my Saturday
and Sunday news.

Whew! You can understand why I would be hard pressed to keep track of all
of this on my own. The System Agent scheduling of Agents is wonderful; it
is a joy to get up in the morning and have an array of Netscape browsers
opened up and ready for my perusal!

Again, thanks for all your efforts! I hope that this report of what I do
with Surfbot will give you a sense of how actual users are making very
good use of the program!
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6. Contacts and Suggestions

If you have suggestions for Agents you'd like to see in Agent of the Week,
or if you'd like us to publish an Agent you've created, send mail to
agents@surflogic.com
                          *  *  *
To submit an article to the SurfReport, for example, a description of how
you use Surfbot, contact the Editor at kirk@surflogic.com.
                          *  *  *
To suggest a new feature, send mail to surfbot@surflogic.com.
                          *  *  *
Surflogic is expanding! We're actively recruiting in the areas of business
development and marketing. For more information or a summary of the
positions available, send e-mail to sales@surflogic.com.
                          *  *  *
Surfbot 2.02 for Win 95 is our most recent release. Free evaluation
software is always at ftp://ftp.surflogic.com/pub/
                          *  *  *
Surflogic's Web address is, unsurprisingly, http://www.surflogic.com/
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7. Subscribe

To subscribe to this newsletter by e-mail, send an e-mail message to
info@surflogic.com, with SUBSCRIBE in the SUBJECT of the message.
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