Cool Web Sites
by Don Singleton
Tulsa Computer Society
From the September 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.idg.net/ic_635284_1793_1-1681.html,
http://www.usatoday.com/life/cyber/arch.htm,
and http://marylaine.com/neatnew.html
Grandparent's Day is Sunday, September 9, and this site can help you give your grandparents a special gift.
There's help for making keepsake handprints, a grandparent's certificate, an "I Love You" banner or even an
e-mail greeting card, and it's all free.
Take a ride with the E. Motion Express and find out how to help Monkey, Sandy, Piggy, and Tripitaka with their feelings. Watch out
for the Bully Boys: T-Bone, Dr. Madcow, Sergeant Steer, and Mr. Bullderdash. They're out to do the Bull King's dirty work and throw
our friends' feelings off track.
Here is what CYKE stands for:
- CY-ber. Through the power of computer technology, CYKE creates Internet sites and
programs to reach young minds.
- K-nowledge. Health information, CYKE creates educational products for children and
the adults that care for kids.
- E-Motion. Emotional growth, CYKE creates entertaining products for the minds and
hearts of children.
Gas Price Comparison
While Congress debates whether there is or isn't an energy crisis,
you can save some pennies at the pump with a new price
comparison tool from fueleconomy.gov. And while you're at it,
check out your car's safety and air-pollution score.
Now you can hear the pronunciations of words
in the Merriam-Webster online dictionary. The Language Center is
a free service.
Choosing a cellular phone and service provider
is an arduous chore. Fortunately,
GetConnected.com helps you navigate the
morass of pricing plans, service options, and
phones with charts and shopping aids.
Estimates of typical
monthly bills for different plans based on the
level of usage you forecast. The site also offers
comparison-shopping sections for PDAs, satellite and cable TV
services, and long-distance phone carriers.
You don't have to be a lawyer to browse through the 'Lectric Law
Library. Somebody running a small business or ordinary folks
who need some legal info are welcomed. And it's not as stuffy as
you might expect.
Everyone's gotta have a hobby; if your's is making QuickTime VR
panoramas--360-degree digital images that you can spin with your
mouse or magnify to view details then Multimedia Library is one of
the best places to see these movies. It posts a QTVR movie of the
week and supplies links to QTVR sites (offering virtual tours of
Paris's Louvre museum, downtown Seattle, and even Mars),
including ones containing tutorials for creating panoramas.
Here's a site where your views count; a place to discuss what's going on in national and international news, sports,
humor or any other subject. Plastic gets its material from top magazine editors as well as user suggestions, then it's
open season -- let everyone know what you think!
A glossary is a collection of words and/or definitions relating to a
particular subject or field, and the aptly named Glossarist provides
links to a long list of them. From arts and culture to sports and
travel.
In addition to selected links on travel, health, money, education, and leisure, this includes a tutorial
on basic mechanics of the mouse, keyboard, and browser.
Disclaimer: Do not try this at home. Okay, now that we've got that out of the way, here's a site that offers a mix of
the practice and theory of urban exploration in areas not designed for the public. Abandoned buildings, offices,
drains and tunnels, catacombs and more are all examined here, complete with photos.
Do you live in a danger zone, or is your hometown a blissful paradise? If you want to know where your city ranks,
then head here to view the list of the 322 most dangerous (and safest) places in the U.S. If your city isn't the
safest, be sure to look at the pervious years' rankings, the ranking by population group and top/bottom 25 metro
areas for a more complete picture of crime (or lack thereof) in your area.
Tulsa is the 65th most dangerous in the list of 322 cities,
258 on the list of safest cities,
scored 101.37 (A score of "0.00" would reflect an average crime rate at the national rate in the six
crimes reviewed. A positive score reflects an average rate above the national rate. A
negative score reflects an average rate below the national rate.),
and the 1999 population was 382,673.
We were more dangerous than Lawton (165), Norman (290), or Oklahoma City (73), the other three
Oklahoma cities rated. The five most dangerous cities were Detroit, MI, Atlanta, GA, St. Louis,
MO, Flint, MI, and Camden, NJ and the five safest were Amherst, NY, Mission Viejo, CA, Brick
Township, NJ, Newton, MA, and Simi Valley, CA.
Running out of things to say at the water cooler? This Strange But
True site comes to the rescue with long lists of factoids that it says
are, well, strange but true.
Feeling handy? The Repair Guru offers tips and backgrounders that
may help you fix an appliance like a pro. Everything from
washing machines and freezers to air conditioners and water filters.
Includes a primer for parents, a school greenhouse guide, a teachers' resource room, an "All about
Plants" section, an FAQ file, a resource directory, and more.
If you need to find information on your state government, or if you're looking for a particular state agency, then
this non-government site is a great resource to help put you on the right track. In addition to the state-by-state
listings, there are also links to multi-state commissions, as well as federal resources and national organizations with
state ties and interests.
Links for Oklahoma are here
Unless you have time on your hands, you should probably stay away
from this site. The wealth of resources for Web developers at
EarthwebDeveloper.com is overwhelming--ranging from the
seemingly bottomless JavaScript library to the latest on CGI script
security breaches.
But what makes this site as sticky as flypaper is its collection of tools
and tips for using JavaScript, HTML, CGI, Perl, Java, DHTML, and
Active Server Pages.
There are lots of people in life who are willing to tell you how to do just about anything, and here's a site that'll do
that too! So you want to learn how to decorate your home? How about buying a guitar or a used car? Maybe you
want to know about parachuting, or how to play poker. It's all here, and more -- of course, some people want to
know how to do some weird stuff, so supervise your kids here.
Aside from being an extremely comprehensive list of phobias, many of which would never have
occurred to us (Aulophobia- Fear of flutes; Barophobia- Fear of gravity; Enetophobia- Fear of pins),
this site offers an FAQ file, info on treatment and where to go for help, and a quotes page.
Need a phrase or an entire Web page translated? Then this is the site for you -- translate from English to French,
German, Spanish, Italian or Portuguese. You can also translate French, German or Spanish into English, simply by
pasting up to five pages of text, or entering a URL.
Declaring the mutual fund industry to be "full of broken promises,"
FundAlarm aims to help you decide when to sell a particular fund.
A monthly update that gleefully pulls no punches.
The folks at the National Museum of American History decided
to look around their vast collection and spotlight some of their
favorite things for online visitors. An interactive map with hundreds
of artifacts waiting to be clicked.
So you've relocated to a new home and little Jimmy and Suzy need to learn their
ABC's! What are you going to do? Fortunately, the government has a listing of public
schools online! With their easy to use locator, you can easily find a school that your
children can attend nearest you! You can also search private schools, too, or look up
school districts and even find out how much room a school has for your children.
The Law Library of Congress serves up a hypertext guide to
sources of online information on government and law. A free
service that strives to identify "the most useful and reliable sites" for
worldwide legal info.
You know your pet is special, and now you can let the whole world know, too, for free. Each day a new pet is
selected to be "Pet of the Day," and all your furry, feathered, scaly or slimy friends are eligible -- birds, bunnies,
ferrets, fish, gerbils, guinea pigs, hamsters, horses, iguanas, lizards, mice, ponies, snakes, turtles and more. Dogs
and cats are also featured on their own pages, so check out some top pets and nominate yours for the special
honor!
Just what is normal? Here's a site devoted to answering that question. Each day they pose a new question, and
your answer is compared to those from people around the world, helping us all to figure out just what is "normal."
Keep track of developments among museums around the world,
courtesy of museum.com. Latest news, a search feature and a
"Museum of the Day" highlight.
Ready for a real challenge? Then how about creating a puzzle? At this DiscoverySchool site, you can choose from
picture or computer mazes, word search, criss-cross puzzles, number blocks, math squares, cryptograms and
more! Whew, that's a lot of puzzling games. If you're having trouble there's a user guide and vocabulary lists, and
you can also add clip art to your creation and save your puzzles in the "Custom Classroom."
Chicago's Museum of Science and Technology presents a long
list of online exhibits — everything from a walk-through tour of a
U-505 World War II submarine to a walk-through heart.
With so many Web sites tracking you online, it's nice to know you
can reclaim your privacy at anonymous browsing sites like SafeWeb.
Dozens of services offer stealth surfing, but many of them crowd
their sites with ads.
SafeWeb's straightforward interface lets you call up Web pages
through its proxy servers, preventing sites from identifying you.
SafeWeb also encrypts your connection to its servers, filters
potentially malicious scripts from Web pages, and lets you block
cookies. The free service is supported by small banner ads.
Find out the distance between cities with this online calculator that
quickly spits back answers from a database of 326 locations.
You check your car's oil regularly, don't you? So why not do
maintenance on your PC? PC Pitstop is a free site that uses ActiveX
controls and JavaScript to diagnose your hardware, hard disks, and
Internet connection, and to sweep your system for viruses.
(PCWorld.com and PC Pitstop recently partnered to offer the latter's
free service through our site.)
You just click a link to start the tune-up, and then leave your
computer alone for a few minutes. PC Pitstop provides a summary
report of your system's condition, including explanations of problems
it has found and tips for maximizing your PC's performance. You can
use the TechExpress service to e-mail the results to a technician or
to your brainy nephew.
This searchable "case law digest service provides categorized summaries of the latest U.S. legal
decisions, with links to full text opinions within hours of release. Archives of past decisions are also
available."
Here's a site dedicated to helping you find the best and most appropriate medical information and support
available. There's details on clinical trials, community health, drug dosages and compliance, treatment options and
research, how to select a health care provider, reports on dozens of illnesses and conditions, tips about healthy
lifestyles, complementary treatment alternatives and options and much more.
Weathertalk.net is a link-packed portal to online weather resources.
Browse a directory or search with keywords. There's even a
Fantasy Weather Forecaster for wannabe meteorologists
Thanks to the good people at the Center for Science in the Public Interest, thousands of restaurants have added
healthier options to their menus, major fast-food chains have introduced more healthful foods and deceptive food
ads have been stopped. This is the home page for the CSPI, a nonprofit education and advocacy organization that
focuses on improving the safety and nutritional quality of our food. Take a quiz, buy a restaurant guide and get
involved.
At the Princeton Review, students and applicants will find all the tools and advice they need to help achieve their
educational and career goals. Whether you're looking into college, grad, law, business, or med school, looking for
a career or internship, or you're a parent or counselor, there's information here to answer all your questions and fill
all your academic needs.
Tired of the Internet? Here's a big red button that promises to shut it
down. Note well!!: Hitting Ctrl-W (meaning, press the keyboard's
Ctrl and W keys simultaneously) reverses the shutdown and
returns you to cyberspace.
Despite its name, DSL Reports offers information about all types of
broadband Net connections, including cable and satellite hookups.
Drawing input from an active and opinionated community of users,
the site guides you through the often grueling process of going
high-speed.
On hand are tools to tell you what types of broadband connections
are available in your area; ISP reviews; and reader forums with
advice for solving post-installation glitches.
For information specifically about high-speed cable
connections, CableModemHelp has lots of tips on cable connections,
but little info on individual providers.
Get a globalized view of Net-connected cameras at the World Map
of Live Webcams. Just click on an interactive atlas for views of
everything from volcanoes to taxis.
The Children’s Television Workshop has a fun-packed site with
entertaining activities for kids and solid advice for parents.
If you're thinking of buying or selling anything from a used airplane
to a sailboat to an ordinary automobile, think first about scanning
through the pricing info at the N.A.D.A. Appraisal Guides. A free
service.
Billing itself as the Internet's newest and most amazing
breakthrough, this site offers to turn your video monitor into a
digital camera. Just smile and click. And don't blame me for the results.
If you think about it, it is funny.
Finding a good mall nearby (but not too close!) is always nice when trying to decide on
a new place to live. The Directory of Major Malls lists just about every big shopping
center. Search by city or metro area, or narrow your focus with a population-based
search in a 10-mile radius area.
For Tulsa it lists
Eastland Mall, E. 21st St. & S. 145th E. Ave., Tulsa OK
The Village @ Woodland Hills, Memorial & 68th St., Tulsa OK
Tulsa Promenade, 41st St. & Yale Ave., Tulsa OK
Unnamed Center, 21st St. & Yale, Tulsa OK
Utica Square Shopping Center, 21st & Utica, Tulsa OK
Woodland Hills Mall, Memorial Dr. & 71st St., Tulsa OK
Finally Dr. Who has returned. Bring along a RealPlayer app to hear
the audio adventure. Or take a quiz and browse through photos of
the cult hit.
Got a lot of plans but don't know where or how to start?
SoYouWanna boasts that the "wild goose chase stops here." AKA,
how to do all the things nobody taught you in school — from
mixing drinks to getting a pet ferret, with many others in
between, like writing a business plan, converting to Buddhism, curing a hangover, pay off your
student loans, flatten your abs, run a marathon, and learn to play poker.
From motherboards to hard drives and all points between, Tom's
Hardware pushes PC parts to their limits and beyond. The staff has
helped uncover CPU and chip-set bugs and has been the first to
overclock new processors. For in-depth tests of motherboards,
graphics cards, or RAM types, start here.
The free software you're thinking of downloading may be
"spyware," a program that secretly collects info from your PC and
transmits it back to advertisers or other snoopers. Help protect your
privacy with a visit to Spychecker.
If you're into music, the you need to go to this site, where you can fully delve into your passion. Covering all music
genres, check out the interviews, bios, downloads, videos, artists list, calendar and more.
Air travel complaints, a monthly air travel consumer report (on flight delays, oversales, mishandled
luggage, other complaints), and the posted plans of airlines for improving service.
EconDash offers what it calls an easy-to-read dashboard for the US
economy. Click on a dial for backgrounders, analyses and trend
lines.
Pat's Labor Day Graphics
Tech support answers from a knowledge database that includes Adobe, Microsoft, Intuit, Autodesk.
Send your problems here to find out how duct tape can solve everything from feline hairballs to the
electoral process in Florida. Weird and entertaining.
Try out a ZIP Code Lookup service that lets you search by partial
numbers, city or county — and even telephone area codes. A quick
and user-friendly resource.
To the rescue of anyone who has already burned up allotted
vacation time: The handy Sick Call Excuse Generator. (With a
"surprisingly effective" sick-day sound loop.)
"Complete travel health information, updated daily for physicians and travelers." Searchable by
destination, infectious disease, and special needs (children, pregnant women, immunocompromised
people), with information on illness prevention as well.
Beats us why anyone would want to Nuke The Hamptons. Maybe
this is something only Martha Stewart can explain? Eerie. But
cool." (Requires Macromedia 5 Flash Player)
Get advanced searches of several academic disciplines. Research is a breeze
online--just pick a subject.
You, too, can pretend you're a geek, thanks
to the aptly named Jargon File, which boasts that it's a
"comprehensive compendium of hacker slang illuminating many
aspects of hackish tradition, folklore, and humor."
An ancient Chinese divination manual
makes the jump to cyberspace. An online portal to all things I
Ching.
Don't know how to change a formula in an
Excel pivot table? PC Show and Tell has
streaming audiovisual tutorials covering
thousands of tasks--everything from checking
e-mail on AOL to enabling Java applets in
FrontPage.
A slightly creepy digital voice reads
instructions while animated screen shots guide you through
drop-down menus and command fields. A year's subscription costs
$30 and buys unlimited Web access. Or try the free 30-day trial
membership.
Alternative medicine guru Dr. Andrew Weil answers readers'
questions about anything from aerobics to Zen. Or get started on
his eight-week plan to better health.
If you have the time, this site is the place to browse through a big compilation of links to
search engines and resources that hold data that can't easily or entirely be accessed
from mainstream search tools. Didn't somebody say there's such a thing as too much of
a good thing?
For more information on the Tulsa Computer Society click here
Tulsa Computer Society 9/04/2001
Don Singleton, President