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	... More Canadian trivia than you can shake a hockey stick at!
	Contests We had nine lucky prize winners in our first-anniversary giveaway who won nine different prizes. Check out the contests page for all the juicy details on what you missed.  Next issue We're running a slightly different format these days. Rather than publish a longer newsletter on a set weekly schedule, we're sending shorter newsletters on an irregular basis these days. Hope you enjoy!  Subscriptions You too can receive these newsletters in your e-mail. All you need to do is enter your e-mail address in the form in the top, right-hand corner of any page on the site and click the "GO!" button. So sign up now, eh!  Suggestions If you have a suggestion for an article, factoid, joke, statistic or anything else for the newsletter, please send it to our researcher. Any comments about this Web site can be directed to the webmaster.	Product and Company Profile -- Copernic and Copernic Technologies Inc. November 24, 2000. Craig makes his FactsCanada writing debut today with a short article on a great software product from a Canadian company. I use this program extensively in the course of researching the articles that I write every Sunday. It replaces what used to be many hours of frustrating and often fruitless Web-based searching, with quick and precise results obtained in seconds. ¤º°`°º¤ø,¸¸,ø¤º°`°º¤ø,¸¸,ø¤º°`°º¤ø,¸¸,ø Product and Company Profile -- Copernic and Copernic Technologies Inc. By Craig Hartnett (craig@factscanada.com) I know this has never happened to you, but I have often spent hours searching the Web for some small piece of (apparently) obscure information, only to give up in frustration. If you're not daunted by the 14 million hits that your search term just generated, then you're likely to be after you click through a dozen links, only to wonder why the pages you are looking at even showed up in the results. From another point of view, consider the position of a Web site owner who is wondering what sort of magic (as I described it to a client just two days ago) one has to invoke to get anywhere near the top of the search results. For those of you still searching and not finding, search no longer -- there's Copernic. The brainchild of Quebec brothers Martin and Eric Bouchard, this is a program (or application) that you actually install in your computer, not a page you view on the Web. Searching (and finding) couldn't be easier. No longer do you have to remember "booleans" (boo what?!) and complicated methods of arranging the words in your query to get the best results, and how those methods differ between search engines. If your search term consists of more than one word, simply tell Copernic whether you want it to "answer my question" (a question entered in plain English), "search for all words", "search for any word", or "search for exact phrase". Click the Search Now button, and away you go. Copernic is, in reality, a specialized browser, which queries several different search engines simultaneously, collects and analyses the results, discards the irrelevant ones, and then returns the results to you sorted by relevance (or even sorted in another way if you so choose). All you then have to do is read the summaries provided by Copernic (which highlights your search term in the results) and click the links to the Web sites. Chances are you'll find what you're looking for right away. Beyond that, you have even more choices that some will find handy. You can refine your search even further than Copernic already has, have Copernic validate all of the links for you (thereby eliminating from the list pages that are no longer available, the proverbial "dead links"), or even have all of the found pages downloaded to your hard drive so that you can browse them off-line (for those of us poor saps still connecting to the Internet through a modem and one phone line). Just when you thought it couldn't get any better, there's more! You can automatically send an attractive report of the results via e-mail to a search engine-challenged friend or colleague, either in the form of a Web page, or a plain text e-mail message. Microsoft Windows and Internet Explorer users have further options for tighter integration with Copernic. If you are the aforementioned Web site owner and your site actually appears at the top, you can print the report through your Web browser and have it framed. All this for the astronomical price of... well, free! My favourite price. For most people the free version is all they really need, and it certainly beats using most (if not all) Web-based search engines -- although you do have to put up with banner advertisements (but they have those on Web-based search engines last time I checked, which hasn't been since I started using Copernic). The free version accesses 80 search engines (which are updated on-line automatically) in seven categories. Copernic Technologies also has "Plus" and "Pro" versions available: both of these versions give you access to 600 search engines in 55 categories (including auctions, finance, shopping, news, travel, MP3s and e-mail databases), the ability to suppress advertisements, and support. The "Pro" version also allows scheduled updates of your searches, e-mail alerts and spell-checking of your queries. All versions are available in six languages. The company that brings you all of this is, as mentioned previously, Copernic Technologies. This company was started in 1995 in the basement of the Bouchard family, incorporated in 1996, and was initially funded by family, friends and others who believed in the plans of brothers Martin and Eric Bouchard. Martin and Eric wanted to develop a technology platform that would allow Internet users to harness the vast stores of information contained in millions of Web sites worldwide. Now, five years later, Copernic has gained a loyal following among the Internet population, boasting more than four million users, with a further 500 000 downloads every month. Their applications are highly ranked by industry leaders -- Copernic rates a "pick" at CNET's download.com, five stars from ZDNet (who, interestingly enough, relatively recently purchased a software company who develop a similar product to Copernic), and a four-star rating from ZDNet users. Copernic.com (as the company now prefers to be known) has grown exponentially, currently employing more than 40 technology specialists and support personnel at its headquarters. The company's revenues have grown by 500 percent, from C$1.2 million in fiscal (June) 1999, to C$6 million in 2000 (projected June). In the Internet world, where profits are rare, Copernic.com has already developed a profitable and innovative business model -- the company is posting a C$1 million (estimated June 2000) profit, representing a net profit margin of 16.6 percent. (We, at FactsCanada, are looking closely at this business model and wish to replicate it!) Future areas of growth and interest include the advancement of the Copernic server technology, an additional product line that uses the company's core intelligent agent platform and was created for the corporate market. This powerful technology is an adaptable tool that satisfies the specific information-gathering needs of individual businesses or business groups. The company also intends to introduce new, consumer-based applications as well as innovative e-business and e-commerce software products. Among those products are Copernic Shopper and Copernic Summarizer, the former for making the job of quickly comparing prices on-line a snap, and the latter for producing instant and automatic document summaries. Expansion to the United States' west coast and Europe is also envisioned. For you, the searcher, this means a great, time-saving, productivity-increasing product that will be constantly updated and will be around for some time. For the harassed Web site owner mentioned at the beginning, Copernic can't help you. However, the good news is that, if it's your Web site that people are looking for, they are more likely to find you using Copernic than the usual Web-based search engines. We enthusiastically recommend Copernic 2000 to all our readers. ¤º°`°º¤ø,¸¸,ø¤º°`°º¤ø,¸¸,ø¤º°`°º¤ø,¸¸,ø == PREVIEW == This Sunday I profile Rich Little, give you the final instalment of music trivia for this year, tell you the difference between fruits and vegetables (prepare to be surprised), and tell you where to find federal government information on the Web... among other usual Sunday gems. I almost forgot -- I'll also announce the winner of the latest contest. However, we have a small problem -- we can't have a winner if nobody enters! We haven't received a single entry yet, so it's not too late to enter to win. You have almost 48 hours. In case you have lost the information, you can find it on the Web at this link. ¤º°`°º¤ø,¸¸,ø¤º°`°º¤ø,¸¸,ø¤º°`°º¤ø,¸¸,ø I hope you enjoyed our first article profiling a Canadian success story. Let me know what you think, and whether there are any other Canadian companies that you'd like to see profiled, by writing to me at john@factscanada.com . The day after tomorrow we make an announcement that will make FactsCanada even more Canadian than it already is. "How?" you ask. You'll just have to wait and see. ¤º°`°º¤ø,¸¸,ø¤º°`°º¤ø,¸¸,ø¤º°`°º¤ø,¸¸,ø == LINKS AND RESOURCES == FactsCanada.ca -- http://www.factscanada.ca NinerNet Communications Today's resources	Your Account Your e-mail address: Free Email Free email is no longer available. Search Search currently unavailable. Sorry. Credits Writer and Researcher: John MacDonald. Technical and Editor: Craig Hartnett. Web Site Hosting and Design: NinerNet Communications.
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