Date: Fri 19-Jun-1998

Publication: Bee

Author: CURT

Quick Words:

iinfo-Spiders-Brand

Full Text:

INTERNET INFO FOR REAL PEOPLE: Spider

By Bob Brand

The web changes fast. Very Fast. Webmasters using hotlinks to keep visitors

supplied with timely information quickly discover that connections to "newsy"

sites often break. For my money, broken links are the cardinal sin in the

website business. Visitors rarely inform the site creator of broken links.

They just silently stick pins in the webmaster voodoo doll velcroed to the

side of the monitor. Relief is now available.

With over 100 webpages to analyze for broken links, I have spent countless

hours analyzing the Internet Info for Real People site with Websitegarage.

That has all changed. I discovered Net Attache Pro‘. This program is a gem.

How It Works

Net Attache Pro, developed by Tympani Development, has too many features to

describe in detail in this column. The primary feature worthy of a big

"Hurrah!" is its spider. Here is how Tympani defines a spider: "It is a

program that is capable of retrieving Web data files in sequence, starting at

a user-determined point and progressing through the different levels of a

website." In so many words, a user enters a website URL (uniform resource

locator). The tool goes out on the web and follows all hotlinks it sees. It

then deposits them on the user's hard drive. This is a big tedious job. Trust

me. I have done this far too many times, often with the semi-automatic help of

Websitegarage.

The soul of the spider is the Brief Generator. When Net Attache is activated,

the user creates a graphical instruction file called a Brief Organizer. This

becomes the road map for the spider. Not only does it know where to go, but

also how deep to drill into a target website. The Net Attache program has a

sample to show the way. When I analyze my site, I point the spider to the main

page http://www.thebee.com/bweb/brand.htm) and probe two levels deep. This

retrieves the actual hotlinked websites embedded within my articles and stores

them in a huge file called The Brief. With over 100 articles, this process

takes about three hours and consumes over 28 MB of hard disk space. WOW!

The Payoff

Since the spider dutifully performs its job unattended, I usually use the time

to write new articles or update previously written ones. When the spider has

completed its task, the Brief is reviewed. Net Attache automatically loads the

browser, in my case Internet Explorer (IE) 4.72, and I activate the Site Map.

When the spider encounters a broken link, it enters a message much like

"Inaccessible File (www.pgp.ai.mit.edu/)" into the map. The spider really can

not determine if the target site is down, overloaded or has totally

disappeared from the Web. Quite often, the spider cannot wait around long

enough to receive a connection. However, when I attempt a connection to the

site in question, should I find the infamous "404 File Not Found" alert I

change the hotlink.

While Net Attache is a webmaster gift from the cybergods, it has features that

every surfer can employ. For example, when the Brief is set to a depth level

of one, the tool is used as a simple Offline Browser. This is especially

attractive for users with slow connections to an ISP (say, 14.4 kbps) where

the spider can be activated on a timer (built into Net Attache) and turned

loose in the early hours of the morning when Net traffic is lighter. In

addition, the spider can feed keywords into search engines (AltaVista,

Infoseek) and directories (Yahoo!, Magellan). Advanced users can perform smart

searches using "and", "or", and "not" groupings (called Boolean operators).

Professionals who use webpages for presentations can download complete

websites onto a portable PC and display snappy pages popped from the hard

disk. Other useful functions await the curious user of Net Attache.

Not For The Novice

The 94 page Net Attache Pro users manual is written for experienced web users.

Because it is so easy to create very large briefs that can fill a small hard

drive, caution is essential when deciding to instruct the spider how deep to

drill into a website. Surprisingly, Net Attache costs only $39.95. A true

bargain. A free 30-trial is available for downloading from the website.

Serious web-sters will find a good use for this product.

URLs (Uniform Resource Locators) of interest:

http://www.tympani.com/

http://poseidon.van.hookup.net/cwsapps/32agents-nattache.html

http://www.webreview.com/96/05/16/addict/index.html

(This is the 108th of a series of elementary articles designed for surfing the

Internet. Next, "PCs on the Cheap" is the subject on tap. Stay tuned. Until

next week, happy travels through cyberspace.

Previous issues of Internet Info for Real People (including links to sites

mentioned in this article) can be found: http://www.thebee.com. Please e-mail

comments and suggestions to: rbrand@JUNO.com or editor@thebee.com.)