Introduction

Springer is a publishing group that claims to ‘disseminate knowledge’. The company is the largest producer of books dealing with science, technology, and medicine. The company’s website, www.springerlink.com aims to give people access to its repository of journals, books, and other publications on science, technology and medicine.

Features

The website lets you register. You can customize the website by logging in. You can also translate the website into a number of languages. The home page of the website is simple. There is no need to scroll down as the home page fits right on your screen with a resolution of 1024×768.

The information available on the website is classified on the basis of the content type, subject collection, and the library it is stored in. Categories make it easy looking for information. Almost all the categories and information available on the website are listed on the main page. Adding to the convenience is a content search box available right on the home page of the website. Once you have selected a category from the home page and reached the results page, you have the flexibility to refine these results by searching further. Also, the results page has sub-categories on its right-hand panel.

Tips and Tricks

People may find a little difficult to locate the link for the frequently asked questions on the website. The link is located right at the bottom of its page. There is another link available at the bottom of the website’s pages called Impressum. Clicking this link will take you to the main website of the publishing group, www.springer.com. You will get more information on the company on this website.   

One can improve the way content is searched on the website by clicking the link that’s called more options. This link is located near the search box on the home page. Clicking the link takes you to a page with options for advanced search.

Newbie Friendly Rating

Though simple, the website has not positioned the link for the frequently asked questions strategically. Also, the website has no Help or About Us section which makes it a little inconvenient for visitors. First-time visitors may be at a loss when they visit the website. However, because of the way the content on the website is categorized and organized, people will like the website. The good organization of content on the website makes it eligible for a rating of 8 out of 10.

Introduction

www.southewest.com is the official website of Southwest Airlines, one of the largest yet low-cost airlines in the United States. This airline has been operational since 1971. Its website aims at making online air booking and check-in convenient for consumers. The website also offers vacation packages to its patrons.

Features

The website of Southwest Airlines has a neat interface. It has clearly defined categories neatly placed on the home page. The tabs on the top of the website are: Book Travel, Special Offers, Travel Tools, and Rapid Rewards. Apart from these, the categories corresponding to only the flight booking are displayed vertically as follows: Book A Flight, Check In Online, Check Your Flight Status, and View or Change Your Flight. The clear segregation of categories makes it easier for people to access the information they are looking for

Apart from flight bookings, this website lets you book cars, hotels, and vacation packages. It is easy to make travel and vacation plans on the website. Other deals offered by the website are presented on the home page with a brief description.

The Book Travel tab will take you to a comprehensive web page that will help plan your travel. The website is visitor-friendly. One can make travel plans starting from booking the air ticket to renting a car, making reservations in a hotel to booking on a cruise in a matter of minutes.

Tips and Tricks

The About Southwest section will give you much more information than the company’s history. There are sub-sections like customer service commitment, safety commitment, investment relations, programs & services, careers, supplier information etc.

The Help section of the website will take you to a page full of helpful information. Apart from getting the answers to the frequently asked questions, you will get other information intuitively categorized. The categories present in the Help section are: Boarding Process, New Booking Process and Fare Products, Travel Tools, Southwest Policies, and Travel Tips/Airport Information.

If you are looking for Southwest contact information, you will find the Contact Us link at the bottom of the home page, on the About Southwest and Help pages.

The links displayed at the bottom of the webpage will take you to the relevant section without you having to look around.

Newbie Friendly Rating

The website does not appear cluttered. A first-time visitor will not be lost here. The booking section is easy for a newbie. The website of the Southwest Airlines deserves a rating of 8 out of 10.

Introduction

IBM.com is the website of global computer giant, International Business Machines. As you would expect from a Fortune 500 company, the site is expertly designed and tremendously laid out. It’s a clean site and very easy for the beginner to use and comprehend.

The site registration process is quick and easy to complete.

Features

Basically, the site is for more than just the shopper looking for computer hardware. IBM.com caters to the shopper, businessman, educators, journalists and business administrators. Two primary methods of site navigation are available. A navigation bar on the top of the homepage has a drop-down menu that lists various site destinations. For example, educators can browse throw all the products IBM offers schools and colleges as well as any special deals.

The computer hardware and software can be found under the products tab. Users can browse the companies’ vast selection of computer products and place orders directly on the site.

Another useful feature is the case studies posted on each section that serve as testimonials about various products being used in different industrial sectors. The education section contains success stories of how IBM products are being used to facilitate educational programs around the world.

Tips & Tricks

The “support and downloads” tab contains a troubleshooting section where users can find answers to any problems they might have with IBM products. Users can also open a service request under that tab to get a specific response from an IBM technician.

The “About IBM” tab at the bottom left of the homepage contains a detailed history of the company. In addition to the company story, users can learn about IBM’s global initiative, the latest IBM news and their collaborative efforts with other businesses.

Newbie Friendly Rating

IBM.com is as professional a website as you’ll find on the Internet. It’s an easy site for the beginning user; the homepage is clean and easy to understand. The site contains a wealth of information and shopping for products on IBM.com is quick and the transaction process is simple. We give IBM.com a Newbie Friendly Rating of 8.

Introduction

Pichunter.com is a free porn site packed with explicit photos and short movies from all the popular pornographic genres. The site is especially simple to use. Once you load the homepage, hundreds of pictures are a click away. The site is well-organized and the new user will find navigation self-explanatory.

Features

Pichunter.com is organized by category. Along the left side of the homepage, the site has an alphabetized listing of the various categories of porn, from housewives to younger models to celebrity shots and fetishes.

The picture and movie quality is very good. Some of the pictures load on your monitor a little smaller that a typical porn site, but overall this is a small issue.

One drawback is that clicking on a picture brings up and entirely new page, making download times somewhat slow. Surfing through the site is hindered a bit by this, but the volume of material more that makes up for this shortcoming.

Once you select a category, the center of the page fills with preview boxes for each group of pictures or movies. The box indicates “vids” in the preview for a collection of videos. Otherwise, the collection contains pictures. Most collections range from ten to twenty-four pictures each.

Pichunter also contains an extensive community forum, a feature not commonly found on most porn sites. The forum is located just under the community tab on the top of the homepage. It contains another vast collection of pictures and videos submitted directly to the site by users. This material is completely uncut and some of the best content on the site. You will have to complete a simple registration process before using the forums as the attached pictures there cannot be accessed unless you log into the site.

Tips & Tricks

If you’re looking for a specific model, take a look at the model index tab at the top left of the homepage. The listings contain hundreds of popular pornographic models from across the world of porn.

Be sure to check out the “extras” section on the navigation bar on the homepage. You can find various bonus features, including some live webcams.

Newbie Friendly Rating

Pichunter.com is an exceedingly friendly site to use. It’s easy to understand and the new user can find a wealth of pornography within minutes. We give Pichunter.com a Newbie Friendly Rating of 9.

Introduction

Launched in 2005 by Alex Lunkov and Sergey Chudnovsky, 4shared is a free file sharing website. The users can upload, store and download photos, music, zip files, e-books, files and videos. It is a very user friendly site. For a start up company, it is doing very well and getting popular across the globe.

Features

The users can register and become a member at this site. One can share the files with members and the non members as well. File sharing limit is set at 5 GB per account and 100 MB for a single file. That means if your file is bigger than 100 Mb, then you will need to break it up. By using their multi load feature, users can upload any number of files in one click. User can either opt for a free plan or their paid plans which are Silver, Gold, Platinum and SBE solution.

When you click on the share button there are many options to choose from; like if you click public files then users can see your files; view sub folders allows users to have a look at any sub folders if present in the file;, public search allows users to download file. By clicking on the create folder tab user can create folders in your account. The thumbnail tab shows the files in thumbnail mode to the users. User can upload the file to the folder if upload files has been checked. Password protected folders ensure more security. In that case users access the file through an e mail link. 4shared uploader is a desktop tool that can handle the process of uploading without you going on the 4shared page.

If later you feel to go for paid plans you can update your plan. There is an ‘upgrade tab’ on your account page. By upgrading to silver, gold, platinum or SBE solution you can enjoy more features. For speeding up the file transfers, you can use FlashGet, ReGet, and GetRight softwares. While downloading files if there is any interruption, then the downloading can resume later from where it was left. If you are a paid member, there will be no advertisements in your account. These members can also use web grab feature to upload file from the web. These plans start from 48$ and go up to 500$ for one year.

4shared forums are a community to talk about movies, music, books, games and all.

By becoming a 4shared affiliate program member, you can earn money also.

Tips and tricks

Be careful about your personal information on public platform like the forums. Have a copy of the important data with you as you can not blindly depend on online storage. Anything can happen their servers can crash and suddenly they may go out of business.

Newbie friendly rating

It is a simple and easy site as the interface is similar to windows. Among the sites allowing free file storage facility, 4shared.com is highly recommended. Therefore it gets a newbie ranking of 8 on 10.

Introduction

FT.com is the electronic version of the well-known newspaper, The Financial Times. While the newspaper has an online and offline combined readership of 1.4 million across the globe, the website claims to have 7.1 million unique visitors. A website dedicated to world’s business news, views and opinions, FT.com ropes in quite a few business commentators for their comments and analysis.

Features

The categories of news on the FT website cover almost all aspects of the world business. The main tabs on the website are dedicated to the following categories: World, Companies, Markets, Lex, Comment, Business Life, and Weekend. Lex is a special column of the FT which they claim is an agenda-setting column on business and financial topics. Each piece of news displayed on the home page of the website has related links displayed below the headline.

The FT website lets you subscribe to the financial news, thus delivering daily news right in your inbox. The website’s homepage contains sections titled Interactive, Quick Links, Tools, Services, and Updates. These sections help the visitor explore the FT website thoroughly.

The website gives you up-to-date information on the markets around the world. The delay estimated between the actual market status and the FT status is said to be of minimum fifteen minutes.

The website lets visitors access videos and podcasts on financial topics. The website lets you register for free.

Tips and Tricks

In the About Us section you will get useful information for contacting the FT group and its media center, learning more about the FT group companies, the who’s who at the FT, its history and career opportunities at the FT.

Visit the Comment section of the website if you want views and opinions on financial news by the experts as well as the general public. The section is further divided into sub-sections such as Opinion, Analysis, Columnists, Editorial, Letters, Blogs, Debates and polls, and Ask the expert. The Ask the expert page lets website visitors get answers to queries related to business and finance.

You can get updates from the FT website on your mobile by selecting the appropriate option in the Updates section. The website also provides you a tool for currency conversion. This tool is available in the Tools section.

Clicking the Help link on the home page of the website will lead you to a page with a variety of information. Apart from a link for answers to the frequently asked questions, the FT website has organized website-related information in self-explanatory categories. The categories are: Markets Data & Tools, Search, Video and Audio, Subscription & Registration, RSS feeds, FT on your mobile, News by email, Business school rankings, FT Alphaville, FT Managed Funds, Contacting the FT, Security policy, and Browser Compatibility.

Newbie Friendly Rating

The website’s intuitive categorization will help a newbie browse through the pages. However, the spread of the information on the home page may appear cluttered to a first-time visitor. The website’s proposed new look promises to cut down on the clutter by providing collapsible sections. The FT website should get a newbie friendly rating of 7 out of 10.

Introduction

Gametrailers.com is an online gaming site operated by the Spike Entertainment Group, the creators of Spike TV and a subsidiary of MTV. It claims to be the leading internet broadcaster of video games and provides users with instant access to high resolution internet gaming.

The site is packed with information but is well organized and fairly easy to use. A simple registration process allows you to interact with other games and rate various gaming platforms.

Features

A navigation bar at the top of the homepage allows gamers to select which type of game they play – be it Nintendo, Playstation 2, Playstation 3 or PC. This is the easiest way to hone in on what you want as the homepage is overloaded with information and links.

Another easier way to use the site is to take advantage of the site’s search function. Gametrailers.com is packed with games and a quick search is one of the most effective ways to locate the game you want.

Download speeds are quick and the video and sound quality of the games is quite good. The easiest way to browse games is to use the “games” tab to the right of the search box. That brings up an easy to use blue checkbox where the user simply checks the gaming platforms and types of games they wish to look at. This particular feature is a welcome departure from the clutter scattered throughout most of the site.

Tips & Tricks

A box at the far right of the homepage contains quick links to the user forums and the latest gaming news. It’s a veritable smorgasbord of information and the beginner will want to make use of it.   

Newbie Friendly Rating

Gametrailers.com is not the easiest site to use, especially for a beginner. The site’s pages are packed with different sections and links to the point of being overloaded. The homepage is beyond distracting and simply chaotic. Thankfully, the search function is centrally-located and simple to use. It’s the saving grace, because otherwise the Newbie could become lost in a maze of colors and characters. We give Gametrailers.com a Newbie Friendly Rating of 4.

Introduction
Mediaplex.com is a marketing site that sells cross-channel technology solutions and services designed to increase revenue. Specifically, they provide third-party ad serving, email campaign management and paid search campaign management.
The site is well-designed and the new user will have very little trouble learning more about Mediaplex and what services they provide.
Essentially, this is a site that provides business of all sizes with applications that can help grow their advertising revenue stream.
Features
The homepage presents a clean, bright layout. On the right side, three green boxes highlight services provided to agencies, marketers and publishers. Each of the boxes details the services available as well as provides a link to a downloadable PDF brochure. The brochures are high-quality and clearly delineate the various services and costs of each.
Overall, the site is small and compact. Mediaplex.com is a “no frills” site that provides the user with an overview of their services and contact information. Navigating is quick and easy and there are no advertisement found anywhere on the site. A business owner that is new to the site will learn about Mediaplex quickly and effectively.
Tips & Tricks
Check out the demonstration link on the top right of the homepage. The link takes you to a simple form that will connect you to a member of the Mediaplex team so you can view a product demonstration.
Another way to get a broad idea of what Mediaplex does is to click on the services link on the navigation bar at the top of the homepage. That takes you to a page called MOJO business solutions, a cornerstone of the Mediaplex services. The page clearly explains the tools and strategies used by Mediaplex when working with clients. For a Newbie, this is quite helpful.
Newbie Friendly Rating
This site is a joy to use. It simply could not be any easier to work with Mediaplex.com. The only complaint we have it that you have to contact Mediaplex to get price quotes on the various services. Overall, we give Mediaplex.com a Newbie Friendly Rating of 10.

Introduction
Filefront.com is an online gaming site with over 1.5 million files on board. The site is less than Newbie friendly as the homepage is a disorganized mess of advertisements and game promotions.
The site allows users to add their own videos, games and photos to the site as well as blogs.
Features
Filefront.com is a depository of game downloads and patches. A directory of sorts is located at the far left of the homepage. Games are divided by category and quick links to videos, games and patches can be found there as well.
The site speed is agonizingly slow. Moving from the homepage usually takes longer than a typical website. We clicked on the games tab at the top of the homepage. The games page took over 30 seconds to load and even when it loaded it froze repeatedly.
That considered, Filefront does have an amazing amount of games available and the quality of the demos is quite good.
Tips & Tricks
You’ll need all the help you can get with this site. The most efficient way to work with the site is to use the search function on the left side of the homepage. That will provide you with the simplest manner of getting where you want to be.
The beginner can also use the directory under the “latest” tab at the far left of the homepage. From there, you can demo games, view the hottest games, and download game patches and videos.
Another feature you’ll want to check is the user forums. You can find a Filefront help forum there where fellow users can quickly help you with any issues that crop up on the site. The forums are packed with users so you’re sure to get a quick response.
Newbie Friendly Rating
This is a difficult site to work with. It’s flooded with advertisements and cluttered with distracting promos for various games. An “about us” tab doesn’t exist, nor does a site map, so if you’re looking for a tutorial, you’re out of luck. Basically, using the site is purely hit or miss. The game demos are of good quality and the download times are quick.
Still, the site is difficult to navigate. Clicking on links brings up a new advertisement page instead of taking you to your chosen link. This makes the browsing time longer and clutters up the desktop.
Overall, you can find quality game patches and downloads at Filefront, but be prepared to search a bit. We give Filefront.com a Newbie Friendly Rating of 3.

Introduction
DynDNS.com is a company operated by Dynamic Network Services that provides customers with domain name services, domain registration, email, SSL certificates and virtual private servers. The site offers services to businesses as well as individuals. The site claims a user base of well over 2 million.
The site makes an impressive claim of 100 percent uptime since 2001.
Features
The website is well laid out and simple to understand. The new user will appreciate the fact that the homepage is small and not filled with clutter. Four blue boxes at the bottom of the homepage highlight the services DynDNS provides.
Beginning users will be pleased by the 24/7 support available to users. The site provides a one hour return phone call to resolve user issues. Unfortunately, that is a pay service only.
Custom DNS service costs about $27 annually, while the SSL certificate service base package costs about $100 per year. Simple domain registration costs about $15 a year.
Overall, the site is organized and very simple for the beginning user to comprehend and navigate. The homepage features an attractive layout with highlighted boxes detailing the various products sold by the Website.
Tips & Tricks
As a beginner, your best bet is to click on the blue box at the bottom left of the homepage where you’ll find a tutorial on the services DynDNS offers. A clear explanation of all the options available to the user is presented there.
Also in that box is a “what is DNS” tab that explains the inner workings of DNS in layman’s terms. It’s an excellent way to learn more about exactly what Dynamic Network Services is.
Newbie Friendly Rating
This is a friendly website for the Newbie. The site itself is simple without advertisements or other unnecessary distractions. Users can either navigate from the bar at the top of the homepage of the blue shaded boxes at the bottom. We give DynDNS.com a Newbie Friendly Rating of 9.