1stSource

From NextWord:

Gathering research information from the World Wide Web can be very time consuming ... so try using 1stSource to improve your productivity. 1stSource combines a web site "favorites" facility with a powerful text editor and freeform database, thus offering a full range of features for the internet researcher.The use of the World Wide Web as the "1st Source" of information has become a reality. Thus, we felt that many of you would benefit from a program that helps you quickly get to your desired web sites. The browsers that we use certainly help in this area with their "favorites" facility; however, we felt that an additional dimension was needed.You go to the Web to gather information and thus we wanted the program to provide for easy storage of your research efforts. You will want to copy information (formatted text and images) from web pages and store it for future use. You will also want to add your own information and/or edit what you bring back from the web.We also added a SpellChecker (takes advantage of your installed copy of MS Word) and a powerful text search facility.Using nine categories, you can catalog all of your "favorite" web sites. Then as you visit these sites to gather information ... simply copy and paste your research information ( text and/or images ) into 1stSource. For each of your cataloged web sites you can maintain a list of freeform notes to house additional research information.When you visit a web site that has not yet been cataloged in 1stSource ... simply copy its URL address to the Windows clipboard and then instruct 1stSource to help you catalog this new web site. 1stSource will pull the URL address from the clipboard and allow you to give this site an "easy to remember" title. Cataloged items are arranged within category based on their titles ... they are sorted in ascending order. So use your titles creatively, to accomplish your desired arrangement. NextWord has provided initial content within 1stSource's database to help you get started. However, you can remove any of the cataloged web sites from within each category. You can also use the "cut/copy/paste" toolbar buttons to rearrange the cataloged web sites. You can also easily edit the description of the categories. Thus, you can quickly change the database of cataloged web sites to your liking.We chose to use the Microsoft Access engine for the 1stSource database. This allows you to store very large amounts of research information. This also allows you to paste images into your research information. As you add, remove and rearrange your database entries, the size of the database will grow. We have provided a File Menu item that can be used to "compact" your database, thus making it as small as possible.