Gotta love it when a web site's "down" or 404 page shows a little humor.
Nice, although you don't have to look much further than the Arduino site for some wry humour. Click on the "Help" button on the top RH corner of the forum:
It's been like that for a couple of years now.
The phrase "come back in a minute we will be done, for sure!" makes me smile.
Telecommando:
She suggested I might have more success if I tried searching using Newark's part number.
Good Catch-22.
To find their part number you already have to know it, in which case you don't need to find it.
Newark is a vendor of last resort. They may stock a fair amount of kit not found elsewhere but the prices are very high, based on the (admittedly anecdotal) comparisons I have made between them and Digikey. The sort of experience described above would make me a former customer - life is too short to pay a premium for crummy service.
However, with digikey, you need to have a minimum $25 order or pay them $5 for your order. Newark doesn't do that. So for the odd bits and pieces, Newark (well, eBay first normally) is my go-to place. Fast and reasonable shipping, too.
True, Digikey tends to charge for minimal orders. I usually easily exceed the $25 minimum and I really appreciate the fast delivery (usually a day or two) and the very reasonable prices. IIRC, their minimum shipping charge is less than $3 for USPS delivery in a nice sturdy box, etc. I guess it comes down to time value of money... it's not worth $5 to deal with Newark on top of Digikey to me. E-Bay can be even less money but the delivery times can stretch into a month or two, depending on how much the DHS folk want to sit on the customs clearance forms instead of processing them... and thanks to the sequester, that aspect is only going to get worse. I sincerely wonder what the USPS and other shippers will do with the building backlog that a slowdown in processing would create at airports, etc.