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NETSURFER DIGEST
More Signal, Less Noise |
Volume 05, Issue 09 Tuesday, March 23, 1999 |
NETSURFER LINKS
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BREAKING SURF The Golden Age of Ballooning: Around the World in 19 Days As the press release says, the round-the-world balloon team of Brian Jones and Bertrand Piccard "has eaten all previous records of duration and distance". Their balloon, the Breitling Orbiter 3, landed safely in Egypt this week after circumnavigating the Earth. The concise log book nicely summarizes the flight for those who want the condensed version. The 3000+ entries on the message board include numerous congratulations near the end. Click on the "The Project" button for technical information about the balloon and for how the project got off the ground.http://www.breitling-orbiter.ch/
Wired's Rich Media Advertising Effectiveness Study Wired set out to answer a simple question: "Do rich media ad banners have the potential to deliver better performance than animated GIF ad banners?" The answer seems to be an emphatic yes. Rich media banners, which usually use Java or Shockwave technology, provide a whopping 103% increase in brand recall and a 17% gain in brand awareness. Ad clickthrough rates leap from 0.98% for traditional GIF banners to rich media's 4.32%. Average online ad clickthrough rates routinely check in under 1%. The testing used ads placed on the Wired Webmonkey site for the Pentium Xeon processor, Novell NetWare 5, and the Starr Report book at Barnesandnoble.com. The report will interest anybody advertising on the Net.http://www.wired.com/home/advertising/rm/ Microsoft Releases Internet Explorer 5.0 This evolutionary Windows release doesn't radically depart from the current browser. Hooks, one key addition, let developers build third-party extensions to the browser interface to push their own content with greater ease. You'll also find a number of Web-searching improvements, a new radio toolbar to control streaming audio, closer integration with Hotmail (oh, joy!), auto-completion of forms - kinda dangerous in password fields - and a general speed and stability tuneup. A typical install will eat up 17 MB, a minimal one 7.5 MB. The Web Standards Project (WSP) takes a critical look at the new release, but we think IE 5.0 has the best standards support of any browser - marred though it may be.IE 5.0: http://www.microsoft.com/windows/ie/default.htm WSP: http://www.webstandards.org/ie5.txt Real Networks Updates Real Player G2 and RealGuide Media Website RealPlayer G2 Update 1 includes a choice of RealPlayer download size, scalable multicast support, and improved performance for RealChannels and SMIL presentations. The company also updated its RealGuide Web site, integrating both the site and the latest RealPlayer G2 with the new Internet Explorer 5.0 browser through its custom toolbar facility. When you download the player, you can also install the RealGuide Explorer Bar, which zips you to RealGuide with a single click. All this makes for RealComplicated press releases, trust us. The RealGuide site makes a fine bookmark, with loads of interesting streaming content, and RealPlayer has become the indispensable online video application.RealPlayer: http://www.real.com/ RealGuide: http://realguide.real.com/ KDS Fixes Website, Removes Private Registration Info from View Last week, we discovered that the KDS Web site had a page which exposed users' private registration information to the wooly, wild Web. After notifying the users affected and exchanging reasonably pleasant e-mail with KDS's MIS department, we're pleased to report that the site has been fixed. KDS claims that the damage was minimal - and we said so in our original article. If you're interested in how a concerned company responds when confronted with privacy violation outing in the media (who, us?), and in how said media defends the virginity of its editorial independence, check out the text of our exchange, linked below. Is it just us or is there rarified comedy here?http://www.netsurf.com/nsd/misc/kds.html SURFING SITES Former Los Angeles Police Department drug investigator Mike Ruppert's site is a conspiracy theorist's delight, and likely a double-edged sword for members of the media. Developments in controversies surrounding the CIA's alleged cocaine dealing and nerve gas poisoning of American deserters in Southeast Asia have recently been frozen out of most media outlets. Last year, CNN completely discredited its own reporters and retracted its nerve gas report, for one. And a report to Congress about alleged CIA corruption - delivered just after the impeachment hearing process began - has been obscured by the Monica and Bill soap opera. If Mike Ruppert were just a lunatic, this site would be amusing - but he's not. It may be debated, however, whether he's devoted his career to the pursuit of an essential, but painful truth - or simply built his own self-perpetuating agency catering to conspiracy freaks. Even if the latter were true, the site does a phenomenal job running down the latest news/dirt, and posting links to government documents candidly admitting CIA involvement in the international drug trade.http://www.copvcia.com/
Protecting Human Rights in the Land of the Free The land of the free and the home of the brave now incarcerates more of its citizens than any other country in the world, except gulag-crazy Russia. The Liberty Project, a non-profit, non-affiliated organization, addresses the increasing abuses of personal rights resulting from greater law enforcement powers. For example, in New York, a suspected drunk driver's car can be appropriated by police and held, even before arraignment or conviction. The Liberty Project site points out that current civil asset forfeiture law allows authorities full discretion to confiscate property upon mere suspicion. Owners of such property are not eligible for appointed legal counsel. Read about proposals to reform asset confiscation laws.http://www.libertyproject.org/ New Media, Gender, and Identity Based on studies of gender, media, and identity found within the communication studies courses at Leeds University, this site deals with issues such as how mass media shapes our lives and how popular culture considers gender and the feminine/masculine dichotomy. The intelligent, up-to-date essays discuss topics from the supposed homosexuality of Tinky Winky to the "nonchalant presence of characters from sexual and gender minorities" in Japanese anime films.http://www.theory.org.uk/ Next time you go to a Disney theme park, look very closely. You may, if you're lucky, find a hidden Mickey. When the Disney team first started designing parks, they incorporated subtle images of Mickey Mouse in the decor and structure. These became a tradition, and this Web site chronicles many hidden Mickeys with photos. Be careful, or you'll be seeing hidden Mickeys everywhere - like on your Yosemite G3 Mac. (Yes, there is one, coincidental though it may be.) http://www.hiddenmickeys.org/ How common is your name in the US? You might be interested in finding out, but what really tickled us were the extensive links to American stats - everything from Abbreviations to Zip Codes. Anyway, back to the names.... Besides last names, there are 4,275 female first names and 1,219 male first names which you can research based on frequency or rank. Go crazy. http://www.census.gov/genealogy/www/namesearch.html Add virtual-reality panoramas, streaming audio and video, and interactivity, and what do you get? Prestige Studios of the World, a collection of you-are-there tours of recording studios frequented - or once frequented - by the likes of James Taylor and Michael Jackson. This site is one of a variety of showcase sites built with Electrifier Pro, a heavy-duty multimedia authoring tool that for the moment is used primarily in the realms of entertainment, sports, and art. To view showcase sites, you'll need Apple's QuickTime 3.0.2. Our reviewer liked the cool visual effects but couldn't get the audio to play on his Windows 98 system in spite of an ISDN connection. On the other hand, it works fine with the Mac - go figure, eh? As with other streaming-multimedia apps, the main story here is potential but check out the Dinotopia storybook. http://www.electrifier.com/Products/ElectrifierStudio/Showcase/hotsites.html Bookmark this site if you want to build a Web page. It's got everything you need to know. Michele Jinkerson outlines everything in a non-patronizing manner, with methods to make your site as good as it can be. Learn about Java and color codes or help yourself to free graphics and buttons. Michele covers anything you need to learn about simply but comprehensively. http://pw1.netcom.com/~mdjhere/stuff.html The Home Page Instruction Manual A character in "The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy" decided the world had gone completely mad the day he found a box of toothpicks with detailed instructions for use. Isn't it sad how life imitates art, and when we have to post a sentence on the side of toasted breakfast food warning, "this product gets hot when toasted." The evolution of such nonsense obviously must produce a set of user instructions for a home page, and yes, these too exist - hilariously. For the ultimate in dumb consumerism, this is classic.http://members.home.net/alboss/humor/homepage.htm Unavoidable Profanity and a Few Giggles It's not hard to live up to a title like Jerad's Shits and Giggles and this site doesn't disappoint. A collection of mostly dirty jokes, the site includes a number of hilarious sound bites and video snippets from various comedic sources, several spoof photographs, some humorous software, and a plethora of bizarre odds and ends. Consider the recording of Conan O'Brien reading a fake newspaper ad: "You don't need to put this thermometer in your butt, but you'll want to." Sure, the humor is base, but sometimes it's nice to know there's a place to go when you're just not getting your chuckles from reading about Microsoft's anti-trust lawsuit. The site does include a guestbook, although an About the Author section for the excessively curious would be a welcome addition.http://members.tripod.com/madcow83/ Free e-mail was hot till it became commonplace. The new kids on the Web block are free personalized calendars, but we're jaded over those now, too. Enter the Daily Drill with quick registration, reliable ease of use, and the ability to share appointments, selected events, and other scheduling information with colleagues. It's even pretty. We like the ability to select religious holidays, daylight savings time, and other recurrent categories for inclusion on a personal calendar. Other services such as investment tips, weather reports, and book reviews may become available in the future. The Daily Drill makes its money by selling your demographic data to commerce sites, although you can register with minimal data (that is, without entering your address or telephone number). Have a problem with that? Stick to paper. Otherwise, start drilling. http://www.dailydrill.com/ ExploreMag.com, dedicated to extreme recreation, explores the many ways you can seriously hurt yourself at high speed. The site provides excellent stories and news coverage of the adventure sports industry, from standards like surfing, snowboarding, and mountain biking to the more esoteric sand-boarding and canyoning. You'll find news, weather, and sports coverage, and links to adventure packages and specialized gear. Some heavy-hitting companies from the outdoor recreation field sponsor the attractive pages. For people who presumably spend all their time rolling around in the mud or hurtling off mountains, the staff has certainly put some time into this. If you're into non-motorized, high-speed, life-threatening activities, or just like to read about them, put this in your bookmarks. http://www.exploremag.com/ If you've never seen dragon boat races, just imagine sculling but with long, skinny canoes, paddles instead of oars, and a Chinese theme. Alvin Wang's international dragon boat racing page isn't very deep, but it is definitely wide. It includes race results, photos, and links to teams and organizations around the world, as well as a list of suppliers who can outfit you with knotmeters, paddles, or whatever you need. It also includes schedules, so you can find a nearby race to catch. http://www.alvin.org/dragon/ ONLINE TRAVEL Be First to See the Sun in 2000, but Don't Forget Your Chute At dawn on Jan. 1, 2000, just this side of the international date line, a group of skydivers plans to plummet 12,000 feet into the Pacific Ocean. In theory, the jumpers will be the first humans to see the sun rise on the new millennium. And you could be with them. The Millennium Jump, as the group calls itself, is auctioning one tandem spot in a harness, with all proceeds going towards the Child Cancer Foundation. All the skydivers are experienced, ex-military jumpers, which is good because there's only ocean to land on/in and killing the winning bidder would be a terrible publicity blow. The bidding stands at press time at $8,000. If you like the concept but don't want to ring in the millennium fished out of the ocean like a tuna, consider buying a non-jumping seat in the skydivers' plane for only $3,700, including food and drink. Man, wouldn't it suck if it turned out cloudy?http://www.millenniumjump.co.nz/ Tokyo Q crafts a sophisticated sketch of its namesake, mostly for American visitors. A one-page weekly summary of what's happening in Japan keeps you current with general events while the rest of the site lets you mosey around town, never hitting that chamber of commerce boosterism flat note. Photos take you to out of the way sections of the city's many districts. Travel tips save big money. The events listings are unusually well-written, showing real knowledge of the music and art streaming through the largest city in the world. http://www.tokyoq.com/ The Irish are a much-traveled race, and outposts of Irish settlers can be found in almost every corner of the world. No matter how deeply Irish emigrants integrate into an adopted community, they all have one thing in common. When they say "home", they mean Ireland. The Emigrant News site should delight all those homesick Irish, bringing news fresh every day to people thirsty for tales of the Old Country. Well-presented and full of information, this site will bring a taste of the Emerald Isle to many far-flung Irish computer screens. http://www.emigrant.ie/daily/ FLOTSAM & JETSAM Did you like the dancing hamsters page in NSD 5.07? No? Too cutesy? Try this on for size. Not for the kids this one, folks.http://www.newgrounds.com/assassin/hamster/
Food and Product Recall Alerts What good is food and product safety oversight if nobody sees the warnings? Safety Alerts lists all currently recalled products, such as baby food with a high lead content. Register to get email alerts as they're issued.http://www.safetyalerts.com/ This site, by guide dog handlers, guides clueless humans. If you ever wonder whether it's OK to pat a guide dog or offer one food, click here. Topics range from guide dog training to a "Do and Don't List" to blindness. You'll also find info for prospective students and many interesting links. http://www.paisleyplace.com/gdf-grads/ Perhaps you've seen them infest your own neighborhood? They have a domed carapace and four wheels. If they inspire affection in you, check this site, which seems to be drooling over something called a 1.8T. A must for Bug-aholics. http://www.opolus.com/ Bumper Dumper Accommodates Crampy Campers Drinking cowboy coffee with the smell of campfire smoke in your flannel shirt is one thing. Squatting in the bushes is quite another. May we delicately direct your attention to the Bumper Dumper? Go ahead, eat the beans.http://www.bumperdumper.com/bumper2.htm This guy just wants to give away free CDs. He thinks it's cool, and so do we. Entering the contest is simple and you won't get on any spam lists. At least we didn't, although we have yet to win. Others have, however. http://www.nodomain.com/cd/ You can soon get a free PC. Here's the catch: you'll have to put up with ads in your face every time you sit in front of it and subject your usage habits to collection and marketing analysis. The PC remains Free-PC's property, but you can do almost anything with it, including adding upgrades. http://www.free-pc.com/ MySimon comparison shops for you. Even if you don't want to buy online, it will clue you into what an item might cost. For instance, there's a $25 span in the prices listed for the camera our reviewer bought last year, all $100 less than what she paid for it, unfortunately. http://www.mysimon.com/ Escrow Service for Online Auctions If you make major online auction purchases and you fear a rip-off, check out I-Escrow. It will hold a payment in trust until you've examined the goods: the buyer can check things out and the seller's money is safely held for him. Everybody's happy, especially I-Escrow, which takes a 5% nibble.http://www.iescrow.com/ Guitar picks, lots of them, alphabetized. From Lenny Kravitz and Toby Keith to Poison and Elvis Presley to Bob Dylan and Dick Dale. If you like looking at guitar picks.... http://members.tripod.com/~bdaleiden/index.html SOFTWARE NanoHome uses Java to set up a fairly sophisticated Web space in which you can design your own 3-D dwelling - complete with pictures of your favorite Web sites and media content hanging on the walls. An amusing 2-D tour with Larry, a jolly guy in a red shirt, will show you the basics. To get your own 3-D apartment, you'll need to download a Java application and endure some alarming security warnings about all the access this application needs in order to run. Once past that, prepare to wait while the 3-D data downloads. Finally, you'll wind up standing outside your model home and you can begin to decorate and import your own content. This is beta software, scheduled to go live soon. It's an interesting tech toy notable for the ease with which you can create your space and worth checking out, especially for those with reasonably fast connections.http://www.nanohome.com/nanocosm/ This new release includes the latest working code of the next generation freeware Web browser based on Netscape open source. This is not for amateurs - many features are still missing or not enabled. However, support for HTML 4.0, CSS, XML and DOM - important open standards - is impressively complete, in many cases completely working or over 90% done. The release notes have detailed installation and functionality information. Incidentally, Mozilla is having a one-year anniversary party on April 1. Check out the hilarious party FAQ. M3 Code: http://www.mozilla.org/projects/seamonkey/release-notes/ Party FAQ: http://www.mozilla.org/party/1999/ Software Auction Online (SAO) combines perhaps the hottest recent Internet craze, online auctions, with the convenience of a virtual software store through a partnership with Beyond.com. If you can't find a used copy of what you need, you can get it new in just one more click. Most items are auctioned in lots. In other words, if you're looking for Photoshop, it might be bundled with Pagemaker or Kai's Power Tools. You can bid on the lot which serves your purposes most effectively, and purchase multiple utilities at once. Granted, SAO isn't challenging eBay yet, but does provide a handy one-stop shop for your software needs. http://www.gosao.com/ |
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