Cyber tools to trace pals

Ever wondered where your old school and college friends are today? Sometimes, pure chance throws old campus colleagues together after 10 or 20 years. But these days, the Internet offers a more reliable way of tracing friends.

Quite a few websites are dedicated entirely to the business of creating a cyber hub for old students to re-unite. The frontrunner in such alumni sites is www.alumni.net, which features an exhaustive database narrowing down from a continent, to the country, to a State and finally a list of towns and local institutions, which have members registered with the site. A useful feature is the regular e-mail update for its registered users, informing them of new members who have enlisted from their old school or college. A search for "India" gave a list off 33 States and ``Tamil Nadu'' yielded a list of the districts and finally ``Chennai" led to a listing of about 75 institutions. Another important feature is that one can add his/her institution to the list by filling a simple form.

An Indian initiative in alumni sites is Sybernet Solutions www.indianclassmates.com. It works on a similar principle as alumni.net. A list of schools and colleges leads to a listing of State-wise institutions in alphabetical order, focussing only on Indian schools and colleges.

A similar website is www.batchmates.com, an initiative from www.allindia.com. Christened `a cyber alumni of school and college mates', the site claims to have a mammoth 5,96,500 registered members worldwide. Also, one can upload photographs once you are a registered member and create your own buddy list.Apart from such `cyber alumni' sites, individual institutions too have set up their own alumni sites, mostly by dedicating a corner of their college websites as alumni associations.

Apart from such `cyber alumni' sites, individual institutions too have set up their own alumni sites - mostly by dedicating a corner of their college websites as alumni associations.

A casual search through rediff.com led to a list of such institutions such as Loyola College, Madras Christian College, IIT Chennai, Anna University, University of Madras, National Public School and many more.

Chennai also boasts many alumni associations of locals who studied abroad... there is a site for students of Cardiff University in U.K.

A. VISHNU

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