lowe.org/search.html  Edward Lowe Digital Library Contains a series of self-paced, how-to modules, provided on the Web and in workbook formats that walk you through the procedures of growing a business in key areas such as finance, marketing and sales, and leadership and management. Resources include tutorials, a bookstore, electronic documents, researched Internet sites, and an e-mail subscription newsletter.

4.thomasregister.com/logged in.cgi  Thomas Register on the Internet is Free! Search for manufacturers of industrial products and services. Search 158,000 companies, 63,669 product & service classification headings and 135,415 brand names. Modify search results by selected states and by detailed product descriptions. Gain easy access to 7,782 online supplier catalogs and company web sites. Receive detailed Literature by Fax from over 1,200 companies at no cost!

hoovers.com/   Free capsule on over 12,000 public and private companies, but for $15/month, $110/year, you can get full profiles. Search by company name or industry criteria. Slow internal search engine.

siliconvalley-sbdc.org/buspl an.html   This is an outstanding, simple, clear site presented by the Silicon Valley Small Business Development Center, sponsored by the SBA. The Center helps with growing a business and includes fast-loading topics like: Who Qualifies for SBDC Assistance; Sample Business Plan Outline; Choosing Your Business Structure; Legal Business Structure; Marketing; Financing; Bookkeeping; Employees; Taxes; Insurance, Licenses, Permits, and other Regulations; Obtaining Funds; SBA Loans.

marketingsource.com  The Marketing Resource Center is designed to assist businesses with their traditional and Internet marketing efforts.  Enter your company information into our BusinessFind search engine and the Business Classifieds to create a powerful networking tool. Research the Articles Library and get answers to your marketing questions in the Marketing Forum. Also included: a searchable directory of business related associations around the world. Overall, as a major resource for beginning entrepreneurs, the site is a little weak.

-sci.lib.uci.edu/HSG/RefCal culators.html  This is a phenomenal site! It contains over 10,260 Calculators created by over 2,040 very CREATIVE Individuals, Businesses, & Tax Supported Entities World Wide. Calculators for General, Mathematics, Statistics, Chemistry, Physics & Astrophysics, Engineering, Electrical, & Computer purposes. Examples: The College Cost Calculator helps you determine how much you'll need to save regularly to pay for your child's four-year college education. The Expected Future Education Cost calculator will calculate the future cost of education based upon an expected investment rate, tuition inflation rate, and marginal tax rate. The Employee Cost Calculator helps you calculate how much your employees cost per hour based on their annual salaries. Amazing stuff here!! If you're looking for a way to figure out something, there are over 10,000 calculators to help you.

easidemographics.com/  Nice research tool for geographies including zip codes, cities, counties, sectional centers, bureau of economic areas, metropolitan areas, TV markets, states, divisions, regions, and the US, with reports profiling such things as age, households, income, quality of life, and businesses.

lawresearch.com  LRC has three levels of service. First, is the demonstration page of 20,000 legal resources, which is a free public service. Second, is a free test trial account for legal professionals with some 30,000 legal resources links. Third, is our commercial version 20.0 which contains over 200,000 legal resource links worldwide. Quarterly membership $28, annual $99. Some outdated links.

sbaer.uca.edu   Small Business Advancement National Center. Award winning small business site containing one of the world's largest online information-bases. Info includes: Bulletins, International Archive, International Exchange, Marketing Tips, Profiles of Major Industries, white papers on all business topics, and Databases, including US House and Senate Info, Score's databases, Small Business Administration List of all Business Information Centers (BICS), Small Business Institute Database of all schools participating in the SBI program, Small Business Development Center Database.

ideacafe.com/  This site is lots of fun, but we have yet to figure out whether it's any good. Its colorful but confusing layout seems to be hiding some good info: places to chat, check out business ideas, talk with experts, enter contests, check out reviews on equipment, etc. Good categories, but we tried some of their recommended links and found them to be all over the board and not really that useful for beginning entrepreneurs. We think this site has merit, but we're curious to know whether it's all helpful info, so let us know.

morebusiness.com  The Business Resource Center contains daily news, tips, articles, ideas, templates, worksheets, sample business plans, and more to help grow your small business.

americanexpress.com/smallbus iness  Naturally, the site promotes AMEX, but it does have useful info here for the small business owner, all of which takes eons to load. Several feature articles, (Buying/Selling a Business; Day to Day Management; Expanding Internationally; Finding Money; Finding More Customers ; Franchising/Business Opportunities; Government Contracting; Hiring, Firing and Managing Staff; Incorporation & Business Structure; Law & Insurance; Managing Clients & Customers ; Managing Your Cash; Marketing; Online Marketing; Startup Issues; Taxes; Travel; Working at Home), a business-to-business directory, a newsletter, and their own products and services. Slow site.

directoryguide&id=3925 "Statistics show that more and more surfers are using numerous resources besides search engines to locate websites. Directories are one of the more common new methods. The Directory Guide is a free resource listing hundreds of directories under many different topics. You can access a search of directories applicable to your website, read a review of each, and with one mouseclick, you can go straight to the listing submission screen. Save some time in your internet marketing with this valuable resource." (from BriefMe)

Search Engines

There's just something we really like about search engines, so we give you a bunch of them to work with. We hear they're numerous (was it 1200 last count?), so this following list certainly isn't exhaustive.

Eric T. Bradlow and David C. Schmittlein of Wharton's marketing department were looking to answer this question: relative to one another, how good are search engines at finding management information?

For example, Alta Vista turned up 38 Web pages in response to the search term "umbrella branding," while Northern Light returned 51, HotBot 21,  Excite 7, Infoseek 4 and Lycos 0. Bradlow and Schmittlein discovered that Lycos offers little coverage of marketing phrases, but sometimes found Web sites that did not show up in searches on other search engines.  (from the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania)

link=clickquick&i  Ryan Adams presents a concise topical guide to achieving higher ranking in the search engines. And high rankings are necessary for increased website traffic. This resource is free to use and worthy of a bookmark and repeat visits. Adams also offers a discussion board where visitors can collaborate.