OT - Free phone number look up

[Mark Lloyd]

I use yellowpages.com and don't have a problem with that (looking up my home phone number). I also tried the number from where I lived 38 years ago, and got a result.

[micky]

Yesterday because of this thread, I looked myself up in swtichboard, and it offers to find neighbors, so today I thought this would make it a little easier to look up a lot of my neihbors.**.

For one of them, still on switchboard, it went to a captcha requiest on whitepages.com. So that makes mayayana right about that. The captcha was easy, a picture of a house number, but it failed and they said that it was their fault. I went back and tried agaiin, another house number, and still didn't work. Anyhow that makes Chris right about having to enter captchas sometimes. Checking, I see t here are ads, but I barely notice them.

**I'm going away in the spring for a month or two and I might need to call a neighbor.

Since you suggested noscript I've been using it, in Firefox, but an awful lot of pages won't work for me, and I don't know which script to permit first. Javascript itself is not listed as a choice.

Plus when I try to display a pdf file in FF nothing at all happens and there usually are no noscript options to allow anything. I have to go to SeaMonkey.

Of course I woudl have been happy just to download most pdf files, but that's no longer offered and the add-on pdf-download which used to work great 4 years ago doesn't do anything now.

[Mayayana]

| Since you suggested noscript I've been using it, in Firefox, but an | awful lot of pages won't work for me, and I don't know which script to | permit first. Javascript itself is not listed as a choice. |

The choices are not types of script but sources. They're all javascript. Usually if a site needs script it will work to just enable the script from that domain. Other script from places like Google or ad companies is generally not needed. But every time you change the options it will refresh, so it's not hard to just enable them one at a time until it works.

Example: I just went to time.com. The bottom item in NoScript options is time.com. If I have trouble I'll enable that. If I still have trouble I can enable timeinc.com. I see 5 other domains where script is coming from. Three are ad/tracking sites and two are wordpress. It's unlikely that any of those actually need to be enabled for the page to work.

| Plus when I try to display a pdf file in FF nothing at all happens and | there usually are no noscript options to allow anything. I have to go | to SeaMonkey. | | Of course I woudl have been happy just to download most pdf files, but | that's no longer offered and the add-on pdf-download which used to work | great 4 years ago doesn't do anything now.

I download all PDFs. I figure that if I want a PDF in the first place I probably want a copy of it. If you don't have something assigned to open it then it will download as any other download.

Unless they've changed it in the past few versions of Firefox, you can just do the following to have PDFs treated like ZIPs or other binaries:

Tools -> Options -> Applications -> PDF -> Always Ask

[micky]

Thanks. I'll check out Time especially.

I've looked at but actually never used the Applications tab.

I just checked. I have two versions (different profiles) of FF running, and the first one I looked at had 3 different entries for pdf, all set to Always Ask. This is th verion I had added Noscript to.

The other version had only one entry set to Always display or whoever they set it. I set that to Always ask, but this is the version I wasn't using when I added Noscript. Still I want to see what happens.

This is enough to keep me busy for a while Unless you can think of something to add now, I'll get back to you in a few weeks on the xp newsgroup. Do you mind if I ping your name in the subject line.

[Mayayana]

| This is enough to keep me busy for a while Unless you can think of | something to add now, I'll get back to you in a few weeks on the xp | newsgroup. Do you mind if I ping your name in the subject line.

Sure. That's OK. If you want something else to keep you busy, check this out:

I just found it yesterday. Very interesting. A Firefox extension designed to learn by parsing pages you visit and gradually block all tracking websites, without the person using it needing to make an effort or understand anything about online tracking.

[Stormin Mormon]

I had the same result, which is why I posted here. Needed a phone number. Thanks for proving my point.

- . Christopher A. Young Learn about Jesus

.

[Mayayana]

| > Worked for me. Got name, address, age, relatives. Only asked for money | > for more information. | | I had the same result, which is why I posted here. | Needed a phone number. Thanks for proving my point. |

Are you trying to prove a point? I thought you were trying to get a phone number. Did you try some of the suggestions? Did you try clearing cookies first?

It does seem like the whole thing could work a lot better, though. After all these years of the Internet, I don't see why I can't log into the local library -- or some e-equivalent -- and find anything I can get by visiting the library -- business records, legal records, periodicals, etc. I can read old magazine articles at my library, but I can't get them online. Perhaps some of those were never digitized, but certainly things like phone numbers and addresses could be made available by government agencies or libraries at no substantial cost.

[micky]

When phone listings first went online, they didn't limit themselves to what you entered. They positioned you at that point and you could look and scroll up and down as if you were reading the phone book. I liked that better.

In Baltimore County, and City I think, you can look in the catalog, by title, author, topic, etc, put a book on hold, whether it's in or out, renew a book (even after it's due and you owe money. You still owe what you owed but it stops increasing! There are a whole bunch of things they call databases that you can use for free. The only one I'm interested in is the auto database, which isn't that good (it has recalls, though) but it's free if you come from the library and not otherwise.

Just about everything I've wanted is online for that here, deeds and sales records of property, property assessment and tax, not just for myself but everyone in the county, photostats of the documents involved (where I can see that a neighbor I dislike twice swore that she'd never taken a homestead deduction before, even though the second time she had and was lying), arrest records, court dockets and case history. I should have made a list of the URLs as I found them. They are not really centralized

They used to have a blue section to the phone book with governement phone numbers. Do they still have that?

[micky]

And it was in yellow so I couldn't even read it. I had to copy and paste it somewhere else so I could read it. Or Cntl-A will reverse all the colors.

[Mark Lloyd]

[snip]

I used to use NoScript, and gave up on it several years ago. Most pages are badly written and fail or do wierd things (the site for my bank had links that lead to wrong sites) with scripts blocked. When I go to try enabling some, there's often 30 or more (script origins), most with meaningless names.

[snip]

[Mayayana]

| >periodicals, etc. I can read old magazine | >articles at my library, but I can't get them online. Perhaps | >some of those were never digitized, but certainly | >things like phone numbers and addresses could be | >made available by government agencies or libraries | >at no substantial cost. | | They used to have a blue section to the phone book with governement | phone numbers. Do they still have that? |

I don't even seem to get phone books anymore. And in recent years they've got smaller and smaller.

[rbowman]

Mine get bigger and there are three competing companies handing them out. They might be good for poor man's ballistic armor but I never use them. Then again, I initiate about 5 phone calls a year. Hate the damn things.

[Stormin Mormon]

This page didn't even list the guy I wanted, much less a phone number.

[Mayayana]

| >

| > I see 6 Christopher A. Young's in NY and all phones listed. | | This page didn't even list the guy I | wanted, much less a phone number. |

I just tried using it to check on two friends in different states and I got both phone number and full address as the "free" information for both. There seems to be something wrong on your end. Either a browser problem or, more likely, you're looking up someone who's either unlisted or doesn't have a landline.

I'm guessing they use phonebook data for these listings. Maybe there are also other sources, but if it's only phonebook data then your friend will need to be listed to be found. (I just tried looking up someone else who has only a cellphone and, sue enough, he wasn't found.)