SOCKS AND CARTOONS AT THE WHITE HOUSE
Is there anybody who doesn't yet know about the brand new White House Web page? A great home page graphic, a text version for fast access (good design), greetings in text and audio from the Prez and the Vice, and a guest book complement a goofy picture of Bill and Hillary along with a cute, politically correct, and picture-filled family bio in "First Family". A White House tour, nice set of White House publications online, and a very complete set of links to US Government Net resources fill out the rest. Absolute faves: Al Gore's Cartoon Gallery under "What's New" and the cool picture of Socks the cat, complete with an AU sound file, under "First Family". Good design, worthy content, great netsurfing. "http://www.whitehouse.gov"
WEB-O-PHILE SLAPS TOGETHER STAR TREK, BIBLE, AND THE GROTESQUE
Cruciform is Andrew Tong's personal Web enterprise, created at the expense of his GPA. It is quite the unusual collection. It contains a thorough "Star Trek:TNG" page with episode synopses, trivia, and cast bios; the disturbing "Grotesque in Art"; a Phrack magazine archive for hackers and crackers; a library of suggested classical music essentials; and Biblical Contradictions, in which Christian apologists explain why they aren't. There's also some personal info. (werdna = Andrew backwards, get it?) "http://www.ugcs.caltech.edu:80/~werdna/"
OVER 140 COOL SUBJECT GUIDES TO THE INTERNET
A great place to begin your netsurfing is University of Michigan's Clearinghouse for Subject-Oriented Internet Resource Guides. They present over 140 topical guides to Net resources available via FTP, Gopher, and WWW. The guides cover a diverse range of topics from theatre to chemistry to midwifery, and are WAIS-indexed for full text searching. General Net users, librarians, Net trainers, and Internet system designers will find these guides useful. In honor of their first anniversary, they have updated their Web home page with a "nifty new low-bandwidth logo". Other Web developers need to follow suite. "http://www.lib.umich.edu/chhome.html" "ftp://una.hh.lib.umich.edu/inetdirsstacks"
PROFESSOR NEON, IMPROBABLE RESEARCH, AND THE WEATHER
Vortex Technology's collection of Web pages is an intriguing mix. It provides the Privacy Forum - a digest and index of articles relating to Internet privacy - and Professor Neon's TV and Movie Mania. Neon's site is the WWW outpost of a Los Angeles radio show. You can view reviews, publicity stills and releases, and even download 30-minute-long audio files. Other sites index files belonging to the Computer History Association of California and the Annals of Improbable Research, a breakaway group from the Journal of Irreproduceable Results. You can also get L.A. weather reports. "http://www.vortex.com/"
VEGGIE MADNESS 1: FIRST YOU FARM IT
Three sites here will delight veggie lovers. The first is "An Organic Farmer's Home Page" complete with references to understanding the soil, biological pest control, insect pictures, "The Barn Owl" (a flying cat?!), and "Organic Chermoya" (???). Newsletter available. Find all this in the "Noah's Ark Home Page" at "http://www.rain.org/~sals/my.html".
VEGGIE MADNESS 2: THEN YOU EAT IT
From the second site you can get over 800 ways to cook, prepare and combine vegetables, all in a form-searchable index. It's delicious, and the site has the best list of hyperlinks to health, nutrition, and medical sites that we have seen recently. Graze fully in their garden at "http://www-sc.ucss.indiana.edu/cgi-bin/recipes/".
VEGGIE MADNESS 3: THEN YOU TELL YOUR CAT HE'S NOT LUNCH.
The last vegetarian site is from the UK and, like many, is "under development". It has pointers to mailing lists, newsgroups, and over a dozen other sites with info on vegetarian and animal rights groups. Dig it up at "http://catless.ncl.ac.uk/Vegetarian/".
THE PLAY'S THE THING AT THEATRE CENTRAL
This very complete resource features a directory of Net-savvy theatre professionals, a list of new plays, theatre newsgroups, active theatre groups, and a link to the Playwright's and Screenwriter's Home Page. Most impressive of all is the Shakespeare play archive. You can read the Bard's plays in their entirety, or search all plays for keywords of your choosing. "http://www.mit.edu:8001/people/quijote/WWW/theatre-central.html"
NOW THAT YOU'VE SAMPLED PIZZANET - HOW ABOUT SOME JAVA?
Hey, all you environmentally-correct health-conscious coffee drinkers out there: have we got a page for you. Announcing "Cafe Mam", your connection to what claims to be a "pesticide free, environmentally conscious product from Chiapas, Mexico." The Cafe Mam home page explains that the growers are part of ISMAM (Indigenous Peoples of the Sierra Madre of Motozintla). For details about ISMAM, and how to order coffee and such Cafe Mam goodies as T-shirts and chocolate-covered Cafe Mam espresso beans ("sorry - not with organic chocolate"), see: "http://mmink.cts.com/mmink/dossiers/cafemam.html".
YOU GOTTA HAVE A COOL T-SHIRT TO SURF THE NET
And stuff.com is the place you can get them. They have two new T-shirts; one features a wizard surfing the fiber lines while the other is a surfer atop a wave flowing from a computer to a Net node. They're $19.95 each, not that this is a commercial - we just figured you'd be interested. See them for yourself at "http://www.stuff.com"
ARCHITECTURAL SITES ON THE WEB
If you're ready for something really off-the-wall (ahem), visit "Never Never Land", an architectural Web site in New Zealand. You'll find some neat renderings and visuals - if you're willing to venture deep enough within "http://archpropplan.auckland.ac.nz/People/Rob/Rob.html". For some spiffy GIF files of ancient Greek monuments and the like, stop by the ArchGopher at "gopher://libra.arch.umich.edu".
MILITARY AND DISASTER MEDICINE
How could we resist a peek? The Uniformed Services University of the Health Sciences (USUHS) has a Web site operating over three different servers. Information is available on their mission as a medical school specializing in military and disaster medicine. It is difficult to connect to this site (busy?) and, alas, it doesn't have a lot to offer. While the USUHS's page doesn't quite live up to the tantalizing promise of its specialty, they do have some good medical and general Net links of interest. "http://net.usuhs.mil"
ONE STOP SHOPPING FOR MACINTOSH INFO
The Well Connected Mac is a well organized list pointing to Mac-oriented Usenet newsgroups, freeware, Mac technical info, book reviews, periodicals, an impressive vendor list, etc., etc. This really good job was put together by a doctoral student from New Jersey who'd appreciate help with reviews from interested parties. If you use a Mac, this is definitely worth checking out. "http://rever.nmsu.edu/~elharo/faq/Macintosh.html"
FREE MACARONI & CHEESE: SENSEMEDIA SURFER RIDES HIGH
Dedicated to delivering quality hypermedia to your screen, SenseMedia Surfer is a good way for Webmaster wannabes to get their home pages out there quickly. Thirty dollars per month buys you a page on this 24x7 cybermag, and if you advertise with the Fractal Images Company, you might win a free box of Kraft Cheese & Macaroni! We could probably learn something from them in the goofy marketing department. Seriously, it's a pretty slick collection of humor, art, adventure gaming, and links to many small Pacific coast servers, as well as the paid pages. Neat. "http://www.picosof.com/"
California has a great surfing reputation and, being the laid back kind of place that it is, even the state government is into it. The California State Government Network page has prominent links to both Net surfing (Netsurfer Digest, dude!), and to real hang ten wave-type surfing (SurfNET). This may be the hippest set of government pages we've seen. Yes, there are the usual links to government agencies, but also the California Virtual Tourist, state arts and entertainment (Scottso the Clown, Shakespeare Santa Cruz, Survival Research Laboratories), sports and recreation (San Francisco 49ers, Nude Beach FAQ, Juggling Information Service), and a bunch of other neat Web sites. If you're heading for west coast waves, you must stop here first. "http://www.ca.gov/"
WWW HEADS SOUTH - REALLY SOUTH
The New South Polar Times is an ongoing, first-hand account of life at the South Pole. The bi-weekly newsletter is written by staff at Amundsen-Scott South Pole Station. It is named after the South Polar Times, the on-board paper of Robert Scott's first expedition to Antarctica in 1901-1904, and is sprinkled with neat tidbits: on August 13, record high temperatures were reached as the mercury topped off at a sizzling -37 degrees C. The Times also contains other polar links, polar science data, and a history of polar exploration. It's a tough life down there, so send some cheery E-Mail to Katie Wallet and ask her to forward it to the Station. Tell 'em Netsurfer sent you. Katie Wallet: "kwallet@pen.k12.va.us" or "courtla1@pen.k12.va.us". "http://www.deakin.edu.au/edu/MSEE/GENII/NSPT/NSPThomePage.html"
GO SHOPPING IN NEW YORK, CATCH A BROADWAY SHOW
New York-based eMall is notable for a small but eclectic set of shops. You might find them useful for the upcoming holidays: Spice Merchant "Flavor Secrets of Asia and the Orient"; Springs of Life book shop; Harvest Burgers; Rowena's cake shop; Capulin "Jungle" Coffee; Rob-1 Motorsports; and the great sounding Chile Today - Hot Tamale's "Gourmet Peppers and Hot Sauces from around the world". Write a letter to Santa (Santa's Hangout) and win a sampler of all those wares. After shopping, try the list of Broadway shows or a tour of the various sections of New York City. Those are somewhat interesting in text format, but could be really exciting with some well chosen graphics and simple maps. The site has promise. "http://eMall.com/"
YOUR MOM HAS MOVED (BUT LEFT YOU AN ADDRESS)
"Your MoM", self-described as "funny funny fun and funny stuff", has moved to a new URL. We covered them, but we'll let you figure out when yourself. "http://www.cc.columbia.edu/~emj5/yourmom/ymhome.html"
Need some nice icons for your HTML documents? There are over 3,000 here. Some are pretty big, thus slow. Go for the FTP site, but keep in mind it's a big file (almost 700kB). "http://crab.sp.ph.ic.ac.uk/hobbes/hobbes.html" "ftp://www.sp.ph.ic.ac.uk/pub/hobbes-gif-html.tar.gz"
TELNET TO A BBS USING THIS LIST
Tired of the same old Internet stuff? There's a list of some 50 BBSs reachable by Telnet stored at Texas A&M. "gopher://gopher.tamu.edu:70/11/.dir/bbs.dir"
The CIA's World Factbook 1993 (published in 1994) is available via Gopher. For those who don't know, this is the ultimate in almanac-style data of countries around the world. "gopher://umslvma.umsl.edu:70/11/LIBRARY/GOVDOCS/WF93"
MISCELLANEOUS MERCHANDISE MERITS MODEM MONITORING
"Sell-it on the WWW" is a new site with a variety of products for sale. Consider it a cyber-classified section. Ads cost $10 a month. "http://xmission.com/~wwwads"
LISTSERV FOR KIDS WHO NEED SPECIAL HEALTH CARE
The Institute for Child Health Policy has a Listserv to promote discussion of issues relevant to children with special health care needs and their families. To subscribe, E-Mail "LISTSERV@nervm.nerdc.ufl.edu" or "LISTSERV@ nervm.bitnet" with "SUBSCRIBE CSHCN-L [your first name] [your last name]" as the message.
ASIA ONLINE INTRODUCES THE DIGITAL VERSION OF THE SILK ROAD
Asia Online will provide information on commercial and investment opportunities in Asia and will distribute Asian electronic publications. It'll also hold a few online exhibitions in conjunction with real-world events. "http://www.ncb.gov.sg:1080/"
SPILL YOUR CONSUMER GUTS, GET $50 FEDEX CREDIT.
Federal Express is sponsoring a survey about online shopping. If you qualify to take it, you'll be presented with a 30-minute survey and be sent $50 of FedEx credit. You can also register for other future online surveys. "http://www.portal.com/~eclectec/presurvey.cgi"
The Realty Referral Network matches real estate buyers and sellers with real estate agents. It serves over 5,000 cities and towns throughout the U.S. and Europe. Best of all, it's free. "http://mmink.cts.com/mmink/dossiers/rrn.html"
DUN & BRADSTREET BUSINESS INFO TAILORED FOR SMALL BUSINESSES
Dun & Bradstreet's business information server comes equipped with a series of tutorials designed to help the small business owner. "http://www.dbisna.com"
Prodigy's server, called AstraNet, went Web recently. Right off the bat, they get points for splitting their content paths into graphic and non-graphic links. The main menu lists general topics like News, Sports, Shopping, Weather, and others. The graphics are not excessive and fairly functional. Right now the proprietary content is rather sparse but they do have numerous links to "Best of the Net" providers in all those areas. The site and content is free for now. Prodigy plans to offer three paid services consisting of news, sports and financial material in December. For now, use them as a well organized index to good Web sites. "http://www.astranet.com"
CONVERT RTF ON MAC OR UNIX TO HTML WITH A STROKE OF A KEY
If you don't know the acronyms, you probably aren't interested. The latest version when we looked (2.7.4) of RTFTOHTML software converts rich text format documents containing graphics, tables, text, and equations into hypertext markup language (HTML for the WWW). It runs on UNIX and Macintosh, but also translates documents produced on DOS and Windows platforms. You can get a copy from: "ftp://ftp.cray.com/src/WWWstuff/RTF/rtftohtml_overview.html"
The perl program which generates GIF graphs showing activity at your WWW server has recently been updated. Gwstat reads the output of the indispensable wwwstat HTTPD log analysis package to get its raw data. Together they can be used to create on-the-fly graphs of your server's statistics. To use it, you also need Xmgr, a plotting package, ImageMagic (used to do image type conversion), and Ghostscript, a postscript interpreter package. All are freely available and can be downloaded from the gwstat Web page. "http://dis.cs.umass.edu/stats/gwstat.html" "ftp://dis.cs.umass.edu/pub/gwstat.tar.gz"
COMT SOFTWARE LETS YOU USE COMM PROGRAMS TO TALK TELENT
"COMt: the Telnet Modem" is a WinSock 1.1-compliant communications driver that allows you to assign unused COM ports to act as "Telnet Modems". Each Telnet Modem acts as a Hayes-compatible modem, so it provides the behavior expected by most comm programs. All you need to do is tell your favorite Windows terminal program to connect to one of these telnet ports, then give the IP address for a phone number. When you "dial", you will be connected to the host via a Telnet connection. It's $15.95 shareware. "ftp://ftp.std.com/customers/software/rfdmail/comt.zip"
WSGopher is a Gopher+ client program for Microsoft Windows and WinSock version 1.1. The new version has some improvements to help sysadmins, is more robust, and has a number of features slated for the upcoming Unix Gopher version 2.1. It runs on Windows and Windows for Workgroups, and you'll need a minimum of 8MB RAM. The author, Dave Brooks, is working on a Windows NT binary. Download, read the docs, if you have questions write "gopher@tis.inel.gov". "ftp://dewey.tis.inel.gov/pub/wsgopher"
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