This month I'll be looking at Domino "portal" sites, as well as sites that offer useful Domino-related tip information. Some of these sites have just emerged recently and some are tried-and-true sites that you might sometimes overlook amidst all the hustle and bustle of doing your Domino development.

My focus in this column is on independent sites not owned by Lotus (with the exception of Notes.Net). These are sites that it would pay you to take notice of and start using in your daily life as a Lotus professional.

SearchDomino
I'm beginning with this site because, quite frankly, it's my favorite Domino-related site to come around in a long time. Picture, if you will, what you would get if you threw all the Domino-related sites into an AltaVista blender and set it to puree. That's what SearchDomino (at http://www.searchdomino.com) is like.

SearchDomino uses AltaVista technology to power its searches, and the results it brings back are usually very relevant because SearchDomino indexes all the good Domino-related sites, such as DominoPower. I love using it to search for different articles I've written. For instance, if I search for the terms "Mistress Helen whip" on SearchDomino I'll immediately be presented with links to my Build Your Own Database Analysis Tool article that appeared in the April 1999 issue of DominoPower, which you can find at http://www.dominopower.com/issues/issue199904/database001.html. If I did the same search on a regular search engine, I'd just get a bunch of useless (and potentially dirty) links.

SearchDomino, like AltaVista and Yahoo, groups links into categories. When you click on a category, you can either choose to do a specific search for something in that category or you can choose one of the links they have below that to search their "Editor's choice" sites for more information on topics such as LotusScript, Calendaring and Scheduling, etc.

Despite its incredible usefulness, there are two things I'd like to see on the SearchDomino site: First, I'd like for the SearchDomino home page to provide direct links to the sub-categories rather than having to first click on the category and then to click on the sub-category. The second thing that it lacks is more useful links in each category, but I'm sure this will come with time.

One of the neat things about SearchDomino is the chance for seasoned Domino professionals to help contribute to the site and its links by becoming a SearchDomino.com Advisor. If this program works as intended, the SearchDomino site will truly be an incredible asset to the Domino development community.