This page is dedicated to the sites that I
have been to and feel have some good content.
It is in chronological order from the oldest to the newest.
The CNET Software Services Team
http://www.shareware.com/
http://www.download.com/
http://www.activex.com/
TERRORIZING TELEMARKETERS
With backgrounds only slightly less irritating than the subject, the
Anti-Telemarketer Source offers scads of information on what telemarketing operations can
and cannot do, and how to avoid, harass, and basically annoy callers as much as or more
than they do you. Some of the suggestions are humorous, some sadistic, but all undoubtedly
are effective. More useful, though, is information on the Telephone Consumer's Protection
Act of 1991 and the strictures it places on telemarketing firms. Here's when a
telemarketer calls, ask to be placed on their "do not call" list. If they call
again within a year, you can sue them for $500. There's an easy money scheme worth
investigating. http://www.izzy.net/~vnestico/t-market.html
SITE SEARCH ENGINE TUTORIAL FOR WEB DESIGNERS
How to design Web pages so that they can be found easily and accurately by the
major search engines is one of the topics on a site hosted by Northern Webs from Sagle,
Idaho. They also share design hints for GIF animation, disaster recovery planning and
testing, and network design, installation, and troubleshooting. You may also want to check
out the outline of their Web design process.
http://www.digital-cafe.com/~webmaster/norweb01.htm
THOSE CRAZY CANUCKS PLAN TO RULE THE WORLD!
The Canadian World Domination site confirms the worst fears of Canada-watchers worldwide. Canadians enjoy an international reputation as peacemakers, arbitrators, and just generally nice, harmless people. What isn't generally known is that behind the passive public face lies a desire to maintain peace by dominating the planet, and dictatorially enforcing the rigorous intellectual, physical, and emotional standards all Canadians live by. This Web site reveals the collective psyche of these conquerors from the north, and illustrates how they'd like to redraw the political boundaries of the United States and the world. To prepare for the eventual battle, we suggest perusing this Web site. Know your enemy, and you know yourself, or words to that effect. <http://www.geocities.com/CapitolHill/Lobby/2936/>
PARENTHOOD WEB
This site is just the thing for Mr. Media (Mrs. Media just gave birth to lil'
girl Media - congrats!), NSD's own editor (who'll meet lil' Netsurfer number two in April
and who has lil' Netsurfer number one sticking pennies way down the back of his shorts as
he writes this), and anyone else of that ilk. Just like Parents magazine online, 'cept
it's not.
http://www.parenthoodweb.com/
US ROBOTICS, LUCENT ANNOUNCE 56 KBPS MODEM TECHNOLOGY
The rumors we noted in a recent issue turn out to be true. US Robotics (USR) has
announced something called X2 Technology, which will enable modems to achieve 56 kbps
speeds. It seems it will be possible to attain that speed gain with just flash ROM updates
to various Courier and Sportster modems. USR's home page has a link with more technical
details. In an unrelated, though no doubt cosmically linked move, Lucent has announced
digital signal processing chip technology which will result in the same thing. Look for
demos at Comdex. USR: "http://www.usr.com/" Lucent: http://www.lucent.com/press/1096/961016.mea.html
STUDENTS, EDITORS, AND WORDSMITHS ALERT!
This terrific site offers a dictionary that can be searched in categories such as
science, medical, business, and computer. You can use wildcards, and enter either terms or
words. In addition, if no match is found the search is automatically expanded. There are
also links to other dictionary sites, and the opportunity to contribute suggestions.
Bookmark this one if u want tu lern tu spel. http://www.onelook.com/
THE WORD DETECTIVE KNOWS ALL
The Word Detective Web site features questions and answers on the proper use of
words. The tone is light, but the information is often helpful to those who idolize idioms
or like language lagniappes. Before you call someone a codger, for example, you might want
to know that the Word Detective defines the term as a grumpy or cranky person, not
necessarily an elderly person. And, to sharpen your trivia competitiveness to a keen edge,
you should also know that the word dates back to the mid-18th century, and is thought to
be a variant of "cadger" (One who cadges, or begs). http://www.interport.net/~words1/
MEDICAL NEWS AND KNOWLEDGE
Health Direct is a medical gateway par excellence. The Health News section links
to headline stories (including the topic-rich Reuters Medical News for medical
professionals), updates on new drugs, research findings, and (gulp) press releases. This
section is updated every day. Health Check will help nonphysicians watch out for signs of
thyroid disease, osteoporosis, and other afflictions. Health Care provides tips on
doctors, insurance, and HMOs. Health Direct contains a what's-new page, a survey, and
information about the entire site. Add this site to your hotlist and your body and others
may thank you for it. http://www.healthdirect.com/
MADE IN CHINA
Explore China "From Cocoon to Catwalk," five cities in five weeks, from
Beijing and back, with a flashy fashion magazine feel and an up-to-the minute format.
(Read the archives for past days in China) http://china.utopia.com/
HOMETIME
How-to paradise. Tips, photos, drawings, and supply lists for the do-it
yourselfer. Caulk the tub, sand the floor, install ceramic tile, ask questions.
http://www.hometime.com/
THE US CIVIL WAR IN MULTIMEDIA
Generations of Americans have only perked up in history class when discussion
turned to the Civil War. This site will appeal to students of the conflict of any age. It
adds richness to recollection with multimedia. This fall, the site features background on
prison conditions in an interview from Civil War Magazine. You can play a preview version
of Command HQ, a role-playing game about the battle of Chancellorsville, and Quest, a
Web-based trivia quiz with e-mail support. Even if you don't play, the battle tour in
Command HQ provides interesting maps. Lee's retreat, for example, is shown alongside
Interstates 60 and 95 near Richmond. You can post questions and read answers about
selected topics on this site's moderated forum. An upcoming section, Time Traveler,
invites you to "meet the people behind the photographs." America's worst
nightmare lives on here, by echo and clue and glimpse and artifact, in respectful,
semi-scholarly fashion. http://www.uscivilwar.com/
MOUNTAIN BIKERS GET VERTICAL ONLINE
Are you a _real_ cyclist - or just a poser? Find out by visiting Vertical Online,
a cutting-edge forum for mountain biking enthusiasts. Stop by and view the QuickTime
clips, photo gallery, and racing schedules. Take the mountain bike trivia quiz to really
establish your level of knowledge of the sport. Vertical Productions, sponsor of the site,
comments, "Although our sport of mountain biking has seen some changes, the vitality
of our breed, the freedom of two wheels and the challenges of mother nature continue to
echo the spirit of off-road cycling." http://www.verticalonline.com/
ATTRACTIONS ON AMERICAN ASPHALT HIGHWAYS
Roadside America is a veritable feast on wheels for all aficionados of travel
kitsch. Building on the success of the printed book, these three guys drive us past over
6000 wacky tourist attractions, with more being added every week. Follow the series of
highly caffeinated Hypertours with up-to-the-minute charting of multi-day mega-mile
pilgrimages that take us past sights like the Champion Milk Cow statue. The Electric Map
can jump you to QuickTime movies of unsung oddities in all 50 states at a click. You can
even submit your own strange siting and get credit for it. Easy to navigate, fast to load,
this site is more fun than license plate bingo. http://www.roadsideamerica.com/index.html
FROM KEYBOARD TO COACH CLASS
Preview Travel has transplanted its online airline reservation site from AOL to
the Web. Once logged into either the secure server for credit card transactions or the
regular server for browsing, you can create travel profiles for yourself and your family
that will streamline your future trip planning, look at current discounts, and set an
itinerary. Of course, you can purchase tickets. Fast, easy, with many customizable
features and failsafes for wrongly entered data, this could be a good alternative when
your travel agent's phone line is busy. http://www.reservations.com/
NEED A JOB? HATE OCEANS?
Forget about heading westward ho for a new life. Just visit the NationJob
Network's job listings and company profiles, which focus on the American Midwest. Anyone
who wants to wake up and say, "I'm back in Kansas!" should check it
out. http://www.nationjob.com/
GET MONEY FAST
You need cash. You're alone. You don't have credit cards or a checkbook with you.
But you do have your computer strapped to your back and a lo-ong modem line. This site
will show you the three ATMs closest to your location. http://visa.infonow.net/usa.html
MORE NET RADIO
One of the wonderful things about WWW radio broadcasts is the ability to listen
to any city you want. It's like shortwave that crashes instead of hissing. Here's another
site with plenty to offer. http://www.ontheair.com/
STOCKING STUFFERS
Are your kids looking forward to the holidays already? Why shouldn't they be?
After all, the Christmas displays start to appear in the stores even before the Halloween
tummy aches disappear. Check out Christmas.com for a complete line of holiday information,
from Christmas carol lyrics to shopping opportunities. And don't let the URL fool
you---there's more here than just Christmas info. http://www.christmas.com/
TREMENDOUS NEWS SITES
Hungry for daily news about the Web? Bite into the meaty Newslinx [22] for a concise,
bulleted summary of current news items, hand-selected by someone with evident discernment.
Now cleanse your palette on a calorie-free exercise in pure gonzo Zen Web emptiness [23].
For desert, a dense fudge brownie -- Hotsheet [24] is a single-page launch pad for four
hundred or so popular destinations. Full yet?
[22] <http://www.newslinx.com/>
[23] <http://www.beepcom.net/deborah/>
(no longer exists 01/06/98)
[24] <http://www.hotsheet.com/>
SEARCH ENGINES
This is an excellent article on search engines and although I did not write it I am in
total agreement with this fellow. Understanding how to use search engines and which ones
to use can greatly improve your information retrieval experience.
Article by Keith Dawson (dawson@world.std.com)--
I've signed up for a new mailing list called dreamwave (see Sources below),
on which one receives early notice of promising Web sites and other bleeding-edge stuff.
Recently the list has hosted a discussion of the relative merits of search engines new and
old, meta-search sites, etc. The list pointed me to EuroSearch [32], which can filter
returned sites by language (it knows 23 of them). Recently Charles Seiter of Macworld
Online reviewed a number of search engines [33] and fingered Infoseek's Ultraseek [34] as
the most accurate and up-to-date of the lot. Just this afternoon the dreamwave list
brought word of a new, experimental, semi-parallel, multi-engine search site called Arfie
[35] that takes a boolean, parenthesized search string and submits it to multiple engines,
feeding each one the format it wants. This is somewhat like SavvySearch [36], [37] (whose
interface now speaks, coincidentally, 23 languages), but Arfie is more general. As a test
I tried to find a Web instance of The History of the Net [38], a fable possibly written by
Andrew Bennett of MIT's Department of Ocean Engineering. I submitted to Arfie a syntax
like "phrase 1" and "phrase 2" and "phrase 3," choosing
phrases from the text for their unusualness. Here are the results
from 13 search engines. For this kind of search HotBot [39] emerges a sure winner.
Yahoo -- 0 hits
Lycos A2Z -- 0 hits
World Wide Web Worm -- 0 hits
Excite Guide -- 96 hits (all bogus; the best was marked 67% confidence)
Yahoo's New Search Engine -- 0 hits
Lycos -- 0 hits
InfoSeek Ultra -- 0 hits
What U Seek -- 0 hits
Open Text -- 0 hits
WebCrawler -- 0 hits
InfoSeek -- 0
Alta Vista -- 1 hit (correct)
Excite Web Search -- 7772 hits (first one was correct, others bogus)
HotBot -- 3 hits (first two were correct; the third crashed my machine)
[32] <http://euroseek.freeside.net/(uk)/index.shtml>
[33] <http://www.macworld.com/pages/december.96/Column.2893.html>
[34] <http://ultra.infoseek.com/>
[35] <http://www.dogpile.com/>
[36] <http://www.tbtf.com/archive/11-29-95.html>
[37] <http://guaraldi.cs.colostate.edu:2000/form/
(presently down)>
[39] <http://www.hotbot.com/>
Bots are entities that have been around almost as long as the Net. These pseudo-beings, originally created as a means of bridging the gap between computers and ordinary linguistic communication, have evolved into a powerful means of translating simple questions into powerful Internet database queries. The big low-down on bots, their origins, and their current capabilities now resides at the Bot Info site, full of data on current bot trends. There's even a link to Eliza, the "original" bot, created in the late 1960s. This site holds a great deal of information, including several FAQ's and reviews of bots deemed important enough to communicate to the Internet community as a whole. http://www.botspot.com/
IF YOU WANT TO DOWNLOAD IT, THEY'VE USUALLY GOT IT
The C|Net downloading engine makes it easy to find, read about, and download just about any online software that you might be looking for. It's convenient to search or browse by categories at the well designed site. Links are easy and navigation is quick. Some of the groups of software that they classify for downloading are: business; development tools; educational; games; home and personal; Internet; kids; multimedia and design; and utilities. Test drive it. http://www.download.com/
If you love mysteries and don't mind eyestrain, you'll like "The Light Files". This series of online murder mysteries, which begins with "Death in Broad Daylight", opens with a very dark, dismal, and hard-to-scan home page. Get past that obstacle, and you can try to solve the mystery. As an enticement, the sponsoring company (SouthPeak Interactive) is offering a $5,000 reward. http://www.lightfiles.com/
BELIZE - SMALL COUNTRY, BIG WEB PRESENCE
By the time we entirely explored this virtual guide to Belize, we could have nearly journeyed there and back. Whew! This extensive site offers four different tours around the small Central American country, including visits to the Mayan Ruins, the national parks, and other localities. It's the next best thing to being there. http://www.belizenet.com/guide.html
While we'd love to write this ultra-commercial site off as just another pretty travel page, the World Travel Guide, sponsored by AT&T and the Columbus Group, is actually a glorious collection of information for would-be travelers. Based on the best-selling World Travel Guide books, this site provides tourist and business travel information; essential details about climate, visas, currency and customs; listings of public holidays; and, of course, so much more. Use its spiffy Hotel Finder to search a database of over 6,000 hotels worldwide. http://www.wtgonline.com/
What the online World Travel Guide doesn't have, TheTrip.com does. This travel resource aims squarely at the business air traveler. The coolest feature is the real-time flight tracking page. The page will retrieve flight info - from ETA to speed and altitude of the airplane - lickety-split for airline and general aviation aircraft. The technology uses Federal flow control data, piped and formatted for the Web interface. It works only for flights wholly within the US, but you don't need a flight number. The airport guides would be more useful if they mapped gates. On the horizon, TheTrip.com promises a customized bargain airfare e-mail list. http://www.thetrip.com/
TOP 50 SITES THAT DOWNLOAD QUICKLY
Quick - where can you find some of the fastest loading Web sites in the world? The "Top 50 Web Sites That Download Quickly" will instantly be appreciated by Web designers and frustrated surfers alike. We're one. Zip on over. http://www.zazz.com/fast50/
INVESTIGATIVE RESOURCES FOR PIS...
Webgator serves up investigative links for private investigators, or someone searching for a long lost friend. Besides the expected links, it provides several unique items, from terrorist group profiles to the virtual world of spies and intelligence. http://www.inil.com/users/dguss/wgator.htm
Find that long lost love, or maybe someone who owes you money. Now you can not only find that address, but you can book the lowest fare to reach them... sort of a one-stop stalker's shop. http://www.worldpages.com/
AND IF YOU NEED A JOB WHILE YOU'RE WAITING TO BE A STAR...
The Virtual Job Fair lets you search for a job online. Instead of dragging yourself to yet another career fair, click on one of the links from this home page, and you're there. The focus is on high tech, so if you want a job in a film version of My Three Sons, think again. http://www.vjf.com/
MAKE AND ELECTRONICALLY MAIL YOUR OWN POSTCARDS
Postcards from the edge of sanity, or simply cute and clever? By downloading about 3 MB of free software, you can create your own miniature postcards to include with e-mail to friends or enemies. Several clever designs are included and more are available for a fee. The cards are viewable on virtually any system without special software as they come in JPEG format. There are samples and download links for Windows 95 or Mac. http://www.coolcards.com/
Copyright ® 1997, Home Intranet - All Rights Reserved
Revised: 06 January 1998
Questions, comments, or suggestions? Send us feedback.