| Personalized Web/
Off Line Browsing |
developed by: Harold Goldstein -- dcbiker@goldray.com -- http://goldray.com/
http://goldray.com/classes/internet/personalized.htm |
Personalized Web Services & Off Line Browsing
I have divided this review into two parts; personal content providers and off-line browsing. Personal content providers focus on allowing the user to identify categories and specific items for regular information delivery while off-line browsers primary purpose is to faciliate the user in downloading sites for later off-line perusing.
Personal Content Providers
Yahoo -- Excite -- CNN/Netscape
Some of the best web search and directory sites are getting into the provision of personal information. Excite received the PC Magazine Editor's Choice. CNN personailzes your news.
These services leapfrog each other with content ranging from business, news, financials, weather, webzines, personal calendars, tv listings, city maps, you name it. They are easy to set up and offer a quick entry into this type of application. The above are just a few of these.
Offline Browsing
Black Widow -- for Win9x?NT, is a web site scanner, a site mapping tool, a site ripper, a site mirroring tool, and an offline browser program. Use it to scan a site and create a complete profile of the site's structure, files, E-mail addresses, external links and even link errors. ($40)
Flashsite -- for Win9x/NT, lets you identify pages/sites to download as often while you surf scheduled as needed. It also draws a map of the target site.(about $40)
Netattache Pro -- for Win3.1/9x/NT is an off-line browser with unique and powerful features; a 'smart search' that looks for specific content, front end access to search engines for notification of site changes, and flexibility in specifying what gets downloaded (images, audio, video). Download is condensed to a single file; an extractor tool is free. (about $40)
Offline Explorer --recently recommended by PC Magazine. ($30)
Teleport -- a powerful spider for Win9x/NT that will retrieve pages, mirror entire sites and its links, create site maps, search sites etc. It is multi-threading and can save up to 10 sites in parallel and is a PC Magazine Editor's Choice. ($40)
WebCopier ($30) seems flexible.
WebWhacker -- for Win3.1/9x/NT/MAC downloads ('whacks') pages and sites, converts relative URLs to absolute URLs to allow seamless offline viewing, and runs smoothly with your own browser. Download stored in a single Web Whacker file; they can then be exported. ($49.95)
Webfetcher -- for Win9x/NT/MAC/Unix, Webfetcher uses your own browser to download html files, images, links on schedule. Poor non-graphical interface. ($35)
