THE CUTTING EDGE: COMPUTING / TECHNOLOGY / INNOVATION : Using Internet to Get Addresses, ZIP Codes and Other Practical Things
Sure, the Internet is a great place. But what if you don’t want to know how much Coke is left in the soda machine in the computer science department at South Fargo State College? What if you’re not interested in using the Internet to have a computerized dog perform arithmetic?
In other words, what if you actually want to use the Internet for something practical?
I’ve always thought the Internet was the ideal place to make available information about postal addresses and phone numbers, and so for this column I tried using the Net to obtain just such mundane but useful data. I was surprised at how well it worked for these things, and I came away with a newfound respect for the practical tasks one can accomplish with it.
On the other hand, the Internet is still very far from something I can use as easily as a phone book. Although I leave my computer on round-the-clock, I still have to dial in to access whatever I’m looking for, and perhaps turn on the printer to get the information onto paper. And the data available is very far from comprehensive, although it does suggest what’s coming.
First, let’s look up a nine-digit ZIP code. Point your Web browser at https://www.usps.gov and you’ll discover the U.S. Postal Service Web page, which offers postal rates, history and a variety of searchable functions. I chose “address quality and ZIP code look up” and then typed in my street address and city. The Postal Service Web server quickly displayed all nine digits of my ZIP code.
I thought this was pretty cool until I discovered that there is a private-sector alternative which is even better. Trot over to https://www.cedar.buffalo.edu/adserv.html; not only is it a searchable database of ZIP+4 codes, but once it finds the right one, it will generate a Postscript file you can print, complete with bar code. (Microsoft Word 6.0 already does bar codes, and other major word processors may also, so don’t get too excited.) The system will even allow for a certain amount of input sloppiness; if you type “Oak Street” and the address is actually on Oak Avenue, the computer will correct you.
Not to be outdone, Federal Express, at https://www.fedex.com/, will let you track your package as it heads (one hopes) toward its destination. You can also download free software for speeding up the process of sending by FedEx. United Parcel Service, at https://www.ups.com/, also offers package tracking, company information and the like. It even lets you type in the “to” and “from” ZIP codes and will generate an estimated time of delivery.
Starting a business and want one of those easy-to-remember vanity phone numbers, such as 213-PEANUTS? Visit https://www.soc.qc.edu/phonetic/. You can type in “peanuts” and it will generate phone numbers. Or you can type in a phone number and it will generate the equivalent in letters. If you want, it will even check with a dictionary so that only real words are used.
You’ll find a bunch of useful phone-related items by using the Yahoo index (https://www.yahoo.com) and choosing “Reference” and then “Phone Numbers.” One such handy Web page is at https://www.tollfree.att.net/dir800/, where you can search a database of AT&T; toll-free numbers.
You’ll also find the Swiss phone book (this is a telnet application accessed via gopher, and thus somewhat difficult to use, but at least they offer it in English), and a French phone directory, which worked amazingly well. It fairly quickly generated phone numbers for two of my newspaper friends in Paris. You just fill in the form, click rechercher, and voila! Meanwhile, I still get charged 85 cents every time I use old-fashioned directory assistance to find a number in New York.
Speaking of New York, you can use the Web to find some phone numbers for free in that part of the world. The Nynex Interactive Yellow Pages, at https://www.niyp.com/, offers all the Yellow Pages listings for the entire Northeastern United States. You can search the database by company name or category.
In the not-so-distant future, we can expect various Internet competitors to offer name and address look-up nationwide, with phone numbers, at prices much below what directory assistance costs now, perhaps even paid for by advertisers. Meanwhile, you can always get one of those CD-ROM sets containing all the phone books in the country.
Daniel Akst can be reached at akstd@news.latimes.com. His World Wide Web page is at https://www.caprica.com/~akst
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Better Searching
Good news for Internet searchers: Two of the very best free search tools in cyberspace have been improved. The famous Yahoo page (https://www.yahoo.com) has had a face-lift and boasts some new categories. It also allows searches right from the main page. And InfoSeek (https://www2.infoseek.com) is expanding the searches it will perform for free, substantially increasing the material covered.
You can access several Web search tools from https://home.netscape.com/home/internet-search.html. (Netscape users can get there simply by clicking the “Net Search” button.) At this location you can jump to other listings of search engines as well.
