Monday, October 1, 2001 Issue 17   VOLUME 1 ISSUE 17   WELCOME http://fita.org Here's your latest issue of Really Useful Sites for the International Trade Professional. This free bi-weekly newsletter reviews useful Web sites from the Web Resources database at FITA's International Trade/ Import-Export Portal at http://fita.org, an excellent source for trade leads, news, events, and a link library of 7,000+ sites related to international trade. Please feel free to pass this newsletter on to others. My name is John McDonnell, and for years I wrote a weekly e- newsletter that profiled business-oriented Web sites. Now I'm using my Web research skills to find sites that are useful for international trade, as well as some fun sites that you'll enjoy visiting. SOME THOUGHTS... http://www.helping.org There are no words to express the tragedy of what happened in America on September 11. I hope and pray that none of our readers lost anyone in the disasters in New York and Washington, but we have all been affected by it in one way or another. We encourage you to consider making a contribution to one of the organizations listed at Helping.org, a site set up by the AOL Time Warner Foundation to help charities. I have found several sites that seem appropriate for this time, and I hope you find them useful. WORLD PRESS REVIEW http://www.worldpress.org/specials/wtc/f... My kids kept asking me, "Why would somebody do this?", and I couldn't give them a good explanation. Some of the stories in the World Press Review's roundup at www.worldpress.org/specials/wtc/front.htm help explain the rage and frustration that could lead to such an unspeakable act. Are your prospects part of the international trade community? If so, here's an opportunity to showcase your service or product to 50,000 subscribers of Really Useful Sites for the International Trade Professional. FITA now offers limited sponsorship opportunities to selected organizations. For information, please contact Barney Lehrer, Director of eCommerce Development at webmaster@fita.org or 1-800-969-FITA extension 4. WEB RESOURCES http://www.ala.org/alsc/dealing_with_tra... For those who need help, the Association for Library Service to Children has a site at www.ala.org/alsc/dealing_with_tragedy.html with links to resources for dealing with the tragedy. Actually, there are many great resources put together by librarian Tara Calishain at www.researchbuzz.com/911.html. They include links to sites with news and information about the tragedy, information about how to make donations, editorials, personal essays, forums where you can discuss it, and more. AIR DISASTERS http://www.airdisaster.com As a person whose wife travels a lot for business, I'm more concerned than ever before with aviation safety in the wake of the tragedies of September 11. Maybe that's why I found AirDisaster.Com at www.airdisaster.com so compelling. This site has breaking news about aviation safety issues, information about past airline accidents and disasters, and forums for expressing your opinion about aviation matters. There's a lot here, including transcripts of the cockpit voice recordings at www.airdisaster.com/cvr from a number of airline crashes over the past few years. The message forums include one where you can get your questions answered by a pilot, another that deals with fear of flying, and another that deals with the September 11 crashes. WISENUT http://www.wisenut.com Something different. New search engines appear all the time, and they're all trying to find a gimmick that will make them more useful to searchers like you and me. I found WiseNut at www.wisenut.com to be fast and efficient, and it has a neat little feature called "Sneak-A-Peek" that I loved. Here's how it worked for me: I did a search on "international shipping and transportation links". WiseNut came back with a page of search results, plus 11 other categories I could browse. When I saw an interesting site in the search results, I clicked on Sneak-A-Peek to get an instant look at a portion of that site, so I could decide whether it was worth visiting. Note: this only worked in Internet Explorer. I have an old version of Netscape, and it didn't work when I used that browser. It may work for newer versions of Netscape. Published by Federation of International Trade Associations Copyright © 2001 The Federation of International Trade Associations. All rights reserved. ================================================================= Are there topics you'd like to see covered in FITA'S Really Useful Sites? Send suggestions, ideas, or comments to editor John McDonnell at jaymack@fita.org. ================================================================= This newsletter is distributed by the Federation of International Trade Associations (FITA) for the benefit of the worldwide international trade community. If you have a question regarding this service, please contact FITA by email at newsletter@fita.org.