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Netcheck

By Garry Platt (July 2004 Issue)
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I was looking around for a theme or a decent website to inspire me for this month’s ‘Netcheck’ and thankfully enlightenment hit me at the last minute. I thought I’d produce a set of useful websites that provide services and support for which, on occasions, a peripatetic trainer or coach might be grateful. There have been times when I have been on the road with only a small suitcase or a car without the properties of the Tardis and have had limited time, and so have been unable to respond to a customer or client. Equally, I may have wanted to undertake some task but did not have the necessary access to equipment or resources. Well, in those instances, some of the following websites could prove useful.

Company details
ws5info.companieshouse.gov.uk/info/
Wanting to find the contact details for a company and can’t immediately contact the organisations itself or get the details from someone else? Companies House might be able to help you as all the companies registered in the UK are held on their database and their head offices are listed with address details. However, be warned - it is for the most part only the head office that is listed. So, if it’s an outstation or regional office you are trying to contact, you won’t find it here.

Telephone numbers
http://makeashorterlink.com/?R22D13178
Forgotten the phone number but have a name, an address or partial address, or a postcode? Put what you have into this look-up system on this BT.com website and it will provide you with a full postal address and telephone number. It’s much easier to use than the chaos of the current 118 system. (It’s also worth noting that ex-directory numbers do not appear here, or anywhere else for that matter.) Yellow Pages www.yell.co.uk Where’s the Yellow Pages when you need it? Well, on the Internet actually and it’s online database is every bit as comprehensive as the hard-copy version, perhaps even better. Put in the name of the company you’re after, the service you require and the location where you want it, and www.yell.co.uk will provide the answers. I’ve now dumped the hard-copy version in favour of this website – excellent!

Faxing
http://home.efax.com/s/r/efax_uk?CMP=OTC-uk
We are without doubt in the twilight years of the fax. There are still companies (believe it or not) who don’t have e-mail and cling on to the fax as their one high-speed hard copy delivery system. So, being able to send and receive faxes via your laptop can be handy out on the road and this website allows you to do both. With a free account you get limited services but you do get a fax number which, when it receives a fax, converts it to an e-mail that is subsequently dropped into your in-tray. Conversely, using their proprietary software downloadable for free, you are able to send faxes from e-mails – amazing and useful.

Postcodes
www.copywriter.co.uk/resource/postcodelookup.html
Some companies don’t even have faxes and insist on snail mail (words fail me!). In such instances, sending post with the correct address helps ensure prompt and early delivery. There’s been a lot of negative press recently about the postal service. Personally, I have to say my experiences have been extremely good. However, I am aware that a correct postcode helps immensely. But what do you do if you don’t have it? This website will provide it for you if you enter the address details you have. In some circumstances you might have a postcode and not an address. (I can’t imagine what those circumstances would be, but nevertheless.) You can do a reverse look up by entering just a postcode and it will respond with the full postal address. This could be handy if you’re on the road and want the correct address details but it’s after 5pm or it’s the weekend and you can’t contact the company direct.

E-mail addresses
http://people.yahoo.com/
http://people.icq.com/
http://www.infospace.com/home/white-pages/email-search
Looking for someone and trying to locate their e-mail address? Try all three of these websites in order to locate them. It doesn’t always get the person you’re after, but it generally does a good job.

Text to and from e-mail
www.liquiddrop.com/
There are people among us who have mobile phones that allow them access to the Internet and to surf the World Wide Web via the phone. (OK, I admit it, I’m one of them. But it looked so shiny, interesting and sexy in the shop window, and it was guaranteed to attract members of the opposite sex. It was virtually begging me to buy it. Anyway, back to the issue in hand.) I’ve tried surfing the web on a mobile phone and, I can tell you, it’s not much fun viewing the Fenman website, or any other website for that matter, through a screen an inch or two square. However, many of us with mobile phones do use, and are familiar with, texting: 8nt tht tru 4 mny of us? Of course it is, but how about the ability to a send a text to an e-mail address or send an e-mail to a mobile phone so it appears as a text message? That option might come in handy from time to time and this website allows you to do it.

E-mail on the go
http://makeashorterlink.com/?F21F51178
http://makeashorterlink.com/?J10F62178
If you don’t know about this service already you’re probably an extraterrestrial who only arrived last week and is just starting to get the hang of the place. ‘E-mail on the go’ can be a handy service. What this means in practice is that while you’re away from your laptop you can access the World Wide Web via your client’s computer or at a suitable cyber café. You can download your e-mails if you have a free account with either Hotmail or Yahoo, both e-mail service providers. The websites above will introduce the options to you and give you the chance to sign up for their services.

Route planning
www.rac.co.uk
www.theaa.com
Got a journey to make to a client’s address and don’t know where it is, or want to find an alternative route? Both the AA and RAC have websites into which you can input where you are and where you would like to travel and both systems will return a route map and plan, which you can then print out and carry with you on the journey. Be careful though, your eyes should always be on the road ahead.

There are also sections on both these websites that provide current data on road hold-ups and tail backs. This might be handy to know before you set off. For up-to-date and current road traffic information, see Mobile road traffic information below.

Mobile road traffic information
www.filesaveas.com/traffici.html
Fancy knowing whether there’s a hold up on the road ahead? Do you have an all singing, all dancing mobile phone which at the moment all you use it for is holding down papers on your desk to stop them blowing off? Well, this piece of software, which you can download and install into certain makes of mobile phone, will allow you to access current road reports and help you avoid tail backs, road accidents or just general gridlocked areas. The downside is it costs £40 a year, while the upside is that the news it provides is up to date and correct in 95 per cent of situations. If you spend a lot of time on the road, this piece of mobile phone software can be extremely handy.

Hotels and B&Bs
www.s-h-systems.co.uk/shs.html
www.ibishotel.co.uk
www.infotel.co.uk/uksearch.asp
www.travelodge.co.uk/
www.travelinn.co.uk/TI/index.jsp
If you’re working at a client’s premises and it is further than daily travelling distance from your home, you may need to find good, cheap, local accommodation. Any of the above websites should be able to find you a local hotel or bed and breakfast with suitable accommodation.

Flights and car hire
www.expedia.co.uk/
www.tripadvisor.com/
www.car-hire-online.co.uk/
www.carhire4less.co.uk/
Perhaps you’re travelling further afield and going abroad to work for a client, in which case you’ll need to book flights and arrange car hire. These websites will provide a rich source of help and guidance on what flights are cheapest/most convenient and which car hire firm provides the best deals.

Many thanks to Garry for this month’s ‘on the road’ recommendations. Claire Forrest returns in the August issue of Training Journal.

Quick Hits
http://makeashorterlink.com/about.php
*****
There are times when you have to send people a website address or URL and it is very large and unwieldy. So, if it has to be copied or entered by hand into a browser prone to errors, it’s going to cause problems. Here are two examples:

1 http://www.cic.gc.ca/ref-protection/temp/private%20sponsorship/rstp-pfpr/training/SIMS/Conflict_Participant_Guide.pdf

or

2 http://makeashorterlink.com/?A16A33178

Now then, which would you rather enter, the first or the second?

It turns out that all large or un-user-friendly URLs can be reduced to much shorter entries using this website. The two addresses listed above are an example of this; both addresses point to the same location. By visiting the home page of ‘Make A Shorter Link’ and entering in the long website address, it will create an alternative shorter address. This is incredibly useful in the instances when copying or transcribing the details is not easy or straightforward. This website could, in certain circumstances, be worth its weight in gold.

 

This month’s ‘Netcheck’ is compiled by Garry Platt, a senior consultant at the Woodland Grange Management Centre in Leamington Spa, where he plays a key role in the Centre’s provision of ongoing management training and development across the public and private sectors. If you think this edition of ‘Netcheck’ is good, bad, ugly or simply an affront to 10,000 years of human progress, do let Garry know at garry.platt@wgrange.com

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