Previous Featured Sites - July 2001 - December 2001

December 28, 2001

Cisco Nobel Programs

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Cisco Systems celebrated the centennial of the Nobel Prize in a study that surveyed Nobel Laureates on the importance on the Internet.

"No development has accelerated the pace of innovation or spread the news faster than the Internet."

The Nobel Laureates Survey was conducted by Princeton Survey Research Associates. Among the findings:

Addressing illiteracy and educational needs are critical. 87% feel the Internet will have a positive effect and 93% say the Internet will provide students with greater access to libraries, information, and teachers.

Internet will accelerate innovation. 85% feel it will change their field and 91% see it as accelerating research. 42% view the Internet as one of the greatest innovations.

Internet will contribute to an improved quality of life. 72% see it contributing to greater economic opportunities in less developed countries. 83% predict increased productivity worldwide. 76% think easier communications will help to break down borders between people.

This week's feature site is Cisco Nobel Programs.

A Century of Innovation is an interactive timeline beginning with Alfred Nobel's last will and testament in 1895. Internet milestones are marked along the timeframe. In 1905 the first Yellow Pages was published. Buttons link to short videos about laureates and more information at the Nobel e-Museum.

Nobel Laureates Survey reports on the findings, nature of the survey, and the questionnaire.

Cisco provides the Internet technology for the Nobel Foundation and its web site.

December 18, 2001

E-Greetings

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Save postage and time - send an e-greeting. For the 2000 holiday season 32 percent of Internet users in the United States sent e-cards. This year, the e-card sites are expecting a 20 percent increase in use. This increase is despite the fact that American Greetings now charges for its e-card service.

Pew Internet & American Life: Communication beats ecommerce (Jan 2, 2001) Nua Internet Surveys

E-greetings site starts to charge for cards by Mary Anne Ostrom. (Dec 9, 2001) Mercury News. Article looks at the new charges at American Greetings and comments on the latest trend to make your own e-cards.

This week's feature sites have online greeting cards.

Bluemountain, once the most popular e-card site when it was part of Excite, is now owned by American Greetings. Members can send an unlimited number for $11.95 US / year.

Hallmark still has free e-cards but they are intermixed with advertisements for paper cards. Hallmark also has software for creating cards.

Corbis draws from its image collection to produce attractive e-cards. Free from Microsoft.

E-Cards donates money earned from advertisers to environmental causes for each card sent. The e-cards are free.

Yahoo Greetings is still available and free. It has a good selection of animated e-cards for the holidays. Some have music - very cute.

Greetz has over 4000 greeting cards for all holiday occasions and in many languages (but no music).

December 7, 2001

Pop Up Ads

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Over the past year many websites have turned to pop-up ads to get viewers' attention. New York Times, Business 2.0, Internet.com all have ads that pop-up in the front or lurk behind a page. Several very useful search services like About.com also serve up the annoying advertisements.

Pop-ups spawned by a web site are bad enough, but now there are rogue programs that can embed themselves on a hard drive.These programs can create links on web pages to their advertisers and deliver more pop-ups. One site has taken up the fight - Scumware.com will identify the presence of one of these programs (Gator, Surf+, TopText) on your computer and offer methods for removing them.

See The Scum of the Web by Tom Hespos in ClickZ Today (Dec 6, 2001) for more about rogue programs.

This week's feature sites are some services to use to remove adware or block ads.

Scumware: Tells how scumware works to hijack your computer and a web site with advertising. Has information for web masters and web surfers on how to avoid adware and remove it. IE browser is especially vulnerable.

Junkbusters and Guidescope: Block Internet ads.

ZDNet has more recommendations. See Hate pop-up ads? Here's how to burst their bubbles (August 2001) for a list of resources for killing pop-ups on Windows and Mac.

November 23, 2001

Tech Toys

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Canadians are expected to buy more online this holiday season, says Pollara Inc. Projections are for $850 million in holiday shopping, up from $550 last year. It won't just be books and CDs, but also clothing, shoes and fashion accessories.

Reported in the Financial Post, November 9, 2001. Christmas + Internet = 40% spending jump: poll

In the United States Neilsen/Net Ratings reported that holiday shopping shot up in the second week of November compared to the last week of October, increasing 19%.

Neilsen/Net Ratings (Nov 15, 2001) Online Shopping Season 2001 ... (PDF file - requires Acrobat Reader)

This week's feature sites will be online gift guides to tech toys.

PC World Holiday GiftFinder - computers and consumer electronics.

GlobeTechnology 2001 Holiday Gift Guide - hardware, software, high-tech gifts. Has category for gifts under $100.

Holiday Buying Guide to Technology in the New York Times (Nov 15, 2001) - great ideas in 8 categories.

CNet Holiday Gift Guide - gift selections from the editors. Has gifts for everyone, from newbies to techies.

November 16, 2001

Dot.com Meltdown

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Through 2001 there has been great change on the Web. Many dot.com companies have closed their doors and their web sites. Others, even such giants as Yahoo, have started to charge for services.

Pew Research Center found that the dot.com meltdown has affected many Internet users. 12% have lost a favourite site. 17% have been asked to pay for what they used to get free. Only 12% of those agreed to pay, and 50% found an alternative. The rest do without.

Pew Internet & American Life The dot-com meltdown and the Web (Nov 14, 2001)

This week's feature sites looks at three sites that have been monitoring the changes.

Ghost Sites - the Museum of E-Failure. Steve Baldwin has been taking screenshots of the home pages of soon-to-expire web sites since 1996. Sixty-six were added for October 2001.

Paul Andrews of the New York Times reviewed Ghostsites in Failed Web Sites Live On, Gone but Not Forgotten (May 24, 2001)

The End of Free - Seven people, who use the Web a lot, chronicle the end of free in this weblog. It picks up changes to for-fee as well as changes related to advertising. This service is still free.

Fucked Company - Begun as a macabre game to pick failing companies, FC is now a source of news (and rumour) about layoffs and closures in the USA. There is a companion site, L-ucked Company, with good news. (Warning: There may be commentary at FC that some will find offensive.)

November 2, 2001

InternetArchive

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The Web is frenetic, changeable, transitory. But through it all Brewster Kahle has been taking snapshots. He has turned that archive of 10 billion pages into a free searchable service.

Find the old web page, see the changes over time. Kahle, when he introduced this at Bancroft Library at the University of California at Berkeley, pulled up a page from the White House site from 1996 about a priority of preventing hijackings.

The WebArchive grew out of Kahle's earlier work on Alexa, once a very handy tool for finding related pages. Funding is from Library of Congress, Smithsonian, NSF, and Compaq.

Page by Page History of the Web , John Schwartz, New York Times (Oct 29, 2001)

Wayback Goes Way Back on Web (Oct 29, 2001) in Wired points out value and ways Wayback can be used.

This week's feature site is the Wayback Machine

Type in an address and pick by date from the collection of archived pages. See how a site has changed over time.

Four special collections have been compiled: Web Pioneers (way cool), Election 2000, US Government, Sept 11.

Wayback is working on providing a keyword search service.

October 19, 2001

The News

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A new ABCNews poll found that nearly half of Americans are going online for news - even more so since September 11. Media Metrix also noted this large increase, reporting that general news Web sites jumped from 38.4 million users in August to 50.8 million in September.

Internet Grows as News Source, abcNews.com (Oct 17, 2001)
Jupiter Media Metrix Top 50 Web Sites - USA and Canada Internet Usage Stats - September 2001

This week's feature sites are all about news.

NewsNow.co.uk - breaking news from around the world with 5 minute updates.

Net2One.com - a news search engine with over 2000 information sources. Has an excellent personalized alerting service. Also available in French and Swedish languages.

CNN.com - has editions for USA, Europe, and Asia. In September 2001 it got the most traffic by the news hungry in the United States and Canada.

CBC.ca - Canadians' favourite Canadian news site.

October 12, 2001

Canadian Encyclopedia

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First in print, then CD ROM, the Canadian Encyclopedia went online on October 10, 2001. This was the culmination of a project begun by Mel Hurtig in the early 1980s to bring Canadian history to Canadians. This is being offered for free through the non-profit Historica Foundation.

The site is fully bilingual and has 25,000 articles and 8,000 photographs drawn from the print version. James Marsh, the editor-in-chief, told the Globe and Mail that they expected "between 8 to 10 percent of the encyclopedia will be updated each year."

This week's feature site is: The Canadian Encyclopedia.

"Online edition will allow for continual updating of content and for dynamic, interactive learning through quizzes, interactivities, themes and games. A powerful search engine and detailed subject tree provide quick access to thousands of articles on Canadian biographies and places, history, the Arts, as well as First Nations, science and Canadian innovation. "

The Canadian Encyclopedia offered free online to the world Canada Newswire (Oct 1-, 2001)

October 5, 2001

ON Technology

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At a time when so many Internet magazines are being discontinued, it's heartening to find a new title from Time Warner. On Magazine is a technology guide from Time Warner with a print edition and an extensive web site. It describes itself as a "before-you-buy authority on new gadgets and web services". This was previously Time Digital and has archives back to 1998.

This week's feature site is: ON Magazine.

October 2001 issue has articles on simplifying your life, best travel sites, Internet radio. It's Easy Being Green looks at ways to reduce electricity use by computers and monitors. Cut out the screen savers, put the processor to sleep, use an inkjet printer, and turn equipment off at night.

ON also has technology guides to autos, cameras, computers, health, home office and more. Worth a browse.

September 21, 2001

Jigsaw Puzzles

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Everyone needs a way to relax. For some it is the absorbing pastime of a jigsaw puzzle. Mary-Ellen Mort tells of her love of jigsaw puzzles in What Online Searchers Do for Fun: The Fine Art of Procrastination. She shares "deep thoughts on the lessons of the puzzle".

This week's feature site is: JigZone.

JigZone is Mary-Ellen's favourite site. And what a delight it is! Start with a simple 6 piece puzzle and move up to the largest at 247 pieces. As pieces are fitted there is a satifying click. A timer counts the minutes and can be paused. When really stumped, pressing Solve puts all the pieces in place. Members can upload photos to create their own puzzles.

September 17, 2001

USA Tragedy

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The Internet held together in the wake of the attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon on September 11. People turned to it to communicate, to give eyewitness accounts, to help, and to learn. Wired News reported that this was the greatest stress ever on the Net. (Net Slows in Wake of Attacks). Rather than replace traditional news sources - TV and newspapers, the Net was a source of on-the-scene reporting, news weblogs, and resource lists. (Who Said the Web Fell Apart?)

This week's feature site is: ResearchBuzz 911 Coverage.

Tara Calashain immediately went to work to compile stories and information resources about the tragedy. Categories cover personal web logs, news stories, opinions, reference information, and government sites. Throughout, there are names and numbers to contact for more information - right down to wait times at the USA-Canada border crossings.

August 31, 2001

Subject Directories

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Subject directories are much underappreciated as search tools. They save searchers time by presenting only the better sites and grouping them by subject. Yahoo and Open Directory are the best known but there are many others of higher quality or better interface.

This week's feature sites are:

Resource Discovery Network in the UK offers high quality sites to the teaching and research communities in the areas of engineering, health, humanities, social science, physical science. Each subject area also has free self-study tutorials for building Internet search skills.

LLEK.de Bookmarks ( scientific-search-engines.com) is a German directory (in English) with world-wide coverage. It has an academic persona in the category names and a European interest.

Map.net, from Antarcti.ca, shows the Web as regions on a continent. This is visual searching using map navigation techniques. Map.net gets its sites from Open Directory.

August 17, 2001

Technology News

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The Internet is one big technology story. Follow breaking news about Microsoft and other major players, e-commerce developments, social and cultural issues, new software products from the many excellent online publications - Wired, CNet, New York Times, and in Canada - Globetechnology.

This week's feature site is Globetechnology.com Your Canadian source for timely technology news and analysis.

This is a superior resource for Canadian stories about technology. It has breaking news; excellent columnists (Jack Kapica is only online); reviews of books and products; the Report on Business NETdex; in-depth tech topics - ecommerce, wireless, biotech, telecom; special reports. Webcasts are broadcast from RobTV.

Sign up for either the daily or weekly technology alert.

There is a good-sized, free archive that goes well beyond the standard 7 days.

Women get special attention in Women's Web.

August 13, 2001

Wildlife Gardening

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The Web has information resources and communities to support all hobbies. One of the most pleasurable (IMO) is gardening. Wildlife lovers will especially value Wild about Gardening from the Canadian Wildlife Federation, a rich resource for creating a natural backyard habitat.

This week's feature site is Wild about Gardening created by the Canadian Wildlife Federation.

Attractive and informative, Wild About Gardening has sections on getting started by planning the garden, attracting wildlife, selecting and nurturing the plants, and expanding the backyard habitat into the community.

There is an excellent plant encyclopedia with 575 plant species listed and search tools for finding plants that best match requirements for moisture, light, wildlife benefit, plant type, and other attributes.

A gardening calendar has advice of pruning, planting, and general chores.

July 20, 2001

Find a Grave

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There are collectors for everything and on the Net they can find each other. Jim Tipton of Salt Lake City collects graves, or more precisely, the cemetery addresses of the departed. He is webmaster for Find A Grave, now with 2.6 million entires. He is assisted by 500 core supporters who add to the collection.

Salon's Katherine Mieszkowski covered this story in Grave Diggers (July 12, 2001). She profiled several of the collectors including one who has added 50,000 records in seven months.

This week's feature site is Find a Grave.

Search by name, location, claim to fame, or date. Anyone can contribute. Memorials, in addition to name, date, and place, can include a short bio, flowers and a photo. Most of the non-famous names listed here are in U.S. cemeteries but there are many Canadian and international entries. Especially interesting is the list of most popular searches in the last hour. Marilyn Munroe is always on the list.

July 13, 2001

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Are you real? Are you mecca or org? Do you have the capacity to dream, can you love unconditionally? According to Stephen Spielberg in his latest movie, AI, a robot can be made to dream and love.

Moviegoers are finding the flick less than compelling, but, according to the New York Times, many are absorbed by a companion game on the Web.

"It incorporates devious puzzles that require familiarity with, among other super-Jeopardy categories, sound analysis software and the languages of southern India. To tackle these, players have organized themselves into a community that collaborates in a manner that one player half-jokingly dubbed "distributed biological processing."

Source: Some Prefer Online 'A.I.' Tie-In to the Movie by David F Gallagher (July 9, 2001) NYT (requires registration).

This week's feature site is Cloudmakers.org, the A.I. game.

Follow the guides to the AI Trail. Try the game yourself. Read about the experiences others have had. It's bound to be interesting.

Denis Susac, guide for ai.about.com, has more information about the movie A.I. web-wise.

July 6, 2001

Internet Privacy

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Privacy of information has been a concern since the early days of data processing. The Internet has vastly increased the opportunities for abuse and misuse of personal data: software can track one's use of the Internet, access to databases is facilitated, and hackers break into banks of credit card numbers routinely. Time magazine featured Internet Security in a special report, July 2, 2001

This week's feature site is Time's Special Report on Internet Insecurity.

Adam Cohen reports on ways personal information is stolen or misused from spyware to identity theft. There is a test to check how at risk you are while on the Net, and tips on how to protect yourself. Data sharing among companies is also an issue. An article reviews recent legislation in the United States requiring financial institutions to request permission.

Canadians interested in learning about legislation in Canada should check Canada's new Personal Information Protection and Electronic Documents Act at the Office of the Privacy Commissioner of Canada.