June 23rd, 2004, 12:47 pm

Al’s Internet Adventures

Al Tompkins of Poynter shows us the magic of Internet research. Below are his favorite sites, pulled from his tip sheet: “1stHeadlines.com is a fast and easy to load site that summarizes the leading headlines for hundreds of newspapers and online news sites around the world. “

European news portal which searches nearly 10,000 news sites every 5 minutes.

Mamma.com is very useful for image searches.

Google a home phone number, and come up with the directory listing, with a Mapquest link to the address. (Couldn’t get this to work with cell phones, yet.) A Google search for “phonebook: XXX locale” turns up directory listings.

Create your own email alerts with GoogleAlert.com, which sends you an update everytime the Google spider pops up your search term.

Rocketnews.com an alternative to Google.

This one is pretty bad ass. SearchSystems.net has an incredible directory of public records online. Free. Very Very Cool.

What licenses are required in what professions in your state? Check it out.

Property Tax records for any county in the United States. See who owns what property and how much tax they paid. You can also learn about renovations, additions and basic mortgage lien information on any property.”

Guidestar.org is the guide for investigating nonprofits.

Opensecrets.org will give you the ins and outs of campaign finances. Find checks written from campaign funds, personal finance reports of candidates, and much more.