Cool Web Sites
by Don Singleton
Tulsa Computer Society
From the December 2001 issue of the I/O Port Newsletter
Including links previously reviewed at
http://www.educationindex.com/index.html,
http://www.komando.com/,
http://docs.yahoo.com/picks/,
http://www.usatoday.com/life/cyber/arch.htm,
and http://marylaine.com/neatnew.html
National Geographic, which knows a thing or two about maps,
launches interactive maps of Afghanistan. Includes a political map
and a satellite view, along with maps of refugee movement,
vegetation and ethnic groups. Updated regularly.
It's time to pull out the good tidings, and the checkbook, and get in the giving mood. There's no need to fight the
shopping mall crowds or hassle with parking. Holiday shopping can be a breeze if you do it online, so follow along
with Kim as she takes you on a tour of the Internet's best gift sites this season.
Long awaited and set to open November 16, Harry Potter makes a leap from books to the big
screen with the feature film, Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone. At this official site you can
get news and events, join the Hogwarts and much more.
You've seen the movie, now get in on your own Harry Potter fun. At this site you can get
information on all the houses (Gryffindor, Slytherin, Hufflepuff and Ravenclaw), take a lesson
in Charms or Divination, learn the rules of Quidditch and even go through your own Hogwarts
sorting ceremony--I was chosen for Gryffindor, Yippee!
While no one can fully prepare for an automobile accident, there are many precautions we can take to minimize
the damage. Here you’ll find facts on driving and crashing with various statistics for support
Don't like your age? Gorm (a.k.a., the "Wired Viking") will fix that
— by just converting it to another numerical base. Need an Olde
Proverb in a hurry? He'll take care of that, too.
The philosophy of the “ninja hypothesis” is that adding ninjas to any movie or film improves its logic and enhances
its meaning. Check out this site to see how your favorite show is changed when the plot becomes centered around
a deadly martial-arts expert.
Find out about how many people around the nation share your
surname — and where they live. You can search dates back as far
as 1850, and the results appear in a color-coded map
Spice up your email a bit. You can create a face through this site to read your message to its recipient. Or pick
from their library of pre-made faces and add some life to your e-mail.
The Hospice Foundation site is designed to help patients and their
families find comfort and support in the final days of a terminal
illness.
Nothing is better than free stuff. There are plenty of kool items out there that cost absolutely nothing. What better
place to find this stuff than the Internet? Check out this site for the latest handouts.
Life's Greatest Miracle spotlights Swedish photographer Lennart
Nilsson's extraordinary microimagery, which tracks human
development from embryo to newborn. A companion site to an
upcoming PBS broadcast that is a sequel to the most popular NOVA
of all time.
Based in the U.K., this outlet site features incredible toys for grown-ups (and kids). Order a remote-control solo
water-skiing machine, a wrist camera or a mini-fridge. This is the perfect place to shop for those who love really
kool, elaborate novelty items.
The place to solve all those movie bets and arguments. It's all
here: who was in what, who was born when, when was it released,
etc. Bring your own popcorn.
Beware of virus myths, hoaxes and urban legends. This is one of the most renowned sites on current virus scares.
Check here to see if what your friends are saying is true. Or just scan through all of the funny hoaxes floating
around right now.
Amaze your friends with your encyclopedic knowledge of notable
quotables for just about any occasion. BrainyQuote lets you scan
more than 30,000 quotes by 8,000 authors from Aristotle to
Zappa. Search by topic and author name, or have a daily e-quote
delivered to your inbox.
There’s nothing kooler than a lady who knows how to fix a car. Created as an alternative to “car guy”
magazines, here’s a ton of information for women auto enthusiasts.
Hunger is eating America alive, says Second Harvest, which boasts
a network of more than 200 food banks and food-rescue programs.
And they need your help.
For more than 25 years gamers have been astounded by the power of the Rubik’s Cube. Play this classic online
and see if you can get all the sides to have the same colored squares. But make sure you’ve got a lot of free time
on your hands.
Find out how your city ranks nationally in crime. This site lists the worst (and best) cities for certain crimes
throughout the country. Tulsa's statistics, taken from a
PDF file
of all cities, was:
| 1999 | 2000 |
| Crime Index total | 26,853 | 28,303 |
| Modified Crime Index total | 27,110 | 28,534 |
| Murder | 33 | 41 |
| Forcible rape | 242 | 235 |
| Robbery | 737 | 887 |
| Aggravated assault | 3,399 | 3,284 |
| Burglary | 5,383 | 6,558 |
| Larceny-theft | 13,677 | 14,070 |
| Motor vehicle theft | 3,382 | 3,228 |
| Arson | 257 | 231 |
Techies share their recommendations. A good starting point for refreshing your computer book
collection.
We should all be familiar with the planet we live on. NASA has compiled all of the most amazing images of Earth
from space and put them on this website. Explore your world from above!
Do you want to see a kool site?
Do you want to see it tonight?
Will you view it in a box?
Will you view it with a fox?
In any case, check out this very kool Dr. Seuss website.
Get an online lesson in anatomy, courtesy of the National Museum
of American History. You'll find a display of the museum's
collection of papier-mâché anatomical models, along with a Body
Parts game to test what you've learned.
The History Channel invites you to send an historical e-card, listen
to a famous speech or check out what happened "this day in
history" in various fields.
Put in any 20th century date and generate an automatic list of news headlines, top songs,
academy award winners, costs of basic staples, hot new toys and books for that date; or construct
your own page from a wide selection of events.
Creating, exploring, reasoning and sharing--activities on this site encourage kids to be creative and to learn by
doing. Participate in activities in math, science, geography, art, reading, games and more, and save projects and
certificates that can be shown to friends and family.
A picture may not only be worth a thousand words, it may also help
you get from here to there. Mapquest, the online mapping resource,
offers to give you a bird's eye view of your location. Just click on
the Aerial Photo tab.
A wealth of scholastic financial aid information is a mouse click
away. FinAid offers everything from financial calculators and
advice to applications and scholarship info.
"This Web site and its associated mailing list are devoted to recently coined words, existing words
that have enjoyed a recent renaissance, and older words that are now being used in new ways,"
such as recent arrivals "chief hacking officer," "chatterati," "boomburb," or "whack" in its new
sense of wireless hacking, etc. Words are archived.
Almost like having a library on your desktop: The Best Free
Reference Web Sites 2001 listings — online resources that are
recognized as outstanding by the nation's librarians. A definite
bookmark.
StartSquad boasts that it is the very best place to start for children,
parents, librarians, and teachers seeking age-appropriate Web sites
selected and organized by professionally trained librarians.
Take an amusing tour through the Museum of Advertising Icons'
collection. Hundreds of pop culture giants are represented.
Nostalgia buffs will appreciate this state by state guide to all the 500+ remaining drive-in theatres
in the country, with a little history and some pictures thrown in.
Oklahoma
Number of Drive-Ins per year
| 1948 | 1954 | 1958 | 1963 | 1967 |
| 29 | 95 | 93 | 93 | 83 |
| 1972 | 1977 | 1982 | 1987 | 1999 |
| 80 | 63 | 47 | 14 | 11 |
These e-cards have a certain animal charm. They're Postcards from
the San Diego Zoo. Everything from birds and cats to ungulates
and mustelids. (No postage stamps required.)
NASA has released the first image
from the Mars Odyssey spacecraft. Here's the spacecraft's home in
cyberspace.
The National Breast Cancer Coalition invites you to join their
fight. Whether you're interested in becoming a leader or a member,
you can turn to this informative, no-nonsense site.
"Genealogy reference library and resource center built and maintained by professionals for
beginning researchers and experienced family historians." Includes a primer on genealogy for
beginners, a records vault, a reading room, and "research rooms" covering specific countries of
origin, military records, immigration records, etc.
The Middle East Media and Research Institute invites you to
"explore the Middle East through its own media." You may be
shocked by what this organization says are translations of Arab
media reports that we typically don't see.
Poor school grades should no longer be an option, given
Web-connected access to the aptly titled Study Guides and
Strategies site. A comprehensive resource for students from the
Learning Center of University of St. Thomas.
"Get out more in 2001," advises Backpacker magazine's Web
site. With info on everything from buying a better sleeping bag to
finding grizzlies and waterfalls in an alpine nirvana.
Newsletters include Windows Daily, Tech Specialist (sysadmin advice, troubleshooting resources,
etc.), Digital Media, and a miscellaneous one called Bits & Bytes
Before you upgrade to Microsoft's new Windows XP operating
system, browse this Special Edition of online info from the
respected search engine Northern Light
Earth's magnetic field was unsettled
recently, after some buffeting by solar winds. An extraordinary light
show was the visible result — a display beautifully chronicled by
the Aurora Gallery.
This career site claims a database of 1 million jobs, along with
more than 2,000 pages of employment advice, resume tips and
salary info.
A nicely organized guide to both book and electronic reference resources for numerous business
topics.
Identify your car's symptoms -- by sight, smell, hearing, or function --
and get a list of possible causes and fixes (including a repair manual if
you want to do it yourself)
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Check out Nutrition Action newsletters for tips from the respected
Center for Science in the Public Interest. And take a nutrition
quiz while you're at it.
From the authors of The Worst Case Scenario Survival Handbook. If you think you might ever need
to fend off a shark, take a punch, treat a bullet wound, survive if your parachute fails to open, etc.,
you definitely want to check this out.
Companion site for home and garden television, it provides easy step
by step directions for thousands of projects for home improvement, car
maintenance, recreation, crafts, and gardening. Includes bulletin
boards, chat rooms, and opportunities to Ask DIY.
Had enough with all that boring, serious stuff on your computer?
Enter a miniature world of dots and lines that seem to come alive.
Impress friends and amaze relatives with your incredible knowledge
of classical music, courtesy of Gramofile. You'll find an easily
accessible index to more than 25,000 classical music reviews from
1983 to the present.
All in one handy place, general and topical dictionaries, thesauruses, web page translators, homophone
finders, rhyming dictionaries, etc. One especially nice feature: click to hear a word pronounced.
No reason why the kids can't make their own school lunches, or even cook for the whole family. Recipes
here for breakfasts, soups, salads, desserts and dinners, even vegetarian meals, all of them indicating the
skill-level required.
Wise Search
The fledging search engine wisenut boasts that it has found a
spam-proof way of evaluating and ranking Web pages — and
thereby can avoid overwhelming the user. You're invited to take it
for a spin.
Hollywood screenwriter, author, and consultant Danny Biederman recognized at an early age that collecting spy-show
memorabilia was safer and easier than actually being a spy. This archive, culled from Biederman's personal collection of 4,000
items, presents an "entertaining view of how Hollywood viewed intelligence work during the Cold War and beyond." The
entertainment industry conjured up some wild props during this era -- from Maxwell Smart's shoe phone to John Steed's
bowler hat from The Avengers -- and many of them are featured here with a photo, history, and cheeky write-up.
Webliography of
resources for identifying and reporting frauds and hoaxes, and a bibliography of recommended readings.
The place to look to locate ANY American geographic feature by name. A search for "Chautauqua" finds
counties, parks, lakes, mountains, airports, campgrounds, etc.
This is mostly a links page to papers and studies, but the author does
include some of her own writings. These are
great research sources for such a new topic. She also has a site for
women
and minorities in science and engineering.
To get the most out of your PC, make sure you visit this excellent site from PC World Online. Keyword and
concept searchable and loaded with information, it makes your computer a much more fun and productive place
to be.
Keep up with the latest and neatest Web tools on this site, which, unsurprisingly, features a new tool each day.
Archives of past tools are sorted by category for easy browsing and locating.
For more information on the Tulsa Computer Society click here
Tulsa Computer Society 12/02/2001
Don Singleton, President