Your CD-ROM library - 20 CD-ROM reference titles of interest to small business owners - Buyers Guide

Home Office Computing, Dec, 1996 by Dennis Eskow

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TELEPHONE DIRECTORIES

Digital Directory Assistance PhoneDisc PowerFinder

Rating: ***

WIN 95 / WIN / MAC

Are you wondering what happened to that former customer with whom you've lost touch? Well, look no further. Digital Directory Assistance has assembled PhoneDisc, a six-volume set of CDs that contains an incredible amount of information. As a locator, PowerFinder is first-class. But as a business tool, it has a few blemishes. We tried to locate the address of this magazine and couldn't, although several listings for the parent company--Scholastic--were in the directory. Still, PowerFinder includes some nifty tools. You can color-code columns of data, search by telephone number, address, or business type, and program in a geographic center so every listing tells you how far it is from that center. Short of perfect, PowerFinder still delivers extraordinary bang for the buck and will pay for itself in directory-assistance calls alone. Digital Directory Assistance, 617-639-2900, 800-284-8353, www.dda-inc.com; $129

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Pro CD Select Phone 1997 Edition

Rating: **

WIN 95 / WIN / MAC

If you drive around communities canvassing for business-to-business customers, Select Phone's GeoTarget settings will locate all the businesses of a particular type within a specified geographic area. Nothing about Select Phone is intuitive, however. You need to read the manuals to get started, or you need a lot of time for experimentation. When you launch Select Phone, you see a desktop with a database tool called Tag Manager, a holding area for phone numbers you find while you continue a long search. But that fact isn't explained until page 12 of the manual. Toolbar commands and icons are not explained or clearly labeled. The toolbar sports a pair of hunting dog icons What, we discovered, perform either a wide search or a targeted one based on the information you enter. Select Phone's ability to target businesses might make this tool worth the price to many small-business users. Pro CD, 508-750-0000,800-992-3766, www.procd.com; $99

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Phone Search USA 2.0

Rating: ** 1/2

WIN 95 / WIN

This is the simplest of all the directories we reviewed. We asked Phone Search USA to find radio stations in New York City, where there seems to be a radio station situated on every street comer. It only found WPAT FM radio, and the telephone number the program listed was no longer in service. But when you do find what you want, and that happens often, Phone Search gets you there with ease. The sole form offered by Phone Search asked only seven questions, allowing you to query by zip code, area code, business type, and the like. Phone Search USA integrates with Street Atlas USA so you can look up a phone number and place it on the map. To get there from here, you have to swap CDs so often you'll think you're a deejay at a runaway house party. Better stick with Phone Search for its own merits--namely, ease of use. DeLorme, 207-865-I234, 800-452-5931; $29