Did you know that you can use the Internet to find old friends or long-lost family members? Searching for people on the Web is often a lot harder than searching for a topic. But, once you locate the person you are looking for, the rewards can be far greater than any other offered by the Internet. On the other hand, some people do not want to be found. They would rather have their e-mail address be as secret as their unlisted home telephone number. In this month's WebTV Tips, we will help you find people, and let you in on some tips on how to be found when, where and how you want to be. Also, as a special bonus, we also include a quick tip about e-mail time stamps.

Index of Tips:

1. How do I find someone on the Internet?

The first utility available to you is Four11. Four11 can be found in Around Town from your home page. It allows you to search for both a person's e-mail address and their telephone number. If your telephone number is unlisted your number will NOT be found in the Four11 telephone directory. The telephone directory, unlike the e-mail directory, only includes telephone numbers within the United States.

Just like searching for a topic on the Web, the more information you have, the easier it is going to be to find them. If you know the state or city they live in, your search will be much easier.

While you're there, check out your own listing! If you do not find yourself in the phone directory you can add yourself by sending your name, address, city, state, and phone number to Four11 support.

Another useful source for finding people is WhoWhere. WhoWhere also performs a search for an e-mail address or a telephone number. Searching for an e-mail address with WhoWhere is slightly different from Four11. With WhoWhere you can search by domain name. For instance, if you know that your friend Joe Smith has an AOL account then you could enter Joe Smith in the name field and then aol.com in the domain name field. Your domain name is everything that comes after the @ symbol in your e-mail address. For Club WebTV members it is webtv.net.

If you still have not found the person you are looking for, try throwing a ton of search engine power in their direction at The World Email Directory. This directory offers a slew of search engines, all gathered in one place. Some of the searches work well, while others are less useful. Many databases left over from the Internet's infancy are no longer maintained. Large new databases (like Four11 and WhoWhere) have become the preferred centralized locations for finding people, and the smaller databases are quickly becoming obsolete.

However, if you know a friend's domain name it is often faster to just search that domain for the one particular user you are after. A good site for this is the Web Interface to Whois. Also, if you have a friend who has an e-mail account with his or her university or college you may want to try to find them at Colleges & Universities. This site offers a list of colleges and universities and allows you to connect directly to their servers. That way if you know a friend goes to Yale you can hook up with Yale's computers and search "locally" for that friend. This helps to narrow your search straight away.

If Four11 or WhoWhere does not have the telephone number you are looking for then take a peek at 555-1212.com. Here you can find anything from residential Canadian numbers to fax numbers in Australia.

2. How do I avoid being found?

If your telephone number is not listed in your local White Pages then your phone number will not be found on any of the web sites mentioned above. It will also be very difficult to find anywhere else on the Web. Services like Four11 and WhoWhere simply use the national White Pages to build their telephone directories, and do not actively seek out numbers not listed in those pages. Also, if you do not register with Four11 or WhoWhere, your e-mail address will not be listed with them.

Hiding your e-mail address while out on the Web is a little more tricky.

3. How do I avoid receiving unsolicited e-mail (spam)?

If you have been using the WebTV Internet terminal for a few months you have probably already been a victim of spam. Spam comes in many forms. It can be an off-topic post to a newsgroup or it can be e-mail asking you to reply to "Make a bundle!". There is actually so much spam on the Internet that a blacklist of Internet advertisers has been created. Long-time Internet users have learned that it can be difficult to keep your e-mail address from leaking out. Every time you do one of the following, your e-mail address could be added to a list that is used by advertisers:

• Post on an online service or Internet bulletin board
• Post in a Usenet newsgroup
• Spend time in chat rooms
• Sign a Guestbook

So what do you do if you want your long-lost pals to find you, but not the latest scam artist offering snake oil?

Well, Switchboard has an interesting approach. You list your e-mail address and phone number with them and those wishing to contact you use Switchboard to send you a postcard through snail mail (better known as the good ol' US Postal Service). This way, your e-mail address is not available, but a way to get in touch with you is.

To avoid receiving spam, take a look at these tips. The first idea discussed is creating a special user without e-mail, and using this one for anything that might get spam sent to you. This is especially easy for Club WebTV members because you can add up to five additional users. You can utilize one account for e-mail only and another account for chat rooms, newsgroups and the rest of the Internet and World Wide Web.

4. How do I read the time stamp on my e-mail?

The time stamp shows the time it was sent, in the place it was sent from. For example, if a piece of e-mail was sent from California, its time stamp will show California time. It also shows your time zone, plus or minus the time difference from where it was sent.

Want an example? Take three messages sent at exactly the same time on the same day. You live in New York, and you get an e-mail from your brother studying plant life in Brazil. The message says:

Tue, Jul 1, 1997, 6:44pm (EDT+1)

That means that your brother wrote the message when it was 6:44 pm in Brazil. EDT means Eastern Daylight Time, the time zone for New York. EDT + 1 means that Brazil time is one hour ahead of New York time. That is, it was 5:44 pm where you live when your brother sent the message.

Let's say your brother from Brazil sent your aunt and uncle in California a copy of the message. Their time stamp would say:

Tue, Jul 1, 1997, 6:44pm (PDT+4)

Again, it was 6:44 pm in Brazil when he sent it. PDT means Pacific Daylight time, and Brazil time is four hours ahead of California.

Let's say that at exactly the same time, your aunt and uncle in California sent you a message in New York. Their message's time stamp will say:

Tue, Jul 1, 1997, 2:44pm (EDT-3)

So it was 2:44 pm in California when your relatives sent you the message, and California time is 3 hours earlier than New York time.

It's also worth remembering that when we reset our clocks in the fall , it will be Standard Time. The time zone codes will read PST (Pacific Standard Time) CST (Central Standard Time) and EST (Eastern Standard Time). All of the time stamp headers sent after Standard Time starts will reflect this, instead of reflecting Daylight Time.

We hope these hints help you find and be found when you want to. I'll be back next month with a discussion on a related topic: privacy.