Cool Web Sites
by Don Singleton
Tulsa Computer Society
From the January, 2005 issue of the I/O Port Newsletter
Including links previously reviewed at
http://www.educationindex.com/index.html,
http://www.komando.com/,
http://www.usatoday.com/life/cyber/arch.htm,
and http://marylaine.com/neatnew.html
Some days an online resource turns up that just makes you glad you’re alive in the 21st century. This Annenberg/CPB site offers an incredible variety of videos covering all sorts of academic subjects for all levels from preschool to post-college; the streams are offered for teachers looking to enhance the classroom experience, but there’s no reason you can’t sign up for a free account and enjoy them as well.
There’s not only art but a whole lot of technique to taking photos at night. This good-looking, useful site can help photographers produce their best work. That’s an admirable goal and a fine resource, of course, but that’s not why we mention it today – we just want to be sure that Halloween celebrants looking for beautiful, evocative, and occasionally very spooky images to fuel their holiday fuel don’t start the weekend unsatisfied. Be safe and have fun out there
Over the centuries, teachers have worked to introduce their charges to the works of the Bard. Some efforts went so far as to clean up Shakespeare's racier passages, but the teachers who have contributed lesson ideas and plans to this site have something a little less censoriffic in mind. Parents and teachers can find out here how to introduce the kids to some of the greatest stories in the language, and lovers of Shakespeare will enjoy these refreshing approaches to the work as well.
Blues Brothers fans, do you remember the line about the bar having two kinds of music, country and western? Well, this site’s twice as diverse: Here you’ve got roots and blues and R&B and soul, not to mention plenty of links, interviews, and general encouragement to enjoy the best of America’s musical contribution to the world. The site is somewhat New England-centric, but that’s fine; blues, like most of life’s good things, is most powerful when experienced in an actual place and time.
We’re tremendous fans of Slashdot’s blend of tech news and commentary, but we think the community’s outdone itself on the recent news that scientists have found remains of human-like creatures that more or less fit the description of Tolkien’s hobbits. You’ve read the news story on many sites (including this one), so drop by for the discussions and discursions on Middle-Earth, gelfings, Dr. Shrinker, cryptozoology, Oompa-Loompas, underpants gnomes, Smurfs, Yoda, Snow White and virtually any other cultural touchstone this news item was destined to invoke.
'So ... what's the point? What's it all about, Alfie? Any ideas? David Seaman's asking – he's writing a book on the matter, in fact – and if you have any thoughts, please send them his way. He'll compile the best (meaning ... what? most plausible? we're curious) and post them in a week or so, so if you're really lost in the universe you might want to bookmark this one and wait a week. As for us, we're uncomfortably reminded of graffiti we once saw scribbled in a college dorm: "It loses meaning after you find out what it means." Uh-oh.
Need to spiff up a document in Word, do something different with an Excel spreadsheet, or just express a bit of creativity on your desktop? The folks at Microsoft are offering over 3,000 templates for calendars, planners, resumes, greeting cards, business plans and more here. The templates are easy to download and customize. Whatever the occasion, you'll have a template that you can use or modify to fit your need perfectly.
The greatest city in the world celebrates the centenary of its greatest public work today. The importance of subways to the development and topography of New York can’t be overstated – and, at this spooky, addictive site, you can think about how things might have been if, say, the Second Avenue line had been finished and not just begun. Joseph Brennan’s photos will wow urban historians and urban explorers alike.
You’ve heard Miss America contestants pledge to save the rainforest. You’ve even been to the café. But do you really understand why the rainforest is important? Now you can explore the Amazon online and learn what’s so significant about the region sometimes referred to as the planet's lungs. (For example, did you know that the Amazon is home to more than one-third of all the species in the world and is responsible for one-fifth of the Earth’s fresh water?). Join Nickelodeon’s young explorers of the Amazon to find out what the fuss is about.
No Harry Potter book this year, no Harry Potter movie this year – we are bereft. That said, all the news on the movie currently underway (that would be Goblet of Fire) and what the cast, crew and author are up to lately can be found on this fine site. Over 17,000 Muggle members get their news from here, and the network of contributors is clearly eager to keep things are fresh as possible.
Distributed Proofreaders completed the 5,000th title they’ve scanned, proofread, rechecked, and uploaded to the Project Gutenberg library of public-domain texts. If you’d like to join the effort – and really, even proofing just one page a day would be a fine contribution, as long as you’re careful and accurate – check in here for all the info
It's estimated that the average schoolteacher -- not a member of the best-paid class of workers in American society -- spends hundreds of dollars of her or his own money each year to get basic supplies into the classroom. This site aims to connect teachers with folks willing to donate funds for the essentials that local budgets just can't cover. (It pains us to note, among the items lacking, such basics as Kleenex.) School teachers request materials and supplies while potential donors search for a teacher in need of their gifts of money, or new and used goods.
What do you mean, you don’t blog yet? Are you sure? Maybe you just started one and forgot? No matter; this site can get you hooked up and keeping your own Web journal in no time at all. Blodgdrive offers a lot of nifty extras – built-in tag boards and commenting, WYSIWYG editing a la your word processor, the ability to easily update via e-mail – and it’s free. (You have to keep a banner on your page, but that seems fair enough.) Worth checking out.
Readers who love the Engrish site, where examples of bizarre Japanese usage of the language are posted for general amusement, can consider this one sweet payback. This site translates the often-truly-bad kanji so common in tattoos and customizations these days – and if you think a beverage with “sweat” in the name is pretty funny, having nonsense faux-ideographs permanently inscribed on one’s body (or, worse, characters that mean something very different from what the tattooee intended) is just about comedy gold.
Weird in a good way. The SSSH! is the Secret Society of Serendipitous Service to Hal, a semi-organzied group of thousands (as the site tells us) dedicated to committing random acts of kindness in honor of the late Hal Riechle. You may have heard about good-hearted anonymous strangers "pulling a Hal," as they say, when the site was covered last year on one of the morning shows, but if you'd like to see something truly heartwarming, we suggest that you revisit the site and re-read the letters detailing how various good neighbors have answered the call. The late Chief Warrant Officer would no doubt be pleased to see the amount of sheer happiness unleashed in his name.
This artful National Geographic website serves up a virtual cup of coffee legends and information. Site features include brief descriptions of significant moments in coffee history, an overview of roasts, and statistics for top coffee-producing countries. It also contains a National Geographic magazine article about coffee from 1981, a list of related books and articles, and links to related websites.
That evil-stepmother myth is tired, tired, tired. This witty site brings together artists and stepmothers (not to mention stepmothers who are artists) to work on tossing the chestnut out. There's lots to see here, but we particularly enjoyed the artwork – some funny, some angry, all of it providing perspective on women who find themselves with ready-made families.
If you think the stuff that comes out of Hollywood is dreadful, you should take a look at the ideas they throw back. This blog gives the world a peek at a film-industry slushpile of "log lines" (the two- or three-sentence pitches designed to get producers, studios and whatnot interested in a script or television concept). The fellow who's posting these isn't revealing his identity, but whoever it is he's got our sympathies for having to wade throught hese things for a living
Simple and to the point: This site provides a visual reference for flags of all nations as well as a decent collection of maps from various regions. If you’ve got kids who need this sort of information for school reports, it’s a fine spot to keep in your bookmark list.
Normally we don't make an effort to introduce our readers to sites that are strictly e-commerce emporiums – we suspect you're perfectly capable of spending your money without our help – but this one's worth noting if you travel frequently and prefer to pack "trial size" versoins of your favorite toiletries and so forth. This site sells nothing but tiny packages of all the things you might want to throw into a suitcase or backpack – small items, big idea
For more information on the Tulsa Computer Society click here
Tulsa Computer Society 1/01/2005
Don Singleton, President