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BREAKING SURF
The first anniversary of the Sept. 11 attacks will be marked by massive media coverage. We'll do our part by focusing on our area of expertise: the Web. By far, the best coverage of the event from the online point of view is the September 11 Digital Archive. This serious, scholarly project, underwritten by major universities and foundations, has amassed over 20,000 digital manifestations, including e-mail, images, Web sites, pager messages, and oral accounts of that fateful day. You can currently access about a tenth of these at the archive Web site. The project is still accepting submissions - you can even phone it to add your account of that day and how it affected you. Another notable collection is the September 11 Web Archive, a collaboration of the Library of Congress, the Internet Archive, and WebArchivist.org. The Internet Archive began running Web spiders just hours after the events and captured a wide variety of corporate, government, media, and memorial Web sites through December 2001.September 11 Digital Archive: http://911digitalarchive.org/
September 11 Web Archive: http://september11.archive.org/
E-Terrorism: Real Threats vs. Digital Myths
The threat of cyberterrorism is typically exaggerated in the popular press. Modern electronic infrastructure is much more robust than people give it credit for, and while the potential for lost data certainly exists, the prospect of lost lives as a result of cyberterrorism is slim. In this three-day special series, CNET looks at the myths and realities of cyberterrorism. The first article assesses legitimate risks and exposes the myth of the "digital Pearl Harbor" scenario. The second article addresses the political fallout from all this fear-mongering, including the erosion of privacy rights and civil liberties based on faulty and exaggerated information. The third article, possibly the most interesting, focuses on the lessons learned about modern infotech infrastructure when communications were disrupted in Manhattan after 9/11. Many companies who thought they had foolproof disaster plans discovered that the dense concentration of communications in the area created numerous problems that shredded their careful planning.http://news.com.com/2009-1001-954728.html
Mapping the Social Network of the Sept. 11 Hijackers
Valdis Krebs is an expert in the study of social networks. He used information culled from press reports to study the relationships between the Sept. 11 hijackers and those who supported them. His article in First Monday not only relates how such research is done but also touches on specific characteristics of covert networks. Among other things, such analysis can reveal a network's leaders without other specific information. In this case, the large number of connections to Mohamed Atta points to his leadership within the conspiracy. This kind of research can also lead to more effective ways of attacking such conspiracy networks by, for example, targeting people with special indispensable skills - the pilots in the case of the Sept. 11 conspirators.http://www.firstmonday.dk/issues/issue7_4/krebs/
Is the name "al Qa'eda" an Arabic translation of the title of Isaac Asimov's "Foundation" or is that a rickety, speculative tower built with flimsy evidence? When a Russian studies Web site suggested that Osama bin Laden might have named his organization after Asimov's classic series last year, it unleashed a firestorm of speculation that the Guardian nicely summarizes for us. Everyone and his dog chimes in with some notion or other connected to Asimov's space- and time-spanning story of empire and counter-empire. If it's a stretch to find parallels between Hari Seldon's vision and Osama bin Laden's schemes, at least the attempts provide entertainment and, often, provocative ideas. Who knows if bin Laden ever read Asimov, although he did have some wild times as a bar brawler and womanizer in the US and the UK. In the end, we suspect, perspectives of good and evil all stem from human minds operating in the context of human history. Authors, readers, terrorists, and peaceful citizens alike get their ideas from these same seas.
http://books.guardian.co.uk/review/story/0,12084,779530,00.html
If you read the news, you know that the Bush administration appears intent upon attacking Iraq. If you want information to help you understand why this would or would not be a good idea, your starting point should be Target Iraq. The site offers a great collection of links to all aspects of the debate. The executive summary is especially good at summarizing the conventional wisdom. We also appreciate the clean design and easy navigation.
http://www.globalsecurity.org/military/ops/iraq.htm
Schools Lag Students in Web Use
For most students, the Internet has become an essential aid to school work. It saves time, provides up-to-date information, and assists in the making of important life decisions. Yet students usually have access to better equipment at home than in school, and administrators who set Internet use policies usually have less experience with the online world than do the teachers who are trying to apply the Internet to education. The most useful and interesting uses of the Web take place largely outside school. This is not speculation, but the findings of an important survey report by the Pew Internet and American Life Project. Students want to use the Internet more aggressively in school assignments and dislike filtering software, which, as we've noted here before, tends to be crude and blocks many good sites. Even in schools richly supplied with computers, the student population is dissatisfied with how the schools use the Web. The pressure for schools to get with it is growing. It looks like a tide worth catching, and there's much rationale for doing so in this timely and useful 37-page report.http://www.pewinternet.org/reports/toc.asp?Report=67
We know you've been longing for the day when your PDA or mobile phone would tell you when your laundry's done. Wired tells us that, thanks to Stitch Networks and IBM, Net-enabled laundry will soon be a reality on 40 US college campuses. The concept is probably more useful to laundry operators who have to manage many machines than it is to individuals, but once wired laundromats are in place, users will be able to visit eSuds.net to find out when machines are free. Users can even receive an e-mail notice when a load is finished. The service has already been tested on washers and dryers at Boston College. The relentless march of efficiency continues, and now you need a computer to do your laundry! Dang!
eSuds.net: http://www.esuds.net/
Wired: http://www.wired.com/news/print/0,1294,54856,00.html
At one time, it seemed uncanny how Google could cut through the slag and find gold, zeroing in on key relevant sites. Its clever ranking algorithm, which depends on links rather than word frequencies, let Google provide results more focused than those of its competitors. Yet while Google has emerged profitable and dominant, it faces severe tests, Fortune tells us in an intriguing analysis of the company and its challenges. Its major competitors have largely reached for the glimmer of portalization, leaving Google and a few smaller search engines to provide simplicity and effectiveness instead of confusing clutter. But creeping commercialization and new competitors are threatening the supremacy of the service that answers 150 million search requests daily. And not everyone loves the company, Salon points out. Daniel Brandt, webmaster and gadfly, thinks Google's dominance is dangerous. He claims its page ranking system is deeply flawed and unfairly affects his own site, NameBase, and probably others. Although some dismiss him as a crank, it's good to have a strong critic of a company as pervasive as Google.
Google: http://www.google.com/
Fortune: http://www.fortune.com/indexw.jhtml?channel=artcol.jhtml&doc_id=209291
Salon: http://www.salon.com/tech/feature/2002/08/29/google_watch/index.html
Will Online Games Replace Political Cartooning?
You've probably seen online games themed on annihilating Osama bin Laden or the Taliban. As far as games go, these suck, but apparently do let some people blow off steam. An article in Slate argues that these games are a new form of social commentary made possible by software developments such as Flash. Among the article's strengths is a list of sites where you can go and play the games. One game, New York Defender, is like the old arcade game Missile Command. Your job is to shoot down airplanes as they attack the twin towers. However, the planes come fast and furious and by design you always lose. At Slashdot, thoughtful posters argue whether these games are simply animated political cartoons; the Herblock of tomorrow might be writing Flash today.Slate: http://slate.msn.com/?id=2070197
Slashdot: http://slashdot.org/articles/02/08/30/1254203.shtml
The government of Greece has picked a doozy from the Bad Idea Pile in an effort to curb illegal electronic gambling machines. Because the government couldn't find a way to legally define these machines separate from other electronic games, it decided to ban them all. Yep, computer games, video games, Gameboys, mobile phones with built-in games - they're all illegal in Greece now. Got an old Atari console in the basement of your villa in Rhodes? Tough, the ban applies in public and private venues. Visiting from Tel Aviv for a long weekend? Better leave your mobile phone at home because the ban applies to foreigners, too. Bring your wallet, though, because fines start at $5,000. We wonder if this will affect marketing for the 2004 Olympics, to be held in Athens. CNET has news and ZDNet UK has an editorial by one of the incredulous authors of the CNET piece.
CNET: http://news.com.com/2100-1040-956357.html
ZDNet UK: http://comment.zdnet.co.uk/story/0,,t479-s2121790,00.html
Alexa Announces Its Users' 500 Fave Web Sites
Alexa, the Web search toolbar, is five years old. To celebrate its survival, the company has published the 500 Web sites most popular with Alexa users. Search engines are among the top sites and Yahoo is ranked first. Apparently, Alexa users don't know that Yahoo, and Alexa for that matter, are both powered by Google's search engine. Google is number five on the list. There are many Asian Pacific rim sites in the list as well as a fair number of porn sites. We're shocked. If you like to know what other people are surfing, the list makes for interesting reading.http://www.alexa.com/data/ds/top_500
The popularity of the movie "The Matrix" is resulting in "The Animatrix", a collection of animated episodes set in the same world due to be released on video and DVD in the new year. The nine shorts to be included in the package cross a range of styles from traditional anime to the latest in computer-generated 3-D. How do we know? A trailer preview in QuickTime 5 format has just been released on the "The Matrix" Web site. Those of you susceptible to seizures induced by strobe editing will want to skip the trailer, but if you liked "The Matrix", chances are you'll also like "The Animatrix".
http://whatisthematrix.warnerbros.com/rl_cmp/anime_trailer_qt2.html
ICANN Warns VeriSign Over Inaccurate Domain Records
VeriSign is in trouble with ICANN, the body that oversees domain-name registrars. ICANN cited specific inaccuracies with the VeriSign Whois database - the Whois database maintains a public record of "who is" the owner of a registered domain. ICANN sent a letter to VeriSign that said, "VeriSign Registrar appears frequently to publish incomplete Whois data and to routinely ignore reports of inaccurate and incomplete contact data in its Whois database." VeriSign is downplaying the problem, saying that only 17 specific records out of some 10.3 million Whois entries are at fault. ICANN has the power to pull VeriSign's contract to sell domain names and according to the story has threatened to do so unless these problems are resolved. ZDNet has a synopsis.ZDNet: http://zdnet.com.com/2100-1106-956433.html
VeriSign: http://www.verisign.com/
ICANN: http://www.icann.org/
Update on the .Org Reassignment Process
The contract to manage the .org top-level domain, surrendered by VeriSign in order to secure the .com monopoly, is under review by ICANN. Eleven organizations applied for the job. ICANN recently published a draft report evaluating the suitability of the applicants, and now applicants get to comment on the report. The comments are worth reading; each applicant picks apart ICANN's draft, frequently with some justification. The process schedule calls for more public comment, and a decision by ICANN by the end of October. The new registrar for .org is scheduled to begin operations on Jan. 1, 2003.http://www.icann.org/announcements/update-04sep02.htm
ONLINE CULTURE
The artist formerly and now again known as Prince has asked that question in an editorial available on his Web site. Prince is known 2 b an independent type, and has had thunderous legal battles with his music labels about ownership of his work and even his name. His article is basically an outspoken call 4 artists 2 give up the label system and take the music directly 2 consumers - something Prince has been doing since the 1990s through his Web sites. The editorial is attracting attention not only because Prince is a relatively famous musician coming out against the record labels, but also because his early stand against the labels issue gives him considerable credibility in the piracy debate. Stylistically, yes, the essay is a pain in the s 2 read.Prince: http://www.npgmusicclub.com/npgmc/freedom/commentaries/20020807nationofthieves.html
Prince Bio: http://www.vh1.com/artists/az/prince/bio.jhtml
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Roger Zelazny's the Dawn of Amber
The Secret Life of Puppets
Neverwinter Nights
Blade II (DVD)SURFING SITES
Visit a Roman Villa in Germany
An authentic Roman villa, in use in southwestern Germany for some 200 years beginning with the first century CE, is here for the viewing. You can practice your German at the same time, as the site comes in English and German. In common parlance, this was an estate, although what sort remains unknown. Deserted after the retreat of the Roman Empire, it was overgrown, forgotten, then rediscovered some 1,700 years later, in 1973. Now partially rebuilt, it serves as an open-air museum. The Web site's introduction gives a glimpse of events some 2,000 years ago and notes that the Romans systematized both transportation and agriculture. Loaded with illustrations that invite exploration, the Web pages include a virtual tour of the museum. The abundance of info is well presented. Did you know the Romans had in-floor heating systems back in the second century? How long did it take the rest of the world to catch on to this kind of technology? Further into the tour, you find that they had window glass. This site makes you want to buy a ticket to Germany, but if (like us) you find that outside your budget just now, a long visit here will suffice.http://www.villa-rustica.de/indexe.html
This site uses a simple name for a deceptively simple concept. Visit postcardX and you're presented with the postal address of a random participant. Your mission is to send something to that person anonymously, presumably something clever or artistic. Anthrax is right out. The site has already amassed over 1,400 users, who frequently provide notes about themselves and what they like in addition to their snail-mail addresses. There's a lively discussion forum and a PayPal link for donations in small print at the bottom of the home page. If you don't mind the security concerns involved, and your postal address is probably already accessible to many people anyway, then you may just get some intriguing anti-junkmail. Check it out.
http://postcardx.net/
Guinness World Records is a dream site, a splendid companion to the world's most famous book of facts. Even if you detest trivia, we bet you'll find the design superb. You just want to keep reading and exploring. Prominent buttons for major categories such as Human Body, Amazing Feats, and Sports & Games make it a breeze to browse. Search results appear quickly; hits lead to concise mini-articles accompanied by a photo and related records that take you to other fascinating areas. FAQs tell you how to apply for record-holding status. Before you break your neck or something else in your own quest for fame, submit the Make a Record Attempt form so that you can receive guidelines customized for your attempt. While you prepare to make history, the Video Vault will keep you bug-eyed with titles such as Human Speed Bump, Head Board Breaking, and Heaviest Car Balanced On Head. How could you resist all this? Hats off to Stewart Newport, Keeper of the Records, who declares, "A fact may only become a Guinness World Record when it is tested, verified and elevated above all suspicion." We are true believers. Guinness World Records is the Web at its best. Now, if only it worked properly in Mozilla....
http://www.guinnessworldrecords.com/
Need a hug? If so, you better hightail it to Wollongong, Australia soon, where the World Peace Society plans to commemorate the anniversary of Sept. 11 with an attempt to set a Guinness record for the world's biggest hug. If you can't make it down under, you can at least pay a visit to the society's site, where one can get into a hugging mood by reading quotes from famous peacemakers like Gandhi or by browsing utopian poetry from other visitors. If you simply must embrace someone, you can pledge a hug, as well, agreeing to squeeze a set number of people on the date of the record-breaking attempt. The cuddlefest is part of the World Peace Society's efforts to establish Sept. 11 as World Peace Day, a day that "will open the hearts of our sisters and brothers of all races, religions and creeds under one earth." (Did we mention you should probably check your cynicism at the door?) While world peace obviously isn't going to be achieved by a bunch of Aussie's hugging each other, it's a thoughtful gesture, and one certainly worth embracing.
http://worldpeace.org.au/
What would you like to know about the potato, other than the fact that there's no "e" on the end of the word? PotatoHelp.com has it all: recipes, featured chefs, a Potato 101. Unfortunately, we found nothing about Dan Quayle, but there's a heck of a lot here for quick and easy harvesting. Did you know that during the Alaska gold rush, miners traded gold for tubers? We didn't either. Did you know that potato plants send out runners that strangle and feed on small mammals? Of course not - we just made that up. Hungry yet? In 30 minutes, you can prepare elegant, potato-encrusted salmon fillets. Believe it or not, one standard potato provides nearly half your daily required vitamin C, and some other stuff. The site doesn't mention whether you gotta eat the skins or not, and we know that's a contentious issue for some folks. If you have any questions, like about the skin thing, contact the United States Potato Board, which runs the site. As Lewis Grizzard once noted: Don't bend over in the garden, grandma - you know them taters got eyes....
PotatoHelp.com: http://potatohelp.com/
Grizzard: http://www.lewisgrizzard.com/
A journey through this Web site is sure to be one wild and wacky ride. Homestar Runner is home to some very odd characters, from the perpetually stupid Homestar Runner to the diabolically hilarious Strong Bad. Created by the Brothers Chaps, Mike and Matt Chapman, this site is brilliantly designed to showcase its well developed characters and extremely imaginative content. Sample the cartoons, games, and/or downloads for a taste of the bizarre antics and insane Homestar Runner world. The Flash goodies load quickly and are a welcome change from the garbage Flash sites that clutter the Internet. If you're having a bad day, surf on over, turn up the volume, and enjoy the misadventures of the Homestar Runner crew. We guarantee you'll have a smile on your face by the time you're done.
http://www.homestarrunner.com/
Warning, this site may cause headaches and irritability. Enter the Museum of Menstruation, a Web site offering information on the "history of women's health and of the culture of menstruation". Founder and former director, Harry Finley, both writes and maintains this curious site. Just what qualifies a middle-aged bachelor to run a museum of menstruation? He answers, "What qualifies me is having had the nerve to create it, buttressed by my interest in the cultural history of menstruation." This taboo topic is exposed to the world, and nothing is held back. The directory of topics includes the art of menstruation, cup usage, science, and a mob of others. This site's so thick with women's health information, you may find yourself getting lost. It's not for those who blush when they hear phrases like "Aunt Flo is visiting." The sheer honesty and open nature of the Museum of Menstruation is what makes it worth a visit.
http://www.mum.org/
No, the next big thing in fashion isn't coming from the catwalks of Paris or Milan, it's coming from your local hardware store, in the form of duct tape. Ridiculous you say? Obviously you've never witnessed the aesthetic splendor of a duct-tape evening gown, or marveled at the shiny, sticky exquisiteness of a duct-tape kilt. Do yourself a favor and go to this site, which showcases real people who have constructed their own clothing (and various other things) entirely out of duct tape. According to the Web site, using heavy-duty adhesive tape as a fashion statement has been the rage for some time (we guess we missed that whole trend) and it offers up page after page of pragmatic fashion bugs bedecked in their finest tape outfits as proof. What young lady wouldn't be proud when her prom date shows up in a shiny tux made entirely from duct tape? You can also peruse such striking duct-tape accessories as backpacks, purses, and bible covers. We heard that duct tape had a million uses, but this is ridiculous.
http://www.octanecreative.com/ducttape/fashion.html
Your favorite movie star may be making millions off TV ads seen by millions, but you may not know about it unless you watch Asian TV. Japander.com defines a Japander as "a western star who uses his or her fame to make large sums of money in a short time by advertising products in Japan that they would probably never use" and the verb form as "to make an ass of oneself in Japanese media". This site has plenty of QuickTime clips that might tarnish popular images, including Tom Berenger puffing on a Lark, Brad Pitt pushing jeans till he's blue in the face, and Jennifer Connelly holding a tube of hair conditioner and swinging her luscious tresses. For a quick overview of who's here, pull down the two Pandergander lists on the home page. It's a sad day when the American economy can't support celebrities on its own. Shame on you, gaijin.
http://www.japander.com/
The Extreme Ironing World Championships will be held Sept. 21 in Germany, so if you're not up to steam on this sporting craze, this Web site is where you need to go. Created by Phil "Steam" Shaw in the UK in 1997, Extreme Ironing now has active groups in Germany, New Zealand, South Africa, and the US. It is an outdoor activity that combines the danger of extreme sports with the satisfaction of a well pressed shirt. It involves taking an iron and board to remote locations and ironing some laundry. In a championship setting, contestants gain points for style, execution of ironing, and degree of difficulty. The self-dubbed "ironists" use either battery-powered irons or extremely long extension cords. We see an opening for solar cells and sponsorship. Smoothing out the rest of the site are the Iron On e-zine, ironing action shots, and details of the more meditative Eso Ironing. Are you tough enough to enter the Iron Age?
http://www.extremeironing.com/~eib/ei/homepage/main.php
The Mispredictions of Really Bad Prophets
How many times have you heard that the end of the world is nigh? More times than you care to remember? If so, you'll probably appreciate this collection of doomsday prophecies that failed miserably in predictive power. In addition to failed doomsday predictions, this site discusses the many different ways your local doomsayer - or you - can twist ancient texts and calendars to calculate that Armageddon will happen tomorrow around 3 p.m. Don't miss the humorous look at the rapidly increasing selection of prophecies brought to reluctant daylight on the Web. A particularly charming one is Pink Friday, which precedes X-Day in the mindset of the Church of the Subgenius, in case you were wondering. Anything goes when it comes to world-devastating predictions, so you can sop up plenty of inspiration for creating your own prophecy here. The next time somebody collars you with gloomy ideas about asteroid collisions, fight back with some lunacy of your very own.http://www.geocities.com/Athens/Oracle/9941/index.html
The Leonard Nimoy Should Eat More Salsa Foundation
Leonard Nimoy is excellent and so is salsa, so if he would eat more salsa then he would become a superbly excellent being. The efforts employed in this cause since 1996 are admirable. The site's founders have gathered more than 150 salsa recipes (including the intriguing watermelon fire and ice salsa), provided various enhanced images of Nimoy, as Spock, avoiding jars of salsa, and hosted annual salsa feasts where members compare plans to make Nimoy eat salsa and sample each others' favorite recipes. They have even concocted a tongue-in-cheek anti-doping policy - they want Nimoy to enjoy un-spiked salsa despite attempts by rogue members of the foundation to tilt the odds in their favor. International members appreciate that the text is available in seven languages.http://www.lnsemsf.com/
Get Sammy Sperm to Planet Prostate
The Prostate Cancer Charity, a UK non-profit organization, has introduced an online interactive game designed to familiarize the general public with the prostate gland and its function. Players help the star character, Sammy Sperm, navigate his way from the Arousal Nebula through Twin Planet Testes to the Planet Prostate. This health education game, both informative and whimsical, may introduce you to parts of the male anatomy that you knew little about and talked even less about. This game also adds the element of familiarity through proverbial male distractions such as beer, television, and video games. Should you wish to guide the squiggly hero through this excellent educational resource, you'll need Shockwave Player.http://www.planetprostate.com/
Maridadi, a MetaSearchPortalEnginey thing
Maridadi just doesn't cut it in the name department but this "collection of portals organized by search theme" has a cool interface and is very responsive. First, choose a search theme from among categories such as General Web Search, Places, and Quotations & Literature. Next, use the metasearch engine at the resulting page and see what shakes out. The site doesn't query the various resources for you - it just fills in the boxes for each. Still, this speeds up the process considerably. You can access most of the good ones without breaking a sweat. Changing search parameters is easy, and you can stash favorite links if you'd like. Maridadi incorporates extensive help features and a user forum, so should you feel the need for a hand to hold, there's one close by. Planned additional features include an online PDA function. Maridadi is still pretty new, so there's a lot of dust and electrical cords and stuff. When we dropped in for several runs, some links were nonfunctional in each test. Still, we think it's got a lot of potential. Borrow a hard hat and take a look.http://www.maridadi.com/
Believe it or not, some people out there choose to use Photoshop for purposes other than pasting pictures of Sarah Michelle Gellar's head onto photographs of big-breasted women. Look at Sriram Sharma's page of Photoshop creations, for instance, which features amusing homemade images that you can use "when you're too tired to think of snappy answers and witty captions to stupid forum threads" and an entertaining (if somewhat confounding) page featuring photos of cats (yes, cats) accompanied by witty captions. Typical example: A pic featuring the slogan "Every time you masturbate, God kills a kitten". Sure, it's not Buffy in a bikini, but it's good for a chuckle.
http://haxor.slashgod.net/gallery/albums.php
The Best Page in the Universe (by Someone Named Maddox)
If you like sarcasm, cynicism, and dark humor, you'll probably enjoy a roam through the so-called Best Page in the Universe. Created by Maddox, the "anti-everything" king, page after page presents his personal views on anything from movies to fast-food chains. His opinions are saturated with adult language and some extreme viewpoints. Maddox enjoys those readers who take him too seriously and regularly features the hate mail he gets. The twisted content more than makes up for what the design lacks in aesthetics. A visit here will leave you feeling... something. Whether it's sinister pleasure or maddening distaste all depends on how you interpret it.http://www.xmission.com/~maddox/
FLOTSAM & JETSAM
We all have some things in common, and we'd bet that one of those is an interest in huge organs. You'll want to check out the size of this one. The sounds it makes are astounding, and the donations link will let you do your part to preserve the world's largest pipe organ. What did you think we were talking about?http://www.acchos.org/
A weather forecast is a paragon of extraneous information. You don't need much to decide to lug your umbrella to work in the morning. Get to the point, we say, and this does, featuring a straightforward site that tells everything you need to know about your local US atmosphere with just a ZIP code and a click.
http://www.zivon.com/cgi-bin/climatecast/hamweather.cgi
SOFTWARE
Microsoft Releases Windows Media Player 9 Beta
The newest version of Microsoft's Windows Media Player was released this week as a beta with a launch party in Hollywood, emphasizing the company's desire to dominate the technology needs of the content-provider market. The new player has a raft of new features. It supports more video formats (such as MPEG-4), provides better audio including surround sound, delivers improved performance, and supports features like cross-fading and output leveling. Most ironically, this new version also offers users more privacy controls that can limit information sent back to streaming Web sites. Like its previous incarnations, Windows Media Player 9 plays MP3s but won't rip them. It's Windows only for now.http://microsoft.com/windows/windowsmedia/9series/default.asp