 no. 53 January- March 1998 |
Indonesia on the
Net Lots of people want to know 'what's happening in Indonesia' but know no Indonesian. They need their information in English. Is it possible? |
|
|
The answer today is a qualified yes, though the depth, breadth,
and extent of
English sources online cannot match those in Indonesian. I'll assume you - like me - do not have access to high-cost databases. This time I'll sketch a very easy 'homebrew' method of getting current events information on Indonesia in English. You'll likely need no new software or hardware. 1. Try the highly organised mega-search sites much favored by net trainers. For search engines and directories, nothing beats Needle in a Cyberstack at http://home.revealed.net /albee. A more personalised didactic approach is taken by Windweaver's Search Guide at http://www.wi ndweaver.com/searchguide.htm. For databases, there are thousands at Internets. Just go to http://www.internets.com. For the 'talky' part of the net, try the unique Reference.com which will allow you to search Usenet newsgroups, mailing lists, and Web forums (http://www.reference.com). 2. If these sites prove daunting, Waruno Mahdi has assembled what is possibly the net's most complete personal homepage on Indonesia. Go to http://w3.rz-be rlin.mpg.de/~wm/wm6.html. Stroll through heaven. 3. Another little-used but exceptionally rich set of sites are the homepages of Indonesia's Internet Service Providers (ISPs). Jendela has links to them at http://w ww.ece.iit.edu/~mmarwali/provider.html. 4. Two Indonesian English-language newspapers now regularly provide much of their content on the Web. Register for Indonesian Observer at http://www.indoexchange.com/bagong/indonesian-observer. The Indonesia Times may be read at http://www.indocon.com /indotimes. Most of Antara's daily English feed may be viewed at http://www.antar a.co.id/index-ENG.html. 5. Much Indonesian news in English dating back to 1990 may also be retrieved from the Indonesia Publications database by using English-language search words. Go to gopher: //gopher.igc.apc.org:2998/7REG-INDONESIA. Enter search words with Boolean operators like AND for best results, then hit return. 6. Finally, if you want the English news to 'come to you,' use the customisation features of three of the top five net search biggies: Excite, Yahoo, and Infoseek. Go to http://www.excite.com and choose My Channel. Then choose News Tracker and type in the word 'Indonesia' as your custom topic. Come back shortly and bookmark the page as My Excite Channel. Proceed similarly for Yahoo and Infoseek. Go to http://www.yahoo.com, hit My Yahoo, and set up the News Clipper with the keyword Indonesia. Finally, go to http://www.infoseek.com. Hit the News Channel, then Personalized News, again using Indonesia as the search keyword. This will yield a link where you can view all your Personalized Headlines every day. Infoseek is unique in providing a possibly preferable option at the bottom of the News Channel page. Type the word Indonesia and successively search the categories Newswires, Industry News, National News, and, if you feel intrepid, News Web sites. Be sure you bookmark the relevant customised Yahoo and Infoseek pages just as you did at Excite. Have a good read. Next time we'll talk about an easy new way to do the job of getting the English news about Indonesia - using some of the hundreds of 'channels' (partially downloaded Web sites) now available with the commercial versions of Microsoft's Internet Explorer 4.0 and Netscape's Communicator 4.03. We'll also be mentioning a free alternative: PointCast. John A. MacDougall apakabar@clark.net New All sites mentioned in the Indonesia on the Net columns can now be reached from our new, regularly updated, Springboard. |
