Previous Featured Sites - January - December 2002

December 3, 2002

BookCrossing

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The Web is still about community where people from all parts of the world can connect through a shared interest. What better interest than a book?

BookCrossing.com invites people to share their books freely. Read, Register and Release is the mantra for good karma. Read the book, register it at BookCrossing, write the registration number in the book, and leave it in a public place for another person to pick up - coffee shop, bus station, waiting room, park - anywhere. Finders can add a journal entry and re-release it. The result is an online log of the book's travels and its readers.

A CNN article says, "The idea, if it catches on, could turn the world into a library without walls, a virtual lending library with an online catalog." The karma of virtual libraries by Christine Boese (CNN, Dec 2, 2002)

This week's feature site is

The site is very well designed. Visitors may go hunting for books that have recently been released, zeroing in to a particular intersection. Books are everywhere although most are in the USA (54,136) and Canada (8,677). It's also easy to search for titles or authors and read the comments. Registration is free. People wanting to join the movement will find it easy to register a book, print labels for the book, and make a journal entry.

November 11, 2002

RSS Feeds

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RSS has become a popular format for broadcasting new content on web sites. The web site owner will output an RSS feed whenever adding new material to the web site. This feed can be picked up immediately by any one with a receiving viewer. Top news sites, bloggers and e-zine writers are all doing it.

Steven Cohen describes the types of news aggregators one might use for viewing the feeds in an article in LLRX.com -- RSS For Non-Techie Librarians (June 2002).

This week's feature site is NewsIsFree.

Newsisfree is a web-based service for receiving and reading RSS feeds. It offers a viewer for organizing feeds by topic and arranging them on a web page for reading. The full log of changes can also be emailed.

There are over 3,600 feeds to choose from. All the major news sources are available - CNN, Reuters, AP - world and regional, Moreover headlines, sources by industry, and a multitude of sources about the searching the Web.

Registration is free. All you need is the time.

This service save readers the trouble of monitoring web sites themselves. The changes come to them automatically.

October 18, 2002

History of the Web

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The Internet is as vital to daily life in North America as electricity and the telephone. But we didn't always have broadband access, secure online banking, or Google.

The Internet developed out of work in the 1970s by the US Department of Defense on networking. The first version of the Web was released by Tim Berners-Lee in 1991. It wasn't until 1995 that the Canadian Government and the Vatican came online.

This week's feature sites are about the History of the Internet and the Web.

Deja Vu: See what it used to be using the early Web browsers. Review the timeline, presented in web-page grey and blue links, from 1992 to 1999.

The WayBack Machine: See what sites used to look like between 1996 and now. The WayBack Machine can find the living and the dead in The Internet Archive of over 10 billion pages.

History of the Internet: Select more histories of the Internet from this list at the Internet Society. The multilingual multimedia show from the Finnish University and Research Network is good.

September 21, 2002

Shopping

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Canadians bought nearly twice as much online in 2001 as in 2000. Statistics Canada found Canadian households spent $2 billion on the Internet in 2001 vs $1.1 billion in 2000. BC households averaged $1,394 vs the national average of $880.

(Canadians shopping up a storm on-line Globe and Mail, Sept 19, 2002)

The Web makes research and comparison shopping much easier.

This week's feature sites are for shoppers.

Epinions.com has a full range of consumer products together with member-written reviews. Reviews including a rating and extended comment on the product. Products range across 300 categories - books, cars, computers, travel. A comparison shopper helps one find the best price.

Productopia.com (aka ConsumerSearch) brings reviews from many sources. Staff rank the reviews, identify the experts, pick out the main points, and list top-rated products. Sources include Consumer Reports, Good Housekeeping, PC World, and many others.

September 5, 2002

Maps

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Access to maps has been one of the great benefits of the Web as a reference resource. MapQuest, for example, is on everyone's list for finding places in over 200 countries and providing driving directions. But there are 100's more atlases, gazetteers, maps, topographic views, political and historical representations, photos and images of Earth.

This week's feature sites are about maps.

Where Was I? Maps on the Web by Irene McDermott in Searcher (June 2002). The author classifies and describes map collections of all kinds. Categories include portals, directional maps, historical maps, topographic, hazardous (earthquakes, landslides etc), and extraterrestial. Some collections have aerial views, images, and photos as well as maps.

LibrarySpot Maps presents map libraries, US maps, world maps, and specialized maps. Among the specialized are maps of airports, subways, bicycle (in the US), area codes.

August 20, 2002

Small Business

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Specialized portals are among the most valuable resources on the Web. Several of these exist to help small businesses, sponsored or created by government offices and by private-sector operators. These will have resources for running a small business, regulations, and sometimes tenders.

This week's feature sites : are portals for small businesses.

BusinessGateway.ca "Single access point to all the government services and information needed to start, run and grow a business." Has information on startup, regulations, financing, government tenders. Also useful bits like Border Wait Times and Travel Advisories.

FirstGov Business Gateway is "easy access to government services for U.S. businesses ". This is a starting point for online e-services, resources for business development, services of international trade, business data, and finance and tax-related resources. Has links to provinces also.

The Business Owner's Toolkit: "total know-how for small business". This is a U.S. resource with state-by-state news roundup. It has the SOHO Guidebook to starting a business, planning, financing, managing and much else.

ProfitGuide.com (The Business Resource for Canadian Entrepreneurs) reviews other resources in its essential webguide created in September 2001. Updates are available.

August 8, 2002

Semantic Web

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Some foresee a day when the tools we use on the Web will understand our needs and wishes. For example, when we book an air-flight the program acting as our agent will also recommend accommodation, restaurants and sites. The agent may act as a "treasured valet". This is the semantic web.

Tim Berners-Lee is credited with coining the term. He defined it as "the Web of data with meaning in the sense that a computer program can learn enough about what the data means to process it". (Weaving the Web, 2000).

This week's feature site : W3C Semantic Web

The World Wide Web Consortium reports on progress in creating the technical underpinnings to bring about the Semantic Web. Among these is the development of an ontology - a set of commonly accepted terms for describing and classifying information.

"The Semantic Web is a vision: the idea of having data on the web defined and linked in a way that it can be used by machines not just for display purposes, but for automation, integration and reuse of data across various applications."

July 10, 2002

For Students

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In the early days of the Internet there were many dedicated souls who created major subject guides to resources on the Internet.

Irene Lee has continued that tradition and created an extensive Research Guide for students to use. Based on a print book published in 1995, this site has chapters on research and writing, and a Virtual Library of Useful URLs.

This week's feature site : A Research Guide for Students

Has guidelines on writing research papers and doing presentations.

The Virtual Library of Useful URLs has subject headings arranged by Dewey Decimal Classification. Many good resources are listed and described. Browsing is recommended. Unfortunately, the search engine for the site is poor.

July 5, 2002

Dictionary Look-up

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Dictionary tools on the Web are a natural for Web users. Ideally they let us click on a word to get the meaning, an illustration, the pronunciation, and translations. There aren't any tools that do all of this yet, but some come close.

This week's feature sites : are about dictionaries.

CleverKeys will look up words at dictionary.com, synonyms at thesaurus.com, and web searches at a search engine. This is software that can be used from most applications that run on Windows and Mac. Highlight the word and use an appropriate Ctrl key to get definitions and alternates.

LookWayUP is also " a browser add-on that combines dictionary, thesaurus, translation, and advanced search tool". It can handle french, german, dutch, spanish, and portuguese languages. $10 buys the software without the ads. Made in Canada. There is also a free web version. Available for cell phones and PDAs.

Atomica has a wealth of reference resources - dictionaries, encyclopedia, biographies, weather, quotes, maps, translations and much more. Atomica can be used directly on the Web - just make it a quick link on a personal toolbar, or download the small application and install it to run from the desktop (Windows). Free.

June 1, 2002

MetaSearch with Visuals

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Which is better - a picture or a thousand words? Search engines work in words, and although some layouts may be better than others, none do a good job in showing relative importance or relationships. Kartoo from France may change that. It is a metasearch engine that displays results as orbs in space.

This week's feature site: Kartoo

Kartoo uses Flash to show results as orbs connected with lines representing topics. The tools are easy. Rollover an orb to get a description of the page. Point at a topic word to select it as an additional search term (+) or exclude it (-). A green bar indicates number of results.

Background, colour of orbs and lines can be adjusted. There are other views - search results in a list, a standard search engine interface (called HTML version), and a zoom mode in the Flash version.

Search features are quite sophisticated. One can select from a list of 15 search engines - Google included. Advanced Search provides controls for more exact searches on title, site, url, hyperlink and other parameters. Kartoo says it can answer questions if marked with a ?.

Kartoo is available in english, french, portuguese, and brazilian.

May 14, 2002

Urban Legends

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Urban legends are a kind of folklore - stories that circulate widely and are believed to be true. Often fantastical, they are also plausible - like stories about alligators in the sewers of New York.

Barbara and David Mikkelson in Los Angeles, have been collecting these at Urban Legends Reference Pages (URLP). The origin of each is investigated and the claim is determined to be true, false, or unverifiable.

For example, it is not true that fingernails and hair grow after death, but it might be true that Toronto sanitation workers cleaned up garbage strewn for a movie set when the crew took a break.

Mike O'Leary of Information Today awarded URLP the "best unknown database" for 2002.

This week's feature site: Urban Legends Reference Pages at www.snopes2.com

There are 1,500 tales spread over 37 categories such as Movies, Science, Business, and even Critter Country. Some are as old as 100 years. The most recent are Rumours of War - stories post 9/11.

Search may find ones you'd like to check - such as all urban legends about Toronto. There are more possibilities on the Message Board. Join ULRP if you have a question - or an answer.

April 26, 2002

How Stuff Works

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How Stuff Works has been on the "best of the web" lists since it was first launched by its founder Marshall Brain in 1998. It has answers about everything -- from home appliances to networks to DNA. In April 2002 Time Magazine listed it as one of the Top 50 of the Web for Information and Reference.

Kids and adults love this site for its encyclopedic coverage, clear and entertaining descriptions, excellent illustrations, and easy navigability.

Begun as a hobby, HSW became a full media business in March 2000 and today offers answers in the form of CDs, in books, as radio vignettes and full videos.

This week's feature site: HowStuffWorks

HSW is organized into 15 supercategories -- from Automotive to Weapons with Computers, Internet, Toys and others in between. Keyword search finds entries at HSW and on the Web.

For the Internet, there are guides on Internet Connections, Web Sites, Security, E-Commerce, Web Servers along with much else. There is very good explanation on How Internet Search Engines Work.

Daily Stuff will have a new article, a new question from HSW readers, and a new gadget. Visitors can can learn something new every day. The free newsletter (either daily or weekly) notifies of new articles. HSW regulars also post and answer how-to questions in the Forums.

April 4, 2002

Finding Current News

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There are easily thousands of news sources on the Web. To search these we need tools that will pick up the stories as they come online.

RocketNews, from RocketInfo in Ottawa Canada, is such a tool. RocketInfo specializes in serving news to the enterprise for use in competitive intelligence or market intelligence research. RocketNews is the free public search engine providing access to 5 days of news pulled from over 5,000 sources. RocketInfo indexes 200,000 articles a day. Editor & Publisher's Charles Bowen called it a superb search engine for news.

See Interview with Rick VanWell, founder and CTO, Rocketinfo Inc. Ottawa Citizen Business TV, February 13, 2002

This week's feature site: RocketNews

The basic search will look for ALL words. Use quotation marks to request phrases.

Advanced Search has options for include ALL these words or ANY of these other words, and exclude certain words.

HotTopics are 300 preset topics in 6 categories: business, technology, current (mainly world), sports, health, personal interest.

RocketNews Monitor is a small window that sits on the desktop for quick searches. News is refreshed for the current search every 15 minutes. Abstracts may be read directly in small popups.

March 18, 2002

Canadian Statistics

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First reports from the 2001 census data were released on March 12. Population reached 30 million, a 4% increase since 1996, with 79.4% of Canadians living in urban areas compared to 78.5% five years earlier.

This week's feature site: Statistics Canada

The Statistics Canada web site has the full report - A Profile of the Canadian Population: Where We Live - with data by region on shifts and growth for 2001.

The StatCan site has been revamped to provide easier access to statistical information on all aspects of the Canadian economy and population counts.

The section on Learning Resources has free materials, designed for teachers and students, describing People, Land and Resources, and the Economy. Selected reports on industries, national accounts, indexes and other business concerns can be downloaded at no cost.

Under Community Profiles there are detailed profiles on cities and towns throughout Canada, and the Federal Electoral District Profiles have full demographic data on electoral districts. Data for the 2001 census for population, education, dwellings, and income is being added as it becomes available.

There is much to browse. Keep up to date by subscribing to The Daily.

March 1, 2002

canadian  olympians

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News about the Canadian Olympic athletes and their sports doesn't end with the Games. The National Library of Canada has added photographs of Canadian Olympians at Salt Lake City to its database of searchable images. The site has educational resources, photographs, and an essay by Bruce Kidd on "Canadians and the Olympics".

This week's feature Canadian Olympians

This database has images of Canadian athletes at the Olympics from 1976 at Montreal to 2002 at Salt Lake City. The images (around 10,000) were contributed by the Canadian Olympic Association and digitized by The Canadian Press.

Browse or search by athlete, sport, Olympics, and year. Find splendid shots of Canada's many figure skating competitors. Search for hockey gold to see the men and women's teams of 2002.

The Salt Lake 2002 page continues news coverage in the aftermath of the 2002 games with items from CBC.ca news.

A Canadian Heritage site

February 19, 2002

Top 100 Web Sites

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One of the easiest and most pleasurable ways to get to know the Web is to browse a list of top 100 sites. PC Magazine now publishes two lists. There is the classic or traditional list of well known and highly visited sites. Starting in January 2002, there is also the 100 of the "undiscovered" best.

This week's feature is PC Magazine's Undiscovered 100

These are the sites PC Magazine editors feel are underappreciated. There are categories for Computing, Shopping, Search and Reference, News, Lifestyle and 6 others.

Search and Reference identifies the new search engine Teoma which will group results by topic and pick out the "expert lists". Also on the list is the wonderful Dictionary.com with word tools galore.

Online Applications introduces some low cost services for minding the Web (MindIt), doing surveys (CleverForm), or holding conferences (WebTrain).

January 11, 2002

Predictions 2002

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Each new year we reflect on the past year and speculate on the next. This past year has been a bummer for technology companies but many foresee a recovery led by the arrival of new digital tools that are faster, smaller, and maybe cheaper.

This week's feature is a set of articles on what to look for in 2002.

20/20 Foresight (Jan 2002) by Daniel Tynan in PC World. "Here are the 20 products, trends, and technologies that will change PCs in 2002--and beyond"

Think 400 Gig hard drives, instant messaging WIndows XP style, wireless networks, XML as the markup language for accessing data, voice portals, electronic wallets, cellphones with fast Internet access, affordable digital cameras with 5 megapixels.

Full Disclosure: 2002--What Will Not Be: (Jan 02/2002 by Stephen Manes in PC World. "Seven astonishing predictions that won't come true anytime soon."

2002 in review: Not perfect, but it sure beat 2001 (Jan 1, 2002) David Coursey at AnchorDesk imagines he's looking back on 2002. Apple is In and Microsoft makes more enemies.

2002 Predictions: The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly (Jan 4, 2002) John Dvorak at PC Magazine likes the new scooter Segway. People may have to get on one - he also predicts blackouts on the Net.