Cool Web Sites
by Don Singleton
Tulsa Computer Society
From the May 2001 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,
http://www.yahoo.com/picks/,
and http://marylaine.com/neatnew.html
Comprehensive categorized calendar catalog:
Celestial, Cultural, Daily, Event, Geographic, Historic, Holidays,
Interactive, Millennium, Misc., Reference, Reform, Religious, Software,
Traditional, Web, Women. Also contains Calendar Quotes & Poetry and,
(hoping the pun does not spoil your appetite) Calzone Recipes.
Logical fallacies are errors of reasoning, errors which may be recognized
and corrected by prudent thinkers. This site indexes and describes all
known logical fallacies, such as: Fallacies of Distraction (False Dilemma:
two choices are given when in fact there are three options, From
Ignorance: because something is not known to be true, it is assumed to be
false, Slippery Slope: a series of increasingly unacceptable consequences
is drawn, Complex Question: two unrelated points are conjoined as a single
proposition), Appeals to Motives in Place of Support ( Appeal to Force:
the reader is persuaded to agree by force, Appeal to Pity: the reader is
persuaded to agree by sympathy, Consequences: the reader is warned of
unacceptable consequences, Prejudicial Language: value or moral goodness
is attached to believing the author, Popularity: a proposition is argued
to be true because it is widely held to be true), Changing the Subject (
Attacking the Person, Appeal to Authority, Anonymous Authority: the
authority in question is not named, Style Over Substance: the manner in
which an argument (or arguer) is presented is felt to affect the truth of
the conclusion), and many others.
FREE Tutorials: HTML Tutorials (Learn HTML, Learn CSS, Learn DHTML,
Learn XHTML, Learn WML), XML Tutorials (Learn XML, Learn XSL, Learn DTD,
Learn DOM, Learn WAP, Learn SOAP, Learn XSchema, Learn XForms), Programming
(Learn VBScript, Learn JavaScript, Learn WMLScript, Learn ASP, Learn
Flash, Learn AppML), Database (Learn SQL, Learn ADO), Web Building (Web
Building, Web Browsers, Web Software, Web Graphics, Web Future, Web W3C,
Web Microsoft)
If you love photography, turn some digital pages at the
Kodak eMagazine. Includes feature stories on great
photographers and tips to improve your own shots.
Your Internet surfing safari may be smooth today, but perhaps you can't reach Yahoo
or a few Web sites in Europe. This Web site will tell you if those regions of the Internet
are currently slowed down. By checking the Internet Traffic Report, you can determine
if your problems are global or local.
Space fans, here is your chance to track the path of the International Space station.
Learn how the days of the week and the months of the year got their names. Use the
sighting tools to select from a long list of satellites to find sighting information.
It is not quite as current as the International Space Station, but if you
are interested in it, you might like some of these photos of the Apollo 11
mission to the moon.
Measuring Up 2000 bills itself as the first
state-by-state report card for higher education.
Brought to us by the National Center for Public Policy
and Higher Education.
Get a jump on your taxes without making a visit to
your accountant. TurboTax for the Web lets you work
out the numbers for free. You pay only if you decide to
print or file.
Companion to an exhibition from Dickinson College, this homage to the human hand explores the
time period just before literacy and the printed word became widespread. Over 80 images from the
15th to the 17th century illustrate ways in which the hand was used as an icon to convey complex
ideas and understandings about human intelligence, experience, and perception.
Each brief article is full of hyperlinks for more information.
The revised charts to track the growth of children, and detect problems with
weight early, from the Centers for Disease Control
BestPlaces.net was developed to put facts about cities and living in the hands of the
public, so you can make better decisions about the best places for you to live, work,
retire, play, or relocate. Use the cost of living and salary calculator to figure out how
much it will cost you to move to a different city. Compare crime rates and raw crime
data for over 2,500 U.S. cities with the Crime Comparison feature. Get the facts on
public schools before you move.
Enormous investments in energy and political capital to
raise academic standards in American schools over the
past decade are beginning to pay off, according to
Quality Counts 2001. The fifth annual 50-state report
by Education Week.
There are not only geometry lessons here but all kinds of geometric and fractal
images, which make it a treat even for the non-mathematician.
Every child born in the United States over the past 12 months is entitled to receive his
or her first ticket to Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey--absolutely free! The free
admission offer carries no expiration date and may be redeemed at any time during the
lifetime of the child for any one performance of Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey.
To receive this Special Gift Certificate, simply complete and return the form on the site.
Find descriptions of rivers for rafting, kayaking and paddling adventures, find
authorized outfitters, read selected articles from Riversearch magazine, get
news updates.
Take the very informative and seemingly accurate Personality test (it’s a long one, so
stick with it) to determine your levels of extraversion, agreeableness,
conscientiousness, neuroticism, and openness to experience. Take the IQ test and
measure your intelligence quotient, find out if you are a first date disaster while taking
the Love test, learn about your health with the Health test, discover which career best
suits you with the Career test, plus much more.
Marketers, copywriters, and corporate communicators take note -- there's a quiet crusade afoot to
"just say no to jargon" on the Web. A recent unsubstantiated study of one week's worth of Business
Wire and PR Newswire releases reveals that a new "solution" is hitting the wires roughly every eight
minutes. In response, smart and savvy folks at the Gable Group present version 1.0 of the
Jargonator, a premier tool for rating the jargon content of copy. Try it yourself and notice how your
eyes glaze over as mission-critical hyperbole gets flagged.
High School Hub bills itself as a noncommercial
gateway to free online academic resources for high
school students. Comprehensive and user-friendly.
Put down those scissors! At this site, you just pick the coupons and print. With
discounts arranged by merchant and category, it doesn't get much easier than this to
save money shopping!
From the mad cow disease to the stock market, Whyfiles.org offers information and explanations on who, what,
when, how and of course, why. Articles are written for easy understanding, in categories that include biology,
sports, the environment and technology.
Links to software updates, updated daily. Keyword searchable.
Strategies and useful links for identifying essays plagiarized or purchased from
the net.
Have a blast this week with Funology.com, designed to both interest and educate
children of all ages. Kid’s, challenge your brain with the “Brain Drain” section, read the
“wacky, freaky, creepy, funky” facts, cure your boredom with the “Boredom Busters”,
take the Shark Quiz, amaze your friends with magic tricks, and a whole lot more.
If you’re going to travel abroad with your children, here’s a site to answer the age-old question, “But mom,
what’s there to do?” Travel For Kids lists kid-friendly activities by country and city, provides information on
where to find a doctor or dentist for your child in a foreign country, and also offers trip planning tips.
Usually there’s not much humor in getting an Internet error message, but this clever site is an exception. Check it
out for a quick chuckle.
From the Department of Energy. Shows you how to conduct a home energy
audit to find out where your home is losing energy, and shows you how to use it
more economically in lighting, heating and cooling (44% of home energy use),
appliances (20%), water heating (14%), windows, landscaping, etc.
This review site for parents doesn't just focus on sex and violence, but checks
out movies and videos for a full range of possible problem areas, including
smoking, drugs, profanity, tense family scenes, disrespectful attitude, "topics to
talk about." Also available by e-mail every week. Parents might also want to
compare reviews with those at Kids-in-Mind.
Remember when you were a kid and you had tons of questions about anything and everything but no one was
around to answer them? This site uses original, animated movies to offer plain and age-appropriate answers to
kid’s health, science and technology questions.
Who are your relatives? Want to trace your family tree? At this site, you can search for your ancestors and check
out information on cemetery records, census data, surnames, passenger manifests as well as state-by-state details
like birth, death and marriage reports.
Cruise through the thousands of links and documents, covering
topics such as money, recalls, scams and fraud, food, employment, cars, kids and travel. One of the best things
about this site is that all the information is available on-line, and some booklets have even been converted to PDF
format for easy printing or off-line viewing!
For more information on the Tulsa Computer Society click here
This page has been accessed
times.
Tulsa Computer Society 4/06/2001
Don Singleton, President