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U.S. Export Portal. This easy-to-use site has a wealth of information for U.S.companies looking to export their products, and international companies who are looking for U.S. suppliers. By simply clicking on the questions you want answered, you'll find Web-based resources to help you. You'll find everything from reports and statistics on the best markets for your products, to government programs that will help you, to step-by-step explanations of how to get started. This site can help any business make a good start in broadening its markets.

More Trade Leads. At Kansas University's International Business Resource Connection (www.ibrc.bschool.ukans.edu) , you'll find an excellent collection of trade leads. Simply click on "Trade Leads" in the left column and you'll find this page. To Bizinfo Team, the best part of this site is its ratings and reviews of trade lead Web sites, compiled by the IBRC staff and faculty. They rate sites "gold", "silver", and "bronze", according to their quality and usefulness, and there are short reviews that give you important details about each site (including any fees). Besides the trade leads database, this site also has reports on business and cultural practices of foreign countries; links to business resources (embassies, business directories, exchange rates, government agencies, transportation, etc.); country resources (news, weather, travel, facts, etc.); statistics and research sources; e-commerce resources, and much more.

EXPORT ASSISTANT. Small and medium-sized U.S. firms that would like to export their products will find a valuable resource in Export Process Assistant, or ExPA at www.cob.ohio-state.edu/citm/expadocs/. ExPA, created by Ohio State University, has an easy-to-use tutorial that will guide you to sources of information on overseas markets, trade data, trade leads, and free governmental assistance available to exporters. You'll also find links to business and legal practices reports for various countries, economic policy reports, geographic information and maps, demographic data, best markets reports, industry specific reports, and more. One part I think is particularly useful is the Company Self-Assesment. By answering the questions on this page, you'll get a clear idea of whether your company is ready to start exporting. There's also a step-by-step demonstration of how to research a foreign market, using Malaysia as an example.

MARKET RESEARCH. One of the first steps toward exporting your products is researching new markets, and the good news is there are lots of places on the Web where you can do that. Bizinfo Team's favorites is the Market Research page at Strategis at strategis.ic.gc.ca/sc_mrkti/ibinddc/engdoc/1a1.htm. Strategis is a Canadian government site that promotes trade, and this page is particularly useful. Just click on the region and country you're interested in, and you'll get a list of links to detailed reports about that country, many from U.S. government sources like the CIA World Factbook and STAT-USA.

ADDRESSES AND SALUTATIONS. To do business successfully with other countries you need more than just good products and the skill to sell them. You also need to be sensitive to business etiquette, the customs and traditions that are observed by businesses in each country. International Addresses and Salutations at www.bspage.com/address.html will help you with that. It's a page with examples of the correct forms of postal addressing for various countries, along with brief explanations of how to address men and women in business. Here you'll find that women in business in Italy are addressed as Signora, and that in Japan a person's given name is normally not used in business, to give two examples.

INTERSHIPPER. There are lots of options for shipping packages these days, and if you want to choose the best one, go to InterShipper at www.intershipper.net. This site lets you to enter the size or weight specifications of a package and analyze all your shipping options and guaranteed delivery times and costs. It will help you choose the best rate, call for a pickup or locate a drop-off location, track shipments automatically, and notify you or the recipient when the package is delivered, or if it's delayed.

DOING BUSINESS IN. Before you do business overseas you need to do some research. A good site for researching the business climate in various countries is Ernst & Young's Doing Business In at www.doingbusinessin.com. You simply click on "Doing Business In", at the home page, and then click on the country you're interested in, and you'll find information about the country's investment climate, tax system, forms of businessorganization, and business and accounting practices.

TRAVEL RESOURCES. www.tripspot.com. This travel gateway has travel guides for the business traveler; deal finders for the best rates on airfare, hotels, and car rentals; maps; rail & subway guides and schedules; travel warnings; links to various flight trackers (to find out if a flight is on time); travel news; weather reports, and much more.

COUNTRY GUIDES. Want to know the prospects for selling computers and peripherals to customers in Argentina? Or how about selling automotive parts and supplies to Mexico? You can find answers to both those questions and many more at Country Commercial Guides (http://www.usatrade.gov/website/ccg.nsf/ccghomepage?openform), at the U.S. Commercial Service site. These guides are prepared by U.S. Embassy staffs once a year, and they have a wealth of information on the business, economic, and political situation in various countries. They give you a good snapshot of conditions in countries from Albania to Zimbabwe, and you'll be amazed at how detailed they are.

HOLIDAYS AND FESTIVALS. If you had plans to be in Japan on business on May 5, it would be important to know if it's a holiday there. As it turns out, May 5 is a national holiday in Japan, called Children's Day. Bizinfo Team found that out by going to the Encyclopedia of Days (http://www.shagtown.com/days/), a site that has a searchable database of world holidays and festivals. You just type in the name of a holiday, and in seconds this site will show you when and where it's celebrated this year. You can also type in the name of a country and get a listing of all the holidays and the dates they're observed in that country. Click on "Search" and you'll find a page where you can search for all the world holidays in any month.

DISCOUNT AIRFARES. Bizinfo Team could have saved a bundle on flight if the team' d gone to Big Airfare Cuts Index (http://www.air-fare.com/allsav.htm), a site that lists fares that have been recently cut for airlines departing hundreds of U.S. cities. These are fares that have fallen more than 20 percent in the last 24 hours, so you could save a lot if you reserve a ticket right away. If you see something you like, just click on "Reservations", and you can buy your ticket on the spot.

TRANSPORTATION GATEWAY. I've made my share of mistakes over the years, but whenever I make a particularly big one I console myself by remembering that in 1895 Lord Kelvin, a distinguished British scientist, made a whopper when he said that, "Heavier-than-air flying machines are impossible." It took only eight years for him to get egg on his face, when the Wright brothers made their first successful flight in 1903. If Kelvin had been right, what a different world we'd live in! Being able to get from here to there easily has changed everything, including the way we do business. Companies can now do business halfway across the globe as easily as in their own hometown. If you want to compete in today's global economy, you have to make use of modern transportation capabilities. And now there's a gateway to transportation information on the Web. Everything from train schedules to maps to road condition reports are available at The New Jersey TIDE Center at www.njtide.org/links/index.html, a site that has hundreds of links to transportation sites around the Web. Want to see a map of the Barcelona metro system? There's a link to it here. How about a real-time traffic volume map of Athens, Greece? You'll find it here. You'll also find links to government transportation sites, professional societies, pictures of planes, trains, and automobiles, plus schedules and maps for airline, shipping, railroad, and other transportation systems around the world, and much more. The only problem I have with this site is that it uses pale blue text on a white background -- not very easy on the eyes. But aside from that, this is a great gateway to transportation resources on the Web.Bizinfo Team

. Whatever you need to know about Asia, you'll probably find it at ASIACO, the Asia Search Engine at search.asiaco.com. ASIACO has a searchable collection of thousands of Web sites for thirty Asian countries. Select a country, or click on the map, and you'll come to a list of categories like Business and Economy, Computers and Internet, Society and Culture, etc. Keep clicking and you'll come to a list of sites, each with a short description.

AUTOSUBMIT YOUR TRADE LEADS. There are hundreds of trade lead bulletin boards on the Net where businesses worldwide can make contacts to buy or sell their wares. Now, there's a site where you can access those bulletin boards in one easy step. Global Board of Trade at fita.gbot.net has an "Autosubmitter" feature that submits leads to buy and sell to over 400 bulletin boards. The Autosubmitter is a shareware program, which means you download it (your computer must be running Windows to use it) and install it, and if you're happy with it you can then pay the price ($30 per month). The Global Board of Trade site has many other features that are useful for international businesses.

CHINA TRADE . I keep reading that the 21st century will be China's time of biggest growth, and if that's true we all should look at this next site. tdctrade.com, developed by the Hong Kong Trade Development Council, is a gateway to information about doing business in China and Hong Kong. Here you'll find market intelligence, trade contacts, product catalogues, trade fair information, news, cargo tracking, stock quotes and exchange rates, and thousands of links to Web resources that will help you achieve success in this market.

KEEP ON TRUCKIN'. There's one place on the Web you can go to if you need to find a listing of truck stops around the world. It's the Virtual Library of Logistics at www.logisticsworld.com/logistics/, and although it may not answer every question you have (Do they really play Willie Nelson songs at truck stops in Saudi Arabia?), it's a good gateway to information about logistics, the science of moving people or material from one place to another. Here you'll find a guide to thousands of sites related to transportation, warehousing, distribution, supply, maintenance, manufacturing, and much more. It's amazing what you can find here. For example, type in "cargo tracking" and you'll get links to 59 cargo tracking sites (to see more information about each site, click on "Show Abstracts").

COMPARE COUNTRIES. Your Nation at www.your-nation.com/ is a site that presents statistics about countries in a fun way that's easy to grasp. You can compare various characteristics of any two countries -- simply choose the countries, select the comparison (birth rate, population, exports, total land area, literacy, etc.) and Your Nation does the rest. You'll find some fascinating facts here -- for example, did you know that although the population of Turkey is almost three times that of Taiwan, Taiwan has more television sets (are they all watching two or three sets at once)? Or that tiny Latvia spends more than twice as much of its GDP on its military than Spain? You can find these stats in other places on the Web, but you won't find them presented in a more appealing way. Note: if you don't have Macromedia Flash installed on your browser you'll see a blank space where the graphics should appear. Click on the "help" button and you'll be able to change the settings so you can see the graphics.

THE ECONOMIST COUNTRY BRIEFINGS. The Economist is one of the world's best business magazines, and I'm pleased to report they have a Web site that's full of useful information for businesspeople. One of the best parts of this site is the Economist Country Briefings page at www.economist.com/countries, which has profiles of scores of countries, from Algeria to Vietnam. Here you'll find articles, economic data, political profiles, links to newspapers and government offices, and much more.

DRIVING DIRECTIONS . I've heard that eventually all cars will come equipped with a computer that gives you driving directions, and even tells you when you've made a wrong turn. Until that happens, geographically challenged people like me will have to rely on the Web to give us accurate directions. For U.S. driving directions, I like Mapquest at www.mapquest.com. I like the way it remembers my address so I don't have to enter it each time I'm looking for directions from my house. And the directions are clear and easy to understand. For driving directions in other countries, Multimap.com at www.multimap.com has maps and directions of Austria, Belgium, France, Germany, Italy, Latvia, Romania, Switzerland, Turkey, the Ukraine, and many others.

COUNTRY SITE -- IRELAND . I'm one of 70 million people worldwide who claim Irish descent, and most of our ancestors left Ireland due to the poor economy the country had for over a century. That situation has changed in the last ten years, however, as Ireland's economy has gone through a boom time. The CIA World Factbook says the Irish economy had a robust 8 percent growth from 1995-2002, and Ireland was ranked first out of 70 "emerging economies" in 2001 by the World Times Money Matters Institute. There are many opportunities for international trade in Ireland these days, and if you want to learn about them, go to Finfacts: Irish Finance and Business Portal ( http://www.finfacts.ie/ ). Finfacts has links to Irish stock exchanges, business news, cost of living information, salary surveys, travel information -- even the Irish Lotto results! It's a great site to start your Irish trade research.