It's a 
Jazzed look for NetScape 1.1!
In this issue...
Mea Culpa
Okay, it has been more than a month since we compiled a News of the WWW
issue. Busy? Yes. We also lost a huge collection of key links when a
Syquest disk went down in flames.
Changes? We are striving now for more depth then breadth. We will still
put together our "sites of intrigue"but will devote other sections to more
in-depth looks at new web sites as well as more information for web page
creators. Look also for our "top o' the web" highlight of one web that
rises among the others.
For other sites that offer extensive lists of web sites, see our
Web Starting points.
A key site for us has been the
comp.infosystems.www.announce
newsgroup. The Internet Scout and
Netsurfer Digest
do an excellent job of summarizing new sites. The NCSA What's New Page
has always been productive. EINet Galaxy and Global Network Navigator
provide well-organized collections of links and information. And
noooooo we did not forget, who could not mention the incredible
Yahoo?
New on the MCLI WWW Server
We would like to introduce Kurt Leinbach (at present, owner of the sparsest
home page around!),
who is adding the next level of interactivity to our pages with CGI scripting.
We've implemented search features for several information areas using
Glimpse including:
We are also experimenting with forms for interacting with our services.
Some early examples include web page generators for two educational
conferences; the April 1995
College Reading and Learning Association meeting
and the 1995 Computers and Writing Online Conference.
The Community Colleges Home Page now lists 75 colleges!
The Maricopa Math Consortium (M2C) also has a home on the web.
Currently it features information about this mathematics reform project as well as
WWW versions of the M2C updates.
Look for more new features in the days/weeks/months to come!
Also, our WWW Director Page was featured in the
April 1995 Macromedia Users Journal as well as highlighted as
Cool Stuff from Firmware, a multimedia
company in Australia.
Maricopa Webs
The Maricopa District Web server is putting up new information for
relevant to our community college district, including information about the
APOLLO project...
If you have not seen it, be sure to look at our
clickable image map
for the Maricopa Community Colleges. From there, take a trip over
to Scottsdale Community College
WWW server. They have set up a well-structured collection of college information,
using high-impact visuals (tables, color backgrounds) of
NetScape 1.1. Give due credit to
the aptly named Dennis ("World Wide?") Webb.
Interactive Graphics Renderer
Looking for interesting icons, shapes, etc to put on your web documents?
Well there are some places you can go to copy collections. You can just
use those assortments of colored balls that seem to be everywhere! Or you can
generate your own unique 3D looking objects/widgets using the
Interactive Graphics Renderer (IGR):
"The finished graphics can be
downloaded with a single button click and have
already been processed for inclusion on web pages, including:
- The graphics are transparent with 75% gray background
- The pictures are interlaced
- The colors have been reduced to save color palette slots"
The IGR was created by
Patrick James Hennessey
of the Kansas State University Department of Electrical Engineering
From the first page you can learn more about the IGA, its developer, its accolades, etc.
It is well worth it to read the users guide. Patrick
requests in his "license" agreement that you notify him by e-mail that you have used IGA. Pretty easy!
The IGA itself is a form interface and thus requires a WWW browser that supports such features
(most graphics browsers these days are). You use radio buttons and pull down menus to set various
rendering options and when IGA is done you will see a draft of the image (the final that you
can download will have much greater detail).
The beauty here is that rather than just a static collection of GIF images, through monipulating
the rendering options there are millions of graphics that you could possible create. We used a simple
one that looks like a grimy lime green Cheerio on our
Multimedia Authoring page.
Beverly Hills- Peeping in 90210?
Beverly Hills Internet is a company
that designs web pages and interactive advertisements. As a new twist on using
live information on the web (a la watching the british tea pot or lobbing
virtual snowballs in the lab) they have mounted video cameras in several locations
in Hollywood. Through the web you can see almost live pictures of people
hanging around the bus stop! Reading newspapers! Scratching themselves!
Some of the static on the net has ranted against this sort of virtual peeping.
So go there and draw your own conclusions....
Internet in a What?
Spoofing the concept of "Internet in a Box", is a new site called
Internet in a Baby
"We now proudly present the next generation, the ultimate user interface,
the only Internet product that even a baby could use: Internet in a Baby.
Believe it or not, every web page of any significance can be reached simply
by clicking on different parts of this picture."
Yes, simply click on various pictures of the baby and jump to any one of
the "biggie" net sites? So is it a click on the ear to get to Yahoo? You
will have to try to see.
What does all of this mean? probably not a whole lot. Actually all of
the sites that are "baby-accessible" are worth throwing in your bookmarks. It's
one of those see-once-and-laugh-hilariously sites.
Maximum NetScape
| Tables! | Backgrounds! | Animations! | Pink Text!
| Big Fonts! |
Sigh...
NetScape again is pushing/pulling us to the visual edge. The HTML for creating tables is not hairy
but not as easy as creating
headers.
Tables are very effective for organizing pages and especially in being
able to present more information in less space. And in a more refreshing
manner. But it can be overdone and overkilled. Likewise are backgrounds;
you can create some nice readable pages with a colored/patterned background
but how many have you seen that make the text unreadable? To create a patterned
bacground, create a small GIF or JPEG image (the one for this page is only 3k)
and insert the tag:
<body background="filename.gif">
where filename.gif is the name of the graphic file. Light backgrounds interfere less with text, unless you get into setting the color of the text.
For more information, see the NetScape extensions.
For one example, see Jbay's home which starts simple
with a single hypertext that determines what page to present depending on what browser
you are using! The page for NetScape comes in with a black background and graphics that
jump out from raised bevel edged blocks. There's much more, but it is easier to
see than to describe.
in another wierd direction is a company called razorfish
wher you will see animated logos and a clickable bouncing blue dot.
For the extremest, look at some of the fine examples from the
Useless Web pages
"America's Funniest Home Hypermedia". I've forgotten the link, but there is
one purposfully awful page with a glaring red background, blinking pink text,
and a field to enter your credit card number!
Top o' the Web
Every issue we will highlight
a great web site, a completely un-empirical
personal judgement on our part...
This issue, at the Top of the Web is the
Instructional Technologies Web
from San Franciso State University. The front page offers a clean
low overhead graphic set nicely into a table-formatted index. They
humbly label themselves as "a friendly little pothole on the information superhighway"
The web encompasses information about the IT program and links
to other sources for multimedia. There is something called
FogCam which as far as
I can tell displays every 30 seconds a video shot within a computer
lab. Okay, not always exciting, unless you catch a nose-picker in
action, but a demonstration of what is called "push-pull" of data
across the Internet.
Besides the content, all is organized very well with excellent and cosnistent
navigation aids. Credit goes to the person who calls themself
"webdog".
Sites of Intrigue
-
Biology
- Access Excellence
- is a national educational program sponsored by the biotechnology industry pioneer,
Genentech, Inc., that puts high school biology teachers in touch with their colleagues, scientists and critical
sources of new scientific information through an online network.
Computers
- EASI: Equal access to Software
- is devoted to information technology and its access by persons
with disabilities
Earth Science
-
Virtually Hawaii
- includes NASA images of all the Hawaiian
Islands taken by satellite, space shuttle, and aircraft.
- Mineral Gallery
- presented by Amethyst Galleries, Inc., is a database of mineral descriptions and
images for rockhounds, educators, and geology students
everywhere. This database includes physical characteristics and
common associations, and some of the indexes provide educational
material.
Government
- National Archives and Records Administration
- AirForceLINK
- is the Department of the Air Force Home Page.
AIr ForceLINK contains fact sheets on weapon systems,
biographies on senior leaders, photos of aircraft and current operations around
the world, digital audio clips of music by Air Force bands,
a virtual display of
selected pieces from the Air Force art collection, and a master index of
more than three dozen other Home Pages throughout the Air Force.
Instructional Technology
- Global Schoolnet Foundation
- has information
about the Global Schoolhouse and other projects conducted by the Globsal
Schoolnet Foundation, formerly called FrEdMail.
-
Hypermedia and Instructional Software Clearinghouse (HISC)
- from the University of Missouri-Columbia
was created to establish a set of procedures for
collecting, reviewing, and distributing instructional,
administrative, and utility programs for educators, trainers
and, instructional technologists. Each program
meets specific guidelines through an extensive review by at
least two evaluators.
- SyllabusWeb
- is a free service from Syllabus Press, publishers of Syllabus
magazine and producers of the annual Syllabus conference, resources for
instructional technology in higher education
Internet
- SATAN
- is a tool to help systems administrators
recognize several common networking-related security problems.
- NetGuide
- provides a comprehensive view of the commercial online world and the
Internet.
- Netsurfer Digest
- is a guide to interesting news, places, and
resources online. you can read it from this WWW page or subscribe to
a listserv that will send you the Digest in either plain text or HTML format.
- Falken's CyberSpace Tools
- is a must for your bookmarks! It provides a common link to
applications and tools available for accessing the Internet.
Every effort is made to ensure all software links are current
and only point to the newest versions and updates.
-
WWW Virtual Library: Web Development
- has a new home. It has over 1,000 links to
sites with information of interest.
- WebCraft
- is a book on the semantics of Web design
- The Bare Bones Guide to HTML, version 1.0
- is a comprehensive 'cheat sheet' for Web page designers. It
lists virtually every tag in the generally-accepted HTML 2.0 specification,
as well as all of the popular Netscape extensions and several HTML 3.0
tags. Unlike other HTML guides, this document includes little descriptive
material about HTML syntax or how to use the various tags. What it DOES
provide is a highly concise, organized listing of HTML tags that you can
keep handy when writing Web pages. Comments and suggestions are welcome.
- The HTML Writers Guild
- is a cooperative international organization of people
involved in all aspects of creating, developing and maintaining World Wide Web
pages and services
- WWW Servers Comparison Chart
- has been greatly improved and updated.
It includes new servers and many new features.
- InContext Spider
- is a new for HTML editor Windows
Languages
- Foreign Languages for Travellers
- was created in order to help travellers learn a few essentials of a foreign
language and thereby enable basic communication while travelling. There is a list of common words
and phrases translated into the language you choose; sound files are associated with each so you can
hear what that word or phrase sounds like.
Library
- Dictionary/Thesaurus/Desk Reference
- from Northwestern University links to other online reference tools
- Library-Oriented Lists and Electronic Serials
- is compiled by Ann Thornton and Steve Bonario
(University of Houston Libraries).
This document offers access to information about electronic
discussion lists, distribution lists and electronic serials which
are of interest to library professionals and staff.
Literature
- Pudd'nhead Wilson's New Calendar
- is the series of 75 frequently quoted
maxims that Mark Twain used to start each chapter of his 1897 book,
Following the Equator.
Mathematics
- A Brief History of Algebra and Computing:
An Eclectic Oxonian View
- includes hyperlinks to an on-line History of Mathematics database
of biographies and also portraits of some relevant mathematicians.
- University of
Arizona is the archive site for a series of mathematics programs,
available for both DOS and Macintosh computers
Multimedia
- IBM Multimedia Studio
- sports a flashy interface to an online catalog of IBM multimedia software
- Fusion
- is an electronically distributed magazine devoted to bringing news, reviews and general
ravings to the Macintosh based interactive and graphic arts professional.
- Apple's QuickTime On-line
- is dedicated to QuickTime, QuickTime-enhanced audio CDs, and related
technologies. QuickTime software enables both Macintoshes and Windows
computers to play videos, sounds, and music in amazing new ways.
Music
- Buddy Project
- is an online clearing-house for musical composition and collaboration.
Bring your own completed compostitions, your half-finished works or just
your curiosity and a good ear. The Buddy Project helps bring acoustic and
electric musicians together with their MIDI-fied brethren for new kind of
Internet jam sessions.
News
- Electronic Newsstand
- is your single Internet source for the widest
selection of articles from the world's leading magazines, newsletters,
newspapers, catalogues and more!
Philosophy
- Brown Electronic Article Review Service (BEARS)
- in moral and
political philosophy publishes refereed short reviews of very recent
articles in moral and political philosophy. It will soon be combined with
a list server distributing the reviews to subscribers. Edited by David
Estlund and James Dreier, Philosophy, Brown University.
Psychology
- Values and Lifestyles (VALS)
- from SRI International program allows you personality-type yourself
- Keirsey's
Temperament Sorter Meyers-Briggs Personality Test
- is an online interactive
test program that scores your answers and gives you a summary of what they mean.
Teaching and Learning
- Service Learning
- is a new movement in education that encompasses community service. This
web site offers information about a listserv, an-online journal, and a vast
gopher clearing house for Service Learning information.
- CIStudio
- is a hypertext-based course that provides an introduction to print and
electronic sources of chemical information, including the basics of "on-line"
data retrieval using CURRENT CONTENTS from the Institute for Scientific
Information, as well as the CA SEARCH and CHEMSEARCH files from Knight-Ridder
Information.
CIStudio is a one credit course that is taught to Rensselaer
undergraduates annually during the Spring semester. While the course is in
its fourth year, this is the second year it has been taught with an emphasis
on electronic soruces and the first using the World Wide Web via Netscape.
WWW News 05-17-95
Maricopa Center for Learning and Instruction (MCLI)
Maricopa County Community College District
The Internet Connection (1993-2006) at MCLI was
Alan Levine --}
Comments once went to levine@maricopa.edu (no one is at home there)
URL: http://www.mcli.dist.maricopa.edu/webnews/950517.html
