Greetings, and thank you again for signing up for the D.C. Registry's newsletter. It's been a while since we sent out the last newsletter, but we've been hard at work making the Registry even better. If you've been to the Registry lately, then you've probably noticed that we gave the site a facelift. We've removed the frames and reorganized the site to give it a cleaner and simpler appearance. The site is now divided into 8 main sections (Search DC!, Classified Ads, Discussion Forums, Chat Rooms, About Us, Free Home Pages, D.C. Power Brokers, and the Newsletter), which are now accessible from buttons and text links at the top of the front page. If you are using Netscape 3.x or 4.x, the buttons will even light up when you place the cursor over them. We hope you like our new look!

We've also released our new Classified Ads. This new version is completely searchable on many different criteria, including price, date posted, city, keywords, and much more (the search criteria are tailored to each section). The classifieds are divided into 5 sections, including Automobiles, Employment, General Merchandise, Housing, and Personals. Most sections allow you to place a photo with your classified ad, and the D.C. Personals allows you to place a sound clip and video clip with your ad as well. The Housing ads even provide a button that you can click to see a map with directions to the property. We hope you will enjoy these new FREE classified ads. Go there (http://dcregistry.com/classifieds/welcome.html) and post an ad today!

Another recent addition to the Registry is "Who Cares?" a twice-weekly column by our new columnist, Sean Holt. Sean serves up witty and humorous commentary on current issues in both the local and national news. The current issue is at "http://dcregistry.com/cares2.html".

As you may have noticed, we now have a section called Search DC! Currently, this houses our old lists of links to Washington, DC area people, businesses , organizations, and schools. Although we already have the largest collection of Washington, DC links anywhere on the Internet (even more than Yahoo), we think we can do even better. Therefore, within the next two months, we will begin implementing our new Search DC! database script. This program will allow you to search in various categories similar to our current categories (restaurants, arts & entertainment, Internet access providers, etc.) by many different criteria. For example, you will be able to search for people by age, city, interests, and more. If you're looking for a good restaurant, you will be able to search for a moderately priced ($10-$20) Japanese restaurant in Arlington, then click on a button to see a map that will show you how to get there. You will also have links to their e-mail address and home page (if any), and a listing of their phone number. Needless to say, you can't do that at any other web site. We have been working hard on this script, and it actually is ready to go right now. The only remaining task is to set up the files for each category and to enter the data. Of course, entering the data for such a database is no simple task, so that is why it will be a couple of months before you see the fruits of our labor. We will make announcements both through this newsletter and on the Search DC! page (http://dcregistry.com/searchdc/welcome.html), so be on the lookout for this exciting new feature.

Please stay tuned for more exciting developments at the D.C. Registry, Washington's Online Community.

Philip A. Hagen, Webmaster
D.C. Registry
http://dcregistry.com
Washington's Online Community