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NETSURFER DIGEST
More Signal, Less Noise |
Volume 04, Issue 36 Wednesday, December 09, 1998 |
NETSURFER LINKS
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BREAKING SURF Victoria's Secret Reveals Online Store Before this site opened, Victoria's Secret wondered whether its servers could handle the anticipated traffic. The well known lingerie outlet first gained fame for its print catalogues, which feature models looking anorexic in all but key places in tastefully minimal bits of satin, lace, and silk. The prospect of hordes of hormone-crazed males flocking to this purveyor of upscale lingerie during the crucial holiday season is enough to give any sysadmin nightmares about keeping the network up (ahem...). Nevertheless, those famous models have arrived online, mocking the reality of the human body and enticing you to spend some cash - a story as old as the hills. Whether you've been good or bad, it's another fine bookmark for the holidays.http://www.victoriassecret.com/ Year 2000 Problems Found and Fixed in Windows 98 Microsoft has just released fixes for some obscure Y2K bugs in Windows 98. It's nothing to panic about: certain applications have trouble displaying and logging dates. But that the bugs exist points out the difficulty of eradicating subtle consequences from years of bad programming. The Microsoft Windows Update site has the fixes, which are only of interest to those running Windows 98.http://windowsupdate.microsoft.com/ Audio Diner: Music Is Free, but Artists Still Get Paid The newly opened Audio Diner site practices an interesting variation of a gift economy. "We spend the dough and energy getting people to stop by just one place to get tons of free music. like a TV station. no promoting each and every band, as much as this hot spot for music. then we pay the artists out of the revenue we take in from advertisers. actually, we pay even if we don't take in revenue from advertisers." (sic - They're allergic to capital letters.) It makes a kind of sense until you read that last sentence. They think they can pay each artist close to what they'd earn on major label record sales because they've eliminated the significant distribution and media production costs which typically come out of the royalty stream. The songs can be downloaded in MP3 format. Music lovers can visit and sample free music; artists can submit music for consideration. An audacious and clever experiment.http://www.audiodiner.com/
SURFING SITES We can't say enough about Imagine Radio, one of the coolest Web site concepts we've seen in a while, and it actually works. Provide a name and password, and fill out a simple form to make known your musical preferences. Programming is that easy. Choices range from Drum 'n Bass to New Country to Smooth Jazz to talk radio. The site provides a list of the artists who play on your station and information on each playing artist. Yes, there is a Buy Now button that links directly to CDnow. The commercialism, however, is unobtrusive and remains that way until you want to buy something. This site serves as a refreshing example of how different media can mix comfortably and complement each other. Then again, video never did kill the radio star, did it?http://imagineradio.com/ If you visit Absolut Vodka's Web site looking for the shotmeisters' latest flavors, you're going to be a bit surprised. The latest flavor is DJ, and you can't find it in any stores. In fact, we're not sure why you have to be of legal drinking age to enter the site, since there's no content related to alcohol at all, unless you count copyright statements. As bizarre as it is, though, the site might be better enjoyed after a few shots. Absolut DJ, the present incarnation, needs Shockwave and wants speakers. Once you get the hang of the plug-in, click on Compilations to see past DJ features and get the whole feel. The Archive button reveals past incarnations of the site as a whole, Absolut Kelly, dedicated to Kevin Kelly's artwork, and Absolut Panushka, an online experimental animation festival. http://www.absolutvodka.com/ A New Angle on the Old Web Cam Tired of watching paint dry in exciting, exotic places? Leave it to a bunch of ingenious, disgruntled TV engineers to bring a new angle to the static, one-way Web cam. The ABC network has locked out members of the National Association of Broadcast Employees and Technicians (NABET) in a labor dispute. To rally support, NABET engineers have cut video tape of politicians crossing picket lines to be on TV. The NABET Wall of Shame shows incoming Speaker of the House Bob Livingston, among others, avoiding picketers to get some airtime. In a clever use of Web technology, the site urges visitors to watch the clips and e-mail the naughty Congressional representatives.http://www.nabet31.org/shame/ Rich content with no discernable purpose from time to time percolates through the increasingly congested Internet. Tiny Dumb Love (TDL) is one of these anomalies, constituting a varied collection of often bewildering, and more often hilarious, quips and non-sequiturs. Although the site offers no information about author Kurt Isensee, his humorous "Week's Thoughts" speak for themselves: "I bet if Davey Jones's last name was Carpiss, he wouldn't have got the gig on The Monkees, no matter how cute or talented he was." Of course, TDL's base offerings do not exactly constitute the cream of erudite humor. But if you're one of those, as we are, for whom crude sometimes beats cultured, then it's definitely worth a visit - even though we found the attempt to actually sell the jokes a bit laughable. http://www.canadawired.com/~tdl/ What a Bizarre Collection of Stuff An amusing raconteur with a gift for words, a brilliant sense of literary timing, and a slightly twisted sense of humor, the author and his site merit some of your time. Dig into the site to find gems such as the tale of the Zodiac Killer (we won't spoil the punchline...) or quirky slanted looks at the experiences of a traveler.http://tom-tom.com/ Ever been stuck in traffic and the only thing to do is perve on your fellow drivers? Well, if someone who takes your fancy has a TrafficGems decal on their window, you can send them an anonymous e-mail through this service, which seems to be centered in New York. True to its slogan "What you see is what you get", the system tries to eliminate the pitfalls of a blind date. With sections dealing with traffic disasters such as the Long Island Expressway, "the largest parking lot in the world", and cool bumper stickers like "Give me ambiguity or give me something else", the site might provide you with a chuckle, if not that special someone. http://www.trafficgems.com/ Listen to a voice from beyond the grave at the magical Houdini site, where on Halloween, they held a virtual seance to once again try to contact the Master. Sadly, Houdini stiffed the living again this year, but you can listen to a surprisingly clear recording of his voice at this site that also contains an autobiography, photos, facts, myths, and memorabilia. http://www.magictricks.com/houdini/ With over 160 different Tarot decks, this site offers a vast range of aesthetic and literary delights for anyone seriously into medievalism, paganism, and arts that delve into these dark concepts. While the layout obscured some of the fiction, this Brisbane, Australia, SF and fantasy fiction fan is honest and as unpretentious as the genre allows. http://www.aeclectic.net/ The Serious Journalism of Crime APB Online has put together an impressive cadre of journalists, ex-cops, and feds in a Web site dedicated to the reporting of all things criminal in the USA. Their mission is "To Inform and Serve", and they do an admirable job. The site covers policing issues, major trials, missing persons, and manhunts. The impressive site is at once gritty, relentlessly updated, and professional while avoiding tabloid sensationalism which, let's face it, the crime genre entices. While banner ads above a story about David "Son of Sam" Berkowitz made us uneasy, APB Online manages, most of the time, to walk a fairly straight line between information and sensationalist entertainment. Oh, you can also listen to real-time police scanners in three major American cities.http://www.apbonline.com/ Just as a reference to the Pope lets you spot a Catholic site, so one to the Imams lets you distinguish the Shiite from the Sunni Moslem. While the Light of Islam bills itself as a general Islamic site, its biographies of the twelve Imams starting with Ali clue you in to its Shiite origins - so don't look for hidden Imams or other dissident Ismaili interpretations either. Take the spin into consideration while reading the hefty biography of Mohammed, although the account of the history of science in the Islamic world seems straightforward. The huge amount of material on the early wars that divided Islam provides the lessons a Shiite should learn. This lone Web site dizzily distills a millenium and a half of controversy. http://home.webcom.se/religion/ Perhaps Mexican immigration and influence in the American Southwest will lead the tamale to replace fruitcake as the traditional Christmas delicacy in that region. We can hope. Pink, blue, sweet, savory - the tamale is potentially to the early 21st century what the crepe was to the 1970s. But enough gastronomic prognostication. This Mining Company site offers vast resources about most types of Mexican cooking, traditional or new. The mail-order section will prove indispensable. Pick a pepper. Any pepper. Pickled, even. http://mexicanfood.miningco.com/ Imagine your favorite local public radio show hosted by a purist who does it for love and no money, and you get the spirit that moves Suite 101. Since NSD last visited, this free Internet community has expanded and now offers members a password-protected place to store photos, articles, links, and other stuff. The roster of volunteer editors has swollen to more than 400. Topics run the gamut, in new Web clothes that are easy on the eyes. http://www.suite101.com/ Frankly, RoboShopper's a stupid name, but the site impressed us. RoboShopper is a meta-search engine for commercial goods available over the Net. Select a category, type what you need, and RoboShopper will pull all the sites offering your choice together in a pull-down menu. Visit each site in the menu to see who has the best deal. The site seems especially adept at ferreting out CDs, books, and software. Fashion Trip's Gift Finder works differently. Provide a price range and a few details and the engine spits out gift recommendations - if it finds any. Robo: http://www.roboshopper.com/ Finder: http://www.fashionfinder.com:8080/servlet/GenerateCriteria/ Although the name is deceiving, Christmas 98 is dedicated to providing Christmas, Chanukah, and Kwanzaa ideas to wired families. It has advice on everything from discounts on seasonal travel to what holiday songs to sing on the way. If ramen is a chore in the kitchen, leave the Special Christmas Menus to the culinarily-inclined. Don't miss the 101 Holiday Gift Baskets and gift wrappping ideas in the Decorating section or the Holiday Traditions section. The site cleverly teams up with Intellicast to bring curious children continuously updated weather from the North Pole. http://www.christmas98.com/ Consumer Reports' Holiday Shopping Guide Before you indulge in an online orgy of Christmas shopping, check out the Consumer Reports Shopping Guide. Although only subscribers can access some parts of the site, a rich selection of valuable articles and advice awaits all. The practical and realistic Guide to Shopping Online is especially useful - and is as good a guide for designers of e-commerce sites as it is for users. A first-class, high-quality consumer site with neither ads nor a bias, the site is a must-bookmark for any time of year.http://www.consumerreports.org/news/holiday/ In an era when Old World missiles just don't seem likely to leap the Arctic and impact the New World, you need to find something to do with all that missile-detecting infrastructure. Hey, here's an idea. Let's say that Christmas Eve they turn all those electronics on some flying guy who looks like he's eaten a few too many latkes, know what we mean? Watch Santa Claus, his reindeer, and his sled invade North American airspace here. http://www.noradsanta.org/ ONLINE TRAVEL MapQuest, long a favorite of ours, has been revamped. MapQuest's cartography services and precise door-to-door driving directions populate such major Web locales as Yahoo!, Excite, and Travelocity. However, the new MapQuest home page hosts a myriad superior options. Users can e-mail maps to themselves, customize settings to their liking, generate crisp printable versions, and retrieve lodging, dining, entertainment and weather information for virtually any destination. Unfortunately, like most free service sites worth their salt, MapQuest is pregnant with corporate logos and commercial hotlinks. Although users are persistently implored to purchase one of the 60,000 available print map titles, with the new MapQuest, you may never have to.http://www.mapquest.com/ Travel and tourism sites often turn out to be Web-mounted photo albums and a price list, so the Travel Britain site comes as a pleasant surprise. Filled with gadgets, click-throughs, and drop-downs, and with options that include a customizable user profile, it contains plenty of useful services like car rentals, hotel bookings, and tour information. Also on offer are RealVideo files of guided tours of British tourist spots such as the reputed site of King Arthur's Castle. http://www.travelbritain.com/ You've got an overnight stopover in Newcastle on a night that feels like the Scottish winter has invaded over the Cheviots like an army of cold, gloomy Scottish savages. You plug in your laptop near a phone jack and start surfing A2bAirports. Need to rent a car? Find a room? Get the hell out of there? This site provides any info you need for this and just about any airport in the British Isles. http://www.a2bairports.com/ FLOTSAM & JETSAM Jazz up your Web pages with these Java applets. The price is right; you just have to suffer through a tiny bit of propaganda from supplier Intel. The freebies include a rotating 3-D cube of your own photos, an image gallery, and more.http://www.intel.com/cpc/webapplets/
Free ISP, If You Don't Mind a Little Advertising If your online service bombards you with ads, why fork over the 20-odd bucks a month? That's the marketing impetus for NetZero, a free ISP. Mac users need not apply yet. They say Mac software will be offered in about six months.http://www.netzero.net/index.html It Slices, It Dices, It Does the Math for You Recipe sites are a dime a dozen, but good recipe sites are few and far between. My Menus includes automatic recipe adjustment for number of servings and a single compiled shopping list for all recipes in which you're interested. Don't click your back button or the site will lose track of your selections.http://www.mymenus.com/ Mark Elliot's radio program churns up a maelstrom of emotional and personal issues surrounding people affected by addiction. No matter the addiction, this Web site and the accompanying show deal with it in a refreshingly unique and supportive way. http://www.phponline.com/ Prospective college students find nothing more exciting than a road trip to all the top bars - er, colleges. And for parents of said students, there's nothing more expensive. CampusTours lets you pay virtual visits to the ivory towers, check out interactive maps, and save yourself the hangovers - er, airfare. http://www.campustours.com/ "ESTeeM!" lets employees "stick it to the man", i.e. the boss. Try such charming suggestions as clicking your office stapler over the trash can, making "ruined staples rain down into wasted oblivion...." Hmmm. The Break Room features games, movies, and more ways to waste company time. http://www.holidaystudios.com/esteem/ Onelook claims a word count of 2,016,164 English words in 402 dictionaries. The unwieldy interface mars a useful tool, but the site has an excellent index of other dictionaries, including specialty dictionaries and related resources. http://www.onelook.com/ My Global Assistant is a free, easily customized, online calendar and e-mail reminder built out of Javascript and frames. The developers promise future features will include the ability to save Web site addresses in your Global Assistant. Why does that sound vaguely risque? http://www.myga.com/ CoolMail, a nifty new example of technological syncretism, allows users to check e-mail by phone. Once you've configured it, simply call the toll-free number and the system "reads" your e-mail to you. The free basic package allows up to 60 minutes of access per month. http://www.planetarymotion.com/ League Lineup provides a free service that's sure to please any league manager, harried soccer mom, or star shortstop. Within 24 hours, your league can be online with bulletin boards, rosters, local weather, and more. And the only cost is a few advertising banners. http://www.leaguelineup.com/ SOFTWARE Macromedia Releases New Shockwave, Director, and Dreamweaver Macromedia had a busy week. The online multimedia giant released new versions of three popular software packages. Shockwave, now known as Shockwave 7 and one of the most popular plug-ins on the Web, lets you view some spiffy yet low-bandwidth multimedia Web content. You use Director to create Shockwave animations, and that also rolls to version 7. Dreamweaver, a relatively new Web authoring tool, advances to version 2. Besides the Web site, the press releases also have info, but if you want some eye candy and examples of the stunning graphics you can create with Director, download the latest Flash Player and take a look at the Macromedia Flash gallery - very cool stuff.Macromedia: http://www.macromedia.com/ Press releases: http://www.macromedia.com/macromedia/proom/pr/ Gallery: http://www.macromedia.com/software/flash/
COMMUNITY SUPPORT The Electronic Privacy Information Center (EPIC) wears a genuine white hat in the battle for your privacy and security online. It fights the legal battles which make the headlines - everything from the epic CDA I and II battles to fighting for disclosures of Clipper chip info, questionable FBI maneuverings under the "Digital Telephony" law, and many more. Once per year it asks for your support. Of all the obscure causes you may consider contributing to, EPIC is surely the one with the most enduring impact on the online, and offline, future.http://www.epic.org/epic/support.html CORRECTIONS O, Salyut, Lest We Forget Thee... Clever reader and former employee Richard Wagner pointed out an error in our coverage of the latest space station ("Unity Aloft", last issue). The ISS is not the third space station, it is the tenth. We forgot about all those Salyuts. It is the grandest, though. |
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