Google Answers
https://answers.google.com/answers/main
Have you ever wished that you had a research staff ready to find you a quick answer at a moment's notice? Google offers a service, now in beta release, called Google Answers. After registering with Google, users can ask paid researchers questions. Examples already submitted include: "Who is the Director of Human Resources for Perdue Farms, Inc. in Salisbury, Maryland?" and "What is the equation to convert millibars to inches of Mercury, please?" In order to get a question answered, though, users must pay a price that they deem sufficient (between $4 and $50), with 75 percent going to the researcher and 25 percent going to Google. Conversely, for those users who like to research, Google also provides online facilities for researchers to get paid answering questions. So essentially, Google is operating as a broker between the questioner and researcher, taking commissions in return for providing an information service much like eBay offers for items and collectibles. Some users may find the notion of paying for information on the Internet annoying, but for those who have a simple question for which they just can't find the answer, Google Answers may be a good place to start. [TS]
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Finale Notepad 2002
http://www.codamusic.com/coda/np.asp
Finale Notepad 2002 is a nifty musical notation tool offered for free download by Coda Music Technology. Available for both Windows and Macintosh, the software enables sheet music creation on the computer via user-friendly interfaces, intuitive wizards, and simple icons. For musicians that need a simple software package to write and compose music, Finale Notepad 2002 will probably function adequately. A great feature that should aid the composition process is a playback feature that reads and plays musical notation, sounding much like a traditional, no frills MIDI player. Users with low bandwidth should be wary of the bulky file size, though; the Macintosh version was roughly 7 MB. [TS]
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