| The Big Easy |
| And a Travel Agent in Every Computer |
| Malaysia News - about, Not for Malaysia |
| Thames Cam on the HMS Belfast |
| One of the Best Corporate Sites We've Ever Seen |
| That's Entertainment! |
| Jewish Heritage |
| Words to Make Money by |
| Roots Music |
| Covert Ops |
| JFK Collection |
| Some Bad URLs from NSD 4.04 |
| Netsurfer Science Looking for Writers |
| BOOK REVIEWS |
| LETTERS TO THE EDITOR |
| Contact and Subscription Information |
| Credits |
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BREAKING SURF
With all due respect for the cerebral joys of curling, it's hard to deny that Olympic exposure has elevated snowboarding to the most exciting winter sport of the minute. Never mind the silly media attempts to promote snowboarding's "rebel" image, there's something downright sexy about the grace with which the athletes sinuously wind their way down the slopes. Gold medalist Ross Rebagliati's possible disqualification for testing positive for marijuana (under appeal at press time) will if anything add to the sport's counterculture glamor. Ross claims to spend a lot of time breathing second-hand toke smoke. Check out ESPN's site for the story. Two other sites, Adolfo's Ultimate Snowboarding Reference and Sean's Snowboarding Links, cover just about every other shred of the sport between them.ESPN: http://espn.sportszone.com/olympics98/index.html
Adolfo: http://www.metro.net/nico7f7/directory.html
Sean: http://www.nwi.co.uk/homepages/sean/snowlnks.htm
Axial Seamount Volcanic Event off the US Pacific Coast
Talk about breaking surf. An undersea volcano has been erupting since January 25 about 300 miles off the coasts of Oregon and Washington. Don't be too alarmed though, this looks like a relatively gentle shield volcano, typical of the seafloor spreading episodes that go on all the time around the world. If you were hoping for a tidal wave to wipe out Microsoft, you're outta luck. A major scientific effort is underway to gather information about the eruption, including the dispatch of ships to the area. NOAA has a great site with detailed and somewhat technical information about the event.http://newport.pmel.noaa.gov/axial98.html
Netscape Clarifies Browser Source Code Policies
As you probably know, Netscape will be giving away the source code to their Navigator browser. The company has just put up a Web site with more details and answers some frequently asked questions about the giveaway. The developer release of Netscape Communicator Standard Edition 5.0 is planned for March 31.http://developer.netscape.com/source/devfaq.html
Study Says Net Performance Improving
Inverse Network Technology's latest study of Internet performance looks at the fourth quarter of 1997. Call failure rates (i.e. you to your ISP) and timeouts dropped while Web download performance held steady. Despite the fourth quarter performance, during 1997 as a whole the average time to download popular consumer Web pages crept up by 11% even though throughput went up 2.6%, probably due to increases in the use of large graphics and Java. E-mail performance has also improved, in timeliness and upload/download speeds. The study also has some numbers on day-of-week performance (Monday sucks), and AOL performance (mostly better).http://www.inversenet.com/news/pr_02-04-98.html
The Real Scoop on Free Web E-Mail Subscribers
We all suspect that the self-reported numbers of subscribers put out by free Web e-mail providers are inflated. An interesting article from Internet World cites a study which puts some perspective on those claims. In addition to reporting actual number estimates (in millions: Juno 2.5; Hotmail 2.1; Rocketmail 0.43; others combined 3.5), the article notes that a large number of users hold accounts at several services and that demographics differ between providers. Females make up half of all Hotmail users but only a quarter of Juno's. Under-30-year-olds comprise a majority of Hotmail users but only 10% for Juno, and half of Hotmail users are single compared to only 15% at Juno. Hmmm, looks like the young single women hang out at Hotmail and the old married men crash at Juno. The article notes that - surprise! - many people use the services to escape e-mail monitors in the workplace.http://www.iw.com/daily/trends/1998/02/0501-free.html
The State of International Encryption Policy
The Global International Liberty Campaign (GILC) has released a survey documenting the cryptographic policies of various nations. Clearly GILC is not entirely without bias, but the results look sound and the survey merited at least brief mention by the major media outlets. The conclusions of the survey boil down to "most countries in the world today do not have controls on the use of cryptography". The report goes on to say "The policies of the United States are the most surprising, given the fact that virtually all of the other democratic, industrial nations have few if any controls on the use of cryptography. The position may be explained, in part, by the dominant role that state security agencies in the US hold in the development of encryption policy." It also identifies the countries of Belarus, China, Israel, Pakistan, Russia, and Singapore as having strong domestic controls on cryptography.http://www.gilc.org/crypto/crypto-survey.html
SURFING SITES
One Day on the Way to the Universal Translator...
Once again, AltaVista is taking the Net by storm. One of the Web's most comprehensive search engines has a great new facility: AltaVista Translation Service. Key in a URL, and AltaVista will translate that page from English to French, German, Italian, Portuguese, or Spanish, or from one of those languages to English. You can paste any text at all into the translation box to translate that. The more formal (or Latinate) your text, the more likely the translation is to be accurate, and if you want more than a raw translation, you'll still want a human translator. We predict this site will quickly become an important tool for anyone who depends on translation in one of the languages in the Alta Vista database. Down the road, we could see this as a major resource for tourists and salespeople with handheld or automotive PCs and a wireless connection to the Web. Bravo, Digital!http://babelfish.altavista.digital.com/
Dis year, dawlin', instead of sending you to Mardi Gras, we're going to help you make it by your house. The Mardi Gras and Cajun Food Recipe Guide offers all that you expect - crawfish etouffe, jambalaya, red beans and rice, gumbo, and king cake - and tips for planning Mardi Gras parties for adults, teens, and kids. The site includes a source for the traditional decorations, like beads and garlands, but you can probably find most of those things at your local party supply shop. Doubloons, however, are harder to come by, f'sure. The real treats, though, for which we suspect you will need this specialized source, are the beautifully refined masks. Anyway, to help you set the tone, we'll also direct you to the Gumbo Pages' (see NSD 3.04) Yat-speak lexicon, which charmingly describes the local dialect as Brooklynese on Quaaludes.
Guide: http://www.mardigrasday.com/food/
Lexicon: http://www.gumbopages.com/yatspeak.html
Aged 19. Aged 21. Aged 27. Aged 19. Aged 19. Search results will make you sick at heart at The Wall, the official search engine/database for the Viet Nam Veterans Memorial Fund. The Viet Nam Memorial, its 500 feet of marble and 140 panels sheathed in 58,184 names ranking among the most visited sites in Washington, "lists the casualties in the order of occurrence, showing the war as a series of individual human sacrifices and giving each name a special place in history". There are concessions to the virtual medium - screensavers, for instance, and a slide show accompanied by cathartic poetry - but the heart and soul of the site is in the names and the electronic rubbings that the search engine will render for you. Five strangers had a family name in common with our reviewer. Four men she never met came from villages near her. Most haunting, a single casualty shared her birth date.
http://thewall-usa.com/
On Saturday nights, Canadians with nothing better to do watch Hockey Night in Canada on the CBC. You get a good dose of NHL hockey (unless Toronto's playing), but that's not why they watch. They watch for Coach's Corner. Between the first and second period, Don "Grapes" Cherry and that other guy talk hockey. Cherry is a former two-bit player, a former flamboyant coach of the Boston Bruins, and a current charismatic national icon. His extremely nationalist, pro-pugilistic controversial commentary is both beloved and reviled. Hockey history and highlights, stats, scores, and schedules all have their place at this site, but the Coach's Corner RealAudio/RealVideo archive makes this a must. Find out why.
http://www.hockey.cbc.ca/
Fine - and Usually Not Predigested - Food and Drink
Want to hear about a unique coffee brewed from beans passed through the digestive tract of a marsupial? Care to revel in the joys of researching chocolate? Tempted to go on a world tour to find the best beer? Your oral pleasures will be satiated at Sally's Place, which also features interviews with food and wine experts and easy cooking recipes for dummies. Travel the metaphorical globe with a virtually full belly and impress your friends with unlikely epicurian genius.Sally: http://bpe.com/
That coffee: http://bpe.com/drinks/coffee/kopiluwak/index.html
Shauna is 30, in a reasonably steady relationship, and happy to talk about herself, the world, and how she has a degree in criminology but is somehow a poker dealer and Web site designer. Her views come uncensored and she seems unembarrassed to present herself online: "It isn't kosher to chase after a married man, but it's hard to chase if the other person isn't running." Full of relaxed discussion and "bitchcraft", her site lays her emotionally bare for our pleasure. What a woman.
http://www.datadiva.com/blondeambition/
Electra likes its pink and purple, but then again, it's a site dedicated to women who like everything big, bright, and gorgeous. Have a little chat or ask the Dating Diva your most intimate questions (we're desperate to stop unsexy snoring). Don't leave the house before you check your horoscope and pretty yourself up with some beauty tips (are plant oils and herbs really that much better than synthetic chemicals?). With a career guide, money tips, and a no-nonsense approach to slippery relationships with losers, Electra can sort you out with a slap and a tickle.
http://www.electra.com/
Dick Zved's Magical Musical Tour
The Dick Zved Show site treats music as a malleable, plastic substance to be molded, stretched, hyped, and jazzed into a New York sound. A slew of sound samples on the site will elate techno fans. Many sections do not yet function; the Art section, to show pictures of a New York garbage can and the people who sleep with it, is not yet ready but could be interesting. The virtual tour of the New York underground may be worth waiting for, too, but who knows? This fledgling site could grow into an unusual and entertaining Web highlight. Or something pretentious and incomprehensible. We'll watch and see.http://www.zved.com/
Expecting a baby? Have a baby? Remotely considering progeny? Bookmark the BabyCenter site. What does it offer? That's not the question. The question is what doesn't it feature when it comes to the topic of babyness. There's info on everything from the best kind of toothpaste to use if you're experiencing morning sickness to screening embryos before they reach the womb to answers from experts on the all-important issue of the negative effects of letting a baby cry himself to sleep. Wipes not included.
http://www.babycenter.com/
KCTS Seattle Public Television and the Science Guy
This well designed site is somewhat light on content. A few good pages will interest people outside the Seattle area, mostly articles from their monthly Nine magazine. Otherwise, you can get program information and see what KCTS has been working on for PBS, including HDTV productions, and enhanced content for the Internet. Note that KCTS produces Bill Nye the Failed Stand-up Comic - whoops, we mean Bill Nye the Science Guy (actually, we love the guy and all he stands for) - and hosts his page here. The station is the fourth most-watched public television station in America, reaching over two million homes in Washington and British Columbia.KCTS: http://www.kcts.org/
Nye: http://nyelabs.kcts.org/
Academic Guide to the Net and University Info
Online communities like their own guides to the Internet. Academia has a fine pair of guides in InterNIC Academic Guides. Librarians and content experts have reviewed every listing in the InterNIC Academic Guide to the Internet. Here, a Community Commentary section gives visitors the chance to rank sites by academic value. The top-level categories have a heavy scientific orientation, thanks probably to co-sponsor National Science Foundation. The InterNIC Guide to US Universities provides links to university Web sites and contact information; the latter is minimal, but many schools are listed. Both guides and the companion resources are excellent starting points for research or casual browsing.http://www.aldea.com/
For You Fixer-Upper Fixer-Uppers
Ian Evans's World of Old Houses hails from down under as a good place to find answers on renovating and restoring old houses. The comprehensive collection of essays in Info-central is wonderful, with a scrollable index featuring a brief description of each essay and its size. The set of general restoration guidelines and commonly asked questions is clear and sensible, if somewhat rudimentary. The hot tips are useful, but the directory of services is only helpful for residents of Australia. For homeowners just starting out in house rebeautification, this site is worth a look.http://www.oldhouses.com.au/
ONLINE TRAVEL
Thinking of heading down to the Big Easy for Mardi Gras later this month? You should have thought of that earlier, since every room in the city is probably booked by now, and you don't want to stay in those that aren't. In addition to the sites mentioned above, Love New Orleans will help get you into the spirit of things (as will spirits). The site, a partner of the local Times-Picayune, focuses less on Mardi Gras exclusively than on New Orleans, the city. Site visitors can see what's up on Bourbon Street with the BourboCam. Besides the standard where-to-see-what info, the site features QuickTime panoramas of the Commander's Palace restaurant, the Superdome, and a Voodoo museum.http://www.loveneworleans.com/
And a Travel Agent in Every Computer
The travel industry on the Internet has been hyped for years. Newspapers sometimes pit travel agents head-to-head against Web surfers in contests to see who can book the least expensive vacation, and the agents invariably win because they have one trick up each sleeve that the Internet maven doesn't: they have all the resources in one spot, and they have travel savvy. Preview Travel seeks to provide both these advantages to even the most novice computer user with an educational setting in which the visitor can couch their one-stop flight, hotel, and car reservation system. On the intro screen, specials, lowest fares, and vacation packages tempt even a traveler who knows exactly what he or she is looking for. Just remember: if you go to this site, we take no responsibility if you book yourself on the next flight to the Bahamas.http://www.previewtravel.com/
Malaysia News - about, Not for Malaysia
As more Asians get Internet access, more will visit Asian news sites. For the moment, apparently, many Asian surfers should expect that much of the news they can access on the Web will have a heavy foreign slant. Malaysia News, in particular, seems designed for North Americans and Europeans as much as for homebound or expatriate Malaysians. All its articles are in English, and most are hosted by Web powerhouses such as CNN, Pathfinder, and Yahoo. At times, the focus may well seem foreign to those who may need a lot of this news the most. On the other hand, the Calvin and Hobbes cartoons here may be universal, and many of the economic and political issues that Asians face every day are at least somewhat familiar to others. The selection of links to other pages is excellent, although those external pages get framed within a frame on this otherwise well crafted site. Malaysia News has great potential.http://www.1388.com/news/
A camera based at the Imperial War Museum's famous Second World War cruiser HMS Belfast is providing Web users with a panoramic view of the Thames and its many famous tourist attractions. Livestreaming images have been projected since December, and show the area under all conditions, from the New Year's Eve fireworks to sunrise to dusk. The pages provide history and information on everything visible. You can even tune in British radio through RealAudio and check out the weather. It would eliminate the need to travel if it weren't for those rollmops.
http://www.livesights.com/
FLOTSAM & JETSAM
One of the Best Corporate Sites We've Ever Seen
Rogers Group quarries rock and builds roads, but they might as well go into Web design too. This corporate site entertains and teaches the general netsurfer about the biz while maintaining a site industry professionals can use, too. It's even attractive. Simply awesome.http://www.rogersgroupinc.com
When film fans are not seated in a movie theatre, eyes glued to the screen, or couch potatoing at home with the latest video, they might want to click on this site. If you prefer music to movies, or even (heaven help you) prefer TV to both, the Entertainment Asylum won't leave you in the dark.
http://www.asylum.com/
The Jewish Heritage Online Magazine's fascinating spectrum of topics comes in a writing style that's crisp, clear, and clever. You'll get a Hebrew lesson, commentary, and columns, all tied to a monthly theme.
http://www.jewishheritage.com/
InvestorWords offers a wealth of investing terms and links. After all, how can you understand the prospectus if you can't translate stockbrockeragese? Study this, and the next time someone tosses "ultra vires activities" at you, you can casually reply, "unaudited opinion, sweetie."
http://www.investorwords.com/
The list of musical tastes catered to by this reviewers site is too long to mention, so it is easier to say that Rootin' Around does not review Beethoven or the Sex Pistols. A good site for the dedicated fan of American roots music.
http://www.rootinaround.com/
CovertOps.com focuses on "the world of clandestine projects". If you're interested in covert operations, be it for historical, political, or personal reasons, this Web site will intrigue you. The site is interactive (click APO AE to send e-mail), so if you've got something to say or a story to tell about covert ops, this is the place to be.
http://www.covertops.com/
Dedicated to the image of JFK? Fascinated by the scandal after all these years? Relive the drama with this collection of memorabilia from Kennedy's personal secretary. From matchboxes to stationery and stamps, this is for fans only. Very big ones.
http://jfkcollection.com/
CORRECTIONS
Mom left the keys to the liquor cabinet within reach again, so we had a few incorrect URLs last issue.E-mail HTML: http://www.w3.org/TR/1998/NOTE-HTMLThreading-0105
Audionet's books: http://www.audionet.com/books/
Yahoo's Censorship: http://www.yahoo.com/Society_and_Culture/Issues_and_Causes/
Civil_Rights/Censorship/Censorship_and_the_Net/
ADMINISTRIVIA
Netsurfer Science Looking for Writers
Living up to our business motto, "explode or die", we're starting up another e-zine called Netsurfer Science. It's gonna be a lot like NSD's Surfing Science section. Who are we kidding, it will be exactly like the Surfing Science section, only more so. We're looking for writers with a reliable capability to deliver five to ten witty science-related digest articles per week without going mentally non-linear. You don't have to be a PhD but you should be able to write with reasonable lucidity about cool scientific stuff, even if you don't entirely grok it. A quiet yet abiding faith in the divinity of Bill Nye and Dr. Bunsen Honeydew doesn't hurt. We do pay, sort of - about enough to buy you and your ravishing lab assistant a nutritionally incorrect meal every now and again. Interested writers should send a plain ASCII/text resume, two sample science articles (like in our Surfing Science section) and a Yes/No vote on whether the Universe has enough matter to be open or closed. Send your scribblings to mailto:sci-editor@netsurf.com