(FORTUNE Magazine) – All the chatter about portals and search engines like Yahoo and Excite can make you forget that finding the information you want on the Internet is just half the challenge. Saving those data and distributing them to colleagues can be even more difficult. Collecting and passing on bookmarks of Web pages is one method that doesn't work well at all. For one thing, the recipient has to be connected to the Web to see the bookmarked pages. For another, all too often those pages have been moved. An alternative, saving entire pages to your desktop and E-mailing them to colleagues, is equally unsatisfactory. The pages take up room on your hard drive, and if you don't lose the graphics when you save them, your correspondent may well lose them on his end.

Well, the gnomes who make the Internet such a weird and wonderful place have invented some tools to help you better manage the data you find on the World Wide Web. Here are a couple of ways to make your work with Web information a lot easier:

Can't remember whether the data you need are stored on the Web or on your hard drive? Check out Compaq's AltaVista Discovery, a free Windows program available at the search site (www.altavista.com). Download the program, and a new bar will sit atop your version of Internet Explorer or Netscape Navigator, opening a space for you to type in any search query. Discovery then searches your PC as well as your favorite Websites. It's fast, because it works from an index of your hard drive and of Websites you designate. The results are listed in your Web browser for easy access, and keywords on Web pages are highlighted in color.

Since Discovery links to AltaVista's powerful search engine, you can also use it to find stuff on the Web, as well as to mine the old stuff you stashed on your hard drive and forgot about. It's a powerful ally when you need to ferret out data that you're sure you've seen recently--and you just can't remember exactly where.

Once you've found a few good Websites, what's the best way to save them so that you can actually do something with them? Try CatchTheWeb, a nifty Windows program that works closely with Microsoft's Internet Explorer and Microsoft E-mail programs like Outlook Express. CTW stores entire Web pages, including graphics. Installing CTW places a thumbtack on your Windows 95 or 98 task bar. Simply drag and drop the icon onto a Web page you want to save. This brings up a dialogue box that allows you to add comments and save the page in a topic folder.

I like this feature because it helps you organize Web pages for use in presentations. Once you've completed your search, you go to CTW's main program, where an outline of your saved pages appears in one window, and the contents of the Web pages and E-mail messages are viewable in another. You can move items around in the outline window, add notes, and modify your comments for each page. Finally, you can play back your presentation for others or mail it to another user as a file that can be played back on any browser. Don't tell Microsoft, but the idea of saving and playing back Web pages in a slide-show format could reduce the need for elaborate presentation software like Powerpoint.

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A GADGET WE'VE LEARNED TO LOVE

Cleaning Up Your Mess of Business Cards

There's nothing more boring, and more unavoidable, than getting information on business cards into your computer database. Corex CardScan Executive offers a solution: a compact scanner that reads a business card and transfers the data to the address book on your computer, Palm, or other hand-held device.

Earlier versions of CardScan were disappointing. The scanner processed cards as fast as I could feed them in, but it made so many errors in the converted files that I concluded it was easier to type the information than to rely on the scanner.

That's no longer true. Corex has greatly improved the software that runs this device. The latest version quickly read a dozen business cards I had picked up on recent trips abroad and did a good job deciphering the information. It wasn't perfect--CardScan read the globe logo on one card as the letter "o," and it had trouble with foreign accent marks. But these were errors that I could easily correct. Overall, the program did a good job of differentiating fax numbers, E-mail addresses, and mailing addresses, and of getting those data into the right slots in my address book.

CardScan offers its own desktop software to manage your contacts. But most people already use a contact manager like Act!, Lotus Organizer, or Microsoft Outlook. CardScan works with all of these, and also feeds directly into Palm and Windows CE devices. It even works with Ecco, the discontinued program I still cling to. It was a pleasure to see CardScan flawlessly zap names and addresses into my Ecco file. Now I have one less reason to dread business trips. --J.D.